Outsourcing Sales for Your Company: The Complete Guide [2024]

Are you on the hunt for better sales leads?

Working on multiple aspects of your business and handling sales simultaneously is hard. After all, you barely have the time to improve your products, develop new plans for growth, or serve existing customers.

Well…

We have an alternative for you: 

Outsourcing sales for your company might be the way to go if you’re struggling to fill your pipeline with qualified leads. In fact, those who outsource sales ramp up their outreach 3x faster and save up to 65 percent a year on expenses, making it a widely popular option for successful B2B companies across all industries.

But what exactly is a sales outsourcing company? What makes outsourced sales services such a popular option for top organizations? And how do I outsource sales for my company?

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into these questions and also unpack:

• The 4 Unrealized Benefits of Sales Outsourcing,
• The 8 Types of Outsourced Sales Companies,
• How to Find the Best Partner in 4 Easy Steps,
• How to Measure the Success of Your Outsourced Sales Team,
• And 4 Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Partnership

You’ll also gain insight into the most common reasons that sales outsourcing fails and how you can avoid the pitfalls.

Without further ado, let’s get to it!

What Is Outsourcing Sales?

Sales outsourcing is the practice of hiring a third-party agency to assist with or fully manage the sales process for your company. 

Tasks an outsourced sales team performs can range from prospecting and appointment setting to customer onboarding and account management. It all depends on your company’s needs and the average experience level of the outsourced sales executives.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Sales Team

What is it that makes outsourced sales such a captivating option for B2B companies? And why do the most successful organizations outsource sales instead of hiring a full in-house sales team? 

One of the most obvious advantages of outsourcing your sales team is time efficiency. It’s a quicker option for any business looking to tap into undiscovered markets or launch new products fast.

Could you imagine: One day, your sales numbers are struggling, and your prospect pool is bone dry, and the next thing you know, your sales pipeline is being filled with fresh leads by highly qualified sales development representatives (SDRs). 

How big of an impact would that make on your business?

On top of that, there are a lot of unrealized benefits to outsourced sales solutions if you are new to the concept. 

Focus on Core Areas of Your Business

By hiring a team of sales professionals, you can rest assured that your sales process is in good hands. A trusted sales outsourcing agency can help you refine your market research, improve your lead generation, and close more deals quickly. 

Like Martal Group did for Kenneth Kinion, the founder of Validin, a data infrastructure and analytics company out of Melbourne, Florida. In a Clutch review, Kenneth mentioned, “We’re an early-stage, highly-focused technical startup, and Martal allows us to develop our business without spending the time, effort, and money on dedicated headcount as we ramp up.”

Like Kenneth and his team, you’ll have all the time you need to focus on essential aspects of your business when you leave the sales and marketing to the pros.

Gain Access to a Larger Pool of Experienced Sales Reps

Even if you have an experienced, dedicated sales team, working with a third-party partner can bring fresh ideas to the table. There is a lot of great talent and experience to take advantage of by outsourcing your sales functions to an agency.

An outsourced sales company employs sales reps with different experiences, skills, and backgrounds. You can easily reinforce your team with individuals who have extensive experience developing sales plans, pricing products, and promoting similar offers in your industry. 

Better yet, these external SDRs are always ready to analyze your sales performance, provide feedback, and test new strategies to boost your bottom line.

In fact, when asked what impressed them the most about Martal Group’s sales outsourcing services, Rick Taylor, the EVP of sales and marketing at Forerunner Technology, stated, “The intelligence of the individual contributors is impressive. What they know about the business isn’t something you’ll find from just anyone.”

You’ll be amazed by how effective your company will become at sales development once the outsourced team starts implementing new strategies using cutting-edge technology.  

Save More Money on Salaries and Training Costs

There’s a variety of ways you’re going to cut costs and save on your budget if you decide to outsource sales for your company. 

For starters:

External hires won’t require any office space or equipment to start working for you. You’ll get a team ready to accelerate your sales cycle as soon as you work out the deal with the agency. 

Also:

Third-party SDRs will bring their expertise and skills with them, which means no additional training costs for you. They’ll already know all the sales tools you might need to generate, nurture, and convert your leads. 

