While there are many people who are experts in automotive maintenance, most people tend to take their vehicles to car repair shops when an issue arises. Sure, it could be easy to go online and learn how to fix the problem yourself, but more often than not, people seek help from professionals who know what they’re doing. Heck, even the car repair expert might take his take to the shop to help save time and be more efficient… Why is that?
Well, professionals know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re experts in their craft. Additionally, they value how they spend their time as well.
Many B2B businesses invest in inside sales outsourcing services because these sales professionals are experts in all things sales and sales development, from building prospect lists to scheduling high-quality sales appointments. Additionally, this empowers them to spend more time focusing on more pressing business matters.
In this blog, we’ll cover the following topics regarding sales outsourcing:
What Is Sales Outsourcing?
Sales outsourcing is when a company hires salespeople through a third-party vendor to take advantage of untapped business opportunities. Outsourcing inside sales gives you access to an experienced sales team that works on behalf of your company. They take the responsibility of generating leads out of your hands, allowing you to spend more time focusing on your core business operations.
Sales outsourcing consists delegating specific parts of the sales process to a team of experts who understand how to build and maintain a sales development strategy from beginning to end. While most parts of the sales process can be outsourced to a team of experts, more often than not, businesses look to outsource the prospecting and lead generation aspects of the sales development process. These components of the sales process are often outsourced to sales and marketing firms because they’re experts in their craft and follow all the latest best practices when it comes to generating new business opportunities.
For more insight into the day-to-day responsibilities of an outsourced sales and marketing firm, read our blog here.
Who Is Involved on an Outsourced Sales Development Team?
When you invest in sales outsourcing, you’re not paying for a single sales rep—you’re paying for an outsourced SDR team that’s specialized in a variety of sales and marketing tasks.
Here’s a breakdown of the types of sales experts who are involved on a B2B outsourced sales development team:
- Implementation managers: These sales professionals are responsible for onboarding new clients and ensuring that each pitch held by sales reps meets their expectations.
- Email marketing specialists: Email marketing specialists are tasked with crafting the perfect sales emails for each lead in the sales pipeline, particularly lead nurturing emails.
- Content creators: These outsourced marketing experts design high-quality marketing collateral that helps guide leads through each stage of the sales funnel.
- Data and operations analysts: Data and operations analysts are the list builders of outbound appointment setting and consistently add new prospects to the sales pipeline.
- Sales development representatives (SDRs): SDRs are specialized to qualify prospects, nurture leads, and set sales teams up with high-converting sales meetings.
- Sales training specialists: Outbound sales best practices are changing all the time. The role of sales training specialists is to ensure SDRs are up to date on the latest appointment setting best practices to guarantee clients receive the best services.
- Quality assurance managers: To make sure clients are getting the best sales meetings, outsourced SDR teams have quality assurance managers to grade appointment calls to guarantee they meet the client’s expectations.
- Client success managers: These sales experts are responsible for retaining client satisfaction. If a client has any concerns with their outsourced SDR program, client success managers address them and make adjustments as needed.
- Sales managers: Sales managers are the leaders of the outsourced SDR team. They make sure SDRs hit goals for their clients and stay motivated to secure more sales appointments, resulting in more revenue.
What Does an Outsourced Sales Development Team Do?
Outsourced sales development teams are responsible for scheduling sales meetings between account (or sales) executives and qualified leads in the sales pipeline. From there, your internal sales team attends the appointment and persuades them that they need your company’s product or service to enhance their everyday business functions.
These appointment setters connect with prospects through various platforms, so they have the opportunity to build and nurture a relationship with them for when they’re ready to buy or make a change to their current solution. Here are some ways that outsourced inside sales providers nurture relationships with potential customers:
Cold Call Prospects
Although outsourced cold calling gets a bad rap, it remains an incredibly effective approach to generating new business opportunities. With an effective cold calling strategy, outsourced sales reps can pitch potential customers and identify pain points in their current business solution.
