Well represented: outbound prospecting into North American and European markets, lead qualification, CRM discipline, multi channel sequencing across email, phone and social, and inbound qualification.
Many candidates have worked for international software companies and are familiar with the standard tooling and with structured qualification frameworks.
English proficiency here is a practical advantage rather than a marketing claim. Written outbound in particular benefits, because the message does not read as translated.
Thinner: enterprise sales development into large accounts with long committee driven cycles, and technical sales development for products requiring deep domain knowledge.
Hiring & Search
Hiring sales development for a B2B software company in the Philippines
In short
The Philippines has a large, experienced outbound sales population with strong English and genuine familiarity with US and UK buyers. The failure mode is not capability, it is role design: unclear ideal customer profiles, no feedback loop from sales, and commission structures that assume a market the person cannot reach at their working hours.
Sales development is the function where the difference between a well designed role and a poorly designed one shows up fastest. The Philippine market can staff it well. Whether it works depends almost entirely on decisions you make before the first hire.
What the market supplies
The role design decisions that determine the outcome
Define the ideal customer profile precisely. A sales development representative given a vague target burns 3 months learning by rejection. Give them firmographics, triggers and named accounts.
Decide the working hours around the buyer, not the seller. Reaching a US buyer by phone from Manila means an evening or night shift, which carries a statutory night differential of at least 10 percent for hours between 10pm and 6am. Email and social sequencing can run on Manila hours. Choose deliberately and price it in.
Build the feedback loop. A representative who books meetings and never hears what happened cannot improve. Weekly review of what converted and what did not is the single highest leverage management input for this role.
Give them the messaging. Expecting a new hire to invent positioning for a product they have known for 2 weeks is the most common cause of poor early results.
Decide the working hours around the buyer, not the seller. Reaching a US buyer by phone from Manila means an evening or night shift, which carries a statutory night differential of at least 10 percent for hours between 10pm and 6am. Email and social sequencing can run on Manila hours. Choose deliberately and price it in.
Build the feedback loop. A representative who books meetings and never hears what happened cannot improve. Weekly review of what converted and what did not is the single highest leverage management input for this role.
Give them the messaging. Expecting a new hire to invent positioning for a product they have known for 2 weeks is the most common cause of poor early results.
How to interview
Ask them to prospect you. Give them your company and 15 minutes, then read what they would send. This is the whole job and it is remarkable how rarely it is tested.
Ask about their worst month and what changed after it. Resilience in this role is a skill, not a trait, and the answer shows whether they have developed it.
Ask what they do when a sequence stops working. Candidates who only know one motion will stall.
Ask how they qualified out an opportunity that looked good. Sales development people who never disqualify pass unqualified meetings to sales and destroy trust in the function.
Ask about their worst month and what changed after it. Resilience in this role is a skill, not a trait, and the answer shows whether they have developed it.
Ask what they do when a sequence stops working. Candidates who only know one motion will stall.
Ask how they qualified out an opportunity that looked good. Sales development people who never disqualify pass unqualified meetings to sales and destroy trust in the function.
Compensation that holds up
Base plus variable is standard, and the variable component needs to be tied to something the person controls.
Paying on qualified meetings held rather than closed revenue is usually the right structure for this role, because closing depends on the sales team and the cycle length, neither of which the representative influences.
Pay is set and funded by you as the client, benchmarked to what the role commands in the international market rather than to national averages. National wage data describes the domestic employment base and is not the reference point for internationally recruited commercial roles.
Whatever the structure, statutory obligations sit underneath it. 13th month pay is calculated on basic salary, and statutory employer contributions apply regardless of variable pay.
Paying on qualified meetings held rather than closed revenue is usually the right structure for this role, because closing depends on the sales team and the cycle length, neither of which the representative influences.
Pay is set and funded by you as the client, benchmarked to what the role commands in the international market rather than to national averages. National wage data describes the domestic employment base and is not the reference point for internationally recruited commercial roles.
Whatever the structure, statutory obligations sit underneath it. 13th month pay is calculated on basic salary, and statutory employer contributions apply regardless of variable pay.
Where it goes wrong
Hiring 1 representative and expecting pipeline in month 1. Ramp is real, typically 60 to 90 days before output stabilises.
Measuring activity instead of outcomes. Call volume targets produce call volume.
Treating the role as junior forever. The strongest sales development people want a path into closing or into management. If there is none, you are training talent for your competitors.
Measuring activity instead of outcomes. Call volume targets produce call volume.
Treating the role as junior forever. The strongest sales development people want a path into closing or into management. If there is none, you are training talent for your competitors.
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