Management guru Peter Drucker is famous for saying “What is measured gets managed.”  When you set up your sales team, it is important to establish the correct benchmarks so that you produce the outcomes you desire.

The first criteria for measuring success is knowing your goal.  This is not as easy as it might seem at first blush.  Here are some of the objectives companies we have worked with have defined:

● Increasing Revenue – Perhaps the first thing that comes to the mind of every sales manager, increasing the amount the company sells.
● Accelerating the Sales Cycle – Getting revenue in the door faster is an important objective for many companies.  The longer the sales cycle the higher your costs of sales.  By accelerating the sales cycle, your cost of sales goes down and residual revenues are captured sooner – creating a positive impact on both the top and bottom line.
● Slowing Down the Leaky Bucket – Firm’s with mature product offerings often find that these products receive less share of voice from their sales organization. While newer product offerings may dominate most of your sales teams’ conversations with health care providers, mature products are often highly profitable.  As mature product offerings move towards the end of the life, year-over-year mature product segment losses begin to grow (i.e. – the “Leaky Bucket”). The more the bucket leaks, the harder it is to fill the void with additional new product sales. If a cost effective inside sales initiative can reduce losses on a $200MM segment from 10% to 5%, an additional $10MM in revenues can be realized.

Once the primary goal is established, the next step is to quantify that objective in terms of Return on Investment. This can be stated in sales growth, cost reduction, or cost avoidance numbers.

It is important to establish both lead and lag measures. The lag measures are the end results. The lead measures are the predictors of success. Some lead measures can include:

● Accounts Qualified – How many accounts have been identified and qualified?
● Meetings Set – This helps you determine if you are getting high quality leads. If many of your leads turn into meetings,  you have a quality lead generation system.
● Number of Opportunities in the Pipeline – Continuously adding to the pipeline is essential for inside sales representatives. Consistency is key.  Are you creating enough opportunities to achieve your revenue goals and justify your inside sales investment?
● Dollar Value of Sales in the Pipeline – Equally important is the amount of revenue you can generate from the business in the months ahead. You should establish a baseline of how many dollars in opportunities must initiate each month to realize the results you desire.

It is important to align your inside sales and field sales teams toward your goals. This requires having a Sales Manager who can see the big picture and who can align meaningful measurements for both teams.

The sales program should always be based on ROI. The sales manager should use scorecards to track lead measures. Incentivize individual sales representatives to achieve the benchmarks that lead toward the company’s overall objectives.

When a sales manager designs a sales program with the company’s ROI in mind and establishes meaningful benchmarks for individual representatives or business process outsource sales organizations, they will ultimately facilitate success for both their employees and for their company.

Contact us at Sagamore Sales and Marketing for a consultation: info@sagamoresales.com

It is common for businesses in the MedTech industry to outsource device and equipment manufacturing, clinical trials or various administrative duties. What about outsourcing your inside sales? An option well worth considering, offloading all or part of your inside sales function can significantly help your business. Here’s why you should consider doing what other successful MedTech companies have done:

1. Increased Return on Investment
Research from the Harvard Business Review (HBR) indicates hour-for-hour selling time in front of the customer is down 26 percent compared to five years ago. That means instead of spending a little over two hours in direct contact with customers, reps spend about three-quarters of an hour. Outsourced inside sales teams aren’t burdened by time consuming meetings, distractions and internal bureaucracy that often consume home grown teams. When you outsource inside sales, those reps spend more time in direct customer contact as that is their entire focus. By outsourcing, you can expect an ROI of 5x to 10x.

2. Reduced Costs
Payroll and benefits are typically two of your largest costs. Of those, benefits can exceed $35k per employee. Recruiting and training are also big cost drivers for inside sales personnel. Outsourcing your inside sales will lower your personnel costs and reduce recruitment, training and benefit costs. You also benefit from a shortened sales cycle, accelerated sales growth and increased profits.

