by Glen Springer | Apr 26, 2017
Outsource Sales – Start with Sale Prospecting First?
When owners of companies with complex sales or solutions sales are ready to scale they often consider two options:
- Hiring an outside sales rep or outsourcing closing
- Outsource sales to prospect and fill the funnel
As an outsource sales and marketing company, we have a strong belief that in many cases the second path can make more sense. Or, in some cases it makes sense to hire an outside sales rep and outsource sales at the same time.
This quick blog article will quickly explore the pros and cons of both approaches and recommend an alternative path.
Lead with Outside Sales Reps First
Remember Outside Sales Reps Are Closers Not Lead Gen Experts
For the past 20 years the standard way for small businesses to scale sales is to hire an enterprise-level sales rep. This is because organizations believe that senior sales reps can leverage their extensive contacts to generate narrow leads and close deals. But every sales rep’s list of contacts is finite. When the rep gets through that initial push, leads dry up quickly.
And outside reps by the time they get to this point in their career, cold calling and content marketing to generate leads is not something they are doing on a regular basis. It is not something you should expect them to do.
In most cases if you invest in a closer first you are putting the cart before the horse. You are focusing on the bottom of the funnel and are in a high risk situation because you are counting on the outside reps ability to close deals. But you are also relying on them to generate leads as well. And the reality is a closer cannot do both effectively at the same time. So even in the best of circumstances you will generate a handful of initial deals and then the closer will not have a top of new set of leads in the top of the funnel to work. You are investing in the bottom of the funnel and not the top of the funnel, which leads to point two.
Outside Sales Reps Are Expensive
Simply throwing sales reps at your revenue growth problem without focusing on lead generation first is expensive. Domain experts with solid experience command a large base salary and substantial compensation package. Inside reps and a marketing team that can generate leads can often come in at the same or even reduced cost.
If you have a founder or internal resources that can close deals it often makes sense to ramp the lead generation first to:
- Ensure you have a sustained flow of leads
- Give your closer something to close as soon as they walk through the door
Outsource Sales to Fill the Sale Funnel First
Throwing bodies at a sales problem no long works reliably. Instead of hiring expensive outside sales reps it now often makes sense to invest in modern sales an marketing operations first to fill your sales funnel with a consistent and repeatable flow of leads. An outsource sales organizations can now:
- Fill your funnel with leads with PPC campaigns, email marketing campaigns and cold calling
- They can then use content marketing and marketing automation systems to score leads
- They can staff business development reps to qualify leads for your closer
- You can then continue to close deals with your existing team and when you have a funnel that is bursting you can hire that expensive outside sales rep and get them productive immediately
About Gabriel Sales
Gabriel Sales specializes in filling your sales funnel with warm sales qualified leads. We build modern sales and marketing operations that are crucial for sustained revenue growth – using a combination of marketers, business development reps and tools to maximize your investment. Visit our about us page to learn more about our approach and services for outsource sales.
by Glen Springer | Mar 6, 2017
How Sales Outsourcing can be applied to many different areas to grow company revenue
Sales outsourcing can be applied to multiple stages of a company’s sales process to help accelerate revenue, increase sales funnel volume and to drive a more consistent flow of real sales opportunities. And with the proliferation of modern sales and marketing technologies like CRMs and marketing automation platforms it is now possible to use outsourcing for point solutions for multiple stages of your sales funnel.
Here are the areas that you can use a sales outsourcing partner to provide a point solution to help you increase your sales lead generation process to grow revenue this year.
Targeting and Initial Lead Generation Database. The first step in building any sustainable lead generation process is to ensure you are targeting the right market and generating targets that are the right fit for your solution. Think of your target database as this foundation. Without the proper database of leads to target your sales funnel never gets off the ground. A sales outsourcing company will have subscriptions to multiple research tools and access to multiple databases that most small business or start-ups don’t have (and that probably would not make sense to invest in). An outsourcing company can help you construct the right database quickly.
