SDR Outsourcing vs In-House: What Works in the DACH Market?

2:47Dominka: Okay. Let's describe what companies are actually looking for when they hire somebody as an SDR. You're in charge of a lot of projects in B2B sales outsourcing at OB2B. You can definitely see that some companies we work with already have an inside sales team. Some of them never really had an inside sales team and chose to outsource. And there are others who had inside sales teams and needed to outsource, because people were leaving or were doing other things. Those are three situations: one where they already have somebody, one where they never had anybody, and one where they had teams but chose differently.

3:41Anamarija: Yep. But it's also the fact that some companies choose to add external teams to their own internal team, because the internal team has a little too much work. They're handling all the clients themselves, so they don't have the time to find new potential clients. And then we work symbiotically with the internal team, and that's going really, really well. We are not taking their jobs away. We are just helping them gain more and more clients. That's pretty cool.

4:17Dominka: Yeah. I think, or maybe you can prove me wrong, that a lot of companies in the DACH market put out job offers saying they are searching for SDRs or BDRs. But a lot of people who are looking for jobs don't really understand what that means, and that it's mostly going to be cold calling. I think this is a big struggle for everybody who has never done it before and doesn't really know what it is. Because if you look at the job offers, they are not really clear. And I think a lot of people think they are going to do something other than cold calling. But it's really …

5:09Anamarija: Don't you think it's really hard to write a job ad for an SDR? When you're writing a job ad, you have to mention what kind of things the person is going to do. Not only cold calling, but also mailing. You are going to research companies. You are going to find decision makers. You are going to get in contact with them. You are going to arrange meetings, maybe attend those meetings, and so on. But when you say that out loud or write it down, it still seems a little bit … What kind of job is that? It lacks the story behind it, what it really is. Sometimes people also wonder: hey, what are you doing at OB2B? What kind of job is that? What are your SDRs doing? It's not only picking up the phone the whole day, it's way, way deeper than that. And everybody who applies for the job finds out everything in the onboarding. It's really hard to explain in the job ad alone what you can expect from the job and what it looks like. You really need to try it yourself, I would say. And I would say a lot of companies are struggling to find good people because people sometimes expect something different. Like: I'm going to research some things, I'm going to write down what I discover, and so on. And they are maybe not expecting so many things to do, so many conversations to have with potential clients, thinking of the best approaches, thinking about who your ICP might be, maybe helping in that way, and so on. So I would say it's not only black and white, you know.

7:06Dominka: Yeah. And I think one of the main problems with hiring people inside the company versus outsourcing is that SDR positions are very often junior positions.

Anamarija: Yeah, that's true.

7:22Dominka: And to be honest, that's not really something where you can only have a junior. If you look at our company, we almost don't have any juniors anymore. We haven't hired for some time now. But still, we don't really have anybody who's a junior, which is a really great plus for everybody who works with us, because they get people who already have hours and hours of cold calling and different projects behind them. And even when we have juniors, we have a lot of seniors who will help them, show them how to do it and can always substitute for them, and that way they learn how to work and how to get better. And I think it's a really big mistake to put the job offer out there as an entry-level position. Because this is not really an entry-level job. I'm sorry, everybody. But if you think this is an entry-level job and you want somebody to book qualified meetings for you, not just arrange a meeting, but do the lead generation and fight for qualified or pre-qualified contacts for you, you're not going to succeed.

8:42Anamarija: You're completely right. And connected to that, since it is not an entry-level job: say a company places a job ad for an SDR. This is going to be the only person doing cold calling, lead generation in general, research and so on. And this person, at entry level, comes to the company and doesn't have anybody there to learn from. So the onboarding process doesn't exist. And it's really, really important, especially if you want that person to know your company: not only the products or services you're offering, but the culture, what the clients are usually like, the ICP, what they should be looking for, how to approach them. So the whole onboarding process is missing, and that is really, really strong with us, because we have been doing this job for a long, long time and we know what works and what doesn't. And we are fully in this process when we have somebody new in our team. So it's a combination of entry level and no possibility of good onboarding for that person. So what becomes of that? This person comes to the company and starts working completely, I don't know, confused. They don't know where to start. They don't have anything to hold on to. And they are going to give up very, very soon. So companies become frustrated: how come we cannot find anybody who is going to do SDR jobs, BDR jobs and so on? And the process repeats itself. And maybe in the end they choose somebody external, an external team, because they don't know how to do it themselves. That is also a very good solution.

10:36Dominka: Yeah. I mean, in my opinion, and I don't want to sound like somebody who says: just come to us and we're going to be the solution for all your problems, we're going to do a perfect project for you. I do think we are doing a really good job. But on the other hand, I'm more a fan of doing it inside a company. Okay, why? Because we're doing it inside our company. I would never outsource our sales to anybody else. That would be super weird. But the problem is, a lot of people don't have the resources, the time, and don't know the job.

