The Network Development Representative Playbook

1. To SDR or not to SDR, that is the question.

If you follow any sales content on LinkedIn, you’ve probably seen some version of “the SDR role is dead” recently. The predictable revenue model that the SDR role was built on over the last few decades has come apart at the seams.

1000+ activities to book just 3 meetings - hundreds of cold calls, emails, and other touch points, only for 2 out of the 3 meetings to be no shows. There is definitely uncertainty about the effectiveness of the SDR roles.

Instead of declaring the role to be dead, we propose an evolution - from Sales Development Rep to Network Development Rep, or NDR.

The NDR isn’t meant to replace outbound. In fact, done right it will make outbound more effective. You’ll get more responses because prospects will know who you are, trust you, and be familiar with you and your content already. The NDR is, in fact, the ultimate smart outbound machine.

It takes more outbound than ever

We’re not saying you shouldn’t do outbound at all. But in 2024 and beyond, your outbound needs to be better, smarter, and layered with network-development activities.

Outbound is in a vicious cycle right now. Success feels less and less attainable, so sellers respond by increasing their volume of outbound. This means buyers respond less to outbound, thus outbound gets harder again.

The amount of outbound touch points required to get a deal in your pipeline has gone up 5x in the last 5 years, hitting 1400!^[1] Have you ever visualized how many outbound activities that really is?

Numbers to consider

It’s clear that the way buyers buy (and thus sellers need to sell) has changed drastically in the last 5 years. Some may look at these numbers and think “AI and automation will solve this for us," but in reality, this actually contributes to the very increase in activity that makes it less effective.

However, it is possible to see positive numbers while building for both short and long term growth at the same time. Work smarter, not just harder. Read on and jump in!

2. Enter the Network Development Representative

What you call it doesn’t really matter. The important thing is what the role does, and what the outcomes are expected to be. Alternative names (because B2B loves a good name acronym) could Community Development Rep (CDR), Ecosystem Development Rep (EDR), or GTN Engineer.

The NDR isn’t purely a marketing role or a sales role, but rather a cross-functional GTN role. No, that isn’t a typo. It stands for Go-to-Network - a modern strategy that focuses on creating a network of people around your business (advisors, champions, influencers etc), who become your wedge into the market.

An NDR grows that network. They pull the market into your sphere of influence rather than pushing out into the market and hunting. Where an SDR is purely focused on booking meetings at all costs, a NDR takes a smarter, more nuanced approach.

Impact that compounds

What happens if your SDRs stop making calls or sending emails? The entire system falls apart. SDRs are focused purely on transactional, short-term actions. Besides the low success rates, one of the main issues with the way most SDR functions operate is the short-term mindset and lack of compounding value.

Good content leads to a bigger network.

Strong relationships lead to a better network.

A bigger and better network leads to easier selling and more deals.

If your team is focused on building community and a network, then leads don’t disappear into the closed-lost pit. Instead, they remain in your network.It’s the best of both worlds - giving you both short-term results and long-term compounding benefits.

A NDR has two parallel goals

Only 3-10% of your buyers are in market at any given time.^[5] The other 90%+ likely won’t be in a buying position for months, or even years. Contrary to what we’d all like to believe, sales and marketing don’t often move buyers in-market, buyers move themselves based on their needs.

At it’s core, an NDRs job is to identify the 10% and sell to them, while pulling the other 90% into your network. That way, when they are in-market, you’re top of mind.

“When I was an SDR, I had some of the lowest activity numbers of the 20 SDRs on my team. And yet, I was constantly hitting quota and had the highest closed-won rate (39% compared to the average of 11%).

Why? Because I focused on deep research, true personalization, and spent a significant amount of time getting to know my prospects rather than dropping 300 people into a generic sequence and praying one of them would respond.

Your goal is deals and revenue closed. Not calls made. Not even meetings booked. Not emails sent. Activity for the sake of activity produces meaningless results.”

