Outsourced sales can be the quickest and safest way to increase your leads and sales without the high cost and risk of developing an internal sales team. If you have a product that people are buying, then your quickest path to success is to ramp up your sales.
And the lowest risk way to do that is with an outsourced sales partner.
Building yourself a successful sales team can be harder than creating your product. It takes time to get it right. Even if you throw money at it there is no guarantee you will get the results you want in the time you want. That is not to say you cant have a sales director or sales people in your business. The reality though is that most companies are good at creating what they sell – not selling it.
Common sales team problems
A sales team takes time and it costs money just to set up. The learning curve is steep and the reasons why your sales might not be succeeding are so varied that you could waste further time and money trying to fix the wrong piece of the puzzle. Do any of these classic examples sound familiar to you?
- Set sales targets based on what revenue the company needs to make, not what is realistic to sell
- Invest in technology but fail to utilise it properly
- Provide sales training to your whole team that is forgotten or never utilised
- Change the marketing campaign, presuming it is not working
- Hire and fire hoping to find the perfect sales team
You may not have all these problems and you could overcome them all. However, what happens if your competitor manages to avoid them all and establishes strong sales in the market you were hoping to dominate?
More than ever, high growth companies do not have time to make sales mistakes.
Outsourced sales builds strength to your business
Many sales directors and business owners fear that outsourcing sales will mean a loss of control. This is far from the truth. Of course not all outsourced sales solutions are the same but the Transaction Focus methodology is designed to build long term strength in your business.
You should develop sales expertise in your business and the best way to do this is to model and learn from experts. You can then continue to manage your external sales resource or choose to bring the outsourced sales team inhouse
When you work with an outsourced sales partner you will remove many of the inherent risks of building an internal sales team. A good outsourced sales partner will already have the systems and tools required.
Pick the right one and they will also have the contacts, market expertise and motivation to be the success that you need them to be – almost instantly.
How outsourced sales leads to business success
When you talk about outsourced sales people seem to have preconceptions that are just not justified. At the very least there are as many negatives to creating to your own sales team. Any intelligent person can learn product and company knowledge.
A well oiled, highly effective sales machine however takes time. Time in which your business is expected to be hitting sales targets.
Below are the 6 areas that are the most common areas of discussion and cases in favour of working with a highly skilled outsourced sales partner.
1. Sales Leadership
The two most common problems high growth companies face in sales leadership is that either that they do not have someone senior in the business with a strong sales background or that they do, but that person is too far engrained in the day to day sales to take the team and strategy forward.
On either level you need a sales manager to oversee the sales process. If this means you now have someone to delegate to whilst you lead strategy, then great. If it means that you have now have an experienced voice to oversee the whole sales process then that too means you leadership team are back focused on what they are good at.
2. Lead generation and sales management
Managing the sales process from lead generation to close, is rarely a quick process. Particularly in higher ticket B2B markets where outsourced sales is better suited. The work required at the start and end of this process are distinctly different. It also requires very different skills.
An in-house sales and marketing team is not always big enough to manage these different stages of the sales funnel. In truth they also impact on motivation in very different ways. If your sales team is small or even just a couple of people, then the drive for high numbers of leads and the common rejections received can be quite demoralising.
An outsourced sales team can be used to capture and qualify leads so that your sales people are given hot prospects ready to close. Meaning their time is spent doing valuable, rewarding work, which leaves them performing at their best.
3. Marketing and Sales Systems
It blows my mind how many companies we see who have spent months and thousands of $ on tools that are not fit for purpose. Technology does not come cheap. And if it does, the cost comes in realising it is harder to use or just doesn’t get you the results you needed it to. An outsourced sales company has done its due-diligence and product selection already. They have tried and tested systems that they can quickly put to work on your business.
4. Sales expertise and local market contacts
Finding good sales people is not easy. Worst of all they are in such high demand that keeping them can be even harder. The recruitment process in itself is an area that takes a high degree of experience and knowledge to navigate. No-one at an interview tells you they are a bad candidate and hiring bad sales people impacts results immediately. Let alone the time it takes to realise they are not performing and then starting the process all over again.
At Transaction Focus we are not just a recruitment solution. From creating a small test selling team, to growing that team based on results, we use experienced sales professionals with local market knowledge and contacts. Presuming you want them to, they work from your company email address and carry your business cards. These are people with established networks of trusted contacts and influencers. This kind of local experience and cultural knowledge is vital in achieving results. You want your team to feel and work like your team.
5. Speed to market
Every senior business leader has experienced the time it can take for their organisation to approve a decision. And that’s just the small ones! In sales the clock is ticking on your targets every second of every day. When the decision is finally made to expand sales efforts into new markets or countries, what you really need is to prove that decision is the right one as quickly as possible. And if it isn’t be able to deal with it equally quickly.
An outsourced sales partner should give you the ability to enter a market quickly, simply because they are already there and ready to sell on your behalf. It is not that you couldn’t do this but it is more the question of why would you choose to do it the hard way? Get to market quickly, prove results in your test selling and then expand your position with confidence.
6. Cost
It might seem strange to leave cost until last on the benefits of outsourced sales. Many companies presume that the cost of an outsourced sales partner is going to be expensive. This is a strange assumption when in so many other areas of business the cost of outsourcing is seen as a sound investment. From recruitment, to cleaning, to payroll, various aspects of a companies operation are confidently outsourced. Sales should be no different.
In theory the cost can be as little as zero $. If the investment in your sales partner is the same or less than the profit they have led to you generating, then you have net zero cost. Which is before you factor in the man hours taken to manage and handle – i.e. stress and get distracted by – all the factors mentioned above.
Your company may be very sophisticated in calculating your internal costs but most businesses are not. It quickly mounts up.
On a more upfront cost basis the investment in developing an outsourced sales team should be considerably less than creating your own sales team. From recruitment to office space, to utilities and staff training. The cost of setting up a team is is both high and inflexible. What do when you want to scale up, let alone down? Outsourced sales gives you the flexibility to do this easily with one cost and one provider to manage.
How to kick off your outsourced sales success
Your first step in making outsourced sales work is overcoming the common preconceptions. When you can see it as utilising external expertise to leverage the success of your product then it becomes a simple decision. A decision that can quickly become a competitive advantage as you enter new markets with ease and efficiency.
To select the right outsourced sales partner make sure that..
- experienced in your product area
- experienced in the country or market you wish to enter
- good communication and chemistry – you need to like them
- you have clear goals and targets
- you understand their fees, commissions and exit process
To kickstart your sales growth book a RAPID SALES CONSULTATION. This short introduction call is for you to talk about your goals and challenges, and to understand how outsourced sales could work alongside your existing sales efforts.