A Good Sales Team That Couldn't Get Outbound Off the Ground.
Ingage had a solid sales foundation — a VP of Sales and two capable Account Executives generating results from inbound and trade shows. Growth was happening. But it wasn't enough.
They had tried to build an SDR team once before — internally, without a proven process. The result was an underperforming team, a lack of structure to manage them, and no systems to sustain performance. When that failed, confidence was low and appetite to try again was even lower.
But the VP of Sales knew the opportunity was there. They just needed someone who had done it before to come in and do it right.
The Right Targets. The Right People. The Right System.
The Phase One analysis revealed that the previous SDR attempt had failed not because of the market opportunity — it was real — but because of three compounding gaps:
No connection between activity and revenue. There were no outreach targets anchored to pipeline and closed-won goals. Without that waterfall, there was no way to manage to outcomes or build confidence in the process.
No lead enrichment infrastructure. To get SDRs connecting with the right contacts at scale, they needed the right tools feeding quality leads into the system. Mark identified and implemented the enrichment technology that would power a higher connection rate.
No character-driven hiring process. The previous hires had been made based on experience. The right hires — especially for a team rebuilding trust in outbound — needed to be made based on coachability, resilience, and hunger.
Design. Build. Launch.
Mark analysed their inbound metrics and reverse-engineered the outbound targets needed to produce the desired revenue outcomes.
- Waterfall targets built — calls, connects, meetings, pipeline, closed-won
- Win-win compensation plan — rewarded high performance, didn't overpay for mediocrity
- Lead enrichment tools identified and implemented for higher connection rates
Mark ran a thorough on-site search for candidates — prioritising coachability and resilience over experience.
- Neither final hire had a background in sales
- Both selected on coachability, hunger, and upside potential
- On-site requirement met — candidates who could work in-person at the location
A structured three-phase onboarding programme designed to take two inexperienced hires to confident, productive SDRs in weeks.
- Phase 1: Company buy-in, product knowledge, cross-department relationship building
- Phase 2: Custom sales script built from best practices + extensive role play before first calls
- Phase 3: Live observations, targeted call reviews, objection handling framework, daily huddles
- Mindset mini-lessons woven throughout — building confidence through repetition not just results
Day 3. Month 1. Month 3.
Day 3 of making calls: Both reps had booked their first meetings. Two SDRs with no sales background, making outbound calls for the first time, producing results within 72 hours of picking up the phone.
Month 1: The team of 2 SDRs booked 53 demos. Not a trickle. A flood. The custom script, the role play preparation, and the live coaching during calls meant they hit the ground running with a system behind them.
Month 3: Each rep was averaging 16 meetings per month — 32 total — and $125K in pipeline per rep. Total monthly pipeline: $250K. Closed-won revenue from the SDR channel: $50K per month — annualizing to $600K in new revenue from a function that didn't exist 3 months earlier.
The cost of the previous failed attempt, the hesitation, the "we'll try again later" thinking — all of it became irrelevant the moment the right system and the right people were in place.