Wednesday, July 24, 2019
A large number of companies are outsourcing their sales department to save time and costs but, mainly, because it delivers results.
The data tells a compelling story: Outsourcing sales can be 43% more efficient than generating leads in-house because managed service companies have more expertise.
Still, many businesses remain skeptical and hesitate to try it. It would be important to outline the fundamental.
The most important objections to outsourcing and why the whole process should be reconsidered:
The prejudice of doing everything in-house
This is one of the most common objections. There’s nothing wrong with doing everything in house, but if essentially you were able to get the same results, if not better, with less liabilities, would you be open to consider the possibility of outsourcing?
Many companies who used to do everything in-house have decided to outsource and are now seeing better results.
The best thing is that this is not an either/or situation. You don’t have to fire all your in-house team and change your whole sales process. In fact, outsourcing sales means you’ll have a new team working as an extension (not a replacement) of your in-house team that will help you scale faster.
Product is too complex
The reasoning behind this objection is that a complex product requires a complex sales pitch. This is not necessarily true.
Potential customers are convinced to buy a product, be it software or a specialized piece of machinery, because it solves a problem for them. The outsourced sales team may not understand all the intricate technical details of the product, but they don’t need to. As long as they know how to communicate the benefits, they can make the sale.
An outsourced sales team can help you generate qualified leads at the top of the sales funnel and make appointments with your in-house experts for a software demo or an in-depth call. That way you can focus on what you know best and only deal with qualified leads.
The right training can make the complex look simple to your clients. Our experience shows that outsourced teams have been able to generate results for complex tech products.
No budget right now for Outsourcing
Perhaps this is why outsourcing becomes mandatory. One of the reasons for outsourcing is to save money on recruiting, training and managing staff.
If you need to hire an in-house employee tomorrow, you would be investing time, money and the risk of churning is high. A managed service provides certified sales professionals and support teams, all at a lower cost than a traditional in-house team, who are trained to produce.
Maybe you have allocated and spent all of your budget for the year already or you are in a very tight spot financially and cannot afford to outsource at the moment. However, if you think long term, at how much money and time you would save, there will definitely be one way to find the money somehow.
Doubting about the expected results
A proven sales system that has worked well cannot be considered to apply to all different markets in a profitable and timely way.
Every sales approach, no matter how successful always needs to evolve with the market changes. There are a few outsourcing sales companies who work with the best and latest technology available and are abreast of the current trends. Maybe a new sales approach to complement your existing system might benefit you in ways you haven’t considered yet. A managed service exists to supplement your efforts, not replace them.
Besides, if your proven sales approach is driving results, wouldn’t it make sense to scale it with a partner that can help deliver even greater results? A good partner can make a huge difference.
Our managers need to be on hand to manage
This is a legitimate concern, of course.
Any potential partnership would only succeed if there’s an effective two-way communication. That means ongoing discussions about the things that are working, the things that must be improved, areas where the team needs more training and important feedback from the customers must always take place in a structured and actionable way.
The idea is not losing control or hire a managed service and forget about them. What you’d want is for the outside team to act as an extension of your in-house staff. You would be kept in the loop about information relevant to their work. One way to do this is with the use of tech tools and platforms for real-time access of critical information, which allows you to monitor the work of the outsourced team.
When you set up such systems in the workflow and have regular meetings, your managers will have all the control they need while being free to focus on other tasks.
Negative Experience of prior Outsourcing project
It’s the nature of things that certain unsuccessful projects may lead our next tactics.
It’s not a good idea to let a bad experience in the past determine the future business practices. Knowing what went wrong exactly during a previous experience, one can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Identifying any particular aspect of the service that was disappointing and address that with a new potential provider, is the right way to re-consider.
Finding the right partner is not easy. Pondering real needs will definitely make things easier to search for the right partner.
Concerns about Security and Intellectual Property
Another reasonable objection but that can be easily addressed. You may be afraid that someone might steal proprietary information or would have access to your network, code and passwords.
What if you have the outsourcing company sign a NDA to protect your intellectual property?
You can also limit access to the necessary information they would need to do their work.
There are many legal and security tools available to draft an agreement and set up a working system that will make you feel at ease when working with a remote team.