CASE STUDY · INTERIM BD LEADERSHIP
conversion moved first.
mid-market b2b saas, frontline workforce. a bdr team rebuilt from scratch in seven months and handed over cold. the first 60 days against the 60 before.
8% → 25% outbound opportunities that qualify+
the first 60 days of the engagement against the 60 days before it.
1x → ~4x outbound qualified pipeline+
same window. nearly four times the qualified pipeline from outbound, on a smaller team.
0.5% → 12% event follow-up calls that connect+
event lists had been exported and left. now each contact gets a rep, a reason and a phone call.
3% → 13% dialer connect rate+
there was no dialer when we arrived.
how these numbers were measured+
the first 60 days of the engagement against the 60 days before it, from the client's own crm and engagement platform exports. the two windows are the same length and the same team, less one rep.
the company is not named here. it is a mid-market b2b software company selling to organizations with large frontline workforces, and that is as specific as this page gets. nothing on it is a projection.
01 / THE NUMBERS
sixty days either side
six measures. each row is scaled against its own larger figure.
outbound opportunities that qualify: 8% before, 25% after.
outbound qualified pipeline: 1x before, nearly 4x after.
demo requests that qualify: 56% before, 64% after.
event follow-up calls that connect: 0.5% before, 12% after.
follow-up email open rate: 22% before, 53% after.
dialer connect rate: 3% before, 13% after.
02 / THE SITUATION
a team rebuilt from scratch, then handed over cold
the reps were working. almost nothing around them was.
the bdr team had been rebuilt from zero over the previous seven months, and the person who built it had left. there was no dialer. a booked meeting went to the account executive as a calendar invite and nothing else. outbound was qualifying one opportunity in twelve.
marketing was paying for events and intent data, and the lists arrived as spreadsheets that nobody owned. the event follow-up connect rate was half a percent, which is what a list looks like when it has been exported and left.
none of this was a rep problem. it was a team running on its own, with the system that was supposed to carry it still in somebody's head.
03 / WHAT CHANGED
four things, in the first month
none of them is clever. all of them were missing.
- THE PHONE FIRST
- every follow-up flow rebuilt around the phone, not just email. a dialer where there had been none, and a disposition on every call.
- ONE BDR, TWO AES
- each bdr paired with a mid-market and an enterprise ae under a written agreement: what a booked meeting arrives with, and what the ae owes back.
- RESEARCH ON AUTOMATION
- account research and personalization moved onto automation, so the hours a rep has go to conversations.
- ENGAGED ACCOUNTS, NOT COLD LISTS
- reps moved off cold lists and onto accounts already showing engagement: events, intent, and the site.
04 / THE HONEST PART
conversion moved first. volume is the next job.
the team went from four reps to three halfway through the window, and total activity dipped with it. every rate on this page moved on a smaller team. the count of meetings did not move the same way, and it would be a different page if it had.
that is the order it usually goes. fix the pipe, then read the gauge, then push volume through a system that can hold it. the second sixty days are about the count.
You have a nice calm, confident way about you. I love that you make things happen.
05 / THE TAKEAWAY
the takeaway
a bdr team lives in the gap between marketing's spend and sales' trust. close the gap with a written agreement and a warm handoff, and the conversion rates move before anything else does.
the operating implication+
the four changes above are the same four on every interim engagement, in the same order: the phone, the pairing, the automation, the list. what differs is how long each takes, and that depends on the data path more than on the people.
A WORKING CONVERSATION