A Little Known Weapon in The Business Sales Arsenal Revealed.
Learn how you can take advantage of Sales Outsourcing during any economy to reduce your cost of sales and increase your win rate.
Here's the bottom line. Business is on an expense cutting spree and technology is changing the way every business acquires customers. The cut-back binge includes reducing staff, training, expense budgets, etc. And full-time sales people are an expense- a BIG one. That's good news for smart businesses.
Businesses LOVE sales but are challenged by cost of maintaining a sales department and salespeople who tend to be entrepreneurial. That makes the sales department amazingly vulnerable right now.
Businesses also love marketing, communication and branding. However most struggle to get their arms around how to tie it all together to increase sales to existing customers and generate new business. Not always seeing the relationship, the ROI or the reason, they take a hatchet to these critical areas, too.
Tell me if this sounds familiar. Businesses go through firing and hiring phases, following a pattern of letting go their biggest earners because they can hire less expensive personnel, or two, to replace that earner later on when the economy picks up.
That's right, now they have to go through an indoctrination process called 'training'. This usually consists of one or two face to face meetings, a ton of electronic and online sessions on which they’ll be scored, taking 3 - 6 months where the sales new hire:
*Learns about the history of the company
*Learns about the philosophy of the company
*Learns about the structure of the company
*Learns about the benefit plans of the company
*Learns about the technical product specifications of the company
*Learns about the policies and procedures of the company
*Learns about the competition of the company
*Learns about the marketing material of the company
*Learns about the multiple administrative tools of the company
*Learns about the politics of the company
*Learns about what is expected of them from the different division and department heads of the company
What didn't they learn?
How to market, sell and close business.
If a company does throw some budget here, it's typically small, mis-spent, or mis-managed as one-off seminars held for a couple of hours once a year with little, no, or incorrectly structured follow up and measurement usually driven by 'performance plan' requirements so it takes the new hires YEARS to get proficient at selling-- if they stick around that long.
A quick Google search on sales training, consulting and performance shows that sales performance measurement- that means technical systems - ranks higher in the last 12 months than ongoing training and development.
And when a company does use professional sales training they lack consistency- changing programs and philosophies frequently--introducing good books and manuals without training and follow up.
So let's get back to the good news for you. There's another way to go for less money and time that gives you an advantage in the 'cost of sales' ROI arena.
How Outsourcing the Sales Function Makes Good Sense and Dollars.
Think there's a big opportunity you could win but the only one you trust to sell it is you? Hire a mercenary. That's right, a professional. Someone who's not looking to protect themselves politically, or move up in the company.
Someone who cares about exactly the same thing you care about-- winning because their reputation and livelihood depends on winning. Sound silly?
Think about it. While it’s important to know as much as possible about your product or service, the expert who specializes in selling and negotiation doesn’t need to know every agonizing little detail. If they did, CEOs and CFOs wouldn't be changing companies every few years.
So... No. You're hiring the specialist because they know how to quickly get things done; how to get the important information from you quickly to key in on those benefits and use them to navigate the potential buyer's company and politics and position them for an easy decision to do business with you.
And if the specialist doesn't think the engagement will result in a win or successful relationship based on they criteria you've established- you can bet they'll be the one to tell you it's time to cut bait so they can get paid for time worked and move on.
Why? Because they're working for the close and receive the pay for performance- Mercenary. Objective. Professional.
Once the sale is made, it’s your responsibility to implement and maintain the customer satisfaction-- after all, the real money is in the repeat customer business.
See where this is going? Low overhead. Low cost. Low risk. Total control.
High return. High probability of success.
Why? Because the effort is laser-focused and void of conflict. The sales professional has one concern- achieving your goal. He’s not worried about office politics. All you have to do is tell your department heads to give the pro the support they need to get the sale made.
“Why don’t more businesses take advantage of this opportunity?”
Great question! Well, more businesses would take advantage of this opportunity if they thought about it the right way and had the right protection in place.
Businesses with project management staff don’t have an issue outsourcing project managers for mission critical implementations.
Businesses outsource communications, application hosting, building maintenance, and security.
It’s just the cost of doing business- without the overhead of recruiting, training, and benefits.
Change Your Thinking
The key to being comfortable with outsourcing sales is a strong need, a good understanding and project charter, a background check, a non-disclosure agreement and contract that includes liability coverage.
You have a window of opportunity now. Strike while iron is hot.
Be the Hero,
Mark
Mark Daniels is a B2B and B2C Business Marketing and Sales Consultant, Coach, Author and Speaker specializing in creating calls-to-action that generate leads, shorten sales cycle times, increase top line sales and bottom line margins.
Reach Mark at Mark@mysaleshero.net