New Article:  Beginner’s Guide to Sales Outsourcing

For those of you who may be new to sales outsourcing, this article will introduce sales outsourcing and related terms.

What is sales outsourcing?

Sales outsourcing is the act of delegating a portion of the sales functions to a third party.

Why would a company outsource?

Many companies outsource the legwork of sales because it is efficient and cost effective. They may have limited sales resources and the sales team simply cannot reach all potential new customers. They use our services so that they can increase their company growth and achieve financial goals. They choose to outsource the cold calling and prospecting to a third party since prospecting is our specialty. Our staff is fully trained in the techniques of cold calling, lead generation, and inside sales.

What is prospecting?

Prospecting is the process of locating potential customers. Our methods involve contacting your potential customers via telephone (cold calling), determining if they have a need for your product or service, and assessing if they are qualified.

What is cold calling?

Cold calling simply means contacting businesses or governmental agencies on your behalf without a prompt or request from that contact. We simply have a listing/database of entities that are within your target market (demographics) and contact them to ascertain their interest in your product or service. The result of cold calling is locating potential customers for you and setting an appointment for your sales staff or generating a lead for your sales staff.

What are demographics?

Demographics are used to define your target market. There are certain characteristics that make a business or entity more likely to use your product or service. We apply characteristics of your target market to select the best possible list for your database. By narrowing the list based upon demographics, we are able to contact the entities that are most likely to result in an appointment or lead and a profitable sale for you.

There are over 12 million businesses in the United States. To narrow that down to a manageable list, we can use any of the following factors:

• Geographical location - We can develop a list based upon the state, county, metro area, city, or zip code.

• SIC (standard industry classification) codes - An SIC code indicates the type of services or products that the entity offers. For example, if your product or service is normally sold to governmental agencies or software companies or auto mechanics, we can gather a list of governmental entities or software companies or auto mechanics based upon specific SIC codes.

• Number of employees. If your product or service is best suited for a specific size of company, we can further narrow the list based upon the number of employees. For example, we might wish to contact companies or entities that have less than 100 employees.

Demographics allow us to contact entities that are most likely to purchase your product or service. Careful selection of demographics maximizes the results of your sales outsourcing program. We will contact those entities on your behalf to determine if they are qualified and to generate an appointment or lead for your sales staff.

What does qualified mean?

When we establish your program, we will develop a list of qualifying and probing questions. Qualifying questions allow us to quickly determine if an appointment or lead would be beneficial to your company or if the prospect should be dismissed. Qualifying questions result in quality appointments and leads and the most effective usage of our services.

Probing questions allow us to gather valuable information so that your sales staff can use a sales approach that focuses on the customer’s needs or situation. The sales rep. will have vital information prior to the presentation, so that they can prepare. Probing questions result in increased closing rates and increased sales.

Although the questions utilized will be unique to your business and industry, the following example will illustrate the importance of these questions.

Let’s assume Jones Fleet Company offers automotive maintenance for fleet vehicles. Questions might include:

How many vehicles do you own? Jones Fleet Company requires that its customers have 10 or more vehicles or may have found that entities with less than 10 vehicles are not profitable.

What is the average age of your fleet? Jones Fleet Company has determined through past experience that fleets with an average age of one year simply do not provide enough work for them to make the contract profitable.

Do you currently outsource your fleet maintenance or is that completed in house? If they are currently outsourcing, the sales rep may need to focus on why their company is better than the competition. If they are maintaining their fleet in house, the sales representative may need to focus on why outsourcing fleet maintenance is more cost effective than maintaining the fleet in house.

How can you help my business?

We can use all of the above elements to locate potential customers for you. We will increase your sales and revenues by bringing qualified appointments or leads to your sales staff. We will act as your inside sales team, so that your outside sales team can utilize their time wisely in closing and negotiating rather than cold calling and researching. We work in conjunction with your staff and complete the legwork in governmental and business sales. TOGETHER, we can increase your revenues and the over-all success of your company.

You are more than welcome to contact us at any time. We can begin your program in a matter of days and assist you in achieving your sales and revenue goals.