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4 Top Challenges to Consider While Hiring an Outsourced Inside Sales Team

4 Top Challenges to Consider While Hiring an Outsourced Inside Sales Team
  • 4 minutes read
outsourced inside sales
When you hire an outsourced inside sales team, it works on behalf of your company to expand the market reach, set sales meetings, qualify leads, and win more business. By outsourcing inside sales, you hand over the responsibility to the sales team, allowing your inside teams to focus on your business’s core competencies.  However, it is crucial to be well aware of the challenges that companies will face while hiring an outsourced inside sales team. We have identified and enlisted a few of the main challenges that the companies may consider before outsourcing their inside sales. If you want to find out how to mitigate the challenges and prepare the inside sales partner for optimal results, keep reading this blog till the end.

  • Authority over the outsourced inside sales team

Before hiring an outsourced sales team, you should know exactly how much control you will have over the outsourced sales representatives. It is one of the companies’ most significant concerns when hiring an outsourced inside sales team.   It is crucial to make sure that the sales team represents the true image of your brand, spending the time wisely to get more leads, and following appropriate processes that are a perfect fit for your company.  A credible outsourced firm will prioritize the transparency of the process and review the progress conjoining with you. Thus, you will have the ultimate control over the efforts along with authority to adjust and execute the tasks as per your preferences.  However, one of the most crucial questions to consider while searching for a perfect outsourced inside sales firm is, “How will the results be tracked and reported?” Scavenge for a firm that is ready to work on your guidelines to give you visibility into every step of the sales process. If you choose a firm that only focuses on reports and outcomes, you won’t be able to examine their performance throughout the process. Since getting an insight into all sales metrics is pivotal for success, you should pay special heed to this aspect.  For instance, the number of sales that the outsourced inside sales team is generating meet your set standards. But, you might be missing on the impending opportunities that were not nurtured correctly.  Thus, it is important to track the discrepancies between available opportunities and the number of deals closed to fix the outreach strategies accordingly. 

  • Alignment with your organization

You might be racking your brain, whether the outsourced inside sales team can align with your organizational goals or not. When you develop an internal sales team, you can implement your organizational strategies more directly into the sales process.  Misalignment in communication, having an unclear buyer persona, or not knowing who the qualified prospects are will be the last things you want. These misalignments can have detrimental effects on your brand identity. If your products and services are complex to understand, outsourcing the sales can be more complicated. The outsourced sales firm that is the perfect fit for your company will work in-line with your internal managers and decision-makers to fully integrate the processes. Hence, while choosing the outsourced firm for your business, you should find the specifics beforehand to avoid any hassle. The firms’ onboarding process must include:
  • Process overview: An in-depth overview of the sales process to ensure that you will be getting insight into the sales representatives’ tedious daily tasks. 
  • Client overview: A detailed briefing should be given about the company, its products, and the communication channels to guide the efforts of the outsourced inside sales team.
  • Qualification criteria: The criteria to choose the qualified prospects and information needed to redirect resources should be clearly stated.
  • Marketing support: Clearly state your company’s marketing initiatives to generate leads. 
  • Technological alignment: The outsourced firm should integrate with your company by having emails with company domains, access to sales reps’ calendar, and the tools used for closing and reporting the deals. 
You should make sure that the outsourced company has an efficient onboarding process to immediately kick-start the process. The onboarding process should align with the company’s culture, and the sales rep should read about your website and company in detail. 

  • Questionable stake in your success

Another essential question that companies should consider while choosing the outsourced sales partner is, “Why should you trust another company for bringing the business and sales?”  It is evident, the outsourced firm will get much fewer incentives and benefits than your company to bring sales on your behalf. Sales work as the lifeblood of an organization and are necessary to carry out the business operations.  Though the outsourced sales companies have less stake in your overall success, they will surely help you succeed if they get incentives according to their efforts. Retaining clients’ business is as important for an outsourced sales company as winning new sales is for you. Clients’ satisfaction in the long-run is the foremost priority of the outsourced sales firms that offer mouth-to-mouth contracts. You can easily know the difference by comparing the results to the firms that get paid per sales or lead basis with those who get long-term contracts.  Pay-per-whatever sales firms will more likely prioritize sending the volumes of appointments regardless of the quality of leads and opportunities. This is why you should opt for time-based outsourced firms that act as a partner instead of thinking themselves as just a vendor.  A reliable and good outsourced sales firm act as a business partner and will never hesitate to represent your brand as its own. 

  • Affordability of outsourcing

The primary concern that organizations usually have while considering the outsourced inside sales is, “How much outsourcing the sales process will cost?”  Since outsourcing a function like sales is an expensive task, you should consider the benefits it will bring. Determine the return on investment and then decide if you want to go for it or not.  You should do analyze all the operational activities to get an accurate estimate of what different service providers will charge. The next step should be estimating the value that the outsourced company will deliver. 
  • How many sales will the outsourced team bring?
  • How much pipeline will the outsourced inside sales team build for? 
  • How much revenue will your company get from the outsourced sales team?
It is pivotal to measure an outsourced sales team’s cost against the amount of return that you will ultimately get. Though outsourcing the sales tasks can cost you a lot, it’s clear that maintaining the internal sales team can be strenuous. Besides this, outsourced inside sales teams will have specialized expertise at a predictable cost. You won’t need to spend hefty amounts on expensive sales and reporting tools. 

So should you consider hiring outsourced inside sales teams?

If you ask for an honest opinion, we will suggest you go for it as the benefits are way more than the cost. The key is to choose the right service provider who will align with your organization’s goals and execute the strategy that is custom-made according to your customer’s needs.  More importantly, you should collaborate with the outsourced inside sales team to continuously improve the efforts to bring in more and more business. Consider the above-mentioned points before making the final decision to ensure that you are choosing the best outsourced sales team. 

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Alex Valassidis

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Alex is a Managing Director and Supervisor at Vparagon, a sales consultancy that helps companies expand and accelerate their sales in new markets.

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