30/60/90 planReviewed by Adroit Staffing editorial reviewPractice guidance, no data claims8 min read
The short answer
In the first 30 days an SDR learns the customer and earns the right to contact them, with quality of research measured rather than volume. In days 31 to 60 they run their own outbound under coaching, measured on conversation quality and follow-through. From day 61 they own a full activity-to-meeting cycle and a meeting target becomes reasonable, because by then you know their calls stand up.
Key facts
- Day 30 focus
- Customer understanding and message quality
- Day 60 focus
- Own outbound with weekly coaching
- Day 90 focus
- Full cycle ownership and a meeting target
- Written plan
- Shared with the hire before day one
SDR onboarding plan
Write the plan before the offer is signed and send it with the contract. Review it in a scheduled weekly one-to-one, and change the plan when the evidence says the phase is done rather than when the calendar says so.
Ticks stay in this tab. Copy, print or download the plan — nothing is uploaded.
SDR onboarding — onboarding plan
Adroit Staffing — adroitstaffing.co.uk
Phase 1
Days 1–30 — understand the buyer
Be able to explain, unprompted, what the customer is trying to fix and why they would take a call.
Activities
- Listen to six recorded discovery calls chosen by the manager
- Shadow two live AE calls and write up what the buyer cared about
- Build a list of 50 accounts and explain the reason each one is on it
- Send first outbound sequences on lower-priority accounts, reviewed before sending
Milestones
- Delivers a five-minute account walkthrough to the manager
- First 25 personalised touches sent and reviewed
- Qualified-meeting definition confirmed with the AE they support
Manager responsibilities
- All tooling access live before the start date
- Weekly one-to-one in the diary for the whole 90 days
- Two call reviews a week, on recordings, with written feedback
- Name the buddy for questions that should not go to the manager
Product, market and CRM learning
- Ideal customer profile, and the accounts that are deliberately out of scope
- The three problems the product actually solves, in the customer's words
- Competitor landscape at a level that survives one follow-up question
- CRM hygiene rules: what a contact, account and activity record must contain
Enablement priorities
- Message and value-proposition coaching, twice weekly
- Objection practice against the two most common brush-offs
- Written examples of a good and a poor first email, side by side
What good progress looks like
- Explains a prospect's problem without mentioning a feature
- Personalisation is specific to the account, not the industry
- Asks questions that show they listened to the recorded calls
Measured in this phase: Research and message quality, reviewed by the manager. No meeting target in this phase.
Phase 2
Days 31–60 — own the conversations
Run their own outbound end to end with coaching, and hold a live conversation without a script.
Activities
- Own daily outbound across their account list
- Cold calls on target accounts with the manager listening weekly
- Book and hand over first meetings using the agreed definition
- Attend the AE pipeline review to see what happens after handover
Milestones
- First qualified meeting accepted by the AE without rework
- Handles the two most common objections unaided
- CRM records pass a spot check with no missing fields
Manager responsibilities
- Weekly call review continues, now on live calls
- Give feedback on the handover quality from the AE, not just the count
- Correct any drift towards volume over quality immediately
Product, market and CRM learning
- Why deals stall after the first meeting
- How the AE qualifies, so the SDR stops booking the wrong meetings
- Sequencer and dialler mechanics well enough to self-diagnose
Enablement priorities
- Live call coaching, one session a week
- Peer listening: sit with the strongest caller on the team
- Written objection responses for their own accounts, not generic ones
What good progress looks like
- Meetings are accepted rather than argued about
- Follows up without being chased
- Can say which accounts are not worth working, and why
Measured in this phase: Conversation quality, meeting acceptance rate and follow-through. Activity volume is monitored for consistency, not scored.
Phase 3
Days 61–90 — carry the number
Own a full activity-to-meeting cycle against a target they had a say in setting.
