Salesforce is the CRM most enterprise sales teams run, and if you're an SDR there the whole job happens inside it. That sounds intimidating, but at the SDR level it's a small, repeatable routine: pull the day's list, log each touch as you make it, move a record's stage when reality changes, and always set the next step so nothing goes cold. This page is that workflow — the 12 actions you'll repeat daily — plus the object model that explains where things live, so Salesforce reads as a tool you drive instead of a maze you get lost in.
How Salesforce is organized (the objects you'll touch)
An SDR mostly lives in three places. Leads are unqualified prospects you're working — a person before you know if they're a fit. Contacts and accounts are real people and the companies they work at. Opportunities are the qualified, moving deals worth real revenue — usually owned by the account executive once you hand them up. Your day's work is turning leads into contacts and qualified meetings into opportunities, logging every step along the way so the system reflects reality.
The 12-action daily workflow — here is the asset
- Open your dashboard and read your queue. What Salesforce says is next is your plan for the day.
- Pull today's list from a saved view — the accounts or leads due for a touch.
- Do the day's outreach from that list (calls, emails, sequences).
- Log each call or email as you make it, not at the end of the day.
- Attach the outcome — a short note on what the prospect said.
- Move the record's stage the moment it changes (booked a meeting? advance it; dead? park it).
- Set the next task with a date before you close the record — never leave a lead with no next step.
- Book meetings onto the calendar and attach them to the right lead or opportunity.
- Sync your email and sequences so replies land on the record automatically.
- Hand off the qualified meeting to the AE on the opportunity, with a clean handoff note.
- Check your own activity against the plan — did you hit today's touches and connect targets?
- Set tomorrow's follow-ups so the queue is ready when you open Salesforce again.
Two habits that keep Salesforce true
Everything above rests on two disciplines. First, log in the moment, not from memory — a Salesforce full of Friday catch-up entries is worse than an empty one, because your manager and the AE build decisions on records that no longer match reality. Second, let the stage follow reality, not the reverse — if a deal stalls, don't leave it "open" to look productive; park it with a note and a date. Salesforce is only as good as the truth you put in it, and a rep who keeps it clean is a rep whose pipeline and forecast the team can actually trust.
Salesforce is one layer of the SDR tool stack, and it's not the only CRM you'll meet. If you're weighing it against HubSpot, know which world each one serves — the workflow above is the same; only the buttons differ.