Why an SMB Owner(s) Should Outsource Sales Management

by Glen Springer | Mar 13, 2017

Most small business owners grow their business by developing a solution, delivering a solution and selling a solution. And then the business owner eventually reaches a stage where the business plateaus and growth requires adding sales and marketing talent.

At this point most business owners consider taking on the role of sales manager. They have experience closing business and no one knows the product better than they do. In some cases it works, but in most cases it’s a bad idea. In even the best of cases when it leads to successful growth, taking on the dual role of sales manager and business owner can lead to frustration, needless effort, wasted time, and multiple false starts. And in the worst of cases it can lead to unhappy existing customers, lost business, lost revenue, and lost profit.

Below are 6 reasons a business owner should think twice before taking on the day to day sales management role, and why they may want to outsource sales management to grow their business.

Not enough bandwidth

Most small business owners are experts in their business sector because they have taken their business idea from adolescence to adulthood. As part of that process, the responsibilities across the business continue to increase. Finance, HR, Operations, Product Development, and Customer Service, even if you are staffing more and more managers, takes more and more time incrementally on a weekly basis. This is because as the business grows each area of responsibility also grows. And the sales and marketing function of the business is often the most daunting aspect for the following reasons:

• Sales management needs to take place on a daily basis every day to ensure success and because sales is so critical to the business.
• The business owner’s time is better spent on sales strategy not managing the day to day blocking and tackling of sales, knowing that sales management can quickly cause other areas of the business to suffer.

Gain sales technology expertise when you outsource sales

Over the past three years with the advent of cloud applications and SaaS solutions, a new wave of technology has swept through many industries to make modern sales and marketing a much more efficient and process driven function. Sales still ultimately comes down to a sales rep picking up the phone to close business, but in this digital buyer education environment, the ability to make smart decisions about what marketing automation, CRM and social media platforms to use, and more importantly, how to use them without going down rabbit holes that burn resources and time is critical. A business owner’s time is better spent shaping strategy and goals of the system and leveraging an expert to implement and manage the technology.

Desire to lead with limited sales management skills

The talent, vision, leadership and expertise required to launch, scale, build, manage and conduct the day to day operations of a growing business are not the same repetitive and process driven skills required to manage a sales and marketing team on a daily basis. When companies and owners are ready to scale, sales becomes a very repetitive and habit driven process. Sales is required to hit the right “notes” day in and day out. A company needs a sales manager that fosters sales efficiency and production on a daily basis. This often requires getting in the weeds to nurture mentor and motivate employees (often less senior employees) on a daily basis. It also requires the sales manager to have the experience to hire, recruit, and train the right resources at the right price. A visionary founder and leader working on all areas of the business has often not developed the right tool set to manage employees at this level, and the owners time is better spent leading the manager when it counts.

Not good at it or not the right temperament

As an outsource sales and marketing provider, we see that most successful business owners have sales in their blood. Its why they have been successful. But over time they end up being engaged in higher value activities and they often lack the patience of the daily grind of sales management. And because they are engaged in every function of the business they also continue to be the best sales resource in the company, because they have a comprehensive working knowledge of every area of the business including the sales management function. But knowledge and intent don’t always equate to aptitude and talent. It’s very likely that an outside expert that has managed different types of sales in different types of environments that has taken companies through multiple growth stages will have broader mix of skills, and innate talent for sales management. And where a business owner will get frustrated with the mundane, an outsource sales manager will flourish.

Business owner doesn’t really want to manage sales

Business owners are different from most of the population in terms of perception and persistence but they are still human beings. And most human beings, especially successful individuals, have a tendency to want to spend their time doing what they enjoy. Once the sales effort is on the right trajectory, the challenge of sales management turns into detailed analysis, daily blocking and tackling, constant tweaking of comp plan, resetting targets and regular reporting. Most business owners are better suited and enjoy sales leadership but if they don’t love daily management sales will eventually suffer if interest wanes or the business owner is distracted for even several weeks. If the owner to fully commit the company’s overall success can suffer. So it often makes sense that they continue to lead sales but outsource sales management to a more dedicated resource.

Business owner’s passion will accelerate business when they outsource sales management

Most entrepreneurs wear multiple hats and if they examine why they were successful it’s because they put their energy into areas that they loved and some areas they did not love. But the constant thread is that they loved the challenge of building and developing something new. After years of hard work with a product that successfully launched, the business owner probably has a love or passionate interest in some specific areas of their business. If sales management is not that area then the marketing, finance, delivery, business development or product development probably is. Whatever the business owner is truly passionate about is where they should focus for two reasons. First is that their full on engagement in that area will produce the most value for the company, and second they have earned that right and deserve to follow that passionate. In most cases the result is a trifecta of personal, professional and business wins for the company.

