B2B Sales Outsourcing Can Help You Reach Your 2013 Sales Goals

outsourcing sales teamDuring this time of year, many B2B companies are pursuing their 2013 sales goals with full force and speed ahead.  A lot of companies make lofty goals in January, but are then unable to reach them because of weaknesses in their overall strategy or process.  If you are having problems reaching your sales goals or growing as a business, you may want to consider looking into an outsourced sales option.

Here are some of the ways outsourcing B2B sales and marketing can help your company achieve their sales goals in 2013:

  • Gained access to an entire sales team for approximately the cost of one internal sales rep.  Despite how incredible an individual may be in terms of talent and skill, that person can never match the combined training, experience and established relationships that an outsourced sales team can provide. So, instead of spending money internally to hire someone new, it may be more cost-effective to outsource a whole team.
  • Accelerate your sales process by deploying an experienced sales team for specific projects. When you set your sights high in terms of sales goals, you do not leave yourself a lot of time to spend locating and training new salespeople.  Anyone with experience in sales knows training a new rep takes a good deal of time and effort on your part.  If you do not want to spend the first quarter training, hiring an outsourced team with plenty of prior experience is your best option.
  • Time to investigate new markets and establish new territory prior to hiring new in house sales reps. If you do not have years of experience finding salespeople in your specific market, it can be quite difficult to build a successful internal sales team.  This is because most great salespeople have a specialty that they unwilling to deviate from. Using outsourcing can help with this dilemma because it allows you time to become more familiar with the market you wish to enter to make connections and entice the best salespeople your way.
  • Experiment with new offerings while retaining the focus of your in house team.  The launch of a new product or service is one of the best times to use an outsourcing sales and marketing company.  This is because you can keep your internal team focused on your current products and proven strategies for success while the outsourced team can test the response of your new product and make adjustments.
  • Build a platform for direct sales without affecting your sales channel, or create a sales channel without impacting direct sales. Similarly to the way outsourcing is effective during a new product launch, an outsourced sales team can also be leveraged during a transition between sales models.  When attempting to add or transition between sales models, you can keep your internal team focused on the old model and let the outsourcing team navigate the new one.  The outsourcing team can assess any concerns or dangers, flush them out and make sure your new sales model is set up to succeed.

If you would like to know more about the benefits outsourcing B2B sales, please reach out to us at Gabriel Sales by contacting us here. For more information on the services we provide, you can check out our Services Page.

10 Tips for Using Facebook for B2B Marketing

FacebookFacebook.com is the most popular site in existence, getting more clicks than Google search since 2010.  Within over 1 billion users, Facebook has become a highly effective part of many B2B digital marketing strategies.

Here are 10 Facebook for B2B Marketing social media tips:

  1. Make a ‘Fan’ Page for Your Business. These are different than personal profile pages, and Facebook simply calls them pages.  This ‘fan’ page will be the platform where are of your communication and content will come from.
  2. Add a Discussion Forum.  Facebook allows you to make subpages within your business page.  Adding a place for discussion amongst your customers (and moderated by you) can be great sales research.
  3. Add Photos.  Your page should display pictures alongside your name and description.  Your photos can include company logos, pictures or your location, employees, etc. Just give people something to look at besides words.
  4. Post Videos. In addition to your channel on YouTube, your Facebook profile is another great place to upload our videos if you want them to be seen.
  5. Customize Your Page. While the overall structure or your page is predetermined by Facebook, they do give you several options to customize the look and content you present.  Facebook has places for you to link to your business website and other social media accounts, which you should always do. Do everything you can to make your branding style on Facebook match your overall branding strategy.
  6. Encourage Customers to ‘Like’ and ‘Recommend’ Your Page. Every time someone clicks the ‘like’ button on your business’s page, they have automatically subscribed to all of the content you post. You can directly post on your Facebook page to ask people to like your page, but you should also coordinate your marketing campaign to include an invitation to ‘like’ your page on all of your different media outlets. Once you have people that have ‘liked’ your page, you can ask them to recommend it to others.  This is a way of creating and exploiting brand loyalty by asking existing customers to recommend your business to new potential leads.
  7. Post Consistently About Topics of Interest. A Facebook page is not like a website; it needs to display new content on a regular basis.  The easiest way to post new content is in the form of a ‘status update’.  These are usually short messages that give updates on things like industry happenings or a new product launch.  Keep in mind that if your posts seem irrelevant or annoying to your ‘fans’, they have the option to ‘unlike’ you.  So, you should try to make sure all of your posts are at least interesting to your readers. You should aim to post something new to your page at least once a week, but daily is better.
  8. Ask Questions. People love to share their opinions on Facebook and feel like there voice is heard.  You can therefore indulge them by asking questions related to your business or industry.  Facebook even has the option to create a unique poll and invite your ‘fans’ to give their take on a specific issue.  As a fortunate side effect of stimulating lively discussions on your page, you get free and real-time market research.
  9. Encourage Comments. This goes along with asking questions.  If you ask the right questions, you can motivate people to respond by posting their opinions directly on your page about your products, services or general industry trends.
  10. Observe and Respond. Communication is a two-way street, which means you need to do more than just post status updates and ask questions.  You need to also carefully monitor all of the posts and comments people leave you.  If you not respond to your comments, you are left looking callous and disrespectful.  If your customers are taking the time to interact with your business, you need to take the time to respond to them.

For more Facebook B2B Marketing social media tips from Gabriel Sales, please feel free to contact us.