The first 90 days of a fractional BDM engagement are not glamorous. There are no quick wins handed to you on day one. But when done right, those 90 days establish the foundation for a pipeline engine that will outlast the engagement itself.
I have started more than a dozen fractional BDM engagements across different company sizes, stages, and industries. Here is exactly what I do in the first 90 days, why I do it in that order, and what you as the company should be doing to get the most out of the engagement.
Days 1 to 14: Discovery and Diagnosis
The first two weeks of a fractional BDM engagement should be almost entirely diagnostic. Anyone who skips this phase and jumps straight to execution is going to build the wrong thing fast.
In weeks one and two, I focus on four areas:
Understanding What Has Already Been Tried
I review every piece of existing BD documentation: old email sequences, win/loss data, ICP definitions, pricing pages, sales call recordings if they exist, and CRM history. This tells me what the company has already learned, what has failed, and what has worked without being recognized as scalable.
Most companies have a few hidden wins buried in their pipeline history. A sequence that worked briefly, a segment that converted at a higher rate, a partnership that generated warm referrals and then was abandoned. Finding these is high-leverage early work.
Talking to Customers
I interview three to five existing customers in the first two weeks. Not to sell them anything. To understand why they bought, what problem they were trying to solve, what almost made them not buy, and how they describe the value they get.
Customer language is the most underused asset in any BD motion. The phrases your best customers use to describe your product are almost always better messaging than anything your marketing team writes from the inside.
Auditing the CRM
I go through HubSpot or Salesforce deal by deal in the current and closed-lost pipeline. I am looking for patterns in where deals stall, what objections appear most frequently, which sources convert at what rates, and where data is missing or unreliable.
A CRM audit in the first two weeks has never once failed to surface at least two or three insights that change how I approach the outbound strategy.
Mapping the Tech Stack
I document what tools the company has, which are actively used versus shelfware, and what gaps exist. By the end of week two I have a clear picture of whether we need Apollo for prospecting, whether HubSpot is configured correctly, and whether there are any tools being paid for that add no value.
Days 15 to 30: Strategy and Setup
Week three and four are about translating the discovery work into a concrete plan. I produce a BD strategy document that includes:
- A refined ICP definition with two to three prioritized segments
- Messaging frameworks for each segment, written in customer language
- A channel mix recommendation: outbound email, LinkedIn, phone, partner introductions
- A 90-day pipeline target based on what is realistic given the current state
- A list of tools to add, configure, or remove
- A weekly activity framework showing what I will be doing each week and what I need from the company
This document becomes the north star for the engagement. It gets reviewed at the 30, 60, and 90-day marks and updated based on what we learn.
I also set up or clean up the technical infrastructure during this period. This means configuring email sequences in Apollo or Outreach, setting up CRM pipeline stages that reflect the actual buyer journey, creating tracking dashboards, and making sure email deliverability is clean so our outbound does not land in spam.
Days 31 to 60: Execution and Early Signal
By day 31 I am in full execution mode. Outbound sequences are live, prospecting is happening daily, and I am booking and running discovery calls. The goal of this phase is to generate early signal: which segments respond, which messaging resonates, which channels produce the best reply rates.
I typically run three to four parallel outbound experiments during this phase. Each targets a different ICP segment or uses a different messaging angle. By day 60 I have enough data to know which two or three approaches deserve more investment and which ones to cut.
This phase also involves logging everything meticulously. Every reply, every discovery call, every objection gets documented. The data from these first thirty days of execution is often more valuable than any research I could have done upfront.
Days 61 to 90: Optimization and Handoff Planning
The final 30 days of the initial 90-day period are about two things: doubling down on what is working, and beginning to document the playbook so the function is not entirely dependent on me.
I focus the outbound budget on the segments and channels that showed the best response rates in month two. I refine the messaging based on what I heard in discovery calls. I start to build out a second layer of sequences for prospects who did not respond to the initial outreach.
I also spend time in month three producing the BD playbook: a documented guide to the ICP, the outbound sequences, the qualification criteria, the objection responses, and the pipeline management process. This playbook is what you keep even if the engagement ends, and it is what makes hiring a full-time BDM later dramatically faster.
What You Need to Do as the Company
The fractional BDM engagement is not a passive investment. The companies that get the most value from the first 90 days do a few specific things:
- Give access immediately: Day one access to CRM, email systems, call recordings, and existing pipeline. Delays here compress the value you get in the first 30 days.
- Participate in the discovery phase: The founder or a key leader needs to spend two to three hours in week one sharing institutional knowledge that does not exist in any documentation.
- Respond quickly to asks: A fractional BDM operates across multiple engagements. When I need something to unblock an outbound campaign or a partnership conversation, a 48-hour delay can mean a week of lost time.
- Review the strategy document seriously: Week-two deliverables only produce value if they are reviewed and approved with real engagement, not a rubber stamp.
What Success Looks Like at 90 Days
Here is a realistic picture of what the first 90 days should produce:
- A refined and documented ICP based on real data, not assumptions
- At least one outbound sequence live and generating consistent discovery calls
- Between 15 and 40 qualified conversations logged, depending on your ACV and sales cycle length
- A minimum of 5 to 15 qualified opportunities in active pipeline
- A pipeline target tracker updated weekly with clear visibility into pipeline health
- A BD playbook that documents everything so the function is not dependent on any single person
If your 90-day engagement does not produce at least most of this, either the scope was wrong or the execution was lacking. Both are worth diagnosing before extending or expanding the engagement.
Want to understand what a first 90 days with me would look like for your specific company? Book a strategy call and I will walk you through how I would approach your situation. Or review my engagement structures to understand the different options available.