Outsourcing for B2B

Just as outsourcing works well for telemarketing and cold calling to the general public, it is an ideal solution for B2B prospects, including soliciting prospects, promoting your products and setting appointments. Lets look at how.

There are many reasons to outsource your B2B cold calling processes.

Most of your salespeople detest cold calling. If you could find a way to give them sales leads without having them deal with the rejection associated with cold calling, you would have some happy salespeople. Besides not having to deal with this grueling task, their time would be more effectively spent on actual appointments and sales calls. The benefits to your company are numerous as well. You can save money on lead lists as well stop wasting sales level salaries on menial tasks.

Telemarketing companies that specialize in cold calling have a specially trained staff (trained on the outsourcing company's time, not with your precious training dollars). Outsourcing companies have their own fully developed sales leads; they have special tricks on how to get to the right person in the company you are trying to sell to; they have automated systems for setting and notifying appointments.

All of these features make outsourcing of your B2B business a perfect fit for your business, right? Actually the answer to this question is not an automatic yes. It is important to calculate the ROI (return on investment) on all of your advertising efforts and make a hard comparison. If the numbers tell you that you are getting more leads, more appointments and more ultimate sales from your traditional marketing techniques, that has to be what makes your decision.

You should research the costs of outsourcing on the internet. YOu can learn, for example, that the most competitive firm charges $1800 per 100 hours of cold calls, and that they average 10 calls per hour. If they average one appointment per 10 calls, simple arithmetic tells you that your cost is $18 per lead. (1,000 calls per hour/10 appointments = 100 sales leads, or $18 per lead.)

If you currently make $1,000 commission per sale and you have one sale for every three leads, your profit of $946 ($1,000-$54) would be worth the cost of outsourcing your cold calling.

How much, however, does your traditional marketing cost? If your less expensive print or radio advertising or even your online advertising is reaping more leads, you will have a higher ROI.

Online ads are very cost effective. The linked advertising that firms do via Google and other sites compete strongly with outsourcing costs. The leads there cost cents instead of dollars, and since you get so many more clicks (potential leads) the costs are a fraction of other costs. But it may be difficult to compare the potential leads of "clicks" to the actual leads of someone talking to one of your potential customers.

In order to decide on outsourcing for your B2B marketing efforts, you need to compare all of the advantages of outsourcing to the traditional ways you market to your customers.