When to Outsource Sales if You Are a Small Business

When to Outsource Sales if You Are a Small Business

by | Dec 14, 2016

The Right Time to Outsource Sales

When you outsource sales and marketing this strategy can be a significant competitive advantage if the timing is right and your business is prepared for it. However the decision to outsource is not always the right option for every business. Below, we outline several items and issues that should be considered.

In general, the time to outsource sales makes sense when:

Speed to Market is Important – For startups, new businesses or established businesses that are changing their business model or going through new product launches, an sales outsourcing team provides a very quick path to both a fully trained and managed outsource sales team, and an experienced marketing team for one cohesive sales and marketing team that can provide turnkey support across the entire lead generation and buying cycle.

Your Executives Have Grown the Company and Bandwidth is Tapped – Many small businesses generate their first 500K to 2 million in sales on the backs of one or more of their owners or a single rock star senior sale executive. Companies at this stage typically need these resources to continue to focus on closing so the early stage sales funnel starts to suffer. You can start to outsource sales by leveraging an outsourced sales partner to fill your closers sales funnel with increased real sales opportunities. As your outsourced sales team learns more about your business the can continue to take deals deeper into the funnel.

You Are Ready to Implement a Repeatable Process – If you outsource sales, you will get the best production if you can sell your solution through the same staged process in a repeatable way. If you are confident that you are successful selling your solution in a similar way the majority of your time you can then expect your allow your sales outsourcing partner to document and script the process for methodical results.

Lack of Time or Resources to Build a Team– Many small business do not have a full time recruiter or HR professional on staff. A sales outsourcing company will have both the existing talent in place on the sales and marketing side. In many cases you will get access to a blended team of sales, marketing and executive talent for the price of one to two individuals.

You Need a Part Time Experienced Sales Executive – Many small businesses are started by founders with natural sales skills and closing abilities. But these same founders have also never built, managed and led a sale and marketing team. If you outsource sales executive to manage your account is typically part of the package. This will remove the need for founders developing the skills set and learning the systems required to manage a sales team.

You Have Not Invested in Technology or Infrastructure – Early stage lead generation and development now requires a suite of tools to score leads (marketing automation), and manage leads (CRM). If you have not invested in and implemented these tools, a sales outsourcing team will be able to provide these tools and leverage best practices to implement them at a fraction of the cost of launching them on their own.

Gabriel Sales is a full service marketing company that is adept in sales outsourcing. To learn more about our philosophy and approach, we invite you to visit our Outsource Sales Page Services and About us Page.

Outsourced Sales Strategies To Increase Sales for 2017

Outsourced Sales Strategies To Increase Sales for 2017

by | Dec 11, 2016

Outsourced Sales Strategies and Marketing Tips for Small Businesses 2017

2017 is fast approaching. Here are several quick ways Small Businesses can kick off 2017 to build a sustained and productive sales and revenue engine.

Build an Ideal Customer profile. Analyze the demographics of your current group of customers. Use this information to determine what companies give you the biggest profit, are the least demanding, and quickest to scale. Target more of these buyers for the top of your sales funnel.

Run a Campaign to put a Fresh Set of Leads into Your Sales Funnel. The start of the calendar year is not just a new beginning for your sales and marketing team. It’s also a new start for your buyers. January is a great time to build awareness to a large a group of decision makers and influencers, so as new initiatives are launched they are aware of you your solutions can help them achieve their goals and solve their pains.

Consider a Marketing Automation Platform – Marketing automation is becoming a requirement for successful B2B sales and marketing. In our experience as an outsourced sales marketing company, the insights and efficiency gains are critical for us to compete in the new new buyer driven economy. Marketing automation platforms allow you to stay top of mind with buyers that are not ready to buy with more cost effective email marketing. These platforms also allow your sales reps to measure a buyers digital engagement so you understand what a buyer is most interested in prior to them becoming a sales ready lead.

If You Are Using a Marketing Automation Platform Commit to More Content Marketing to Nurture your Sales Pipe. 60% of companies have now committed to using content for top of funnel lead generation and are 72% are planning on increasing this budget using content marketing. But 80% of companies that are using marketing automation platforms are not even experimenting with lead nurturing and lead scoring and even fewer are actually leveraging these platforms for any sort of personalization. By understanding outsourced sales strategies, your company may be able to gains a competitive advantage with a basic lead scoring and nurturing program in 2017.

