We know that you likely have had to pivot your sales strategy due to the pandemic. It can be tough for your sales reps to learn new tools and new habits for sales done over the phone when they are used to performing their job in person. To be frank, it’s hard to change old habits which is why you may have considered outsourcing your top of the sales funnel activities to drive more opportunities to your current experienced, and successful sales team. In this post, we’ll answer: why you should outsource your sales development activities, what you should look for when you are looking for outsourcers, and what makes a great sales development person.
Why You Should Outsource Your Sales Development Activities
Outsource your sales development activities if you are:
- Looking to grow your company quickly (hypergrowth) and/or you need additional resources, but don’t have the budget
- Need to generate new opportunities quickly to rebuild pipeline and replace lost customers
- Having to pivot your sales strategy from traditional in-person sales visits or new business from tradeshows and events to sales and prospecting done remotely.
Speed-to-market is the main reason why most companies outsource. Typically, when you outsource you are working with people who specialize in a specific skill. These professionals are able to get the job done in less time than if you were to try and either do it yourself, hire, or re-train internal employees. On average companies see an ROI of 40-60% from outsourcing sales development activities because of how quickly they can bring your service to the market.
What You Should Look for When Picking Your Outsourcers
You’ll want to know where they are recruiting their talent from, what their area of specialization is, how they manage their team, and if they are willing to give you access to the technology they use.
If you need someone to drive lead generation make sure you hire someone who only does lead generation, don’t hire the “jack of all trades”. In order to grow your sales fast you should consider a specialized approach to your outsourcing. This specialization will help you to convert cold leads into warm leads and finally, warm leads into customers.
It’s always helpful to choose an outsourcing team with adaptive and involved project managers. Generally, the better the project managers the better the success of the outsourcing team. In sales development roles, turnover happens often. With that said, it is important to have a project manager who is a steady member of the team and knows your company and your goals.
Ask to have access to the technology they use in order to view reports and data relevant to your business. In addition, ask to be involved in sales calls or make sure there is a way you can listen to sales call recordings. Why? This helps make you aware of the way your company is being represented to potential clients/customers.
What Makes a Great Sales Development Representative (SDR)?
Great SDR’s are usually highly competitive, assertive, and are able to handle rejection. If we had to pick, being comfortable with failure is the best quality of a great SDR. Let’s face it, there is a lot of rejection in sales which makes it is easy for reps to get discouraged and leave the team. When looking to outsource an SDR or an SDR team ask them about their biggest failure and how they handled it to gauge whether or not they’ll have the fortitude to handle the role as a sales development rep.
Found This Post Helpful?
If you’re about to Google SDR sales teams for your business, listen to this episode of our podcast for more information and things to consider when looking to outsource an SDR team. Give us a call if you are interested in growing your sales and we’ll see how we can help you reach your goals.
If you are looking for more tips listen to our podcast and check out our other blogs here. Visit our corner of the internet and follow us on LinkedIn andTwitter (@ebs_growth).