For example, if an outsourced inside sales rep is calling on behalf of a managed services provider (MSP), the SDR can ask the prospect what they currently have in place when it comes to IT management. If they are happy with their current IT provider, they can ask the prospect why they are content and what makes their current MSP a great fit for them.
On the other hand, if a prospect is unhappy with their MSP, an SDR can ask why they are unhappy and what they would be looking for in a new outsourced IT partner. This allows SDRs to gather more insight for the client and set them up with a high-quality sales appointment.
If a prospect is currently uninterested in learning more about your company’s product or service, SDRs input them into a lead nurturing campaign. For a lead nurturing strategy to be successful, the outsourced sales rep will follow up with them again in about three to four months to see how things are going with their current solution. In the meantime, the SDR sends monthly email drip campaigns to the prospect to provide top-of-mind awareness for when they’re looking to make a change.
Send Cold Sales Emails
As mentioned above, email marketing is a significant component of outsourced inside sales. Outsourced sales reps most commonly use email marketing as part of their lead nurturing strategy. However, many SDRs also take advantage of email marketing when they can’t reach potential customers over the phone.
Email marketing is most effective when outsourced sales reps send relevant content to leads. When SDRs send sales emails after a pitch with a lead, the email must relate to their previous conversation. For example, let’s suggest that an SDR is pitching a prospect for a software company. After the pitch, the prospect wants the sales rep to send them more information about the software process and why it’s valuable for companies like theirs. An outsourced sales rep can send the prospect an email that contains marketing collateral like an infographic or a short explainer video about the software program and why it makes day-to-day tasks less tedious for businesses.
By sending relevant emails to potential customers, outsourced inside sales reps increase the likelihood of setting up an appointment with the client.
Connect With Leads on LinkedIn
Many B2B companies use social media to post relevant and engaging content, but these platforms are also great for connecting with key decision-makers (KDMs). Sending LinkedIn connections is one of the most recent additions to outbound marketing efforts. Outsourced inside sales reps connect with leads on LinkedIn through the client’s profile so they can send relevant thought leadership blogs to them and direct prospects to check out the company website.
While many businesses believe they need to choose one outbound B2B lead generation approach over another, we’re here to tell you that the sales process is most effective when each of these sales and marketing strategies is practiced. This ensures that your outsourced sales reps have the opportunity to connect with prospects over various platforms.
Benefits of Sales Development Outsourcing
Small to medium-sized businesses that outsource their sales development efforts gain a competitive advantage. Here are a few of the core benefits of sales outsourcing:
Saves Valuable Company Time
Like we mentioned earlier, even the most skilled mechanics take their car into the shop from time to time to help save time on repairs. We know how valuable your company time is, and it should be treated as such. By outsourcing sales development efforts, you can save a significant amount of time to focus on more pressing business matters.
While internalizing lead generation efforts may sound ideal, many business owners forget about how long it takes to:
- Develop and implement a lead generation strategy
- Find, hire, and train new sales and marketing team members
- Prospect, nurture, and set sales meetings with leads
Sales outsourcing allows your internal sales team to spend more time crafting the perfect sales presentation, increasing the likelihood of converting a lead into a long-term customer.
Protects Your Company’s Bottom Line
Many companies underestimate the costs of internalizing departments—and outsourcing lead generation is no different. In addition to saving time, sales outsourcing saves your company a significant amount of money to go towards other investments.
Sales lead generation isn’t just hiring an SDR team and having them make calls, send emails, or write content for your website. If it were that easy, everyone would internalize their lead generation efforts. With sales lead generation, you also have to consider:
- SDR salaries
- Company benefits
- Sales incentives
- Onboarding costs
- Costs of sales tools and technologies
And those examples are just the beginning. Many small and medium-sized businesses don’t have the funds for those things, which is why lead generation outsourcing is essential for their business growth and sustainability efforts.
