What is sales development?
Sales development is the part of a sales team that finds, contacts and qualifies prospects, then hands sales-ready meetings to account executives.
Why it matters for sales teams
Separating prospecting from closing lets each role specialize. Sales development reps focus on volume and first conversations, and account executives focus on running deals. This makes pipeline generation more predictable, because the team can see how many calls, emails and meetings it takes to create one qualified opportunity.
Sales development usually covers outbound work, such as cold calling and email sequences, and follow-up on inbound leads from marketing. Common measures are meetings booked, meetings held and opportunities created.
Example
A company with six account executives builds a sales development team of three SDRs. One works inbound demo requests. Two run outbound sales sequences against target accounts. Every week the team reviews how many meetings were booked, how many actually happened and how many became real opportunities.
Sales development vs business development
In sales teams, sales development means the prospecting function. Business development can mean the same thing, but it is also used for partnerships, channel deals and new-market work, so the meaning depends on the company.