Sales Development Representative

The Opportunity:

Almabase is looking to hire an SDR to join its growing sales team. As an integral part of the outbound strategy, the SDR will need to scale the existing business opportunities in the US market by employing a volume-driven sales approach that involves targeting specific accounts or organizations with highly targeted sales and marketing campaigns.

Instead of simply pitching the solution, the SDR will be required to build rapport with prospects and stay top of mind by consistently providing value.

Once a prospect has demonstrated sufficient interest and wishes to explore our solution, you will introduce them to an Account Executive (AE) who will be responsible for handling that relationship until they sign a contract.

Our ideal candidate is early in their career (between 0 and 1 years of experience), confident, able to communicate clearly, and passionate about sales.

Compensation

As per the industry standards, plus commissions, quarterly milestone-based rewards, and a bonus for every deal of yours.

We prefer that every employee also hold company equity. In this role, you will be awarded equity after 12 months based on the impact you have created.

Please be aware that, in this position, you will be selling exclusively to the US market.

You are expected to work during US hours, 4:30 PM to 2:00 AM IST (approximately).

Responsibilities:

• KPIs - Number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales qualified leads (SQLs), Inbound TAT (≤8hrs)

• Contact decision-makers at relevant universities and schools in the US using various outreach methods, including emails, phone calls, and LinkedIn. The SDR manager will provide you with the necessary accounts to handle.

• Your goal is to identify their pain points and help them find the ideal solution for their challenges that Almabase can address.

• You will also be required to handle inbound leads, nurture website visitors, and manage conference and webinar attendees, converting them into qualified leads.

• Use CRM (Hubspot) to maintain and report on your activity and outcome metrics.

• Participate in regular meetings to share learnings, progress, identify blockers, and improve performance to tap into the market strategically.

You will be supported by:

• You will be supported with tools like Hubspot to build lists; Clay and Apollo to automate most of our account and contact enrichment process, allowing you to focus primarily on outreach and engagement.

• A marketing team that constantly assists with GTM plays, creates case studies, educational content, and newsletters to support your outreach.

• Sr. SDR/GTM Lead who will mentor you about the market and best outreach practices; help you with the cadence.

What will a typical month look like?

• At the beginning of each month, you will work with the SDR manager to analyze the results of your outreach during the previous month and understand what worked well and what didn't. You will also learn from the results of other SDRs.

• You will also identify the list of institutions you will contact that month and the messaging you will use.

• You will typically work on engaging with approximately 300-400 institutions each quarter.

• On a typical day, you will spend

  • an hour working on signal-based leads like website visitors, inbound drop-off, conference attendees, and webinar attendees.

  • 2-3 hours calling or connecting on LinkedIn.

  • 2 hours adding new people to your outreach, with the remaining time spent learning deeply about the market.

  • An hour on yourself in learning AI tools/outreach methods and sharing them with your peers, and brainstorming.”

Roadmap for Year 1 at Almabase:

0-2 Months:

• Onboarding — Get familiar with Company Culture, Processes, and People

• Training: Learn about the Problems we solve, the Products we sell, and the People we sell to.

• Ramp-Up in the 3rd week of the 1st month — You will be gradually handed accounts in batches and will begin outreach activities.

2-6 Months:

• Reach out to 100% of the accounts you own

• Build rapport with prospects, identify their challenges and pain points

6-12 Months:

• For accounts that have already been contacted, strategize ways to establish and expand (the easiest point of entry). Drive bottom-of-funnel conversations

• Join prospect-facing meetings with other SDRs in a consultative role, communicating ideas and pitching value

• Based on your interests and performance, we'll discuss additional responsibilities you'd like to handle and roles you'd like to grow into, depending on your needs and fit.

What will make you successful in this role?

Apart from having the must-haves for any good SDR, like discipline, excellent communication skills, and being outcome-oriented, a successful SDR should have these in their repertoire:

• Stakeholder Mapping - finding and using account intel to map out the DM, champion, blocker, end-user(s), etc.

• Experimentation and Curiosity - Our top-performing reps succeed by demonstrating genuine curiosity and enthusiasm for experimenting with new outreach methods with tools like Clay, SmartLead, SendSpark, and StoryLane.

• Multi-Threading: Using the mentioned stakeholder map, delve deeper into an account and increase awareness of Almabase among more people, encouraging them to engage in the conversation.

• Delivering Delight Means consistently providing value to the account and going above and beyond what is expected.

• Driving urgency - Using the above tactics to push the account further down the funnel and reduce the sales cycle.

• Technical Knowledge: A cadence of advancement and product-oriented training will help SDRs engage with prospects as consultants.

How will we set you up for success in this role?

• We will provide you with detailed training to give you a head start in the world of alumni relations and educational fundraising. We'll also discuss the competitive landscape and provide you with access to hundreds of recorded conversations, emails, and existing marketing materials. Our CRM is a treasure trove :)

• We will provide comprehensive training and resources to learn SDR best practices in SaaS.

• We will provide you with a playbook of our current processes. This includes using the CRM (Hubspot), call scripts, and email templates.

• During the first eight weeks, you will have one-on-one calls with each person on the sales and marketing team to get to know them. You will also roleplay with the current sales team to better prepare you for the actual calls.

• Our audience is generally friendly and more receptive to conversations than most other industries. Building relationships is part of their job, so they're naturally more open to new relationships.

• You will participate in weekly, monthly, and quarterly one-on-one meetings with the SDR manager to discuss feedback and areas for improvement. in you will also receive regular mentoring from the rest of the sales team.