by Glen Springer | Feb 17, 2017
Content marketing is now a critical component for successfully outsourced sales and marketing. Supporting your outsourced sales and marketing team with content allows you to effectively:
- Demonstrate the character of your company
- Communicate the business problems your company solves for your potential buyers
- Build trust with your buyers digitally
Quality content also helps you to increase visibility in search engines, can be used for email marketing campaigns and in social media. Not only will buyers find you with greater ease but when they do engage with your outsource sales reps and conduct a search of your company (typically when on the phone with your outsource sales rep) they will discover some of your content and advice lending greater credibility to your outsourced sales and marketing sales phone and digital conversations. Here is a quick list of how to approach content when working with an outsourced sales and marketing company.
Plan for the type of content your outsourced sales and marketing team needs
Create content for every stage of your sales process and buyer’s journey. Below is a framework we leverage to help our outsource sales and marketing clients.
Early stage content should be educational
Content should be created with the goal of engaging and educating your potential buyers. Don’t simply push features and benefits of your product. Technical specs and businesses cases are important later in the sales process. But early in process its important to make sure that your content has the goal of educating the customer about issues or concerns they have, and/or problems they may need to solve to improve their business.
Use all types of content
Not all buyers engage with all formats of content. Some buyers will want to read blogs, some checklists and some whitepapers. Live webinars are a fantastic source of deep and rich educational material but many busy business executives may prefer a recorded video they can watch in the evening. And finally don’t forget short education videos.
Use all types of video
Videos can be created in short and impactful bursts. As an outsource sales and marketing company we can run half day to full day workshop and typically create 7 to 12 impactful videos that can be used over and over again in an outsource sales process. Types of video we recommend are
- Short video demos – screen casts of your solution or product being used.
- Headshot videos – of your thought leaders sharing information
- Short intro pitch video – take your initial PowerPoint presentation and compress into short animated video
Gabriel Sales helps company build modern sales and marketing operations to help you more effectively outsource sales. To learn more about how we build our sales engines and use content to build trust with your potential buyers feel free to check out our new approach to outsource sales and marketing engagement.
by Glen Springer | Feb 16, 2017
Most companies are aware that an outsourced sales company can help them recruit, hire, and train sales and marketing talent. This allows them to get to market faster than building a team on their own.
You should expect and an outsourced sales and marketing execution company to help you generate leads and qualify sales opportunities to help you hit your revenue, market penetration, and sales targets.
However, if you are a startup or small business, you should also expect your outsourced sales company to act as a strategic partner to support your executives’ goals to increase shareholder value by increasing the value of your company.
Here are five ways that an outsourced sales company can help you provide strategic value that increases the value of your business.
An outsourced sales company should make your more agile – Market insights are critical to sustain sales growth. Your outsourced sales partner will implement feedback loops that provide you feedback on what markets are most interested in your solution, what buyers and decision makers do you help the most, what messages and story are resonating with audiences and what types of content are they most interested in.
An outsourced sales company should lead to predictable sales – The faster you can forecast, the faster you can grow your business. You should expect an outsourced sales company to provide data that will help you to measure conversion metrics at every stage of your sales funnel. Better conversion data will allow you to make smarter investment decisions in both the short term and the long term.
An outsourced sales company will help you build for scalability – Nothing is more painful than building sales momentum and then hitting the wall. An outsourced sales company allows you to scale sales and marketing operations in the areas you need at the right time. In addition, an outsourced sales company will craft a repeatable sales and marketing process that you can add resources to in weeks.
An outsourced sales company will be able to benchmark your results – Outsourced sales companies will have years of data and experience executing across multiple tactics, to multiple verticals and multiple decision makers. They will be able to provide insights where there is opportunities for improvement, and where your ratios and results are predictive of success.
An outsourced sales company will be able to guide your technology decisions – Over the past several years there have been a proliferation of tools and technologies for marketing automation, social media marketing, and customer relationship management. Each and every product has pros and cons based on the size of your deals, the velocity of your sales, and the number of sales reps and volume of leads you will need to manage. An outsourced sales company will help you to maximize your investments and make sure you make the right investment at the right level when you need it and not before you need it.
