A Day in the Life of a Business Development Representative at Sift Science

In this series, we sit down with Sifties to find out what a typical day in their role is like, how they overcome any challenges they might face, and what it’s like to work at Sift Science.

Sameer Jauhar is a Business Development Representative (BDR) in our San Francisco office. Read about what it’s like to be on the frontlines of bringing in new business and educating prospects on our products.

What do you do at Sift, and what is your team’s goal?

The team I’m on helps identify, educate, and convince online businesses to leverage machine learning to understand if any given user is trustworthy or fraudulent. The goal is to set up our New Business team to build great relationships with future customers and ultimately drive revenue growth.

Give us a little background on yourself: What did you do before joining Sift Science?

I spent the last 22 years of pre-adult life in Michigan. It wasn’t until sophomore year at Michigan State University where I started building strong habits and a base-level knowledge to set myself up to perform at a high level in a professional setting. So I did a lot of reading, stumbled on startups and tech, and made it a goal to end up out here.

How does your day generally begin?

Like everyone, glance at my email. Then I prioritize my focus on conversations with prospects who responded overnight (engineers stay up late). That transitions well into focusing on my main responsibility: outreach to net new businesses and individuals that could benefit from Sift.

While no two days are ever exactly alike, walk us through a typical workday as a BDR.

Like I mentioned above, the focus of your day should be outreach to new customers. This includes researching the company, the individual, and the market to craft a highly targeted message. In a flurry of cold, unpersonalized emails, this allows us to stand out by taking a consultative sales approach from the start.

If you’re good enough, you’ll get these prospects on calls and it’s your duty to empathize with their business problem and how Sift can deliver, ultimately convincing them to continue the conversation.

Last, since our team is growing fast, you’ll have to dedicate time to working on projects that unlock the institutional knowledge you’ve gathered. This empowers the future generation of BDRs to perform at a high level.

What are some challenges you experience in your role, and how do you overcome them?

Like any sales role, you have to manage your emotions and accept the fact that not everything is under your control. You conquer this by diversifying your risk, not letting a few decisions be the reason you are successful or not, and consistently communicating with teammates for ideas.

Additionally, the BDR role is an entry-level role in tech and can be a lot of hard work. You get past this hurdle by understanding the bigger picture. It’s clear that the individuals that have graduated from Sift’s BDR program are bright spots for the business. The reason is because of the combination of skills they gathered during their time as a BDR – active listening, work ethic, and curiosity.

What’s your favorite thing about the work that you do?

Delivering an original insight. Startups are driven by pivoting to new ideas. Being on the frontlines, communicating with the market, you can start to pattern match and inform management of new strategic directions we need to pursue.

Why is Sift Science a great team to join?

It has some of the best teammates you can find in this industry. Just check our Glassdoor rating.

In an office setting, I know I have to bring my A game every day because I’m working next to high-caliber individuals that don’t accept mediocrity. In a personal setting, I moved to the city without knowing many people. A year in, I’m happy to say that is no longer the case because of all the Sifties I can call friends.