Within business, there can sometimes be a disconnect between marketing efforts and sales outcomes. At Moneypenny, we’ve discovered how bridging this gap is truly transformative. Our journey of building a Sales Development Representative (SDR) team has revealed how vital these roles are in creating seamless pathways from marketing initiatives to closed deals and lasting client relationships.
In a recent episode of our On the Up podcast, Simon Burlison, Head of SDR at Moneypenny, sat down with Dan Marshall to share valuable insights into how SDR teams can become the critical link between marketing efforts and sales success.
For over two decades, our phones rang, enquiries flowed in, and business grew steadily. But Simon Burlison, our Head of SDR, recognised an untapped opportunity in the vast market of businesses who hadn’t yet discovered how our services could transform their operations.
“Moneypenny has been very much an inbound led business for 22, 23 years, almost”, Simon explains. “The role of an SDR ultimately is to bridge that gap between marketing and sales because marketing from a demand gen piece is really focused on getting those leads coming in from an inbound perspective.”
This insight marked the beginning of our SDR journey, one that would evolve from a modest three-person team to a twelve-strong international operation generating remarkable results.
“We’re now ten in the UK and two in the US. And that’s growing, a team booking 800-900 appointments across the different sectors that we work in. And then from a revenue perspective, we’ve generated around 2 million pounds in cumulative revenue in those three years, but that carries about a lifetime value of around 7.5 million.”
Marketing casts a wide net, creating awareness and generating interest. Sales transform that interest into relationships and revenue. But between these two vital functions often lies a chasm, one that our SDR team now fills with human connection and personalised outreach.
“There’s such a market out there that you can go and educate around how our services could be a real benefit and add value, or help solve a problem that they might have”, notes Simon.
This proactive approach doesn’t replace our marketing efforts, it amplifies them. While marketing creates awareness among those actively searching, our SDRs reach those who might benefit from our services but haven’t yet recognised the need, or found us through traditional channels.
“That’s all done through proactive outreach, across different channels, different methods, different tactics. But it’s all about that hunting, that drive to go and create something from nothing. And that’s a real skill to have as an SDR.”
The truly transformative power of our SDR function comes not from working in isolation, but through deliberate collaboration with both marketing and sales teams. This alignment didn’t happen overnight, it evolved through constant communication, shared goals and mutual respect.
“From a collaboration perspective, it’s the key to unlocking the success of our team”, Simon reflects. “Yes, we can achieve success potentially without marketing, but almost… Why would you? You’ve got the team, the resource there, those that are doing all this activity to create that demand, to generate those inbound leads.”
This collaborative approach means our teams now share unified goals:
“We’ve all got the same goal at the end of the day. And that’s to get the revenue, to win the business, to get great clients on, and then go and service them in the best way.”
While digital transformation has changed the sales landscape, Simon believes that cold calling is experiencing something of a renaissance at Moneypenny.
“There’s so much out there content wise on LinkedIn and on socials, always that phrase of ‘cold calling is dead.’ And cold calling is a massive part of what an SDR does. I think at the moment it’s almost having a bit of a renaissance because we’ve gone through it.”
He adds: “We’ve gone through a massive boom in the amount of tech that’s available in sales, but actually sometimes going back to basics – that being cold calling and the art of having a conversation – is ultimately where we’ve driven a lot of our success.”
Listen to the full conversation with Simon Burlison on our On the Up podcast, available on Spotify and all major podcast platforms. Or explore our complete library of On the Up episodes for more business growth insights.
Alternatively, to learn more about how Moneypenny can support your business, contact us today on 0333 202 1005.
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