We all know what generally makes-up a sales team and their vital role in the success of a business. But what is Outsourced Sales?
Outsourced sales is when an organization delegates the parts of the sales cycle to a third-party provider with the experience, expertise, and infrastructure to optimize and scale the sales process.
Why should a company decide to outsource their sales? There are several reasons that businesses have outsourced their sales. Lack of time and resources to manage your pipeline, execution, and follow-up is the most common obstacle. This is especially true when organizations want to expand into new locations and markets, and the sales team has not yet added team members to accommodate the extra workload.
Whatever sales-related obstacle(s) businesses are facing, the concerns are valid and can be addressed with the help of outsourcing parts or the entirety of the sales cycle to an outside sales partner.
Let’s consider an example. Outsourcing time-consuming sales functions, such as top of the funnel lead generation and prospecting through cold calling, leaves experienced in-house sales reps free to focus on closing sales, client relationships, and core company goals while allowing business owners to concentrate on what they do best: running the organization. With some of those more tedious tasks off their plate, the shift for an internal team turns to being able to improve upon the customer experience during the decision-making process. Ultimately, the added “staff” that outsourcing sales creates for a business, will help increase brand awareness and scalability, optimize conversion rates, and enable the in-house sales team to focus on higher-level tasks and strategy.
What Are Your Outsourced Sales Options?
Most companies choose to outsource sales because their internal team lacks the time, resources, or expertise to handle all of the sales processes and the full sales cycle in-house. Between hiring, training, technology platforms and processes, and downtime, there are so many time-consuming and costly components to building and maintaining an internal sales team.
Training requires allocating resources and duties, often resulting in a lengthy timeframe that includes downtime. Even after training is complete, managing the team can still be tedious work because there are many aspects of the sales process that need to be monitored and always maintained.
KPI’s should be measured and revisited on a regular basis to make sure sales goals are being met. If results are lacking, a quick corrective action must be developed to maintain a healthy pipeline. All the backend monitoring, training, and planning is time consuming for owners and sales leaders to make sure sales and growth are headed in the right direction.
Partnering with the right Outsourced Sales Partner can make a substantial positive impact on a company’s bottom line by alleviating the cost of hiring internally and much of the sales process monitoring.
Based on an organization’s goals, the ideal Outsourced Sales Provider will work with the existing sales team to collaborate and create sales strategy, equip your company the right tools, strategy, and processes they have proven success, and consistently use analytics to optimize the sales process. They will truly become a partner and operate as an extension of the business, so much so that the contacts being targeting will not even be aware that the sales team in contact with them is not an inside hire. The best part of partnering with an outsourced sales provider? Measurable goals like KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are set for the provider to achieve so it will be clear that the chosen company is performing to what is promised.
There are many Outsourced Sales Providers, each with various service offerings, so choosing which one to partner with is crucial to your successful sales cycle.
Types of Outsourced Sales Partnerships:
- Prospecting (also known as Lead Generation): The right providers will have the expertise and existing infrastructure to build contact lists, optimize a CRM, and perform cold calls, ultimately feeding the top of the sales funnel.
- Appointment Setting: Sometimes, the hardest part of the sale is getting a mutually convenient time on the calendar to chat. Some providers offer appointment setting as one of the KPI’s. This means that internal sales staff can focus on other critical tasks while only interested leads are passed along for presenting and closing the sale.
- Closing Sales: In specific scenarios, letting a provider take the sale all the way to close makes the most sense. Some providers can manage the entire sales funnel including delivering a product demo and close the deal on behalf of the company.
- Marketing Automation: There are a variety of ways marketing content can support the sales cycle. Some providers may have additional service options to compliment a sales program help nurture prospects.
What Will Outsourcing Your Sales Cost?
At the end of the day, we all know it is time-consuming and costly to build a successful internal sales team. The actual cost associated with hiring an inside sales rep is currently estimated to be anywhere from $44k-$60k annually for base salary. This does not factor in the cost of hiring and recruiting, benefits, PTO, incentives or commission, technology investments, training, etc. the price tag usually moves somewhere between $100k-$150k annually to maintain a single in-house salesperson.
With outsourcing, qualified sales reps are employed by the provider. That provider has all the tools, the latest technology, ensures an experienced person is hired, and provides the benefits and training to the sales staff that will be able to start the job immediately.
The ROI of outsourcing sales takes into many factors. As mentioned before, KPI’s should be set and agreed upon. A certain number of qualified leads, appointments set, or potentially closed sales are a few examples of KPI’s. Those can be carefully monitored by the provider and pivots to the strategy in place can be easily made to ensure the goals are being met. The KPI’s ultimately should lead to a closed sale, which will have a dollar amount value associated with it. The most basic ROI can be calculated using the closed sales amount generated from the leads and appointments brought in by the provider, minus the cost the provider charges. Overall, more should go into the ROI calculation because the number of leads received each year will generate brand awareness and perhaps sales down the road.
Still, be mindful when it comes to choosing an Outsourced Sales Provider, the cheapest solution is not always the best solution. When selecting the lowest-cost option, consider what is missing given the price tag. With the least expensive provider, expertise, leadership, and the ability to execute are likely lacking in their execution. Is it more important to save some dollars on a subpar provider or invest in a specialized team that possesses the knowledge, experience, and tools to deliver KPI’s?
Outsourced sales – from top of the funnel lead generation, appointment setting, to closing sales – can be the ideal solution for many companies. They can be used as a resource to create cost efficiency, streamline the sales-cycle, and increasing conversion rates, not to mention help owners and sales leaders focus on bigger-picture company initiatives. Outsourced Sales Providers have the time, tools, and resources that in-house teams cannot match. It is important to keep in mind that when selecting a Partner, take time, do some research, and select the one that will best match the sales needs and deliver on promised results.
Interested in learning more about MPI’s Outsourced Sales programs?
Contact Us: growth@mpi-impact.com or 262-375-7525
Sources:
https://impact.marketstar.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-outsourced-sales-partner
https://www.saleshacker.com/outsourced-sales-professionals/