We have several smaller companies working with us right now; Maybe only 3 or 5 employees in total and the founder doesn’t have a sales team yet.
And these founders aren’t really interested in sales because they don’t like doing lead generation.
This is totally okay because we know that not everyone enjoys looking for prospects.
Or even if you do enjoy prospecting, they might not have the time for it.
So if you don’t have a sales team underneath you yet, and you yourself don’t enjoy picking up the phone or drumming up your own leads; Hiring an outsourced sales team, or even a freelance SDR would be a great option.
But here is something to consider:
You may not want an agency or an outsourced sales team to be in charge of everything.
From lead generation to appointment setting to lead nurturing and then finally closing.
(Why? Because a fully-fledged b2b lead generation agency could cost a small fortune.)
Instead…
What we see a lot of our clients do, who happen to not have a sales team yet, is use Salesbread to help them address their first problem in sales, which is getting enough sales-qualified leads in the door.
We will then deliver those leads to the company for a number of months until they develop a process for closing these leads.
Once that happens, instead of needing to pay commissions and a large fee to an outsourced SDR agency, they can bring in a freelance salesperson to operate their lead generation efforts in-house.
This is a much less risky path toward building your first sales team, as opposed to starting with a full-fledged outsourced SDR agency that does everything for you.
Think about this first… Don’t hire any agency within the first 6 months.
Why?
Because you might think that you have an incredible product and have full confidence that it’s going to sell.
But what if you hire an agency, and your product/service doesn’t sell as well as you thought it would?
You could end up losing a ton of money.
“As a founder, you have to ensure that there is interest in your product, and you have to do this first. (Even if you hate cold calling or writing cold emails.)
You have to ensure that your product is sellable and that it’s something potential customers want and need.
It’s not someone else’s job, you have to make sure at least that there is some interest in the market for your product.”
If you wait at least 6 months before hiring a sales expert, you will have enough data to target the right prospects and see how well your new product is selling.
Why a fully-fledged agency that does everything isn’t a great choice for startups.
As a new founder, you want to use your money in the best way to boost your ROI. It doesn’t make sense to hire a fully-fledged sales agency that does it all. From lead generation to appointment setting to lead nurturing and then finally closing.
Yes…We get it.
Lead generation isn’t everyone’s favorite pastime, and you might not have the time to do it all.
But why spend thousands of dollars every month when you or an employee could do part of the lead generation strategy?
For example, maybe you enjoy closing deals, or perhaps you have someone on your team who is an awesome copywriter.
You could ask them to write some cold emails or Linkedin outreach messages to your ideal target audience.
The cost of hiring a full-service lead generation agency
If you do decide to hire a sales outsourcing company that does it all, you can expect to pay between $2000- $20 000 per month, depending on which company you choose. With the median being between $5000 – $15,000 per month.
Some appointment-setting agencies charge between $50 and $400 per booked appointment.
Most companies offer different services, with various packages to choose from.
Some might offer:
- Cold calling
- Cold email outreach
- Linkedin outreach
- Social media marketing/ inbound marketing
As well as appointment setting, lead nurturing, and closing.
Don’t hire an outsourced team that charges per lead
If you think paying per lead might be cheaper, think again.
It can become extremely expensive.
Certain industries also charge more per lead.
See below:
If an agency promises thousands of leads, and they end up sending you 500 random leads that aren’t sales qualified, for example, you could end up paying like $104 000 (if you’re in the tech industry.)
And the worst part, if these leads aren’t qualified, you could end up with many leads that don’t want to purchase your product/service, which means that you could end up with zero ROI.
For a new startup, this could spell financial disaster.
What about hiring a full-time sales rep or a freelancer at first?
Full-time sales rep
Hiring a full-time employee at first can be costly.
This is especially true if your business is new. You might not want to pay a sales representative just yet to figure out your sales strategy.
According to which state you live in, you can expect to pay a full-time sales rep between $6000 – $10 000 per month.
Note!
This excludes things such as:
- Benefits
- Office equipment
- Taxes
- Training material
- Internet
- Workman’s compensation, health insurance
- Coffee/Tea
- Lead generation tools
So all in all, you can add an extra $1,916 per month.
In total expect to pay a minimum of $76,065 per year for 1 sales rep.
Freelance sales rep
A freelancer will be much cheaper than hiring a full-time sales rep because you can hire them for however long you need.
As a business owner, you can expect to pay a freelancer between $20-$60 per consultation, or between $15-$25 per hour.
For an in-depth comparison between hiring an agency, or a freelancer read this article:
Why an outsourced sales team that focuses just on generating leads is a better INITIALLY
As we mentioned at the outset of this article, many companies hire Salesbread to solve their first problem in sales.
And that’s getting enough qualified leads into their sales pipeline.
Besides being more affordable than hiring a full-time employee or full house lead generation agency, a company like Salesbread has the experience to build ULTRA-SPECIFIC prospects lists.
Why is this important?
Because if you have a list of prospects who are super-defined, you are going to get many more leads in your sales funnel that convert and actually buy your product.
This means that you don’t have to waste time reaching out to prospects who might be a bad fit for your company.
An outsourced sales team that focuses solely on generating also has the experience to come up with a b2b sales strategy that works for your business.
Whether it’s writing highly personalized outreach messages, or sending follow-up messages to your prospects.
At Salesbread we take care of this for you.
