Is Sales Development Representative (SDR) Outsourcing Right For Your Business?​
Now more than ever, companies are adapting and beginning to branch out to outsourcing teams. They can do the exact same job, if not better than in-house teams. Time and again, outsourcing has shown that it has a place in our economy. When you can get the same thing much cheaper elsewhere, why hire someone at home?
Sales development is extremely difficult, developing strong salespeople is a long game; skilled employees can be rare to find. You know you want to improve your sales development pipeline, but you’re faced with a pivotal decision to make; do you hire and grow an in-house team, or do you work with an outbound sales partner?
Outsourcing is able to relieve you of headaches; delivering the perfect message, to the ideal prospect, at the right time, thus allowing you to concentrate on closing deals and increasing revenue. Without enough high quality leads, your sales pipeline is bound to dry up quickly. How do you maintain that pipeline? With an effective sales team. Without one, you can find yourself struggling when it comes to lead generation.
Outsourcing has grown over the last few years
5 years ago, traditional outsourcing companies were still not using current best practices. Cold calling was still being executed with general scripts and poor lead qualification. Marketing emails were still being sent using blasts. You could say we were more like marketers rather than performing actual sales development work.Â
With the boom of sequencing and automation technologies, outsourcing is able to get as close or even closer to what in-house teams can do. At this current rate, we will soon be able to reach even further down the qualification funnel and achieve greater success.
What is it that Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) do exactly?
A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is primarily an inside sales role that focuses solely on outbound prospecting, with the goal of generating a sales pipeline for the closing team to close deals. To achieve this, they will typically research potential customers before reaching out to them. The specific objective is to pass on leads that match the criteria as sales-qualified leads. The SDR will typically manage the lead until the meeting is booked then hand it over to the prospects’ account executive to close.
Our outsourced SDR team is split up into three phases
At Growthonics: Part of Quantanite we run things a little differently when it comes to SDR work and our marketing teams. We have split up our sales team into three phases. We have a research team that conducts all of our list building and scours the web to find the right targets to match the search criteria set by the client. We believe that building from the ground up is going to get you quality leads that yield positive results and success.
Our second phase is strategy. We have strategists and copywriters who create bespoke campaigns to generate interest and book meetings. We use personalisation to increase our targeting and allow the prospect to feel they are receiving the email on the spot. We ensure our pain points are addressed to the decision maker and how our clients’ solutions will solve them. You want to create emails that are punchy, straight to the point, and have the prospect come away feeling they absolutely need this product/service.
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Our third phase is our sales development representatives. Our dedicated and semi-dedicated SDRS roll out our cadences and are in constant communication with the prospect, whether that is replying to their email, interacting through LinkedIn, or making a direct call to the decision maker. It is almost like your first line of defence; they should be strong-minded and not get bogged down if they don’t get a confirmation, keep moving forward, and it will happen.
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Sales Development Representative as a service is appealing to companies looking to make more revenue, the costs of bringing an outsourced SDR are up to 60% less than the cost of hiring and onboarding an in-house employee. This allows for the SDR team to scale quickly, without the need for time and expense required to create a scalable frontline sales team.
What are the benefits of outsourcing your Sales Development Representatives (SDR) team?
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SDR teams understand the importance of delivering results that drive profits.
nstead of spending countless hours prospecting potential clients, by shortening the sales cycle, you can completely focus on closing deals.
An outsourced SDR team are there to help you expand, accelerate, and optimise your sales approach to increase your conversion rate and build a sales pipeline that is predictable.
Outsourcing SDRs frees up the burden of having to recruit, train, and manage an internal SDR team.
By outsourcing SDRs, a company can reduce its costs rapidly. Everything from the cost of office space to the cost of turnover can be reinvested internally.
An outsourced SDR is highly trained in follow-up methods, language, and modern best practices. This allows you to qualify your leads and know exactly where they are in the buying process.
Outsourced SDR teams provide flexibility. They are able to quickly pivot as companies change their products.
Why would you outsource a Sales Development Representative team?
Whilst the advantages and disadvantages might give you an inclination, they won’t paint the full picture. There are multiple factors you need to take into consideration before you decide if SDR outsourcing is for you.
When you outsource an SDR team, you gain access to a group of thoroughly vetted and trained professionals. Their sole purpose is to concentrate on lead development, cold calling, and setting up appointments for your closing team. They are trained in doing the legwork and finding suitably qualified leads.
On the other hand, when you hire internally, you have to take into account the onboarding and training costs involved. This can be an extremely extensive process to get your new hires up to speed, opposed to outsourced SDRs that become familiar within a couple of days.Â
An outsourced SDR firm can expand your reach, they are comfortable with entering new markets, and dealing with many different industries and technologies. They have the ability to have meaningful conversations with different prospects and decision makers, this makes onboarding training a lot more efficient and quicker.
Where do you notice the difference?
Reducing your hiring costs
Having an outsourced team will significantly reduce your costs; this includes training, onboarding, hiring, interviewing etc. The hiring process is simple and new employees’ costs are kept to a minimum, you can put that money you would’ve saved elsewhere.
Not having to worry about turnover – Outsourcing alleviates the pressure of having to worry about high staff turnover and having to hire new SDRs. It isn’t your problem to deal with, you continue to have your SDRs without dealing with the renewed headaches of hiring and onboarding like you would with an in house SDR team.
Simplifying the process
The process of in-house hiring can be an extremely lengthy and technical process. It requires a lot of internal and external resources, and it can become costly very quickly.
Firstly you have to draw up briefs on what type of candidates you require, then you need to allocate a budget to your adverts.
You need to conduct interviews with all the candidates.
You need to develop training for all the new employees and onboard them.
Focus on what is important
Outsourcing allows you to focus on other important areas. If your business is comprised of 10 or so employees, you are probably part of every moment, and every penny counts. You arguably need most of your resources for product development and closing deals, instead of looking for prospects. It would be wise to hire experts to help you identify your ideal customer profile and generate meetings whilst you close them off.
If your SDRs are not rolling out messages, that means they’re not setting up valuable meetings for the sales team. According to Hubspot, it can take up to 3 months for an SDR to reach their full potential and productivity, at this time, your company is going to operate at a loss. Are you prepared to take that risk? How will it impact your company and revenue?
Final Thoughts
Remember before making a decision, assess the company wholeheartedly. You should be aware that not all Sales Development Representative outsourced vendors are good. You need to make sure you make an informed decision, so choose wisely and don’t just rush into it.Â
Picking any company to represent you and deliver your message is not the right way to go. You need a company that is uniquely qualified to fulfil your needs. You need to evaluate and see how it affects the overall performance of your company.
For example:
- What is the cost involved in hiring and training your inside sales team?
- Are your salespeople capable of generating qualified leads?
One thing we can be certain of, a professional outsourced SDR team will always be up and running much sooner than hiring an internal SDR team, at a fraction of the cost. Think about it and maybe test some strategies before you go all in.
Our Sales Development Representatives become part of your team and get to know your business. They are working your hours, helping your business thrive and grow. Book a meeting with Quantanite today and see how SDR outsourcing can help your ROI and save you money.
