1. Minimum daily revenue potential per agent of €1,000 or more

2. Sales orders resulting in a high annual subscription revenue stream

3. High inside sales staff turnover

4. High recruitment and training overhead costs

5. Lengthy decision cycles

6. Multiple decision makers

Logically this can best be done by creating a sales lead generation engine for your direct sales force. This will provide the means for your sales force to maximise their time spent in talking to pre qualified prospects.

For complex products and services such as technology, you should proceed carefully in stages:

Stage 1 would be to test if outsourcing can feed your sales pipeline with qualified leads or appointments at an appropriate cost.

Stage 2 would involve testing a sales pipeline building process. Typically this would need several months as it involves using multiple telephone contacts and periodic email communication to remain in contact with prospects until they are willing to speak to a sales person.

If this is successful, you can then consider moving to Stage 3 involving more complex selling.

If any of the following are required, you should not attempt moving beyond stages 1 and 2:

- Requires a demonstration

- Involves responding to a tender or RFQ

- Requires pre sales consulting services

For Stage 1, somewhere between 40 and 60 hours of live calling would constitute a reasonable test sample.

For Stage 2, you will typically need around 2-4 months elapsed time

In evaluating potential partners check the following:

1. Ensure that a process exists for measuring the quality of all lists used

2. Agree a testing process to provide you with comfort that conversations will be handled professionally and in a way that will yield the best results achievable

3. Request daily activity reporting to measure results achieved, positive and negative qualification results

4. Ensure the project is staffed with people capable of having flexible conversations with senior decision makers.

5. Insist on an agreed quality monitoring process such as voice recording and review

6. You need to commit to training of staff - Objection handling is particularly important

7. You will need a proper tracking system to measure internal vs. external performance

According to the Gartner Group, an inside sales person costs are around 35% of a sales representative and can provide significant cost savings for your business development effort.

Also, Gartner has found that field sales reps can increase their sales volume by as much as 150% when fed with a stream of qualified sales leads from a dedecated business development team.