This is our outreach strategy:
1. Build a list of sales-qualified prospects
We first ask our clients who have purchased from them within the past 6 months.
We will then look at this data and find common buying patterns between purchasers.
So for example:
- Which industry is buying from you? Is it tech companies, health, and wellness, or video production companies?
- Are they all located in the same area? USA, Europe? Or a specific state?
- Do they have a similar number of employees? 100-500? 10-20?
- Do they use a specific SaaS product or CRM tool?
- Is it the decision-maker that’s mainly buying from you?
We analyze all this data and compile a list of look-a-like businesses.
This process usually takes us an entire week to perfect.
Here is a video example of how we data:
2. Conduct prospect research and write ultra-personalized outreach messages
Next, we research each and every prospect on the list.
Why do we do this?
Because we are looking for little nuggets of information that we can use in our personalized messages.
You might be thinking that this will take ages to complete, but because our lists are so ultra-refined and targeted, we don’t have thousands of people to reach out to.
At Salesbread we would rather have a couple of hundred prospects that are the perfect fit than thousands of people who are unlikely to say yes to buying.
This is how we do it:
We either look at a person’s Linkedin profile or Google their name.
If you have a look at the above profile, remember CCQ.
This stands for:
- Compliment
- Commonalities
- Questions
So for example you could compliment this prospect on their post, or mention how you agree with them, which creates a commonality.
“Hey Jess. Thoroughly enjoyed your post on asking “dumb questions”. I remember asking XYZ once and was told by a former boss it was dumb. Would really like to connect with you.”
Do connection requests like these work?
Yes, they do.
At Salesbread we have a 45% connection request acceptance rate.
4. Follow up and ask for a sales meeting
We usually wait 3 days between each follow-up message.
If a prospect replies, great. You can reach out immediately.
But if they don’t reply straight away, wait 3 days, add even more personalization to the message and ask for a booked sales meeting.
Some sales teams are a bit nervous to ask for a meeting, but we have had great success with just being transparent and asking.
Here are some examples of follow-ups:
1. (first name) good to connect, By the way, congrats on your new role at (company name.)
2. Good to connect (first name). By the way, what are your favorite hiking spots these days? Saw you’re in charge of account management, do you also handle clip reports (to keep clients updated?) Or am I way off?
3. {first_name}, good to connect. By the way, happy to give you an intro to anyone in my network now that we’re connected. I’ve been doing some research on (XYZ) (We provide (what your company does.)Since we’re newly connected, I’d like to share this post with you:
(Share a link that’s helpful from your website.)
P.S. It explains (XYZ)
4. Hi {first_name}, If you could help {company_name} with (XYZ) would that be worth a short conversation?
I’m asking because of XYZ. Worth a short conversation?
5. Thanks for connecting (first name). I’d love to connect outside of Linkedin too. Very curious to hear about where you get most of your (XYZ). What does your calendar look like over the next week or two to connect? PS: For background, my company does (XYZ).
6. Hi (first name) Thanks for connecting. We just opened our (discuss in short what your company does) I’d like to share some details about this opportunity with you. What’s your best email? (your name)
7. (first name) (Add a custom intro sentence)
My company is looking to invest in XYZ. Ps: For background, we have X + years in the industry. We have already purchased from companies such as XYZ
8. (First name) There is an upcoming webinar next month on XYZ. It’s invite-only and specifically for leaders in the (XYZ space). In fact, I’m sure you already know some executives in the group.
What’s the best way to arrange a short conversation over the next few days?
9. (first name) Good to connect. Now that we are connected, do you mind if I ask you about your approach to XYZ?
I’m curious – How do you (Ask a question about their strategy) Could we get on a quick call next week at (time, date.)
5. Deliver the leads to you for you to close
Once prospects agree to a booked sales call, we will then forward these leads to you. All you have to do is hop on the call and close the deal.
Why is this the better option?
- You will have more time on your hands to do the things you enjoy doing in your business.
- Hiring a company that focuses just on generating leads is more affordable (You can expect to pay between $2000-$5000 per month.)
- Because the lead generation company has the experience, you don’t have to figure out a sales strategy.
- They will also take care of personalization and write expert outreach messages.
- All you have to do is show up for the sales meeting and close the deal.
- You don’t have to worry about training a new SDR, or paying a salary every single month
- The right lead generation agency won’t lock you into a contract, which means that you can cancel at any time. Their results should get you to stay, not a contract.
When to bring the entire sales process in-house
Once a lead generation agency like Salesbread has brought in enough leads for your company, and shows you how their sales development process works, you can then bring the entire strategy in-house and hire your first sales rep.
Whether it’s a full-time SDR or a freelancer.
By closing a couple of deals, your business should have scaled enough to hire a salesperson.
You will also know which sales strategy works and how it works to share with your new employee.
This will then pave the road to building an even bigger sales team and generating more leads, equaling more sales.
In conclusion – Why hiring an outsourced sales team is the right move.
As a busy founder, we know that lead generation isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Either because you don’t have the time, or don’t particularly enjoy it.
You might also not have enough cash flow yet to hire a full-time SDR or an agency that does it all.
This is why hiring a company like Salebsread that focuses on quality lead generation is the better option.
Not only will you save time and money, but we teach our process, which means that when you are ready, you can bring the entire process in-house.
We offer a done-for-you lead generation service or consultation services.
Book your free 15-minute consultation today.