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In a recent LinkedIn Live, hosted by Alex Gasson, CEO of Delta-v, he looked at how SDR leaders can use sales metrics to benchmark and improve the performance of outbound SDR teams.
Here’s a breakdown:
SDR metrics: Why do we need them?
3:38
If you’re running an SDR team, or a sales team more broadly, the question you should start with is: why do we need metrics?
The short answer is: sales is an outcomes-driven game. At the end of the day, you’re expected to deliver specific results.
Metrics give you the framework to understand what’s working, what’s not, and how to optimise your team’s performance to achieve better results.
There are two types of metrics every SDR leader should care about:
1. Outcome metrics
These are your results. Think meetings sat, sales-accepted leads (SALs), pipeline value created. These might differ depending on your motion, but they’re important for understanding whether your team is delivering what the business needs.
2. Activity metrics
These metrics are your roadmap. They tell your SDRs what to do daily to reach those outcomes.
“I believe that you can get reps 50% of the way to success just by making sure they are following the right process and they have the right activity levels,”
says Alex.
Activity metrics include dials made, contacts added, emails sent, and tasks completed. They’re also your key to managing process adherence and identifying performance gaps.
These are the two sets of metrics that we want to put in place if we’re trying to create a really repeatable scientific sales process.
Metrics: where do we get them from?
6:25
If you’re going to create a metrics framework that you’re going to be using for tracking, managing activity, and outputs, you need to have a robust way of actually developing your framework and realistically, figuring out what metrics you want to be putting in place to track and monitor team performance.
So there are two ways you’re going to be getting your metrics:
Top-down
One is from the top down, which is essentially asking: what results do we need to achieve to get ROI on our investment or hit specific growth goals as a business? These targets often come from leadership and define the outputs the team is expected to deliver.
Bottom-up
Unlike someone in a dev role, who might make up time by working evenings or weekends, sales work generally needs to happen when your prospects or buyers are available. That means SDRs are working within limited hours, so we need to be realistic about how much activity and output a rep can produce in a day.
Ideally, you’d go through a process where you define what’s needed from the top down, and then align that with a bottom-up view of what’s actually achievable. But in many businesses, what often happens is that targets are only set from the top down, without that balance.
Sources of information for developing your metrics
8:53
If you’re setting up metrics for your reps, they need to be based on something real. If the numbers don’t feel fair or achievable, reps won’t trust them (or you!). And as a manager, it’s hard to lead if you’re not sure your metrics are right.
The key is to build a strong, realistic set of metrics. To do that, you need to gather information from different places to build your first model.
Look at the following:
a. Your own experience and internal data
A good starting point is your own experience. If you’ve worked in sales or your team has already been doing sales activity, you’ll have useful data and lessons about what’s realistic in terms of daily activity and output. Your own track record is valuable.
b. Industry reports
Look at benchmarks. The Bridge Group SDR Metrics Report is one of the best sources. Older reports from TOPO (now part of Gartner) also provide great insights, even if a bit dated.
c. Sales communities
Slack groups like Modern Sales Pros or SDR Leaders of EMEA are great places to pressure-test your numbers and swap notes with other leaders.
Setting expectations with a new outbound rep
13:05
If you’re targeting large enterprise accounts, here’s a general benchmark we’ve seen work well:
- 6–8 sales-accepted leads per month (fully qualified meetings)
- For mid-market, you might hit up to 12
- For SMEs (not our focus), you could see 12–20
Expect a 3-month ramp-up:
- Month 1: 2 SALs
- Month 2: 4 SALs
- Month 3: 6 SALs (full quota)
Activity metrics (the roadmap for success)
16:19
The risk of having activity metrics is that they become a stick you beat reps with, instead of a way to guide them. You want to frame it as: if you want to hit these outcomes and earn this commission, here’s what you need to do to get there.
When setting expectations with a new rep, position activity targets as a roadmap for success.
Here’s the activity metrics to track
- Number of new contacts added to sequences per day
- Number of dials per day
- Number of emails per day
- Number of daily overdue tasks (this is a key metric we track!)
“One of the other critical metrics… is also making sure that reps have zero overdue tasks. So what you want is that the critical metrics for tracking are making sure… every single day, a rep is adding a minimum number of new contacts into outbound sequences. Then via your sales engagement platform, the various tasks are gonna come due, so calls, emails, those sorts of things. But what you wanna do is you want to make sure they are completing all the tasks that come due every single day,”
says Alex.
Example: SDR monthly activity metrics
20:39
Join in for the example walkthrough here.
Creating daily accountability
37:56
Having a metrics framework is one thing. Driving daily accountability is what makes it work.
Run a daily huddle. Every day, reps should report on:
- Contacts added
- Emails sent
- Email replies
- Dials made
- Connects
- Meetings booked
- Overdue tasks (should be zero!)
You can use a simple Google Sheet to track this.
While volumes may fluctuate day-to-day, the weekly trend should meet your benchmarks.
Reps need to feed their funnel daily and complete their tasks on time. That’s non-negotiable.
