Outsourcing sales and marketing is not “one size fits all” engagement. Because of the dynamic and involved nature of sales and marketing execution, it is important that you identify what gaps you are looking to fill within your current processes before looking to an outside partner for help. Alternatively, many times this potential outside partner can help you identify these gaps on the front-end as well.
The purpose of this blog will be to outline 5 final considerations you should make when considering using an outside partner, as well as what information you should be sharing with your potential B2B sales outsourcing and marketing partner:
Is reducing my time to market critical?
Outsourcing sales and marketing is more than just soliciting a business to make cold calls. You are plugging into a fully functional sales engine. Innovative technologies are in place to help you execute and processes are built to ensure success. Now you have access to a sales and marketing team that already know how to work together and are ready to start closing business on day one. Recruiting, building, and training a team can take months, quarters, even years to finally end up with a solid core group that “plays well together.” Do you have the time to bring that team together? If not, an outsourced partner is an ideal solution.
Am I looking for operational expertise?
It takes time to develop operational expertise because it is driven by measurement and verification against feedback loops. You can’t rush a good thing. To truly drive operational expertise you have to effectively benchmark performance against historical data. How can you tell whether your premature sales force is performing at the highest level possible when you are working with a brand new solution? One of the major benefits of plugging into an outsourced partner is that they already have an existing sales machine in place – you just have to jump in the driver’s seat. Feedback loops and historical data are in place to define actionable KPI’s, and you can start smarter and learn faster.
Do I want to build operational expertise and then bring it in house?
This isn’t a question you need to have an answer to up-front, but it’s important to keep it top of mind throughout this process. Once the code is cracked and the machine is running, you can heavily reduce costs if you bring the sales engine in-house. If you think you may consider doing this down the road, it’s important to share that with your partner early on. We have found that when done effectively, we often times can transition all or parts of the process at strategic times so that everyone wins more business.
Is Scalability important to me?
One benefit of being an established outsourcer of marketing and sales is that we have the ability to increase and decrease the scale of our operations fluidly. All of the necessary infrastructure and processes from the technology platforms, phone systems, and recruiting/training systems are already in place. Headaches associated with adding and decreasing headcount are no more. You have to ask yourself, can I benefit from getting rid of these headaches?
Do I really need to add full time executives (and the long term fixed costs) to my management team?
The kiss of death for any company in today’s market is employing too many strategists and not enough soldiers. Outsourced providers can bring long-term strategic expertise to the table at the right time to astronomically reduce costs. Getting the initial sales efforts running takes strategic insight and leadership from senior executive talent on both the sales and marketing fronts. Appropriately aligning the technological strategy takes advanced expertise as well. All of this requires a heavy investment. This is where the beauty of an outsourced partner comes into play. Once you invest in the engine, the fixed costs you would have had to carry otherwise with staffing internally fall away. The senior team moves to the background and the machine and sales reps continue to generate revenue.
For more information on how outsourcing sales and marketing can help accomplish your goals, please feel free to take a look at our previous blogs in this series “Should I Outsource Sales and Marketing” and “Is My Company a Good Fit to Outsource Sales and Marketing.”
If you would like more information, or would just like to chat with us about issues you may be having or how we can help, please contact us.
