10 Signs It’s Time To Hire An Outbound Sales Team

In terms of sales development tactics we have inbound and outbound sales strategies. While inbound sales development is where most companies start there are 10 clear signs that your organization is ready to hire an outbound focused sales team. Because, if you’re looking to create consistent revenue for your organization, a quality outbound sales team is precisely what your business needs to continue its path to growth and success.

With this in mind, here are 10 signs that the time to hire an outbound sales team is now.

1) Your Inbound Sales Team Is Not Generating Enough Revenue

The first sign is a fairly simple one. If your inbound sales team simply isn’t generating the anticipated revenue or leads, then you may need to compliment their efforts with an outbound team. Your outbound efforts can be highly targeted and backed by a more proactive approach, which can be vitally important when you need a boost in sales.

That being said, even if your inbound sales team is performing admirably, your business would still benefit from outbound efforts. This will allow your organization to reach its full potential by adding an outbound approach to the mix.

2) Your Solution Is Expensive And Targeted At Enterprise Customers

Is your product prohibitively expensive? Is it likely that only upper-tier corporations will have the capacity to make a purchase? If so, this is another strong indication that you should prioritize outbound sales. With a smaller pool of potential prospects to draw from, inbound sales often falls short of being targeted enough to generate enough leads. The more focused efforts of an outbound sales team will help greatly! They’ll be in a better position to identify, contact, and ultimately sell to those companies who need your solutions and can afford them as well.

3) Your Solution Is Completely New

If you’ve developed a novel solution, your potential customers won’t really be looking out for it. This will render inbound sales efforts largely ineffective, or at the very least extremely expensive. In this scenario, you will need to raise awareness about your new product. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by individually reaching out to the people who you’ve identified as most likely to be interested. This task is ideally suited to an outbound sales team. Use product tour software to create a user guide for your new solution that the team can share with prospects.

4) Your Solutions Experience Longer Sales Cycles

If your solutions have long sales cycles, you will need to frequently follow up with prospects. Similarly, sales email sequences can facilitate follow-up emails. Nevertheless, if your sales cycle takes months or years to complete, there is a need to be more proactive in your sales approach and nurture the relationship. An outbound sales team works wonders in such circumstances.

5) Your Product Generates Significant Interest At Events

When you go to events and network with attendees, do they respond positively to your products or services? There’s a simple way of assessing this. If people ask you questions along the lines of “what pricing schemes do you offer?” or “how quickly can you have this installed?” then you can reasonably assume that people are receptive to your offering. In fact, these are the types of questions that indicate you’re on the brink of closing a deal. In these instances, an outbound sales team will help you to capitalize on such great opportunities. 

6) You Can Offer Enticing Commissions to Salespeople 

If profit margins on your product sales are thin, it will be difficult to afford premium salespeople or adverts. Such circumstances aren’t conducive to successful outbound sales operations. However, if you have high profit margins, you will be better placed to attract elite talent. When a team of results-driven experts run your outbound sales operation, your business is in a much stronger position to amplify revenue and growth.

7) Your Potential Customers Are Receptive To Cold Prospecting

Some audiences are more receptive than others to cold calling and emailing. If your pool of potential clients is not averse to getting sales calls and emails, use an outbound team. Doing so also means you can conveniently guide prospects through the purchasing process, instead of making them work their way through the journey on their own accord. On the whole, this will generally be for more established companies rather than small business and start-ups.

8) You Are Targeting A Very Specific Demographic

Since outbound sales is a more proactive, targeted strategy, you can focus on the specific people you want to sell to. For example, if you want to contact software developers at Apple, or data scientists at Twitter, outbound is going to be the more efficacious approach. Where inbound sales is very broad, more passive, and unlikely to reach an audience that specific, outbound sales will hit its mark without a problem.

9) You Don’t Have Enough Time 

If you’re a smaller business, you may find that the sales aspect is taking up too much of your schedule. If you’re a founder or CEO and currently handling all the sales for the organization, ppending all your time in meetings, giving demos, or taking care of outreach could mean other areas in your organization take a hit. If this describes your company right now, it’s time to invest in an outbound sales team so you can devote more time to other business-critical areas. Not only do specialist outbound teams free up valuable time for you but they can also drive better results due to the more dedicated nature of the role.

10) Your Average Deal Size is Over $10,000

It’s important to factor in the funnel math when deciding if you’re ready to hire an outbound sales team. Quite simply, you’ll need to factor in your average sales cycle and on average how many deals you’re currently able to close a month to determine how much revenue you can potentially generate per outbound sales development rep. 

Revenue Per Outbound SDR = (# New Customers Per Month) × (12 Months) × ($ Avg Outbound Deal Size)

If you’re able to close 2 new customers a month for a total of 24 customers a year at $10,000 a deal size you are looking at $240,000 in revenue. Now factor in outbound SDR hiring costs, sales enablement tools and operational costs to ensure operational profitability. You’ll see quickly why we recommend that your average deal size is over $10,000 to make outbound a profitable sales development function at your organization. 

Take Advantage Of All The Benefits Outbound Sales Teams Bring

There are many signs that indicate it’s time to invest in an outbound sales team. This more proactive approach is a great way to enhance targeted prospecting, raise more awareness of your product, and free up your time, among many other benefits. 

Just remember that even without these signs, you may not be fulfilling your true potential without any outbound efforts. Think about all the outcomes outbound sales teams can accomplish, and then consider how much your business would benefit from adding this strategy.

If you’re a revenue leader with a mandate to grow fast, we can build your dream SDR team and ramp them up to scale your business faster. Get a free assessment call and ask us how!