Deciding on the right sales approach for your company isn’t easy. You have to figure out which one works best for you, whether it’s the inbound approach, the outbound sales route, or a hybrid one. Inbound sales is preferred by many companies for being able to attract customers in a more cost-effective manner, but outbound is typically scoffed at. Why? It’s usually because it requires human intervention, and relies on pushing ideas onto unsuspecting prospects. But it also happens to be one of the most powerful ways of building trust with your clients, closing massive deals, and maintaining control.
What is outbound sales?
The process through which sales reps make outbound sales calls or utilize other sales channels to reach prospects. Outbound sales is the technique where companies push their message or pitch to their prospects, through cold calling, social selling, email marketing and the like.
Outbound sales is a sales approach wherein a seller, usually a sales agent, initiates customer engagement from their end. Initial contact is typically done via making cold calls to potential buyers, and contact numbers are usually retrieved from phone directories and lead lists. In some cases, customers might request to be contacted via signing up for forms. This process is usually referred to as warm calling. Other times, leads can also be collected by third-party services and bought as a package or part of a subscription.
Types of outbound sales representatives
Sales development representative
These representatives are on the front line of the outbound sales strategy. They’re the cold calling sales reps, responsible for managing leads, deploying your strategy by way of phone calls, emails, social media, and direct mail to contact prospects. Once they secure the connection, they will loop in an account executive to move the relationship forward. Since sales development representatives are in charge of qualifying prospects, the accounts team can focus more on closing deals and maximizing revenue.
Lead response representatives
On the other hand, lead response representatives make outbound approaches, but only to leads who have demonstrated inbound interest. They are the ones doing the warm calling. They contact prospects who contacted the company directly, attended an online webinar or conference, downloaded a video or white paper, or completed an online form. Like with sales development representatives, lead response representatives also create sales opportunities for account executives.
Tools you need to supercharge outbound sales
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform: perhaps the most crucial part of your sales strategy, a CRM solution tracks all aspects of the company’s relationship and engagement with prospects. It’s a central hub that contains contact information and engagement with leads. It can also track marketing and sales outreach, like details on which emails were opened or answered.
Voicemail Automation: Leaving voicemail messages during the prospecting process is time-intensive. But when you have a voicemail automation solution, the representatives’ sales time can be cut as they have the option to leave prospects pre-recorded voicemail messages with only a single click.
Marketing Automation platform: It would also help if you track each account’s activities and see the different channels and campaigns that they’ve engaged with. A marketing automation platform can help with this, helping you have everything you need to know about a prospect so you can personalize outbound emails and phone calls.
In conclusion
If you’re a growing business with a limited pool of resources, you might be relying on outbound sales to generate revenue. If you can’t form an in-house sales team just yet, our team can help you reach out to prospects.
Our experienced remote sales representatives at RepStack can do everything from booking appointments, doing follow-ups, processing payments, and more. Get in touch with us today.
