Business Development Representative

About the Role

Business Development Representative (Chicago, IL)

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct outbound prospecting via phone, email, and LinkedIn.
• Qualify inbound leads.
• Schedule discovery meetings for Account Executives.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• English - Fully fluent and sufficient for professional work communication.
• Permanently authorized to work in the United States without need for sponsorship.
• Sales training will cover fundamentals of B2B sales, including:
• Outbound calls
• Email and LinkedIn outreach
• Objection handling
• Qualification
• CRM and sales engagement tools (Salesforce or HubSpot, Outreach or Salesloft, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator)

Qualifications

• Potential to develop in Sales, Customer service, and B2B sales.
• Experience in a customer-facing role such as retail, hospitality, customer support, fundraising, or account management.
• Experience in a goal-driven role with measurable targets (quotas, KPIs, bookings, revenue, or activity metrics).
• Strong communication skills.
• Competitive and motivated by clear goals.
• Comfortable on the phone, including cold calls.
• Coachable—takes feedback and acts on it.
• Resilient—can keep going through rejection.
• Strong written and spoken communicators.
• If you've worked in retail, hospitality, customer service, fundraising, fitness instruction, teaching, or any role where you spent your day talking to people and meeting goals — you already have the foundation to be excellent at this.
• Preferred: Completed Bachelors degree.
• Excited by ambitious goals and motivated by a high-performance environment.

Program Details

• No tuition, no fee, no debt.
• Days 1–10: Free sales training. Live, instructor-led training on Zoom, Monday through Thursday, 6–9 pm (EDT).
• Days 11–100: Paid Residency. You'll be a W-2 employee of SV Academy, embedded at a partner company.
• $2,500/month base + 100% of commissions earned.
• Daily coaching from an SV Academy mentor and partner's sales leadership.
• Day 100 onward: Transfer to partner's payroll.
• $55k - $85k in total annual compensation (base + commission).
• Full health, dental, vision, and retirement benefits begin the day you transfer.

Location

• Hybrid (Chicago, Illinois, United States)
• Note: Job benefits section mentions "Hybrid work environment in Dallas, TX," which conflicts with the main role location. Refer to main role location for primary context.

About SV Academy

• Since 2017, placed over 6,000 people into full-time tech sales careers.
• Worked with 400+ employer partners across SaaS, AI, fintech, cybersecurity, and other high-growth verticals.
• Led by CEO Michael Colonnese.