# HRtech client - **Source:** https://www.santixs.com/elearning-marketplace - **Site:** SantiXS, Go-to-Market (GTM) Execution Agency, founded 2024 by Patrick Santiago - **Summary:** How SantiXS rebuilt the SDR motion at a Series D HR-tech company: a 2x booking rate and 81% show rate, same team and budget. The full breakdown. --- **CASE STUDY · OPENSESAME** ## quota attainment went from 74% to 98%. same team, same tools. five months of rebuilding the operating system around an experienced SDR team. Series D · 200+ employees · B2B SaaS · HR Tech ****email open rate**+**** top segments reached 55%, with no deliverability work in the engagement. the emails didn't get better at landing, they got better at mattering. ****67 → 81%** meeting show rate**+**** tighter targeting put better-fit people in the calendar, and a standardized confirmation and AE handoff meant every booked meeting got the same set-up. ****12 → 16** meetings per rep**+**** 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. ****2×** booking rate**+**** the channel mix widened and the message sharpened at the same time: persona-specific email in place of one-size messaging, social selling with video and audio, voicemail drops layered in. more surfaces, each carrying a message written for the person receiving it. source: client engagement reporting across a five-month rebuild. team, tools, and budget remained constant during the comparison. choose the short read, or open the full evidence. **01 / THE NUMBERS** ## what moved underneath the quota number. the climb wasn't one fix. it decomposed into four, each tied to one change. quota attainment: 74% before, 98% after. email open rate: <10% before, 39% after. meeting show rate: 67% before, 81% after. meetings per rep: 12 before, 16 after. the number underneath all of these is the share of booked meetings an account executive accepted. at the start it was **64%**, measured across 1,003 meetings in the quarter before any of this. [the full baseline table, and what it got wrong about the team→](https://www.santixs.com/research/sdr-meeting-conversion) **02 / THE MOMENT** ## SDRs were running on reactive inbound coverage. the team did not have a talent problem. they had five ownership problems sitting on top of one another, and each one made the others harder to see. **what that looked like day to day**+**** 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 HAMMERVP OF SALES, OPENSESAME* **03 / THE DIAGNOSIS** ## five problems that looked like one performance problem. individually, they're common at this stage. what stood out here was how openly they were stacking up. **targeting targeting had drifted from the best-fit buyer. more on this **+**** 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. **messaging messaging was activity, not a managed system. more on this **+**** outbound was horizontal: agnostic across industries, personas, and the moment a buyer might actually be in. **process process changed by rep and by week. more on this **+**** no standardized call review. no shared coaching rubric. reps were good or bad based on whoever managed them most recently. **definitions qualification meant different things to different teams. more on this **+**** no shared meaning of an accepted lead. marketing's MQL and Sales's SAL rarely pointed at the same record. **visibility visibility arrived too late to coach the moment. more on this **+**** 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. four lines, and the work behind each one. the channel mix widened and the message sharpened at the same time: persona-specific email in place of one-size messaging, social selling with video and audio, voicemail drops layered in. more surfaces, each carrying a message written for the person receiving it. that is the doubled booking rate. **01 ICP and messaging one horizontal message became four named industries, each with its own trigger. how it was built **+**** 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. **02 the reps themselves the fastest fix wasn't a workflow. it was proof. how it was built **+**** 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. **03 SDR workflow one undifferentiated queue became four pools, each with its own block of the day. how it was built **+**** reorganized rep time across four defined lead pools instead of one undifferentiated queue: - **built-out target accounts.** outbound, top of the day, highest-effort prospecting. - **current marketing leads.** webinars, events, content downloads, form fills. worked fast, because freshness matters. - **past marketing leads.** the dormant pile most teams ignore, worked on a slower cadence with different messaging. - **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. **04 operating system the motion needed something underneath it that outlived the engagement. how it was built **+**** the motion needed something to hold it up. nine pieces, and they do three jobs: - **measurement.** scorecards in Gong and Orum covering call quality, daily activity and weekly metrics, so coaching ran on evidence rather than impressions. playbooks for each motion, written down and owned, so the way the work ran stopped depending on who you asked. a quarterly tool training cadence across Orum, Gong, ZoomInfo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. - **cadence.** a standardized 1:1 agenda: coaching, metrics, development, in that order. weekly SDR-AE syncs with a meeting debrief template, so AE feedback made it back into the loop. monthly retros and biweekly best-practice meetings that actually recurred. - **handoff.** a standardized meeting confirmation and AE handoff, one message set for every rep and every meeting, so the prospect arrived with context and the AE arrived with the discovery notes. cross-functional alignment with Marketing, separating conversational SDR outreach from branded tone with co-created messaging instead of recycled templates. a defined partner-lead lifecycle: the SDR works the lead 30 days after AE assignment if no meeting is set, with a re-engage flow in Gong behind it. **05 / WHAT THE TEAM SAID** ## the day the contract ended. unedited, from the OpenSesame SDR channel. posted with their permission. > "You will be missed!! 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. Thank you so much!" *CHELSEA SELMAN · SALES DEVELOPMENT REP II* > "Yes thank you SO much. Ditto on what Ben said. Really appreciate you being our voice and for all your support and help." *ASHLEY USEWICZ · SALES DEVELOPMENT REP II* > "MASSIVE thank you to Patrick Santiago for his help & support these last couple months - you will be missed!" *BEN ORNDOFF · SMB ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE* > "Since this is the last day of the current contract I am going to take it from here. So appreciative of your help over the last couple of months. 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* these are goodbyes, which is the point. the engagement ended on schedule, the manager took it from here, and the team kept the system. that is what a hand off is supposed to look like. **06 / THE TAKEAWAY** ## the takeaway systems beat heroics. performance changed when the team could see, repeat, and improve the work together. **the operating implication**+**** the team already had plenty of activity. what it lacked 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. the engagement ended on schedule, the manager took it from here, and the team kept the operating system. that is what a hand off is supposed to look like. this engagement was two of the three things we build: [outbound infrastructure](https://www.santixs.com/outbound) and [sdr leadership](https://www.santixs.com/sdr-leadership), run at the same time by the same person. 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