How to Get Into Business Development: 3 Steps to Your First BDR Job

The most common way into business development is to start as a business development representative (BDR). It's an entry-level sales job where you find new customers and book meetings for account executives. You get there in three steps: learn the prospecting skills and tools, build proof you can do the work, and run your job search like outreach.

Our recommendation for step one: the CourseCareers Technology Sales course. It's our course, so we're biased, but it teaches the BDR job directly: prospecting, cold calls, cold email, LinkedIn outreach, sales tools, and the job search. It's self-paced, takes about 4 to 12 weeks, and starts with a free intro course.

One catch: "business development" means different jobs at different companies, so we start there. This page sticks to breaking into business development. For the bigger picture on tech sales careers, see our step-by-step roadmap for getting into tech sales.

Key takeaways

• "Business development" depends on the company. In tech, a BDR is an entry-level rep who prospects for new customers. Elsewhere, it often means partnership roles that want experience.
• BDR and SDR are often the same job. Where they differ, a common split is BDRs on outbound prospecting and SDRs on inbound leads.
• The three steps: learn the skills and tools, build proof, and run an outreach-style job search aimed at sales leaders.
• Median on-target earnings (OTE) for SDRs were $80,000 in The Bridge Group's 2025 report, about $55,000 base plus $25,000 variable. BDR pay is similar when it's the same job.
• The usual next step is account executive. Among reps who were promoted, the median wait was 12 months, but only 22.3% of those Unify tracked had reached AE by mid-2026.
• Our pick for beginners: the CourseCareers Technology Sales course. It's our own course, and for $499 it teaches the BDR skills on this page plus the job search.

What's on this page

• What business development means
• BDR vs SDR vs partnerships roles
• How to get into business development in 3 steps
• For students and career changers
• What business development reps make
• The business development career path
• Who it isn't for
• Why we recommend our course
• Frequently asked questions

What Business Development Means at Different Companies

Business development is the work of finding new ways for a company to grow. In practice, the title covers two very different jobs: entry-level prospecting roles at tech companies, and experienced partnership roles at many other companies.

In tech sales: the BDR job

At software and other tech companies, business development usually means sales development. A business development representative researches companies that fit the ideal customer profile, reaches the right people by phone, email, and LinkedIn, and books meetings. An account executive (AE) runs the demo and closes the deal. This is the job behind many entry-level business development openings, and companies expect to train you.

At other companies: partnerships and deals

At many companies, a business development manager builds partnerships instead of booking meetings. That can mean signing resellers, setting up co-marketing deals, or opening a new market. These roles lean on industry knowledge and a network, so they're usually a later step, not a first job.

How to tell which one a job post means

• It's a BDR job if the post mentions cold calls, outbound prospecting, booking meetings for AEs, or a monthly goal for meetings or opportunities.
• It's a partnerships job if it talks about managing partner relationships, negotiating agreements, or running channel and alliance programs, and asks for years in the industry.

BDR vs SDR vs Partnerships Roles

BDRs and SDRs usually do the same core work: find prospects, start conversations, and book qualified meetings. A partnerships role is a different job that usually comes later.

Since BDR and SDR overlap so much, search for both titles, plus close cousins like account development rep and market development rep. Our rundown of entry-level tech sales job titles explains each one. To see what the work looks like hour by hour, read what a sales development representative actually does all day.

How to Get Into Business Development in 3 Steps

Getting your first business development job comes down to three steps: learn the skills and tools, build proof you can use them, and reach hiring managers directly. The first two often take a few weeks to a few months, depending on your hours.

Step 1: Learn the skills and tools

BDR hiring managers expect to teach you their product, not what a cold call is. Learn these before you apply:

• Prospecting: picking companies that fit, then finding the person there who owns the problem you solve
• Cold calling: a quick opener, one good question, and a clear ask for a meeting
• Cold email and LinkedIn messages: short notes about the buyer's world, not your product's features
• Qualifying: checking for a real need, the right person, and good timing, often with BANT (budget, authority, need, timeline)
• Objection handling: staying calm and curious when someone says "not interested"
• Sales tools: what a CRM, a sales engagement platform, and a contact data tool each do

Tool practice costs nothing: HubSpot's CRM has a free version, Salesforce Trailhead is free to learn on, and so is every HubSpot Academy certification course. For drills, see how to build SDR skills with zero experience. Here's how the main ways to learn business development compare:

Our recommendation: for most people, a focused self-paced course is the quickest way to learn the BDR job without quitting work or spending years in school. We built the CourseCareers Technology Sales course for exactly this, and it costs $499.