Initial Engagement. Meaningful marketing is centered on making the buyer aware you exist. This requires a combination of email marketing, cost effective pay per click advertising and phone reps to introduce your solution. To engage with prospects and potential buyers in a meaningful way, you must develop tactics that use educational content to introduce your company to the buyer. And you need to align the distribution of that content across both digital communication and your reps. To do this effectively, you must have a content marketing strategy in place to provide educational engagement, and well trained reps to support that effort. An adequate marketing and sales company can do this for you quickly.
Conversion. Sales outsourcing companies are now using modern sales and marketing technologies that score leads in real time and delivers profile information that identifies what buyers are most likely to buy. Automated campaigns have higher conversion rates but in some cases companies do not have enough calling resources to help them to convert earlier stage buyers that have not made an inbound request. A sales outsourcing company can help you staff part time or full time reps for specific period of time to help you mine you system for more leads faster.
Sales and Marketing Automation Technology. Businesses are now leveraging tools to simplify and automate parts of the sales process. A sales outsourcing company will understand how these technologies work. The company will also have experience customizing these tools for different types of sales. You may want to consider outsourcing your automation technology to a company that can do it quickly with a blended team of experts to save you time and money.
Gabriel Sales provides full service sales outsourcing solutions for start-ups and small businesses. This also includes providing point solutions for companies looking to build modern sales and marketing operations. You can click here to learn more about our specific sales outsourcing solutions and click here to learn more about our approach to outsourced sales.
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 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 3, 2017
Companies of any size can benefit from outsourcing sales. Outsourcing sales for small businesses can often have the most significant impact because these companies often need it the most, especially if success requires modern sales and marketing operations. Below are just a handful of the ways a small business can benefit from outsourcing sales.
Immediate sales and marketing infrastructure
Many small businesses don’t have the most critical infrastructure for modern sales and marketing operations in place. In today’s market success, especially if you are competing against larger companies, they require multiple pieces of infrastructure and technology to compete against larger competitors including:
- Access to databases
- Marketing automation platforms
- A CRM solution
An outsourcing sales company will have both the tools and the expertise in place to give you access to these tools immediately.
Professional sales recruiting and management
Most small businesses don’t typically have professional sales recruiting and management in house or a process to recruit sales talent. This may lead to hiring the “wrong” sales personnel. Even if a business does hire the “right” sales person, without effective and daily sales management, that individual has a higher propensity to fail.
Using a partner for outsourcing sales will allow you to access sales recruiting, management and culture/environment that most of your larger competitors have. .
Quickly focus on specific gaps to accelerate your sales funnel
Most small business owners are wearing multiple hats, and in many cases the owners are also qualifying leads, creating the marketing material, and closing business. They are doing this on top of delivering the solutions and running day to day business operations. They have the knowledge and skill to run sales and marketing but they simply lack the bandwidth. An outsourcing sales and marketing solution can help the small business owner cover specific gaps at specific stages of the sales process. This includes:
Lead Generation – An outsourcing sales and marketing company can quickly turn on a multiple tactics for lead generation including:
- Email marketing
- Outbound calls
- SEO and SEM
- Social Media Marketing
Lead Development – An outsourcing sales and marketing company will be able to implement a content marketing strategy and marketing automation platform to help you develop leads in your funnel digitally.
Lead Qualification – An outsourcing sales organization will be able to staff an outsourcing sales rep or outsourcing sales team to help you qualify and educate early stage buyers and set appointments for your senior team.
Depending on your sales cycle, an outsourcing sales and marketing company can help a small business accelerate sales in as little as 90 to 180 days. A small business can retain an outsourcing sales company and get access to a pool of talent and tools with less risk and more certainty.
To learn more about the problems we help small businesses solve with sales outsourcing and marketing services and how we approach building modern sales and marketing operations we invite you to visit our About Us page.
