The Ins and Outs of Outsourced Sales Development

To hire an in-house sales team or an outsourced sales team? That is the question. 

Consistent sales are the name of the game. Customer acquisition drives both revenue and growth. With that in mind, hopefully you have your eye on the prize: gaining your next customer. Should you hire an in-house sales development team, or should you consider outsourcing?

On the one hand, an in-house sales development team is a good option as they’re right there for you, and likely, they’re a team handpicked by you. However, not everyone has it in their budget to hire a full-time in-house sales development team and provision them with the technology, data, and support needed to optimize performance. Considering outsourced sales development? Well, you’re in the right place. 

Why choose outsourced sales development?

Consider the old saying time is money. While there are quite a number of reasons to choose outsourced sales development for your lead generation needs, the right team can help you save both time and money.

An outsourced sales development representative (SDR) company can provide appointment setting in an end-to-end setting. Outsourced SDR companies offer omnichannel approaches to lead generation and ultimately, appointment through conducting services such as cold calling, LinkedIn outreach, email outreach and more. Their teams conduct outbound outreach, qualify inbound leads or a combination of the two with the focus on driving efficient and effective outcomes. 

Outsourced sales development vs. in-house sales development

Considering outsourcing your sales development? You’re not alone. In fact, many departments, including engineering and marketing, tend to outsource at least a portion of their needs. So why not outsource sales development as well?

As with everything, there are pros and cons to both outsourced sales development as well as in-house sales development. Understanding what those pros and cons are can help you make a more informed decision on what may be right for your company. After all, every company is uniquely positioned and there is no one size fits all answer. 

The three main reasons business owners and executives seek to outsource their sales development needs are time, cost and effort. Let’s break it down a bit more and look at some of the pros and cons for each.

Outsourced sales development

First, let’s discuss outsourced sales development. Some typical scenarios in which business owners/executives may outsource their sales development needs are, for instance, when they look to expand into new markets or even to offload tactical SDR work leaving in-house sales teams to focus more efforts on selling versus finding and qualifying leads.

Here are some of the pros and cons to outsourcing: 

In-house sales development

Next, we’ll discuss in-house sales development. No matter which direction you choose to go, building a pipeline and setting appointments is integral to the success and growth of your organization. 

When considering whether to build your own in-house sales development team, there are a lot factors that might come into play. For instance, if you’re working with a larger budget and have the luxury of time, an in-house sales team may benefit you more. 

Let’s look at some of the pros and cons to an in-house sales development team: 

Cost of outsourced sales development vs. in-house sales development

As we’ve already discussed a bit, one of the biggest influencers in determining whether an in-house or outsourced sales development team is right for business owners comes down to money. Let’s compare some of the costs to get a good feel for what some of the costs are. 

In-house SDRs

This is an idea of the cost of a lone in-house SDR and does not take into account having to hire any management or additional personnel.

• Salary and bonuses: $74,000/annually (Glassdoor)

That $74,000 price tag does not include any additional costs, such as:

• Employer taxes
• Benefits
• Software licenses
• Human resources expenditures
• Training costs
• Administration
• Management

Realistically, you’re looking at a price tag of about $150,000 – costing your company double what their salary is. Check out the annual price tags on a few types of sales software:

• Hubspot: $14,000 (for 10 users)
• InfusionSoft: $3500+ (10k contacts)
• Salesforce: $3,500 (per user)
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: $1100+ (per user)
• Outreach: $1200 (per user)

Outsourced SDRs

Outsourced SDR companies have numerous clients which helps spread out the cost of training, onboarding, software licenses and technology. While the actual price tag of an outsourced SDR team will vary based on the needs of your company, you could be looking at around $45,000 annually. In that $45,000 you can typically expect:

More than one SDR working on your project, including:

• Sales specialists
• Researchers
• Account executives
• Sales managers
• An experienced team, fully trained and ready to go
• Cutting-edge technology to ensure the success of your sales needs

12 benefits of outsourced sales development

It’s no secret that without enough high-quality leads your sales pipeline will dry up fast. Without a sales development team – whether in-house or outsourced – you’ll likely find yourself struggling to grow your company.

While time and money are two of the biggest influencers for business owners and margin-minded executives, there are many other reasons to consider outsourcing your company’s sales development. 

Here are 12 of the main reasons you should consider outsourcing your sales development needs.

1. Sales specialization and experience

Outsourced sales development companies have expertly trained SDRs that specialize in sales. By bringing in an outsourced sales development company, you’re not just gaining the knowledge and experience of a single SDR, you’re gaining the knowledge and experience of an entire team. Each member of that team typically has years of experience in sales.