Start Using Video to Help Buyers Understand How Your Solution Will Help Them Solve Their Problem – Once a buyer aware of your solution and the problems you can solve for them video is a great way to make it easier for the buyer to buy. If a software demonstration is critical to closing the sale, as an outsourced sales and marketing company we recommend that you create two to three short videos that demonstrate how your product solves a specific problem, and helps your potential client get a visual of how it works.

Revisit Your Overall Sales and Marketing with Outsourced Sales Strategies – In B2B sales and marketing, there are numerous strategies and tactics that have potential to drive sales growth, With the advent of new technologies, the adoption of new content marketing strategies, and the change of buyer behavior, now may be a great time to take advantage of the sales consulting services and outsourced sales and marketing company provides. An outsourced sales and marketing company stays on top of best practices, and a brief consulting engagement may provide the two or three nuggets you need to transform your sales and marketing in 2017.

Gabriel Sales helps companies transform their sales and marketing with:

  • Sales Consulting
  • Outsourced Sales and Marketing
  • And Sales Automation Systems Implementation

To learn more about outsourced sales strategies and how we may be able to help we invite you to visit our About Us page.  Or you can check out our outsourced sales and marketing services here.

When to Outsource Sales if You Are a Small Business

What Do I Want From Sales Outsourcing

by | Dec 9, 2016

Sales Outsourcing and Marketing is unique when compared to other types of outsourcing. With the recent tools that are now at a  company’s disposal, successful lead generation and real opportunity development and sales success is now a blend of:

  • Content marketing
  • A buyer centric approach to calling
  • Both sales process and marketing process expertise
  • Systems implementation expertise
  • Best Practice experience

Even three years ago it was our position that successful business and marketing was in-line with Pareto’s principal that sales was 80% science and 20% the art of the close. We now believe that successful sales now requires 90% science and 10% closing skills and can be achieved with:

  • Strong thought leadership and authentic content marketing support
  • And the right lead scoring technology

That being stated, we typically start every engagement with a conversation centered on hard targets and strategic success criteria. Below are a handful of questions that you should expect a sales outsourcing company to be curious about during your initial dialogue.

What revenue results do I want to transform with sales outsourcing partner?

With the exception of startup companies, no one comes to an outsourcing partner because they are already thriving. If that were the case, you would be able to build a team at your own at a lower cost. More closed deals and more revenue are obviously the top goal and a requirement of any sales outsourcing relationship. But we also encourage buyers to share additional information. Do you need expertise taking a new product to market? Do you want better margins from customers that are a better fit? Do you want customers that can scale? Is this about pipe velocity – more deals faster, better, more profitable?

Are you looking for sales and marketing management experience?

Many SMBs are grown through the passion and grit of their founders. Then at some point there is a plateau because the rolodex runs dry or teams capacity is exhausted? At that point we find that many companies then hit a decision point:

  • Do I hire a sales rep and manage them myself and commit to becoming a sales manager?
  • Do I hire a sales executive to build an in house team?

Or does it make sense to delegate that management to a partner that is accountable for hitting targets with their team?

We find that many companies would love the control and stability of an in-house team, but need to short-term building and advantages of an executive.

One of the unique advantages of Gabriel Sales is that we can actually help a company accomplish any of these three goals. With the advent of marketing automation technologies, it is now possible to build a repeatable system that automates specific areas of your sales process, makes it easy for the buyer to buy digitally, and then scores their digital footprint. By its very nature this process is highly data driven and process oriented. Once built and in motion, it gives your company the flexibility to both fully outsource on transition some or parts of the engine in house for greater control and flexibility long term.

Are you outsourcing sales and marketing to manage risk?

Sales outsourcing organizations are bound contractually to targets, reporting requirements, and feedback requirements that you never get from employees. So these companies will have the tools required to do this. Building on the point above in the short term this type of outsourcing company will give you better metrics and a cleaner line of sight than you may experience building on your own. This will also get rid of fixed costs and move them to a variable expense on your P&Ls. It will also get rid of your need for hard infrastructure investments in technologies and marketing platforms. With sales outsourcing, you will get a sales engine ran by a blended team of marketing professionals often at the cost of one senior enterprise rep. So in the short term, you may lose a little of the comfort of onsite control, but with the right level of visibility and the other items mentioned above outsourcing can be a solid way to manage risk.

Gabriel Sales help you to transform sales and marketing with custom sales outsourcing and marketing solutions. One of the things that makes us unique is that we build repeatable sales systems and once they are producing revenue you have the option to bring all or parts of that engine in house. To learn more about our approach  we invite you to visit our pages or learn more about our philosophy and sales outsourcing philosophy and approach here.

