Sales is one of the most important skills for any employee to master. Nearly every role and nearly every company needs to sell something. Cultivating that skillset is key to ensuring healthy company revenue growth.
Salespeople are in high demand and turnover is also as high as 35%. This can be due to a number of factors such as missing ambitious sales targets or leaders being recruited to other companies.
How can we sell—and how can we sell well? That is the question of the day. Let’s look at a few strategies for smarter sales.
To start, two primary approaches to sales are:
- Internal sales by hiring, building your own direct sales team, or doing it yourself
- External sales by outsourcing sales and hiring a brokerage firm
There are pros and cons to each of these different sales approaches. Let’s walk through some of them now.
Internal Sales
Creating your own sales staff can be costly but may also provide great business alignment. Business owners must consider a number of factors here such as base pay and commissions, travel and meeting expenses, samples, CRM (customer relationship management) and sales tech, training, and so much more. This will require time, energy, and money on the business owner’s part.
The good
Still, there are a number of benefits to this approach. For example, you now have a team that can focus on your products and services. There are no excuses. A dedicated sales team can begin to build solid relationships with your customers. Those relationships are key to building revenue.
From there, once that is established, a business owner can then negotiate revenue goals and expenses. Employees are able to align with the goals and objectives of the company. Client feedback can then be used to improve products and value proposition.
The hard
As mentioned earlier, perhaps one of the hardest factors to hiring your own sales team is it requires a lot of time to train them—time that may need to be taken away from other areas of the business. Also, initially, the ROI (return on investment) of a dedicated sales time may be high.
Again, another challenge is turnover of sales personnel is often high and it takes time to hire replacements and train them. This can be an ongoing process and struggle for many business owners.
External Sales
Another option is to look externally and hire an experienced broker to handle sales for you. This is a good go-to-market option for younger companies or smaller companies. Let’s explore some of those pros and cons for this strategy.
The good
Brokers will often have connections and relationships with the customers already and they can sell. In fact, they are really good at it, and this can free up some time for the business owner to focus on other core competencies.
Since brokers are selling all they time, they have ideas for how to position your company in a competitive way. They can also provide feedback for how to improve the work.
Often, they are a lower cost option, because businesses can minimize overhead expenses. But keep in mind, business owners will need to negotiate commissions, which typically range between 5-7% of sales as well as specific elements of the sales plan, such as distribution incentives, trade deals and discounts, pricing and billing, and more.
The hard
Brokers don’t work for you; they work for a number of companies. Therefore, their time and energy will be placed in a number of different places. If a different client comes along that offers a more lucrative offer, they may put less effort into your sales.
They also may not share the same core values as your business. They may not align with your corporate values as an employee might. If you have a product that is specialized, this might be a concern.
Finally, they often require exclusivity, and business owners will often need to give up some level of control. Having exclusivity is another motivation for your broker to work hard for you.
While there are many different options for sales, at the end of the day, sales is a core component to every business. Make sure the approach and team you choose align with your business goals and objectives so you can hit the ground running.
