Outsourcing is considered an agile practice now that accelerates goals and achievements. It lets internal teams focu more on what they can do best and delegate the selling process and roles to a vendor who can recruit, train, sell, scale and generate revenue for you. Insourcing definitely gives direct control over things but outsourcing, on the other hand, can give access to expertise in sales which can lead to improved ROI and greater productivity.
While discussing some of the mere advantages that outsourcing provides, it must be noted that outsourcing shortens ramp-up time. While sales executives need at least 90 days of training to learn the product, its value, selling points and more, especially in B2B offerings, post that they become versatile in handling solutions and insight selling and matching product or service to prospect’s needs. They become fluent in talking with higher executives and decision-makers.
Outsourcing brings you, flexibility. While it takes time to ramp up an in-house sales team, for product launch, outsourcing can move your plans much faster facilitating you to take immediate advantage of market opportunities. It thus offers flexibility that translates to how quickly you can move your sales team to meet new requirements and targets. But before going well with flexibility, you need to look into a number of factors.
These factors include scalability, agility & adaptability, performance billing model, strategy, sales processes and technological resources. You need to look at all possible methods of scaling that your outsourced partner can provide, they must be able to adapt to new changes at the earliest and flex their tactics to meet suddenly booming, unexpected demands. They should be regularly validated based on their performance and how much of a visionary are they or are they just task-oriented. Your outsource partner must be willing to adapt and try out different sales processes and scenarios that will succeed and also be equipped with latest, powerful technologies that can make this an effective investment.
Another competitive advantage outsourcing can provide is more focus on sales cycle as this becomes your outsourcing partner’s main aim and vision. The sales supplier will be intended to present a comprehensive set of metrics that provide insight on the track record of long-term, satisfied clients. They should be able to share performance value and process innovations. An outsourced sales team must be committed to the company’s product and sales needs so that it can promote the brand. Ensure there is cultural fit between the company and the vendor and act as an expansion of the in-house sales team. Deliverables must be well-defined wrt lead qualification, generating sales with SMBs and opening new markets. Basically, an outsourced sales team must be made an inherent part of the sales operation.
The ideal outsourcing partner must match your long-term business requirements, create a customized, end-to-end sales ecosystem that provides specific service components. The selection process must involve another set of considerations that include people, technologies, and insight. The sales partner’s personnel quality and processes used for hiring, motivating and retaining business sales professionals must be considered before signing up for outsourcing. The outsourced partner must be well versed in various processes like forecasting and pipeline management, tactics for achieving goals, metrics and analytics and adaptability. Always make sure that an outsourced sales team keeps pace with organizational changes and possesses digital demand generation expertise, CRM expertise, analytics capabilities and a tech stack literacy.
After considering all this and onboarding an outsourced sales partner, you must always keep channels of communication open with weekly touchpoints and quarterly reviews. Proper training has to be provided and you must always stay on top of what goes in their sales process. The best outsourced sales partner must offer a full-service sales operation which can be aligned with business objectives so that the sales funnel provides maximum return. Your outsourcing sales partner must provide increased lifetime value for partners and end-users.
