By Nadia Bulcourt – October 25, 2022
Sales Outsourcing: an opportunity for SMEs not so new... so why not you?
First of all, I would like to make an objective observation. The sales outsourcing market is still as unknown in 2022 as it was in 2009 when we launched Finelis! Some people in 2022 know that it exists, but they have the pejorative image of a distant call center. Moreover, they rarely know how sales outsourcing can work in a qualitative way.
And the SME market is not sufficiently interesting for the big public players, at least not for the moment (otherwise we would have many more unemployed people trained by Pôle Emploi on our sales outsourcing projects). However, we do not lose hope that our contacts with Pôle Emploi will materialize, in the interest of the unemployed and the VSEs, both of which have urgent needs (to work for the former and to develop for the latter).
What if commercial outsourcing was a real opportunity for your company?
What about the operational business strategy within the companies?
There is public funding for SMEs ready to export but what budget is allocated to the Sales and Marketing department? And how is it concretely allocated? In which recruitment, on which activities, on which training? I have almost never seen anything about operational sales strategy…
Have companies been taught to sell remotely?
Two years after covid 19, many companies have learned to work remotely. Do you think their sales department is operational and well trained to sell remotely? The answer is unanimous: No.
But let’s remain positive: a movement has been initiated. General management now seems to be more and more involved in this change management project affecting its commercial activities. The same is true for its commercial strategy in France and abroad, as well as the search for new customers corresponding to the famous Ideal Customer profile.
Expert support for your sales projects
Very small companies, as their name indicates, are too small to recruit the right salespeople and be credible. Yet, they would be very happy to have people who are experts in their field and able to manage strategic and/or operational sales projects at a competitive price. But very few of them are aware of the sales outsourcing market. And Finelis can’t finance annual information campaigns on the major French media.
Covid 19 can no longer be used as an excuse to close yourself off at home or behind “That’s not the priority right now. You know, times are hard, with inflation it’s complicated. And on top of that, we have a new form of digital competition that is hurting us a little bit”.
What will the situation be like in the future?
From now on and for the next five or ten years, unless there is a very exceptional crisis such as Covid1 9 (I am not talking about cyclical economic crises), we will all be concerned by this situation: we will always have difficulty recruiting and training the best salespeople! Indeed, the better they are, the more ambitious they are and the more demanding they will be in terms of training and coaching.
Internal and external evolution
Today, it is possible to make the following findings:
- Outsourcing cannot and should not only concern non-priority and strategic activities.
- Digital competition from French and foreign players will continue to grow..
- The young generations, who will make up tomorrow’s job market, are all sensitive, whether in France, Spain, the US or Indonesia, to a need for independence, freedom and self-fulfilment. They want to do something really useful socially and/or for the planet.
- Money is no longer enough to attract and especially keep the best. What do you propose in this case? An evolution towards a managerial job in order to reproduce or rather make someone else reproduce the same mistakes?
Constraints applied to the sales jobs
If we look at the French and European or foreign regulations (let’s not talk about them in the US), we can see that they are increasingly strict. It also imposes many constraints on SMEs. This can progressively kill the small players who do not have the possibility to equip themselves with the best tax or legal skills at the best price. Moreover, with Finelis, we have created SaaS or Sales as a Service. On the Finance or IT side, I hear a lot of things, but I don’t yet see a similar action with real added value. But I think and hope that the movement is underway.
Moreover, the business lines are becoming more complex, including sales, to which it is risky to oppose marketing or the processing of sales data in the CRM (yet in reality, these people only talk to each other a little).
New practices appear on the market
The new generations have new expectations now: independence and freedom, search for motivation and meaning (why coaching and sports and relaxation clubs are so popular? Of course, it has become mandatory).
Moreover, automation and the rise of SaaS IT solutions has allowed many companies to move forward and for a reasonable cost (this is good news!). The movement is on the move, and it also seems to be recognized that very few people in the company master these tools well and the “collaborative” challenge remains a complicated subject.
