Sales Development Manager

Company Overview

Agility PR Solutions is a global leader in media intelligence and PR technology. Founded in 2003, we help communications teams around the world drive awareness, make smarter decisions, and protect their reputation when it matters most. Our enterprise-grade platform unifies media relations, media monitoring, social listening, AI visibility, and media intelligence into a single seamless system—turning overwhelming streams of coverage and conversation into decision-ready intelligence. Recognized for ease of use, results, and customer support, Agility is one of the most trusted names in media intelligence. Our mission is to empower the voices that shape the world's narratives, and we're looking for people who want to help us do it.

About the Role

Reporting to the VP of Marketing, the Sales Development Manager builds and leads Agility's first marketing-owned sales development team: the people who turn marketing demand into sales conversations.

The team runs two motions, and you own both. The first is the engaged-prospect motion: every hand-raiser and intent signal marketing produces — demo requests, webinar and event attendees, content downloads, website conversations, review-site and intent-data signals — is contacted fast, qualified honestly, and converted into a meeting the sales team is glad to take. The second is cold outbound prospecting: structured, sequenced outreach into target accounts across our customer segments — Enterprise & Government, In-house PR Teams, and PR Agencies — run on dedicated sending infrastructure, in step with the campaigns marketing is already running, and within the consent rules of each market we sell into.

You start with a team of at least two — one Sales Development Representative covering North America and one covering the UK — and you hire, onboard, coach, and scale from there as results earn the headcount. You sit inside the demand generation engine: the Associate Director, Demand Generation designs the campaigns and the sequences; you run the people and the daily motion that executes them. You partner every week with the Director of Sales for North America and the UK sales lead on lead handoff, meeting acceptance, and the feedback loop that tells marketing which conversations are turning into pipeline.

The mandate is direct: become the primary source of qualified sales conversations from marketing demand and double to triple them within a year. One principle governs how this team is measured: a meeting booked is an activity, not a result. The result is a meeting that progresses from the demo and discovery stage to the Proposal stage as a Sales Qualified Opportunity, and ultimately to closed-won. Quotas, variable compensation, and the team scorecard are built on meetings that reach Proposal, not on meetings booked.

What success looks like

• Both launch SDRs are hired, ramped, and hitting quota within their first quarter; the hiring, onboarding, and coaching playbook that got them there is documented and reusable.
• The number of SDR-sourced meetings that progress from demo and discovery to the Proposal stage grows quarter over quarter, and the booked-to-Proposal conversion rate holds or improves as volume rises.
• Closed-won revenue traceable to SDR-sourced meetings is visible in Salesforce and grows with the team; meetings booked is tracked as a leading indicator only.
• Every engaged prospect is contacted within the agreed speed-to-lead window, with show rates and qualification quality tracked per source.
• Cold outbound scales only on gates — reply rate, positive-reply rate, bounce rate, and complaint rate stay inside agreed thresholds as volume grows.
• Marketing-sourced pipeline in the UK rises measurably, closing the gap with North America.
• Proposal-stage and closed-won conversion for SDR-sourced meetings are reviewed with sales leadership monthly, and the review changes what the team does the following month.

What you’ll do

• Team Build & Leadership
• Hire, onboard, and ramp the launch team — one SDR in North America and one in the UK — and build the case for each additional seat with results.
• Set quotas and variable compensation plans on meetings that progress to the Proposal stage, with activity and meetings-booked targets as leading indicators only; run weekly 1:1s, call and email coaching, and a visible team scorecard.
• Build the SDR playbook: qualification criteria, talk tracks and objection handling by segment, sequence cadences, and handoff standards.
• Develop people deliberately: career paths into account executive, customer success, or marketing roles, with a bench that outlasts any single rep.

Engaged-Prospect Motion

• Own speed-to-lead: every marketing hand-raiser — demo requests, webinar and virtual-event attendees, content downloads, website chatbot handoffs, and intent signals from ZoomInfo and G2 — is worked within the agreed window and routed correctly.
• Design follow-up plays by source and segment, so an Enterprise & Government webinar attendee and an agency content downloader get different conversations, not the same script.
• Run post-event follow-through with the field and event marketing team: pre-registration outreach, no-show recovery, and attendee conversion for webinars, Signal Day, research readouts, and tradeshows.
• Work expansion and cross-sell touches into the existing customer base when campaigns call for them, coordinated with customer success so no account hears from two teams.

