Outsourced Sales Development
Outsource for expertise and save time on training and managing a team.
Should you consider outsourcing sales development?
According to Salesforce, outsourcing the sales function is one of The 7 Biggest Trends Upending Sales Today.
Their research shows that automation has enabled outsourced sellers to run a company’s entire sales process. We’re talking all the way from demand generation to customer acquisition and fulfillment.
What’s causing an increase in demand for sales outsourcing?
1. A lack of sales expertise. Many companies are founded by technical, financial, or operational leaders. They’re able to grow the business to a certain point based on their core competencies, but in order to achieve the next level of growth, they need to look outside of their organization to find sales expertise and guidance. Sales Outsourcing helps companies avoid the trial and error in developing their strategy.
2. The cost of building and managing a sales team. If you looked at the true cost of hiring, training, and managing a sales team you’d probably be surprised. You need to hire the right people, pay them well, invest in the right technology, and ensure they have management support. Sales Outsourcing offers clients a fixed cost solution.
3. Keeping closers focused. Many companies hire salespeople and expect them to both hunt for new business and farm their existing pipeline, but it doesn’t work. Hunters and farmers have different skills and personalities. Sales farmers gravitate towards building relationships and closing deals, so prospecting takes a back seat. This slows down new business and creates inconsistency. Outsourced sales development firms focus on setting appointments, so salespeople can focus on closing deals.
4. Accelerating speed to market. Whether you’re expanding into a new market or changing your business model, it’s quicker for an outsourced sales team to help you launch a new campaign because they’re constantly recruiting and have the people, process and technology in place to deliver results immediately. This helps you scale quickly and avoid the risk of failure that comes with new initiatives.
What is Sales Outsourcing?
Sales outsourcing is when an organization delegates all or part of its sales process to an external contractor or agency. This can include outsourcing appointment setting or closing. Sales Outsourcing can allow sales teams to focus on core business functions, reduce costs, and solve capacity issues.
Who is a good fit for Sales Outsourcing?
Any business-to-business company can get value from increasing appointments and sales, and working with experts to ensure their resources are being utilized efficiently. However, the following types of companies get the most value:
1. Startups and Small Businesses
Salespeople at lean organizations often lack the time and resources to do prospecting, pipeline management, and follow-up. This is especially true when they want to expand their footprint, and the sales team hasn’t added headcount to accommodate the extra workload. These types of organizations must balance between investing in growth and focusing on profitability.
2. Companies Adopting a New Sales Model (SDR/AE split or Account Based Marketing)
Companies that undergo a significant change in their organizational structure or sales process often see a lack of adoption and a decrease in performance due to skills or knowledge lagging behind. This scenario causes a slowdown in business growth because salespeople are too comfortable with their current systems and lack the accountability to adopt change.
3. Companies Expanding Into a New Industry or Geographic Region
Going to market quickly with a new product, sales model, or target market requires time and resources to research market dynamics, develop a new sales playbook, and gather data to evaluate if you’re on the right track. Companies that rush or shortcut this process typically waste time and money, or fail because they’re unable to achieve product-market fit.
4. Companies with Expensive/Complex Products and Services
Complex or expensive solutions require a significant amount of time and effort to close. Salespeople in enterprise selling environments typically deal with multiple decision makers, lots of competitors, and long sales cycles. In this scenario, salespeople don’t have the time to do their own prospecting. They must rely on marketing and business development to fill their pipeline with qualified opportunities, so they can stay focused on relationship building and closing. This means the cost of building and managing a sales team is more expensive.
Who is not a good fit for Sales Outsourcing?
1. Companies with people issues
Simply put, you can’t scale a business without great people. You need a dedicated sales team who fits your core values, are well trained, and experienced. Companies that try to expand sales before solving their people issues typically miss their revenue targets and lose money in the end.
2. Companies that don’t have product-market fit
The solution you sell must solve a critical problem in your target market. You also need sales messaging that resonates with your buyers’ pain points. Prospects need a compelling reason to buy, otherwise they’ll continue to stall during the sales cycle and your salespeople won’t return with any deals. Companies that lack product-market fit typically have low email engagement, low call connect rates, long sales cycles, and miss their revenue targets consistently.
3. Companies lacking a documented sales process that’s followed consistently
Salespeople need ongoing coaching and accountability to produce consistent results, no matter how experienced they are. Sales is a complex job and salespeople need management support to move deals forward in the pipeline. Companies that lack sales leadership or sales process typically experience accountability issues, inconsistent communication, and missed revenue goals.
What Makes 7 Figure Automation Outsourcing Different
Get real-time intelligence on companies that are searching for keywords and consuming content about your solution. Score them based on hundreds of data points, like industry, company size, and technology used. Now you can market to the right companies, at the right time.
Prospect Data Enrichment
Find decision makers based on job title, department, or seniority level. Our contact databases provide access to the industry’s best data quality. We give you access to mobile phone numbers and business email addresses for hundreds of millions of decision makers and companies, worldwide.
Account-Based Marketing
We warm up your prospect list with account-based display advertising to build brand awareness, trust, and engagement with your target companies. This increases conversions for both marketing and sales, and significantly increases email and phone engagement rates further down the pipeline.
Omni-Channel Prospecting
Get a local business development expert who’s dedicated to prospecting for your company. We use email, phone and LinkedIn to schedule qualified appointments for your sales team. You provide direction for the target companies, decision makers, and sales messaging, we handle the rest.
Qualified Appointments
With 7FA working as an extension of your sales team, your salespeople will spend less time prospecting, reduce unqualified opportunities, and avoid chasing down unresponsive prospects. This enables them to stay focused on following your sales process and closing the deal.
Sales Team Support
Save time and get a return on investment with marketing and sales alignment. We support your team by following up with unresponsive prospects, conducting deal reviews, and scoring each opportunity to improve lead quality, shorten sales cycles, and increase close rates.
Performance-Based Pricing
We use a performance-based pricing model to share in the financial risk with you. We charge a monthly platform fee, plus a fee for each appointment. The platform fee covers the cost of our labor and technology. The cost of each appointment will vary, depending on the projected number of appointments per month. And your monthly investment fluctuates, depending on our production.
Lasting Value Beyond Our Partnership
Our work doesn’t just end when the engagement does. The system we develop for your team will be an invaluable asset, reshaping your sales narrative for years to come. All of our people, processes, and technology are completely transferrable if you decide that you want to bring your business development function in-house.
Time to Take Action
Don’t just read about the transformation; experience it. Hesitating to make a decision isn’t going to fix your lead generation problem. Schedule a call with us to get a complimentary sales assessment and we’ll help you identify the gaps and opportunities in your sales department.
