Sales leaders today are facing a rapidly shifting space marked with new buyer behaviors and difficult economic times. At a time when sales operations have fundamentally changed from what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, sales organizations need all hands on deck. Enter sales outsourcing. When scalability, speed, and focus are essential, outsourcing sales is a proven way for companies to quickly acquire reinforcements while focusing on core endeavors. Sales outsourcing gives companies access to skilled sales professionals with established business networks that can be scaled up or down as circumstances change.
Working with forward-thinking partners and experts also exposes sales teams to new ideas, industry best practices, and additional resources. Ready to learn more? Here are 8 ways companies can benefit from sales outsourcing.
1. Close the gap on new or underserved markets
SMBs and even enterprise companies can be stretched when it comes to having enough salespeople to cover different territories and industries—especially in COVID-19’s wake. Companies often have numerous business leads available to them that they’re unable to pursue due to resource constraints.
As part of your long-term market strategy, an outsourced sales agency can focus on developing specific vertical or geographic markets. Meanwhile, companies can also use an outsourced sales team to test new approaches to sales and product positioning. From there, the results can be analyzed and fine-tuned before being extended to a larger base of customers and prospects.
2. Access to more technology (without the maintenance costs)
Organizations are modernizing their sales infrastructure to include automation, virtualization, hybrid data centers, and real-time access at a time when cybersecurity is also a growing priority. Demand for sales and cybersecurity experts with the right skills is outstripping supply, which can slow down business. A practical way to overcome this challenge is by turning to an experienced partner.
Companies can achieve time-to-market benefits by outsourcing to a partner that has built and maintains state-of-the-art data and technology environments with the latest cybersecurity measures.
For example, companies can benefit from the use of an outsourced partner’s analytics tools. Data science and analytics platforms can help salespeople determine the best time to call a customer or to extend an offer, among other actions. Also, artificial intelligence combined with analytics can help sales leaders analyze thousands of data points to gain a deeper understanding of prospect needs and employee performance issues to take corrective and predictive actions that can strengthen operational and business results.
3. Gain expertise
The buying landscape has changed significantly as a result of the pandemic. A company’s product and service needs may have changed and lucrative deals may be placed on hold indefinitely. Leveraging a sales outsourcing boutique gives companies the chance to draw on best practices and lessons learned from a partner’s vast experience with other clients across multiple industries. This is extremely useful for quickly picking up new ideas for sales techniques, especially for companies in industries that are rather insular. It’s also a great way for sales leaders to add bench strength with reps who have demonstrated experience in specific vertical industries (e.g., healthcare, financial services, technology).
4. Lower the cost of sales
Inside sales teams are less expensive than onboarding and staffing field sales staff. Industry estimates reveal that each customer contact with an inside salesperson might cost a company $25 to $30 compared with $300 to $500 for a field salesperson, including travel expenses and company benefits. The numbers seem positive, but some companies who have historically invested in field sales staff might not be prepared to build and manage a robust inside sales team. Outsourcing the inside sales function enables sales leaders to slash overhead costs while expanding sales coverage.
5. Greater accountability, analysis, and dependable performance management
Outsourcers are typically paid on a success-fee basis. The conditions of payment largely depend on whether the outsourcer successfully closes deals with new clients. Outsourcers are incentivized to take greater accountability for the sales process and are well positioned to bring forward new ideas that will continuously improve the results of their sales efforts. Outsourcers must also meet contractual service level agreements and expectations, which give them “skin in the game.”
6. Promote greater performance
An outsourced sales organization can spur internal teams to ramp up their operations. Adding an outsourced sales partner to work alongside an internal team provides an external benchmark for excellent performance that can help raise the performance level across the board.
An outsourcer also brings fresh ideas, new perspectives, and best practices to the table. For example, sales organizations that need to make substantive changes, such as an overhaul to its sales strategy or the implementation of a digital marketing plan, can gain from working with a third-party provider that can offer innovative suggestions based on practical experience with other clients.
7. Accomplish more with a partner that becomes an extension of your brand
Outsourcing gives companies a huge competitive advantage because if done right, it allows them to scale successfully with resources that align to their company culture, social values, and collaborative process. By expanding their team with a partner that is laser-focused on customer experience, companies add new capabilities, skillsets, and specialized expertise on how to deliver CX that satisfies and drives sales. For example, when working with a new client, we focus on understanding the company’s culture, social values, and mission in order to create an open dialogue about current goals and future ambitions to drive ongoing success.
8. Leverage data insights to increase profits and revenues
Lastly, companies can maximize all sales opportunities and increase revenue by leveraging an outsourcer’s data insights platform. Customer data and analytics can help create statistical models that can be used to identify the best customers and prospects along with developing an effective touch cadence throughout the customer lifecycle.
One enterprise logistics company TTEC worked with generated a 28 percent improvement in the efficiency of its sales team in the first 60 days of its engagement, while its sales trajectory jumped 121 percent. Aligning customer journey data with sales processes can have a powerful impact. Dynamic alignments (making modifications as soon as changes in the marketplace are detected) of data and sales processes have a significantly strong impact on win rates compared to sales processes that do not include the customer journey.
Work smarter, not harder
Companies that rely on their own internal resources can certainly succeed, but the question is whether the company will be fast and nimble enough to meet their customers’ needs and stay ahead of their competitors. Outsourcing select portions of the sales process can give sales organizations access to a wider range of sales expertise and best practices, bypass technology limitations, gain new ideas, and more.
Sales outsourcing can help sales organizations work smarter, not harder.
