When Outsourcing Sales Makes Sense - Part II

Outsourcing is an age-old concept. If you hire someone to clean your home or repair your car, you are outsourcing tasks that take too much valuable time or that you aren’t qualified to handle. Outsourcing in business works the same way. Outsourcing specialty services such as accounting, staffing, or tax preparation is more cost-effective and allows you to hire the most skilled talent available. So why don’t more organizations consider sales outsourcing?

In enterprise selling, sales have traditionally been an in-house role. Companies hire and train sales reps to find new customers and build their businesses but, maintaining an in-house sales team is costly. There is the cost of recruiting, which averages $29,000 or more. Then there is training, which includes payroll fees while the new sales rep gets up to speed, which can take up to nine months at an average cost of $36,000. There’s also the cost of replacing sales reps, which is around $115,000 and can take an average of more than six months.

Outsourcing sales eliminates many of the headaches and cuts costs. Rather than hiring and training a sales team, engaging a sales-as-a-service company gives you access to trained professionals who are ready to go to work. By outsourcing, you rent the expertise you need to build your business, which costs less in up-front costs and provides operating expenses you can deduct later.

Sales outsourcing isn’t a panacea and may not be right for every organization, but many companies continue to benefit from outsourcing their enterprise sales team. Some situations and circumstances especially benefit from sales outsourcing:

1. Scaling Sales Faster

If you need to expand your sales team in a hurry to introduce a new product or expand market reach, outsourcing saves money and, more importantly, time. An outsourced sales and marketing provider already has the resources you need, so building out your sales team is almost turnkey.

2. Overcoming Process Challenges

Implementing and maintaining sales processes that improve performance can be problematic. Outsourced and marketing sales service providers have refined best practices to optimize the sales funnel and increase revenue. They also have the tools to measure performance, using analytics to reveal gaps in sales measurement and identifying potential remedies. If you haven’t been monitoring sales effectiveness, simply putting the right metrics in place will improve sales performance.

3. Augmenting the Sales Infrastructure

Today’s B2B buyers are savvier than ever. They do their research and have a clear idea of what they want before they engage. That means sales reps interact with them later in the sales cycle, so they have less time to influence the buying decision. Using sales outsourcing services enables you to develop an integrated approach that uses the right mix of digital, phone, and field sales calls to affect sales decisions sooner. It also gives you access to sales professionals to fill specialty sales roles such as sales engineers and customer success managers to help with consultative selling.

4. Opening Specialty Markets

Looking to tackle a new market or industry but aren’t sure where to start? An outsourced sales organization can offer highly specialized expertise relating to specific industries or markets. They may have special knowledge and previous experience that puts them in an ideal position to help you. Finding an outsourced sales provider with the right market expertise can save on the time and cost of recruiting and training specialty sales reps. They also may be able to help you expand into other niche markets you hadn’t considered, such as government, automotive, IT, agriculture, financial services, and so on.

5. Making SMB Sales Profitable

Small and medium-sized businesses are a huge untapped market for many organizations, but committing the sales resources needed to close SMB deals just doesn’t yield ROI unless you outsource it. An outsourced sales and marketing group has the resources to manage lead qualification and nurture SMB prospects to convert them to customers at a fraction of what it would cost to do it with an in-house sales team.

6. Covering Secondary and International Markets

If you are seeking to expand your global sales footprint, then using the right outsourced sales partner can give you an immediate presence in foreign markets where you may not have an office. Outsourcing firms can fill the gaps, meeting the needs of accounts that demand nationwide or worldwide support.

7. Complying with Regulations and Customs

Opening new markets can mean encountering new issues with regulatory compliance and standards. Selling into foreign markets and foreign cultures often means understanding local market obstacles and customs. Using an outsourced sales provider who understands the local market alleviates that problem.

No matter what your go-to-market challenge is, MarketStar has the resources you need to expand your sales capabilities. If you want to learn more about the benefits of outsourcing sales, be sure to read our guide, Is Outsourced Inside Sales Right for You?