Sales funnel

Should SDRs Report to Marketing or Sales?

Myk Pono

Apr 30, 2018 • 1 min read

My friend Ben Sardella, Co-Founder of OutboundWorks, recently posed the question on Linkedin:

What department does Sales Development report to at your company - Sales or Marketing?

The discussion took off. Here is a 5-min video that explains why I believe SDRs should be reporting to marketing.

I believe SDRs should report to marketing because it allows:

1. Better alignment between MKTG and sales

The definition of lead is vague and when SDRs report to marketing that means that MKTG passes demos to sales. The definition of demo is more clear and concrete (authority, need etc.).

2. Marketing to test messages and target profile persona

If SDRs report to marketing it allows marketing to test messages that can be later applied to content marketing and website. Marketing is becoming closer to the customer.

3. Better ROI reporting

Marketing will have a better handle on spending and ROI because they control customer acquisition process all the way to the demo. And as we said the definition of demo is more concrete.

4. Better incentives to follow up on leads in timely manner + better nurturing

If SDRs report to sales, sales organization has a very low incentive to track efficiency between lead and closed deal. If they make their numbers who cares how many more leads could be converted to demos.

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