How many sales meetings can Supernova AI book per week?

We book between 5 and 20 sales-ready appointments every week with businesses in your target market. The exact volume depends on your plan (Starter, Growth, or Scale) and the ICP we target.

What industries does Supernova AI work with?

We work with B2B companies across more than 300 industries, including IT services and MSPs, SaaS, recruitment, marketing agencies, accounting, financial services, construction, and commercial cleaning. We operate across both the UK and USA.

Do I need to handle the outreach myself?

No. Supernova AI is a fully done-for-you service. We handle the targeting, copywriting, sending, and meeting booking. You only show up to the meeting and close the deal.

What counts as a qualified meeting?

A qualified meeting is a scheduled call with a decision-maker at a company that matches your ideal customer profile, has shown intent to learn more about your service, and has explicitly agreed to attend the meeting.

How quickly can I start receiving meetings?

Most clients see their first booked meetings within 2-3 weeks of campaign launch, following our standard onboarding and ICP definition process.

What Is a Sales Development Representative (SDR)? The Complete Guide

3cpsmike
3 days ago
3 min read

A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a specialised sales role focused entirely on outbound prospecting and booking qualified meetings — not closing deals. Understanding exactly what an SDR does, what they cost, and whether you need one in-house or outsourced is crucial for B2B companies building their revenue engine.

What Does an SDR Actually Do?

An SDR's entire job is to find potential customers and convert them from cold prospects into booked sales meetings for Account Executives (AEs) or senior salespeople who close deals. Their daily activities include: researching target accounts and identifying key contacts, sending personalised cold emails, making outbound calls, engaging prospects on LinkedIn, qualifying leads against the company's ICP, and booking meetings directly into the AE's calendar.

A good SDR is part researcher, part copywriter, part psychologist. They need to quickly understand a prospect's world, craft a message that resonates, handle objections, and build enough rapport to earn 30 minutes of a busy executive's time.

SDR vs BDR vs AE: What's the Difference?

SDR (Sales Development Representative): Focused on outbound prospecting — reaching out to cold or warm prospects to generate pipeline. Primarily booking meetings, not closing. BDR (Business Development Representative): Similar to an SDR but often focuses on larger, more complex accounts or partnership opportunities. The titles are frequently used interchangeably. AE (Account Executive): Receives qualified meetings from SDRs and is responsible for running the sales process and closing deals. A cleaner split between these roles almost always increases overall sales productivity.

What Skills Make a Great SDR?

Resilience: SDRs face rejection constantly — a great SDR treats every 'no' as data and keeps going. Curiosity: The best SDRs genuinely research their prospects and find angles that feel personal, not templated. Writing ability: In an era of email and LinkedIn outreach, clear, punchy writing is a core skill. Active listening: On calls, the ability to hear what a prospect is actually concerned about separates booked meetings from hang-ups. Organisation: Managing hundreds of prospects across multiple touchpoints requires structured discipline.

How Much Does an SDR Cost in the UK?

Hiring an in-house SDR in the UK in 2026 comes with significant cost: Base salary: £28,000–£40,000/year (London commands a premium). On-target earnings (OTE) with commission: £35,000–£55,000/year. Employer NI, pension, and benefits: ~£7,000–£12,000/year. Recruitment fees: £4,000–£8,000 one-time. Tooling (CRM, email tools, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, data subscriptions): £3,000–£6,000/year.

Total first-year cost of an SDR: £50,000–£80,000. And that assumes you hire the right person, onboard them effectively, and they're fully productive within 3–4 months — which is rarely how it plays out in practice.

The SDR Ramp-Up Problem

Most SDRs take 60–90 days before they're producing qualified meetings consistently. During that period, you're paying full salary and investing management time. If the hire doesn't work out (SDR attrition rates are high — often 35–50% annually), you're back to square one after 6–12 months.

This ramp-up cost and attrition risk is one of the primary reasons B2B companies explore outsourced appointment setting as an alternative.

In-House SDR vs Outsourced Appointment Setting

In-house SDR gives you: full control over messaging and process, deep product knowledge over time, cultural alignment, and ability to build internal sales culture. Downsides: high cost, slow ramp-up, management overhead, and single point of failure.

Outsourced appointment setting gives you: immediate start (no ramp-up), predictable cost (often 30–50% cheaper than in-house), multiple experienced SDRs rather than one, built-in tooling and processes, and no HR/management burden. Downside: less product depth initially, though good providers invest heavily in client onboarding.

When Should You Hire an In-House SDR?

An in-house SDR makes sense when: you've already validated your outreach messaging through outsourced or founder-led sales, your average contract value exceeds £50,000 (justifying high sales investment), you're at a scale where multiple SDRs and AEs are needed, and you have a strong sales manager to hire and coach the SDR.

For most early-to-mid stage B2B companies, outsourced appointment setting delivers faster results at lower cost and risk. Once you've proven the model, bringing it in-house becomes a logical next step.

How Supernova AI Replaces the In-House SDR Model

Supernova AI provides the output of a team of experienced SDRs — qualified, booked meetings with decision-makers in your target market — without the cost, complexity, or risk of in-house hiring. We work with B2B companies across the UK and USA to deliver 5–20 qualified sales meetings per week using proven multi-channel outreach.

If you're weighing up hiring an SDR vs outsourcing, let's talk. We can show you exactly what our cost-per-meeting looks like vs your projected in-house SDR cost.