11:17Anamarija: Yep. They don't have the expertise. That's true.

11:20Dominka: But if you know the job, if you have somebody who is going to be a perfect project manager for that kind of thing, somebody in the back office for the presales people who will do the cold calling, the lead generation, all the mailing, all the calls, then you can build it yourself, at your company. It's going to cost you a fortune, of course.

Anamarija: That's true.

11:48Dominka: Then you have all the strings in your hand. If you cannot do that, you are better off with somebody like us. We'll definitely do it almost exactly as if we were somebody in your company. Of course, it's never going to be 100% the same, because with us, we function as a team: we are a team that sees each other, talks to each other, goes to team buildings together, goes for drinks together and so on. That's something that really is a very big value for any company. But in the end, we will do the job. And we will do it quickly and for less money. Some might say: yeah, but for that monthly amount, we could hire somebody. Yes, you could.

Anamarija: Yes, you could.

Dominka: Of course you could. Sometimes you could probably even hire two juniors or two students who could do that for you. But that's not the same thing.

12:57Anamarija: That's true. When companies think about hiring somebody themselves, internally, or taking an external team, they think: so I need an SDR, I'm not able to hire anybody right now, so I'm going to take an external team. Okay, that's fine. But they think they are going to pay for only one person, one person who is going to do the calls, the lead generation, the meeting arrangements and so on. But that's not the truth. Behind that person, you have more people. You have the whole team working on this project to make sure this project works for you. So this person, this SDR, can focus on what really matters: doing their job every day. It's cost-effective. You don't have to spend a lot of time teaching. You don't have to spend a lot of time on how to do things. You have the perfect product, which is an external team, and you just have to share the information about your work culture, your products and services, what you wish for, who your ICP is, and so on. There are some things that need to be done. You don't have to think about their breaks. You don't have to think about whether they are going to go on sick leave. You know you paid for a service and you are expecting this service, which is not something you can expect from somebody internal. You have to take care of them. You have to take care of their sick leave and so on. It's a good, positive way to have something quickly, I would say.

14:51Dominka: And in high quality in the end, because that's the only thing such a company does: outsourcing their services. You can very quickly see whether the quality is good or not. You won't see that as quickly with somebody you just hired, where you always say: yeah, there's a probation period, we'll see, okay, let's give them a bit more time, and so on. And then in the end the results are not there. You have somebody who is not really satisfied with their job, who maybe understood they would be doing something else as well. And they actually thought: if I do this for a couple of months, I'm going to get promoted to something else. Because somebody young who is striving in their career thinks: okay, this is a kind of entry-level job, and I need to move faster than I expected or than they expected from me. People get frustrated because they really didn't understand what they were going into.

16:04Anamarija: Yeah, that's from the beginning of our episode today. Things might get confusing at the very beginning with the job ads and everything, with the expectations of the people who apply to these job ads. And when the job really starts, I would say there is really a lot of confusion, especially if a company didn't have any experience before with what they're looking for. But as you mentioned, you prefer to do things internally. There are companies that prefer to do things internally.

Dominka: I think everybody should.

16:42Anamarija: Yeah. From my perspective, it depends on what you need. What are your goals exactly? If you expect things to happen in the long term, to build the team, to build the pipeline, to have good communication between, for example, your sales team, your marketing team, maybe your production, and everything is combined in a symbiotic way, then definitely an internal team. But if you are looking for things a little bit faster, maybe short term, and short term might be three years, don't get me wrong, then maybe you should consider an external team. And not only an external team, but maybe a combination of an external team helping your internal team. I think that's the perfect way. It's balanced.

17:39Dominka: Yeah. And what's happening in the German market right now? You can see it with our clients as well. Some of them decided to break up with us and hire people internally, and after only a couple of months they came back. It's not just once that it happened, and it happened just recently. So they came back because the people they hired were not really what they were expecting.

18:13Anamarija: That's true. But sometimes, you know, I'm happy when a client learns from us, and then after a while they are going to …

18:26Dominka: It doesn't bring a lot of money, because then they go away, with our know-how. But still …

Anamarija: Still, it's nice.

Dominka: It's nice.

18:34Anamarija: We are like: yeah, go on, we are happy for you. But sometimes you already know this is not going to work so well. And that's what happened: it didn't work.

18:45Dominka: But that doesn't really happen in the DACH region.

Anamarija: The whole region?

Dominka: Yeah. I mean that they learned from us and then decided to build it themselves. That doesn't really happen so much in the DACH region. It was rather the Croatian clients we had who decided to learn from us and then build up their own teams. We haven't had that in the DACH region.

