Diary of an IT Services Seller: Calendar Clowns

Another week. Another pile of meetings.

Eleven booked for me by the SDR team. Each one flagged as “high intent.” “Engaged contacts.” “Top accounts,” apparently.

But when I joined the calls?

Wrong job title. No budget. No actual interest. No idea why they were even there. Some of them thought it was a job interview.

This isn’t pipeline. It’s calendar clutter.

And the worst part? It’s not even really the SDRs’ fault.

Most are smart, eager, and doing exactly what they’ve been told to do. The problem is the system and the metrics it rewards. Clown show outcomes start with clown show incentives.

The SDR Disconnect

I am not against outbound. Done well, it works. But too often, SDRs don’t report into Sales, they report into Marketing. Which means they’re measured on volume, not value.

More meetings = more “performance.” More names in the CRM. More dashboards lit up. Whether the meeting has any real chance of turning into revenue? Not their problem.

So when things stall in the sales stage, it’s not the meeting that gets questioned, it’s my follow-up!

And when the deals do land? Everyone else races to claim credit:

“Oh, that company clicked on a campaign last month…”
“We sent them a whitepaper, that counts too, right?”
“We should be attributed for that.”

The Real Villain? Misalignment at the Top.

This isn’t about bad SDRs. It’s about leadership decisions.

When SDRs are kept separate from Sales and activity is rewarded instead of outcomes, the result isn’t pipeline, it’s just noise.

And sellers end up juggling calendars instead of closing deals.

The Real Cost?

• Time wasted on non-opportunities
• Sellers demoralised by meaningless calendars
• Leadership decisions made on inflated, inaccurate metrics
• Customer experience degraded by misaligned teams

If You’re a Sales Leader, Ask Yourself:

• Who really owns the outcomes of your booked meetings?
• Are you tracking activity or actual impact?
• Do your SDRs serve Sales or Marketing’s report?

Want to Put an End to Calendar Clowns?

At Baby Blue, we help sales leaders reconnect with what truly drives results.

We realign SDRs under sales leadership. We rebuild trust in pipeline quality. We create frameworks where good meetings lead to great outcomes and where sellers can get back to what they’re actually paid to do: close deals.

Led by Chris Smith and Lee Bailey, we’ve worked inside real sales organisations, not just spreadsheets and we know how to fix what’s broken.

And if you’re a seller...

If you’ve had enough of KPI-driven, clown-infested meetings and want to work in an environment that values quality over noise, we should talk.

At Baby Blue, we work with companies who still believe in sharp thinking, meaningful conversations, and high-impact selling.

Contact us. Your next chapter might just start here.

📩info@babyblueitconsulting.com

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