Where Do BDRs Belong?
If you want to jumpstart a debate at the next All Hands meeting, ask leaders where the BDR function should sit in the revenue engine.
The choice between positioning BDRs under the CMO or the CRO often hinges on a fundamental question: what is the primary function of the BDR team? Those who advocate for placing BDRs under the CMO argue that they are an integral part of the marketing funnel, responsible for lead generation and initial engagement. On the other hand, those in favor of aligning BDRs with the CRO point out that BDRs are more likely to hit their targets and potentially impact revenue when the team reports into sales.
Our partners at 6sense surveyed over 400 BDRs across industries and global markets to get a feel for what their job entails and how they’re thinking about the role in the future.
Here are some key findings from the report:
How Do They Spend Their Time?
BDRs who sit in marketing report less time prospecting into accounts than their sales BDR counterparts. This may be because there’s not tight enough alignment with their AEs in sales. Instead, marketing BDRs spend more time contacting prospects to invite them to events or devote more time to inbound lead qualification.
Where Do They Want to Report Into In the Future?
It depends on who they’re reporting into now. According to the data, 76.3% of BDRs reporting to sales expressed wanting to stay there. This number dropped significantly when BDRs reported into marketing: only 47% of BDRs indicated they wanted to move into sales, while 43.6% wanted to stay in marketing. Still, when reporting to the CMO, the majority wanted to move into sales.
Where Are They Most Effective?
The evidence is clear: BDRs who report into sales tend to attain quota at a higher rate by as much as 10%. Whether or not this is due to actual better performance or just more favorable quotas, the data didn’t show.
It might seem to the naked eye that BDRs should de facto roll into sales, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
No one-size-fits-all solution
The truth is that there is no “one and only” standard for BDR reporting structures. But there are some best practices. The first step in this mildly complex issue begins with a simple question: How mature is the revenue engine and where does the organization source most of its leads?
Where Marketing BDRs Win
When organizations are in the very early stages of maturity and still working out their Product-Market Fit (PMF) and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), BDRs should serve on the frontlines of preparing the market for a product or service. BDRs are the custodians of critical early inbound leads. They can flex one-to-one and one-to-few demand-gen muscles behind brand activities like webinars, events, or content releases.
In the later maturity stages, where organizations transition to an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy to land and expand within key target accounts, BDRs once again prove their worth in stewarding inbound and outbound leads from marketing to sales.
One friction point CROs singled out when BDRs report into marketing is that, to reflect the data above, BDRs’ attention can get split too unevenly between inbound and outbound leads. Put another way, the BDR team directed to chase two hares may come away with none.
How can revenue organizations balance the need to qualify and follow up quickly on inbound leads that help marketing demonstrate ROI with outbound activities that immediately help sellers generate opportunities?
Alas, this is one topic we’ll have to return to, but one piece of advice was clear: splitting the BDR function between sales and marketing is no good. The last thing you want to do is unintentionally create more division between the two teams.
When BDRs Shine In Sales
When an organization is fortunate enough to reach the stage of maturity where it’s ready to transition to an enterprise sales motion, our research suggests it’s time to consider moving the BDR team under sales.
Companies can struggle to manage and report on target acquisition when moving from quick transactional SMB sales to longer, more complicated enterprise sales cycles. AEs need extra support from BDRs to help them multi-thread into accounts with several stakeholders in the buying committee.
Tight alignment between AEs and BDRs is crucial to moving a deal over the line, but it’s not always a given. Not all AEs are trained on how to work most effectively with BDRs, which can cause frustration with young talent eager to make an impact.
When asked how to coach AEs on working more closely with the BDRs, most CROs agreed that expectation setting has to be driven by leadership and enabled by RevOps. Ratios matter, too. If one BDR supports too many AEs, frustration abounds on all sides.
Another question that frequently arises is what’s the best AE-to-BDR ratio? The ideal scenario is somewhere between two to four AEs for every BDR. One CRO cautioned that the cost of sale should be factored into any potential grouping or hiring plans. SMB teams would need to have a much higher BDR to AE ratio to get the operating costs to make sense.
Don’t Forget Switzerland
To say the relationship between sales and marketing is sometimes contentious is an understatement. One of the downsides of that dynamic is that the two teams can inadvertently lose sight of other groups in the revenue engine.
Misalignment between functional go-to-market teams costs the organization precious time and actualized revenue. So, when providing the best environment possible for professional growth, sometimes the best place for a BDR team may be neutral territory.
When sales and marketing teams lack organizational rigor and the ability to consistently hit their respective revenue targets, there can be sizable benefits in moving BDR talent under Revenue Operations (“RevOps”). By reporting into RevOps, BDRs can learn the difference between a lead vs. a contact, what the qualification process should look like, account workflows, and metrics and reporting.
These concepts can be challenging to internalize if a BDR is distracted by the pressure of reporting to a few AEs or doing event outreach on behalf of marketing. And once the sales and marketing teams do figure out their operating rhythm, BDRs can always be moved back underneath whichever team aligns with how the organization decides to build pipeline.
Other considerations
Wherever the BDR function sits, it’s critical to ensure external customers and prospects aren’t adversely affected by internal process structures.
Best-in-class BDR teams have one thing in common: the BDR leader has a tight alignment between sales, marketing, and RevOps. BDR leaders need to articulate inbound SLAs and conversions, outbound prospecting success, and how their team’s activities are tracking against the targets and KPIs therein.
The CROs we spoke with had a lot to say on SLA metrics. One CRO stated that he made sure inbound leads were followed up on time by centralizing the BDR leadership under a global function. This structure ensured quick SLAs and that leads didn’t go cold because they were buried under a regional sales leader.
When we asked what an ideal SLA was, the answers were unsurprisingly all over the board. Different industries and maturity levels will have differing service-level expectations—to say nothing of the variations in importance between lead types. For example, “I want a demo” requests get priority over whitepaper downloads.
All CROs agreed there was no such thing as “too fast” when following up on an inquiry.
Guidelines, not fault lines
As the role of the BDR function continues to evolve and new forms of go-to-market strategy arise, the debate around the team’s reporting lines will surely rage on. Despite who holds budget responsibility for BDRs, the reality is that this team's success is a shared responsibility across sales, marketing, and RevOps. Cross-functional leaders can collaborate effectively to ensure that BDR leaders and their teams are fully integrated into the activities and expectations of their respective groups.
In the age of buyer experience, the ultimate goal should be to ensure that customers and prospects continue to receive the high-quality interactions they expect, irrespective of where BDRs sit within the internal structure. Moreover, organizations must establish clear guidelines for collaboration between BDRs, sales, and marketing teams to prevent internal tensions, emphasizing cohesion and alignment in pursuit of common objectives.
When leaders view their BDR team as the organization’s up-and-coming talent pool, it can reframe the discussion from “who gets what” to “how can we help.” And, as the data shows, those development opportunities are already top-of-mind for this eager bunch.
What is the Numentum CRO Playbook?
A community-sourced guide that enables new and existing revenue professionals to quickly get up and going, optimize existing processes, and win in the Age of Buyer Experience. These aren’t theoretical insights: all information sourced herein has been provided by experienced Chief Revenue Officers from different industry verticals and company maturity stages.
See something you’d like to comment on or contribute to? We’d love to hear from you. Shoot us an email at info[at]numentum.com with the subject line CRO Playbook. You can also contact us here.
