Freelance Sales: 7 Benefits {+ 5 Tips to Getting the Best out of Freelance Sales Reps}

Freelance sales reps are usually tremendously good at what they do. They can help you bring in revenue quickly and affordably.  Plus, outsourcing frees your team the hassle of finding and qualifying leads and allows them to focus on closing.

At least, that’s what every freelancer says. To clients, these vague and unquantified promises are more likely to get them disillusioned. Experienced entrepreneurs and managers know that outsourcing is much more complicated.

Having been in the technology industry for over a decade, we can confidently say that outsourcing your business development and sales is one of the best decisions you could ever make if you do it right.

The bad news is, you won’t know if you got the right team until you’re already in it. However, we’ll do our best to present a more holistic and realistic picture of the advantages of hiring freelance sales representatives to help you make up your mind.

What is a freenlance SDR

A freelance SDR is an independent contractor who focuses on the early stages of sales. Unlike full-time SDRs, they work on a project or contract basis for various clients. 

They help identify and qualify leads, set up meetings, and nurture prospects through the sales funnel. This flexibility enables you to scale their sales efforts without the long-term commitment of full-time hires.

💡 Want to see how a freelance SDR can fit into your sales strategy? At Martal, we have extensive experience in providing high-quality freelance SDR services that can drive growth and efficiency for your business. 

Duties and Responsibilities of a Freelance SDR

Freelance SDRs have a range of duties and responsibilities that align closely with those of their full-time counterparts, with the added advantage of flexibility and specialized expertise. Here are some key responsibilities:

1. Lead Generation
   • Identify potential leads through various channels such as social media, email campaigns, and networking events.
   • Use tools like LinkedIn, CRM software, and lead databases to find and research prospects.
2. Prospect Outreach
   • Craft and send personalized cold email outreach campaigns to engage potential clients.
   • Make cold calls to introduce the company’s offerings and qualify leads.
3. Lead Qualification
   • Assess the needs and pain points of potential leads to determine if they are a good fit for the company’s products or services.
   • Use qualifying questions and criteria to prioritize leads.
4. Appointment Setting
   • Schedule meetings or demos between qualified leads and the company’s sales team.
   • Ensure that prospects are well-informed and prepared for their interactions with sales representatives.
5. Nurturing Relationships
   • Maintain regular follow-up with prospects to keep them engaged and informed.
   • Use content marketing, such as sharing relevant articles or case studies, to nurture leads.
6. CRM Management
   • Maintain comprehensive records of all interactions with prospects in the company’s CRM system. 
   • Track and update the status of leads as they move through the sales pipeline.
7. Reporting and Feedback
   • Deliver consistent updates on lead generation activities and results.
   • Offer feedback on market trends, prospect responses, and potential areas for improvement in the sales process.

How a Freelance SDR Can Accelerate Sales

Despite their freelance and fractional nature, freelance SDRs can significantly accelerate a company’s sales efforts:

• Scalability: Freelance SDRs provide the flexibility to adjust sales efforts based on current needs, allowing you to quickly seize market opportunities without the long-term commitment of full-time hires.
• Expertise: Many freelance SDRs come with extensive experience and specialized skills gained from working with a range of clients across different industries.
• Expertise: Freelance SDRs often bring extensive experience and specialized skills from working with clients across different industries. This broad expertise can offer valuable insights and enhance lead generation strategies.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Hiring a freelance SDR can be more cost-effective than employing a full-time SDR, especially for startups or businesses with fluctuating sales needs. You only pay for the specific services you need, avoiding the costs associated with full-time salaries and benefits.
• Focus on Core Activities: By outsourcing lead generation to freelance SDRs, you can allow your in-house sales teams to focus on closing deals and nurturing customer relationships. 
• Quick Integration: Freelance SDRs are often adept at quickly integrating into new environments and getting up to speed with a company’s processes and tools. Their ability to hit the ground running can lead to immediate contributions to the sales pipeline.

Freelance SDRs offer a dynamic and flexible solution for businesses looking to enhance their lead generation and sales efforts. By leveraging their skills and experience, you can drive growth and achieve your sales objectives more efficiently.

💡 Curious about how a freelance SDR might enhance your sales efforts? At Martal, we excel in connecting businesses with skilled freelance SDRs who can drive results and support your growth. 