Conclusion

Can a business owner that is ready to scale sales manage the sales function? Absolutely. But should they? Unless they love sales management and want to let go of other areas of their business probably not. Especially if sales is not where there true passion resides and there time and energy can be deployed in other more critical business functions. A half-hearted and distracted effort will not benefit the business.

About Gabriel Sales’ outsource sales solutions

Gabriel Sales, has been helping small business and start ups committed to sales growth outsource sales and marketing since 1999. Since that time, we have built modern sales and marketing operations for multiple founders and small business owners. We have then executed and managed thousands of campaigns for hundreds of products and services,

We believe that the business to business market is in the middle of a massive disruption, that most solutions are first “bought” by making it easy for the buyer to self-educate, and then “sold” by customer service oriented business development reps. Success requires telling your story in an honest and authentic way through the seamless integration of content marketing, marketing automation systems, a buyer education content management system, and sales reps that know how to use these tools as part of their calling efforts.

We help make the shift to modern sales and marketing operations easier, fast and efficient. We help company’s build and manage sales engines and we provide full service and point solutions for companies ready to scale.

We can help:

• Craft Your Repeatable Strategy – This includes, how to tell your sales story powerfully to as many buyers as possible, the tools, content and processes you need to support your inside sales reps with a consistent flow of sales qualified opportunities.
• Design and Implement Your Infrastructure – Integrate the technology required to automate your process, score leads, and measure the success and ROI of specific tactics
• Thought Leadership and Sales Automation Content Production – Digitally clone your founders and executives to help you tell your story simply, authentically and powerfully.
• Run and Manage Your Sales Campaigns – We can staff the marketing coordinators and sales staffs you need to cover gaps in your existing team.
• Build and Transition Your Engine – Once a sales engine is launched and proven 80% of our clients pull all or some of the functions in house. We can help you train and build your own internal team, or continue to run your sales engine operations for an extended period of time.

We invite you to check out our outsourced sales and marketing services.  Or feel free to contact us for a free preliminary benchmark assessment by filling out this form here.

Finally if you are curious how we address the new digital buyer you can check out our new approach to outsource sales here.

Finding Sales and Marketing Talent Fast by Outsourcing Sales

by Glen Springer | Mar 10, 2017

If you have been in business for more than 3 years it should now be abundantly clear that we all are experiencing a dramatic shift in sales and marketing where outsourcing sales can help you quickly address these issues:

• Buyers are now in control of the sales process and solutions are first “bought”— with digital content that proves you understand your buyers’ needs and pains—then “sold” by closers, once buyers feel educated enough to engage in deeper discussions.
• Buyers want to understand how you solve their problem, and then want to understand your product features. So your reps need content and tools to tell that story.
• You can no longer just throw callers at lead generation to solve your early stage funnel issues because buyers simply don’t pick up the phone as often as they used to.

Success now requires a team of sales and marketing professionals running integrated campaigns and technology to successfully sell to the new digitally driven buyer.

And once a business owner reaches this conclusion they will often decide to consider outsourcing sales.  They will consider outsourcing sales  as a solution to help them cover some of the talent and expertise gaps they have in their existing organization because they don’t have the time or the expertise to recruit, hire and train a team with the experts required to sell to the new digital buyer.

Below is a quick list of the sales and marketing talent an outsourcing sales company can bring to the table in less than 30 days.

• A senior strategist – Your outsourced sales campaign will be guided by a strategist that understand how to tell a powerful sales story using digital marketing and sales reps.
• Content producer – An integrated campaign will require content production.  A sales outsourcing company will be able to supply a team of video producers, copy writers and graphic designers on a part time basis to support your efforts.
• Sales technology specialist – You will immediately gain access to a marketing automation and CRM specialist to make sure your systems are implemented with best practices to produce the results you need.
• Marketing manager – You will have a marketing manager to manage your inbound and outbound campaigns and reporting, and ensure your digital marketing and lead gen success.
• Database specialist – Managing an early stage pipeline requires clean and updated data.  You will have a specialist that understands how to build and manage a database of leads.
• Buyer development and inside sales reps – Even if you can drive all your leads with inbound marketing you will eventually need someone to qualify your leads or manage the close of the sale.  An outsourced sales company can provide and scale that team.

