According to Forrester’s Mike Pregler, the VP Research Director - B2B Sales Services, succeeding in today’s B2B sales landscape requires an emphasis on systems and processes that enable customer-facing talent.
If you’re a sales and growth team lead, you’re likely faced with achieving sustainable revenue growth with limited resources to manage full-cycle sales activities.
From small businesses to large corporations, the true cost of maintaining an in-house sales team may be higher than you expect. Aside from the initial cost of filling roles like business or sales development representative, you have to maintain competitive compensation, invest in continuous learning initiatives, and manage turnover.
At the end of 2022, Salesforce shared research revealing that sales teams averaged a 25% turnover rate. This leaves B2B growth teams in the constant cycle of hiring and training instead of growing the business. This leads to stagnant sales pipelines, inefficient lead generation, and the constant pressure to meet aggressive revenue targets.
This is not only important for sales and growth teams. This is critical for C-Suite members because strained resources limit scalability and diminish a company’s competitive edge in the marketplace.
Fortunately, businesses have the opportunity to mitigate these challenges and achieve strategic revenue growth through outsourced prospecting.
While you’re here, let’s break down:
• Why you need to care about strategic revenue growth
• How outsourced prospecting supports your goals
• What you can do today
The Role of Strategic Revenue Growth
Before we go into the role of strategic revenue growth, we need to understand what it is. At its core, it involves the deliberate planning and execution of sales activities to achieve and scale revenue.
When done well, it allows you to maintain competitiveness and innovation at your company. By systemizing your sales approach, you can sustainably achieve financial targets while funding research and development projects, as well as driving shareholder value.
Instead of moving from one sales target to the next, you would proactively optimize lead generation processes. Outsourcing new business prospecting is a modern approach that facilitates long-term profitability through sustainable sales growth.
Understanding Outsourced Prospecting
Outsourced prospecting encompasses the practice of partnering with external businesses or individuals to identify, contact, and qualify potential new clients on behalf of your company. It’s like having a stand-in sales team or team member add-ons with the skills and abilities of a full-time equivalent, minus the costs.
What You Can Expect
When you decide to outsource prospecting for your business, you are getting support across a range of areas. Here are some of the key activities and what they may include:
1. Market research: Understand the competitive landscape and your unique value proposition (USP) compared to key competitors
2. Targeting: Identify target markets, create ideal customer profiles (ICPs), define buyer personas
3. Lead generation: Build a list of potential clients based on ICP and target personas
4. Data management: Collect and maintain accurate prospect data and ensure quality and relevance for effective outreach
5. Initial outreach: Make first contact with prospects through various channels such as phone and email
6. Lead qualification: Assess prospects to determine their fit with your company and interest for further engagement such as a demo or technical presentation with your product or accounts team
7. Appointment setting: Schedule a phone or video meeting between qualified prospects and your sales, accounts, or product team
8. Reporting and analytics: Track the performance of prospecting activities, analyze data to refine approach, and provide regular reports on progress and outcomes
9. Feedback and continuous improvement: Gain feedback from front-facing talent, prospects, and clients to improve processes and strategies
10. Technology integration: Leverage tools, such as CRMs, to enhance efficient and effective managing of prospecting efforts
Some of these activities overlap with outsourced sales and business development. However, those listed are primarily associated with outsourced prospecting as the focus is on the initial stages of identifying and qualifying leads.
Key Benefits of Outsourced Prospecting
At the beginning of this article, we discussed the true cost of an in-house sales team including competitive compensation, continuous learning initiatives, and turnover. We then shared the impact of turnover on sales pipelines and lead generation.
Luckily, outsourced prospecting addresses each of these.
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Streamlined Processes
Third-party providers have processes and systems in place for new business development and prospecting.
For example, if you were a client partner at The Sales Factory, we would work with you to define minimum requirements for your desired front-facing talent. After that, we look at our internal roster of trained reps, then assign individuals based on criteria and experience. This is followed by tailored instruction on your business and market before the campaign launch. The business development representatives (BDRs) engage with prospects on your behalf and have the opportunity to continually learn from in-market experience, colleagues, and account managers.