7 Benefits of Hiring a Freelance SDR

If you are looking for efficient ways to boost sales and drive growth, then hiring a freelance Sales Development Representative (SDR) is one effective strategy. Freelance SDRs offer benefits that traditional full-time SDRs might not, like lower costs, flexibility, and specialized skills. They bring the agility and expertise needed to succeed in tough markets. Let’s explore the top seven benefits of bringing a freelance SDR into your sales team: 

1. Niche Market Expertise and Experience To Help You Penetrate New Markets

When you need to break open a new market or penetrate an already saturated one, you need highly specialized industry expertise. A sales team with years of niche experience gives you a priceless edge when it comes to sourcing and nurturing leads.

For example, Martal Group has extensive experience helping tech companies in over 50 verticals break into the North American market. With so many tech startups trying to make a name for themselves, it takes supremely skilled and experienced sales teams to help new entrants find a niche and become profitable.

Indeed, it takes more than mere experience. The best agencies maintain years of industry data to help them predict market movements and discover potential opportunities. Most businesses lack this kind of street-level data in their sales departments.

2. An Edge To Help You Break Into New Markets

Specialized industry knowledge is particularly important when you’re trying to introduce a new product. On your own, you would need to set up the groundwork for the rollout, including tech stacks, market research, databases, networks, and personnel.

It might take months or even years to successfully rollout a new product or feature, and it’s often prohibitively expensive to do so.

On the other hand, working with an established agency in the field allows you to leverage existing resources and quickly set up marketing and sales teams. You have existing data to validate market fit, experienced consultants to help with strategy, and a large database of contacts to get you started. 

Working with people who already know how to work with prospects in your target market is the secret you need to hit the ground running. This is just one way how hiring freelance sales agents for B2B marketing gets you much more than what you pay for in terms of industry expertise and experience.

3. Flexibility and Scalability to Suit Prevailing Market Conditions

The pandemic of 2020–2022 taught us many painful lessons, one of which is the value of being able to pivot quickly in the face of adverse market conditions. The only businesses that will survive the current economic and market conditions are those that remain adaptable and flexible. 

Unfortunately, sales departments are famously bad at adapting to changing market conditions. They love their “tried and tested” methods and won’t be divorced from their favorite metrics and processes.

If we’re being honest, it’s very difficult to abandon familiar tactics and have to draw up new strategies, implement different roadmaps, and commit to novel action plans. It requires company-wide dedication to see new strategies through. 

We have all seen this in the companies that took years to embrace social media marketing. Some were still debating the merits of eCommerce by the time the pandemic broke out. A different mindset is critical in today’s fast-changing business environment.

4. Out-Of-The-Box Thinking Reveals New Growth Opportunities

By the nature of their work, independent sales agents must stay at the forefront of industry trends and maintain cutting-edge innovation. Working with many clients over time sharpens instincts, reveals new methodologies, and allows them to gauge the effectiveness of different strategies over time.

Many sales departments are siloed even within their own companies and remain blind to new opportunities. Pressure from above can force them to acquire tunnel vision, focusing only on performance metrics rather than the larger goal of business and revenue growth.

Hiring a freelance sales agency exposes you to new and exciting opportunities. When it seems that your team is stuck in a rut, bringing in an outside perspective could give you the traction you need. Outsourced teams have several advantages in their favor:

– A large and diverse talent pool creates a melting pot of fresh ideas, creativity, and innovation.

– Diverse experience in the industry sharpens instinct and helps sales reps develop mastery of specific markets.

– Advanced technology and data analytics allow for confidence in trying out new approaches in segments such as outbound sales or customer service.

– Networking, collaboration, and cooperation among sales experts naturally lead to mutual growth.

When you need a marketing strategy for a new product or service, it’s a good idea to get the input of B2B marketing experts to build a sales and marketing campaign.

5. Low Cost of Customer Acquisition

A more obvious advantage of outsourcing sales appears when clients have seasonal markets or can’t afford full-time sales teams. One of our clients had a very niche product in a saturated market, making outbound sales extraordinarily difficult. But with our expertise, we were able to help them generate $10M in revenue within eight months.

