An ideal day in the life of software sales will be mostly dedicated to tasks that produce revenue such as calling leads, holding demos, and sending follow-up emails. However, there is also administrative work like updating your CRM, researching leads, and attending meetings.
Your particular daily schedule as a tech sales rep will depend on the position you hold. SDRs and Account Executives have drastically different daily schedules and routine activities. So, in this post, we’ll break down what to expect in each position. Plus, we’ll give example schedules that’ll help you visualize what you might be doing each hour of the day.
Day in the Life of Software Sales or Business Development Rep
An SDR is in charge of booking sales meetings for an Account Executive. This means their day will mostly consist of cold outreach to potential leads. But, the work doesn’t end there. To succeed as an SDR you have to do a lot of work. It can be a lucrative position, but that monetary reward will definitely be earned.
Here are the typical daily tasks as an SDR:
- Cold Outreach: You’ll spend a lot of time making cold calls and talking with potential leads. Plus, you’ll send a lot of cold emails. Usually, this will mean customizing email templates to fit your current prospect.
- Networking on Social Media: You’ll spend time on social media, primarily LinkedIn, engaging with potential decision-makers and warming them up before you ask for a meeting.
- Fielding Inbound Leads: You’ll be expected to answer inbound phone calls or demo requests and to either disqualify them or book a meeting.
- Researching Leads: Before cold outreach, you’ll need to learn a bit about the lead and their needs. You’ll spend time on their company’s website and social profiles.
- Qualifying Leads: Before admitting a lead into a meeting with your AE, you’ll ask questions to gauge whether a lead has the ability and desire to actually purchase your solution.
- Training Activities: You’ll spend time doing cold call review sessions or learning other sales skills.
- Updating CRMs: You’ll update the status of different leads as you and they take action. You’ll jot down notes in there during research. When you book a meeting you’ll open an opportunity and assign it to an AE.
- Strategy Sessions: In enterprise software sales you might work closely with your AE to brainstorm the best way to open up an opportunity with a big company.
Aside from these main tasks, you’ll also spend time talking with your manager and reviewing your goals and metrics.
Plus, you might spend some time having fun with your colleagues, as startups tend to prioritize relationship building and camaraderie among team members. That could mean crushing some burritos with colleagues from the sales team in the office kitchen or playing an absurdly competitive game of ping pong with a friend from the product team.
Typical Day Schedule
Every rep will have different schedules that work best for them. Some might like cold calling first thing while others feel they perform better towards the end of the day. Here’s how an SDR in tech sales might schedule their day for optimal performance and efficiency:
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Check emails, get things in order, and plan the day.
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM: Cold call block. 25 cold calls.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Research leads for next cold call block. Follow-up with leads.
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Cold Call Block. 25 cold calls.
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM: Cold emails. Send 25 cold emails.
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM: Social selling activities.
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Team meeting.
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM: Research leads for tomorrow’s cold call block.
The average schedule of an SDR is pretty jam-packed. But, at least they’re kept busy and spending most of that time doing tasks that will actually benefit them and their earnings. That’s better than sitting through four random meetings a day and feeling like you’re wasting time.
Day in the Life of Software Sales Account Executive
Account Executives are in charge of closing new sales deals for their company. To do this, they spend a lot of time doing revenue-generating activities like communicating with prospects in their pipeline — whether that’s holding discovery calls, leading product web demos, or sending follow-up emails or contracts.
Here are the common daily tasks of most software Account Executives:
- Running Discovery Calls: The first call with a lead will typically be one to assess the budget, needs, authority, and timeline of the lead to see if it’s worth giving them a full demo.
- Holding Web Demos: In a live web demo, you’ll show the prospect your platform and the features that solve their pain points.
- Calling Prospects: You’ll call for various reasons. It could be to get the ball rolling, to answer questions about the deal or product, or to overcome some objections they mentioned in an email.
- Researching Prospects: They might ask a BDR for an update on the prospect they’re about to talk with and do some online research.
- Creating and Sending Contracts: With the help of the legal team, you’ll customize and send contracts to prospects.
- Sending Follow-up Emails: You’ll send emails to prospects who are stalled.
- Performance Reviews: You and your manager will likely assess your performance against the various metric quotas you must hit, like the number of demos held per week. You’ll also analyze the pipeline and get a second opinion on how to move deals forward.
- Lead Generation Activities: Although most AEs have BDRs generating leads for them, they’ll also participate in prospecting by networking or by working with current clients for introductions to other decision-makers in their networks.
Although the life of an AE is rather busy, they still find time to get to know their colleagues and enjoy the social benefits of working at a software company. If you’d like to learn some other benefits of being in tech sales, check out our article on 10 reasons why software sales is a great choice.
Typical Day Schedule
AEs decide how to schedule their days. While a BDR’s manager might have some say in what they do during each hour, an AE’s manager will just let the AE schedule it out themselves.
Here’s an example schedule for a software sales AE:
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Check emails, get things in order, and plan the day.
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM: Give three demos.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Strategize on how to move deals forward.
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Follow-up with prospects.
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM: Lead generating activities.
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM: Discovery call with a new prospect.
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Contract review call with a prospect.
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM: Update CRM and research prospect for next day’s demos.
Most AEs will stick to the 9-5 schedule, but others will work later into the evening, especially if they are behind on quota attainment. On the other hand, AEs who are above quota can make the decision to work a little less if they are satisfied with their payout.
Bottom Line: Life’s Good in Software Sales
A day in the life of software sales is generally considered a fun, lucrative, and interesting one. Each day you’ll meet new challenges and find new solutions. You’ll talk with lots of prospects and leads and through those conversations, you’ll consistently improve your sales skills. If you’re interested in getting into tech sales check out the Tech Sales Jobs job board. And if you need a step-by-step process for landing a job, read the 11 steps for getting into software sales.