Cold Outbound Prospecting

• Build target-account and contact lists by segment and market using our intent and data platforms; keep list hygiene and suppression discipline so marketing's reputation is never at risk.
• Execute the outbound sequences designed with the Associate Director, Demand Generation across email, phone, and LinkedIn, and feed reply and conversation data back into sequence and copy improvements.
• Operate the dedicated outbound sending infrastructure — secondary domains, mailbox rotation, warmup, authentication, deliverability monitoring — kept deliberately separate from the marketing automation platform.
• Enforce jurisdiction-aware prospecting: opt-out regimes (CAN-SPAM) and opt-in regimes (CASL, GDPR/PECR) are handled differently, market entry is sequenced accordingly, and every message carries honest subject lines, clear identification, and a working opt-out.
• Pilot AI prospecting and research tooling against cost per sales-accepted meeting, not against the demo.

Handoff, Measurement & Sales Alignment

• Own the SDR-to-sales handoff: meeting standards, booking-to-acceptance SLAs, agreed definitions for the demo and discovery and Proposal stages, and the Salesforce hygiene that keeps every lead, activity, meeting, and stage change visible — if it is not in Salesforce, it did not happen.
• Maintain the SDR scorecard with meetings reaching the Proposal stage as the headline number, supported by contacts worked, speed-to-lead, meetings booked, show rate, booked-to-Proposal conversion, and closed-won influenced, by rep, by source, and by market.
• Run a weekly feedback loop with the Director of Sales for North America and the UK sales lead on lead quality, and bring that feedback to marketing so targeting, content, and sequences improve.
• Work in HubSpot and Salesforce fluently enough to configure routing, sequences, and reporting with the team rather than waiting on an operations queue.

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years in B2B SaaS sales development or inside sales, including 2+ years leading SDRs or BDRs, with at least one example of building a team from zero and taking it to quota.
• Hands-on cold outbound experience on dedicated sending infrastructure — secondary domains, mailbox rotation, warmup, deliverability management — and the judgment to know why purchased lists never touch the marketing platform's bulk email tools.
• Jurisdiction-aware prospecting across opt-out (CAN-SPAM) and opt-in (CASL, GDPR/PECR) regimes; you know which markets are consent-only and sequence accordingly.
• Fluency in the post-2024 deliverability regime — authentication requirements, bulk-sender thresholds, complaint-rate ceilings — and honest subject-line discipline treated as both a legal and a deliverability matter.
• Salesforce and HubSpot working proficiency, plus experience with sequencing, dialer, and prospecting platforms and the intent and data tools that feed them (ZoomInfo, Apollo, G2, or equivalents).
• A coaching record: reps you developed can be named, and they got better on the numbers under you.
• A daily numbers habit: you run the team from the scorecard, you know your booked-to-Proposal and Proposal-to-closed-won rates by source and by rep, and you adjust weekly.
• Experience managing a remote team across North American and UK time zones, and the discipline to give each market its own playbook rather than one universal script.
• Clear-eyed judgment on AI SDR and prospecting tools: you pilot against cost per qualified meeting rather than buying the demo.
• Familiarity with PR, communications, or media intelligence buyers is an asset; the ability to learn a new buyer fast is required.

Why You'll Love It Here

• Fully remote work environment
• Collaborative culture – and key tools enabling it
• Competitive compensation package
• Private Health Plan
• Pension Plan
• Group Income Protection
• Life Assurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Career Development & Progression opportunities
• Paid Holiday and Sick days
• Flex Fridays in Summer, Week off between Christmas and New Years'
• No Internal Meetings Fridays

AI Usage

We use technology to make hiring smarter, faster, and more personal, never less human. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools help us manage applications efficiently and highlight qualifications that align with each role, allowing our recruiters to focus more on meaningful conversations with candidates. AI does not make hiring decisions at Agility. Every decision is made by people, our hiring managers and recruitment professionals, who are trained to apply sound judgment and equitable practices at every stage. We believe technology exists to amplify human insight, not replace it. That belief shapes how we build relationships, tell stories, and grow our teams.

At Agility, we strive every day to build a more inclusive work environment and introduce tools that enable it. We strongly encourage applications from all people regardless of race, religion, gender, age, disability status or sexual orientation.

Even if you find yourself not checking all the boxes of our listed requirements but you are excited about this opportunity, we'd love to hear from you anyway. Our Talent Acquisition team will review your application for this role, and other potential role matches open now or in the future.

If, at any stage of the application process, you require accommodation owing to disability or a medical need, please let us know at careers@agilitypr.com for us to make appropriate arrangements.