How Will Outsourcing Your B2B Lead Generation Boost Your Sales?

5 Reasons to Outsource B2B Sales and B2B Lead Generation

B2B sales is a complex process made of

• prospecting
• approaching
• qualifying
• presenting
• handling objections
• closing
• follow-up

B2B sales involve more than a team of sales representatives who work with b2b databases and create sales pipelines. To have excellent sales numbers, a business will need a strong team of marketers who will prospect the Internet landscape, learn ideal customer profiles, create relevant content, build brand awareness, and set up a well-functioning marketing system. Both teams – marketing and sales – are to conduct some aspects of b2b lead generation. Marketers are responsible for nurturing leads while sales reps source and engage with prospects and set appointments. Using different methods and processes, each team aligns its efforts with the other one to achieve a single goal of growing revenue and building customer loyalty

Not all businesses, however, can afford employing both marketing and sales teams. We all know what marketing and sales includes and understand that each element can be outsourced to a third party. Cold calls. Outbound email campaigning. Telemarketing. Content marketing. Social telling. Any lead generation technique can be outsourced. But should it be? To outsource any part of your business, you will have to share your email leads and sales leads, give access to your b2b databases, and even get vulnerable to some negative image issues, if the third party will mistreat your trust. Not to mention costs and expenses you will have. So, will outsourcing b2b lead generation services bring the greatest benefit to a business or not?

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I Have a Strong Lead Generator? What Else Do I Need?

We all know that no sales is possible without a healthy and steady sales pipeline. And most probably you have solid lead generators in place, right? Engaging and trustworthy content both on your business’s website and social media. Informative ebooks ready to download. Insightful webinars and saving-your-time checklists. But even if you are able to ensure diversity in your lead generation efforts – not only how-to articles and case studies but also podcasts and infographics and social media posts – you may find your teams struggle to retain existing customers and expand your business. Attracting new b2b leads is not that difficult. However, making the most of your lead generation efforts can spread your sales teams too thin.

Essentially, it doesn’t matter how large your business is. It is a myth that only startups and smaller companies benefit from outsourcing the legwork of lead generation. If sales outsourcing saves time, effort, and money, large-scale businesses must benefit from it too. When a company is large and has many units to manage, it makes all the more sense not to strain its inner resources and opt for a more predictable and reliable variant. Outsourcing b2b lead generation services when launching a new product or breathing into a new market is a reasonable thing to do and here’s a list of reasons why.

5 Reasons to Outsource Your Sales Cycle

Essentially, it is possible to find a number of reasons to outsource each or all steps of the common b2b sales cycle. From lack of expertise and databases to cost efficiency and budget considerations, many companies opt for sales outsourcing because they see unequivocal benefits in third-party lead generation services. See for yourself:

Reason 1: A Cost-Effective Way of Using Your Budget

Costs can be named as the one and only reason to opt for sales outsourcing because all business decisions account for costs and expenses. Having an inside sales team requires substantial expense not only for software, tools, and supplies (more on this aspect of lead generation in Reason 3). Most importantly, effective lead generation and impressive sales numbers will require a business to have trained and competent personnel. For many businesses it is cheaper to switch to a professional lead generation agency than to have several new hires to shoulder an increased workload.

Recruiting, hiring and training can be too costly for companies of a smaller size or when breaking into a new market. If your company already has an inside sales team, skip to the next point. However, if you are contemplating hiring at least one person, make sure you have a breakdown of the costs and expenses for your new project to compare it to sales outsourcing. Simply compare the salaries and benefits you will pay to all your sales reps and the cost of outsourcing a sales team from a third-party company. You still can outsource sales if your in-house sales team lacks experience. The skills and ways of working of a third-party lead generation company you decide to hire will rub off on your sales reps.

Furthermore, not only human resources will cost you money. No lead generation efforts are successful without data. Organic growth of your company’s database will take ages whereas a third-party lead generation partner will deliver their gorgeous data resources as part of the deal. Mind you, b2b data isn’t cheap. Instead of casting lines and waiting for cold leads to drop into the funnel, use a sure-fire way to bring warm and hot leads to you.

Reason 2: A Time-Saving Way of Achieving Your Sales Goals

Putting together a team of qualified sales reps and marketers will take you not less than 1,000 hours that go into all hiring activities. Add training hours and multiply by a number of employees you need in the marketing and sales team. Instead of spending your time (or the time of your HRs) scouting the web and combing LinkedIn profiles in search of sales talent, let youself invest your time into pursuing your business goals. If a team of outsourced professionals is able to fork out email addresses of hot leads, you can in the meantime focus your attention on the product quality, distribution networks, transportation, and all the other issues closely related to your business’s success.

Besides, if your choice is a top-of-the-line agency, a close alignment with your company’s goals is guaranteed. Professionals in lead generation get in close contact with a business’s processes and prefer to work aligned with your in-house employees.

