Outsourced Sales Development Explained

The web allows any company, regardless of location, to find potential customers and make deals. Hiring internal people to make sales, however, might not be an option for you because of financial or time constraints.

Enter outsourced sales development.

In this article, we will cover what outsourced sales development is, how it works, and why it makes companies more successful.

What Is Outsourced Sales Development?
Outsourcing SDRs
Outsourcing a Sales Team
Who Provides Outsourced Sales Development?
Should You Outsource Prospecting?
Benefits of Outsourcing Sales Development
Conclusion

Outsourced sales development is a sales development model where a SaaS company hires a sales development team and outsources them to a third-party provider. The provider then manages the team and all the resources involved.

This is different than an internal sales development operation where a company either has their own in-house sales development function or they hire someone to do the job for them internally.

Traditionally, companies hire employees internally to be a part of their sales team because they want the company culture and it can sometimes be easier to hire employees than it is to hire contractors.

Most of the time, though, companies who need a large outside sales development team quickly find that hiring full-time employees isn't practical given their needs or growth projections.

This is where outsourcing comes in.

When you're trying to scale your business, outsourcing sales development can be advantageous because it allows you to "scale up" without adding permanent overhead.

Below we will discuss the different levels that exist in outsourced sales development.

The first level of outsourced sales development is outsourcing the sales rep, or sales development representative (SDR).

Companies choose to outsource SDRs when they need a dedicated team of high-quality reps but don't have the resources to hire and manage full teams in-house. Sometimes, companies that already have an in-house sales team or in-house sales reps will also choose to outsource an SDR.

It's not mutually exclusive to have both internal sales reps and outsourced SDRs.

Outsourced SDRs are a complement to internal sales teams.

When you outsource reps, you save money. You hire reps when you need them and can terminate a contract at any time. When your sales team is small or just starting up, outsourcing SDRs gives your company access to a dedicated team of reps that can get your product in front of customers while you're building an internal salesforce.

The role of an outsourced SDR is to get in the door of prospects, make initial contact with potential customers, and determine whether or not they are qualified buyers for your company's product.

Once you've identified a qualified lead, your SDRs will either pass the information onto an internal sales rep or hand off the lead to a founder, a different sales rep, an account manager, and more. This information is stored either in the company's internal CRM, the outsourced SDRs own CRM via their employer or even both CRMs.

Outsourced SDRs then follow up with that lead by emailing them or making a phone call. If the potential customer is interested, they're added to your database and you can begin nurturing them through the sales cycle.

Outsourced SDRs make sure that a lead is never lost in the weeds as they always re-engage with old leads and add new ones to the funnel. The process of re-engagement can include emailing, making a phone call, or both, but it depends on what stage in the sales cycle that lead is at.

There are many companies that use outsourced SDRs. If your startup isn't spending enough time and money on generating leads from marketing, maybe it's time to hire an outsourced SDR.

If you've already worked with an outsourced SDR or a small group of them and are ready to double down, then outsourcing a sales team is something you may consider.

It's possible to outsource an entire sales team within your organization. Such a team would have SDRs, account managers and executives, and managers managing the entire sales team. Or the entire outsourced sales team can focus on one of these domains.

For example, if you're a company sells SaaS to other businesses (B2B SaaS) but are relatively small, you may want to only hire outsourced SDRs in your outsourced sales team so you can grow the number of accounts you have. Your founders and management may already be experienced in closing deals, so the team of outsourced sales reps helps you source leads for them.

On the other hand, if you need help with closing deals rather than generating leads, then having an outsourced sales team of account managers may make more sense. This way, you can have a dedicated team of professionals working on your deals.

Companies that provide outsourced sales development have two names: SDR outsourcing companies and SDR as a Service.

SDR as a Service is a relatively new concept that is starting to gain momentum.

Companies that focus solely on providing SDRs and account managers for their clients are pretty much SDR outsourcing companies or SDR as a Service providers. This is the same concept with customer support, human resources, accounting, and other businesses where you buy X as a service instead of buying it yourself.

When looking to outsource sales development, make sure to find a company that has experience with your industry and also offers all the best processes for successful B2B customer development.

Another thing to look for when hiring an SDR outsourcing company is well-developed communication. Good communication is a key to success in this business and it has to happen in various forms: weekly meetings, daily calls, online communication tools, and more.

If you're used to prospecting potential customers yourself, you may wonder whether or not you should outsource prospecting.

But outsourcing prospecting has more pros than cons - if there are any cons at all.

Outsourcing prospecting can help your team save a lot of time and headaches. Finding the right outsource sales development company can allow you to free up your attention for more important tasks - those that will lead to larger deals, higher revenue, and improved ROI.

Outsourcing prospecting also allows you to rapidly grow your pipeline. Instead of wasting time hunting down prospects yourself, you can let a sales development team do that while putting your efforts into finding the right influencers who will bring in big accounts.

A common myth on outsourcing prospecting is that you give up control of the process. This depends on how you work with the SDR outsourcing company. Most SDR outsourcing companies already have their own process for finding prospects. But if you have your own method of finding prospects, then you can have your outsourced SDRs engage in that process as well.

There are several sources for finding prospects. These include inbound marketing, referrals, email lists, and more. You can give your outsourced SDRs the same instructions on what type of prospects to look for.

As mentioned in a previous section, the first benefit of outsourcing sales development is saving money. But one overlooked aspect of outsourced sales development is saving time.

Onboarding internal employees takes more time than companies can expect.

First, you have to spend resources on recruiting and interviewing candidates, and then you have to invest time teaching them how to sell. It's not just teaching them the art of selling, it's also having new internal employees get used to the company's internal processes and software such as their CRM. It can take a few months to do the recruiting of new sales team members and the same amount of time to onboard them.

This investment of resources and time comes with a hefty price tag. The same goes for training current employees.

Every day your sales team spends on learning new skills is a day they're not selling.

Outsourced sales development companies, on the other hand, can get you up and running faster.

Outsourcing your SDR team to an SDR outsourcing company takes little to no time. You can usually be up and running with an outsourced SDR team in under one week. That's because SDR outsourcing companies already taught their reps the skills and capabilities required to be successful.

On top of that, they've already worked through the growing pains of building a sales development team from scratch.

Outsourced SDR teams are also more efficient. If you were to hire an in-house sales development department, your reps would lose time traveling between meetings and events. But most SDR as a Service companies have their employees work remotely, which saves you time and money.

You can get the same quality by outsourcing sales development. The quality is arguably higher since the SDR outsourcing companies are masters of their trade.

There are success stories of outsourcing sales development around the world. Most of our customers at SalesPipe have continued working with us since they've seen results.

Success in sales outsourcing is also industry agnostic. Our customers at SalesPipe are in spaces such as technology, healthcare, accounting, and more.

A final benefit of outsourcing sales is that you have the bandwidth to perform effectively for other aspects of the business. Instead of spending time prospecting yourself, outsource it so you can focus on your marketing, product, and customer support operations.

Outsourcing sales development isn't a new activity that companies started to do. But it's something that the mainstream is starting to adopt more.

Interested in outsourcing your SDRs or sales team? Fill out this quick form and we'll chat with you shortly.