Sales consulting services were estimated to be well over a $330 billion industry in ‘22. When large and midcap companies have full-time senior executives covering every function of the business, why are so many looking to outside for guidance?
Given the rapid changes in B2B buyer behaviors, the explosion of marketing and sales technology, the new types of prospect data available, and the resulting market noise numbing buyer interest, sales consulting is probably the fastest growing category of strategic consulting.
Each of the top tier firms, from BCG, Bain, McKinsey to others, have all created or bolstered their sales and marketing practices. Whether you’re starting a new company or growing an existing business, a sales consultant can be a cost-effective way to learn new skills and optimize your sales strategy into a modern and scalable engine.
On the other hand, hiring the wrong consulting team can cost you time, energy, focus, and your hard-earned money.
If you’ve been considering business sales consulting as a way to help increase your revenue and jumpstart your business, read on as we discuss when and why business owners should consider hiring a consultant for their organization.
Can a Sales Consulting Services Company Increase Your Revenue?
“Sales consulting” can be vague (and misused!) term, but it can be valuable and impactful for your business when you find the right consulting firm. Unfortunately, companies sometimes avoid hiring a business sales consultant because they aren’t sure how to measure the consultant’s ROI.
This article will provide a comprehensive overview and outline when to consider hiring sales consulting services and how to measure your return on investment after you make that decision.
What Does a Sales Consultant Do?
A business or sales consultant is an outside expert hired to address a business challenge. They have specialized knowledge, skills, and experience to improve their client’s internal systems, process, strategy and perspective.
Unlike in-house employees, consultants are special-purpose and contracted for the specific challenge and then move on. With the growth of the entire gig economy trend, consultants are the unique and temporary resource to address challenges that the internal team is not equipped for or been able to improve.
When to Hire a Business Sales Consulting Company
The decision to find and contract with a specialist to improve a revenue challenge is often not planned and budgeted. The belief is the team you hired will be all that is needed. However, more and more recently the dynamics of sales and marketing is increasingly complicated and challenging as most teams are not experienced in modern sales plans. Below are a few indications that your team might need to hire some help:
1. Lack of In-House Resources
A well-developed revenue plan will have all the elements needed across sales and marketing identified and resourced. Given the diversity of elements across the revenue function, it is hard to staff all the unique expertise needed. Most companies fail to meet plans due to execution. The individuals are stretched thin and make best guess attempts vs best practices. Looking for experts to fill those empty or inexperienced gaps is most often cost effective. And usually there is a knowledge transfer, so it’s a one time investment.
2. Not Sure What The Revenue Problem Is
If your business is experiencing a decrease or shortfall in sales, or you can’t figure out why your systems aren’t working correctly, it might be time to bring in an expert. A consultant can evaluate your processes, conduct assessments, tests and research, and help you determine the cause of your issues. An outsider and expert will be far more effective at seeing problems areas than the team that designed it. Just like QA is separate from the builders in programming and manufacturing.
3. Need Expert Advice
Do you have important decisions coming up that will affect the future of your company? Are you unsure about which path to take and could use expert advice on what to do?
A specialist who understands your industry and has experience improving performance and increasing revenue can be a valuable asset. They’ll help you focus your investments and help you avoid making critical mistakes.
Beyond expertise, arguably the biggest benefit to an outsider working internally is the fresh and outside perspective. Most quality engagements looking into a challenge take a broad assessment perspective collecting input 360 within the organization before diving into a solution. More importantly, recognizing revenue performance is mostly about a customer perspective, outsiders are far more capable and effective at collecting accurate market feedback.
4. Business Processes and Operations Need Adjusting
Any investor and successful business person will tell you that maintaining effective business processes and operations is crucial for maintaining your company’s success or failure. Business owners and higher-ups often lack the time or the ability to examine their core operations, and they need an objective party to come and dig deeper. Sales is often the worst offender of tracking metrics and adjusting for improvement.
Hiring a consultant can help you develop and optimize your core processes from the ground up, automate and leverage AI to improve scale and efficiency, giving your business the fresh eyes it needs to help your company operate more efficiently.
How Do You Measure the ROI of Sales Consulting Services?
It is often challenging to provide hard numbers when it comes to measuring the ROI of a business consultant. They offer help and guidance in several areas, many of which are only measured by long-term growth. Most strategic consultants offer feedback and recommendations that companies don’t adopt. Total waste of time and money.
Yet for sales consulting, most engagements can very quickly be measured in their effectiveness and impact to revenue. For Altus we calculate the cost against the change in revenue and consistently measure the ROI. First, you and your consultant can set specific and measurable goals at the beginning of your relationship. Look for ways to determine how to measure success. For example, suppose you were looking for ways to increase business communications and increase traffic. In that case, you can use metrics like click rate, response rate, open and bounce ratios, and conversion rates.
It’s also important to remember that there are intangible benefits of working with a business sales consulting company. For example, is there a difference in your team’s confidence after working with a sales expert? Are productivity levels improved? Are your systems and processes working better? Though growth can feel slow, you’ll be able to tell if the partnership is working sooner than you think.
Key Takeaways For Business Sales Consulting
Many business owners hire consultants as a cost-effective way to fill gaps within their company. A business consultant can add unique skills, bring fresh perspectives, and tried and true strategies that improve your business from the ground up.
When you break it down, hire a business sales consulting company when you lack in-house expertise, need a second opinion on big decisions, or when you need to audit and restructure your internal operations to help increase revenue.
Hire a Sales Consultant
Now that you have a better idea of what to expect when hiring a business sales consulting company, our team of experts at Altus Alliance can help you refine your strategy. It’s our mission to accelerate your revenue growth and make sure all aspects of your organization are succeeding.
Give us a call today, and let’s discuss some of your pain points and our solutions.