3. Speed Time-to-Market for a New Product Launch
Outsourcing your inside sales can accelerate the acquisition of new clients. Experienced outsourcers have existing relationships across multiple sites-of-care and specialties. This access aids in account targeting and shortens the sales cycle. What’s more, your outsourced inside sales representatives will have in-depth knowledge of your clients, distribution and channel partners, GPO strategies, and process. This allows for rapid and successful product launches – with the inside sales force becoming the tip of the spear and providing you with invaluable upstream marketing data.

4. Benefit from Sales Expertise
Organizations that provide outsourced inside sales are experts; you’ll gain access to cutting edge techniques in marketing and sales methodology, as well as optimized practices they’ve tested and perfected over time. An outside eye and fresh expertise can be extremely valuable. Choosing the right company when you outsource sales can provide you with intelligent, articulate and well-educated salespeople you can trust.

5. Benefit from Increased Reach
An outsourced inside sales team can expand your reach into new geographic areas or provide coverage in vacant territories reducing losses from lack of account coverage. The Sagamore Sales and Marketing team assisted one vendor who experienced a consistent 20% loss in vacant territories. By providing phone based territory coverage, the team was able to transform that loss into a 5% increase in sales. Harvard Business Review also notes that optimizing your territory design can increase sales by 2% to 7%.

Consider what you can do with the time you free up by not having to recruit, train and manage inside sales staff. Time can be invested elsewhere in your business. You will have a dedicated team of experts with inside sales knowledge and experience in your industry – your customers will have a positive experience, and your business will experience higher conversion rates. The decision to outsource your inside sales is just the beginning of the benefits.  For more information contact us at infoatSagamoreSalesdotcom.

When you choose to outsource your inside sales, you make the decision to allow another entity to represent your brand. They become an extension of your company. Your image and your message are placed firmly in their hands. With this in mind, when considering which outsource vendor to choose, view each vendor as a potential partner with whom you will establish a long-term business relationship.

Consider including the following five questions in your Request for Proposal (RFP) to ensure you make the right choice.

1. What Value Will You Bring to the Relationship?

If your decision to outsource is going to work, you need a partner you can trust, communicate with, and who shares your values. You will need regular contact and you need to be sure you will be able to discuss your business’s changing requirements as often as necessary. Can you be certain the vendor will be open to the level of contact your business needs to establish and develop a long term relationship?

2. How Do You Differ from Your Competitors?

This goes far beyond their fees. As your strategy and business model evolves and new products come to market, you will need a sales team who is flexible. Can your vendor adapt to changing market conditions and customer buying trends?

Ask your potential vendor if they have a strategic selling point and what additional benefit they can bring to the partnership.

3. Do You Have the Right Resources?

Does your vendor specialize in lead generation, lead qualification, telemarketing, initial sales, direct or face-to-face/online selling, virtual or remote sales, account management, or continuing sales? Don’t assume you need to outsource the entire sales process to your vendor. It might make more sense to retain certain functions or aspects in-house.

4. Do You Have Industry Experience?

Find out what experience your potential vendor has in your specific industry. This will enable you to evaluate whether they are familiar with your target audience and the nuances of your product or services. When choosing the most effective sales model, you will want a trained sales team that can act as your business ambassadors and offer the very best approach when introducing your products or services to your clients.

5. How Will You Measure Success?

When creating your RFP, it’s a good idea to be completely open about your expectations, your requirements, and your goals in order to avoid complications later on. Set clear benchmarks and be absolutely sure how you will measure your vendor’s success right from the outset. Define what qualitative insights you require and have monitoring and reporting mechanisms in place.

Establish when progress reports should be submitted according to your business needs. Ask yourself: do you want weekly, monthly, or quarterly status reports? Do you need a full accounting of resources and sales figures, or just total revenue sales over each period?

Outsourcing inside sales can bring considerable benefits if you approach and manage it correctly. With no need to recruit, train and manage your own sales team, you free up valuable resources to invest elsewhere in your business. Choose correctly and the time-consuming responsibilities associated with inside sales are left to a team of experts with inside sales knowledge and experience in your industry. Your customers receive a positive experience – and your business benefits from higher conversion rates.