Few, if any, sales executive or salespeople will cite cold calling and prospecting as one of their favorite tasks. So from a strictly financial perspective, does it make sense to outsource your lead generation and cold call prospecting? Here's a quick look at the top reasons that businesses turn to Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO).
Big businesses can afford to maintain inside sales departments. However, for most businesses a cold calling and appointment setting service is a money burner. Do the math; figure out how many hours your calling team is devoting to proactively cold calling, prospect and setting appointments. Now calculate how much you're spending for them not being on the phone making sales. Also that desk, computer, phone and supplies they use come with a price tag; also there is the double hit – a caller leaves the company. While that desk, computer and phone is unoccupied your pipeline flow is negatively impacted causing lost revenue. Don’t forget to add the cost of advertising, interviewing and hiring the replacement, along with the cost of training and the ramp-up.
Management is a time-consuming activity and you may even be able to trim your staff's size. Sales Process Outsourcing company associates are on the phone 6 to 6.5 hours a day, doing approximately 13 dials an hour, 100+ a day, 2200+ a month. Do your callers have those standards? Also, by working with a Sales Process Outsource company your pipeline doesn't slow down. On-call Backup Sales Associates will assume the role of the dedicated Sales Associate in the event where the dedicated Sales Associate is not available.
It is the Sales Process Outsourcing company's commitment to keep you fully engaged throughout the campaign. They should be adamant about open lines of communication, endeavor to offer the latest technology and have well established processes individualized according to the clients needs. Their management team should be continually refining and honing their methodologies to present their clients with a best practice outcome. Cold calling mistakes can be painful, angering sales teams and — more ominously — your customer. A good Sales Process Outsourcing Company is far less likely to make a serious error than your in-house staff.
A Sales Process Outsourcing company’s activities and functions are only as reliable as the people doing the work. Output speed and quality should not vary with vacations or illnesses. They should guarantee quality representation as all their sales associates should be carefully screened and trained to ensure your company is represented in a professional manner. Make sure they are using an established sales processes. This can be any process such as the Sandler® selling system (http://www.sandler.com).
A lead generation-appointment setting campaign should be set up within 5 to 7 working days. Your sales associate should be able to make about 2000 dials in that first month. This will produce appointments, but just as important is make sure the Sales Process Outsourcing company takes the incoming data to adjust the lead list, refine the script, and locate the best ‘fishing holes’.
For a Sales Process Outsourcing company it is not simply leads, a script, a caller and dials. Their livelihood should come from successful campaigns that turn into a long term relationship. To make that happen, they should give you much more than first sales call appointments with new clients and filling your pipeline. They should constantly refine the profile of your ideal prospect and be diligent enough to ensure your initial statement is truly a benefit to the majority of your prospects. You may want to recommend that they obtain real-time competitive information and market data. Every result, statistic and data list is reviewed with you then a tactical adjustment should be made. Your employees could try to achieve the same level of understanding, but it would take a considerable investment in time and effort.
If a Sales Process Outsourcing company set a sales call appointment of a non-qualified prospect, it is the Sales Process Outsourcing company’s responsibility to fix things. In 24 hours! to make sure whatever caused the error is corrected within the system and/or process to ensure it won’t happen again. This is a must. It doesn't end with the SPO. Your sales team must have complete buy-in and fully participate. A common problem when having an in house calling team is the salespeople will not speak-up. They may not to put their full effort in the appointments that the in-house person set for them.
Sales Process Outsourcing companies should change the script to match your marketing needs such as filling an event or upcoming trade show. New product or service focus should not be a problem for any Sales Process Outsourcing company. You may even want to run two completely different campaigns; all you should need to do is add a second calling associate. The Sales Process Outsourcing company should do the rest and have the second campaign up and running in a week or less.
Do you have the time and energy for supervising your callers to assure they treat gatekeepers properly? Do they leave professional voice mail messages? Make appropriate good first impression in the first seconds of a prospect call? Have correct information throughout a call? Make the proper presentation? Sales Process Outsourcing companies have technologies to record all calls and keep them in a client’s private library allowing any member of your management to conduct a QA audit at their convenience.
There's a lot to be said for the peace of mind related to Sales Process Outsourcing. No headaches, no hassles: By the fourth month of an outbound appointment setting campaign you should demand a consistent number of new client first sales call appointments. Often times the end result is supplementing other marketing efforts or replacing marketing programs and increasing your bottom line.