In the words of a client manager: “It’s all well and good with all these automatic tools at 50 bucks, but my 50+ year old guys who totally master my business (product and customers) are not even able to sort out a little Excel table, so working on this project with a little young guy, the king of digital, who has never really had any experience in the field (and therefore knows how to take slaps and doors in the head), it won’t stick!”
What will change within the company
Soft skills and human qualities will be more and more important. As for hard skills, they will be necessary but not sufficient and will progressively lose their superbness compared to soft skills. Entrepreneurial, intrapreneurial, empathetic, energetic and multilingual profiles will be the most sought after in the market. These profiles will not be sensitive to the standard discourse of the Lambda recruitment firm.
As for niche companies, especially in the technology sector (these are the B2B SaaS editors with an average contract price of 30-50 K€ per year that we know best), they will have to internationalize in at least 2 or 3 countries. Indeed, this will allow them to remain credible in the longer term, if only to reassure the “purchasing” departments of current customers in the main country (France).
How to improve your company's commercial activities?
If you more or less agree with this finding, what do you plan to improve :
- Your sales, marketing and/or CRM activities?
- Your recruitment activities for sales, marketing and/or CRM profiles?
Services adapted to your business objectives
You think there might be a hole or several holes in the racket?
Consult us to make a quick 360° diagnosis of your Sales & Marketing activities. We will confirm your commercial maturity according to us (“ready”, “in the race” or “in preparation”). And if we think we can help you concretely, we will propose you an operational service (www.finelis.com) accompanied if necessary by a strategic coaching (www.fineliscoaching.com) with one of our 12 Managers having themselves a rich experience of your trades.
If there is no hole in the racket, you can tell us your customer acquisition cost or share with us what you think would be a business objective as good or better than what you are already doing. And from there, we’ll make you a proposal if we feel we can, even if it means taking the risk on our end.
Enhancing the value of the sales profession
Enhancing the value of the sales profession
The HR industry is going digital yes, but what does it really take to improve its ability to recruit the best salespeople? Do you really think that the HR firm that earns 50% on signing, 50% on the first 3 or 6 months is really going to look for profiles that will still be around 2 or 3 years later? The answer is no. No chance.
Did you know that salespeople are the most profitable in the 3rd year and for the best of them they only start to be profitable in the 2nd year?
In 2009 (when we created Finelis), the profession of salesperson was not valued. I also talk on BFM about the fact that the first business schools in France do not train at all in sales!
Fourteen years later, in 2022, the job of salesman or saleswoman (“SDR”, “BDR”, “Account Executive”) is a little better valued. But don’t complicate your life with these new terms! Look at what Wikipedia says here, and you will see that “Sales Development” is not new and that it dates back to the early 80’s with IT companies like Oracle.
New schools have emerged, and this is good news. They train profiles of all ages to the sales profession, as explained by the Rocket School in this video (in French).
This is reminiscent of Bernard TAPIE’s sales school, which, since 1986, has also given a “second life to the lost”, allowing the unemployed to find a job that is valued and rewarding.
The evolution of the sales sector
This evolution is positive in France and in different European countries such as Spain since the sales professions are evolving. More and more training organizations or schools will allow this profession to evolve and allow many individuals to find work.
The Blue Sheet, a sales methodology
What was happening on the other side of the Atlantic at the same time? Have you heard of the “Blue Sheet”, the signature feature of Miller Heiman’s sales methodology?
A staple of sales organizations around the world for decades, the Blue Sheet brings structure to the sales process, aligning strategies to win complex deals.
The sales industry has changed a lot since Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman launched Strategic Selling in 1978, the year I was born! But the Blue Sheet has remained a constant, a tool that generations of salespeople have relied on because it works, no matter how complex the sale.
Using this sales strategy methodology
I used this sales strategy methodology between 2004 and 2008 when I was working on sales roles for French and Swiss software companies, long before I created Finelis in 2009. Why did I do this? Because I had to train myself. Indeed, I had not received any sales training neither in my school (EDHEC in 2001 where I learned a lot and specialized in market finance), nor at these editors where there was just no training or documentation available for the sales departments.
