Business Development Representative

We're hiring a Business Development Representative for a hybrid, full-cycle prospecting role. You'll be assigned a territory and a set of Account Executives to partner with, and you'll be responsible for building a healthy pipeline of Sales Accepted Leads (SALs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), from both self-sourced outbound prospecting and inbound demand. You will not be a lead-qualification-only BDR: you own a number, and you hit it through a mix of outbound-sourced and inbound-converted SQLs.
This is an ideal role for someone who is self-motivated and driven, wants to build the foundational skills — prospecting, discovery, objection handling, and pipeline management — needed to become a top-performing Account Executive, and either has experience on or genuinely wants to work on a smaller, high-ownership team.
What You'll Do
Outbound SQLs
Own a defined territory, working closely with your assigned AEs on account strategy and target account selection
Research and build target account and contact lists within our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), using tools like LinkedIn, Apollo, and other prospecting/intent data sources
Execute multi-touch outbound sequences (cold calls, personalized emails, LinkedIn/social outreach) to generate net-new sales conversations
Personalize outreach based on account research, trigger events, buyer persona insights, and intent signals rather than relying on generic templates
Consistently hit weekly/monthly activity KPIs (calls, emails, connects) and outbound-sourced SQL targets
Inbound SQLs
Respond to and qualify inbound leads (demo requests, content downloads, webinar registrants) within SLA
Run structured discovery calls to qualify leads against ICP and buying-stage criteria (e.g. MEDDPICC)
Convert qualified inbound and outbound conversations into SQLs — qualified conversations for your assigned AEs that move into the discovery phase of pipeline
Pipeline & Reporting
Maintain accurate, real-time activity and pipeline data in Salesforce (SFDC)
Partner with Marketing on campaign follow-up, event pre/post outreach, and lead-source feedback
Partner with assigned AEs on territory strategy and account-based outbound plays
Occasionally represent Thought Industries at sponsored events, webinars, and field marketing activities to drive attendance and generate on-site pipeline
Required:
Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
2+ years of B2B SaaS sales, sales development, or related experience
Demonstrated success with proactive outbound prospecting (cold calling and cold emailing), not just inbound follow-up
Self-motivated and driven. Coachable to handle rejection and iterate on messaging and approach
Strong verbal and written communication skills; comfortable running discovery/qualification over phone/video
Working knowledge of Salesforce and Google Workspace
Preferred:
Familiarity with Gong, LinkedIn, Apollo, and other intent-based prospecting tools is a plus
Experience selling into the Learning Technology space or to customer education/training buyers
Experience with account-based prospecting or target account selling
Success Looks Like
Consistently meeting/exceeding a blended SQL quota (outbound-sourced + inbound-converted)
Meeting activity benchmarks for calls, emails, and social touches each week
High-quality meetings → opportunity conversion rate (SQLs that actually progress into discovery and beyond)

Employment type
Full-time

Work arrangement
Yes