An SDR playbook is the document that says how your sales development team is structured, what a rep does each day, which tools they use, which numbers they are judged on, and how you hire and ramp them. The version below is the one we would write for a B2B SaaS team in France or Europe in 2026, built on what we measured across 1,000,000 cold calls and what we run at Sonik.

Team structure: pods, ratios and who owns what

The SDR role exists because opening and closing are different jobs with different rhythms. Keep them separate, but keep them close.

The structure that works in our experience for teams under 30 reps: pods of two SDRs and one or two AEs, sharing a territory or a segment. The SDR calls below the decision line and books; the AE calls above it and closes. Above 30 reps, the inbound and outbound split (SDR versus BDR) starts to make sense; below that, one role with two lists is simpler.

One SDR manager for every six to eight reps. Fewer and the manager becomes a senior rep; more and nobody listens to calls.

The daily cadence: three calling blocks and 20 conversations

The unit of SDR work is a conversation, not a dial. Our north star is 20 conversations per rep per day.

The day is built around the slots where people answer. In our benchmark, 4pm connects at 15.8% and 10am at 14%, against 9.8% at 8am and an 11.3% average. Founders pick up around 10am, HR around 1pm, marketing around 4pm. So:

• 9:00 to 10:00: list review, prep on the day's signals, callbacks from yesterday.
• 10:00 to 11:30: calling block 1, founders and sales leaders.
• 11:30 to 12:30: emails and LinkedIn touches that reference the morning's calls.
• 13:00 to 14:00: calling block 2, HR and ops personas.
• 15:30 to 17:00: calling block 3, marketing and the rest of the list.
• 17:00 to 17:30: CRM notes, next steps, tomorrow's list.

With a parallel dialer the three blocks produce 20 to 25 conversations. With a manual dialer they produce six to eight, and the playbook fails on arithmetic before it fails on skill.

Lists and signals: what a rep calls

A static ICP list is where SDR days go to die. Every rep calls the same 2,000 "VP Sales, SaaS, 50 to 500 employees" as the three vendors next door.

The playbook should name the signal lists, in order: closed-lost deals at 6 to 12 months, contacts who changed jobs, website visitors from target accounts, hiring posts for the role you serve, dormant leads after a demo, inbound that never converted. Reps use about 20% of the signals already in their CRM; at Sonik, half of our pipeline comes from the rest.

Each list has a persona, a slot and a trigger-based opener. 65% of reps open by explaining what they sell; trigger-based openers reach a 7 to 10% meeting rate versus 2 to 3% for the pitch. The opener is in the playbook, per list.

Tooling and metrics: five layers, five numbers

The stack: five layers, no overlap

An SDR stack in 2026 has five layers and should not have more.

1. CRM as the source of truth, with the signals above as fields, not as spreadsheets.
2. Data and enrichment, with a waterfall for mobile numbers; in Europe the mobile match rate decides the connect rate.
3. Dialer, parallel, with recording, voicemail drop, local presence and callback handling.
4. Sequencer for the email and LinkedIn touches, driven by call outcomes.
5. Conversation intelligence: transcripts, summaries, scorecards, used in the weekly coaching hour.

If two tools do the same job, reps use neither properly. Pick one per layer.

The metrics: five that predict revenue

Judge reps on outcomes they control and that lead to pipeline:

• Conversations per day: 20 is the target, 10 is the floor.
• Connect rate: 11 to 20% depending on persona and slot; below 8% is a data or caller-ID problem, not a rep problem.
• Meeting rate per conversation: 7% and up with trigger-based openers.
• Show rate: 70% and up.
• Pipeline created per month, in euros, accepted by the AE.

Dials, emails sent and talk time go on a secondary dashboard the manager reads, not the one reps are paid on.

Hiring, ramp and compliance in Europe

Hire for curiosity and resilience, test with a live call in the interview, and expect the first booked meeting in week two if the playbook is real. A written 30/60/90 plan, a peer buddy who is not the manager and recorded calls from day one cut ramp time; a rep learning from ten of their own calls a week beats one learning from a deck.

Compensation in France and most of Europe runs a fixed and variable split, with the variable paid partly on meetings held and partly on opportunities accepted. Pay only on bookings and you buy no-shows.

Compliance is part of the playbook, not a legal appendix. In France, B2B cold calling is legal on the basis of legitimate interest, with clear identification of the caller and an opt-out honoured immediately; consumer rules do not apply to professional numbers. Call recording requires informing the people on the line and a retention policy. Under GDPR, keep a record of where each number came from. Build these into the dialer settings so no rep has to remember them.

How Sonik approaches the SDR playbook

Sonik is the dialer, signal and coaching layers of the stack above, built for European teams. CRM signals become lists that refresh themselves; the parallel dialer runs the calling blocks and gives reps the 5x conversations the 20-a-day target needs; AI call prep shows the trigger as the line connects; recordings and summaries feed the weekly coaching hour.

Caller identification, opt-out handling and recording notices are settings, not rep habits. The playbook lives in the tool the rep uses all day rather than in a document nobody opens after onboarding.

Conclusion

A playbook is a team structure, a daily cadence, named lists, five tools, five metrics and the rules that keep you compliant. Write it on four pages, not forty. This week, write the daily cadence section and check it against the clock: if 20 conversations a day do not fit, fix the tooling before you hire.