Activities
- Full account ownership with self-managed prioritisation
- Weekly forecast of meetings expected, with reasoning
- Contribute one improvement to the team's messaging or sequences
Milestones
- Hits an agreed meeting target for two consecutive weeks
- Runs their own account review in the team meeting
- Trains a newer starter on one part of the process
Manager responsibilities
- Set the target jointly and write down what happens if it is missed
- Move from twice-weekly coaching to weekly
- Hold a formal 90-day review against this plan, in writing
Product, market and CRM learning
- Territory and prioritisation: which accounts get the effort and why
- Basic pipeline maths for their own patch
Enablement priorities
- Coaching shifts from message to prioritisation and resilience
- Career conversation: what the path to AE requires here
What good progress looks like
- Predicts their own week within a reasonable margin
- Quality has not dropped now the target exists
- Raises problems before the manager notices them
Measured in this phase: Meetings accepted against target, quality maintained, and forecast accuracy on their own week.
When to introduce each measure
Sequencing guidance rather than targets. Set the numbers against your own cycle length and conversion rates.
| Measure | Introduce when | Why then |
|---|---|---|
| Research and message quality | Week one | It is the only thing they can control before they have volume, and it is what makes later activity worth having. |
| Activity consistency | Week three, monitored not scored | Consistency is a habit worth building early; scoring it early buys volume at the cost of quality. |
| Meeting acceptance rate | Once the AE has accepted a handover without rework | It measures the thing the business actually wants, rather than bookings. |
| Meeting target | Once conversations hold up in review, usually in the second month | A target set before the calls are good produces meetings nobody wants. |
| Pipeline contribution | Once one full sales cycle has passed since their first meeting | Before that, the number reflects the AE's cycle rather than the SDR's work. |
Checklists
Before day one
Owner: Manager
0 of 6 ticked
Week one
Owner: New hire
0 of 6 ticked
Manager weekly rhythm
Owner: Manager
0 of 4 ticked
Common onboarding failure modes
- Target too early
- Meetings are booked, AEs quietly stop accepting them, and nobody says so for a month. What to do: Hold the target until call reviews pass, and measure acceptance rather than bookings from the start.
- Tooling not ready
- Week one is spent chasing access, and the hire concludes the business is disorganised. What to do: Test every login the week before the start date, with a named owner for each.
- Dashboard coaching
- Reviews discuss activity counts because nobody has listened to a call. What to do: Review recordings weekly. If there is no time for that, there is no time for an SDR.
- No buddy
- Basic questions go unasked because the only person to ask is the person assessing them. What to do: Name a peer, tell the peer, and put the first three sessions in the diary.
- Silence on a missed checkpoint
- Two checkpoints slip, the conversation happens in month six, and it is a surprise to nobody except the hire. What to do: Have the direct conversation the week it happens, in writing, with what needs to change.
On ramp times, and where hiring meets onboarding
We do not publish a ramp-time figure here. Credible ramp benchmarks depend on cycle length, deal size and market, and anything we cannot source and date does not go on the page. Use your own last three hires as the baseline instead. What we can say is that onboarding failure and hiring failure are usually the same failure: a role that was never defined in writing. The Adroit Five Stage Screening Process produces that definition before the search starts, which is why the plan below can be written before day one.
Why a meeting target on day one backfires
An SDR measured on meetings from week one will book meetings, and a proportion of them will waste an Account Executive's time and damage the brand in the accounts you care most about. Hold the target until the conversations are good, then set it. You lose two or three weeks of activity and gain a seller whose meetings convert.
The first week matters more than the first month
- Access to CRM, sequencer, dialler and email working before the start date, not requested on day one.
- Six recorded calls to listen to, chosen by the manager, with a note on what to notice in each.
- One buddy who is not the manager, named in the calendar invite.
- A written definition of a qualified meeting that the AE team agrees with.
Common questions
- How long should an SDR have before carrying a target?
- Set the switch by evidence rather than by date: when their research, message and objection handling hold up in review, the target is fair. For most teams that lands in the second month, but it depends on cycle length and how much support they have.
- Should a new SDR cold call in week one?
- Yes, on lower-priority accounts, with the manager listening. Waiting until week four builds anxiety and delays the only feedback that matters. Keep the accounts you cannot afford to burn out of the practice pool.
- What if the hire is strong on activity but weak on conversations?
- That is the most common failure pattern and it is coachable if you catch it in month one. Review recordings rather than dashboards weekly, and change the message before you change the person.
Sources and review
- Written by
- Adroit Staffing
- Reviewed by
- Adroit Staffing editorial review
- First published
- Last reviewed
This page is practice guidance from our own Sales and GTM recruitment work. It makes no claims about current market data, so it cites no external figures.