The misconception that building an internal team of sales development reps gives you more control and costs less is widespread. In-house tele-prospecting costs more than outsourcing and by outsourcing you can find superior services (however, you must be careful because there is a lot of mediocrity in the lead generation space).

What marketing and sales executives who object to partnering with a specialized firm fail to add up are all the costs of establishing an inside team. They account for labor, commissions and benefits, certainly. But usually they aren’t considering the bigger picture, one that’s chock full of hidden expenses. Equipment, overhead, management and administration need their space on the spreadsheet. So too do the costs associated with turnover, including rehiring, retraining, and lack of productivity when a position is vacant.

On the productivity side, most insourced units fall short of professional outsourced services:

1. Too much or not enough research: If research is cutting in to the time to make outbound dials per day (the target should be 80) you are doing too much of it. If the environment calls for “grip it and rip it” (calling without research) then most of those calls will be wasted.
2. Lack of a consistent cadence: There is a precise cadence (combination of dials, voicemails and emails and in some cases direct mail) that is a fit for every situation. Not leaving voicemails and/or not sending emails is a huge mistake. Close to one half of all leads we generate for clients are the result of a voicemail or email response or what we call a scheduled call (as part of the cadence – let me know if you want to discuss).
3. Too many emails and not enough dials: It is not unusual to find inside sales teams are making 50 – 60 touches per day, but most of them are email touches and there are very few dials. This results in too few conversations, little relationship-building and an unpredictable stream of positive outcomes.
4. A poor “script”: Prospects don’t want to be tricked. They don’t want to hear a rote message either. They value quality conversations from people who know what they’re talking about and want to help. And, they want to hear from your throughout the buying process – NOT 57% – 78% of the way through the buying process as some would have you believe (see this interview for more). A call-flow coupled with cadence gets the job done.
5. Inefficient / ineffective nurturing: Nurturing can triple the return on every marketing investment (see this blog for more). Taking the time to continue conversations with qualified targets even if the times not right for them (yet) to buy is well worth the effort.

Use this tool to calculate the cost of an internal team vs. the cost of outsourcing to a specialist. Then look at the productivity gains possible using a best practice, outsourced solution.

Here are three of our most popular blogs in 2018 so far: 

How Much Should a Sales Lead Cost

What Should the Sales Close Rate Be

Lead Development: Turning Raw Leads into Opportunities