How to brief an AI SDR so it books the right meetings

When you brief an AI SDR, you decide who gets written to, what they read and which meetings count, so the brief shapes your results more than the model behind it does. Most briefs fail for a simple reason: they ask busy people to write. The better way is to let the agent draft and to spend your time editing.

Don’t make them write, make them edit

Ask a founder to describe the ideal customer on a blank page and you will get “mid-market companies that value efficiency.” Show the same founder ten companies the agent thinks fit, and within a minute they will cross some out and tell you exactly why. That “why” is the brief.

SaaStr lists generic training among the mistakes that sink AI SDR rollouts: “Here’s our website, here are some email templates, go!” produces mediocre results. What works is specific: proof points from real conversations, the objections you actually hear, clear rules for when to bring in a person, an ICP with “examples and non-examples,” and a voice that matches yours.

A blank form rarely produces any of that; a draft you can mark up does, because reacting is faster than recalling. Architects know this: nobody can describe a dream house from scratch, but anyone can point at a floor plan and say the kitchen is in the wrong place.

That is how Dylan’s brief works: he reads your website and drafts the rest, and you correct it.

The seven inputs of an AI SDR brief

Input	Why it matters	What people forget
Your website	Every claim the agent makes must match it	The pages that are out of date
Ten best customers	The pattern the agent looks for	Why they bought, and what triggered it
Who to meet	Sets targeting and the meeting definition	Who not to meet
Do-not-contact list	Protects relationships you already have	Open deals, partners and investors
Meeting definition	Decides what counts and what is billed	Who on your side takes the call
Calendar	Where meetings land	Real availability and buffers
Voice and no-go topics	Keeps your name safe	Claims you cannot make

Your website and your ten best customers

Buyers check your website against what they are told. In Gartner’s survey of 632 B2B buyers, 69% reported inconsistencies between a company’s website and what its sellers said. An agent can repeat one inconsistency to every prospect it writes to, so fix the stale page or tell the agent which parts to ignore.

Then name your ten best customers and, for each, write one line on why they bought and what was happening at the time. The trigger matters more than the logo. “They opened a second site and their old process broke” teaches an agent what a reason to write looks like, in a way “logistics, 500 employees” never will.

Add three non-examples: customers who looked right and churned, or deals you wish you had walked away from. Telling an agent what not to chase is often worth more than another good example.

Who to meet, and who never

Name the functions, seniority and company sizes, and be accurate about size, since with Dylan it also sets the price per meeting. Do not default to the highest title either. In Belkins’ study of 7.5 million cold emails, founders and owners replied at 0.57% and VPs at 0.32%, and the study warns against reflexively aiming at the C-suite “when a Director or Owner will engage at nearly twice the rate.”

The do-not-contact list is the most underrated part of any brief. List by domain, not by name, since people change jobs: current customers, open opportunities, partners, investors, companies in a dispute with you, and anyone a colleague is already talking to. Dylan checks the list when he builds the plan and again as each email is sent, so a company you add today is protected today.

The meeting definition, the calendar and the voice

The meeting definition tells the agent who to book and decides what counts: who qualifies, who takes the meeting on your side, and what the prospect gets, such as “a 20-minute review of your fuel spend.” That last line is your offer, and a concrete one gives the reader a reason to say yes. The details are in what counts as a held meeting.

For the calendar, connect your meeting owner’s real calendar and block the hours they protect; a meeting your own side reschedules is a poor first impression.

Finally, tell the agent how you sound and where it must stop: words you never use, claims you cannot make (customer names, figures, guarantees), competitors you never mention, topics that go to a person. “We never promise savings in the first email” beats a paragraph about being “friendly but professional.” Dylan hands pricing, legal matters and complaints to your team; add anything else that needs a human.

After the brief: edit the plan like a hiring manager

The plan that comes back is the brief’s second draft; give it the attention you would give a shortlist of candidates. Would you be glad to meet each sample company next week?

Read the first emails as the recipient would, on a phone between two meetings: is the reason real, is the ask small, is the way out obvious? Once replies arrive, feed the objections back in, because an agent learns your market the way a new hire does, from corrections.

What to do next

Before you brief any agent, spend half an hour collecting four things: your ten best customers with one line each, three non-examples, your do-not-contact domains, and the name of the person who will take the meetings.

If your market is only a few hundred companies, read why an enterprise market is a pond before you write the targeting section.