Sales outsourcing: Tips on managing your outsourced sales team
Outsourcing any team calls for exceptional management skills and prowess. From making sure that everyone is adjusting well to the workload to ensuring all communication is smooth.
Managing a team—be it an onsite team or otherwise—isn’t an easy feat but it’s not impossible either.
For example, a sales outsourcing team can have different responsibilities than the in-house department. Even if they have differences, sales managers still have to manage both teams without any biases.
What is sales outsourcing?
Sales outsourcing is the practice of offloading your company’s sales efforts onto an external service provider.
This means that the third-party organization will take care of all sales activities for you and your brand. From building relationships with customers to after-sales care and support, they’ll handle it all for you.
Another thing worth mentioning is that outsourced sales teams usually have their team manager who works alongside the onsite manager. This way, both teams are synchronized and are working towards the same goal.
When do you need sales outsourcing?
The exact “when” can vary from company to company. It’s a situation wherein you’ll know it when you’ll see it. But there are signs as to when you can start looking for an outsourcing service provider.
If your team needs a helping hand but expanding the team is too drastic of a change, maybe it’s time to look for an outsourcing agency that could help you out.
If you’re looking for a change in productivity, you might want to think about going for sales outsourcing.
Benefits of sales outsourcing
Like any other subsector of outsourcing, there are many benefits to offloading sales activities to external partners.
Outsourcing as a business model was developed to help organizations and businesses save resources while maintaining the high quality of products and services.
Further, here a some of the many benefits of sales outsourcing:
Lower overhead costs
As mentioned above, outsourcing was developed to assist in cost reduction. This practice isn’t inexpensive nor cheap, what it does is save companies money in the long run.
For instance, hiring an onsite sales representative can be expensive.
From sourcing candidates to hiring, onboarding, and training, you have to shell out financial resources to make sure that they are trained well before putting them on the production floor.
Whereas in outsourcing, you don’t have to hire anyone. Most outsourcing companies have an abundance of agents and employees ready to be deployed to your team. This is why they charge you per occupied seat.
Better workload-to-employee ratio
In any workplace, team managers have to place equal amounts of workload on an employee for two reasons:
- To avoid any kind of burnout
- To ensure that time-sensitive goals are met
When working with an outsourcing company, you could take off some responsibilities from your in-house team and delegate them to others. Proper delegation is key to a successful workplace.
Higher quality of work
In connection with better working conditions and task delegation, outsourcing sales can also mean a higher quality of work.
You could double up the numbers since you now have extra sets of hands to help with sales activities.
Managing your sales outsourcing department
To manage people is to trust them to do their work in a timely and appropriate manner.
Managing a sales outsourcing department may not be an easy task but it’s doable with their help and cooperation.
Communication is key
There are a plethora of workplace communication apps in the market right now. Especially that remote working is slowly becoming the norm right now.
Even if you are working in a shared space, communicating with your sales team is important.
Never withhold or exaggerate a message that is meant to be shared with the rest of the department. On the other hand, team members should feel safe to talk to their superiors about any issues or concerns arising in the workplace.
Cultivate a positive work culture
A positive workplace culture makes employees feel seen and validated and happy employees almost always deliver their best outputs.
Working with an external company can be a bit hectic, especially if the in-house team is already tight-knit. But there’s nothing that a warm, friendly, and professional workplace culture can’t fix.
Assign achievable goals
Goals that align with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) are often met with spectacular results.
Team managers, especially in the sales department, should always follow this formula when assigning milestones.
Incentivize milestones
Speaking of milestones, team members—both in-house and outsourced—should get incentives when they hit departmental targets.
Whether it’s in the form of cash incentives or a place on the Best Teammates wall, a job well done should always be met with positive energy.
Utilize tools and software
Another thing to consider when working with an outsourced sales team is that both teams have the same tools and software.
Encouraging everyone to fully utilize their tools will ensure that the processes are streamlined and outputs are of high quality and delivered timely.
Working with an outsourced team during the pandemic
Outsourcing departments took a dip in the first peak of the pandemic. With almost every other business closing down, reducing expenses, and workers, employees are rightfully concerned for their careers.
Managers and heads of departments had to work hard to bring order to the sudden changes they all went through.
From utilizing every remote collaboration app to staying upbeat, they had to work ten times harder to make everything work like it was before.
Working during a global pandemic has changed every professional in the field, with some still adjusting to the change and some going back to normal. We all can just hope that the worst is behind us.
Independent
