One of the best ways to expand your business is to outsource your sales department. This is something that many small business owners take for granted. It’s not easy. It takes trust to outsource your sales department, but no manager is an island. As tempting as it may be to control all aspects of your business from start to finish, realistically you cannot take this approach if you have any desire to increase your productivity.
Here are some reasons to outsource your sales department, and a few suggestions on how to maximize the returns.
Workload
You cannot be in two places at once. A strong sales team can be in as many places as you can’t, as long as you delegate the positions appropriately. Cold calling is one of the most time consuming sales tactics that you could ever hope to maintain. Outsourcing cold calls to a small sales team will afford you hours of time that you can use at your discretion.
Divide your resources and delegate field follow-ups to teams of two, consisting of one seasoned team member and one green recruit. This gives new team members field experience while seasoned team members stay sharp. However you allocate your sales team, having a solid sales model in place will increase your productivity.
Sales Campaigns
Sales campaigns can take up a lot of time. Often, however, sales campaigns that can really turn a profit are time sensitive. If you can’t set up in time, you don’t have a sales campaign. Outsourcing your sales department ensures that you have a solid team at the ready. Delegate certain associates different tasks or assign them different zones of the store in which to operate. Having various members of the sales team organized by department allows you to reach goals more quickly, and to run shorter sales campaigns. The ability to run shorter advertising campaigns affords you the opportunity to run promotions in tighter, more profit-rich margins.
Training
It is exceedingly important to have a strong sales team in place. A strong sales team includes sales representatives who can not only walk clients through the various stages of the selling cycle, but dig up leads in the interim. That is a tall order for a green recruit. Outsourcing your sales department to a sales outsourcing partner like Cydcor will afford you ample time for training. As you develop your sales team, outsource additional sales tasks to improve your productivity.
Intelligence
If you’ve considered outsourcing your sales department, you’ve likely ascertained a comprehensive knowledge of the businesses with whom you are in competition, but at this stage, it’s unlikely that you’ve been able to reach enough customers to get a good understanding of how well you’ve shaped your target margin. An outsourced sales team will give you eyes and ears in places that would otherwise be impossible to access. The more information your outsourced sales team gathers in regards to strategy and consumer expectations, the better you can train your inside sales team.
Target Industry Optimization
You may be invested in one particular industry, but have others in mind. Sales outsourcing partners can test the profitability of any industries that you may be considering investing in. Time is money. So is information, so passing the buck to a sales outsourcing partner can save you the trouble of developing advertising campaigns for industries that will not turn a profit for you. On the other hand, sales outsourcing partners can help you develop and execute advertising campaigns for industries that do work, giving you more time bring your recruits up to speed.
About the Author
Chris Jones is a freelance writer covering all things current.