To learn more about Gabriel Sales ability to help you quickly build and staff a repeatable sales and marketing process please feel free to visit our outsourcing sales page.

Email Marketing Tips to Support Outsourced Sales

by Glen Springer | Mar 8, 2017

One of the top reasons businesses consider an outsourced sales solutions is to generate more top of funnel leads and sales qualified leads  for their senior sales reps. An outsourced sales company will typically have expertise in multiple lead generation tactics to make generating both types of sales leads  more effective and efficient.  And one of these areas will be email marketing.

As part of Gabriel Sales outsourced sales campaigns we write multiple types of sales and marketing emails to generate new leads and to develop buyers not ready to buy.  Subsequently, we look at a lot of research, and analyze a lot of our own data.  So here are some of our best practices you can expect when you run an outsourced sales campaign that you can also apply as best practices to your own email marketing lead generation and lead development efforts.

Don’t expect a miracle

Emails are a great way to introduce your solution and the problems you solve for a buyer.  They are a great way to make buyers aware you exist.  They are a great way to start a digital dialogue with the buyer.  They are a great way to move a buyer deeper into the sales funnel.  And they are a great way to kick off an outsourced sales lead generation campaign to build a short list of early stage buyers for buyer development reps to call.  But buyers rarely buy or immediately schedule an appointment after getting one email from you so don’t expect a miracle.

Know what your specific sales or marketing goal is for each email

In this era of content marketing and access to digital education, email is being used for multiple purposes, so it is important to set a goal for each email.  If it’s an initial email lead generation campaign you may just want to introduce a problem you help solve to identify buyers that need that problem solved.  You may have a new solution you want to introduce.

If it is buyer you have been developing for awhile that has opened multiple emails or that has engaged with your content in the past, you may want to ask for an  appointment or to engage in deeper stage content to move them deeper into the funnel.

Know what your goal is for every email, and don’t try to do too much at one time in a single email.

Avoid long subject lines and lead with the point of the email

Buyers use smartphones over 60% of the time to check out emails.  In general, we put too much copy in the subject line and often bury the  point of the email at the end of the subject line. Our research shows that shorter subject lines are opened more often, especially when the point of the email comes first.

Keep your email copy short

Once again – over 60% of buyers check email on mobile phones. Keep this top of mind when you write your copy.  Your emails should be easy to read, and broken into paragraphs.  No more than three short paragraphs are ideal. You can also use bullets to catch your buyer’s attention. .

Test subject lines – especially for top of funnel email campaigns

When we run outsourced sales lead generation campaigns we run a series of three emails to the same list as a best practice.  And we often use the same educational content offer for that 3 part campaign.  This allows us to do a comprehensive A/B subject line split test as part of that first effort.  We will often test as many as 3 to 4 subject lines in the first email.  This allows the subsequent email blasts to drill down on the topics most likely to engage the buyer.

Don’t overuse your company name

Just like sales calls, you don’t want to simply talk about how awesome you are.  You want to stay customer centric. Keep your focus on the customer, their pain points and needs. It is important to mention your name but only use it once or twice.  Starting every other sentence with your company name turns your communication into an advertisement, not a helpful and professional email.

Lead with an educational offer

Always focus on giving your buyer something of value.  Lead with an educational offer.  Emails are the preferred way buyers wish to learn about new solutions, so attach a link to a blog article, white paper or video.  When buyers get a link with an interesting asset they are more like to save it.

Include case studies

If you are going to talk about yourself and your solution use a case study to do this. This allows a customer to understand how your solution has helped solve problems for buyers like them, and helps them start to imagine and consider how your solution can help them solve a similar problem.

Personalize with recipient’s name and company

With the adoption of marketing automation tools, data merge fields are now the norm. It’s simply rude not to personalize. Use the prospect’s first name in the email. Include the company name if appropriate, however, only do this if you have a clean list!. By doing so, your email stands out.

Set a goal for each specific email

In this era of content marketing and access to digital education, email is being used for multiple purposes, so be sure you have a goal for each email. Is it for nurturing, is it for generating a new lead or is it for developing a lead.  You should then message the copy of the email to the right audience and make the right education offer using the following content framework below.

End with a clear call to action (CTA)

Your email should always have a clear call to action.  When we run an outsourced sales campaign, it should be as specific as possible and require the least amount of effort from your prospect. For example, have a link to clearly send them to the educational content, give them a day/time for a 10 minute call to discuss the value you can provide for their business. If you have a calendar app, such as Calendly, use that to let prospects set up their own meeting.

