CASE STUDY · OPENSESAME
quota attainment went from 74% to 98%. same team, same tools, one five-month engagement.
rebuilding the SDR motion at a Series D corporate elearning marketplace. no new hires, no new tools, no added budget. the operating layer changed, and the numbers followed.
Series D · 200+ employees · B2B SaaS · HR Tech
01 / THE NUMBERS
what moved underneath the quota number.
the climb from 74% to 98% wasn't one fix. it decomposed into four numbers, each tied to a specific change. no new hires, no new tools, no added rep-hours.
MEETINGS BOOKED PER REP
12 → 16
a third more meetings out of the same rep-hours. the gain came from where the time went, not how much of it there was.
MEETING SHOW RATE
67% → 81%
two fixes, not one. tighter targeting meant better-fit people were booking. and a standardized confirmation and AE handoff meant every booked meeting got the same set-up. before: every rep ran their own version, some sent invites, some sent intro emails, most with minimal context.
MEETING BOOKING RATE
2x
the channel mix widened and the message sharpened at the same time. reps moved to persona-specific email instead of one-size messaging, added social selling with video and audio recordings, and layered in voicemail drops. more surfaces, each carrying a message written for the person receiving it.
EMAIL OPEN RATE: <10% → 39% · top segments reached 55%. no deliverability work. the emails didn't get better at landing, they got better at mattering.
02 / THE MOMENT
SDRs were running on reactive inbound coverage.
every lead in the queue got worked. regardless of source, segment, or fit.
outbound existed in name only. marketing optimized for lead volume, SDRs optimized for meetings, AEs optimized for closable opportunities. three teams, each measuring success differently.
reps were putting in full days, but the team was at 74% of quota and forecasting ran on gut calls. the founder-era playbook of fast follow-up, personal context, and trust-the-rep had stopped scaling six months earlier.
and underneath the numbers sat a quieter problem: the reps had tried outbound before, but nothing had converted. so they'd stopped believing it worked. you can't coach effort into a motion the team thinks is pointless.
what the team needed wasn't more activity. it was a rebuilt operating layer underneath the activity they already had — and reps who had a reason to believe the motion could produce.
"Patrick, you did more for the team in 15 hours a week than I could have done in my 40."
KOLENE HAMMER, VP of SALES, OPENSESAME
03 / WHAT WAS HAPPENING
five problems, none of them clearly owned.
individually, they're common at this stage. what stood out here was how openly they were stacking up.
01
targeting.
SDRs were working "every lead in queue" with no prioritization. hot inbound got the same treatment as a dormant marketing lead from eight months prior.
02
messaging.
outbound was horizontal: agnostic across industries, personas,and the moment a buyer might actually be in.
03
process.
no standardized call review. no shared coaching rubric. reps were good or bad based on whoever managed them most recently.
04
definitions.
no shared meaning of an accepted lead. marketing's MQL and Sales's SAL rarely pointed at the same record.
05
visibility.
manual tracking lived in spreadsheets outside Salesforce. leadership couldn't trust the system, so decisions ran on gut calls, and the reporting nobody trusted degraded further.
04 / WHAT WE BUILT
four layers, built at the same time.
ICP and messaging
moved from horizontal, agnostic messaging to four named industries. each industry got its own operational pain point, anonymized case study, and value prop tied to a recognizable buying trigger.
account selection shifted from broad firmographics to operational signals: buying-committee composition, intent, historical engagement, role-change activity.
the reps themselves
the fastest fix wasn't a workflow. it was proof. the reps had watched outbound fail before, so the first wins mattered more than any framework. once a rep saw a cold sequence they wrote turn into a meeting that showed, the mindset problem started solving itself.
from there, development ran on two tracks. as a team: shared standards, shared language, shared playbooks. individually: every rep got mapped on specific skills (copywriting, social selling, objection handling, list building, cadence writing) with a read on where each was strong and where each needed work.
the strengths didn't stay individual. the rep who wrote the sharpest copy became the team's copy resource. the strongest objection handler ran the practice reps. the team started leveraging its own bench instead of waiting on outside training.
SDR workflow
reorganized rep time across four defined lead pools instead of one undifferentiated queue:
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built-out target accounts. outbound, top of the day, highest-effort prospecting.
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current marketing leads. webinars, events, content downloads, form fills. worked fast, because freshness matters.
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past marketing leads. the dormant pile most teams ignore, worked on a slower cadence with different messaging.
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historical SFDC reports. the goldmine most teams forget exists: meeting/no-opp, meeting/no-show, closed-lost. each report became its own working list, with its own playbook.
each pool got its own playbook, its own message, and its own block of time in the rep's day. the rep's job was no longer "work the queue." it was four specific motions, each in its own window.
Operating system
the motion needed something to hold it up. we built:
scorecards in Gong and Orum covering the full picture: call quality, daily activity, weekly metrics. not one rubric, a measurement layer, so coaching ran on evidence, not impressions
playbooks for each motion, written down and owned, so the way the work ran stopped depending on who you asked
a standardized meeting confirmation and AE handoff: one message set, every rep, every meeting. the prospect got real context before the call, the AE got the discovery notes, and nobody re-ran their own version
a standardized 1:1 agenda: coaching, metrics, development, in that order
weekly SDR-AE syncs with a meeting debrief template, so AE feedback actually made it back into the loop
monthly retros and biweekly best-practice meetings that actually recurred
a quarterly tool training cadence covering Orum, Gong, ZoomInfo, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator
cross-functional alignment with Marketing: separating conversational SDR outreach from branded marketing tone, with co-created messaging instead of recycled templates
a defined partner-lead lifecycle: SDR works the lead 30 days after AE assignment if no meeting is set, with a partner re-engage flow in Gong to back it up
05 / WHAT THE TEAM SAID
the work, in their words.
team members from the client engagement, in the days the contract wrapped.
"the team has learned a lot and it's been great to have you to bounce ideas off of as well."
ASHLY DAGGETT
DIRECTOR OF REVENUE OPERATIONS
"took tons of nuggets from our 1:1s and you've definitely made an impact on how to best utilize the tools we have available to us."
CHELSEA SELMAN
SALES DEVELOPMENT REP II
"MASSIVE thank you to Patrick Santiago for his help and support these last couple months. you will be missed."
BEN ORNDOFF
SMB ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
"really appreciate you being our voice and for all your support and help."
ASHLEY USEWICZ
SALES DEVELOPMENT REP II
06 / WATCH HOW THE WORK RUNS
two SDRs on what changed.
two SDRs from the OpenSesame engagement on what the coaching looked like, what changed, and where they are now. both have since been promoted into expanded roles.
2 SDRs · 2-3 MINUTES · BOTH SINCE PROMOTED
01 / THE EXECUTION MODEL
the takeaway
the team already had plenty of activity. what they were missing was a system and a reason to believe outbound could work for them. we built the first and proved the second, and the team went from 74% of quota to 98% running it themselves.
systems beat heroics. the thing that lasts is the system, and the people who got better running it.
