Doing Marketing and sales yourself vs. outsourcing: what are the pros and cons?

You've decided to invest in your growth and you know that a lot needs to be done in the areas of marketing and sales. Until now, you've done these activities all by yourself, but you also know that for consistent results, you need a consistent approach. In other words, you need help with your marketing and sales.

The big question now is: will you do your marketing and sales yourself or outsource?

This is a conversation I regularly have with our clients, and unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. It depends on several factors.

In this article you will read:

• What are the pros and cons of building your own marketing and sales team?
• What are the pros and cons of outsourcing to an agency
• What questions you can ask yourself to make an informed decision

Disclaimer: at Buzzlytics, we help companies build an in-house team in our marketing and sales program. However, this does not mean that this is the best solution for every company. In this article, we'll discuss the pros and cons of bringing marketing and sales in-house vs. outsourcing to an agency, so you can decide which is the best solution for you.

If you do your marketing and sales yourself, you have more control over the strategy and execution.

Putting together your own marketing and sales team can seem like a daunting task, and frankly, it is. But there are several advantages that make this option worth considering.

When you bring your marketing and sales activities in-house, you have more control over them. This goes for your staff and your tools, but especially for your strategy.

What goals will you prioritize? What activities will you undertake? What will be the cadence?

An in-house team can get more involved in the details of your plans. Moreover, they will also likely feel more involved in the outcome of the strategies used, since your business is their sole focus.

While some agencies are incredibly good and may have experience with your industry, they will never understand your business as well as the people working in it on a daily basis.

This applies to both marketing and sales. The knowledge your in-house staff has is reflected in every strategy they develop and every conversation they have. And that authentic voice is what you need to build the trust of your target audience.

This does require proper onboarding and training of your employees. It's not automatic that someone internal will always convey your company experience well.

By doing marketing and sales in-house, you build expertise that is valuable for the long term.

By doing marketing and sales in-house, you build expertise that is valuable for the long term. This is especially important in sales because the sales process has a direct impact on customer expectations and relationships.

Unlike marketing, where it's the end result that counts, sales is also about getting there. A sales person who is too non-committal in the sales process or promises things that cannot be fulfilled may close a deal but creates problems for the future.

If you decide to build an in-house team for the first time, you will need to hire additional people such as a content manager, videographer or sales staff.

Finding and inducting new team members takes time, and you will also have to pay one or more additional salaries.

You may be thinking right now: I already have people on my team who could fill these roles. That would be great, but keep in mind that marketing or sales should become their full-time focus.

Their original positions may have to be filled by a new employee if their workload cannot be shared among others.

Hiring additional employees also requires more paperwork, one-on-one interviews, updated job descriptions, performance reviews, pay raises, career conversations, resources, tools and more.

If you build your own team, you need to invest a lot of time and energy in training and coaching your sales staff.

Insourcing marketing and sales requires everyone, from management to the shop floor, to be involved and aligned on the vision and related activities.

To get the best results, everyone needs to understand its value, what it takes to be successful, and commit to making it happen.

Especially in sales, training and development is crucial. Unlike marketing, where you mainly look at the end result, in sales the process itself is also very important. A marketer can arrive at a good article through various avenues, but in sales, how someone arrives at a deal can have a big impact on the customer relationship.

This means investing a lot of time and energy in training and coaching your sales staff - something companies often underestimate when bringing sales in-house.

When you work with an agency, you benefit from their processes, talents and resources. This goes for both marketing and sales.

In marketing, it means access to specialists in strategy, SEO, content creation and design. In sales, you get proven workflows and scripts that help you set up an effective sales process.

In marketing, this means that the agency develops your strategy, produces content and runs campaigns. In sales, this goes a step further - ideally, you just get leads handed to you on a silver platter. So you don't have to worry about the process, only the results.

If you work with an agency, you'll be up-to-speed faster than if you still have to assemble a team.

The sooner you can get started, the sooner you can reap the benefits of your investment.

You don't have to screen people and you don't have to plan anything, the agency does that for you. While the agency obviously needs some startup time, with their experience, this phase will go quickly compared to when you do it yourself.

Although some agencies specialize in your industry, it is unlikely that they will ever really sound like you. This is true for marketing, but even more true for sales.

In marketing, this can lead to slower production and labor-intensive rounds of editing. In sales, I often see that the tone-of-voice of the sales agency does not match that of the organization. For example, if an agency is very pusher in making appointments, while your company stands for a more consultative selling approach.

When there are changes within an agency - and this happens often - you immediately lose the accumulated knowledge. You see this with marketing agencies, but even more so with sales agencies where, for example, different students from a pool call on your behalf.

This builds knowledge piecemeal and doesn't allow for deep learning of your specific process. With an in-house team, you can learn from what didn't go well today and improve it immediately tomorrow.

When you hire an agency to do the work for you, you always remain dependent on them. This is perhaps the biggest disadvantage of hiring an agency.

Instead of building on the expertise and skills of your own team, invest in the growth and development of people outside your company. Even if you find someone you like at the agency, you'll be stuck with the bottom line if the partnership with the agency ends for any reason.

Putting together your own team or hiring an outside agency are not the only options you have for implementing your marketing and sales strategy.

You could also consider freelancers. Freelancers can have a wealth of knowledge. Many have left successful careers in the corporate world to start their own businesses and are very talented.

The advantage of freelancers is that you don't have the cost of permanent employees and can often terminate a collaboration that you don't like fairly easily.

On the other hand, freelancers have the same disadvantages as an agency. They will never understand your brand the way an in-house team can, and one freelancer usually can't meet all your needs. You often need multiple freelancers to get the job done and that can add up the cost very quickly.

The bigger your ambitions, the more logical it often makes sense to bring your marketing and sales in-house.

To get you started, below are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you make the right choice:

• What is your ambition level? The greater your ambitions, the more logical it often is to do marketing and sales in-house.
• Do you want to possibly sell your business in the future? Then it can be valuable to have this expertise in house
• How important are marketing and sales to the growth of your business?
• Is it worth the time and effort to align your entire business?
• How are your current efforts doing? Is growth stagnant or stable?
• Do you already have people on your team who could become responsible for marketing or sales?
• Do you see your efforts as a short- or long-term play?
• Do you already have good results with agencies or freelancers? If so, does it make sense to stop doing that?

These questions can help you have the right discussions and determine which factors weigh most heavily in your choice between an in-house team or an outside agency.

Insourcing or outsourcing your marketing and sales is not an easy decision. It strongly depends on your specific situation, your ambition level and the stage your business is in.

If you have big growth ambitions and are willing to invest in the long term, building your own marketing and sales team is often the best choice. Not only will you then build expertise within your company, but you will also have complete control over how your brand is marketed.

Don't currently have the budget or need for full-time expertise? Then an agency or freelancer can be an excellent solution to help you grow.

At Buzzlytics, we have already helped many companies make this choice and implement their marketing and sales strategy. We see that companies who make an informed choice - whether to insource or outsource - achieve much better results than those who do not give this enough thought.

Would you like to spar about what the best choice is in your situation? Schedule a meeting with me or one of my colleagues. We would love to help you make the right choice for your company.