Business development is essential to keeping sales pipelines populated with qualified and nurtured leads – especially in B2B IT sales. But business development representatives (BDRs), or sales development representatives (SDRs), are not made in a consistent mold, and how they are categorized and deployed may differ from one company to the next.
Maintaining a healthy sales pipeline is critical to near-term monthly and quarterly forecasting and performance, but it can often be a huge challenge. And what about mid- to longer-term planning and sustained momentum? It’s not effective to start every month, quarter or year with a cold start – or an empty pipeline.
There are many functions BDRs can perform to maintain a constant feed to the pipeline and free-up inside sales teams to focus on deal closure and client relationships.
Value-added activities BDRs can perform include:
Clearly, outsourced BDRs can deliver a myriad of tactical duties to enhance inside sales teams’ performance. Here are some key strategic benefits companies can realize when they work with an outsourced business development team.
Working with an outsourced sales team helps companies gain access to new regions and markets without sacrificing sales for long-term benefit. BDRs who work smoothly and efficiently on lead generation and qualification can be used to test new markets, introduce new products, and open new opportunities for inside sales teams.
While outsourcing BDRs can be viewed as expensive, it’s a lot more cost-effective than hiring and providing benefits to an inside team.
An outsourced BRD team can hit the ground running and begin filling the pipeline immediately. Outsourcing means that clients do not have to wait for a team of BDRs to become experienced. Clients gain experts instantly. The BDRs that agencies have on staff are highly specialized and often have years of experience prospecting and generating leads.
They know what’s what when it comes to business development and will apply their knowledge to your business from day one.
More leads aren’t always better. Outsourcing business development means higher quality leads. The BDRs work with sales teams to identify key qualifiers for leads, then apply that to their process to deliver the people who are more likely to close.
Clients can structure their outsourced BDR teams to suit their needs with flexible time allocated to campaign delivery.
Changes to a BDR program can be costly and time-consuming when conducted in-house. Outsourcing gives flexibility to change sales needs and can help to grow new programs quickly.
External BDRs also know how to shift resources to where they are most needed thereby keeping costs down, while maintaining productivity and results.
Better prospecting with an outsourced BDR team means better leads. Better leads are more likely to close with sales reps.
Freeing-up internal teams from cold calling, prospecting, and other sales development tasks means they have more time to dedicate to building relationships with clients.
Essentially, inside sales get to do the things they do best which can increase their own job satisfaction and productivity. This, in turn, provides a higher quality experience to customers and clients.
Outsourced BDRs mean that firms can focus on more important matters. There is no need to take time building processes and KPIs for an in-house team, and there is no need for on-boarding or train either.
State-of-the-art data science means that agents are already working on high quality prospects. Also, agents receive active personalized coaching for continuous improvement in service and quality.
To close the loop, the best agencies vet every lead generated before it is sent to the client.
In essence, outsourced BDRs provide companies with many advantages that reduce the burdens they are likely to experience when trying to build their own BDR team.