Step 2: Build proof you can do the job

Without sales experience, you need evidence instead of claims. The best proof looks like the work a BDR does in week one.

• A prospecting brief: pick a company you'd like to work for. Note who they sell to, three job titles they likely target, and one timely reason to contact a buyer.
• A sample outreach sequence for one of those buyers: two short emails, a LinkedIn note, and a 30-second call opener.
• A LinkedIn headline naming BDR and SDR roles, with any free certificate listed.
• A one-page résumé that turns customer-facing jobs into results. Our SDR résumé guide shows a format that works without sales experience.

Step 3: Run your job search like outreach

Clicking apply and waiting is the slowest route in, especially without a degree. A BDR's job is to reach busy people who didn't ask to hear from them, so do the same in your search:

1. List 10 to 20 companies hiring BDRs or SDRs, ideally with products you can explain in a sentence.
2. Submit the online application first, so the hiring manager can find you in their system.
3. Find the person who runs the team: the BDR or SDR manager, the head of sales, or at a small company, the founder. Senior people have more room to overlook a missing degree.
4. Send a short, personal note by email or LinkedIn: why that company, how you've prepared, and a link to your sample sequence.
5. Follow up for about two weeks by email, phone, and LinkedIn, and stop if they say no. Logging each touch in a free CRM doubles as tool practice.

That's how I landed my first tech sales job at 18, without a degree. The job posts I studied all wanted a college degree but rarely cared which one, so I treated it as a filter, not a skill. For about a month, roughly 12 hours a day, I studied prospecting, cold calling, and how sales cycles run, mostly from books, courses, YouTube videos, and blogs. I put it all on a profile page that stood in for the degree, then reached out to the people who ran the sales teams.

Once interviews start, expect a mock cold call, so research the company's product and customers and practice your opener out loud. What it takes to get hired as a first-time SDR covers the interview in detail.

Business Development for Students and Career Changers

Students and career changers get in the same way, through BDR, SDR, or sales internship roles. What changes is the proof you can point to.

If you're a student

Look for sales or business development internships at software companies, and apply for BDR jobs before you graduate. An internship gives you real outreach reps, and at some companies it leads to a full-time offer. Campus jobs that involve selling, recruiting, or fundraising count as proof. You don't need a business major.

If you're changing careers

Customer-facing work carries over well. Retail, serving, call centers, and recruiting all involve talking to strangers, handling rejection, and hitting targets. Put numbers on that work in your résumé, then add the proof from step 2. Industry knowledge helps too: a former nurse already speaks the language of a healthcare software company's buyers.

What Business Development Reps Make

Entry-level business development reps in tech usually earn a base salary plus commission. In The Bridge Group's 2025 report, median on-target earnings (OTE) for SDRs were $80,000, about $55,000 base and $25,000 variable (The Bridge Group).

RepVue, a site where sales reps report their own pay, lists a $60,000 median base and $85,500 median OTE for SDRs (RepVue, data updated October 2026). When a BDR job is the same work as an SDR job, expect pay in the same range.

OTE assumes you hit 100% of your quota. About 60% of SDRs hit quota in The Bridge Group's 2025 report. So build your budget on the base salary and count commission as a bonus until you're hitting your number.

Partnership-focused business development roles vary too much by industry and seniority for one benchmark, and most aren't entry-level jobs.

The Business Development Career Path

Most people who start as BDRs aim for account executive, then bigger deals or management. Others move into partnerships, account management, customer success, or sales operations.

• BDR or SDR: you create pipeline for account executives.
• Account executive: you run demos and close deals against a revenue quota. Median AE OTE was $200,000 in The Bridge Group's 2026 report.
• Senior AE, BDR manager, or partnerships manager: bigger accounts, a team to coach, or deals with partner companies.
• Sales director or VP: you own a team's number and its hiring.

