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Outsourcing functions to skilled service providers is becoming more and more mainstream. And in today’s business environment it is becoming common in areas like finance, HR, IT support and customer service.
And with the recent requirement for aligned sales and marketing to move deals through each stage of the funnel combined, sales outsourcing and outsourced marketing is now another area that many start-ups and small businesses are considering. Sales outsourcing can drive multiple advantages for a company looking to scale including; removing fixed costs, contributing trained and skilled reps immediately without the delays of recruiting and giving you executive sales oversight and strategy without the full time expense of hiring a sales executive. But how can you tell if you should consider sales outsourcing?
Is Your Cost of Sales % too high?
Sales and marketing all boils down to how much it costs to take a lead from the top of the sales funnel through to closed business. Success now requires you to invest in hard costs like technology, databases, floor space and phone systems. There are also multiple soft costs like training, recruiting and daily management. If you are a small business with only a handful of reps these costs can quickly become a substantial part of your budget. The reality is that when building a sales team you have a great deal of fixed and soft costs that don’t change between 1 to 5 sales reps. A sales outsourcing company will already have these fixed and soft costs covered as part of their operations. If you have a small sales team sales outsourcing will absorb the costs and lower your cost of sales percentage.
Inconsistent Sales Results
Many companies struggle to produce consistent sales results on a quarter by quarter or month to month basis. This then creates a challenge for the executives leading the company. They cannot forecast for sales growth. They struggle to make intelligent forecasts to scale the operations of their business. In many cases for small business this is the direct result of not taking care of the necessary blocking and tackling required to take care of the necessary tasks to move deals forward and generate new deals on a daily basis. Often we see companies spend the first quarter focusing 80% of their energy generating new leads. The next quarter developing leads. And the final quarter spending 80% of their time closing leads. A sales outsourcing company can level the pipe by providing the tools, team and talent allocated to all three tasks on a daily basis.
Not using all the Latest Automation Technologies
99 % of the Fortune 2000 are using sales automation technologies because they work. But many smaller or high growth companies do not have the experience or expertise to implement content marketing and lead scoring technologies on their own. If your sales reps are not supported by these technologies they are spending time on daily tasks that can be automated. They are spending their time working deals that will not close, and they are wasting their time on tasks that can be automated rather than working the phone. A sales outsourcing company can provide the tools and the expertise to maximize the production of your sales reps by helping you to automate your sales process and buyer education whenever possible.
Sales Pipeline Blockage
A proportional flow of deals advancing through your sales funnel is a key driver of success. Having leads consistently move from one stage to the next will provide consistent deal flow but inconsistent performance at any stage will lead to ebbs and flows in deal closure. A sales outsourcing company can help you to determine where leads are getting stuck and why. Once that is determined the problem can be addressed immediately. A sales outsourcing company will be able to walk you through the sales techniques to move deals forward with scripts, improved closing questions and a repeatable sales process. This becomes very powerful when combined with outsourced marketing services to create the sales or marketing materials you need to nurture leads and engage them to push them to the next stage.
Summary
Sales outsourcing can be a powerful sales leadership tool for companies looking to scales their sales to the next level. A key to your sale success is for you to clearly communicate where you feel your sales and marketing challenges are when you have your initial discovery sessions with sales outsourcing companies. Gabriel Sales makes this easy during our initial success criteria and discovery sessions prior to crafting a custom approach for every potential client.
The seismic shift we are seeing right now in how buyers buy using digital content requires that marketing now needs to remain accountable for the prospect much deeper into their buying process and your sales funnel. The line between sales and marketing as it applies to demand generation and engagement is getting blurred and this trend is not going to abate any time soon. So when outsourcing sales you need to consider who is going to do this work? Do your marketers understand sales outsourcing success? And do sales appreciate marketing? This is where an outsourced sales and marketing company may be able to help.
Sales outsourcing success is no longer about hiring reps to bang the phone and then hard close. You cannot expect sales outsourcing success without substantial marketing support. Below are the basic marketing competencies and blended sales outsourcing and marketing team you should expect any sales outsourcing partner to provide.
Summary
Gabriel Sales has been supplying both sales outsourcing and outsourced marketing services for SMBs and start-ups since 1999. To learn more about the tactics we use please check out additional educational Sales Outsourcing resources in our Sales Outsourcing Blog. Or to learn more about our philosophy and approach to sales outsourcing success please check out the About Us page.
