How do you help finance understand the role of SDR’s, and include them in structuring territories and OTE’s?

These are few elements I would take into account to o enable our finance teams to understand what SDRs represent and have them play a role in structuring territories & OTE.

- Educate Finance About SDRs: It has the crucial job of prospecting and qualifying leads, so it can pump your AEs with ready-to-close opportunities.

- Give Them the Numbers: Finance is data-driven. Estimate how many more qualified leads, conversion rates and sales SDRs can bring. For instance, if every SDR is able to produce X additional meetings a month that equals Y total more deals. Be realistic, and make sure you have enough fuel ($s) to feed that engine.

- Discuss Compensation and Territories Together: Bring finance to the table when you set On-Target Earnings (OTE) for SDRs, using benchmarks from your industry to back up those numbers. Because your AEs divided the U.S. in half, make it easy for them to win by aligning SDR territories likewise;

- Collaborate and Communicate — Always keep the lines open. Financing being involved with these decisions brings ownership — but they also have great potential to provide insights into how budgets and resources can be allocated.

When you are able to clearly communicate the benefits and also make finance part of the process, it becomes a whole lot easier for them to get on board with hiring SDRs – but not only that — structuring territories in this way saves your company money too.