Gives You Access to High-Performing Sales Teams
Unfortunately, turnover in the sales industry is high, and high-performing sales experts are hard to find these days. When you outsource lead generation, you don’t have to worry about finding top talent if your sales experts decide to work elsewhere.
When you invest in B2B lead generation outsourcing, you invest in more than a single SDR—you invest in a team of sales experts. Sales outsourcing companies give clients access to a variety of sales and marketing experts with different specialties, such as account management, list building, content creation, prospect outreach, and more. Having access to a team of high-performing sales and marketing experts reinforces the ability to build and sustain a sales development program that yields predictable growth.
Equips You With the Necessary Sales Tools and Technologies
Sales tools and technologies are costly and can negatively impact your company’s bottom line. Outsourcing lead generation gives you access to all the tools and technologies you need for a sustainable sales process, including:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) software
- Email marketing automation tools
- Data enrichment technology
- Streamlined communication platforms
In addition to obtaining these tools, your SDR team has to know how to use them. Training SDR teams on these platforms can take up a significant amount of time. SDR team outsourcing eliminates the need for training because the outsourced SDR team already knows how to use these tools, ensuring you get the most out of your lead generation program from the get-go.
Streamlines the Sales Process
A successful lead generation program doesn’t come easy. A streamlined sales process requires a lot of trial and error when you approach it internally. However, by outsourcing lead generation efforts with a trusted third-party provider, you can skip the hassle of finding a solution that works and generating qualified leads.
Lead generation outsourcing companies work with businesses in various industries and many markets, so they know what yields results and what doesn’t. An outsourced company gives you a tried and true way to prospect, nurture, and set sales appointments with qualified leads.
Things to Consider Before Outsourcing Sales Development Efforts
Before putting your time and money into an outsourced sale contracts, it’s important to consider the following:
What You Want From an Outsourced Sales Partner
First thing’s first, what do you want to achieve by hiring an outsourced sales partner? Do you want a predictable sales pipeline? Better leads? More sales appointments? Asking these questions is essential so you collaborate with a lead generation provider that can help you meet these goals and have a mutually beneficial B2B relationship.
How Involved You Want to Be With the Program
Some outsourced partners require more involvement than others, so you must consider how involved you want to be with your program. Based on experience, the more engaged a company is with an outsourced partner, the better the program will be in the long run. This is because companies can speak one-on-one with everyone on their outsourced sales team, from success managers to SDRs. By keeping communication intact, you can get the leads you want and request adjustments made to an SDRs pitch for higher-quality sales meetings.
Researching Different Sales Outsourcing Companies
As you’re looking into sales outsourcing, it’s essential to research and consider different lead generation companies. For instance, some companies may focus primarily on outbound sales development, and others may introduce inbound lead generation. Depending on what type of lead generation strategy you’re looking into, it’s essential to consider their service offerings.
Sales and marketing alignment is vital for a successful business growth strategy. Partnering with a lead generation company that does both is essential because it increases the likelihood of a streamlined solution where nothing gets lost in translation.
Scheduling a Demo With Various Providers
Once you find a lead generation company that seems like they fit your needs, schedule a demo of their services to see how their processes work specifically with your business needs. Observing a demo of their sales development and inbound marketing service allows you to see how they work for your business. You can view it from your perspective, not just how they’ve worked for other businesses. This gives you first-hand insight into how they can benefit your company’s business growth efforts.
Key Takeaways
While you could handle sales development internally, many successful businesses choose to invest in sales outsourcing. Sales outsourcing empowers companies to:
- Have a proven effective sales process
- Spend more time selling qualified business opportunities
- Avoid costly sales tool and technology fees
At Abstrakt Marketing Group, we help B2B companies build predictable and sustainable sales pipelines through outbound sales development and inbound marketing services. If you want to see how we can help your business generate long-term growth, schedule a demo of our sales outsourcing services today!
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