How Outsourced Sales Can Help?

Gabriel Sales helps companies build modern sales and marketing operations with a new approach for companies that want to outsourced sales.  To learn more about we can help you with email marketing to generate new leads check out our top of funnel lead generation campaign services page.

Video and Outsourced Sales

by Glen Springer | Mar 1, 2017

As an outsourced sales company we get to meet many small business owners that have fantastic solutions and powerful sales stories to tell.  And in many cases they are hitting a wall where they are hiring more reps, or even worse churning through reps that are struggling to move deals through their sales funnel.

In many cases this is because they are depending on their sales reps to move deals forward and they are not giving them the type of content they need to make it easy for the buyer to buy.  In fact, according to a survey of 1200 buyers completed in Q4 of 2016 –  85% of most organizations now prefer to make all are part of their initial purchase decision through digital channels whenever possible and then 75% of those buyers will not make a purchase decision without engaging with a sales rep at the end of the buying process.

This means you need to use digital content to help your sales team or your outsourced sales team to sell to their buyers.

One way we help companies address this challenge as an outsourced sales company is to use the following types of video:

Short Video Demos – You can quickly create demos of your product and solutions.  This makes it easier for your buyer to check out your solution and if they are still interested you can do a custom demo.

Headshot Videos –  Headshot videos can be used to answer FAQs, or explain your value props and differentiators and the buyer can meet the executives that stand behind the product to help your outsourced sales team build trust.

Short Intro Pitch Video – Remember don’t get too pitchy in these videos.  You can explain the problems that exist for the client, the impacts of those problems and how you can solve this problem, often in as little as 2-3 minutes.  These videos need to be professionally done but do not need to be over produced.  This makes it easy for your outsourced sales team to recap the conversation with your buyer and gives the buyers something to share internally.

Checklist Videos – You can often take one or two slides from a webcast video and expand them to 5-10 slides and you have a quick checklist videos on a topic that is easy to digest anywhere your buyer has a mobile device.

Gabriel Sales build modern sales and marketing operations for companies committed to sales growth.   We help them create the content they need to meet the needs of their buyers and then we provide outsourced sales teams to help share that content in the market.  To learn more about our comprehensive sales outsourcing services please visit our  outsourced sales team page.

Outsourced Sales to Gain Sales Capability and Capacity

by Glen Springer | Feb 28, 2017

According to the 2016 study by the Outsourcing Institute the top two reasons for outsourcing any function is:

• To reduce & control operating costs
• To improve company focus

The next three reasons companies outsource are:

• To gain access to capabilities you don’t already have
• Free internal resources for other purposes
• Give you access to resources that are not available internally

We have addressed how an outsourced sales and marketing company can help reduce costs in this blog post here so this article will quickly list how, what and where an outsourced sales company can increase your capability and capacity.

Increasing Capability

With the recent requirement of email marketing, content marketing and the addition of marketing automation and CRMs, outsourced sales is now becoming an accepted part of this overall outsourcing trend.  Your new digital buyer now buys using both digital content, emails and working with sales reps.  An outsourcing sales company will understand how your buyer now buys and will help to customize a sales process that works for your buyer.

An outsourced sales  company will have both the experience and expertise to manage all of these different tactics and tools.   More importantly a sales outsourcing company will have the expertise to help you implement these tools and tactics with aligned sales and marketing campaigns to help you generate sales qualified leads.  Including the timing and best practices to execute a repeatable sales process.

Capacity

An outsourced sales company will have the sales and marketing team you need to quickly run campaigns.  This includes:

• The marketing talent to target the market, create the copy and content you need to run effective lead generation campaigns and the technology experts to automate large parts of your sales process.
• And once the lead is generated they will have the sales reps, buyer education reps and in some cases closers to help you fill your sales funnel and generate more revenue faster.

Clearly some sales reps are better at telephone introductions than others but the talent required to share content and do a basic introduction early in the sales process is neither complex nor uncommon.  An outsourcing sales company that knows how to market your product will be able to staff the resources to help you generate your sales leads as well, especially if they are supported by quality content.  They will also know how to probe for your prospects pains and objectives.   So you will immediately be able to free up your own internal team to focus on later stage deals.

As an outsourced sales and marketing company Gabriel Sales specializes in helping companies build modern sales and marketing operations to generate more sales qualified leads.    To learn more about our sales outsourcing and marketing services visit our outsourced sales services page.