By outsourcing these functions, sales and growth team leads can bypass the time-consuming and resource-intensive process of developing and offering these initiatives.
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Scalability
When outsourcing prospecting, you only pay for the services you need. When demand increases, you can request and bring on additional talent. When demand decreases, you can scale down your team and your costs.
Irwin, a financial software company, wanted to expand their team from one BDR to two in order to accelerate their growth trajectory. Our CEO at The Sales Factory, Paul Griffin, stepped in with the Irwin team, worked directly in their CRM, and got up to speed and in-market in less than a week.
"The ability to adapt and get to market fast and like an extension of our team and the results were exceptional."
Read the full case study to find out how much in pipeline opportunities we generated for Irwin.
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Enhanced Focus
By outsourcing new business prospecting, your sales team can focus on their core responsibilities such as nurturing leads, closing deals, and managing client relationships. Enabling them to specialize in these areas fosters efficiency and focus, plus alleviates pressure and reduces turnover.
As an example, consider i2Verify, an employment verification provider.
They had only one account manager sourcing and closing deals. Limited internal capacity caused stagnated pipeline opportunities. They partnered with us to build an internal team, execute targeted outreach to ideal customers, and drive their lead generation. Besides increasing revenue, our partnership played a crucial role in the company’s exit.
You can get access to the full case study about i2Verify here.
As you’ve noticed, the advantages of outsourcing new business prospecting offer increased effectiveness, cost savings, and lead generation. These can provide your company with the strategic edge that you need to sustainably achieve your revenue goals.
Implementing Outsourced Prospecting Strategies
Let’s explore the essential steps to successfully integrate outsourced prospecting into your sales strategy, from selecting the right partner to collaborating effectively.
Step 1) Assess Your Needs
Conduct an internal audit to identify gaps in your current prospecting process. Talk to your team and collect feedback.
Define your goals for outsourcing prospecting. For example, do you want to increase lead volume or improve lead quality?
Step 2) Choose the Right Outsourcing Prospecting Partner
Research potential partners and assess their expertise, talent, and technology to ensure they align with your business needs.
Scheduling an initial call with their sales team is an easy way to get an idea of what they do and how they can help.
We strive to make it easy to get in touch with a member of our team because we want to ensure you can access expert guidance and support to make informed decisions about growing your sales function quickly and confidently.
Step 3) Define Roles and Responsibilities
Congratulations! If you’re at this step, you’ve selected your outsourced prospecting partner and signed the contract. You’re on your way to achieving sustainable, strategic revenue growth.
A good prospecting partner will already have a system and process in place that defines the typical roles and responsibilities.
As early as possible, ensure that everyone at your company that needs to be involved in the process attends the meetings with your prospecting partner. They might work in accounts, finance, sales, growth, or marketing. No matter the department, if they’re going to help make the decisions or be involved in the process, they need to be in the meetings.
It’s up to you to make sure they get the invite.
Step 4) Develop a Collaboration Plan
Communication is key, so establish regular communication channels and maintain transparency.
At The Sales Factory, we’ve found that an approach combining synchronous and asynchronous communication works best.
Step 5) Onboard the Outsourcing Partner
In the same way that an effective outsourcing partner would onboard your company as a client, you need to equip them with the necessary resources such as case studies and do-not-call lists.
Communicate with them to determine what you each need access to and what you need to share.
Step 6) Ask Questions
Successful partnerships happen when both parties are proactive. Be open to sharing information about your business and be curious about your outsourced prospecting partner.
Embracing Strategic Revenue Growth Through Outsourced Prospecting
Now that you’ve read this, you have a choice:
a) Ignore everything and continue to miss out on sales opportunities
b) Be resourceful by sharing this article and opportunity with your colleagues from the sales team manager to the CEO and founder(s) to show what you know and support your business (and career)
c) Be proactive by sharing this with your colleagues and booking an intro meeting with an expert here at The Sales Factory to learn more about how you can get started with outsourced prospecting
Are you ready to embrace strategic revenue growth?
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