In fact, you had to do everything and start from a blank or blue sheet of paper… if you have read me that far. The companies with the best equipment offered to isolate me in a meeting room without windows to make my numerous prospecting phone calls with a directory, phone numbers and eventually, a yellow marker. We didn’t even think about emailing prospects back then right after the phone call.
Besides, at that time, CRMs were often internal developments. So, you could still use blue paper to describe your business strategy and that was more than enough! What CRM today natively integrates this type of methodology? I’m talking about what was going on only 15 years ago…
Almost 50 years ago, these strategic sales concepts were already established. Therefore, Europe could apply, albeit with some delay, the sales methods that worked well in the United States.
What about today's sales methods?
Most companies, whether American or European, do not apply these concepts. I had the chance to train 50 salespeople in a large international group some time ago, and less than 20% of the salespeople were really interested in prospecting and trying to produce real added value. The main motivations in these large groups are political and there is too much at stake globally on the existing clientele which is growing… So why bother prospecting for new clients in new markets since it is more difficult, more time-consuming, and above all it requires real work?
The sales and marketing department of SMEs
Imagine the current situation in SMEs concerning the sales and marketing department represent 99% of the companies in France.
The current situation is worrying. A small percentage of these companies (less than 1%) are very well financed (self-financed or not) and have been able to hire the best resources. And above all, these organizations have been able to keep them, and their sales and marketing departments are very well organized. These companies are often interested in some concepts developed by Finelis that they have not yet tested in the field (for example, the psychological aspects of strategic selling and in particular the analysis of the different response modes of prescribers to know when to act in the sales cycle) and in the optimization of their “Channel” strategy or with resellers and other partners.
A growth driver with sales outsourcing
Apart from these marginal successful companies, more than 99% of these SMEs do not have a clear sales and marketing strategy. Those that have been able to produce a clear strategy on paper have not been able to recruit or train their internal sales and marketing teams. And only now, more than two years after covid 19, are they starting to test sales outsourcing as a possible growth driver.
When these companies ask Finelis for help, the diagnosis is almost always the same: let’s do a 3-month test prospecting service on a list of 150 of your prospects so that you can get a taste of sales outsourcing, but this is not going to replace the concepts and learning that you, as managers, need to understand and inculcate in your sales and marketing teams.
Learn the concepts of operational sales strategy
In parallel to the operational mission, hurry up to train yourself to these concepts of operational commercial strategy that we deploy via www.fineliscoaching.com with our team in French, English and Spanish to all those SMEs that urgently need it.
We have not created a sales school, but we contribute at our modest level to meet all these objectives:
- To transmit a proven sales methodology that has been used in the field for decades via www.fineliscoaching.com.
- Carrying out operational sales prospecting projects for SMEs.
- Coaching and training the managers and sales and marketing teams of these SMEs.
- Solve the recruitment problem of SMEs since by working with Finelis, SMEs can work at the right price with a competent team of people who have above all human qualities (soft skills) and technical-functional skills (hard skills). These same people are often autonomous, entrepreneurs and/or intrapreneurs (read the latest Malt 2022 report which confirms the explosion of the freelance market in 2022): graduates (or not) of the largest business schools* and/or engineering schools, (ex-) entrepreneurs, people with 30 years of experience in IT or Finance, single mothers with 15 years of experience at Google or Oracle in reconversion, or simply people in a period of unemployment in pre-retirement or even spouses of expatriates.
*Finelis has been regularly training students from EDHEC or MBS Montpellier Business School on these topics of Business Strategy since 2016 and hopes to soon be able to help Pôle-Emploi in the training of unemployed people to actively participate in the social reintegration process.
Since the 1980s, salespeople have relied on their instincts to navigate the sales process. They use a series of good guesses and common sense to identify influencers, competitors, actions, and other details that have an impact on your companies results and profits: your future contracts!
Finelis, since 2009, provides SMEs and their sales teams with a sales outsourcing solution combining formal strategic analysis and operational reality in the field.
Managers, you have not yet aligned the activities of your salespeople with your own strategic vision, despite the fantastic work of your sales Director… There may be holes in the racket that we can fill.
Contact us to find out more and discover how Finelis Coaching teams can help you reach your goals and boost your business.