Outsourcing Your Sales Efforts

At some point, every company has to consider what type of a sales team they will use. Outsourcing sales can benefit companies by not only improving ROI, but by providing a core competency in something that a business might not have.

We recently sat down with Todd Handy, Vice President and Managing Director of Digital Media and AdTech at MarketStar, to discuss why companies consider outsourcing sales.

When Should a Company Outsource Sales?

Outsourcing sales isn’t necessarily for everyone, but most companies can find value in some aspect of outsourcing. Even if a company has absolutely nailed their sales process, they could still benefit from the cost savings that outsourcing provides.

Handy thinks of outsourcing as asking someone who has a core competency in something you don’t to help you or work with you. According to Handy, outsourcing happens “When the company feels that it doesn’t have that core competency, or it doesn’t feel like it has the ability to scale, or it doesn’t feel as innovative or as good at delivering the sales in a specific model.”

How Are Outsourced Sales Teams Onboarded?

Assembling the right sales team is crucial to all sales processes, let alone those that are outsourced. So how can companies feel confident that their outsourced teams are the best they can be?

Handy believes the key is to hire right people, and that takes diligence and analytics. One of Handy’s strategic initiatives for 2018 is to do an even better job of implementing predictive analytics to help understand where and how someone will be successful. He also believes that putting sales teams through a robust curriculum that involves the client is key.

“We have to layer something on from the client,” Handy said. “We have to layer on features, functions, benefits, pricing, processes that the client brings, meld all that together and hit the floor.”

What Sales Methodology Works Best?

There are endless various of different sales methodologies, but Handy believes that results are key. He uses the AOR method, which stands for activities, objectives and results. This method allows managers to sit down with sales reps and look at results over a specific period. “You work with your sales reps to understand certain activities that lead to objectives that lead to results,” Handy said. “Everyone has their own methodology, and there’s value in all of them.”

What is Most Effective When Someone is Trying to Sell to You?

We like to ask all of our podcast guests this question. Here’s how Handy answered:

“Do not add me on Facebook and the minute I accept it, go to town on me. I try not to connect with anybody I haven’t met face to face. If you want to get attention, try to get in front of me the right way. I’d much rather have an email that will quickly set the hook and let me know what is the opportunity. I will frankly respond and say I would like to know more, or forward it to someone else or say no. Come at me directly, but don’t try to sell me in the first email or the first phone call.”

Acceleration Insight

In every episode of the B2B Revenue Executive Experience, we try to pull one nugget of wisdom from our guests that they would impart on a sales professional. Here’s this one:

“Sellers (should) understand that asking more questions is better than asking less questions. Ask a couple more questions than you thought you should, or a bonus question. By asking more questions we open ourselves up to the prospect that we’re not trying to be the know-it-all.”

This post is based on a podcast interview with Todd Handy from MarketStar. To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to the B2B Revenue Executive Experience.

If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode here.