Outsourcing sales and marketing is a significant growth driver when scaling your business. Virtual sales teams allow companies to acquire new customers faster during a crucial time for the economy. But as in any recession, companies need to cap their spending, even on solutions that drive growth.
When it comes to a virtual sales team, it is easy to overspend. They can be expensive depending on which part of the process you outsource and to who. Here are six considerations that every CFO and CEO should consider when it comes to keeping costs down and customer acquisition up:
- Beware of unreliable service providers. If you are concerned about the costs associated with a virtual sales team, an obvious but oft-forgotten consideration is to make sure you vet your service providers. Thanks to the Internet, finding third-party validation on a service provider is easier than ever. Shop wisely and ask your community for recommendations.
- Don’t underestimate your sales potential. While overestimating is costly, so is underestimating, according to the experts at Tech Day HQ. The key is to measure your optimism with realism to prepare for the best outcome. Unexpected sales costs can come from too low expectations, don’t let your success be your failure.
- Plan ahead for pay-as-you-go software. With the explosion of tech solutions and outsourcing services available in sales, the pay-as-you-go software pricing structure has become popular. Forbes Finance Council points out that the key to managing this pricing model is to plan for your growth. The more your sales strategy works, the more your company will grow, leading to more usage of your software. Plan for price increases at scale, so you will not face unanticipated costs.
- Always track software spends to revenue generation. If you do not want to overspend on any solution unexpectedly, always measure against revenue generation. Former CMO at Interference Solutions, Richard Dumas, shared with Forbes that the key to managing your virtual sales program is to compare it to a target customer acquisition cost (CAC). How long do you expect to retain this customer? What is your average annual contract value? How much are you willing to spend to obtain this customer? Compare this with what you are paying, and continue to track this, as it can change. With close measurement, you will not be blindsided.
- Make sure you are using the right metrics to measure. Whether it is the CAC or another measurement, make sure to focus on the outcomes that matter. For example, when measuring meetings secured by the virtual sales team, measure meetings held rather than meetings booked. These two numbers can be more different than you think.
- Make sure your sales messaging is compelling. Not only should your sales messaging be impressive, but it must also be targeted and current. Practically every industry changed in one way or another last year, and many saw either extreme loss of activity or, more luckily, accelerated growth and transformation. Make sure you consider your customers’ current circumstances and not rely on how you understood them a year ago.
As you implement new sales tools, be it a virtual sales team or a new AI tool to supercharge your lead generation, don’t throw out your sales strategy’s primary tenants. Remember who you are selling to, what problem you are solving for them, and why your solution is better than the rest. Using these as guideposts to influence your virtual sales team strategy will keep your thought process grounded in what drives growth: efficiently solving problems for your customers.
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