You want to grow and explore new business opportunities? Congratulations, that’s a wonderful place to be! To be successful, you’re going to have to ask yourself some very important questions: What is your sales strategy? Do you have all the resources in place to go after new opportunities? Have you determined what your sales process will be? Are you spreading your sales team too thin?
It’s no secret, you can’t do it all. Plato said it best: “Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.” In other words, it’s better to be really good at a few things than to spread yourself and your resources too thin. When you outsource your sales process, you can dedicate your in-house resources to other projects while ensuring your sales continue to grow. Simply put, you can do what you do best.
Don’t think outsourcing sales is right for your company? We think you should reconsider! Any business, any size can benefit from taking a closer look at their sales process to determine whether they are using their resources effectively. Here are some reasons why companies choose to outsource their sales and what they get out of it.
Most people think hiring a sales outsourcing company is the same as hiring a telemarketing company – that couldn’t be further from the truth! Outsourced sales teams are about more than just phone calls and canned scripts. What you should be getting is a third-party organization that serves as an additional sales manager for your company that hires, trains, and manages the entire team to develop a strategy that helps your business find and retain customers using specialized resources and experts to create success and maintain it. Your outsourced sales team should be much more than a group of entry-level staffers making endless cold calls.
When you need to scale up fast and fill your business pipeline without investing in direct hires, outsourcing sales can make a lot of sense. For less than the cost of hiring one salesperson, you can get an entire team working for you and that saves you time – lots of time! Endless interviews, training and mentoring your team to understand the culture of your new market can really slow you down and cause you to miss new opportunities. You know more than anything, time is your most valuable asset and when you need to get up and running, outsourcing can help to get you to market quickly and efficiently.
A qualified outsourced sales firm can help create a sales strategy, provide your team with the right tools, and optimize lead generation because they’ve already invested in the infrastructure needed for your business to develop a successful campaign. If you decide to do it alone and go the route of investing in the latest tools, you have to also invest in generating the knowledge and expertise to run those tools efficiently, again using valuable resources. When your business utilizes outsourced sales teams, you are investing only in the specialized resources you require, when you need them.
It’s no surprise that technology has impacted the sales process. Sales reps used to guard their personal address books of contacts - they really owned their clients. With the development of various technological advancements within the sales and marketing industry, reaching potential prospects has never been more efficient, or user-friendly. Technology also provides proficient metric tracking capabilities through the integration of CRMs and virtual sales processes. The days of knocking on a business’s door and flipping through address books are dead.
Omnichannel sales provide the opportunity to sell seamlessly between various communication methods. Prospects now not only expect but prefer diverse communication methods during a sales process to gain exposure to all sides of a company and its services. This includes emailing, calling, and social connection. Omnichannel sales ensure that the integration of several touchpoints is conducted seamlessly. Through this method of lead generation and sales strategy, a client feels empowered to approach and engage with a company the way that feels most organic to them.
If you are looking to scale your business without the hassle, time commitment or financial obligation of hiring full-time employees, outsourced sales is right for you. Of course, outsourcing sales will add costs to your bottom line, but it can also offer efficiencies that are sometimes overlooked such as recruitment costs of hiring and training staff, complex costs for expensive outreach software programming and data infrastructure as well as the time that goes into making these decisions.
There is a common debate around what businesses can benefit from outsourced sales – one side believing ALL businesses can benefit, the other reasoning that only businesses in specific sectors or industries obtain worthwhile benefits. Both sides are correct in the sense that outsourced sales are more beneficial to some industries and business models than others, however, it is never black and white.
The industries and sectors that tend to see the most beneficial returns through outsourced sales are B2B corporations, Financial Services, Human Resources, Technology, and IT Software. This is not to say, however, that transportation companies or Not-For-Profit organizations cannot receive the same type of success. These are simply the industries that are most often seeking resources for outsourced sales.
In terms of business size, both large and small corporations can reap significant benefits from seeking outsourced sales resources. A fractional sales leader can assist a company that is otherwise too small to have dedicated in-house sales resources. For larger corporations, outsourced sales teams can act as an extension of their existing sales team to provide additional support or expertise on sales initiatives or large projects.
An outsourced sales firm will have a variety of different sales resources that you can employ based on your specific needs and objectives. An outsourced sales team will have dedicated resources tasked with specific roles such as data research, messaging and outreach, determining qualifying leads and nurturing engaged leads through ongoing communication.
Outsourced sales firms offer a full array of products and services that can help their clients, from getting the lead to closing the deal. Outsourced teams will retain experts in diverse areas of sales to provide their clients specialized resources dependant on what their unique goals and objectives are for their outsourced sales initiatives.
