The global home for SDR leadership.

The State of Sales Development 2026 is SDR Leaders Global's benchmark of how sales development teams are actually run. 574 SDR leaders across North America, EMEA, APAC and the UK took part between August 26 and September 20, 2026, covering headcount, org design, attainment, pipeline share, tenure, compensation, tooling and AI. The headline: the SDR function is growing (net +30, positive in every region), it hits plan more often than the sales teams it feeds (82% vs 76.5% attainment), and budget and org charts explain little of its performance. What does show up is how the function is run: enablement, activity load, coverage and work environment. Those matter most for tenure, and most SDRs leave at about the point they would be promoted. Use it to benchmark your team against your region, build the case for enablement, and bring real numbers into your next budget conversation. Sponsored by memoryBlue.

The EU AI Act now applies to how sales teams use AI, and the worst fines reach 7% of global annual turnover, above GDPR's. This field guide explains what it means for SDR teams in plain English. It covers scope, timeline and the four risk tiers, the one rule for outbound (when to disclose AI, with wording you can lift), the AI literacy duty and how to prove it, and the three things that get you in trouble. It also covers what to send when a big buyer asks how you use AI, eight common scenarios with the two questions that settle most of them, and why understanding this is an edge. Ships with the Excel Compliance Kit. Current as of September 2026. Educational, not legal advice. Based on the SDR Leaders of EMEA session with Baptiste Paulet, hosted by David Wilkins.

You used to win by closing. Now you win by making other people close. This playbook is for new managers who were promoted for being great reps and now feel out of their depth. It covers why being a great rep doesn't make you a great manager, how to stop cloning yourself, how to manage former peers, and how to coach the human rather than the dashboard. It teaches the GROW model and why it works, how to lock in commitments, which metrics actually matter and how to get from the number to the why. It also shows how to teach reps to self-coach, deal with small problems early, and keep growing yourself. Ships with the Excel Coaching Toolkit. Based on the SDR Leaders of EMEA session with Jack Blair and Bruce Zivan, hosted by David Wilkins.