If you need assistance scaling your company’s revenue, building modern sales and marketing automation or just need to put more sales qualified leads in your closer’s sales funnel Gabriel Sales may be able to help. To learn more about our approach to outsourced sales we invite you to check out our outsourced sales services page.
by Glen Springer | Feb 13, 2017
A consistent sales funnel now requires using all tactics at your disposal including:
- Content marketing
- eMail Marketing
- Business development reps
- Sales reps
And for some small businesses this can be a challenge because of lack of capacity. When you work with an outsource sales and marketing lead gen company to help you fill your sales funnel you can expect them to use both content marketing tactics and outsource sales reps. The marketing team and the outsource sales reps will be aligned around the goal of putting the right information, the right educational content offer and the right sales offer in front of the buyer at the right time.
Here is how an aligned outsource sales and marketing company will be able to help you modernize your sales and marketing operations to put more leads in your closer’s sales funnel:
One – Create content for all stages of your buyer’s journey and your sales funnel
Your content needs to be designed to be used at each stage of your buyer’s journey. When a potential company visits your website you need to make it easy for your buyer to buy with the following framework.
As our customer centric outsource sales and marketing framework above details you need to be aware that there are multiple stages in your buyer’s journey. And there are also many type of content formats that can be used. A blend of formats will meet the needs of multiple buyers preferences. It will also enable you to redistribute the content across different tactics like PPC, social media and email marketing campaigns. The same content can also be used by your outsource sales buyer development reps.
Your outsource marketing team will be able to help you produce the content you need for lead generation and lead qualification success.
Two – Align outsource sales and marketing efforts to share that content
Sales and marketing need to have a shared goal of moving deals from initial interest to close and this means they need to collectively work together to share your content and qualify opportunities.
Your marketing team needs to generate leads as cost effectively as possible by sharing content in social media, PPC campaigns and email marketing campaigns. And then using a marketing automation software to continue to nurture the leads and map your buyer’s digital footprint to score the leads for your outsource sales and business development reps.
Your outsource sales reps should then be able to share the same content and later stage content like video demos and FAQs with the buyer. This will help make it easy for the buyer to buy and it will save time for your business development reps so they can increase their call volume and share your content with even more buyers.
Three – Give your outsource sales and marketing team a shared scorecard
As a big fan of Steven Covey we believe that you need to “Start with The End in Mind”. The goals for both your teams should always be to put more sales qualified leads that ultimately transact into your closer’s sales funnel. To that end we have developed this outsourced sales and marketing scorecard that will keep your team focused on this goal and all the steps required to get to that goal.
Gabriel Sales helps start-up companies and small businesses committed to growth build modern sales and marketing operations by supplying a blended team to augment both sales and marketing capacity and capability gaps.
To learn more about how we build these sales engines please visit our page that outlines our new approach to outsource sales and marketing.
by Glen Springer | Feb 10, 2017
Once a small business has decided that they don’t have the time, expertise, and/or desire to recruit, build, and manage a small sales team, their path to growth will then depend on picking the right outsourced sales team.
For small businesses that have a history of closing business, this typically means that you will need to transition the knowledge and expertise from your organization to the outsourced sales team you will be working with. Asking the right questions early in your search will help you find the best sales organization for your business. It is in the best interest for your company, your end customer/potential buyers of your solution, and the outsourced sales team partner that this fit makes sense for all three parties involved. We have put together a handful of questions you can ask to help you understand how the sales talent will be deployed for your sales success.
What is the Outsourced Sales Team Staffing Model
The first question you need to ask is how your outsourced sales team will be staffed. Depending on your needs and the volume of calls you need to make, you could have multiple people staffed on your team or you could have shared resources. For example, when we are just getting started building outsourced sales team we typically staff at several levels. We will leverage buyer education reps to managed the initial awareness campaigns. We will staff a person that is adept at asking probing questions, qualifying questions, and asking for the appointment. Finally, we will staff closers.
