In-house vs Outsourcing a Sales Team: Which One is Right for Your Small Business?

As a small business owner, chances are that you have already made a detailed plan on attaining a significant amount of growth over the coming year. As with all plans for forecasted growth, a centralized feature will be how to generate a greater number of leads and then turn them into actual sales.

Despite the fact that a majority of small businesses are now found online, it is unlikely that all of your sales will be completed through this channel. You still need to make sure that you have real people on hand to take phone calls, process orders and follow up after the sale has been made, both in terms of retention and support.

As I am sure you are aware, there is always a need for small businesses to look to cut outgoings as much as possible, and in turn, invest your hard-earned dollars back into your growing company. This is where you have some relatively tough decisions to make, including the decision about whether to outsource your sales team, or have a dedicated in-house operation.

There are advantages and disadvantages for both of these two options, to help you gain a better understanding, I have broken down the advantages of both options below:

Outsourcing Your Sales Team

• As a small business, I am going to go ahead and assume that your budget is going to be limited. This is where choosing to hire your own members of staff can have its disadvantages as you will be relying on a sales manager to design and execute a sales strategy. You will also be reliant on them taking on all your sales responsibilities until a time when you are able to hire a full team.

When you outsource your sales team, you have a dedicated, full-time sales team from the beginning that have experience of working as a team and will implement your sales strategy. They’ll work hard in their Leitner and Sennheiser headsets to get you some awesome results. Ultimately, this will also mean that you are bringing in a profit from the outset.

• This follows into my next point very nicely; outsourcing ensures that you are working with a team of experts who are very experienced at starting the sales process quickly and getting instant results. They will also be experienced in working with different companies in a variety of industries throughout the year. You can be confident that they will be producing work of the highest-quality and smashing your KPIs, while working with you to meet your goals to a timeline that suits you.
• Another great aspect of outsourcing your team is that you will be able to avoid paying out excessive amounts of your profits compared to hiring your own in-house team. You are not obliged to pay employees for vacation days, taxes, and social security.

Hiring an In-house Sales Team

• If maintaining control over every single aspect of your business is something majorly important to you, then hiring in-house salespeople will likely be the better option for you. Setting up your own, dedicated team offers you full control and the chance to have more of an active role in planning and executing that all-important sales strategy.

There is also the bonus that your team will only be working for you and selling your company’s goods or services and will be their main goal at all times. As I touched upon earlier, this option is more expensive, so make sure that you have enough capital in your account to avoid running into any financial difficulties.

• Look, I know that there is often friction between sales and marketing, but when they work well together they will only ever increase your profits, massively. According to the Harvard Business Review, when successfully combined, your sales are cycles shorter, market -entry costs down, and cost are reduced.
• This is one major advantage of hiring your own in-house sales team; you have the perfect opportunity to create fluidity between your sales and marketing channels and optimise your sales funnel to its full potential.

Ensure that you overcome one key mistake that many small businesses make, and begin to view marketing as a broader way to position your firm rather than a way to simply increase sales.

At the first opportunity, make sure that both your teams hold regular integration meetings and have an enhanced understanding of each team’s roles. This helps to avoid long-term conflicts to do with budgeting and promotions are overcome early. A great way to build rapport between the two is to hold regular teambuilding days to overcome and tension.

As you can see, both options have clear advantages, and ultimately, the decision will be based on your financial position, the size of your company and how much growth you have forecasted for the upcoming year. If you are a small business just starting out, outsourcing your sales staff is a great choice and offers you a lot of flexibility while you are increasing your market share. As you expand you can then consider setting up your own in-house team and taking full control over your sales process.

I am an MBA grad who can transform your business. Follow me for straight talking insights into running successful businesses in a fast paced world. I am always on the go, working or surfing in the Californian sunshine.