In 2016 according to Forrester we witnessed the near universal embrace of content marketing with 93% of B2B “marketers” claiming that they have at least tested content marketing in some part of their sales and marketing efforts.
And as an outsourced sales and marketing company, we are fully committed to generating more qualified sales opportunities with content marketing and lead scoring. But as outsourced sales company, we understand that the C-Suite and owners of small to medium sized business remain skeptical going all in:
And some of these executives may be correct. This article is meant to help them evaluate if they are right or they consider giving lead scoring with and outsourced sales team a shot.
While 99% of the both the B2B and B2C Fortune 2000 is fully committed to content marketing, lead scoring, and automation systems, small and mid-sized business remain skeptical.
The fact is that lead scoring and automation is not a must have for all businesses. To evaluate if lead scoring is right for your business, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
Do I spend money on leads monthly and then abandon after I get a fresh set of lead?
Is your business spending money on fresh leads every month? Does your sales team attempt these leads a handful of times and then wait for the fresh leads and stop following up with last month’s leads? If you are in a business where deals typically close in 30 days or less from initial interest you may want to continue doing what you are doing. If first touch to close is 30 days or more lead scoring may have significant benefits.
Because 70% of buyers now prefer to learn about new products and solutions by email (sharing educational content) most companies have at least tested content marketing. In fact, 90% of B2B companies now started content marketing in at least a small way. But content is not enough. At a minimum you also need a database of at least 3,000 to 5,000 buyers to get started. You also need to create enough basic educational content to touch these buyers at least 2 times per month for B2B sales and slightly more for B2B sales. If you do not have enough leads you will need to invest in a leads database first. The same goes for content. Content can be as simple as blog posts and short videos. Gabriel Sales offers cost effective packages to help with both.
Is my market so large that I can target and sell to hundreds of thousands of buyers? Have I generated so many inbound leads that my sales team cannot keep up? Is my product so disruptive that everyone would be willing to take a call on the topic? If you have a broad market with tire kickers you should have been scoring leads 5 years ago.
Professional Services and software in areas like accounting, compliance, HR, IT, BPO and marketing, printing are not “If” but “When” decisions. Timing is everything. Staying top of mind with buyers so when they are ready to buy is critical so your sales team calls when the window is open. Automation and lead scoring make this possible.
Do your sales reps always complain about bad leads? Lead scoring will solve this problem but not on its own. Before launching your lead scoring engine you need to have both sales and marketing agree on what a scored lead is with concrete criteria. Once you agree to these criteria lead scoring will work. It is also a way for you to objectively and subjectively evaluate if you have a sales issue as opposed to a lead quality issue. When Gabriel Sales outsourced sales team set appointments scored leads can help your internal sales team embrace rather than reject leads.
Do you have a great deal of leads that hit the early stage funnel that go through an introductory meeting and/or product demo that never transact? Chances are you have one of two problems. First, your business development reps are not qualifying correctly. Or tire kickers are going straight to senior staff because you don’t have the content necessary to do this initial early stage buyer education. Lead scoring and some basic content that demonstrates your solution can save you tremendous time, money and resources. If a buyer is not interested enough to educate themselves online prior to meeting with your senior resources the prospect is probably not worth their time sell to the buyers yet.
If your sale requires a champion on the buyer side then that champion will need content to educate themselves about your solution so they can move that deal forward. They will also need to share that content with other people on the buying committee. If there are multiple buyers involved in the buying decision they will engage with content more frequently and have a larger digital footprint. Do you have more than one buyer?
If these pages are not part of your website or content marketing strategy you should probably consider them. If a buyer hits any of these pages they are strong predictive indicators that your buyer is ready for sales engagement. Notifying your reps or outsourced sale reps when buyers hit these pages can put your team at the front of the line.
How Gabriel Sales Can Help
If you are considering lead scoring for your business, you can begin with us in two ways:
As a B2B Outsourced Sales and Outsourced Marketing company, we understand that ROI is important. Both of these packages include a free preliminary assessment to see if lead scoring and outsourced sales is the right solution for your business. To learn more about our approach you can also visit the About Us page.