These days, everyone is cutting back costs and skimming resources to maximize results. Small businesses are no exception in that they need to make sure they run their business efficiently and with maximum productivity. There are many reasons why businesses should not do sales development work in house. Some of these include cost to start, time, and expertise. Reaching out to prospects is often one of the least desirable aspects of a salesperson’s job and they might even try to avoid it, to some extent.
When a business removes prospecting from the in house sales team, they can turn the heat up on qualified inbound leads, networks, cross selling, and upselling to the existing customer base. These are things that increase revenue of the organization without requiring outreach to cold prospects. Look at the ways an outsourced sales development program (SDR) can support a business to thrive.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Mistakes made by an outsourced company are remedied more quickly, in many cases, than those made in house. If an in house SDR program makes a mistake, this could have direct negative impact on the business’s bottom line. When a business must let employees go, or re-assign, it is time-consuming and impacts overall morale. When an outsourced firm makes a mistake, it can often be rectified with a simple phone call or swift disintegration of the program. Finding another program to support prospecting is easier, and more cost effective, than trying to go through the internal hiring process. When looking at outsourcing firms that specialize in prospecting, things are much easier to adjust. If the business needs more, less, or no support at all, it is easier to make changes than to have to adjust things in house to suit
Reduced Training
Launching a sales development program is costly and time consuming. When a firm already specializes with products and services in house, they are already set up to help a business meet their needs in many aspects. Often, an internal program needs:
- Systems
- Tools
- Processes
- Managers
- Trainees
Outsourcing reduces time and energy put into all these resources, including cost, by taking less time to launch. Efficiency is key for small businesses that are looking to grow and do not have time or resources to invest in bigger programs in house. Save on some headaches that can be avoided by outsourcing to a firm built for sales development functions and are able to quickly jump in and start the work of prospecting.
Flexibility is Key
The last thing any business needs is a rigid strategy that is not adaptable or able to change with the sales tides. The burden of recruiting, hiring, and managing an internal team does not allow flexibility in the end will only bring prospecting down. Forming a team is costly but that can be avoided by hiring a firm that has already done the up-front work and is ready to get started on a business’s prospecting right away. They can also:
- Reach new markets
- Adjust along the way
- Launch new programs regularly
- Take less time to do the work
The last thing a business needs is more mistakes and added costs from ineffective strategies, teams, or prospecting that is not working. It may take time to figure out one strategy is no longer effective and, by then, the business has lost its edge on the competition. With such big shifts happening in the markets at any given time, it is worth considering the benefits an outsourcing firm can have on a business now and in the future.
Read more relevant blog post: Succeed By Doing Less And Outsourcing More