Outsourcing Sales and Marketing Companies - Success Strategies and Tips
Getting into business, many companies don’t factor in the need for a sales outsourcing company. They figure they can manage all sales and marketing efforts in-house.
But their desire for revenue growth is soon hampered by the lack of sufficient bandwidth to look for and handle new leads. Their in-house team becomes too stretched to focus on lead generation leading to a drying sales pipeline.
Scaling business heights requires brands to pinpoint the obstacles that hinder their key revenue contributor aka the sales and marketing teams from reaching their goals.
If these hindrances stem from insufficient manpower, task overload, or venturing into new markets, partnering with a sales outsourcing services provider can be a game-changer.
Let’s explore sales outsourcing, what an outsourced sales and marketing company is, and how they can help your organization.
What is B2B Sales Outsourcing?
From stiff competition to lengthy and hard-to-predict sales cycles, and difficulty in retaining sales professionals, customer acquisition comes with unique challenges.
Sales teams have a tough time balancing the creation of a sustainable sales pipeline filled with highly qualified leads and managing all other tasks.
Sales professionals are expected to travel to meetings, update and provide status reports, and negotiate and close deals, where are they going to find the time to prospect?
The answer may lie in outsourcing sales processes.
B2B sales outsourcing enables you to delegate part or all of your sales arm to a third-party sales outsourcing agency.
The company provides a dedicated sales team to handle market research, lead generation, sales prospecting, appointment setting, and managing relationships with existing customers, etc.
By outsourcing the sales process, you gain a cost-effective vehicle for improving sales performance and efficiency and expanding into new markets. Without the need to hire new sales reps or invest in additional resources, we might add.
Defining Sales Outsourcing Agencies and What They Do
Sales outsourcing agencies comprise sales and marketing experts capable of handling a section of your sales process or its entirety.
For years, B2B brands considered sales outsourcing as “losing control” of a strategic aspect of your business. You’re entrusting your revenue growth facilitator to a third party, aren’t you?
But as many have discovered this isn’t the case. Outsourcing sales functions allows you to harness specialist sales expertise to help you gain scale and accelerate revenues while driving cost savings.
Whether you want to transfer everyday marketing efforts and sales operations or carry out individual campaigns, the sales outsourcing experts will tackle it
What Services Can You Expect from Outsourced Sales Companies?
You'll encounter outsourced sales services agencies that focus solely on appointment setting and those that secure new leads and even close deals on your behalf.
It’s prudent to determine up front the scope of services availed by the agency before jumping on board. This will help set expectations and minimize disappointments.
The more services the company offers, the easier it will be to add them on as your business expands. Some of these “more services” that you can find include
- Lead List
As part of marketing services, the agency may provide a lead list to facilitate customer acquisition. A typical high-quality list will
- Match your ideal customer profile
- Contain accurate prospect data
- Include intent data so you can zero in on prospects with higher purchase propensity.
It’s worth noting that some agencies limit the number of prospective customers you can contact monthly, which may hinder sales performance.
In such cases, we recommend stacking your monthly goals against the prospecting limits for viability.
- Email Campaigns
Despite the rules and regulations by government entities and ESPs, email marketing remains pivotal to the sales and marketing strategy.
You want to work with someone who combines verification tools with best practices to steer clear of the penalties and pitfalls associated with promotional emails. They also need proven processes that ensure prospects open, read through, and act.
At SalesHive, we took the time to custom-build our platform to include an AI-driven A/B testing feature. This feature allows us to test thousands of email variations to identify the best combinations for driving optimal campaign results.
Contrary to popular belief, sales reps engage in this outbound sales tactic to connect with buyers and book meetings each week.
Modern sales reps don’t focus on quotas alone, they combine market research with keyword surges and buyer intent to increase connection possibilities with prospective customers.
- Social Selling…
… On LinkedIn in particular. Toward the end of 2021, this social network was home to 30M plus businesses and we’re sure that number has increased tremendously.
Further, 4 out of 5 Linkedin members drive business decisions in their organizations, which tells you there is a wealth of quality leads to be found there.
Sales outsourcing teams use this channel to promote content, show ads, or as part of a larger ABM strategy specializing in directing personalized messages at specific accounts.
- Appointment Setting
This service is typical of most outsourced sales strategies and may include prospecting, campaign management, lead generation, and qualification. Here, success is measured by the total qualified appointments booked monthly.
- Customer Onboarding
This is a bottom-of-the-funnel practice that takes sales outsourcing services beyond setting appointments and on to closing deals for their customers.
Not every sales outsourcing company offers this service. If you believe the outsourced team can help your business tremendously by closing deals, then look for a partner who offers it.
How Sales Outsourcing Works
Step 1: Getting Started
Once you hire a sales outsourcing company, you’ll likely have an in-person meeting (in some cases a video call) to discuss your needs and the provider’s role.
The agency will gather information about your brand and the solutions you offer in order to determine your unique differentiators and the best course of action. You’ll also agree on a launch date when the team assigned to you will begin training.
Step 2: Building a Dedicated Sales Team
The outsourced sales team will already have a team of sales reps ready to engage. Where a specific talent is required, they will most likely recruit someone to ensure all expectations are met.