- Katrine Reddin

3. The Ten Percent "In-Market"

If someone puts their hand up and says “hey, I’m ready to buy”, then of course you should jump in and sell to them.

The problem is that many SDRs and sales teams treat their lead list as “ready to buy.” Most SDRs are taking educated guesses hoping to get lucky connecting with buyers who are ready. The outreach to the other 90% is, at best, ineffective, and at worst, actively damaging to your brand. Personalization doesn’t matter at scale, what matters is timing.

A well-equipped Network Development Representative makes smart use of signals to narrow their list down as close to that 10% as possible, ensuring activity isn’t wasted on those who might get irritated with your outreach. Quality over quantity.

Signals, however, are not a definitive indication of buyer intent. All outreach to potential buyers triggered by signals should be done with the goal of learning and helping, not selling. If your first outreach is to go straight for the sale, you’ll likely never find out if a prospect is in the 10% or 90%. And then your chances of connecting beyond the sale drop significantly.

Read on for some insight into how to use signals effectively to split prospects into the ready-to-buy or not-yet-ready-to-buy camps.

Using Signals Effectively

“Hi there! Josh Norris here. My friends at Commsor asked me to share some simple, practical tips for teams wanting to implement signals quickly.

My number 1 tip is if you do anything with signals, do it fast! Your buyer's attention will wane with time, so make your "speed to signal" as fast as possible. This means reaching out to them within hours, if not minutes, of receiving a signal.

My number 2 tip is to adjust your CTA according to your signal. This is the biggest mistake I see with intent signals. Not all signals are "intent to buy." In reality, signals mean intent to do lots of things across the buyer's journey. Perhaps someone visited your website because they were curious. Maybe they downloaded your resource because they aren't sure if they have a problem worth solving.

These signals are still useful, but even a soft CTA like "Interested in a quick chat?" can put off buyers who aren't ready to talk to you.

Here are four stages of the buyer's journey, with example signals and an outbound CTA for each stage.”

4. The Other Ninety Percent

If 90% of your buyers aren’t ready to actually buy right now, what should a NDR do? Their goal is to pull that 90% into the company’s sphere of influence so that when they are in a buying position, you’re top of mind. Remember, the vast majority of B2B buyers start a buying process with 2-3 vendors already preselected.

The NDR’s job is to make sure you’re on that list as often as possible.

“But wait, isn’t that marketing’s job?”

Nope. The days of a seller waiting for marketing to throw a lead over the fence to them are over. You’re gonna have a rough time if you’re sitting there waiting. There's plenty of opportunities for an NDR to meet the prospective buyer exactly where they're at, keeping your company top-of-mind and providing value before they've even purchased.

And then the NDR is thereto act when someone moves in-market and is ready to buy.

Community Engagement

Community looks different at every company. It might be a dedicated Slack channel, a dinner series, or a monthly meetup. Regardless, NDRs should be inviting prospects into your community and ensure they stay engaged. Prior to pivoting into the revenue space, Commsor sold to Community Managers and of course, had a community of its own. When we had reps change messaging from asking for meetings to inviting buyers into our community, positive response rates jumped from 8% to 44%.

And we’re not alone in seeing numbers like that. According to Salesforce data from their own community, engaged community members caused: [6]

Once a prospect is in your community, the NDR who invited them should make sure they get engaged and find value. This helps create a stronger connection between the buyer and the NDR, making it easier to convert to a sales discussion when the timing is right.

Starting a Community

Often times, when people here “community” in B2B, they jump straight to thinking about Slack groups. While theres nothing wrong with those, do you really think your buyers need, let alone want, another Slack group?

Probably not.

Community can come in many shapes and size. At the core, it’s all about connecting people and creating many-to-many value. Here are a few ideas for how you can start creating connections between your prospects.

Create a Mentorship Program - Bring together more experienced prospects and connect them quarterly with less experienced prospects to create a mentor/mentee relationship.

