CASE STUDY · OPENSESAME
from reactive inbound to intentional outbound
rebuilding the SDR motion at a Series D HR-tech company. same team. same product. new operating layer.
CLIENT
Series D · 200+ employees · B2B SaaS · HR Tech
01 / THE NUMBERS
four weeks after the ICP and workflow shift.
same team. same product. same calendar coverage. the difference was the operating layer.
MEETING BOOKING RATE
meeting booking rate over email doubled. sharper targeting, contextual messaging, same calendar coverage.
MEETING SHOW RATE
67% -> 81%
a 14-point improvement. the right people booked, and the right people showed up.
EMAIL OPEN RATE
<10% -> 39%
top-performing segments reached 55%. narrower targeting and contextual messaging, no deliverability work.
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 groups operating from three different definitions of all three things.
pipeline was volatile. forecasting depended on gut calls. the founder-era playbook — fast follow-up, personal context, trust-the-rep — had stopped scaling six months earlier.
the work wasn't to launch a new tool or rewrite a positioning deck. it was to rebuild the operating layer underneath the team.
"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 things, each familiar, each largely unowned.
none of these are unusual at this stage. what was unusual was how visibly they were compounding.
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, agnostic across personas, agnostic across 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 reverted to gut calls because the system couldn't be trusted.
04 / WHAT WE BUILT
three layers. at the same time, not sequentially.
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.
SDR workflow
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.
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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 job stopped being "work the queue." it became "work four specific motions, in four specific windows."
Operating system
the motion needed something to hold it up. we built:
a call scoring rubric in Gong — coachable, repeatable, applied weekly
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 — a rhythm, not a ritual
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 OpenSesame 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 DVELOPMENT 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 within the company.
2 SDRs · 2-3 MINUTES · BOTH SINCE PROMOTED
01 / THE EXECUTION MODEL
the takeaway
The team didn't need more activity. They needed a system. The work was to install one and to leave them able to run it.
Systems beat heroics. The asset is the system, not the list.