Benefits of an Outsource Sales Team for a Start Up Company

by | Dec 7, 2016

Once a Start Up has their initial product developed and their initial deals closed, scaling can be expensive and time consuming. You can simply hire sales reps and start pounding the market, you can hire rolodex reps (that may or may not produce) or you can consider hiring an outsource sales team with proven start up experience to help you build a repeatable and scalable process.

Once that process is built, there are multiple sales and marketing functions that can be outsourced to an outsource sales team and marketing company. Some companies may choose to have their entire sales pipeline generation and engagement process outsourced, while others may simply want to use an outsource sales team for lead generation.  Another organization my want to use an outsource sales team   for appointment setting and qualification, while keeping account management in-house.

Whatever course you consider, depending on your goals and success criteria, an outsource sales team and outsourced marketing company is an option worth consideration for most Start Ups. This is especially true if your outsource sales team has a track record with early stage companies because your outsource sales team will understand your mutual success is directly correlated to how well an outsourced sales team functions as an extension of your company. .  Your outsource sales team will understand that transparency, goals, and clear expectations are critical.

When you find an outsource sales team that understands what’s critical for a start ups overall success you will gain the following benefits:

An outsource sales team and outsourced marketing  will provide more bandwidth for the company’s leadership team

With a sales and marketing outsourcing company focusing on hiring, training, infrastructure management, technology systems, real sales opportunity development and results, your time and energy will become available to focus on closest to the dollar activities or other critical areas of your business. What critical areas of your business could you be focusing on if you were not solely focused sales and building your pipeline?

An outsource sales team will provide more visibility

An outsource sales team  will provide all the sales and automation technology you need to grow and manage sales quickly. As your sales outsourcing partner is filling the funnel and developing deals, these tools will also provide the data and metrics you need to make smarter business decisions. You will know why you win deals, why you lose deals, where you win deals, and where you lose deals so you can make smarter business decisions faster.

When you use an outsource sales team you get instant access to sales and marketing experts

Outsourced sales and marketing will immediately bring an increased knowledge and sales process expertise to your company. An outsource sales team with marketing outsourcing   stays current with all the latest trends and approaches to sales and marketing.An outsource sales team will  take these best practices and cross pollinate them in unique ways to ensure you are taking advantage of the latest trends to maximize your results.

An outsource sales team can reduce risk and financial burden

Leveraging an outsource sales team and marketing company will lower the overhead you would normally encounter, by avoiding the expenses around recruiting, employee churn, training, an infrastructure costs.

We invite you to learn more about Gabriel Sales approach and services to help you build an outsource sales team  to see discover for yourself  if an our outsource sales team  is the right fit for your Start Up business.

Outsource Sales and Marketing for Effective Marketing Automation

Outsource Sales and Marketing for Effective Marketing Automation

by | Dec 5, 2016

When you outsource sales and marketing to help transform and modernize and scale your sales and marketing operations, one of the greatest benefits you will realize in the short term will be the outsourcing of your marketing automation systems.

First let’s look at the benefits of hiring an agency to implement your marketing automation platform vs. hiring a full time employee (FTE). Hiring an FTE to implement and manage a marketing automation platform used to mean that you had a person sitting in your office available right next door. However in today’s business environment odds are that one or both of you are working remotely, so that’s no longer the upside it used to be. Also, hiring a single FTE would mean they would have one or two key strengths and skill sets – it could be systems integration, copy writing, content management, content production or sales messaging. Successful sales automation requires all of these skills sets to have the greatest impact. When you outsource sales and marketing, you will have access to a blended and dedicated team experts in automation with both depth and breadth in marketing automation, content marketing, databases management, CRM and sales. So you will be accessing a wealth of insight, strategy and skill.

So your next concern would be that this blended team will be more expensive than an FTE. That’s not the case because the costs of hiring that one employee with the limited skill set can go as high as $120,000.

Let’s start with simply finding that person. Marketing automation as a discipline is in high demand so you will need to start by advertising, hiring a recruiter, and interviewing. Your employee hasn’t even started yet and you’ve already spent weeks or months on the search and $1000s of dollars.

Next they join the team. You’ll have the regular salary, and benefits package that will be between 25% to 40% of their income including typical benefits like insurance, dental plans, paid vacation etc.

