In-house vs Outsourced Sales: What To Consider?

How do you decide who’s on your sales team?

Your sales team can make or break your business. After all, if you don’t have enough sales, you don’t have a business at all!

As a result, many companies feel like they have to keep their sales team in-house. After all, it’s important to have solid control over your key assets. But is that the truth?

Outsourcing your sales process can give you access to a more effective team for less money, saving you both time and cash. That means that every sale makes you even more profitable.

What should you consider when deciding between in-house and outsourced sales? Let’s take a look.

Cost

Many people look to sales outsourcing as a cost-cutting step. When outsourcing is less expensive than running an in-house team but delivers excellent results, your profit margin increases.

While it may cost more to outsource than it would per hour to pay employees, you’re not responsible for recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and managing staff. You also don’t have to worry about benefits, taxes, and maintaining software.

As a result, the overall cost is generally lower when you outsource your sales team. However, it’s only cost-effective if you’re aware of how many hours are being dedicated to your account each month. You want to make sure you get the attention you need to drive the right results.

Expertise in Your Industry

When you choose an in-house sales team, you can train your staff to know your products or services inside and out. Eventually, you’ll have experts that know your company’s story and can share the benefits with your ideal customers with great precision. That means that an in-house team may perform better in this area over time than an outsourced sales provider.

However, that assumes that you can train your sales team well and retain them over a period of time. Sales teams, especially outbound sales, are known for having high turnover.

An outsourcing partner can take what they’ve learned from working with similar clients and apply those best practices to your sales project. They also provide ongoing training and maintain their staff without additional investment from you. Be sure to interview your potential outsourcing partner about how they train staff to increase productivity, so that you’re comfortable with their expertise.

Time Investment

Outsourcing can save your business a lot of time, but only if you have the right provider.

If you want your sales team to be effective, it’s best to have staff that only does outbound sales. An account manager or other employee dividing their time between existing customers and sales activities is not as successful at sales as a dedicated staff member.

Once you dedicate those employees, you get 100% of their time focused on making sales for your business. Not all of that will be talking to leads — they may need to develop scripts and lead lists as well, so think about how much actual sales time you’re getting.

Don’t just think about the sales staff either — if you have an in-house team you’ll need dedicated management to oversee it, which builds in additional hours that don’t lead directly to sales.

Outsourced sales gives you immediate access to a large team, but you only get a portion of their time. However, you’ll get a strategic manager, sales specialists, and administrative support. How does that compare to what you can create in-house?

Systems

When you have an in-house sales team, you have to create all the systems to support their success from scratch. If your business leaders don’t know how to do that, you may waste a great deal of time and money without getting good results.

On the other hand, outbound sales services already have systems in place and can move quickly to bring you results. A good sales partner will show proven results in your industry and already have the tools and infrastructure necessary to succeed.

This factor is often one of the biggest deciding factors in whether you use in-house or outsourced sales.

Accountability for Results

You might think that the best accountability would come from having an in-house team, but that’s not actually the case.

If you have an in-house sales department, you’ll know your results quickly and it will be easy to track what’s going on if you invest in the right software solutions. However, it’s difficult to make significant changes if things aren’t going well. Changes to current processes can be hard to sell, and you may not know the necessary shifts.

On the other hand, if you work with the right outsourced sales team, you still get access to your results and metrics. The big difference is that if you’re not getting the sales you need to grow, you can cut ties with the provider and move on to someone else that has a better return on your investment.

That means that your outsourcing partner is very motivated to get you what you need. They will be cutting edge with new strategies, software, and training practices to get great results. If it doesn’t work out, you can find another provider without having to worry about managing a change process and get buy-in from your in-house employees.

Should You Outsource or Keep Things In-House?

There’s a lot to think about when you’re evaluating your sales team and process. However, for many companies outsourcing with the right partner provides significant benefits.

Only you know what’s right for your company, but considering each of these factors will put you on course to make the correct decision for your business.

Michael is a writer & content strategist. His main areas of expertise are business growth & sales. He loves traveling, delicious food and cars.