Most “90-day SDR pilots” fail for the same reasons:
No clear ICP or persona map
Lists thrown together from whatever tools are handy
Messaging decided in a meeting, never revisited
Success measured in “emails sent” instead of meetings, opps and pipeline
At the end, both sides feel disappointed and nobody’s sure if outbound actually works for their market.
A good 90-day SDR sprint is the opposite of that. It’s a structured experiment: clear inputs, tight feedback loops, realistic benchmarks and a plan for what happens after the 90 days.
This article breaks down what “good” looks like for B2B SaaS, fintech and API vendors selling into APAC and beyond — whether you run SDRs in-house or use SDR-as-a-Service.
A 2-week trial is too short; a 6–12 month retainer with no exit criteria is too long and risky.
90 days works because:
It’s enough time to test and iterate on ICP, lists and messaging (you’ll see multiple cycles of replies and objections).
You can see at least one or two full sales cycles starting (from first touch → meeting → early eval/POC), especially in mid-market.
It’s short enough that leadership can treat it as a contained experiment instead of a major headcount commitment.
In fast-moving SaaS/fintech markets, most sales teams aim to see clear signs of pipeline impact from outbound within one quarter. A 90-day sprint mirrors that rhythm and makes it easier to compare outbound to other channels (events, partners, inbound).
A 90-day SDR sprint is not magic. Before anyone sends a single email, four things should be clear:
You don’t need a 40-page deck, but you do need:
Company profile: region(s), size bands, key verticals
Buying committee: who can say “yes”, who can block, who feels the pain
Deal size & complexity: SMB vs mid-market vs enterprise; expected ACV range
If the SDR team is guessing who to contact, you’re burning time and domain reputation.
The list doesn’t need to be perfect, but it must be:
Built from the ICP (not from a random database search)
De-duplicated & enriched enough that each account has 2–5 relevant personas to contact
Segmented (e.g. Tier 1 / Tier 2, or by vertical) so you can see where replies come from
This list is a major asset: if the sprint ends, you want a reusable account + contact map you can give to AEs or future SDRs.
You don’t need the “final” sequence, but you do need:
A simple message house (problems, value props, proof points, CTAs)
1–2 email sequences and LinkedIn touch patterns to test
A short objection-handling crib sheet for first replies (“already have a vendor”, “no budget”, “send info”, etc.)
You’ll adjust these weekly based on real replies — but you must start with something coherent.
Before the sprint starts, sales leadership and the SDR team should agree on:
What counts as a qualified meeting (who needs to attend, what topics, what stage of interest)
Who will run it (SDR+AE handoff, or AE only)
What happens after (how opps are created, how pipeline is tracked)
Without this, SDRs optimise for “any booked call”, and AEs complain that meetings are low-quality.
Think of the sprint in four phases:
Weeks 1–2 – Setup & early signal
Weeks 3–4 – First patterns & sharpened targeting
Weeks 5–8 – Scaling what works
Weeks 9–12 – Converting meetings into real pipeline
This is where you:
Finalise the ICP slices for the sprint (e.g. SG fintech CFOs, HK SaaS Heads of Product, APAC platform leaders).
Build and clean the initial account & contact lists.
Implement the sending stack (email domains, warm-up, LinkedIn sequences, CRM tracking).
Launch the first two or three variants of messaging.
What “good” looks like by the end of Week 2:
Campaigns are going out consistently.
You’ve had a handful of replies (even “no” or “not now” counts as signal).
You’ve logged the first set of objections and non-responses by segment.
You’re not judging success yet — you’re checking:
Are emails landing (no major deliverability issues)?
Are we seeing any interest or curiosity from the right personas?
Which segments feel ice-cold vs “some sparks”?
Now you start improving based on what the market is telling you:
Double down on segments that reply more (e.g. mid-market HR vs enterprise HR).
Refine subject lines and openers that get real engagement, not just clicks.
Tune CTAs (softer asks, shorter calls, or “is this relevant?” style) based on reply tone.
Improve the LinkedIn + email interplay (e.g. connect first, then reference the connection in email, or vice versa).
By the end of Week 4, a healthy sprint usually has:
Consistent outbound volume
Reply rates trending into the low single digits or better (varies by market, but the trend is what matters)
The first few qualified meetings already booked
If nothing is moving by Week 4, the issue is usually one of:
ICP too broad or off-target
Value prop not resonating
Wrong seniority or wrong function in the org
This is where you make decisive changes — not after 3 months.
By now you should know:
Which segments are worth more effort
Which messaging angles and proof points land
Which channels produce meetings (email vs LinkedIn, or both)
This phase is about doubling down:
Expand the account list for winning segments.
Add more contacts per account (multithreading early).
Start more systematic A/B tests on subject lines, value props and CTAs.