Once established in the office, you’ve got to allow time for ramp up; which takes an estimated 20 weeks for professionals and 26 for executives. One survey of CEOs in Harvard Business School estimated that the average mid-level managers require 6.2 months just to offer break-even value.

Simply stated you’re paying out long before you will start to see a return. Even more detrimental is that only 50% of hires pan out the first time, so you could be out twice that investment.

So now to the kicker when it comes to marketing automation and ROI. Marketing automation requires that you also invest in software. Marketing automation typically takes 3 to 6 months to start producing a more consistent set of leads. So while you are also waiting for your new FTE hire to:

  • Implement the system
  • Create the content use to fuel the system
  • Generate the leads to put into the system

You are burning through valuable resources and delaying the net return on your investment by not getting the tools and system as productive as quickly as possible. When you outsource sales and marketing along with marketing automation you will have sales ready leads before an FTE will even have your engine off the ground.

Bottom line, when you outsource sales and marketing in combination with outsourced marketing automation you will hit the ground running, with no training costs or ramp-up period required.

Having a blended teams collective experience, tactics, best practices and expertise at your disposal will give you access to a marketing automation and lead scoring brain-trust no single FTE can match. Especially when you consider that this blended team will have the collective experience of over 20, 30, or even 40 implementations under their belt to cross-pollinate best practices and set benchmarks from their past implementations.

So yes, when you outsource sales and marketing you will get all the benefits detailed above. But when it comes to building an automation system, the return will be even greater because ultimately all the investment will be returned even faster when your new and improved marketing automation program delivers a higher ROI faster because your blended team put the right skills behind the technology.

Gabriel Sales provides sales consulting & outsource sales and marketing automation services to companies committed to modernizing that sales and marketing operations. To learn more about our  outsource sales philosophy and how we can help you build a sales and marketing revenue engine from start to finish, please visit our outsource sales and marketing services page.

5 Indicators Sales Outsourcing and Marketing Makes Sense

by | Nov 30, 2016

This article will address five indicators that may suggest that it could be a good time to consider sales outsourcing and marketing.

Outsourcing different functions to service providers is becoming more and more accepted.  Companies can now outsource a variety of tasks like HR, staffing, product development and finance.  But companies are often more cautious when outsourcing sales and marketing.   But when executed correctly by an experienced provider, sales outsourcing can have a meaningful impact especially in helping you to build a modern sales and marketing organization.

Here are several reasons you may want to work with a modern sales outsourcing and marketing company:

Feature selling is not working – You need to start selling against pains with solutions.  A sales outsourcing and marketing company will be able to help you quickly shift your early stage messages and process to focus on the buyer instead of your product.

Your Rolodex Reps have stopped producing – A fair amount of companies are able to grow their business through their founders or the early sales hires’ set of relationships.  At some point this runs out of steam.  A sales outsourcing company can provide a process that generates a more consistent flow of leads.

Sales model must change – Startups and small businesses grow markets in different ways.  But most companies reach a stage where they need to go after a new market quickly.  A sales outsourcing and marketing company can help you quickly shift:

  • Selling to the enterprise to selling to SMB
  • Generating leads for larger enterprise companies
  • Transitioning your sales process from an outside sale to an inside sales
  • Using content marketing to do your early stage sales education

You need to build a repeatable sales process – After a company has closed their initial 6 to 12 deals there you will have enough information and experience to build a repeatable sales process. A modern sales outsourcing and marketing company will have the frameworks to quickly help you build a repeatable and integrated process that can be scaled.

You have gaps in your internal team – A sales outsourcing and marketing company will be able to help by supplying:

  • The right marketing talent and a sales talent to execute parts of your sales process
  • The right automation and CRM systems experts
  • Access to a database to market to and the talent to help you manage that database
  • Content marketing and content production specialists

The right strategist and consulting experts for marketing, lead generation, lead qualifying and closing assistance are also typically part of any sales outsourcing and marketing engagement.  These strategists will be able to provide a fresh perspective to help you remove barriers to your sales.

Conclusion

Sales outsourcing and marketing provides a number of benefits, like controlling costs, providing access to highly skilled sales talent, sales and marketing strategists, technologists and marketing professionals.   You also avoid the costs and delays of building on your own.  You get a team up and running faster that will be aligned around enabling growth.

Gabriel Sales specializes in helping Start Ups and Small and Mid- Sized Business build modern sales and marketing operations.  To learn more about our approach we invite you to check out our About Us page or you can also check out our Sales Outsourcing and Marketing  Case Studies to evaluate if we may be able to help