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When you can hire a telemarketer for around $25/hour, it follows that the cost of running an in-house programme must be much less than outsourcing it. In fact, when you take into account all of the indirect (hidden) costs you’ll actually be paying at least $60/hour to run your in-house operation. And because things rarely go exactly to plan, it’s likely that the real cost will be around $80/hour.
The basic hourly rate you will pay the telemarketer will be somewhere between $25 and $30/hour depending on skill level. Can you pay less than this? Yes, but as with all things, you get what you pay for. Do you want someone experienced who will get results, or do you want someone who’s cheap? There’s a great saying in business: “If a professional is too expensive for you, try hiring an amateur”.
The actual costs of running your own internal lead generation/sales prospecting/inside sales team programme can be broken down into 4 areas:
While you will pay your lead generator somewhere between $25 and $30/hour depending on their level of skill and experience, you also have to add:
(Note: these are added on because with an outsourced resource, you do not pay for sick leave or holiday time. Every single day and hour you pay for is worked)
Can you pay less than this? Yes, but you get what you pay for. Do you want someone experienced who will get results, or do you want someone who’s cheap?
Remember the adage: “If a professional is too expensive for you, try hiring an amateur”.
Typical indirect costs include:
Assumes that the supervising manager’s salary is $96,993 ($80,000 + Super, Payroll Tax, Worker’s Compensation)
Includes software licenses, computers, telephones, email accounts, etc
Note: If you only need a part-time lead generation resource, these fixed costs will remain more or less the same, potentially doubling the impact on the hourly rate.
There are additional items that we provide at no extra cost and that are not included in the direct or indirect costs. When these are added to the cost of running your internal campaign rather than deducted from our hourly rate, the cost goes up.
Includes script writing, strategy setting, assistance on list generation, internal agent briefings and training on your campaign
A dedicated resource taking full responsibility for your campaign and ensuring that it runs smoothly, without you or your team having to constantly manage this. This resource is separate to the time our Call Centre Manager and Team Leaders support your agents
Includes ongoing agent skills training and development
All of the costs above assume that everything goes well. But as we all know in business, things rarely go exactly to plan. Here are some of the common challenges you may face and that we overcome on a regular basis to ensure that our lead generation campaigns are delivering the right outcomes week after week :
The leads you’re getting aren’t the right ones, perhaps your telemarketer is finding it very hard to engage with your target market, or your sales message is not resonating with these decision makers. While you might spend 1 month trying to refine and fix this issue (at a cost of $9,024), we will be across it and will typically have a fix in place within one to two weeks (a saving of $4,512).
These things happen, but by the time you’ve realised that they can’t do the job you need them to do, you’ve probably lost 2 months of results (at a cost of $18,049). If one of our agents is not generating the results we expect for you (no agent is outstanding on every campaign), we will have replaced them on your campaign within 1-2 weeks (a saving of $13,537).
Either because of low performance or because they find another job. It will take at least 3 weeks to recruit and train a new person (downtime cost $6,768)
A 10% shortfall in productivity is just 1 – 2 fewer calls per hour, but this amounts to almost 3,000 calls over 12 months and potentially 40 – 50 fewer appointments per year.
When one of the above events occurs, the cost of running your own in-house lead generation rises to at least $70/hour. When two of these events occur, your costs jump to over $80/hour. If you have to replace under-performing telemarketers more than once per year, the costs go up even further.
So, when you look at the real costs of an in-house lead generation solution compared with an outsourced one, you’ll see that they are actually very similar. But with an outsourced solution all of the headaches disappear, replaced by peace of mind that a professional lead generation/inside sales provider is looking after all of the issues for you.
Keeping in mind the real costs, if you still want to run your own in-house lead generation team, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me via LinkedIn or email enquiries@fmgroup.com.au and I’ll send you a copy of my book “The Ultimate Guide to B2B Sales Prospecting” which will help guide you in setting this up and avoiding many of the common pitfalls.
To explore this topic further, watch Owen Richards’ Outsourced vs In-house Sales vlog with Simon Scott-Nelson below. Owen joined the FMG team in 2008, heading up the Operations team for 7 years. In 2015 Owen returned to the UK, partnering with us to found and open Air Marketing Group, a 75% replication, 25% innovation business model to FMG, which opened in 2016. 4 years on, both FMG and Air are continuing to grow and have big ambitions to disrupt the outsourced sales market internationally.
Tell us a bit about what you’re looking for and we’ll be in touch right away.