Offer Curated 1:1 Connections - Use a tool like Matcha to offer your prospects intimate 1:1 connections on a weekly or monthly basis. These true, 1:1 experiences can scale a community faster than you’d think.

Host a Dinner Series - This works especially well if your ICP is more senior and you’re selling a higher ticket product. As humans we all crave good, in-person experiences and you can build great brand affinity by providing this outlet for your buyers.

Create Content

Remember that stat about buyers saying content impacted their decision? On top of that, 42% of B2B buyers research sellers who contact them by looking at their LinkedIn profile.^[3]

This means sellers who are investing in content and personal brand have a hugely unfair advantage. Creating content establishes both personal and brand authority.

We’re increasingly living in an attention economy, and there’s no better way to grab a buyers attention than by creating where they’re already spending time. Not to mention that content pays dividends for weeks, months, even years after you initially created it. The potential upside is huge.

The Impact of Content

It’s not about creating content for the sake of creating content. If there is a question you have about your space that you can't find the answer to, then others probably have the same question. Go find the answer, talk to people, and become an expert. Become more than just a script following salesperson.

A story and example from Christian Jakenfelds, experienced B2B seller:

“Everyone was talking about the number of Customer Success Managers but no one knew what the number actually was.
‍
One May I spent an evening doing searches on LinkedIn to scrape the numbers and create a report. I then shared the headlines on LinkedIn, generating 400+ likes and starting multiple conversations. I then also had this report for deal follow-ups, and the report was entirely with my own branding showing that I was an authority on the space who was actively participating, not just taking.
‍
Fast forward 12 months I scraped the data again, created a new report and said I would share it with anyone that DMed me their email address. 200 likes, 50 DMs, 15 conversations, and a $42k closed-won deal generated from that document closed in the same quarter.
‍
All because I had a question I want answered about our industry, and I became the person with the answer.”

- Christian Jakenfelds

Steal this Mini LinkedIn Playbook

Creating content is all about consistency. You won’t magically see success right away, so use this checklist as a starting point to build yourself a recurring plan. Bonus points if you find yourself an accountability buddy, so you can both try it out together. Content is better with colleagues!

Connect Authentically

Maybe your company doesn’t have a community or your buyers aren’t hanging out on LinkedIn. That doesn’t mean your NDR can’t connect and form authentic relationships with them.

There are often other industry communities and groups your buyers hang out in as well, not just LinkedIn or your own companies spaces. Make sure to have a presence in those communities (if allowed).

According to a recent research report from LinkedIn, deep sellers spend 50% of their time building relationships and connections compared to the 9% of time spent by shallow sellers. Why should you care about that?

Because deep sellers are 30% more likely to hit quota than shallow sellers.^[7]

Many misunderstand relationship building and connection to mean “become friends with your prospects”. While there’s no harm in that, it really means to be known, and to be able to become a trusted advisor.

Remember, your goal as a seller is to help people solve problems, make more money, save time, build a better business etc. Step 1 in being able to do that is getting to know your prospects so you know what problems to help them solve. It’s way easier to get to that point if you’ve authentically connected with then vs slapped them with a pitch right out of the gate.

5. Operational Structure

As you’ve probably realized by this point, an NDR will struggle to exist in a vacuum. This is, however, also true for the traditional SDR. Without the right systems, enablement, and training, both roles will fail.
A NDR exists to scale 1:1 targeted relationship building and pull people into your company’s network. If your company has no network, no community, no content, or education for the NDR to pull prospects into, the role will struggle more than it needs to.

There is also debate, as there has been about the SDR role, about whether it’s truly a sales role or a marketing role. In reality, the NDR is both. In fact, the NDR presents a unique opportunity to have a role that is specifically designed to cross the barriers and straddle the entire revenue function.

After all - your team should be acting as one revenue function. Sales, marketing, community, customer success, all rowing in one direction. Anything else is counter to the goal you share - driving revenue.

