After you have evaluated your business needs and decided that outsourcing makes sense for you, you now need to ensure your engagement will be successful. Here are 6 key things that will help you ensure success:
The Right Goals
Goals, short and medium term are very important. These will help to ensure expectations are set and everyone is on the same page. These goals should cover:
• Activities (calls, meetings, proposals…)
• Marketing collateral to support sales
• Ensure website performance
• Revenue targets & growth targets
The Right Strategy
Before embarking on a sales and marketing initiative it is important to put a Plan in place. Doing a strategic review, and out of that a Plan, is one of the first steps. This review will help you develop new sales & marketing strategies that will impact your executional tactics.
Once the strategy and plan is outlined, it is important then to ensure the resources are in place to achieve the goals.
The Right Sales & Marketing Tactics
When it comes to sales and marketing as a startup, it is easy to spread yourself too thin and not focus your limited resources and associated sales & marketing tactics on a few core markets and initiatives.
We believe that focusing your efforts on one or two target markets and building success there is the best way to start. Deploy your tactics to maximize your success. Once you’ve settled on the right tactics, it’s important to carefully define how your tactics will be executed and who will be responsible for each aspect of their execution, such as how any website updates will be made, who will handle social media, who will provide approvals, etc.
Regular Feedback
For growing companies, getting regular feedback on sales and marketing initiatives is important and then even more important is taking the learnings and rolling them back into the ongoing efforts. As you sell and market, your messaging and value proposition will develop and evolve making your future sales and marketing efforts even more successful. Overtime your messaging will improve as will your closing ratios and you may be surprised at how much they have evolved since you first started.
Frequent Measurement
Measuring your success is important. What you are really measuring whether it be for sales and or marketing is your conversion success. This could be calls and emails to qualified meetings or the success of your Adword campaigns. These measures should be linked back to your goals. Ensure any outsourced provider has the capabilities to provide regular feedback on how the engagement is proceeding.
Skill and Knowledge Transfer
One of the main reasons to consider an outsourced sales and marketing provider is that their skills and expertise typically don’t exist within the company. As the startup grows and full-time staff are brought on, it will be important that these individuals understand the sales and marketing strategies and have the processes, tools, and tactics in place to allow them to be successful in the longer term.
Deciding to utilize part-time or outsourced sales and marketing is a big decision for any startup or growing company. With the right provider, it can be a very rewarding experience that can help to dramatically accelerate growth.
If you’re looking for outsourced sales and marketing assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us. For great insight into startup sales and marketing, feel free to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Twitter.
