The Situation
Paytrix had spent 18 months in product development and closed their first 12 customers through founder-led sales. By early 2026, inbound was picking up, the founder was close to capacity, and it was time to hire. The problem: they had no sales infrastructure, no hiring process, and no clear view of what kind of SDR would actually work for their motion.
The founder had tried posting a role on LinkedIn three months earlier. They’d had 90+ applicants, gotten to 12 interviews, and made zero hires. The process had taken 8 weeks and left the team more uncertain about the profile than when they started.
The Challenge
Three things were working against them:
- No defined ICP for hiring. The founder knew who their best customers were, but hadn’t translated that into a profile for who could sell to them. The job description described a generic SDR, not someone built for their specific motion.
- A slow, unstructured process. The previous attempt had no stages, no scoring, and no decision criteria. It relied on gut feel, which produced inconsistent feedback and no consensus on who to hire.
- No onboarding plan. Even if they’d hired someone, there was no ramp structure. The hires would have landed in a company with strong product knowledge but no sales playbook.
What We Did
GTM Playroom ran the engagement in three parallel tracks over six weeks.
Track 1 — Profile and Process Design (Week 1)
We ran a half-day working session with the founder and two of the existing customers to extract what made the best-fit buyer different. From that, we built the SDR profile brief: outbound-first, £30K–£45K ACV, buyer is CFO or Head of Finance at 50–200 person companies, sales cycle 6–10 weeks. We needed someone who could run multi-threaded outreach and survive a longer cycle without management hand-holding.
We designed a 3-stage interview process with a structured scorecard and a paid task (48-hour cold email exercise, £100 compensation). Same questions, same scoring rubric, for every candidate.
Track 2 — Sourcing (Weeks 1–3)
We ran outbound sourcing through LinkedIn and two SDR communities in parallel with a paid job post. In 10 days we had 47 vetted profiles. We screened 23 at stage 1, advanced 8 to stage 2, and 4 completed the task. The structured process meant decisions were fast and defensible.
| Stage | Previous Attempt | GTM Playroom Process |
|---|---|---|
| Candidate pool | 90+ applications, unscreened | 47 vetted, sourced to profile |
| Stage 1 screen | Ad hoc, no structure | 23 screened, 5 questions, scored |
| Stage 2 interview | 12 interviews, no rubric | 8 interviews, structured scorecard |
| Task / assessment | Not used | 4 completed, paid cold email task |
| Time to offer | 8 weeks · 0 hires | 11 days avg · 3 hires |
Track 3 — Ramp Design and Activation (Weeks 4–6)
While the hiring process ran, we built the SDR playbook and the 30/60/90-day ramp plan in parallel so it was ready on day one. The playbook covered: ICP card per segment, messaging framework, sequence templates, objection map, and call script framework. Week 1 was onboarding and shadowing. Week 3 was their first live sequences. Week 5 was their first booked meetings.
“The previous process left us more confused than when we started. This one gave us three hires and a playbook in the same time it used to take us to get through the first round of interviews.”James H. · CEO, Paytrix
The Results
At the 60-day mark post-hire, the three SDRs had collectively generated £420K in pipeline across 14 qualified opportunities. Two of the three were hitting or exceeding their weekly meeting targets. One was on an early track to AE promotion at the 6-month mark.
What Came Next
At the 90-day mark, the founder brought GTM Playroom back to scope the AE hire — the three SDRs were producing enough pipeline to justify a dedicated account executive. We also ran a one-day GTM strategy session to update the ICP definition based on what the SDRs had learned in their first three months of prospecting: two new sub-segments had emerged that weren’t in the original brief.
The company closed their Series A four months later, naming the structured sales motion as a key proof point for investors.