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Is it time to Refresh or Reshape your Sales Structures?
Ready to embrace change and constantly re-energise your internal teams?
Your organisation may be at a crossroads (or super galactic interchange!!);
Are you busy shaping sales and marketing resource for international or channel future growth and of course adding AI into the mix?
Employing full time sales resource is costly in terms of recruitment, onboarding, training and orientation fees, taxes, natural insurance etc.
With long sales cycle lengths, ROI can be up to 2 years and when you factor in ROE (Return on Energy) with management and motivation etc, full time sales personnel are sometimes not viable commercially.
So what are the alternatives?
Below and in the above matrix, we have outlined the benefits of different options as some company heads looking to expand while opting to reduce headcount may get confused.
INTERIMS
Using a senior INTERIM project manager was traditionally deployed to replace an absent existing employee. Interims should be super flexible and also provide added value i.e. resolve operational issues, refresh your approach, introduce a new TOM (Target Operating Model), for example.
Quicker ROI often results as Senior Interims are seasoned sector specialists who can hit the road running and provide instant win solutions.
Interims from the IIM (Institute of Interim Management) are generally expected to significantly improve outcomes.
FRACTIONALS
A FRACTIONAL Sales person will potentially cost you at least 50% less and can also add more value in terms of ROI. These individuals can be Interim calibre and work within a team managed by Transaction Focus.
This may enable you to hire 2 x 50% FTE Fractionals focusing on 2 channels for the price of one; this way you can create some healthy competition.
Smaller or pre-revenue organisations even use senior well connected Fractionals as 25% FTEs to save budget until significant revenue is generated.
CONSULTANTS OR NEAs (Non-Executive Advisors)
They should ideally have a rare deep industry or sector skill set or specialist channel expertise and can effectively mentor or guide your team. They can hopefully open up new networks or introduce new partnerships.
They can be hired on an occasional basis, even for a few days a month.
CONSULTANTS OR NEAs can offer a similar role to NEDs (Non-Executive Directors), however their involvement is likely to be more short term and they will clearly have less Corporate Governance obligations.
OUTSOURCED SALES TEAMS
Outsourced Sales individuals or teams are deployed more readily in the USA and increasingly in France and Germany.
They can be used when organisations are uncomfortable hiring sales teams in house due to headcount restrictions or simply with demanding sales targets, sales staff turnover can be high; this can disrupt internal team harmony.
Sales teams require a certain style of management that Transaction Focus excels at.
OUTSOURCED Sales teams can be hired on a more flexible basis; only if they prove to be highly successful can they be integrated into the core internal client team.
They need to be competent test selling and test marketing into new channels to discover revenue viability and should significantly help de-risk international expansion.
Ideally, they need to coordinate seamlessly with Marketing, Key Account and customer support teams.
Flexibility is key. Massive contributors can take on greater roles; poor performers can be rapidly replaced at no or little cost.