The Complete Buyer’s Guide for Outbound Managed Services

As sales processes become increasingly complicated, more companies are opting for outbound managed services. They are looking to increase the number of leads in their sales pipelines as well as improve their ROI. Other goals include reporting improvement and freeing time for the in-house team to run other tasks.

Despite the growing interest in outbound managed services, many companies still experience difficulties in choosing a competent provider. To help them, CIENCE has collected and summarized the best practices in a comprehensive Lead Gen Managed Services Buying Guide.

You can download it here.

Why does my company need outbound managed services?

Some firms still hesitate if outbound managed services are a good option for them. We’ve prepared a list of reasons that would make you the right candidate for these services.

1. Sales Changed

Several significant developments influenced and reformed the modern selling process in the B2B model. First of all, the process has become much longer than before. There’s an increase of decision-makers, and it’s more complicated than ever to reach them. Second, modern buyers like a personalized approach. They expect sellers to study their company and product as well as to understand their pain points.

As a result, a sales process starts with creating buyer personas and searching for quality leads. It continues with the segmentation of the prospect pool and creating personalized messages. Next comes the stage of contacting prospects and appointment setting via email and phone calls. Finally, it ends with negotiations and deals closing.

One person can’t cover the entire sales pipeline because it’s too long and requires various skills. For example, an efficient researcher is scrupulous and process-oriented. Meanwhile, a successful SDR is a stress-resistant, persistent, and persuasive communicator. A copywriter has excellent writing and storytelling skills.

What’s the main takeaway from the above information?

A productive sales team needs at least five different positions to generate quality leads and close deals. Depending on turnover and the development stage of the company, the number of SDRs alone can reach up to 15 people. As a result, it influences several essential aspects of the sales team’s performance:

a. The cost of one lead is very high.
b. The management of a prospecting team is time-consuming.

2. Tenure vs. SDR Roles

According to Sales Development Metrics and Compensation Research 2016 by The Bridge Group, the tenure of SDRs has shortened to 11.2 months. Furthermore, less than one-fourth of this time they spend ramping up. In addition to that, most of the currently employed sales reps have less than one year of experience.

What’s the main takeaway from the above information?

Young aspiring people perceive an SDR position as an easy way to join a sales team. For them, outbound prospecting is a launchpad for quick career promotion. As a result:

a. The lack of expertise influences the quality of performance.
b. A company wastes resources to onboard and teach salespeople who don’t have long-term goals with the company

3. Underestimated Research

Successful outbound prospecting depends heavily on the quality leads, i.e., the prospects that fit your buyer persona. To get them, a company needs an adept researcher in their sales team. Merely buying a list of contacts can negatively impact the work of your SDRs severely.

Why? You’ll get a high bounce rate. Plus, these lists will contain many companies that aren’t a good fit for your business. Finally, a fair percentage of people on these lists will have already left the position or gotten a promotion.

However, many companies opt to save money on researcher positions. Many companies view the decision as too costly because they imagine a full-time employee who would spend days digging the Internet in search of companies and contacts. After all, finding excellent full-time researchers is difficult since research can be a rather dull job with limited career growth.

What’s the main takeaway from the above information?

Companies buy low-quality contact lists. As a result, they get:

1. Poor quality of leads, which causes frustration of sales development reps and their managers.
2. Bad sales results and few closed deals.

4. Management is getting more complex

The specialization within a sales team is growing because it’s the global trend in labor. Apart from that, the selling process is getting longer and has more stages. The number of decision-makers has increased. Thus, what was once made by one person is run by many today.

Though numerous companies still fall behind, successful businesses try to distribute the tasks along the sales pipeline among different employees. As a result, it affects management. It’s challenging to organize and supervise several people working at various stages of one seamless process.

What’s the main takeaway from the above information?

Teams are growing, and many employees require a lot of attention from a manager. As a result:

1. The heads of sales teams have to spend time on ruling people rather than on analysis and strategic planning.
2. The organization has to hire even more managers to succeed.

With the above said, outbound managed services look like an excellent alternative to running an internal team of SDRs, researchers, and managers. Expert providers organize the whole process on their own. In addition to that, they have employees that stay in the sales rep position for several years.

8 Advantages of B2B Outbound Managed Services

1. Cost and ROI

Cutting expenses is the number one reason why businesses decide to outsource some of their processes. Companies can save costs on managerial work.

2. Time

The time your managers spend on hiring, training, controlling, assigning tasks, giving feedback, communication, supervision, and motivation of your sales development reps is expensive. It’s called a salary. Take this precious resource back and invest it in solving complex problems, planning, and achieving strategic tasks.

3. Outside Perspective

Sometimes it’s hard to step back and get the big picture. However, when you entrust the management of your outbound prospecting to a third party, you will get a chance to obtain valuable feedback. A fresh pair of eyes can see what you’ve been missing about your company, product or service as well as your potential customers. Take advantage of it.

4. Learning Opportunity

Find an outbound managed services provider that has worked with companies in your sector, and you will also get an educator. The experience your provider has in your field will help the company grow. Ask as many questions as possible. Listen to advice and get their valuable insights.

5. Excellent Reporting

An expert outbound prospecting company will always provide comprehensive reporting to its clients. You should know the number of leads found, the number of emails sent, and the number of phone calls made. In addition to that, you will get open, response, and conversion rates. Finally, you will see a full record of responses from your potential client, which means you’ll gain great insights into your market.

6. Quality Leads

We’ve explained above how necessary quality research is for a good list of contacts. What we didn’t mention is the volume of information needed for each prospect to start a meaningful conversation. The buyers expect significant personalization. You’ll need more than a name to catch their attention. When SDRs talk to a prospect, they need to take advantage of the data on the Internet.

7. Efficient Management

Managers of outbound prospecting providers might have several projects at a time. It enables them to reduce the cost of their work for each client while keeping the quality. Furthermore, it’s our sincere belief that working on various projects allows a manager to learn, grow, and be flexible.

8. Additional Value

Few people think of additional value when they choose to outsource. Anyone working is sales development knows how vital it is to see the pain points of a partner and be able to bring a solution. Good SDR’s will search for the value of the product they represent in the first place.

10 Questions to ask your Outbound Managed Services Provider, outlined in detail in our Buying Guide:

1. Research
2. Industry Specialization
3. Ramping
4. Communication
5. Flexibility
6. Channels
7. Reporting
8. Cost
9. ROI assessment
10. Motivation

Learn more about the questions you need to ask the provider in CIENCE Lead Gen Managed Services Buying Guide.

While there are many providers of outbound managed services, it might seem hard to find a good one. However, we hope that this guide will help you make the right choice and enjoy the advantages of outsourcing.