Set up your first AI SDR: the 12 decisions before the first message

Make twelve decisions before the first message goes out: audience, offer, channel, persona, goal, rules, knowledge, follow ups, limits, approval, handoff and measurement. Most of the time goes into the first two. The tool setup is usually live within a day, and the thinking is what decides whether it works.

Setting up an AI SDR looks like filling in a form. The form takes an hour. The decisions behind it take longer, and a wrong one shows up two weeks later as a bad campaign. This checklist puts them in the order we would make them. It matches the steps in our setup guide, with the reasoning added.

1. Who is the audience?

Describe the buyer by role, company type, size and region, and a reason they might care now. Then pick one segment. On our own account, the audience changed meetings per person tenfold, with the same agents. A list of 200 who fit tightly beats 2,000 who roughly fit. See how to build a B2B lead list.

2. What is the offer?

What does a person get for answering? A short call is the usual one. Write it in a sentence. If you cannot, the agent cannot either. Replies are easy and conversion is not, so the offer and the audience matter more than the wording (replies are easy).

3. Which channel goes first?

LinkedIn if you hold profiles, email if you hold verified addresses. Open the Channels page, pick the channel and connect the account you are allowed to use. Use which channel first if you hold both. In Sellinger you connect LinkedIn through a hosted login and Sellinger does not store your LinkedIn password.

4. Who is the agent?

The persona: who writes, in what voice and with what focus. Start from a template, then edit. Two choices matter: whether the agent writes as you or as a team, and the tone. If it writes as a named person, that person's profile must be one you are allowed to use and are willing to have answering. The persona library has 31 templates to start from.

5. What is the goal?

Say what success is in plain words: book a 15 minute call within three touches, qualify and hand over, get a reply with a referral. Add the booking link if you want one used. The goal library holds 9 book meetings goals among its categories, such as the book meetings goal templates. One goal per campaign is clearer than three.

6. What are the rules?

Rules are the do and do not instructions. Write down who to exclude, what never to say and what the agent may promise. The Lamothermic campaign is the model: its owner added guardrails about what the foundry does not cast and who not to write to, as the campaign ran. Do it on day one instead. A good rule set has three parts: exclusions, forbidden claims and escalation triggers. The rule pack templates give you a start.

7. What does the agent know?

Add the documents, pages and facts the agent may use: what you sell, prices you are willing to state, case studies, policies. If the agent has no fact, it should stop and ask a person, not guess. The knowledge base is where the facts live. If you do not want it to quote a price, leave the price out and write the rule.

8. How many follow ups, and how far apart?

Check the follow up defaults, review them, and change them for the campaign. Our defaults move a lead from LinkedIn to email after four follow ups, and from email to WhatsApp after five, with gaps starting at five days on LinkedIn and one to three days on email. For a cold LinkedIn list, an intro plus up to three follow ups that each add something. See how many follow ups.

9. What are the limits?

Limits live on each channel account, not on the campaign. Defaults are 20 LinkedIn invitations a day and 150 a week, 50 emails a day per mailbox with an optional warm up, and a quiet window of 01:00 to 08:00 local time when no schedule is set. Set sending days, hours and time zone for your buyers. Do not raise limits until the account has settled. See daily limits and pacing.

10. Who approves messages?

Turn automatic approval off while you tune. Read every message for the first days, and fix the rule, not the single message. Then loosen for routine conversations. The full reasoning is in human in the loop.

11. Who takes over?

Name the person, and write down what triggers a handoff: price, terms, complaints, a request for a person, a question with no fact behind it. Decide how they get told. Takeover is one click on the lead (take over a conversation). Also connect your calendar so booked meetings land somewhere, such as Cal.com or Calendly.

12. What will you measure?

Five numbers: acceptance or delivery, reply rate with its denominator, positive replies, meetings held, and meetings per 100 people messaged. Pick the review date now. On our account 351 meetings were booked and 33 confirmed held, so count the second (count meetings honestly).

What do the twelve decisions look like filled in?

The answers below are made up, to show the level of detail that is enough to launch. Yours will differ.

Each line is a sentence or two. If one takes longer than that to write, the decision is not yet made.

Which decisions are easy to get wrong?

Three of the twelve cause most of the trouble, and none of them is about the software.

• Rules (6) and knowledge (7) are one decision. A rule that says "do not state a price" needs a knowledge base that says where to send the question instead. Write them together.
• Limits (9) belong to the account. A second campaign on the same account shares the same daily cap, so two campaigns do not double your volume.
• Handoff (11) needs a person who will actually read it. Name the person and the time of day they check. A flag that waits a day costs more than a slow first message, because the prospect has just written back.

How long does each part take?

Our own estimate, not a measurement: the audience and offer take the longest, often an hour or more, because they require a real decision. Rules and knowledge take another hour or so the first time. Connecting the channel, picking the persona and goal, and setting limits are minutes each. The platform's setup is usually live within a day. The time you spend after launch, reading drafts and fixing rules, is larger than the setup and is the part to budget for.

What does the first week look like?

1. Day 1: decisions 1 to 5, connect the channel, create the campaign.
2. Day 1 or 2: decisions 6 to 9, write rules, add knowledge, check follow ups and limits.
3. Day 2: import the list of 200, start with approval on.
4. Days 3 to 7: read every draft, fix rules, answer flagged threads.
5. End of week: read the numbers. Do not judge reply rates on 40 messages.

What usually goes wrong?

• A wide audience. The first message cannot be specific.
• No rules. The agent says something you would never say.
• Automatic from day one. You find the problem after a hundred sends.
• No owner for the handoff. Flags sit unseen.
• Counting booked as held.

If you do the twelve in order, the form is the easy part. Start free with the 30 day trial, no card, on any messaging module, and use the setup guide alongside this list.