Outsourcing your Sales and Marketing
Many reasons can explain why a business would consider outsourcing a sales and marketing team. The main one is to ensure the achievement of sales targets at a lower cost. Salaries, benefits, travel, bonuses and so forth add up fast. Some situations that lead to outsourcing are scary, but that’s not always so.
What is Outsourcing?
Outsourcing is the process of engaging a third party to execute services or generate commodities that would otherwise be conducted in-house by the company’s own employees and personnel. Outsourcing is a cost-cutting strategy used by businesses to reduce costs.
Some companies make the decision to outsource to keep from going out of business entirely. If outsourcing sales becomes a survival plan for you, try to retain your key sales team members as long as feasible. They can help you assess and identify areas in which outsourcing can be considered. They can also be able to change rules and manage some of the outsourcing partner’s activities, with the benefit of their grounding in your company. At the same time, it’s important to do an internal audit of your weaknesses. You’ll want to ensure that your outsource provider does not inherit a problem you should first fix yourselves.
Why Outsourcing is efficient?
Outsourcing saves valuable resources you would otherwise spend on deploying salespeople to new or distant work locations, particularly in other cultures or countries. The right partner abroad can extend your reach and leverage local contacts you would spend years developing yourselves.
Outsourcing certain sales and marketing functions in which your team lacks enterprise could be another reason to consider it. For example, brand activations or rebranding activities can be assigned to providers who specialize in these things. Or perhaps your products and services could be sold in an entirely new sales channel. Why re-invent the wheel? Sign up with an appropriate sales force and bank the checks.
As with any major move, do your homework and make sure the transition is fully supported so it has the best chance of succeeding. Over-communicate initially, until you are satisfied the new external team is working productively and smoothly. Make clear whatever reporting and payment expectations you have via written agreement and hold periodic business reviews to monitor progress or intercept problems early.
It’s easy to do the same-old-same-old just because you haven’t had experience with something quite different. So if you haven’t worked with outsourced vendors, don’t automatically rule them out. They could enhance what you’re doing today and help you jump faster to the next level.