Reason 3: A Tech-Savvy Way of Winning More B2B Leads

Lead generation is impossible without technology. From web form software and social media marketing tools to CRM and web analytics, top-end technological solutions are the bread and butter of lead generation. Some may say it is possible to have great results with available free options. True, there are many information technology systems, like Hubspot, Salesforce, Wix, Google and whatnot, that give away loads of materials and products for free. However, for top-notch lead generation you will need functions that cost a fee. In the long run, the cost of buying and maintaining such technological solutions will cost you an arm and leg a year. It’s not just a one-time purchase. Today’s software and technology requires regular upgrading and replacing, not to mention the cost of licensing and installing.

Referred to as ‘martech stack’, a typical collection of technologies for marketing and sales will include:

CRM Software is a cornerstone of lead generation because it offers marketing and sales automation, tracks customer interactions and manages customer data (Hubspot, Oracle, Salesforce, SugarCRM)

Email Marketing services to create and share emails and newsletters and track customer engagements (Mailchimp, Hubspot, Salespeople)

Social Media Marketing tools to work on brand awareness and engagement through social media posts and interactions (Buffer, Hootsuite, PicMonkey).

Web Content Management software to allow multiple contributors to create, edit, publish, and manage content (WordPress, Mailchimp, Hubspot, Drupal)

Marketing Automation Platform to automate marketing processes, gather customer information, put together customer profiles, and integrate with your email and social media (Marketo, Pardot, and SharpSpring)

Sales Automation to automate lead research, standardize the sales process, and provide analytics (Reply.io, Outreach).

Web Analytics to have analytics separately your marketing automation platform (Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, Kissmetrics)

Landing Pages Software to create web form content and run A/B testing (Wix, Leadpages, Unbounce)

Ad Tech to create and track paid advertising to generate additional traffic (Google Ads, Google AdSense, and DemandBase)

Chat Solutions to provide customer support in real-time (Intercom, Drift, LivePerson)

Webinar Software to create high-quality webinars because webinars are a reputable lead generator (GoToWebinar, Zoom, WebEx).

Opting for top-quality technology you get not only lead generation but also high conversion rates and high-quality lead nurturing and closing.

Reason 4: A Scalable Strategy

The resources we already discussed earlier – budgeting, technology, data, workforce – are key to your success. Organic growth happens steadily – you earn today a bit more than yesterday and spend it on more personnel and better technology and eventually your revenue grows too. You can’t grow more than your resources will allow you. However, if you factor in the money, time, and workforce you can save by outsourcing your lead generation and sales, you will see that you can scale up your business faster. Just imagine that through a third-party lead generation partner you get access to millions of hot b2b leads. While the lead generation agency quickly sieves through all their b2b contacts and data (due to their experience and team forces), you get high-qualified leads ready to close deals as fast as your sales reps can pull it off.

Furthermore, when you have a new project on your hands, managing multiple departments is a challenge. Manage one-two departments fewer than usual and now you have more breathing space and a clear head to come up with new management ideas and better solutions.

101. outsourcing lead generation gives businesses more flexibility. It is difficult to scale teams in large enterprises. However, sales outsourcing allows a business to choose a project management model they feel they need at the moment. Any moment a client can scale up or down the number of outsourced lead generation employees involved in their project.

Reason 5: A Simple Way to Measure ROI

When you calculate ROI, you need to know how much you invest and how much you expect to make. With your in-house sales team, the figures you have are more or less approximate. Meanwhile, an outsourced lead generation agency can provide you with high-quality research and data that will affect your ROI in addition to a clear-cut figure for investments. A good b2b lead generation agency has already worked with multiple clients and has reliable data on which niches work best, which markets respond how, and even how to strategize against competitors. If you choose a good lead generation company, it will provide valid and trustworthy data to estimate your ROI with a great deal of certainty.

A Bonus Reason: Effective Way to Prevent Your Teams from Burnout

One of the most common pieces of advice to protect your sales team from burnout is to remove low-value, boring work. And for good sales reps lead generation at its core is boring because they are trained to sell hard. You can see steam coming out of their ears, so much they want to sell. However, they have to prospect and qualify and woo leads. It’s tiring and miserable and takes a lot of time. Eventually, you can check and see that your hard-core sales reps are incredible at closing deals yet they slow down when they do lead generation. What should you do them? Outsource the legwork of lead generation and let your teams do the jobs they are specialized in.

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So, Should You Outsource Sales?

After you factor in the costs and expenses on workforce, technology, data as well as the expected ROI, see if outsourcing lead generation is a viable option for you. If using third-party lead generation services frees up your time to improve other business processes, the answer is obvious. Create an exceptional b2b sales experience for your clients by outsourcing your lead generation and sales. At Belkins, we have years of lead generation and appointment setting experience and we are ready to lift the weight of lead generation off your shoulders