Jenny Vance discusses how at the end of 2009, beginning of 2010 many high tech companies were starting to feel the strain in the economic shift. In that time, the use of an outsourced partner for lead generation became more common and cost effective than hiring sales executives to boost sales. Now, in 2011, when the economic strain has begun to lessen so, it seems, has the frequency of using an outsourced partner for lead generation.
Let’s start by taking a little trip back in time. It’s the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010. Many high tech companies were just starting to feel the major pinch of the economic shift and how they needed to plan resources in 2010 to compensate. Deals were lingering on the vine. Close dates were being pushed and company finances were being strained. Yes, it’s a bad memory, so why discuss it? During those strains in early 2010, companies made an important decision about lead generation. It wasn’t realistic to stop targeting prospective clients with their value and message, so the question became “how can our company still reach our prospective clients to grow our pipeline in the most cost effective way?” Companies wouldn’t get there simply by hiring enterprise sales executives. Plus, the dollars weren’t available for that strategy. So, many decided to leverage their existing enterprise sales talent and help them focus on closing by providing prospecting support. Plus, companies felt they could work with an outsourced vendor to help enable prospecting so they wouldn’t have the overhead of an internal team and they could get to market more quickly because they already had proven best practices.
Now, come back to the present. It’s 2011, why is it that now that companies have dollars, the mindset about how effective/productive/cost effective it was to work with an outsourced partner is now all of a sudden null and void? The effectiveness of the outsourced partner didn’t just go away over night because if outsourcing were really the “expensive” solution, why was it the first choice during the highest degree of financial strain?
It almost seems that since companies have dollars and less financial pressure, they no longer have to evaluate the most cost effective and productive solution. Now, they can just freely spend the dollars without thought given to proven best practices and cost analysis beyond dollars per hour.