Outbound salespeople - You know the ones that send you Outbound Sales Emails or call up to ask if you need something? In the world of software companies and their Outbound Sales Teams, these individuals play a pivotal role, often navigating the choppy waters of market entry and target market identification. Despite their critical role in Sales Team Efficiency and Sales Team Productivity, they are sometimes unfairly maligned, lumped together in the public perception with far less savory characters. This comparison seems particularly unjust when considering the importance of Sales Success in the software business landscape.‍

There's a common perception that outbound sales is intrusive, annoying, and product-centric. This view persists, despite the Sales Team's efforts in Lead Generation and strategically planning Outbound Sales Strategy to enhance customer interaction and customer satisfaction. Yet, is a salesperson who calls to inquire if you might spare a few minutes for a discussion truly more troublesome than those ads that seem to track every move of your cursor and persist in popping up?

In my view, neither outbound sales nor inbound sales inherently lean towards being positive or negative. Each can be an effective channel depending on how they're utilized by a Sales Team. The optimal approach for a software product company might involve a mix of these strategies, tailored to align with their Sales Strategy Planning and Sales Performance Improvement goals. This balanced method is often supported by understanding the product-market fit, ensuring the products and services meet the market demand.

A frequent oversight I've witnessed within many software businesses, especially during the early stage of market expansion, is the indiscriminate treatment of outbound and inbound sales strategies. Unlike their counterparts in outbound roles, an inbound sales representative deals with queries flowing directly from potential customers who are already interested, possibly due to the company’s effective Lead Generation strategies or compelling service offers. These prospects might have been drawn in by customer support resources or intrigued by a webinar, indicating an existing interest in the company's products and services. This distinction underscores the importance of custodial understanding these incoming requirements to determine if there's a solid market fit.

The outbound sales process, however is completely different. Let me give you an example of how it goes. A nice sales guy calls up and asks if he can speak with you for a few minutes about, for example, a visitor management software. You are a little suspicious, but you agree. Then he says that he is aware your company probably has a way of handling this, but he just might have something that could be more cost effective in the long run, as well as handling the stored data better. Would you be interested in speaking to his manager about this? No pressure at all, but in the least, you might walk away with an idea of the options available. You say, OK, I can meet your manager on an agreed date and time. Pleasant goodbyes follow. Everything is very casual.

Now, the day of the meeting arrives, and the manager walks in, all poise and confidence. He asks you a lot of questions - "What requirements do you have in this space? What is the timeline within which you want to close this? Are you the decision maker or do you think other people need to be involved in this process?" At this point, with a bemused look on your face, you say, “Mister, I don't know what the heck you're talking about, but I’d really like you to leave now” - Nice sales guy is going to have a bad day tomorrow.

The outbound sales process, however, is completely different. Let me give you an example of how it goes. A nice sales guy from our Outbound Sales Team, part of our comprehensive Sales Team Setup, calls up and asks if he can speak with you for a few minutes about, for example, a visitor management software product. You are a little suspicious, but you agree. Then he mentions that he is aware your company probably has a way of handling this, but he just might have something that could be more cost-effective in the long run, as well as handling the stored data better, a key feature of our products and services designed to enhance customer satisfaction and customer feedback.

Would you be interested in speaking to his manager about this? No pressure at all, but in the least, you might walk away with an idea of the options available. You say, OK, I can meet your manager on an agreed date and time. Pleasant goodbyes follow. Everything is very casual.

Now, the day of the meeting arrives, and the manager walks in, all poise and confidence. He asks you a lot of questions - "What requirements do you have in this space? What is the timeline within which you want to close this? Are you the decision maker or do you think other people need to be involved in this process?" At this point, with a bemused look on your face, you say, “Mister, I don't know what the heck you're talking about, but I’d really like you to leave now” - Nice sales guy is going to have a bad day tomorrow.

Although this might sound funny in theory, I have seen it happen all too often, and it will almost definitely set your outbound team up for failure.

So, let us get something important out of the way- the odds of your outbound sales person actually hitting upon someone that has a requirement exactly at the time your company calls are about 10,000 to one. Not good odds, as you can see. However, given that the point of outbound sales is different, this is alright.

The reason for performing Outbound Sales Calls is to meet/speak with your potential target customers, create in them the awareness of a pain, and leverage yourself as a solver of their problem, an essential step in Sales Strategy Planning. You want to subconsciously influence the budget allocation by having spoken to them in advance about how much it might cost if they purchase your product. You will call them occasionally to make sure the problem is in the forefront of their memory, and to create an urgency to solve it, a tactic that contributes significantly to Sales ROI and Sales Team Efficiency.

Now let us look at the results you can expect. In the first year of initiating an Outbound Sales Campaign, where your salespeople do not receive any inbound leads at all, expect to get a 2 to 2.5 times Sales Team ROI, assuming you are not going to attend any events or conferences. If you are attending events, plan for and expect about a 4 times return. These are conservative figures, and I have seen returns that range from 2 times to 6 times, depending on achieving product-market fit, awareness of pain, competitors, and their offerings etc., key aspects of Sales Success and Sales Performance Improvement.

All of this is for those people newly initiating Outbound Sales Campaigns. If you already have strictly Outbound Sales Team members, you have historical data to determine what your Sales Team ROI is going to be.

Both outbound and inbound sales processes, when set up and performed effectively, are going to keep delivering better results progressively. This means that the growth rate of market expansion is going to be better in the second year than the first, and so on, contributing greatly to achieving market fit.

Is it worth it? A lot has been said about the cost of outbound sales being very high relative to inbound sales. Numbers speak and all that. But the interesting thing about numbers is they can be made to tell any tale. Inbound Sales Process isn’t as inexpensive as it seems to be. There are costs associated with it that are usually not considered when making grand statements like it is 70% cheaper and 50% more effective (just random numbers I threw in, don’t hold me to them).

I think there are some reasons to choose outbound sales and some reasons to not. The biggest reasons to choose it are:

QUICKER RESULTS | PROCESS CONTROL

Meaning, instead of writing painstakingly interesting blogs or newsletters and waiting for target market customers to come in (which can actually take as long as a year), you can take control of the point of contact, the message, and actively make things happen, essential in Sales Strategy Planning. In this case, you could be getting leads as early as the third week onward with aggressive Lead Generation techniques and Outbound Sales Strategy. Is it more expensive than doing inbound marketing on your own time? Of course, it is. But not by much, when you consider the potential for results and the Sales Performance Improvement.

So, there you have it! You can now decide what you want to do, and make it work for you. If you do choose to use outbound selling as a channel for market entry and to increase customer interaction, do not hesitate to contact us for customer support resources if you need more information or advice. Until next week, happy selling!

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