Most importantly:

A cheaper, inexperienced internal team will actually cost your company more as your lead generation and conversions will both stagnate. So, consider the price of outsourced sales services as a cost of growing your business that will return greater results in the near future.

To help you visualize the savings, we have broken down the annual cost of hiring in-house versus hiring a sales agency like Martal Group. Companies that outsource sales save $92,180 a year, on average.

Want to know how much you would save by outsourcing? Book a call with our experts to obtain a free ROI estimate and outbound sales consultation.    

Generate High-Quality Leads

Generating and converting high-quality leads is the top priority for any company that’s serious about increasing sales.

So, let’s face it…

The key differentiator when it comes to in-house vs. outsourced sales development is performance. The option that gets you the most converted leads should win despite all the costs and the time required for implementation.

Fabrizio at DeepHow found that the number of new opportunities generated was one of the most significant benefits of hiring an external SDR team, stating, “Martal Group’s ability to deliver qualified leads consistently has been the most impressive aspect of our partnership.” 

Your sales partner will guarantee that your company reaches its peak sales performance. They do this by dedicating their time to understanding your ideal customer profiles so they can provide the best buying experience.

Outsourced sales reps will help you conduct market research and identify the right decision-makers based on your business objectives and position in the industry. And they’ll also follow up with all prospects to ensure the highest conversions to fill your pipeline with loyal, long-lasting clients.

Types of Outsourced Sales Services

Having delved into the advantages of outsourcing your sales functions, it’s essential to recognize that not all outsourced sales services are created equal. Specialized solutions are available to meet your unique business needs. Whether you’re aiming to target specific high-value accounts or looking to refine your email outreach, there’s a service perfectly suited for your B2B company.

Let’s explore these diverse offerings to better understand which solution aligns with your organizational goals.

Lead Generation Services: These agencies excel in identifying and attracting potential customers into your sales funnel. Using digital marketing strategies and direct outreach such as email marketing, social selling, and cold calling, they ensure a consistent stream of qualified leads for your sales team to engage with.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Agency: As the name suggests, ABM agencies target specific high-value accounts. By crafting personalized marketing campaigns, they ensure that marketing and sales efforts are synchronized to attract and convert your ideal clients and companies.

B2B Email Marketing Agency: Leveraging the power of email, these agencies focus on crafting campaigns tailored for B2B audiences. From cold outreach to nurturing leads, they manage and optimize the email sales funnel, so you’re team always has sales-qualified leads to pursue.

Appointment Setting Companies: When it comes down to it, the primary goal is to keep your sales team’s calendar full. Appointment setting services help your business set more meetings with key decision-makers, ensuring a steady stream of new opportunities likely to convert.

Sales as a Service (Sales Development) Agency: Going beyond just generating leads, these agencies cover everything from nurturing potential leads to guiding them through the sales funnel until they’re ready for conversion.

Demand Generation Agency: Focused on creating awareness and interest in your products or services, these agencies use a combination of marketing and sales strategies to drive more qualified leads. Their expertise often encompasses message creation, digital advertising, and targeted, multichannel campaigns, ensuring a comprehensive approach to fuel your sales pipeline.

Sales Hiring and Training: Building a top-tier sales team requires more than just recruitment. Outsourced sales hiring and training services help businesses identify the right talent and then refine their skills. Tapping into their expertise ensures your in-house team is always primed for peak performance.

Outbound Call Center: Also known as outsourced telesales, outbound call centers specialize in reaching out to potential clients or existing customers over the phone. These solutions often provide both lead generation and customer service support, ensuring a proactive approach to sales and service.

While there are a variety of sales outsourcing companies, the most impactful results come from those agencies that combine the top-performing strategies into one multichannel campaign approach. 

How to Outsource Sales for My Company to the Best Partner

The number of outsourced sales agencies is growing as more and more companies realize the power of outsourcing. You’ll probably find hundreds of sales development providers, no matter your location, industry, budget, or sales objectives. 

On one end, that’s a great thing! You’ll have many options to choose from, which grants you a lot of freedom in negotiating a good deal. 

However, this variety makes it difficult to select the best outsourced sales company for your business. 

How do you conduct a cost-benefit analysis before hiring an outsourced SDR team? What questions should you ask during the interview? And more importantly, how do you know if the sales team you’re hiring is a good fit?