19:08Anamarija: Yes, we did. That was a long time ago, but still: one client was with us for, I think, around six or seven months. We did what we do. And after six months they said, sincerely: we learned so much from you. We learned how to build a pipeline, what to look for, how to create emails, how to call, and so on. We want to continue by ourselves with our internal team and share that knowledge with them. I think it was partly a budget thing as well. But they took the best of us and created their perfect team internally. So that was really nice.

19:59Dominka: But that was one out of 80.

20:00Anamarija: I know, yeah. That's true. Mostly they're just giving up because of budget-related topics, or because the product doesn't place itself well on the market, and so on. So different things, different topics, even for today. But regarding the jobs: I can see that a lot of people, a lot of our former partners, are not working at the same companies anymore. A lot of them. And now we see that they switch companies and reach back out to us, saying: hey, we worked together five years ago when I was at a different company, now I'm working at this company and we're looking for an outbound team, so it made me think of you. So those are also really nice references.

20:50Dominka: Okay, I have a couple of statements I wanted to discuss with you, to see whether you'd rather go with outsourcing or say this should stay in-house. A little game called "Outsource or in-house: the DACH sales debate". We already discussed it a little bit, but just to wrap it up: "Outsourced BDR teams understand the DACH market just as well as internal teams." This is provocative.

21:32Anamarija: Generally speaking, I would say yes, especially if this outbound team is specialized in the DACH region. I mean, it's self-explanatory. If you have worked on the same market for a long time, in different industries, then you can say that you are well experienced.

21:53Dominka: Yes, I think you are right, on one hand. But on the other hand, if you have an internal team that has experience from inside the company with the companies they want to acquire, then sometimes they might have other insights, which we don't have, because we go very broadly across different industries for different companies.

Anamarija: It's a different kind of knowledge of the DACH region.

22:27Dominka: Specialized, even. But the reason why I still say outsourced teams can be as good as internal teams at understanding how to get into a company that is interesting for the company we work for is that they have to relate to us as if we were somebody at their company. And they cannot hide information from us. If they are open to giving us all the information we need, and we can ask them for that information, then we're probably going to be better than an internal team, because an internal team sometimes has a lot of distractions inside. We don't have to worry whether the boss of the company is in a good mood today, or whether the colleagues are in a good mood because something happened in the canteen, stuff like that. But it's really important: if you are outsourcing, don't just outsource the service. You have to outsource your knowledge and give it to the company who is going to do that for you. Because if you don't do that, you can forget about any success coming out of it.

23:50Anamarija: I mean, teamwork is the most important thing, even in a start-up phase. You cannot expect an external company to know exactly what you know. We are not working in your company; you have to be aware of that. So it's really important to share as much information as needed and possible, so your external team is prepared.

24:22Dominka: Okay. Next one: "Building an internal SDR team is always better for long-term growth."

24:32Anamarija: Oh, we actually mentioned that. Yeah, definitely. I think the internal sales team is really, really important for the long term, of course. So, as I said, if you're expecting quick results, boosting your pipeline, trying new things that you don't have time to try with your internal team, then an outbound team, an external partner, is definitely for you. But for the long term, building the pipeline, collaboration between the different people inside your company and so on, then an internal team. That doesn't mean you shouldn't hire an external partner for a shorter period of time to help boost things. But it's really important to focus on your internal team for long-term growth.

25:32Dominka: As I said, I'm always a bigger fan of having things internally, because of course we do it that way as well. We don't have freelancers and we don't outsource people. But I think we are very specific. We give so much to our clients in terms of being very transparent, trying to be like an internal co-worker there. So when I think about it again: for long-term growth, if you build an internal SDR team, you're going to have so much fluctuation in the company. People are going to change from month to month. I'm not really sure, because people are not really loyal.

Anamarija: Don't lie. You've been here for ten years.

26:23Dominka: Yeah, because I'm here. But that's me and you. You know? If you outsource it, you give it to somewhere where something stable has already been built. And if you're trying to build something stable yourself: people are not loyal, because people are always looking to go beyond. So I think for the long term it can sometimes be very tricky in the SDR business.

27:01Anamarija: It can be. But, you know, it's a struggle for any company, not only in sales, but in any department. It's a struggle for a company that is hiring people to provide what those people need: to keep them there, to keep them loyal, to keep them bound, if I may say it like that. So that's another type of problem. If you have everything handled on your side, if you have good things to offer your team, if they are happy at work, they're not going to search for something else, something exciting, so quickly.

27:47Dominka: Yeah. But still, you have to get to that point.

Anamarija: Yeah, of course.

27:52Dominka: "German companies trust in-house teams more than outsourced ones."