In some cases these resources will be shared., but in some cases, it may make more sense to staff dedicated reps at all or some of the levels. Dedicated resources typically cost more and the more complex your sales, the more experienced the closer will need to be, which will include increased costs upfront. You and your outsourced sales team provider need to be clear on budget and needs to ensure you get what you need.
How will your outsourced sales team be managed?
The next question you need to ask is how will your account will be managed. One of the main advantages of an outsourced sales team is that you do not have to manage the account. Most outsourced sale companies will have an experienced account rep responsible for the day-to-day communication and success of your overall sales (and in our case marketing support). This person will be responsible for day-to-day communication and managing regular sales meetings.
How do they train your outsourced sales team?
You need to ask how your outsourced sales team will be trained and understand how involved you will need to be.
As part of our onboarding process, we do a deep discovery into the clients sales processes; what makes the company, and product or solution we are selling unique, and craft a scripted sales story and all the early stage calls. Because we also offer content marketing strategy and content production, we automate the sales process and clone our clients thought leader. Although this process makes it easy for us to train reps and requires minimum training support from the client, you should expect to attend weekly sales calls while ongoing training occurs.
For new clients, we typically begin the campaigns with experienced proven existing reps, and in that case, we typically can prep our rep on a new client in 3-4 days. They know how to come across smart and intelligent while not having all the details, and if prospects start asking buying questions, we will go for the appointment.
If we do staff closers, it is typically 60 to 90 days after the initial campaign once there is a funnel to close. At that point we will do more technical training. Initially, we require a domain or technical expert on the client side to manage the demo until we are competent.
How We Can Help?
Gabriel Sales builds moderns sales and marketing operations and staffs and outsourced sales team and a blended marketing team to help companies accelerate their lead generation, lead development and revenue production. To learn more about our approach to building modern sales and marketing operations we invite you to visit our outsourced sales and marketing approach page.
by Glen Springer | Feb 8, 2017
Asking an outsourced sales and marketing company the right questions could benefit YOU
As a startup company or small business ready to grow, you have spent a year or more developing a product or solution to solve a problem for buyers. After estimating how much time it would take for you to recruit, hire, train, and manage a small sales team, you’ve decided to use an outsourced sales and marketing company, which means you are looking to work with an organization that will help you both strategically and tactically.
Initially you’d like to work with a company like this to determine what specific target markets you should go after, and help you tell a compelling sales story. Here are some questions we recommend that you ask when you are working with an outsourced sales and marketing company to decide if they are the right fit to take your product into the market for you:
Gather general background on the company
You should ask how long has your company been operating and you should also find out how long they have been providing sales outsourcing services and outsourced marketing services.
If the company is offering cold calling reps and buyer development reps you should ask where they are located. Are they making sales calls from the company headquarters? Are they working remote or is the outsourcing company company partnering with another company for these services?
Ask for case studies
Most sales and marketing outsourcing companies will have references that you can speak with deeper into your sales process. But when you first engage in conversations with a particular company, you should ask to see certain companies that are selling similar solutions at a similar stage and to similar markets.
You should understand who will be responsible for building target lists.
If you are working with an outsourced sales and marketing company, it’s important to understand who will be responsible for building target lists.
If you will be cold calling, you should find out what databases they have access to. If they will be running email campaigns, you should make sure they have access to rented opt in lists so you do not run up against CAN-Spam compliance issues.
If the company will be using marketing tools you should understand what kind of access you get to those tools
Most outsourced sales and marketing companies will need to have a social media management tool, a CRM, and a marketing automation platform to execute email campaigns. You should understand if you will have access to these tools or if the company will simply be providing your reports.
Gabriel Sales provides sales consulting & outsource sales and marketing services to companies to help them build modern sales and marketing operation that reputably produce results. To learn a little more about our approach and how we can help you build a sales and marketing revenue engine from start to finish, please visit our outsourced sales and marketing services page.
