What's the Difference Between BDR and SDR?

What is Business Development?

I see gurus confuse SDR and BDR.

Usually, it's older Sales and Marketing gurus.

I get it, the BDR title wasn't popular before 2011.

In 2011, Aaron Ross, popularized the Business Development Representative (BDR) job title and published tactics for this role in his popular book, "Predictable Revenue."

In 2022, LinkedIn reported the BDR role as the 6th fastest growing job in the United States.

BDRs are the most junior person on the prospecting team typically called the Business Development (BD) team.

Here's the difference between SDR and BDR...

• SDR participates in the Selling (Conversion Phase) of the buyer journey. They nurture leads who declared intent, from SAL to SQL.

• BDR's operate before the SDR in the Activation Phase of the buyer journey responsible for prospecting and nurturing leads from IQL to SAL.

It's easy for some people to confuse the two roles because prospectors traditionally report to...

• 68% Sales leaders like CRO
• 24% Marketing leaders like CMO
• 8% BD leaders like CGO

During the Industrial Age, prospectors traditionally belonged to Sales.

The BD profession is one of the fastest growing professions and organizational structures are rapidly evolving to meet the rapidly changing buying behaviors of the highly enabled buyers in the Information Age.

You can see that change with the CGO role being the #1 fastest growing title in 2024 according to LinkedIn's annual LinkedIn "Jobs on the Rise" report.

That's been the trend since 2020 when LinkedIn first reported CGO as the 2nd fastest title.

And here's another interesting trend that may be disturbing to those Sales and Marketing gurus...

The CMO and CRO are increasingly reporting to the CGO.

Why?

Because BD spans the gap between Marketing and Sales and...

BD integration activities span the entire customer journey.

It starts when a BDR runs with that IQL.

BDR or SDR, what's the difference?

More and more, it's a lot.

Tony Gray, BDP
Author of the Business Development Body of Knowledge

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