2. Faster entry into new markets

Diving into a new market can mean lengthier times to start seeing conversions. However, by outsourcing, you have the ability to dive into new markets without sacrificing core sales. What that ultimately means is that while simultaneously running your core sales, an outsourced SDR could also scout and test new markets, introduce products and help you to expand into new regions and new markets. This process decreases the amount of time to conversions when venturing into new markets.

3. Access to cutting edge sales technology

Did you see those price tags laid out above? Technology can be expensive. Put the words “cutting edge” in front of that and you may as well add an extra price tag to it as well. Fractional and full-time SDR teams have access to cutting edge sales technology. By outsourcing, you’re not only gaining access to a team, but also to their technology, which further reduces any licensing costs and the cost of training anyone to use the technology.

4. More focus on strategic initiatives

“Always be closing.” A frequently used motivational phrase in sales, to be sure. This mantra is for sellers to always be in the mindset of closing, but can they really do that when they’re also the ones responsible for outreach and qualifying leads? 

Outsourcing your sales development means affording your team more time to focus on closing and strategic initiatives, while the outsourced SDR does the heavy lifting. 

5. Target new and/or underserved markets

Venture into unchartered or underserved territory with an experienced team to help you maximize your return on investment. When targeting new and/or underserved markets, you need to be able to remain flexible and to pivot rapidly. Outsourced sales can scale up or down as rapidly as you’d need it to in order to meet your company’s changing priorities when venturing into uncharted territory with the added benefit of not losing out on your core sales.

6. Adopt a cross-functional business model

A truly effective business model incorporates a cross-functional design, where overlap and communication are key, and outsourcing can provide you with just that. With a good, open-ended partnership between your internal staff and your outsourced SDR team, you will also benefit from the insights and knowledge gained.

7. Omnichannel customer engagement

Reaching out to your potential customers can be a stressful endeavor. By working with an outsourced SDR team, you benefit from an omni channel customer engagement approach to lead generation. From cold calling to email and LinkedIn outreach, outsourced SDR companies typically take a multi-pronged approach to getting appointments on the calendar.

8. Lower cost of sales

With money being one of the biggest decision influencers, lower cost of sales is sure to be one of the most beneficial reasons to outsource your sales. 

When you add up the cost of hiring and training an in-house sales team and the cost of the necessary technology, the numbers can be daunting. Reflecting back on the price tags above, you can see that an in-house SDR realistically costs about $150,000, whereas an outsourced SDR team averages about $45,000. 

For that $45,000, you’re receiving qualified leads, appointments on the calendar each month and access to the latest technology. When you factor the number of leads received each year over the amount spent, outsourcing is the clear winner.

9. Data insights to increase profits and revenue

Lead generation, really sales as a whole, should not be about trusting your gut, but rather using data insights to help drive conversions and increase your company’s profits and revenue. 

By hiring an outsourced sales development company, you’re not only gaining further insights into your own efforts, but you’ll also be gaining the knowledge and insights from the SDRs who are not only familiar with your industry, but also your competitors. This can help you decrease loss and increase profit and revenue by applying lessons learned to your own sales efforts.

10. Focus and no distraction

An in-house sales team is typically responsible for generating the leads, working them through the sales funnel and converting them to customers. That can be a timely and costly endeavor. However, with an outsourced SDR team, you can focus on nailing your sales pitch while they get the appointments on the books.

11. Coaching, training and development

Coaching, training and development all have something in common: they can all be costly and time consuming. No longer do you have to worry about training and mentoring an in-house sales team; outsourced SDR teams are all provided with those at no cost to you.

12. Speed to outcome

Perhaps the biggest advantage is that an outsourced SDR team can help you reduce the time to your desired outcome. Regardless of whether your company is a startup or firmly established business, time is money. An outsourced SDR team can help you decrease your time to market and the speed of your desired outcome. 

Through hiring an outsourced sales company, you gain the advantage of being able to dial-in on messaging for specific verticals to help ramp up your sales process in a rapid manner. This can be particularly important when your product or service is rather complex or has a longer sales period.

Conclusion

If time or money play a part in determining whether in-house or outsourced are right for you, outsourced sales development is the clear winner. Though there may be instances where an in-house team would make more sense, if you’re not bringing in your own full-service sales team with the sales pipeline to back it up, the cost benefit just isn’t there. 

An outsourced sales development team can assist with not only reducing the overhead expenses, but also reducing the speed to outcome while simultaneously lowering the cost of sales. That’s money and time saved for you to focus more of your company’s assets on strategic initiatives and closing sales. 

We can’t forget that outsourced SDRs normally have access to the latest technology in the industry to help streamline the process and further increase your ROI. With access to databases and even automatic dialers capable of calling hundreds of phone numbers in a short period of time, it’s truly an option worth exploring.