The Most Likely Sales Growth Candidate

Companies aren’t built overnight. They start with an idea and a founder. As the idea takes shape and starts to expand, you begin to add people to your team who will help you grow your vision.  

Administrative support, developers, and marketers are generally the first people companies bring on board. But eventually, a dedicated sales rep will become a necessity to grow your business.

However, this is the point where many business owners get stuck. They hire a sales rep and assign them a mix of responsibilities. Cold prospecting, lead qualification, closing, and account management all fall to the lone sales rep.

WHAT’S THE REAL PROBLEM?

While the sales rep is struggling to get all of their tasks completed, they should actually be narrowing down their focus. According to HubSpot, 70% of companies say closing more deals is their top sales priority. There is an obvious disconnect between the activities the sales rep is performing and what the business owner really needs to get done.

So, what’s a business owner to do? Invest in more sales reps or replace their current rep? Get a sales leader that can train and motivate a better performance from the existing team?

While these solutions may appear to help in the short term, they are costly, time-consuming, and sometimes fail to actually fix the real problem – not generating enough quality leads.

Perhaps the answer is to invest in a specialized marketing person that is focused only on generating leads for your first closer.

WHAT’S MY SOLUTION?

Sales enablement is a relatively new term but it has quickly made its way into the mainstream. The term refers to a collection of lead generation marketing activities that drive warm leads to the sales team.

Not only is this method cost effective, but it produces better results. Expertise in lead nurturing results in a 50% increase in sales-ready leads, along with a 33% decrease in its cost, according to Forrester Research via HubSpot.

However, many small and mid-sized businesses tend to over-invest in sales efforts while only having a few marketing people that focus on providing sales collateral and creating lead generation content for sales reps to leverage throughout the selling process. In fact, studies show that 71% of small businesses tend to rely on non-marketing experts to drive their marketing.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Your next step is considering what activities a sales enablement professional will perform and how they can help your business.

Generally, what this person will need to focus on will be content marketing and email marketing. Email ranks as the third most influential information source for B2B audiences, behind colleague recommendations and industry-specific intermediaries. In fact, email marketing generates $38 for $1 spent, a whopping 3,800 percent RIO. And, 93% of B2B companies say content marketing generates more leads than traditional marketing strategies.

And having a dedicated person to focus on generating quality leads may be more beneficial to your company than you think. Outbound leads cost 39% more than inbound leads and nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads.

But if you still think your current sales rep should be handling these functions or think your company is too small to hire a specialized marketing professional, then think again. Lack of resources, such as staff, funding, and time remains the biggest obstacle to successful lead generation for 61% of B2B companies, according to BrightTALK.

Every small-to-medium business that relies primarily on outbound sales efforts to drive their revenues should consider adding a demand generation specialist after hiring a sales rep because it will dramatically improve results for the existing sales team.

If you think it might make sense to speak with someone that could help you assess what type of marketing resource might be most effective for your team, request a consultation or call us at 866-487-4156.

So, is the answer to creating a high-performance sales team adding a new sales leader? More reps? Continue using a process that doesn’t work? Maybe it’s worth considering that you might need some marketing help instead?

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