You’ve got a product. You have an in-house sales team to sell that product. But something is missing. Something’s not connecting. You’re looking for that missing piece, that elusive ingredient that can help put that product into the hands of the people who want and need it most.
Direct sales may be what you’re looking for.
Something that folks unfamiliar with direct sales may not know: it is completely different from retail or B2B selling. There are certain products and services that lend themselves well to those types of selling… and there are certain instances when taking the product directly to a potential consumer in a direct sale can yield best possible results.
What Is Direct Sales?
There are a lot of different ways for people to sell stuff. Some people cold call. Others use referral marketing or networking. While both of these types of selling – and others – can be effective (depending, of course, on the product and industry involved), direct selling can be a really powerful channel for growing business.
Direct sales differs from these other methods in that direct sellers go go directly to a consumer with a product. Typically, this interaction happens face-to-face, either at a sales event or door to door – whether in a consumer’s neighborhood or a business’ office park.
Usually, a company hires a direct sales firm as a subcontractor to represent their product to a particular community. There are a few benefits to doing so… and we’re going to highlight 4 of them.
#1: Hiring A Direct Sales Firm Means Less Costs
Here’s a huge benefit we’ll get out of the way early: hiring a direct sales firm to get your product in front of the potential customers in a community tends to be much less costly than trying to mobilize sales efforts there yourself.
Think about the costs for hiring, training, and mobilizing an in-house sales team. Imagine the HR costs. Now imagine replicating that process for every market you want to target.
That’s certainly not a cheap prospect. Depending on your product, target market, and the size of your team, it may even be a struggle to break even on your sales efforts.
When you hire a direct sales firm to help sell your products, you’re hiring them at a flat rate of acquisition. Daily operating expenses are handled by the sales firm in question, and since their business model is structured around bringing in results using methods that have proven to work in their community, you can be assured that the investment is a smart one.
#2: Hiring A Direct Sales Firm Means A More Scalable Process
Part of the reason why direct sales firms are more cost effective than relying completely on in-house sales teams to perform targeted sales efforts is that direct sales firms are, by and large, much more scalable.
Direct sales firms tend to specialize in a particular industry. (Telecom is fairly popular, even if we do say so ourselves.) Because they work with different companies throughout the industry, direct sales firms have a great sense of the industry as a whole.
They know what trends are happening throughout the industry. More importantly, they know what’s working in their community and what results to realistically expect.
As a result, they can tailor a sales approach to a particular product and get that product in front of customers more quickly and efficiently than most in-house sales teams. Direct sales firms are build to scale, and a good direct sales firm will have that worked out to a repeatable, scalable process.
#3: Hiring A Direct Sales Firm Means Less Headache
Remember, direct sales firms represent your product and work as brand ambassadors. They have their own incentive to provide results. They take on all of the day-to-day operating expenses of getting your product in front of potential customers.
That means they are the ones taking on the risks of the venture. You, of course, risk that flat cost of acquisition to get that firm hired, (which is why it’s important to choose a great direct sales firm with proven results,) but after that the day-to-day headaches of targeted B2C sales are handled by the direct sales firm. They know what pitfalls to avoid.
This frees up bandwidth in your sales teams to focus on areas where they can get more traction, like B2B and channel type sales.
It also takes away the headache of extensive market research. Direct sales firms know what’s been working in their community. A good one can estimate reasonable results based on their extensive market knowledge. And it helps educate your existing sales teams about strategies and market realities they may not have fully understood about a particular market!
That type of market knowledge can empower your organization to invest wisely in various community sales efforts, and takes away the headache of trying to get a pulse on your consumer territories.
#4: Hiring A Direct Sales Team Means More Results
Here’s the thing about direct sales firms: they are hungry.
Their whole business model is built on the idea of taking a great product, (your product,) and introducing it to a great community, (their community.) And they’re willing to take on the risks to make that happen.
They won’t write off their own community as “not being their market.”
They can’t afford to move at a leisurely pace.
They get paid to sell. They like to sell. So they do. And they tend to have a specialized system to help them do it.
This isn’t to say that in-house sales teams don’t care about selling. But the pace of a B2B sale is much more relaxed than that of a direct sale. There are different motivators involved.
When it comes to targeted sales efforts, there’s no better bang for your buck in the results department than getting a great direct sales firm in their corner.
They know the do’s and don’ts of their process and their community. They’re willing to be innovative and try new approaches to move your product. And they’re willing to take the success of your product in their community into their own hands.
Hiring A Direct Sales Team Means Hiring A Partner
When you hire a direct sales firm, you’re hiring a set of skills. You’re hiring a finely tuned selling machine that knows their industry, knows their community, and will be able to show you how your organizations can make inroads there together.
In short, you’re hiring a partner.
You hire them to get results, to get your product in front of customers faster than you could do it yourself, to provide great insight into the local marketplace, and to do it at a relatively low cost of acquisition.
Direct sales firms don’t replace your in-house sales teams- they supplement them and help them grow.
If you’re in the telecom industry and you’re looking for a great direct sales firm to get your product into the hands of your customers, consider Solcomm. We have a tested system, a gangbusters team with thoroughly trained and well-supported subdealers to expand your reach into several communities. And we partner with you every step of the way to get you great sales results quickly and professionally.
Learn more about how to partner with Solcomm today!
Hi, I would like to talk to someone regarding the hire of a direct sales company to manage the end to end sales of my online electronic workplace management system called Business Support Hub.