Pros
The end customer is incredible. Contractors in the home and commercial service industry are some of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet, and when things are functioning properly, SDRs genuinely have an opportunity to help improve people’s businesses and lives.
Cons
The Sales Development org has completely fallen apart. Morale across the SDR organization is terrible. Turnover is constant because most reps are being set up to fail from the beginning. Only a small percentage of SDRs consistently hit quota, yet leadership refuses to acknowledge the real issues. The same recycled leads and accounts have been worked over for nearly a decade by countless SDR teams, yet leadership continues repackaging them into “new strategic lists” and acting like they’ve discovered some hidden goldmine. In reality, reps are expected to generate pipeline from accounts that have already been contacted dozens - sometimes hundreds - of times over the years. Over the course of a year and a half, much of the experienced leadership within the SDR org was pushed out despite having helped build the organization into what it was. These were leaders who were respected throughout the organization, consistently performed at a high level, and who SDRs actually wanted to work for because they understood the role, advocated for their teams, and had real credibility from producing results over time. What made it worse was how obvious it became that many of these people were not removed because they were bad at their jobs, but because they simply were not part of the new inner circle. One by one, experienced leaders were let go and replaced by individuals who appeared far less qualified for the positions they were given. It quickly became clear that politics and personal relationships mattered far more than actual performance or leadership ability. The org now feels extremely cliquey and political. There’s a very obvious inner circle, and if you’re not part of it, you can feel it immediately. Favoritism is impossible to ignore, and there’s a growing feeling throughout the org that certain people are protected no matter what while others are quietly targeted until management finds a reason to put them on a plan or push them out. One of the most demoralizing parts of the culture is the complete lack of consistency or accountability. There are individuals in leadership positions who have barely hit quota - or in some cases seemingly never consistently hit quota - yet remain completely untouchable because they’re politically connected to the right people internally. Meanwhile, others are put on performance plans or fired despite producing significantly better results. Watching accountability be selectively applied depending on who someone is aligned with internally destroys trust across the entire organization. What made things even more frustrating was the complete disconnect between SDR quotas and the numbers senior leadership was measuring themselves against. Roughly 80% of SDRs were missing quota month after month, yet leadership would constantly celebrate how the org was supposedly “breaking records.” Eventually people realized why: leadership was operating against completely different metrics than the reps actually doing the work. Leadership conveniently lowered or adjusted the numbers they themselves were responsible for while SDR expectations stayed unrealistic and disconnected from reality. So while reps were struggling, burning out, and getting scrutinized for missing impossible targets, leadership could still parade around claiming massive wins and record-setting performance. It honestly felt more like a political exercise in protecting optics than actually running a healthy sales organization. Instead of fixing the actual operational problems - lead quality, unrealistic expectations, rep burnout, and lack of career growth - leadership seems far more focused on optics, politics, and protecting their own people. HR is not there to protect employees - they operate more like an extension of leadership politics. If leadership decides they don’t like you, HR will absolutely help facilitate your exit regardless of your performance or contributions. There are still talented SDRs and frontline employees here trying to make it work, but the disconnect between leadership and reality has become impossible to ignore.
