While outsourcing began as a way for large organizations to cut costs, small businesses quickly recognized outsourcing as a strategy for growing their organizations and obtaining top expertise for a fraction of what it would cost to hire that expertise full-time. A virtual sales manager is a great way for a small business to:
- Reduce and control operating costs;
- Improve its focus in the area of sales;
- Gain access to expert resources not found internally;
- Free up internal resources for strategic purposes; and
- Reduce risk.
Using the Client Builder Selling and Sales Management process as a roadmap, your virtual sales manager will design and implement systems for prospecting and selling throughout your organization. These systems and processes include:
- Evaluating your sales team and its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Assigning salespeople to the right roles.
- Aligning selling strategies with business objectives.
- Defining target markets and building prospect lists.
- Establishing sales goals and setting expectations.
- Developing prospecting strategy and personal prospecting plans.
- Designing a customized, unified selling process.
- Providing ongoing training of salespeople on how to execute this process.
- Proactively monitoring prospecting activity.
- Managing the sales pipeline.
- Providing ongoing coaching and debriefing of salespeople on specific deals.
- Accompanying salespeople on important sales calls.
- Providing ongoing review of selling plans and call-reports.
- Recruiting, hiring and onboarding of new salespeople.
The typical engagement is long-term, sometimes lasting for years, but there are no long-term commitments. Depending on the arrangement, your virtual sales manager will dedicate anywhere from one to eight days per month towards developing and executing your selling strategy.
