Startup businesses are incredibly difficult to grow, especially at first when you’re strapped for funding. But you need to have a sales team to grow at all. It’s sort of a catch-22 because you need money to hire a sales team to help you make money. Fortunately, startup sales outsourcing offers a cost-effective solution to this conundrum. You will save money by not hiring a full-time, in-house sales team, but you’ll get the same, if not better, results. Here are four tips to get you started on your outsourced sales efforts.
Tip #1: Carefully Select Your Outsourcing Partner
This tip cannot be stressed enough. You must take time to research your outsourcing partner to ensure they align with your company’s values and goals before you leap into outsourced sales. There are many outsourcing companies out there, but not all of them will have the experience in your field that you need so that you can trust them with your sales process. Choose a company that has past experience with products or services similar to yours and that can demonstrate a track record of success with those products or services.
Tip #2: Define and Clearly Communicate Your Company’s Goals
Just hiring an outsourced sales team isn’t enough to guarantee success. You need to make sure you’ve defined and clearly communicated your company’s goals to your outsourcing partner. If you haven’t already taken the time to define your goals for yourself, don’t hire an outsourcing company to handle your sales until you do. Otherwise, you won’t be able to measure your team’s success (or lack thereof) against what you hope to gain by outsourcing your sales process.
Tip #3: Consider New Ideas
If you’ve been in business for a while, you can get stuck in a rut that prevents you from embracing innovative sales strategies. Even if you’re in the startup phase of a new company, your old habits can keep you from knowing how the sales landscape has changed. An outsourcing company will be familiar with various new tactics that have shown to be successful with your target audience. Don’t dismiss these ideas outright because they know what they’re doing. While you probably wear many hats in your company, your outsourcing partner only wears the salesperson hat. They are experts in what they do, so at least take time to consider their new ideas. You just might be surprised at how well they work.
Tip #4: Give Up Control Gradually
You don’t have to turn your entire sales process over to an outsourcing partner if you’re not ready to relinquish total control. After all, your startup is your baby and you may not have had to let go of any part of it until now. Fortunately, outsourcing companies can do everything from one small part of your sales process to handling the entire pipeline. Just need some help getting hot leads? They can do that. Want to focus on your LinkedIn presence and lead generation? No problem. As long as you’re clear on what you need, your partner can help.
Conclusion
As a startup, you are probably running in several different directions, and if sales isn’t your expertise, you could be stunting your company’s growth. Choosing to outsource your sales efforts can take that task off your plate, freeing you up to do what you do best: run your company.