Compensating your NDR

Here’s the dirty truth. Even with no change in comp structure, an NDR will likely make the same as an SDR. In fact, they might even make more. Yes, even if they’re only spending 50% of their time focused on booking meetings.

Why? Because they’ll be focusing on quality and not wasting efforts chasing leads that aren’t ready to book meetings anyways. But the comp structure still needs to change, because humans act based on where the incentives are. Some additional ways you can structure comp to incentivize NDR behavior:

- Pay per post that successfully targets and attracts ICP engagement

- Run internal SPIFFs and friendly competitions based on social growth

- Remove activity based expectations and comp based on outcome. You shouldn’t care if they made 200 cold calls or not, as long as 5 qualified meetings were booked.

- Pay based on successful community engagement - ie lead successfully invited to community and reached minimum engagement level

Sample NDR Comp Plan

Enablement

Unfortunately, the vast majority of organizations currently seem to be incapable of providing proper enablement for even an entry-level SDR. They’re often given little training, a script, and thrown into the deep end with an expectation to hit some arbitrary activity numbers each week.

A Network Development Rep cannot be an entry level role who’s simply thrown into the deep end with minimal training and support. To succeed a NDR needs to be given the space, guidance and information to become a subject matter expert (at least at a basic level).

They should be someone that a potential buyer actually wants to talk to, not someone who is going to force an annoying discovery process. Suggested types of enablement to consider:

Encouragement to cross bureaucracy and collaborate with other teams, especially in larger orgs. Encourage them to know their counterparts in Marketing, CS, Community, and Product. They need to be more well rounded and understand the business outside of “set meetings”.

Mentorship with industry leaders, enabling your NDRs to really get to know your market and buyers.

Community programs. You can start small with something like a Matcha mentorship or connection program.

Internal social selling groups. Pair your team members together to create content, test ideas, and sell socially together. New things are always easier to figure out with others.

Sample NDR Job Description

Bonus - Long-term growth and less burnout

SDRs typically want to move to AE roles as quickly as possible, yet organizations also want to hire SDRs with 12+ months of experience. These two things are completely at odds with each other. As soon as your SDRs start reaching mastery in the role, they expect promotion to AE, or else they’ll likely leave for another org.

The NDR role could be a gateway to “career NDRs”. Less of a grind fest, meaning less burnout. More growth opportunity, so less need to jump or demand a promotion right away.

But ultimately, the real value comes from giving NDRs the time to actually explore role, industry, and company mastery. Creating long-term network connections, industry knowledge, and creating more compounding value for themselves and the business.

The NDR could become the backbone for a truly cross-functional GTM (or should we say GTN 😉) team. A team that understands it’s not just sales or just marketing. It’s marketing and sales and community and partnerships and customer success, all working as one cohesive revenue unit, that drive the sustainable growth we’re all chasing.

Aligned revenue teams + changing buyer behavior = time to adapt your sales development team and process. Perhaps the NDR can be a starting point for that change you seek.

6. What should you do now?

If you're an SDR

Share this with your manager, see if it inspires any new ideas or tactics. You can also take 10% of your time and start trying out some of the tactics here without sacrificing the activities you’re currently being asked to do.Also, make sure you’re getting to know your marketing, community, and partnerships team. They’ll help you out in ways you could only imagine.

If you're a Sales Leader

You might have read all this and be thinking “but I already push my SDRs to do a lot of this!” That’s awesome, you’re doing things right. For others though, have one of your SDRs take one quarter and experiment running as an NDR instead. Just like any sales advice, the advice in this guide should be taken as inspiration for you to build from. Your industry, buyer personas and company will be different from the next person reading this. Experiment, iterate, learn!

If you're an early stage Founder

Consider hiring an NDR as one of your first sales hires - they’ll be able to impact growth more holistically compared to a single traditional seller. They’ll be able to help grow marketing and long-term growth while also impacting short-term sales goals. Use the sample JD on page 19 as a starting point.