Should You Trust Another Company With Your Livelihood?
You might be considering outsourced B2B sales development to help grow your company. Appointment setting firms can be beneficial but there are risks to be aware of.
Risks of Outsourcing Sales Development
1. Quantity Over Quality
Firms that take on outbound prospecting or sales development for B2B companies are often incentivized to achieve quantity rather than quality.
Many appointment setting firms are trying to use AI to set appointments and get qualified sales meetings. This technology can be helpful but there is a long way to go before AI can start setting quality sales meetings.
Even if it’s a human doing the job, it’s tough to control quality when setting initial sales appointments. It takes some digging to determine whether or not it might be an optimal time for a prospect to meet with an AE. External partners seldom have an incentive to go the extra mile in qualifying since they get paid per lead or appointment set.
Many companies will still provide quality work however, if the choice is between quantity and quality, a firm getting paid on the number of meetings being set will always choose quantity.
2. You’re Training Another Team, Not Yours
There are many nuances to sales development. Different verticals and prospect personas react differently to outreach methods or messaging.
When you outsource your sales process and prospecting function, someone else that is not part of your company is learning all of these nuances. An external firm will have the knowledge on effective messaging and outreach strategy for your solutions.
This is the sort of knowledge that you need to hone internally with your own sales team. In the short term, it may not seem like a huge loss but what about when you have to build your own SDR team? Sales teams that have outsourced their prospecting activities will have to start from nothing since no one within the organization has built the institutional knowledge needed to develop a team.
An alternative to outsourcing your SDR function is to invest in your own team and build the function internally. Training your team and establishing a sales development process internally has long lasting benefits.
Invest in your team instead.
Benefits of Training and Investing in Your Own Sales Team
Better Quality Leads
SDRs working for your company have a greater incentive to see deals get closed. There are many ways to accomplish this.
Sales leaders could pay SDRs commissions on deals that close as a result of their initial meetings.
SDRs could be measured on close rates, not just on the number of appointments set.
These sorts of structures make it so that SDRs at your company care about the quality of meetings they pass on to the AEs. They will dig deeper and qualify more to ensure that the meeting is a good use of time for both parties. It’s hard to have this level of accountability with external partners.
Training Costs Less
The cost of training a person that is already on your team is usually less than the cost of even a single meeting set by an outside firm. If you are working with the firm for a long time, the cost of hiring a new person and training them for your own team might still be cheaper.
While hiring a person and developing them might seem like a high cost, in the long term it tends to have a much higher return on investment than working with an outside partner for your prospecting needs.
On top of the up-front cost of working with an outside partner, there are also hidden costs like not being able to build your own internal process, messaging and overall institutional knowledge. Building your own team has a higher ROI specifically because there are significant institutional benefits in the long term.
Build a Strong Culture and a Talent Pipeline
When you build and train your own team, you are also building a talent pipeline. SDR roles are often entry level. Many will stay in sales and could be your future AEs or Sales Managers.
The SDR job is also a great way to get introduced to the company so some of your SDRs may go on to roles beyond the sales team. Either way, you have a built in pipeline of talent that can be groomed and given opportunities to grow within your organization.
This sort of hiring structure where people are promoted internally also leads to longer tenure and a very strong sense of culture. If you have sales reps that started as SDRs and worked their way up, it makes it easier to establish a culture of mentorship and coaching. These are the hallmarks of a great sales culture.
Benefits of Training and Investing In Your Own Sales Team
Better Quality Leads
SDRs working for your company have a greater incentive to see deals get closed. There are many ways to accomplish this.
Sales leaders could pay SDRs commissions on deals that close as a result of their initial meetings.
SDRs could be measured on close rates, not just on the number of appointments set.
These sorts of structures make it so that SDRs at your company care about the quality of meetings they pass on to the AEs. They will dig deeper and qualify more to ensure that the meeting is a good use of time for both parties. It’s hard to have this level of accountability with external partners.
Training Costs Less
The cost of training a person that is already on your team is usually less than the cost of even a single meeting set by an outside firm. If you are working with the firm for a long time, the cost of hiring a new person and training them for your own team might still be cheaper.
While hiring a person and developing them might seem like a high cost, in the long term it tends to have a much higher return on investment than working with an outside partner for your prospecting needs.
On top of the up-front cost of working with an outside partner, there are also hidden costs like not being able to build your own internal process, messaging and overall institutional knowledge. Building your own team has a higher ROI specifically because there are significant institutional benefits in the long term.
Build a Strong Culture and a Talent Pipeline
When you build and train your own team, you are also building a talent pipeline. SDR tends to be an entry level job. Many will stay in sales and could be your future AEs or Sales Managers.
The SDR job is also a great way to get introduced to the company so some of your SDRs may go on to roles beyond the sales team. Either way, you have a built in pipeline of talent that can be groomed and given opportunities to grow within your organization.
This sort of hiring structure where people are promoted internally also leads to longer tenure and a very strong sense of culture. If you have sales reps that started as SDRs and worked their way up, it makes it easier to establish a culture of mentorship and coaching. These are the hallmarks of a great sales culture.
Building a Strong Sales Development Team
You don’t have to outsource your sales development function. While it may seem challenging, it is possible to get your sales development function up and running. In the long term, it will allow you to refine your internal process and build a strong sales culture.
Schedule a free consultation call with us to get insights on how you can successfully build your own sales development team internally.
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