Outbound sales means finding buyers on the salesperson's initiative and working with them consistently until they reach a purchase decision. The company chooses whom to offer its product to, starts the conversation and follows through on agreements to secure orders beyond incoming enquiries. For a business owner, this approach offers a way to develop relationships with the customers they want, but it requires the team's time throughout the deal.
If the search for new customers only comes to life after your reminder, it is easy to think that salespeople lack the will. I think it is too early to start with motivation here. First, you need an answer: where does continuing the conversations already started fit into the department's schedule? The first successful contact adds work — clarifying the task, preparing an estimate, holding a meeting. If the sales plan only accounts for new calls, a successful search creates the conditions for its own halt.
What outbound sales involves
Outbound sales involves finding a suitable buyer, establishing a reason for buying and taking the conversation through to a definite decision. The salesperson continues to take the initiative between contacts: they do what they promised, suggest the next step and know when there is no longer a reason to continue the conversation.
A cold call is just one way to start. A salesperson also approaches a previous buyer with a new offer or returns to a company that postponed a purchase until a particular event. Knowing someone does not in itself make the sale inbound. What matters is who started discussing this purchase.
The first approach needs a reason that makes sense to the recipient. A company's industry and size help you select a contact list, but they do not yet explain why the buyer should talk now. A suitable reason is a problem your product solves and known circumstances that create it: replacing equipment, a contract ending, preparing a purchase. Known means confirmed by available information, rather than invented to make a letter convincing.
If nothing is known about the need, the first conversation serves to establish it. The salesperson needs answers: what the buyer purchases, how they choose a supplier and what event prompts them to reconsider that choice. The proposal is prepared after this. Sending everyone the whole catalogue is easier, but then the company is paying to distribute material that has no purpose yet.
Outbound sales also has a stopping point. If the product does not suit the buyer, there is no need or they have refused further communication, close the contact with a reason. Persistence without a reason to take up someone else's time is no substitute for a salesperson's work.
Outbound and inbound sales
Outbound and inbound sales differ in who takes the initiative: in outbound sales, the salesperson approaches the buyer; in inbound sales, they respond to an incoming enquiry. The word 'inbound' describes the start of the sale; it says nothing about how complex the subsequent negotiations will be.
| What we are comparing | Outbound sales | Inbound sales |
|---|---|---|
| Start of the conversation | The salesperson chooses the recipient and makes the first approach | The buyer submits an enquiry, calls or visits on their own initiative |
| Knowledge of the need | Whether there is a need and when it arises have yet to be established | There is an enquiry; the task itself still needs to be clarified |
| First useful outcome | It is clear whether there is something to discuss further | It is clear how to help the person who enquired and what step to suggest |
| Workload before the proposal | Selecting contacts, preparing, trying to make contact, establishing the task | Receiving the enquiry, replying, clarifying the request |
| What is easy to lose | The continuation of the conversation after initial interest | The enquiry itself because of a delayed response |
Both approaches are needed within one company. Incoming enquiries provide work with people who have already shown interest; seeking customers yourself lets you approach the buyers you choose. A buyer who comes to you will also need an estimate and agreement on the details. Calling the salespeople serving them weak simply because they do not approach unfamiliar buyers makes no sense: first define their task and workload.
Also distinguish between how a customer first found you and your current work with them. A company first came through advertising, but your salesperson initiated a new purchase — the source of the original contact is unchanged, while the initiative for the new deal belongs to the salesperson. It is useful to keep both details in your records. Otherwise, a repeat order will be credited entirely to advertising, or all the previous enquiries will be declared the result of actively seeking customers.
For the business owner, the main choice here is how much of the team's time goes towards developing new relationships and how much is kept for current buyers. Requiring both faster replies to all incoming enquiries and more searching for new customers without changing the workload creates a conflict. It will have to be resolved every day, even if it is not written into the sales plan.
Why do successful contacts slow the search for new customers?
Successful contacts slow the pace when continuing negotiations takes up hours previously allocated only to new contacts. The more meaningful replies a salesperson receives, the more estimates, meetings and promises with specific deadlines they have.
At the start, the task list is short, and the sales plan for initial contacts looks manageable. Then buyers appear who need a reply. If the required number of new contacts stays the same, the salesperson has to choose: break a promise to an interested person or miss the daily sales plan for finding new customers. Increasing the bonus for calls will make the second option more costly for the salesperson, but it will not add time.
The distinction is visible in the types of overdue work. If promised estimates and meetings are piling up, continuing sales does not fit into the day. If the allocated time is free, the contact list is ready and the first approaches have not been made, the issue is whether the work is being done. If the approaches have been made but people see no reason to discuss a purchase, the choice of recipients and the content of the proposal need examining. These three causes need different solutions.
The business owner only needs to see these causes separately in the head of sales' report. There is no need to read every record personally. The report should explain what is limiting the work and what has changed: the amount of searching for new customers, how customers are shared out or the way they are approached.
How many new contacts can the sales team handle?
A manageable number of new contacts is calculated from the time left after promised actions on current negotiations. The calculation needs the team's hours and the actual time spent finding new customers; there is no universal call target for all sales departments.
Calculate this for the next five working days. First, the head of sales sets aside the hours actually available for outbound sales after allowing for handling current orders and incoming enquiries, meetings and staff absences. They then estimate the time needed to continue negotiations already started. The remainder shows how many new conversations the department can begin without knowingly creating overdue work.