Formalise a simple weekly review: meetings booked, opps created, learning per segment.
By around Week 8, a strong sprint for B2B SaaS/fintech often shows:
Low double-digit qualified meetings booked (e.g. 8–15, depending on ACV, region, list size).
A visible cluster of early-stage opportunities or evaluations/POCs for AEs to work.
Clear “this is our core ICP for outbound” hypotheses, not vague guesses.
The last third of the sprint is about turning all this activity into structured pipeline and a decision:
Pipeline & conversion
Track meeting → opportunity conversion (often 25–40% in healthy motions, depending on your definition of “opportunity”).
Log deal sizes and timeframes to see if outbound deals look similar to inbound/partner deals or very different.
Watch for patterns in who moves forward (by region, industry, function).
Operationalising handoffs
Make sure SDR → AE handoff is clean (notes, context, clear next steps).
Agree on stage definitions (so everyone understands what qualifies as an opp).
Decision on what happens after Day 90
Do we scale (more SDR capacity, additional segments/regions)?
Do we adapt (different ICP, more GTM advisory / enablement first)?
Do we pause/park outbound for now (if the economics don’t work)?
By Day 90, you should be able to answer two questions confidently:
“Can outbound generate qualified meetings and pipeline for this ICP?”
“If yes, what’s the most sensible way to scale it from here?”
Numbers will vary by ACV, region, brand awareness and list quality, but for typical B2B SaaS/fintech targeting APAC mid-market/enterprise, a healthy 90-day sprint often lands in ranges like:
10–20 qualified meetings with your ICP
25–40% of meetings turning into opportunities or structured evaluations/POCs
US$300–500K of pipeline generated (sometimes more for larger ACVs)
The point is not to treat these as “promises”, but as sanity checks:
If your sprint has lots of activity but almost no meetings, something’s off in ICP or messaging.
If you have many meetings but almost none turn into opps, either qualification is weak or your internal sales process isn’t ready.
If meetings and opps look good but pipeline value is tiny, your outbound targeting may be too low-value for SDR investment.
A strong 90-day sprint is not just about SDR activity. You also need:
Even with SDR-as-a-Service, you need an internal “sponsor”:
Founder, VP Sales, Head of Growth, or similar
Joins weekly reviews
Helps refine ICP and messaging
Ensures AEs actually follow up with meetings
Without this, SDRs operate in a vacuum and learning doesn’t stick.
You don’t need a perfect Salesforce instance, but you do need:
A place to log meetings and opps reliably
A simple, consistent stage model (e.g. Meeting → Qualified → Evaluation/POC → Proposal → Closed)
One dashboard or view where leadership can see:
Meetings booked
Opps created
Pipeline value
Source = “Outbound SDR”
This is how you avoid the “we’re not sure what came from the sprint” problem.
If AEs are overwhelmed and can’t run discovery properly, outbound underperforms even if SDRs do well.
Before starting, ask:
Who will own discovery on these meetings?
Do they have good discovery questions and a clear next step to propose?
Are they open to feedback and iteration as new objections and patterns emerge?
SDRs can open the door; AEs decide whether anything meaningful walks through.
Some teams panic after a week and demand completely new ICP, lists and messaging.
Fix:
Commit to a minimum test size per segment and message (e.g. a few hundred contacts) before declaring something “dead”. Adjust weekly, not hourly.
The opposite problem: running the original sequence for 3 months, regardless of signal.
Fix:
Hold a weekly review that forces decisions:
Which subject lines and openers stay or go
Which segments get more budget
Which objections deserve new messaging or assets
Leadership asks for a “summary at the end” and otherwise ignores the sprint.
Fix:
Involve your internal sponsor and at least one AE from Week 1. Use the sprint to learn about the market, not just to “get meetings”.
The sprint ends, everyone says “that was interesting”, and nothing changes.
Fix:
Before you start, agree on decision criteria for Day 90:
If we see X–Y meetings and Z pipeline → we commit to option A (scale SDR capacity).
If we see some signal but no pipeline → we commit to option B (more GTM advisory / sharpening ICP, then another sprint).
If we see almost nothing → we treat it as a valuable negative result, and focus on other channels or different ICPs.
A good 90-day SDR sprint should leave you with more than just a few deals in flight. At minimum, you should walk away with:
A clearer ICP and persona map
A tested messaging library (what resonates, what doesn’t)
A reusable account & contact list
A simple operating rhythm for outbound (weekly reviews, stage definitions, dashboards)
From there, you can decide whether to:
Extend SDR-as-a-Service
Hire SDRs and have them inherit the playbook
Or keep a lean, focused outbound motion that supports your AEs and event/partner efforts
If you approach the next 90 days as a disciplined experiment, outbound stops being a gamble — and becomes a channel you can scale up or down with confidence.