by Glen Springer | Jan 16, 2017
As a sales outsourcing company that has been providing B2B sales outsourcing services for over a dozen years we have seen a seismic shift in the rules of selling. And many of our clients come to us because throwing more callers and closers at sales is no longer working. But what exactly are these new sales and marketing rules and how are they different from the traditional and historical approaches of B2B sales and marketing.
New Approach – Our sales outsourcing approach now focuses on the buying process
Buyers now have 24/7 access to digital information. And this access to information in almost any industry means the buyer now controls the sales process. And when a buyer has a need that can have a positive impact on their business the fact is that they like to buy. And they can now buy without being “sold”. So as a sales outsourcing company we now customize our clients approach to helping the buyer buy and have shifted away from selling and hard closing. You need to build a sales outsourcing process that helps the buyer to buy (especially early in the decision making process) and then sell the buyer once they are educated and ready to be closed.
New Approach – Your content and website should do the heavy lifting for early stage buyers
According to all the data from 2016, after the initial contact is made and a buyer is aware of your product or solution, buyers now do a majority of their short listing of companies by using your website to educate themselves digitally. In fact depending on your industry this can range from a low of 20 percent to as high as 90 percent. And this ratio is just expected to grow over the next several years.
This means you need to focus on using content and your website to make it easy for your buyers to buy. Jobs that used to be the exclusive domain of inside or outside reps now need to be done by your content as well. In many cases, as a sales outsourcing and marketing company, our job is to now to clone what works for your early stage buyer education process and digitize it. Below is the content framework we use.
New Approach – Don’t hide your information
Historically many companies were reluctant to share too much information. There are two main reasons for this:
- Competitors could steal the information
- They were worried prospects would build on their own
But the truth is, there is typically going to be a fair amount of information about your business domain out there online and if your buyers don’t find it from you they will find it from your competitor. If you want to help buyers buy then do it. The more you share the more you will get back in return.
New Approach – Nurturing is critical to sales success
As a sales outsourcing company we will always prioritize inbound leads. But 3 years of data and other research has shown that once a client engages with your content there are just as many prospects that will buy in the short term (within 90 days) as there are that will buy in the long term (after six months or more). These buyers considered themselves qualified so you need to stay in touch and share relevant content on a periodic and regular basis because these will be your buyers six months to a year from now. If you don’t, as a sales outsourcing company, we can guarantee that your competition will.
Gabriel Sales provides sales outsourcing services to help small business quickly adapt to the new rules of sales and marketing. To learn more about how we help companies transform their sales and marketing operations we invite you to check out sales outsourcing services page.
by Glen Springer | Jan 13, 2017
Benefits of Outsourced Sales
While many smalls businesses and startup companies embrace outsourcing for their IT, financial and human resource needs as standard operating procedure sales outsourcing has still not hit similar adoption levels. However over the next two years this trend may be changing. And according to Dun & Bradstreet research, outsourcing sales and outsourced marketing is now the third most considered area for outsourcing after finance and IT. And according to several reports from Forrester and Dun & Bradstreet, sale outsourcing is expected to increase by 3X to 5X over the next several years.
Many outsourcing sales decisions begin with the goal of getting instant accesses to talent, processes and marketing expertise that is not currently accessible within the company. Outsourcing is generally explored primarily to drive smarter, faster and more efficient topline revenue growth. But outsourcing sales can also provide this topline growth while helping to provide some solid financial and business benefits beyond simply driving more sales. These benefits include:
A reduction of direct costs – Outsourcing will provide the economies of scale. Outsourcing sales and marketing companies offer the equivalent sales and marketing functions at lower direct cost than in-house companies. This is not driven by paying sales reps less than you would need to on your own. It is primarily driven by the direct sales management costs you would incur building a team on your own. In additional outsourcing sales companies will typically be located in more economically favorable employment markets than if you need to employ in more competitive locations like the Bay Area, New York City, Boston and Southern California.
A reduction in indirect costs – The expense of in-house Marketing and Sales support are typically underestimated. Sales reps and marketers need to be recruited, trained and given technology, software and hardware to do their jobs. When you combine these costs with employee churn your indirect costs can be doubled or tripled before getting an effective team in place. A outsourcing company has the experience to resolve the issues as part of the daily course of doing business so you don’t need to. This allows you to focus your internal team’s attention on high value activities which leads to more productivity and a significant reduction of indirect costs.
A reduction of opportunity costs – Focused outsourced programs improve sales coverage. More leads are qualified, geographic regions or channels are covered in greater depth, and more sales can be wrung from secondary sources. In these and other cases, sales are recovered from previously overlooked sources, improving sales performance at low marginal cost.