First, you must identify and determine what the scope of your outsourcing will be. Do you need assistance with a specific initiative, do you need additional support for a certain product or service, or are you looking to completely outsource your sales process to a fractional team?
The impact of your outsourced sales efforts will only go as far as where they are aligned. If your goals and objectives do not directly reflect the sales process and methods that are being executed, you will not see the success you want. Ensure your internal sales efforts are working in conjunction with the outsourced support you are receiving. Otherwise, you could be damaging your sales process more than improving it. The outsourced sales firm you choose should be able to identify red flags and realign execution to reflect the objectives.
Having clear and concise expectations for both parties involved is important. This will ensure that both sides are aware of where the other partner’s objectives lie while conducting the sales process both internally and with your outsourced team. Clear communication is imperative to succeed in this regard.
A qualified outsourced sales team will ramp up efforts quickly. Each companies’ unique goals when it comes to hiring an outsourced sales team demands differing requirements to get started, however, two elements remain essential regardless of the scope of work – clear metrics and articulated goals.
It is important to begin with clear metrics for an outsourced sales initiative to align your expectations with the results that are being produced. To generate the confidence that your outsourced team is providing your business with the services that support your overall objectives, clear and accurate metrics must consistently be provided. This will come in the form of weekly overviews, review calls, and clear tracking processes that can be requested from your team at any time.
To provide your team and your outsourced sales firm a clear understanding of what the expectations are, concise and articulated goals must be determined and communicated from the beginning of the sales process. This ensures that all parties involved are on the same page. The metrics that are provided during the sales process should be aligned directly with these goals.
To make the most of outsourced sales for your company, you will need to allow their team to do a deep dive into your offerings to determine the best sales strategy to generate new opportunities. During your vetting process identify key factors that align with your sales goals and objectives. To ensure that this is at the forefront of your recruitment efforts, you must speak with your team to pinpoint what your needs and expectations are.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when choosing an outsourcing company is focusing solely on costs. You need to make sure the company you choose has the capability to deliver what you expect. Assess your needs and make sure the sales outsourcing company has the tools to deliver. Ask them questions like: What tools do they use to get to the decision-makers? How will they target your niche market? What kind of expertise do they offer? What is their sales process for lead generation? Make it your business to meet the people on the sales teams who will be working on your lead generation and assess whether they have the ability to clearly communicate your offerings to the companies you want to bring on as customers. You want to do business with people you like and so do your customers!
With the advent of marketing technologies, the grip that sales had on clients has been loosened and the sales/marketing relationship has blurred. There are so many marketing tools for companies to use for sales generation that it’s very difficult to stay on top of what actually works. Outsourcing allows you to have access to specialists who make it their business to stay on top of current trends and technologies allowing you and your in-house sales teams to concentrate on what you do best, without having to use your limited resources to stay on top of an ever-changing landscape. Having specialists that can efficiently stay on top of your outreach, blogs, website updates, social media channels and provide you with up-to-date information on where your audience actually is and who they are, can go a long way to help you stay abreast of new opportunities for increased sales.
You want to hire a professional outsourcing sales team led by an experienced, successful CEO who will guide their team and provide the right tools to optimize and maximize your company’s results. They should employ specialists such as data analysts, account managers, business development representatives and marketing specialists that will work together to prospect, qualify and nurture relationships to move leads further down the sales funnel. You can have this team simply pass off appointments to your in-house sales team without actually delivering a pitch, allowing you to focus only on qualified leads who are ready to have a conversation, or you can hire them to do the full process and deliver actual sales.
Whether you need to jump-start stagnant sales, launch a new campaign, or tackle a surplus of leads, your current sales and marketing team may not be enough. Moving forward may require fresh ideas, a new strategy, substantial investment or simply the expertise and vision to create a roadmap for success. Whatever your goal, outsourcing your sales team can provide just what you need, without breaking the bank or binding you to a long-term commitment. It’s one of the smartest ways to get powerful performance efficiently and personalized for your business.
The onboarding process for an outsourced sales team can have a turnaround of just a few weeks. Once you have vetted and chosen a capable and qualified sales firm to work with, the process will begin quite quickly. This will involve a series of meetings that will establish what each parties’ goals are, what the sales approach and execution will look like, as well as the initial first steps of obtaining information i.e. data, company information, service/product details, etc. Once the groundwork has been set, execution will kick off and your outsourced sales team will get to work on lead generation and prospecting new opportunities for your business.
If you would like to discuss outsourced sales further, please reach out to The Sales Group's Chief Sales Officer / President Donna Gliha.
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