# James Simpson

James Simpson works in technology sales development. Simpson writes about SDR careers, appointment setting, and building and managing sales development teams.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/james-simpson/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-simpson-680a1921
- LinkedIn followers: 7,975
- Topics: leadership, sales, sales-leadership, b2b-sales, sales-development
- Based on 11 dated posts, latest 2026-10-07

## Summary

James Simpson is most useful for grounded views on SDR habits, appointment setting, and managing sales development teams.

- Best for: B2B SaaS campaigns for sales leaders deciding whether to rebuild or cut sales development.
- Not for: Proof-led campaigns needing metrics, case studies, ramp times, reply rates, pipeline numbers or named customers.
- Check first: Confirm sponsorship terms and audience analytics covering job titles, seniority, industries, and locations.

### Takeaways

- Appointment setting has no secret formula; the work is simply hard.
- Sales development is written off for wrong reasons after underinvestment or mismanagement.
- Get science and structure right first, then build culture.

## Main ideas

- **There is no secret to appointment setting — the work is simply hard**: Simpson's most direct claim is that the search for a technique is itself the problem. Readers are told to stop consuming posts about the latest "magic wand", accept that the job is hard and get on with it. This is more than motivation: it is an argument for improving through application and time on the phone, rather than a tool, hack or script. It sets Simpson against quick-fix advice and anyone selling one method as the answer to a stalled outbound function.
- **Sales development is written off for the wrong reasons**: Simpson's diagnosis of why SDR teams get shut down: a company takes the cheap option or hands the team to a former enterprise account lead, gets the result that combination produces, then concludes the channel does not work. They quote the sequence as a recurring pattern and argue that failure lies in how the function is staffed and led, not in the model. Run properly, sales development becomes the company's number one source of revenue.
- **Get the science and structure right, then build the culture**: Drawing on years of running sales development floors, Simpson sets out the order of operations: process and structure first, culture and the "art of success" on top. The demands on the team — intensity, passion, attention to detail and commitment, every day — only work once that structure exists. They also describe the cost honestly: days of exhaustion, offset by the thrill of generating opportunities, hearing the bell ring and being part of a team.
- **Purpose over function — what actually makes an SDR succeed**: Simpson separates what an SDR does from why it works: dialling and pitching prospects is the function, and on its own it does not create success. Being a problem solver is the purpose, and that produces results. The surrounding advice builds the same picture of a rep: treat the hardest feedback as the most useful, look for another gear, review every interaction to ask what was learned and what could be done differently, and manage the professional brand you present. Winning habits come from maintaining standards consistently, not inventing something groundbreaking.
- **Long sales cycles meet short internal patience**: A short joke post makes a pointed observation about expectations. A prospect asks for a long-term partnership because the sales cycle is long, then asks to pause thirty days later until the engagement shows revenue. Simpson presents the contradiction as absurd — a six-to-twelve-month cycle cannot produce revenue in a month — and notes that sales development work "requires a strong sense of humour" to absorb.

## Work to read

- [Twenty years in sales development: advice for reps and leaders](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-simpson-680a1921_as-i-approach-the-20th-year-in-sales-development-activity-7094713246384824320-dXcR)
- [Sport, sales and running an SDR floor](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-simpson-680a1921_its-easy-to-draw-comparisons-to-sport-and-activity-7158375326794838016-zDfm)
- ['The secret to sales development is that there isn't one'](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-simpson-680a1921_the-secret-to-sales-development-and-appointment-activity-7221549708580716546-DK1s)
- ['The rise and fall of Sales Development'](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-simpson-680a1921_i-wrote-this-a-couple-of-years-ago-when-the-activity-7176608029004431360-1kQH)
- [A sales development joke about long cycles and revenue expectations](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-simpson-680a1921_working-in-tech-sales-development-requires-activity-7178693794047897600-csQD)

## Partnerships

None of the five posts describes a sponsorship, paid partnership, or commercial offer. James Simpson writes about sales development practice, SDR careers, and running sales development teams. The posts contain no rate information, sponsor slot, media kit, disclosed campaign, or booking process. Before treating them as a paid placement, ask whether they accept sponsorships and discuss scope, format, disclosure, rates, and booking.

## Alternatives

- Brian Carr: Choose Carr when the buyer has already accepted that the sales development function is worth keeping and the blockage lies in execution: reps working live deals and managers coaching them. Carr writes about turning the playbook idea most sales organisations talk about into deal-by-deal plans that update as deals move, rather than once a year, and about an AI agent that opens sales conversations on a website before a human joins. A campaign about equipping reps and managers inside live deals is closer to Carr's subject than to Simpson's arguments about how the function should be structured and led.
- Michelle Edmondson: Choose Edmondson if the diagnosis points to a hiring problem rather than an outbound-process problem: the company needs to select and assess the leader who will rebuild the function, and wants to avoid picking the strongest interviewee over the strongest operator. Edmondson writes directly to that decision: search is fit to a specific mandate rather than a ranking of who is best; mandates change what good looks like, whether that is rebuilding a security function after a breach, changing how a board understands risk, or preparing for an IPO; and assessment criteria should be agreed before interviews so that polish becomes one input rather than the verdict.
- Paul Garwood: Choose Garwood only if the campaign's audience shifts from B2B SaaS revenue leaders to student-athletes and the brands buying around them. Garwood's posts make an argument with the same shape as Simpson's, applied to a different market: the headline number is not the decision variable. A large following rarely determines an athlete's value to a brand; engagement, authenticity and trust do. Coaches, in Garwood's account, recruit habits—how athletes communicate, take coaching and carry themselves—rather than statistics alone. That parallel is useful for a personal-branding thread aimed at sellers or a campaign extending into the sports-marketing market.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/