Why you should Outsource Sales Development (at least initially)

Setting up a dedicated prospecting team is a great way to drive new sales opportunities every month. Executed incorrectly however, it can cost a lot of time, money and momentum that you can’t get back.

This is why we recommended companies outsource their Sales Development function, at least initially. Below we explain the three key reasons why you should take this approach if you’re considering setting up a sales development team in your business:

- Low risk way to test if the approach is profitable for your business

- You need to find a rep that is creative but also highly structured (not easy)

- Less internal disruption / distraction

Low risk way to test if the approach is profitable for your business

Here’s what you’ll need to invest in before you can even test if outbound prospecting will work for your business:

Employee dedicated to prospecting = $5500

2. Management overhead (monitor, train and report) = $2000

3. Outbound Prospecting Software = $100

4. List of prospects to contact = $1000

Total = $8,600

This investment guarantees you nothing. You could spend an entire month setting up this test and generate zero sales opportunities from it (trust me, I’ve seen this before).

Instead, by partnering with a Sales Development agency like Sales Science you’ll have zero downside risk. We only charge customers for the appointments we set with qualified prospects. No opportunities, no cost. Therefore no risk.

You need to find a rep that is creative but also highly structured (not easy)

Designing and executing outbound sales programmes requires two very distinct skill sets. The ability to craft creative and compelling messaging in both written and verbal formats, and the ability to track and document processes, procedures and outcomes religiously. It’s very hard to find these two qualities in one individual. Without both, you’re not going to be able to develop a Sales Development Programme that’s scalable.

An outsourced Sales Development partner can again leverage their experience to both craft compelling messaging and put it into a system that is measurable and scalable from day one. This will save you a ton of time and frustration on trying to figure out what’s working and what isn’t during the initial stages.

Less internal disruption

One way to solve for the shortcomings or lack of experience that your sales rep might have is to work closely with them as they develop this programme. The problem with that is you probably have a dozen other things that also require your urgent attention. If you’ve never built a programme like this out before it could take you 6 months to get it dialed in just right. That’s a lot of time and effort away from your product/service and customers.

A good Sales Development Partner will provide you with just what you need. Qualified meetings for your sales people and metrics on campaign performance. No need to design and build these systems from the ground up. You’ll get the meetings to grow your business and the insights to track the ROI on the campaign over time.