Turn fixed costs to variable costs – Sales growth is rarely a clean and systematic month over month increase. When a company is going through a growth spurt, sale outsourcing can help a company deal with expansion or contraction by turning a fixed cost into a variable cost. Outsourcing sales allow companies to grow a sales organization or launch a new product without the need for investing in the fixed costs of adding and supporting headcount.
To learn more about Gabriel Sales approach to outsourcing sales we invite you to visit our outsourcing services page.
by Glen Springer | Jan 11, 2017
Outsourcing and cloud computing are still frequently referenced as the two most important business shifts since the turn of the millennium. Both are based on the principal “If it isn’t your business’s core competency, then you need to take that activity, technology or business process and outsource it.”
According to the Outsourcing Institute the Top 7 Reasons a company outsources any function is to:
- Reduce and control operating costs
- Improve company focus
- Gain access to world-class capabilities
- Free internal resources for other purposes
- Resources are not available internally
- Accelerate reengineering benefits
- Limit functions difficult to manage/out of control
And with the addition of marketing automation and CRMs, outsourced sales and marketing are now becoming part of this outsourcing trend. In fact according to Dun & Bradstreet, with the visibility these tools now provide, outsourced sales and marketing is now just behind outsourced financial services and technology services as the third most outsourced function. Below are just some advantages you can now expect with outsourced sales and marketing:
Sales process improvements –An outsourced sales partner will have expertise across multiple products and can typically cross pollinate best practices. In addition executives at an outsourced sales and marketing company live to improve their processes daily and is required to stay current with all the competitive advantages of new approaches and new trends. And probably most importantly a sales outsourcing and marketing company will be able to benchmark your current sales performance, which is necessary for any sales outsourcing program. Your sales outsourcing partner will typically point you in the direction to simple and powerful solutions that quickly remedy any shortfalls you make have. And if you do not have a set of metrics you are constantly trying to improve upon, an outsourced sales and marketing company will help you set them quickly. Bottom line, an outsourced sales and marketing company getting sales processes right is a matter of their businesses ability to thrive, so in turn, you will get an immediate lift to your organization as well.
Sales and marketing agility – Outsourced sales and marketing companies design their technologies and processes to scale quickly. This ability to scale and pivot quickly allows you to test new markets and products within months without the need to build, design and deploy new teams, messages, content and solutions on your own from scratch. An outsourced sales and marketing company is an ideal fit for companies that want to test or scale new products or solutions in the market.
Company needs sales and marketing expertise – Many small businesses are launched by engineers, or operations experts. These executives and founders are able to scales their business to a specific level, but in order to achieve their next level of growth, they need to look outside their organization for sales & marketing expertise.
Tactical focus – Sales outsourcing can range from lead generation, to lead qualification, to lead development to closing. Many companies have one or two areas of these covered and an outsourced sales and marketing can help fill in a specific gap to help you grow your sales funnel quickly.
Speed to market – Another reason companies consider outsourced sales and marketing is the need to get to market faster and more effectively. It is much faster to have a well-trained and managed outsourced sales and marketing team, that already knows how to work well together to take you to market than it is to launch or rebuild a team on your own.
To learn more about Gabriel Sales approach to outsourced sales and marketing we invite you to check out our outsourced sales and marketing services page.
by Glen Springer | Jan 10, 2017
When outsourcing sales and marketing we help companies build modern sales and marketing operations. As we help build these integrated marketing and sales automation engines we focus on selling to your buyers the way your buyers want to buy. According to Forrester Research and Marketing Sherpa Surveys in 2016 70% of your buyers now prefer to learn about your product solution by an introductory email followed by additional education content.
This means that Email Marketing to rented opt in lists and email nurturing with a marketing automation tool is now critical to a lead generation and deal development process. What follows below are the two types of email support you should expect when outsourcing sales and marketing. We also share a handful of best practices we use when providing outsourcing sales and marketing services.
Email Blasts to Opt In Lists through a Third Party Provider
The first step to being able to educate buyers with digital content and lead nurturing programs is to build a database to market to on a regular basis.
While buying a list and simply blasting it is an option; as an outsourcing sales and marketing company we highly discourage this approach for several reasons:
- Compared to renting a list it is typically more expensive
- You will quickly run into CAN-SPAM issues and will get your email server blacklisted
- In some cases your delivery will be less than 50%.