Here are three tips to help you make an educated decision on how to outsource sales for your company:

1. Identify Your Needs to Set Clear Expectations

The first thing to consider before hiring an outsourced sales team is your goals and needs. Being on the same page with your sales partner from the start is key to a successful strategy and tracking performance effectively. 

Having clear expectations by knowing what you want is essential for finding and hiring the right sales partner. You can learn a lot about an outsourced sales team by checking out their achievements and sales history.

On top of that:

You want to make sure that you’re working with a sales outsourcing agency specializing in your field. SDRs who have the right skills for your sales goals are the best choice to make the sales process faster.

2. Check Out Case Studies And Online Reviews

After the first step, you may end up with dozens of promising sales outsourcing agencies you can work with. They’re all from different locations and have different strengths, making it hard for you to choose the finalists.

What should you do at this point?

First:

Check out their client list to get a better picture of what to expect. You can easily find that listed on popular business directories or on their website. The best sales outsourcing companies should have a strong client portfolio with dozens of industry-leading companies.

Next:

Go through the case studies on their site to see if they’ve succeeded with big clients in your industry. If they did, look for the solutions they provided and the results they were able to achieve. Did they use the tools and strategies you need to grow your business?

To get a feel for what a successful case study looks like, check out how Martal helped clickworker create a $1.2 million pipeline in the US.

More importantly:

Take your time to read any online reviews on third-party sites and social media. This is one of the best ways to know whether the agency you wish to work with is credible and trustworthy.

3. Interview Potential Partners and Ask Questions

Now that you’ve curated a short list, it’s time to interview each sales partner before you close the deal. 

Here’s what you must understand:

At this point, competence is no longer an issue; you’ve already chosen the best sales outsourcing agency based on accomplishments. So, the remaining questions are about the level of engagement, the quality of communication, and their work ethic. 

Some of the questions you should ask during the interview are:

• What are their goals for your business? And how do they intend to achieve them?
• Do they offer any relevant services that you should know of?
• How often are they available to meet with you and discuss sales progress?
• How should you measure the success of your sales strategy?
• Do they have the tools and resources necessary to implement your sales process? 
• How will their sales team handle reporting?

Another important thing:

If price is your top priority, now would be a good time to see which solutions fit your budget. This is key to ensuring you’re not wasting time focusing on the wrong agencies.

4. Negotiate a Contract That Meets Both Your Needs and Theirs

Based on the services your sales development partner can provide, you should negotiate an agreement that works for both of you.

The contract must include a detailed description of the offered services as well as their duration. Agree on payments and discuss extra fees before starting. 

Be transparent about your growth plans and how you wish to proceed. Explain how you want to scale your company and your ROI expectations. This will help your sales outsourcing agency to provide you with the best possible solutions.

How to Measure Success After Sales Process Outsourcing

After making a deal with your outsourcing sales partner, it’s crucial to focus on performance. This enables both parties to make quick adjustments without wasting your time and money.

The truth is:

To succeed, you must go beyond basic metrics to analyze your sales progress. Surprisingly, sales growth is not always the best indicator, especially when experimenting with new ideas.

So that makes you wonder:

How should I measure my sales outsourcing partner’s success?

Define What Success Means to Your Company

Part of understanding your business needs is setting clear metrics to track once the work begins. These key performance indicators (KPIs) should align with the business goals you set earlier based on the challenges you’re facing. 

Some of the most important numbers to track are:

• Total revenue
• Length of the sales cycle
• Qualified appointments/closed deals ratio
• Total qualified appointments
• Sales expense ratio

Ensure that you communicate and reach a consensus on these metrics with your outsourced sales agency right from the start. This will help in keeping them focused and on track.

Develop a Process for Tracking and Analyzing KPIs

You’ve made a list of the most vital metrics to help you evaluate your sales performance. That will allow you to make data-driven decisions and avoid becoming a bystander in your own sales process. But without solid tracking and reporting systems in place, the numbers will never make sense to you.

By now, you must know the tools and technology your sales partner uses to run the sales cycle. And you’ve already discussed how reporting should be done between the two of you.

So it’s just a matter of keeping a close eye on each metric and voicing your opinions when necessary.

