6 Do & Don'ts: Aligning Your Sales & Marketing In Europe

To expand internationally, accelerate growth, minimize expenses, and supplement sales force structures, a sales leader or firm must push several pedals. One proven option is handing over your sales and marketing efforts to a sales outsourcing team (outsourced sales professionals). We will discuss how to outsource sales in this blog.

Hiring a sales and marketing team indeed produces positive effects. However, unless both parties prepare and shape their expectations, the process may not go as well as planned. There are several international sales outsourcing and marketing firms in Europe, but how do you know which one to select? How will partnering with a sales outsourcing and marketing team impact your top and bottom line? How can you be sure you will get the best out of the relationship between the team and your company?

How to find the right sales outsourcing and marketing team: Do and Don'ts

Do place your emphasis on the potentials rather than the costs

When you choose the cheapest sales outsourcing and marketing team, you forego expertise, leadership, and job execution. As a firm evaluates possible partners for boosting or extending your sales staff, there are several aspects to consider. Clearly describe your needs (KPIs), learn about the skills of the potential partner, and many other things. Once you've determined what your company's requirements are, you must understand how a possible sales provider's methodology, skills, and tools may help your situation. Ask them to demonstrate their skills to you if feasible. To be more prepared, you can ask the following questions during your screening process:

1. What are your sales competencies?
2. Can you outline your organisation's expertise concerning our industry?
3. Do you have a list of references we can speak to with regards to your experiences?
4. How will you support expansion into new markets?
5. What technologies do you have that can accelerate growth? 

Do not get lost in the selection process

Given the abundance of sales outsourcing and marketing firms, determining the ideal fit may be difficult. While you don't want to hurry into choosing the incorrect partner, stretching the process out is also a hindrance. It will deplete your capacity to affect your top and bottom lines quicker than your chance to earn income.

Before selecting the right sales outsourcing and marketing partner, consider the following questions:

1. How well does the prospective team drive thinking into the proposal process? Are they just writing what you are asking for, or are they adding innovative ideas on how to be successful in the market?
2. What will the sales team look like, and who will be managing the sales team? What is the ratio of the managers to the sales team members?
3. How well does the partner understand your needs? If you need experts to sell your software solutions, how well do they know that industry?
4. How are the partners' KPIs aligned with your KPIs? Do they have the right metrics and tools to measure results?

Bonus read: How to qualify the best possible sales leads

Do ensure that sales and marketing are well aligned

While some companies assume the marketing team is the same as the sales team, it is essential to know that they perform different roles. Hence, when you hire a sales outsourcing team, you must have constant alignment between the two. The sales and marketing teams should work together to achieve the same goals. They can help each other reach individual performance metrics more easily. To align the two teams, you can follow some of these pointers:

1. Schedule meetings between the teams regularly to enable interactions, e.g. weekly or bi-weekly.
2. Work together to develop buyer personas to ensure that both teams are targeting the same market.
3. Encourage the sales team to report findings to the marketing team. So that marketing can use the information to improve the quality of lead generation and qualification processes.

Do not expect immediate results from your team

When you recruit a new team, you need to account for the learning curve period. You should also give your sales outsourcing and marketing team enough time to understand your business. While it is true that when you obtain a service sale time, you will save a lot of time and money on onboarding. It takes an average of 90 days for a new team to grasp your value proposition, perfect their pitch, design a sales sequence, build a pipeline, and start delivering results. How to successfully integrate your outsourced sales and marketing staff:

1. Use a variable compensation model that entails some level of fixed compensation as well as rewards.
2. Train the team upfront on the product and brand and encourages your provider to use the information to actively coach reps.
3. Establish an open channel communication, so your sales outsourcing and marketing team feels comfortable contacting you whenever needed.

Bonus read: Activating your distributor network in Europe in 5 steps

Do play an active role in the partnership

Once you have the right sales outsourcing team and have completed the onboarding process, you cannot assume that sales will be driven automatically. The trick is being fully engaged and vested in the partnership. Invest in building a better relationship with the new sales outsourcing and marketing team. Constantly communicate with your partner to understand their challenges, their successes in the game. As you continue communicating with your team, you need to be an active participant in driving sales, just as your partner would be. To maximise the partnership, you need to do the following:

1. Understand the teams step-by-step selling process.
2. Extensively train the sales team – Use the same approach as you would use to train your internal hires.
3. Provide them with all the information and materials they need. 
4. Meet the team regularly. With travel being scarce, you can schedule online meetings on a weekly basis to follow their progress.
5. Include the team in the management and the internal meetings that cover forecasting, business strategy, and sales and marketing objectives.
6. Regularly evaluate the reality of the goals.

Do not hire a call centre; invest in sales outsourcing and marketing team

Assume you aren't an expert at finding a sales outsourcing team. In such cases, you may be forced to hire a consumer-facing call centre acting as an experienced professional sales provider. A call centre focuses on customer service and technical support. A sales outsourcing and marketing team, on the other hand, is trained to generate direct income, develop brand awareness, and operate as your extension in a specific location. EuroDev offers certified sales outsourcing and marketing support that can either expand or augment the work of your existing sales teams. We cover unknown geographies and time zones. We impose analysis and forecasts sharing, as well as the development of a directed plan.

About EuroDev

EuroDev, established in 1996 with offices in The Netherlands and France, has a single, defined purpose to help mid-sized North American companies expand their business in Europe. We have created a proven, successful business development model and since our founding, have partnered with over 300 companies to help them define and meet their European business goals. Services provided include Sales Outsourcing, HR Outsourcing and Digital Marketing.