Step 3: Launching the Sales Process
Sales training will typically last a week or less. Thereafter the reps are integrated into your company and embark on selling. They adopt your brand voice and present themselves as your company’s representatives to your target market.
Step 4: Daily Reporting
The sales reps will keep track of daily sales activities and provide reports. The designated account manager will have regular meetings to discuss the reps’ performance and their contribution to your revenue goals.
The outsourced sales company will continually provide their reps with the needed support, tools, and additional knowledge.
3 Main Considerations for Hiring a Sales Outsourcing Company
With an overwhelming number of B2B sales outsourcing companies on the market, choosing the right one can prove harder than usual.
Here are three factors to help you make fair assessments of candidate companies and find a good fit
- Industry Knowledge
Partnering with a provider that understands your industry shortens the training period and makes it easier to align in-house and the outsourced sales team.
The reps will aptly interpret customer behavioral data to identify market fits and maximize sales efforts and the campaigns’ overall successes.
- Team Location
Working remotely in your region is one thing and okay. But when the sales outsourcing company’s operations involve offshoring people as a service to keep costs down, that could pose a problem. For you.
Between language and cultural barriers as well as time zone restrictions, miscommunication, and misunderstandings may arise leading to mistrust.
You’ll want to identify a provider that hires sales professionals in your region to maximize conversions by delivering seamless transitions from one stage to the next.
- Years of Experience
Looking for a sales outsourcing partner with years of experience means you’ll be dealing with seasoned professionals.
These will be people who’ve spent years perfecting the art of generating leads, lead scoring, relating with potential customers, and breaking into a new market.
Working with such a team allows you to enjoy all the benefits of their expertise and your sales efforts are likely to bear desirable fruits.
Who Needs Sales Outsourcing?
Everyone running a business.
Outsourcing sales operations allows a company to fixate on its core competencies while the outsourcing company handles sales functions to ensure the brand attains its revenue goals.
There are various business categories that may benefit from a partnership with an outsourced sales service provider including
Small Businesses
These businesses typically comprise a small team of experts capable of creating brilliant solutions. They might, however, not have the expertise to scale their business beyond a certain level.
They probably hired a small sales team in the past but enjoyed minimal success resulting from the lack of lead generation expertise. The owner soon realizes they need someone to help them manage and direct the sales team to success.
Other businesses may find the burden of running sales and marketing activities alongside their current workload and business stage unmanageable.
Without the resources to hire, manage, support, and oversee sales functions, outsourcing sales may be their best option.
Medium-Sized Business
Typically, these will be businesses that have established a presence in their geographical regions. Their greatest challenge may be that their internal team is inundated with orders and is unable to think beyond serving existing customers.
While the brand may desire to enter a new market, its current workforce lacks the enthusiasm and capability to follow this through.
Similarly, a company that wants to launch new products speedily may outsource sales to a third-party provider. The agency will leverage its marketing team to aggressively push the product and forward the leads generated to the company for closing.
Large Companies
These organizations usually have a sales department in place but may be in need of supplemental support.
They may want to enter a new territory but lack sufficient coverage in that area or they want to launch new solutions but don’t want to divert their internal team from existing offers.
In both cases, outsourcing sales functions to an external team may provide much-needed additional support and expertise to drive these goals.
Advantages of Outsourced Sales Services
Here are 5 reasons to partner with sales outsourcing companies
- Speed to Market
Many businesses want to enter the B2B market and become the go-to brand. But to do that, potential customers must know you exist and have the solutions to meet their needs.
When you outsource sales and marketing, the provider will put together outbound sales and marketing activities to boost awareness, generate quality leads, and drive conversions.
- Ability to Increase Market Share
While many businesses may want to branch into new territories and grow, relying solely on their inside sales teams to do so might not take them very far. All thanks to work pressure, insufficient knowledge, and the like.
With the help of a sales outsourcing agency, you can reach both new and underserved markets.
- Sales Expertise
Working with a sales outsourcing company grants you access to sales and marketing experts who go beyond lead generation knowledge.
They understand the market and its trends and can obtain the sales intelligence your brand can leverage to surge forward.
- Scalability
There will be times when the market and company performance may require you to scale up or down and that comes with logistical nightmares.
With an outsourced sales team, you can grow your team or cut back as need be and without headache.
- Reduced Staffing Cost
Employees are expensive to recruit and maintain which makes outsourcing sales teams more cost-effective than having an inside sales team. You only pay the company for its services and they take care of their team.
- Eliminating Technological Restraints
Outsourcing companies come loaded with their own tools and equipment to facilitate the job they do.
It saves you the hassle of sorting through multiple tech companies in search of an appropriate tech stack. Plus, they keep up with trends meaning you’ll have access to modern tools without purchasing them.
Revolutionize Your Sales Process With Strategic Outsourcing
Partnering with an outsourced sales and marketing firm offers multiple benefits over the conventional in-house sales model.
From time-saving processes to better ROI, scalability, and advanced analysis and reporting, these companies can help you maximize your inbound and outbound outreach efforts.
Are you ready to optimize your lead generation and sales operations? Contact SalesHive today.
