While the industries vary, nearly all of the 33 million-plus SMBs in the US share similar concerns. For example, the supply chain remains in a state of flux. This is in spite of a concentrated effort on the part of manufacturers, shippers, and warehouses to find solutions.

Staffing remains a perennial thorn in the side of every business in the wake of the Great Resignation. These kinds of problems also, directly and indirectly, affect efforts at things like scaling up sales efforts.

Rather than struggle with scaling, many businesses look for an outsourced sales company instead. While it may run counter to the can-do entrepreneurial spirit, outsourced sales offers leaders much needed benefits. Keep reading to learn more about those benefits.

Managing Costs

Staffing is always expensive. Those costs only grow if you try to build a sales team in-house. After all, it’s not just the salaries. Costs include:

• Recruiting
• Training
• Professional development
• Benefits
• Bonuses

Beyond that, sales is often a high-stress job that creates a lot of churn among your employees. Turnover among salespeople generally hovers around 35 percent.

That’s a lot of bodies coming and going. More importantly, it also forces a constant cycle of hiring and training.

With outsourced sales, all of that becomes someone else’s headache. You agree on a price for their services, in advance. For you, it becomes a kind of fixed cost for the duration of the contract or service agreement. That helps you manage your overall costs.

If they experience heavy turnover and must invest heavily in recruitment and training, it doesn’t come out of your pocket.

Scalability

While there are probably a few business owners out there who are content with the size of the business, they are the exception. For most business owners, growth is the name of game.

Of course, growth also requires that you scale up your sales efforts. Yes, you can accomplish some scaling with technology. That can become cost-prohibitive beyond a certain point unless you plan on opening up your own call center.

When you outsource your sales department, they already have all the employees and technology they need for scaling in place already. They don’t need a big infrastructure investment or hiring spree to meet the demand.

Sure, you may end up renegotiating your contract or service agreement. Then again, if your sales are up that much, it’s not so much a problem as a sign that you’re doing really well.

Expertise

One of the biggest challenges when hiring for an in-house sales department is that not all sales professionals come with the necessary industry expertise. Let’s say that you own a B2B software firm. You get an applicant with ten years of experience in auto sales.

Yes, they probably have superior interpersonal skills, but that’s about the extent of their value to your organization. Auto sales is a short-term interaction, while the B2B sales process may run for months or even up to a year.

Beyond that, they’ll lack a working knowledge of industry-standard jargon and standard licensing terms. They can brush up on service agreement terms but will lack an in-depth understanding of what those terms mean in practice.

You can train a lot of that stuff, but it’s not a fast process. Outsourcing lets you pick a company with expertise in your industry and the types of sales that you do.

The company will still need some specifics from you, but you won’t spend your time baby-stepping them through industry-standard information.

Data Optimization

These days, it’s very difficult for a business to avoid accumulating a lot of data about their prospects, leads, and customers. In fact, businesses routinely find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data they have on hand.

Sorting through all of that data to glean useful insights generally takes a combination of good software and technical know-how. You can, theoretically, invest in the right software and hire the right people to evaluate that data for you.

Yet, that often runs counter to the goal of minimizing costs. On the other hand, outsourced sales companies often have the right software and staff on hand to do that exact kind of work for you.

They can help you do things like:

• Improve databases
• Identify your best customers
• Identify emerging markets

Minimally, it’s worth a conversation if you’re already considering outsourcing your sales efforts.

Flexibility

When you run an in-house team, it’s often impractical for them to experiment. You need your sales team doing things that you know work.

That may mean using an approved script for emails or phone calls. It may mean pairing new sales team members with more experience sales team mentors to show them the ropes in terms of how to run meetings with prospects or leads.

In most cases, you can’t afford for your proven team to move off of proven methods. Yet, experimentation often yields results.

If you employ an outside sales team, it can provide you with more flexibility. You can ask them to run experiments or A/B script testing to see what works best.

It may mean negotiating for a few extra bodies, but it’s still cheaper than hiring people for that work yourself.

More Accountability

It might seem counterintuitive, but in-house teams often have a lot more leeway in justifying a lack of progress. For example, they have personal relationships that they can lean on to evoke sympathy or to know what kind of excuses will slide under the radar with a particular manager.

With an outsourced sales team, you get more accountability because you deal primarily with numbers in weekly or monthly reports.

Working with an Outsourced Sales Company

Working with an outsourced sales company can often provide you with many benefits. It can help you manage costs by reducing employee recruitment, training, and benefits. In many cases, the company can scale up with far greater ease than you could accomplish the same feat.

You can pick a company with appropriate industry expertise and even one that offers data services. As a bonus, the outsourced service can offer flexibility and more accountability.

The Selling Factory specializes in outsourced sales services. For more information or a consultation, contact The Selling Factory today.