Promotion takes patience. Unify tracked roughly 180,000 people in the U.S. whose careers started in SDR or BDR roles. Those who reached AE took a median of 12 months, and 56% got the promotion without changing employers. Still, only 22.3% of the full group had reached AE by mid-2026 (Unify).

To move up faster, keep learning on the job: ask for weekly call reviews, listen to your best AEs' calls, and test one new opener at a time.

Who Business Development Isn't For

The BDR job is a grind, and it's not for everyone. The median SDR in The Bridge Group's 2025 report made roughly 112 outreach attempts a day to land around 4 quality conversations (The Bridge Group).

• If hearing no all day would wear you down, think hard before you apply.
• If you need a fully predictable paycheck, remember that part of your pay depends on quota.
• If you want to stay in one seat for years, know that turnover is high. In the same report, median SDR attrition was 40%, counting the 16% who left through promotion.

If you like clear goals and bounce back fast, it's a strong place to start.

Why We Recommend the CourseCareers Technology Sales Course

We recommend our CourseCareers Technology Sales course to anyone aiming for a first BDR or SDR job. It runs about 4 to 12 weeks at your own pace. You'll learn sales basics, cold calling, cold email, LinkedIn outreach, discovery, and the CRM and sales engagement tools teams use. The Career Launchpad section walks you through the job search, and you finish with a final exam and a certificate of completion.

Your instructor, Trent Dressel, broke into tech sales at a major SaaS company without any connections and reached senior account executive within four years. He's also published more than 900 YouTube videos on tech sales careers. It's $499 one time or four payments of $150 every two weeks, with a free intro course first. You have 14 days to switch courses or get a refund, as long as you haven't taken the final exam.

We surveyed graduates for our 2025 Outcomes Report. Graduates of our Technology Sales course who landed a job reported an average starting OTE of about $68,000, up from about $45,000 before the course. OTE counts expected commission, so their base pay was lower. These are self-reported answers from graduates who had landed a job, so they don't show what every student earns.

What it doesn't do: it can't promise you a job, and it won't send the outreach or sit the interviews for you. It also won't stand in for the experience senior partnership roles ask for.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you learn business development?
Start with the skills a BDR uses every day: prospecting, cold calling, cold email, LinkedIn outreach, qualifying, and a CRM. Learn them through self-study, a bootcamp, or a self-paced online course, then keep learning on the job. Practice beats theory, so write real emails and rehearse real calls.

How can students get into business development?
Apply for sales or business development internships at software companies, and for BDR and SDR jobs before you graduate. Build proof in school: a free HubSpot certificate, a sample outreach sequence, and any campus job where you sold or recruited. A business major isn't required.

Is a BDR the same as an SDR?
Often, yes. Many companies use the two titles for the same entry-level job. Where they differ, a common split is BDRs on outbound prospecting and SDRs on inbound leads. Read the duties in the job post, not just the title.

Do you need a degree to get into business development?
Not for BDR and SDR jobs. The work doesn't require one, though some employers still list a degree in job posts. Putting proof of your skills in front of a sales manager directly is usually the best way past that screen.

Is business development a good career?
It can be. The BDR job pays a base plus commission, with median SDR OTE of $80,000 in The Bridge Group's 2025 report, and it can lead to account executive and partnership roles. The trade-offs are daily rejection, a monthly quota, and high turnover.

What's the best tech sales course for beginners?
Our top pick is our own CourseCareers Technology Sales course, so weigh our bias. It covers the BDR and SDR skills on this page, from prospecting and cold calls to CRM tools, discovery, and the job search. It's $499, self-paced over about 4 to 12 weeks, and there's a free intro course to try first.

Sources

• The Bridge Group: 2025 SDR Models and Metrics Report (published February 2025)
• The Bridge Group: 2026 AE Models, Motions and Metrics (published June 2026)
• RepVue: Sales development representative salaries (data updated October 2026)
• Unify: The Path to AE (August 2026)
• HubSpot: Sales training and certifications
• HubSpot: Free CRM
• Salesforce Trailhead
• CourseCareers Outcomes Report 2025 (survey of CourseCareers graduates)