Need to hit your end-of-year prospecting targets? Hire a highly experienced sales partner to do the hard work for you and help you get over the finish line

It’s easy to approach Q4 sales outreach with a heavy heart – the pressure to hit targets and keep the sales pipeline full can be at odds with an increasing number of unanswered calls and out-of-office replies. Yet, it’s more important than ever to keep prospecting – stop and you’ll have reduced sales, lost revenue and even more work to do next year to fill your sales pipeline up again.

The end of the calendar and fiscal year is also the time to think strategically about how to spend the remainder of your sales budget. If that budget works on a ‘use-it-or-lose it’ basis, then you’ll want to spend the remainder but spend wisely, making a sound investment for the year ahead to give your business the best possible return. However, many businesses lack the in-house resource to support a sudden increase in activity – and this is where it’s worth considering outsourcing instead.

Spending on an outsourced sale development team in Q4

When it comes to focusing on finding new contacts and qualifying them, filling gaps in internal resources or bolstering pipeline for the year ahead, a specialized outsourced sales development team can often quickly demonstrate value to your end of year sales operation. Here are five reasons to spend your remaining budget on outsourced B2B Sales Development:

1. Reach ‘unreachable’ opportunities

Prospecting is time-consuming and connecting with elusive accounts can require the kind of dedication and focus your own team can’t afford to have. According to research by Vorsight, it takes nearly 13 dials to reach a prospect with a direct phone number, and approximately 19 when calling switchboard numbers. For a meaningful conversation, says the same study, think 22.5 calls, and for highly solicited departments such as senior executives, you’re looking at closer to 30 dials for one conversation. To make an appointment, you need on average three meaningful conversations. That’s not all. SDRs will have to incorporate email, and possibly social touches, to maximize touch-to-connect qualifications. Do your salespeople have the bandwidth to manage a multi-channel campaign?

Give an outsourced team a focused campaign and it can maximize opportunities for you by researching and finding the right contacts, nurturing a relationship with prospects and qualifying them before handing them over to sales to convert. A hired team can help you close the gap between your resources and your targets.

2. Work a surplus of leads or work untouched leads

It can seem like a good problem to have but too many leads can often cause headaches for your internal team, and there may be opportunities in untouched or forgotten leads. Another issue might be that your sales team has visibility of all marketing qualified leads (MQL) but only choose to work those that appear the easiest to close. Read more on how to address the practice of cherry picking in our blog, Tackle sales teams ‘cherry picking’ leads and increase your ROI on the spot. Outsourced SDR teams can systematically work through ‘dead’ or ‘cold’ leads and warm them up again with surprisingly astounding results (there is gold in them thar leads). The same outsourced team can bridge the gap between sales and marketing and help to align processes to bring rigor to your sales qualification.

3. Get closer to, or even over, that finish line

With the end of the year in sight, sales targets are looming. Do you push more, work your sales team harder, or rely again on that Q4 magic to pull the results you need out of the bag? Taking a strategic approach and using your budget to provide more resources might help you sleep better at night. When you back your team with outsourced experts, your own sales team start the process with SQLs who are ready for a conversation, so increasing the chances of more conversions.

4. Go into next year with new momentum

Building a robust pipeline for Q1 next year begins in Q4. Starting to build the momentum that will see you through a new year means you have closed sales and healthy relationships with target accounts and contacts already. Hiring additional SDR resource can deliver well-qualified leads to your sales team for future success.

5. Test new messaging and campaigns

You won’t be the only business with end of year budget to spare, which is why with an increase in spending, Q4 is the perfect time to experiment. If you’re on track to hit your targets, this is the ideal time to try out new messaging soundbites to quickly generate interest, target new accounts, retarget audiences or run one or more proof of concept campaigns that will help with planning for the new year.

Seize the opportunity

In these volatile times of economic downturn and increasing inflation, it’s all too easy to batten down the hatches and spend and think conservatively. However, forward-thinking companies are continuing to invest to optimize processes and back the right skills and talents to drive growth. As you plan your sales strategy for the year ahead, consider spending on extra capabilities that would be beneficial to your team and help them perform their roles better for greater productivity. Head off the pressures of Q4 by investing in an outsourced sales development team to boost your resources, and your revenue.

 

Why investing in MarketOne’s outsourced Sales Development Services is a good use of budget Ready-made teams Our sales development teams come ready to go, saving you the cost of training. You also spare your business the hassle of recruiting. “…no one will argue that before, during, and after the pandemic, finding and keeping great B2B salespeople is a significant challenge…” says Forrester. With an outsourced team, hiring, managing and training is no longer your problem. Fast deployment No waiting to build up experience, the team at MarketOne can usually be on the phones within 72 hours of the initial briefing. In-built flexibility You want your external SDR to fit in as quickly as possible and also be adaptable to your business. If it’s global, no problem; our team speak over 25 languages and we have nine global offices. Scalable Whether you need a short-term project or a long-term sales partner, our teams have the capacity and the ability to parachute in with their expertise or gain deep knowledge of your audience, product or service over a longer time period. Teams can be scaled up and down according to project or seasonal need. Experts in our field The average Sales Development Representative (SDR) hire comes with less than 12 months experience [Hubspot], yet all of our SDRs have been working in the field for five or more years. Whatever you need us for, whether it’s a lack of alignment with sales on a lead definition, you’re not reaching the right audience or your digital touches are underperforming, we’ve will have solved something similar for another client and can apply this learning for you.