The client was able to obtain such results without having to worry about additional fees, payroll, or overhead. Similarly, outsourced services such as lead generation can be tailored to suit your business needs to minimize costs and risks.

Rather than hiring, training, and maintaining a sales team, you can offload these resource-intensive processes to a freelance sales agency. The result is a much lower cost of customer acquisition when you reduce recurrent costs such as payroll, tech subscriptions, training, administration, and employee taxes.

Yes, that’s right—taxes! Freelancers manage their own taxes, including self-employed tax, which has the potential to be mutually beneficial for both you and the freelancer when filed correctly. Of course, make sure to consult a professional before making any changes to your payroll and accounting practices.

6. Multichannel Engagement Maximizes Conversion Rates and ROI

Many businesses lack the resources to run a truly multichannel approach to customer acquisition. Between email, social media, cold calling, chat, and web, the required infrastructure and talent required to run a successful multichannel campaign may be out of their reach.

An outsourced sales agency gives you the benefits of true multichannel customer engagement at a fraction of the cost. It’s a chance to leverage new and unique ways of reaching and nurturing clients, including account-based marketing and social selling. 

Having the resources to run multichannel sales and marketing is just a start. Leveraging it with unique but consistent messaging is often the bigger challenge. Thanks to their expertise, freelance teams can manage these channels for maximum engagement and conversion rates.

7. Skin in the Game: The Benefits of Individual Accountability

For many businesses looking to outsource for the first time, the biggest issue is the perceived lack of control. How do you retain a reasonable level of oversight over freelance sales reps? How do you ensure consistency and loyalty to your brand?

As it turns out, that should be the least of your worries. Any good contract for outsourced services contains minimum service level agreements and terms of contract. But, a much better motivation for freelancers is their shared interest in your growth.

Like many sales jobs, B2B freelance sales is performance-based, but in the case of a freelance agency the performance of the team is vital to the agency’s social proof and customer retention. Freelance teams, like Martal Group’s, not only have a project manager, but a customer service and operations manager to ensure results are achieved. 

In-house personnel may not have such a strong incentive. Hiring a sales agency whose continued partnership with your company is solely dependent on their outcome is the best way to achieve top-level performance.

Freelancers have to be consistently at the top of their game, innovate, and optimize their sales process. This skin in the game assures clients of the best possible results with very little need for continuous oversight.

FAQs: Freelance Sales

1

What is freelance sales?

Freelance sales is where individual sales professionals, unbound by the traditional ties of company employment, offer their expertise on a contractual or project-centric basis. These adept and independent trailblazers, often representing multiple products or companies, derive their earnings from sales commissions or predefined terms in their agreements. In the ever-evolving business landscape, they provide a unique blend of flexibility and agility, allowing enterprises to amplify their sales endeavors without the enduring overheads or long-term commitments associated with full-time personnel.

2

How do I hire a freelance salesperson?

Embarking on the journey to hire a freelance salesperson can be both exhilarating and daunting, especially in today’s competitive market. But with the right approach, it can be a game-changer for your business. Here’s a quick and easy breakdown of the process:

1. Identify Your Needs
2. Research and Shortlist Agencies
3. Engage with Potential Candidates
4. Ask for Case Studies or References
5. Discuss Compensation Structures
6. Ensure Cultural Fit
7. Draft a Clear Contract
8. Maintain Open Communication

3

How much money do freelancers make?

The earnings of freelancers vary widely based on several factors:

Industry and Niche: Freelancers in specialized fields often command higher rates than those in general fields.

Experience and Expertise: Seasoned freelancers with a proven track record can charge premium rates compared to newcomers.

Geographical Location: Freelancers in cities with a higher cost of living or in developed countries might have higher rates than those in developing regions.

Project Complexity: Larger, more complex projects typically come with heftier price tags.

Working Hours: Some freelancers work part-time, affecting their annual earnings, while others might work more than the typical 40-hour week.

Payment Structure: Freelancers might charge hourly, per project, or on a retainer basis, which can influence total earnings.

Opting for a freelance sales agency over individual freelancers on platforms like Upwork offers distinct advantages. Agencies bring a collective wealth of experience, a team approach to problem-solving, and often have established processes and tools in place. Moreover, they provide consistency, reliability, and a broader range of services, ensuring that your sales objectives are met with professionalism and efficiency.