How to balance Sales Growth Plus Manage Staff and Costs in Tough Times

Nicole Holmes, Director - Alita Sales

The Head of Sales in a Business is often facing multiple competing challenges such as:

• Finding a balance between internal strategic direction and investment vs immediate revenue and profit targets;
• Managing external Customer and/or Distributor needs and expectations;
• Leading Sales Team recruitment, remuneration, training, motivation, performance, and retention to meet these internal and external demands.

One obvious solution to this problem would be for the Head of Sales to outsource the Sales Team and be able to focus on the high-level challenges of, strategic direction, internal targets key customer and/or distributor satisfaction.

In fact, outsourcing is very common on many businesses, with over 70% of business outsourcing a wide range of functions typically in areas like IT, Legal, Accounting and even HR, however it is less common in Sales.

Often times, Sales can be seen as an area that can’t be outsourced because:

• A Head of Sales that manages a contract Sales Team may be perceived by the CEO and Board as less capable/valuable as the Head of Sales that manages an internal sales team;
• Outsourcing a Sales Team will cost more;
• There is a fear of “loss of control” with a contract sales team.

Here are six compelling reasons to rethink why sales can be successfully outsourced to a Professional contract Sales Team:

1. Strategic Business Intelligence and Ideas

The Head of Sales needs to challenge the businesses with new ideas. By drawing on the sector-wide business intelligence information provided by an effective Contract Sales partner they can identify new market opportunities and provide the strategic direction the Business needs.

2. Established relationships = Faster Results

A professional outsourced Sales Team will bring a wide variety of contacts and relationships that can be leveraged to deliver faster results. While recruiting new Sales Team members often means either overpaying for someone that brings his or her individual contacts that may or may not be “real” or a new hire with limited contacts that takes time to build new relationships.

3. Increased coverage

Growing a customer base in different industries or geographic areas to maximum potential when you only have a limited range of products, longer call cycles and a fixed budget if difficult. While an outsourced team allows the is likely calling on a wide variety of customers in the market already, allowing for quicker distribution penetration of your products.

4. Lower overheads

Large sales teams generally mean large overheads. Cars/Car Allowances, Laptops, Office Space, Home Office Allowances, Travel expenses, Phones etc can add up quickly. Often for the similar cost of hiring one senior salesperson a company can get access to a team of outsourced sales professionals.

5. Elimination of Fixed Costs

With an outsourced sales solution, companies don’t have the fixed costs of payroll, superannuation, workers comp, incentives, and benefits programs, which reduces cost of sales. Companies only pay only for the services delivered by the outsources sales team

6. Reduced Company overheads

Sales Team overheads like Cars/Car Allowances, Laptops, Office Space, Home Office Allowances, Travel expenses, Phones etc can add up quickly. Often for a similar cost of hiring one senior salesperson a company can get access to a team of outsourced sales professionals.