To achieve business growth when you sell products or services to other businesses, you must either find a way to increase the amount of each sale you make or determine a way to improve the overall amount of sales made. You can work with existing business clients for the former, but the other requires more outreach and effort in landing deals.
Unfortunately, finding the most successful new leads can be challenging for even the most seasoned sales representative. So if you have representatives that are struggling, don't just consider it a “them” problem. Maybe it's time to step up and outsource to ensure a more successful overall B2B sales team. Let's take a look at the primary stages of the B2B sales cycle and which of those stages might be best outsourced:
Analyzing the Primary Stages of the Sales Cycle
1. Initial Contact (Identify the right ICP and Buyer Personas)
Generally, the first stage of the sales cycle suggests you identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) and who the buyers' personas are within the companies (i.e. decision maker, business user, and influencer). This stage can not be outsourced because it's a company strategy that generates growth. Only you know the ICP and buyer persona who will benefit from your product or solution. To have a better understanding of a sales cycle, visit: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-cycle.
How your business connects with another company is incredibly important. First impressions are everything. Due to the fact that the initial contact will be the basis of how a potential client views your company and its value, you may not want to outsource this stage. Consider using internal sales representatives who are well-versed in the details of your products and services to be the ones chosen to give new clients a holistic introduction.
2. Lead Generation & Qualification (Reach and connect)
The initial contact can be outsourced to an appointment setting company using an outbound sales methodology and an account-based approach to deliver qualified meetings. Also, it can be outsourced to a marketing agency like yours using an inbound marketing methodology delivering marketing qualified leads or sales qualified leads. The main idea is to reach, attract, and convert the targeted audience from leads to prospects.
Here, a sales representative uses information taken from initial contact to create a lead profile that can be sent down the sales funnel.
However, as you know, some leads will be more valuable than others. Sifting out the best, most qualified leads and creating a tiered system is lead qualification. Lead qualification and sales prospecting recognize different prospects' pain points, helping them determine which sales tactics will be most effective for what leads.
Because B2B tech lead qualification doesn't generally include client-to-client conversations and is more focused on internal market research, this is a good part of the sales cycle to outsource to a more experienced lead qualification team.
You might also outsource part of the inbound marketing strategies to nurture leads to an inbound marketing company. Lead nurturing involves creating a targeted email series for specific leads that will answer pain points and deliver more information in the lead-up to the next big sales cycle stage. When ready, the outsourced team can also handle appointment setting for future sales meetings.
3. Big Offer Presentation
The extensive offer presentation step of the sales cycle should only be done when a lead has fully matured and is determined to be most receptive to the sale. Sales representatives should use what was learned about the client from the previous stages to tailor the messaging.
This stage of the business cycle is one that should not be handed off to an outsourced company because of its more intimate nature. Your sales representatives are going to be the ones most passionate here, the ones most excited about landing the sale and most knowledgeable about the company itself.
4. Overcoming Any Objections
Another reason to keep offering presentations in-house is that sales representatives will have more authority to react to any client's objections. Prospects may want a trial run, see your team members set up, or use a tech solution in their office before they agree to purchase.
5. Closing the Deal
Once objectives have been overcome and the lead is satisfied with the terms, this state of the sales cycle is second-to-last and most anticipated. This is when the deal has been officially closed. Again, this stage should be reserved for your sales representatives and not an outsourced business. After all, closing the deal is why you pay them the big bucks.
6. The Follow-Up
A successful company should never be just satisfied at pumping out products—especially not when you are offering more quality, higher-cost products or services. You want to think long-term, and for the long-term, you need satisfied customers who will advocate for the brand and help to build your business by offering referrals.
The follow-up should include asking for a review of the service and sales process as well as referral requests. This is a stage that can be outsourced as sometimes the best way to get an impartial review of ourselves is by not being the one collecting the responses.
When You Do Outsource, Choose the Best
Outsourcing parts of your sales cycle should not be something you do lightly. Even when choosing those less personal stages for it, you are asking a partner to represent your business. You thus want someone you can inherently trust—someone with experience in the sales process. Therefore, you need a partner who can provide you with the best prospecting practices and strong expertise in your chosen market.
Contact us today to learn about what we have done for other B2B tech companies just like yours and what we can do for you. We serve companies like yours every day to help them reach their goals when they outsource parts of their sales cycle. We want to listen to you talk about your goals, and the challenges you are facing to get there and provide you with a solution.
