Role covered: Sales development representative
Sales Development Agent
Researches every lead, writes the first message and books the meeting.
Fills in the details on every new lead, scores them against the kind of customer you want, drafts a personal first email and follow-ups, and puts the good conversations into your calendar and customer list.
Sales Development Agentonline on WhatsApp
- New lead: operations lead, 40-person logistics firm
Agent: I researched the company. There is no past contact in your customer list. Fit score 82 of 100: right size, right sector, and they named the problem you solve.
- Waits for you
Agent: I drafted a first email that refers to their new warehouse. Send it?
- Read draft
- Approve
You: Shorten the second paragraph, then send.
Agent: Sent from your mailbox. A follow-up is set for 3 days from now and your customer list is updated.
- Starts when
- A new lead, form submission or list upload
- Asks you before
- First messages, until you trust the tone
- Works in
- HubSpot or Pipedrive
- Calendar
How it works
One run of the Sales Development Agent, step by step
Green steps are done by the agent. The yellow step is where you check the work. Press play, or pick a step.
Sales Development Agent: one run
Step 1 of 5: Starts
A lead comes in
From your website form, an ad, an event list or a list you upload.
- Handled by
- Your tools
- Touches
- Web form
- Customer list
Division of work
What the agent takes, and what stays with you
The routine work goes to the agent. The judgment stays with your team.
The agent handles
- Researching the company and the contact
- Scoring leads against the kind of customer you want
- Writing first emails and follow-ups
- Answering simple replies and booking meetings
- Keeping your customer list complete and current
You keep
- The sales conversation itself
- Pricing, negotiation and closing
- Deciding who you want as a customer
Guardrails
You stay in control of every agent
An agent is a new team member with a narrow job, limited access and a manager. These four rules apply to every one I build.
Approval first
Customer-facing or costly actions wait for a person until you decide a step can run on its own.
Only what it needs
The agent gets its own login with only the access the job needs. No shared passwords.
Full log
Every read, decision and action is recorded, so you can see what it did and why.
Off switch
Pause the agent at any time. Your tools keep working exactly as they did before.
Getting started
From first call to an agent you trust
Every agent starts supervised. It earns more freedom only after it has done the job well on real work.
- 01
Map the job
We write down the task as it is done today: the inputs, the rules, the exceptions and what good looks like.
- 02
Build on your data
I build the agent and test it on real past cases until its work matches your standard.
- 03
Supervised launch
It runs live with every action approved by you, and the rules are tuned on real work.
- 04
Run and improve
Approvals are relaxed where the agent has earned it. I monitor it, report on it and keep improving it.
Questions
About the Sales Development Agent
More agents
Agents that work well alongside it
Covers: Customer service representative
Customer Support Agent
Answers routine questions straight away and hands the difficult ones to a person, with the context attached.
- Starts when
- A new ticket, chat or email
- Asks you
- Refunds, exceptions and anything outside policy
- Works in
- Zendesk or Gorgias
- Shopify
- Help centre
Covers: Data entry clerk
Data Entry Agent
Reads documents and enters the data into your systems, then checks its own work.
- Starts when
- A document arrives by email, upload or scan
- Asks you
- Low-confidence fields and failed checks
- Works in
- Google Sheets
- Airtable
- Customer list or accounts
Covers: Bookkeeping clerk
Bookkeeping Agent
Keeps the books current between accountant visits.
- Starts when
- The daily bank feed and incoming receipts
- Asks you
- New suppliers, unusual amounts and the month-end pack
- Works in
- Xero or QuickBooks
- Bank transactions
Put the Sales Development Agent to work
Tell me how the job is done today. I will tell you what the agent can take over, what it needs access to, and what should stay with a person.