Tips for Maintaining a Successful Relationship With Your Outsourced Sales Team

Developing a good bond with your outsourced sales team is crucial for boosting sales and achieving better long-term outcomes.

Here are a few ways to better manage your relationship with external sales reps:

1. Establish Clear Communication Channels

Flawless communication is critical for the success of any business operation. 

Even salespeople from the same company struggle to communicate with each other. And let’s not forget the challenges that arise when there is a large physical distance and a timezone difference. So, it’s no wonder that miscommunications can and do happen when working with an external sales team.

Therefore:

Knowing when and how to contact your sales outsourcing provider will save you time and prevent misunderstandings in the future. It’s important to discuss how you’ll communicate and agree on when to have meetings from the beginning.

2. Provide Your Outsourced SDRs With Constant Feedback

Let’s be real. It’s highly unlikely that they’ll get everything right from the get-go. There will be improvements to make, things to learn, and gaps to fill before reaching maximum efficiency.

The good news is:

Outsourced SDRs are always ready to make changes to help you reach your goals faster. They want to learn more about your products and services to improve their presentation and represent your brand well. 

Therefore…

It’s only a matter of clear communication and regular updates before they start implementing your feedback. Provide continuous feedback to your outsourced sales partner and explain to them how they can improve.

3. Stay Open to Creative Suggestions

Even if your sales strategy is already working well, there are always ways to do better and close more deals. One way you can do that is by listening to your outsourced sales team because they live and breathe sales.

Your new outsourced SDRs have assisted many similar clients, becoming experts in various sales skills and techniques. They can offer you a lot of valuable insights and help you uncover untapped opportunities to boost sales.

If you’re open to new ideas, your outsourced salespeople will gladly offer different viewpoints to benefit your business.

4. Maintain a Positive Relationship With Your Outsourcing Partner

Sales outsourcing is the way to go if you want to expand your market and close more deals. But the only way it can work is by maintaining a positive relationship with your outsourced SDRs.

It’s important that you establish a strong connection with your partner throughout the whole operation. That starts by first choosing a reputable agency that fits your business needs.  

Also:

You must be transparent with each other and have clear expectations from the start. Discuss all the important details in the process to make sure that you both share the same vision. 

Aside from that:

Be sure to provide positive feedback when possible and be neutral when giving negative feedback. Be flexible and always leave the door open for communication to allow the outsourced sales provider to explain their methods.

What are the most common reasons that sales outsourcing fails?

“The top three reasons sales outsourcing fails are unclear objectives, constant strategy changes, and poor communication. 

It’s always painful when an outsourced project doesn’t go as planned. You may feel like you’ll never be able to trust an external team again. However, by avoiding these common pitfalls upfront, you can develop a prosperous long-term relationship with your future sales partner.“

Vito Vishnepolsky, Founder and Director

Are You Ready to Scale Through Sales Outsourcing?

The decision to outsource is never an easy one, but the truth is, you shouldn’t have to master sales to scale your business. 

Sales outsourcing is the key to maximizing your ROI while building a sustainable pipeline of high-quality leads. Whether you’re running an up-and-coming startup or an international enterprise, an experienced team of outsourced SDRs can expand, enhance, and expedite your sales strategies. 

Book a live service demo today and discover how sales outsourcing can transform your business. 

FAQs: Sales Outsourcing

1. Can we outsource sales?

Absolutely! Trusting your revenue growth to a sales outsourcing agency is unknown territory for many business leaders. However, the numerous benefits have made it a popular alternative to hiring additional SDRs in-house. In fact, experts expect sales outsourcing to experience a compounded annual growth rate of 9.4% from 2023 to 2030. 

2. Why do companies outsource sales?

Cost savings and process efficiency are the primary reasons companies outsource sales. Experienced SDRs from leading sales outsourcing companies can help you generate more sales leads quickly by prospecting and scheduling appointments efficiently.

3. What are the three forms of outsourcing?

The three forms of outsourcing are local, nearshore, and offshore. The proximity of your business to your outsourced partner determines the type of outsourcing you engage in. Local outsourcing means you and the outsourced team operate in the same country. Nearshoring involves hiring a company in a neighboring country, and offshoring refers to overseas partnerships.

When outsourcing sales, it’s vital to hire a team in the same country as your target market, not your business.