Outsourced SDR - Everything You Need to Know

In an era defined by remote work, outsourced SDRs are an increasingly attractive option for companies looking to grow.

So why should you think about hiring an outsourced SDR? And how can they help grow your organization?

This article examines every question you have on outsourced SDRs.

What Is an Outsourced SDR?
Why Hire an Outsourced SDR?
Who Manages Outsourced SDRs?
Outsourced SDR vs In-House SDR
Is Outsourcing the Future of Outbound Sales?
Conclusion

An outsourced sales development representative, or outsourced SDR, is a low-cost alternative for companies looking to staff a sales team but are unwilling to pay the high costs associated with hiring an in-house SDR.

An outsourced SDR is typically managed by a third-party company that hires and manages remote sales reps on behalf of their clients. These services can be obtained through any number of SDR as a service (SDRaaS) or SDR outsourcing companies. Some sales teams, particularly in the B2B SaaS and technology industries, will use an outsourced SDR to fill their pipeline during times of high growth while they hire and train up their own internal sales development team.

Most SDR outsourcing companies offer a dedicated SDR team (typically 1-3 reps) for a monthly fee. The monthly fee depends on the quality and type of SDR service needed. For instance, some services charge a premium for phone support or the ability to handle weekly reporting.

It ultimately depends on the needs of the company. Sometimes a company is only looking for one SDR to work full-time, other times they may need five SDRs to work part-time. Whatever their needs, an SDR outsourcing company can assist in finding the perfect fit.

An outsourced SDR is typically responsible for managing leads sent by the client and performing lead qualification based on the criteria provided by the client. Most outsourced SDRs, at minimum, do outbound prospecting and outreach to potential customers on behalf of the company. What that outbound prospecting and outreach depend on what the company needs the SDR for, whether it's running email sequences, making phone calls, or both. Sometimes, companies will hire an outsourced SDR to take meetings with the prospect or even demo them the product or service they are selling.

Outsourced SDRs also assist in making the prospecting and outreach process more efficient for the client by providing lead information to their team members so that they can save time prospecting at a later date.

This information is especially valuable to every department at the client company. Information on leads gathered by the outsourced SDR is, in effect, market research for the company. Sales and marketing teams can adjust who they are targeting with this information, and product teams can adapt their products to the newly learned insights of the market.

In addition to helping salespeople find new prospects, an outsourced SDR can also track results and give access to the client through weekly reports. By having this information, the client can easily track their progress and determine which parts of their campaigns are working best so that they can invest more time into them while scaling back on others.

Hiring an outsourced SDR has many benefits for client businesses.

The first of these benefits is that, by hiring an outsourced SDR, the SDR outsourcing company you are contracting has cumulatively more insights and experience on what works and what doesn't in outbound sales. They have worked with clients who are in your same industry or at least have experience working with other companies that are similar to yours.

This means they can provide you better suggestions on how to increase the success rate of your campaigns, improving your company's lead generation capabilities.

Another benefit is that outsourcing allows businesses to dedicate more time to other realms. If you're part of a small team where every moment and dollar counts, and you need most resources to be dedicated towards product development, then it's wise to hire experts to get started on outbound prospecting and outreach right away.

One more benefit is that outsourced SDRs can work remotely. This means that you can hire talented professionals from anywhere in the world – this could save you money on relocation costs and employee benefits, as well as giving your company a unique position in the market.

If you have outsourced SDRs in various time zones, then the sun never sets on your growing empire!

SDR outsourcing companies are those that manage outsourced SDRs.

They will take care of hiring, managing, training, and deploying outsourced SDRs for your company.

Before hiring SDR outsourcing companies, you should have a clear understanding of what you need from them. The scope of the work and your lead generation goals are helpful to know.

Once you have a clear understanding of what you need from an SDR outsourcing company, there are other vital questions that need asking:

• What experience do they have? For example, have they managed an outsourced sales force before and if so how large was the team?
  
• How will results be measured? What metrics will be reported on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis?
  

These are questions that many SDR outsourcing companies are familiar with, as many have experience managing outsourced SDR teams ranging from single to double digits. They will also have a clear understanding of how to measure success, as they have likely been involved in setting up performance metrics for previous teams.

Compared to in-house SDRs, outsourced SDRs don't require much onboarding when hired by a company. This is because they've already been trained by their previous companies and know how to navigate the system that they're working with.

There is certainly value in hiring in-house SDRs. But bear in mind that it will take a few weeks or more to do the hiring process, then another few weeks or more to get them oriented in your business.

SDR outsourcing companies know the training that outsourced SDRs require. For example, they will often spend one week or more on onboarding new hires before sending them to their clients. This saves money for the client compared to hiring in-house SDRs who must be trained by you.

The onboarding is done for you when hiring an outsourced SDR.

Another difference in hiring an outsourced SDR is the return on investment. SDR outsourcing companies have a typical price they charge per month on their outsourced SDR and this is typically based on various metrics. For example, they may offer a $500/month SDR who responds to 20 emails and makes five phone calls per day. In turn, many contracts with SDR outsourcing companies will have the expectation of generating a certain amount of leads per week for the company that hired them. In other words, the outsourcing company has a guarantee for a certain amount of results.

You may think that, compared to in-house SDRs, outsourced SDRs may turn over more. In fact, SDRs that work at SDR outsourcing companies tend to have a very low turnover rate. This is because they are paid well above their local wage and provided with benefits such as remote work.

The era of outsourcing may just change the nature of outbound sales forever. Inbound at times supplants cold calling while prospecting skills become more essential to success.

SDRs work at these companies for one reason: to generate a high-quality prospect list and set meetings with decision-makers who hired them.

Most SDR outsourcing companies will have their SDRs focus most of their time on prospecting. This is because most SDR outsourcing companies use automated outbound outreach, whether it's emailing or messaging. Even cold calling can be automated.

More often than not, SDR outsourcing companies choose to automate emailing and messaging through email automation sequences. Email automation sequences are emails that automatically send to a prospect based on their engagement (or lack thereof) with the SDR.

The reason why SDR outsourcing companies like email automation is it's a lot easier for an SDR to set up and allows them to spend more time on manual outreach. We all know the importance of being personal in sales. Automating email and messaging allows the SDR to focus more on both prospecting better leads and personalizing the messages that are irresistible for readers.

Because of this, it's clear that outsourcing is not only a big part of the future of outbound sales, it is also part of the present. Many companies use an outsourced SDR today for their outbound campaigns.

Outsourced SDRs are determining the future of outbound sales. Companies across the world have seen the value add they bring, and those companies continue to hire more of them.

The question is whether or not you will be part of that future.

Fill out this form if you want to hire an outsourced SDR.

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