Best practices dictate that you identify a vendor that has buyers that fit your target market that have opted in to receive educational content. You can then rent this list and send a series of three emails to that opt in list with educational offers that address a business need or a business problem they are trying to solve. The vendor will be responsible for sending these emails through their white listed and approved servers so you will not be violating any SPAM regulations.
The email themselves should not be flashy. In some cases those email can simply be text only with a link to the content offer. The content offer should be educational. You do not want to try and sell on the first contact. Once the email recipient opens the email you can continue to market to them with additional nurturing emails.
Nurturing Emails
Once a buyer is interested in your area of expertise your next goal should be to build trust and to stay top of mind with your potential buyers until they are ready to buy. This is when a marketing automation platform to deliver the emails and to score the buyers engagement becomes important for the following reasons:
- You can schedule the emails on a regular basis
- You can track opens
- You can score your buyers interest in your solution when they engage with content
As an outsourcing sales and marketing company we typically recommend that companies start nurturing once they have a database of over 1000 targets and that once again you keep the emails simple and educational.
We also recommend that you keep the content easy to digest and informative. Blog posts, short articles and both short and long form webcasts or short videos will all work.
Always end the email with a way for the potential buyer to contact you directly. And if you discover through your automation platforms lead scoring process that a buyer is giving off potential buying signals you should have your outsourcing sales rep call the lead to qualify and set an appointment.
To learn more about how an outsourcing sales and marketing company can help with your email marketing and other lead generation and marketing needs we invite you to visit our outsourcing sales and marketing services page.
by Glen Springer | Jan 9, 2017
For decades the typical sales organization was comprised of sales reps cold calling and working in the field. They set their appointments and then meet face-to-face with potential buyers. And in recent years we have started to see a transition to those outside reps getting support from “inside reps” who assist in setting the appointments. And once again typically a company would build this organization internally.
However over the past several years both CRM and marketing automation technologies have become technology staples of most modern B2B sales operations. These technologies enable companies to control visibility of each stage of their sales process. These same technologies now allow companies to seamlessly consider sales outsourcing for their inside sales activities. Here are a few of the advantages to evaluate to help you decide if an inside sales outsourcing team is a good fit for your company:
Sales Training – There are multiple benefits that can be realized from shifting to an inside sales outsourcing model. One of the biggest advantages is that your sales training will become more effective with inside sales outsourcing. When a company uses an outside sales model, sales reps do not come into contact with each other on a regular basis. But with an inside sales outsourcing team your reps will be working in the same office space. It’s much easier to quality control sales training for new reps, share “best practice” sales tips, and disseminate new information. For smaller businesses that only have the need for one or two inside reps this advantage can be even more significant because your inside sales outsourcing team will be surrounded by other reps selling other products. You will gain access to a part time sales manager that will keep your team on track and well trained without the expense of staffing a full time sales manager.
Scaling Faster – As an inside sales outsourcing company we believe when a company is just getting off the ground it makes sense to staff a closer on the client side to gain insights into the entire sales process start to finish. An internal sales executive also allow you to more effectively build the personal relationships a company just getting off the ground needs. In many cases this resource is also one of the executives in the company, often the founder. And then as the company understands its sales process an inside sales outsourcing company can craft a repeatable sales process to generate the lead, develop the lead and qualify the lead using content and well trained business development reps. Switching to an inside sales outsourcing model may make sense, since it provides the ability to integrate new staff more effectively and allows for more rapid growth.
Complexity of the Sale Another highly influential factor that determines how to deploy an inside sales outsourcing team is the complexity of the company’s sales cycle – how many buyers and influencers are involved, deal size and value, and the complexity of the product itself.
For example – an enterprise sale is a long cycle involving multiple individuals at various levels of the organization. In these cases, external sales reps are required – again, because selling extremely high-value products over a long period of time is something that relies on the development of more personal business relationships. If this is the type of sale you need we typically recommend using inside sales outsourcing for the initial lead generation and the early stage introduction of your solution to multiple buyers across the target organizations. Once the buyer becomes engaged your outside sales rep should take full ownership of the sale.
On the other hand if you have a short and simple sales cycle this is where an inside sales outsourcing model can take the sale further. Inside sales outsourcing can generate the lead, develop the lead and educate the buyer. In some cases you can simply staff a sales engineer with technical or business domain expertise to answer technical or deep domain questions and your inside sales outsourcing team can manage the final close of the sale.
If outsourcing sales makes sense for your business then choosing the right inside sales outsourcing model is key to ensuring it sales outsourcing will help to grow your business. In many cases a hybrid model may make the most sense. To learn more about how Gabriel Sales approach sales outsourcing and marketing feel free to visit our sales outsourcing services page.