Time for new contacts = time available for outbound sales − time for continuing negotiations.
To turn hours into a number, you need the average time spent on one new company. Include gathering information, attempts to make contact and recording the result. Count unsuccessful attempts too: they also take up the day. Compare contacts of the same type; a short approach to a familiar buyer and preparing to approach a new company take different amounts of time.
Number of new companies = remaining hours × 60 ÷ average number of minutes spent on initial work for one company. Round the result down. This is an upper estimate before allowing for unplanned work, rather than an obligation to fill every minute. As new replies arrive, the head of sales recalculates the remaining time: today's agreement already takes up some of tomorrow's time.
The department's calculation line: 'Available: … hours; continuing negotiations takes … hours; … hours remain × 60 = … minutes; a new company takes … minutes; … companies fit.' All values come from your workload. If the remainder is negative, another list of contacts to call will add to the existing backlog of promises.
If no measurements are available, the head of sales needs five working days of time records for these groups of tasks. These provide the first reference point for their team. The business owner gets a basis for choosing: take some customer service work off the salespeople, add people or accept that fewer new customers will be approached. Raising the target without making this choice means asking the salesperson to decide which commitments to break.
The move from the sales total you need to the actions you can take is covered in more detail in the article on the sales plan and the route to achieving it.
How do you set the next step without endless reminders?
The next step must include an action, a person responsible, a deadline and a reason to continue the conversation. A salesperson's internal task and an agreement with the buyer need to be distinguished: a date in the CRM system does not in itself mean that the customer is expecting a call.
The following guide is useful for the department. It helps assess the quality of follow-up before payment arrives.
| What is known after the contact | Next step | When to end or change the work |
|---|---|---|
| The buyer has described the task but has not provided the data for an estimate | Agree what information they will provide and by when; schedule preparation of the estimate | If the data does not arrive, find out the reason for the delay instead of sending a proposal based on guesses |
| Further discussion depends on an event at the buyer's company | Record the event and the agreed time for returning to the matter | If the event is cancelled, establish again whether there is still something to discuss |
| The proposal has been sent and a discussion agreed | Prepare answers about the terms and discuss the proposal at the appointed time | After the discussion, record the decision or the specific unresolved question |
| The person has not replied | Make the next attempt according to the set procedure, without inventing the customer's consent | After the prescribed attempts, remove the contact from current work with the reason 'no contact' |
| There has been a direct refusal of further communication | Close the contact and record the refusal | Stop further attempts regarding this proposal |
The head of sales sets the procedure for unanswered attempts in advance for each way of making contact: the number, the interval and the reason to stop. These are chosen based on the company's own contact list and recipients' responses. A blanket habit of calling everyone daily erases the difference between someone who asked to be contacted later and someone who has never entered a conversation at all.
At the end of the working day, the head of sales only needs to review what was due: whether the salesperson has kept their promise and whether the buyer has replied. An overdue estimate requires intervention in the team's work. No response requires a decision on another attempt or closing the contact. A customer's silence does not give us the right to reschedule our unfinished task as if we were waiting for them.
How do you start outbound sales that last beyond three days?
Start with one segment, a clear offer and a number of contacts the department can follow up with. The result of the initial launch is information about buyers' responses and the team's workload, which the head of sales uses to decide what to expand and what to change.
- Define the buyer and the reason for contact. Write down the characteristics of a suitable company, the task being solved and the information the salesperson will need to establish. The result of preparation is a contact list explaining why each recipient was chosen.
- Allocate time. Set aside separate hours for first approaches and for continuing conversations. Assign someone to handle incoming enquiries during this time. Otherwise, any new enquiry cancels the search without a decision by the head of sales.
- Choose the immediate result. For the first conversation, this is an established need, agreed follow-up or a contact closed for a clear reason. A completed estimate only appears where the necessary data has been gathered. This lets you see where help is needed to move forward.
- Set a date for a decision on the launch. After the first five working days, compare planned and completed contacts, buyers' replies and overdue promises. Assess sales in light of how long your deals take; you cannot demand payment within five days where agreeing a purchase takes longer.
If suitable buyers enter discussions and promised actions are completed on time, there is a basis for increasing the volume within the calculated workload. If there is nothing to discuss, first change the segment or the offer. If there are replies but follow-up is failing, expansion will stop until time is freed up. A count of dialled numbers is no substitute for these decisions.
When the business owner is managing the search again
The search remains the owner's responsibility if they alone decide whom to call, whom to follow up with and which overdue tasks to address first. Even with strong salespeople, the company then needs the owner to pay constant attention to the queue of tasks.
Here, the head of sales needs to manage the workload and agreements every day. The head of sales' own sales do not free them from this responsibility; the conflict is covered in detail in the article on a head of sales who is busy with their own customers.
At RENTROP, turnkey sales management is designed to take over the daily work with the sales team so that the business owner no longer acts as the overall head of sales. This makes sense when a business needs work carried out and its existing team managed, rather than another list of recommendations.
I am comfortable with reducing the sales plan for initial contacts if the hours freed up are already needed for interested buyers. More worrying is keeping the same impressive target that leads a salesperson to put off a promised estimate: the company has secured a conversation and is now leaving itself no time to continue it.