Rethinking Outsourcing in an Era of Disruption

As the needs of modern organizations continue to evolve, the decision to outsource sales and marketing functions continues to be widely debated. Many companies are under the impression that outsourcing would be a negative experience or take away from their internal teams. But according to a CompareCamp study, 78% of companies that do outsource say they feel positive about their outsourcing relationship. Every company has different needs that drive decisions on what stays in house and where they can use skilled outside talent. The key is to outsource strategically so that it can solve your most pressing business challenges.

Advantages of Outsourcing

There are huge benefits to outsourcing sales, marketing, and demand-generation functions. One of the more obvious is handing over lead generation and sales development so your teams can spend more time on the other growth areas of the business. When businesses have an internal sales team, they face challenges with cost and turnover as they expand, which presents considerable risk to organizations that rely on continuous revenue growth.

In addition, when a company is constantly recruiting and training new employees, this can result in lost sales of more than 200 percent of the annual cost of each sales rep. When it takes three months to ramp a sales development representative (SDR) to full productivity and the average tenure for that role is only 18 months, outsourcing inevitably starts to look attractive. Conversely, some companies have tenured sales employees who can make managers wonder if they are realizing the full potential of their sales team.

Using Outsourcing to Reduce Costs

Adding an outsourced lead development or sales development layer can increase revenue, shorten the sales cycle, reduce costs, and improve relationships. Televerde works extensively with global companies that benefit from a partnership delivering demonstrable returns.

“When I came to Televerde, the first thing that impressed me was the quality of the callers. This is the best group of callers I have ever met. The results have been absolutely spectacular, far exceeding what I expected and what we were previously achieving.” — David Duncan, division market leader, Broadcom.

Within 12 months of working with Televerde, a large telecom company amplified its sales pipeline by 30 percent, closed more than a third more deals, and increased its revenue. Meanwhile, in two years, a software company that outsourced sales development reps to generate and convert leads nearly doubled revenue and realized a 51-fold return on investment!

What to Consider Before Outsourcing

When considering outsourcing, businesses should follow a clear process. Initially, it is important to evaluate all the costs necessary to run an internal sales team, the turnover rate for the different types of team members, the number of touchpoints required to make a sale, the consistency of brand messaging and the level of training required within a team. It is essential for firms to define the need they are looking to address.

Approximately 61 percent of companies say that a lack of staff in addition to funding and time is the most fundamental obstacle to improving B2B sales generation. These concerns have been heightened by the “Great Resignation,” where 30 percent of the workforce is expected to quit their jobs in the next 6 months. As companies look to recover from our global pandemic and grow and expand into new markets, workforce instability now is especially problematic.

Outsourcing as a Business Strategy

Understanding the fundamental strategic reasoning behind outsourcing decisions, whether the focus is on increasing revenues, decreasing costs, or improving the customer experience, is always required as a basis for articulating the overall business case. When deciding to outsource, it is important for any business to start with a list of goals they would like to accomplish, challenges they want to solve and concerns they have about outsourcing. If they address each area directly and plan properly, they can anticipate problems more effectively and ensure a smoother experience.

A well-built case, with clear stakeholder expectations, will set the foundation for success. For some companies, a common concern is trusting an outside vendor to represent their company as they would themselves. At a time when companies strive to build trust with customers and prospects, brand perception is built through every interaction. Televerde trains and coaches people to become experts in having sales conversations that are highly personalized and relevant to the individuals they are talking to.

“Because of Televerde’s ability to quickly deliver pipeline we were able to make our aggressive growth goals a reality. We’re up to 100 new opportunities and an 80% pipeline increase over the last four months –and that includes ramp and onboard time- valued at $8M in pipeline.” Sid Reeves, Manager of New Log Acquisition, Vertica.

Regardless of the metric, whether it is volume and quality of leads, pipeline value and velocity, total revenue or average deal size, training is a key component of success. Indeed, research shows a 28 percent uptick in win rates at companies where dynamic sales coaching takes place.

Choosing the Right Partner

When outsourcing, businesses need to select and build a relationship with a partner that will align on goals, provide transparency, and fit into their culture. It is imperative to find a partner who is uniquely or especially qualified to work with the business. A good partner will make a company feel at ease and can explain clearly why they should be a part of the process. The goal for businesses is to find partners whose success is tied to their own. They should be able to view their partner as someone that brings measurable and tangible value and serves as an extension of their team, not a replacement.

For any business, outsourcing aspects of its internal sales functions is a major decision. It means bringing others into its inner circle, meshing them with its in-house team, and expecting them to sell its product or service passionately and successfully.