27:57Anamarija: Oh my goodness. I would say yes, of course, because it's only normal to trust your team, because it's your team. And if you are hiring somebody else, you need time to build this trust. But it's not impossible. We see that every day with our partners. It's really funny and somehow cute for me when I get a new client. At the beginning they're all really serious, very work-oriented. I like to go through the KPIs with them and show them everything; we share as much information with them as we can. They are nodding their heads, they are a little bit on the colder side. And then, when a few months pass, they open up like little flowers. I like to see that. And they're building trust. With all of our clients who have been with us for more than a year, or two, or even three, you can see how this relationship grew, how it was at the beginning and how it is now. I love that.

29:03Dominka: That's nice. Here's a good one: "Sales outsourcing is the fastest way to enter the DACH market."

Anamarija: The fastest way? I will be bold and say yes. It's obvious.

29:19Dominka: Yeah, I think it's a big yes. Because you have somebody who already knows how to attack and knows the market. Give it a try. And afterwards, if you want to build an internal sales team with all the knowledge you have …

Anamarija: You already have some kind of foundation.

29:42Dominka: That's right. Okay, this is a good one: "If your outsourced team doesn't speak perfect German, you've already lost the deal." Come on. Yes. I mean, you cannot do cold calling with broken German. No way. Not in Germany, not in Austria, not even in Switzerland.

30:17Anamarija: You know what? This is really a sensitive topic for me. Sometimes partners have a really legitimate request: to get to know us a little better before we start the project. Of course they want to see not only who is probably going to do the project, but also whether that person speaks German at the level they expect. And that's really fine. But sometimes in our career we have come across situations where we were speaking very good German in our job and then handed the arranged meetings over to people who didn't speak German. And in the end we had an unsatisfied customer, maybe, saying: we weren't able to sell anything on the German market, everybody refused, blah blah blah, we are not satisfied, so we will not pursue this anymore. Which is also legitimate. But then I think: if you are trying to expand your business on the German market, then you should have German-speaking people in your company.

31:35Dominka: Especially if you're not a German company. If you're a German company and you have somebody who doesn't speak German, that means they are really high up in the hierarchy, a top manager, where it's not as important.

Anamarija: It's not necessary anymore, because they're not going to do so much sales.

31:53Dominka: Yeah. But if you're doing sales in the DACH market, you'd better speak German. Especially with SDRs. Because nobody is as talented as somebody mediocre who speaks great German.

Anamarija: Perfect.

32:13Dominka: Let's just think back a couple of years, to when you didn't speak German as well as you do now, because you made a move.

Anamarija: I made a move.

Dominka: Yeah. And now your German is really … I mean, you didn't even speak German. You knew a couple of phrases and that was it. Now you can speak in full sentences and have full meetings with our clients, which is not that important, because you could do it in English as well. But it's good for trust. It's good for your brain. It's really nice for them to see that somebody is even transforming for the market: hey, I'm open to learning German. That's a huge plus for us as well, that you speak German now. But you're not doing the cold calls. And you never did meetings in German to pitch our services.

Anamarija: Exactly.

33:03Dominka: You did that in English. But I remember, I don't know if it's four or five years ago, we got a new client, a German company of course, who needed cold calling for the German market. Of course in fluent German, which they would get, because they would get an SDR or BDR from our company who is fluent in German. And then I asked them: is it fine for you if the project manager is you, and you don't speak German, but understand it very well, and won't be able to reply in German? And they refused. And they were one of our favorite clients, I can say now, looking back. Young people our age, you know, it wasn't somebody in their late fifties who would say: oh, my English is not that good. They spoke perfect English. But they refused, because no, they wanted somebody to do it in German. I was a bit shocked, because it's not even relevant whether you speak German or not.

34:13Anamarija: This is not something that happens every day with us, you know. It didn't happen before. If you said to somebody: hey, our project manager doesn't speak German, but she understands it, that doesn't happen.

34:22Dominka: But now you speak German, you could do it in German perfectly. It's not even broken German. You can see that you're really putting sentences together that make sense and that are more than enough for the job you do. But the thing is, I was really shocked back then, because it doesn't really matter whether you speak English or German. It's the quality behind it that you bring with you, whether you speak German, Russian or Chinese, you know?

Anamarija: Yeah, it's the quality behind it, of course. That was really one moment where I was like: what?

35:05Dominka: Because I was just asking to be polite. I wasn't expecting anybody to refuse. It wasn't even a request; it was more like information you give them. And I was like: okay, no? What's wrong with you?

35:22Anamarija: Yeah, that's funny. And with one of the partners we've had for a few months, I said to them: you know, I want to speak German with you, and I will try to do every call in German. But you have to forgive me, I do make mistakes. I'm not really perfect at it, I understand it much, much better. So you don't have to worry, you can speak German. And they listened to me and said: you know what? Any person who decides on their own to learn German has huge respect from us. They were so cool about it. So I felt less and less stressed about it, and now I feel completely free speaking German. I do make a lot of mistakes, I know that.

Dominka: But you don't care about that anymore.

36:15Anamarija: I don't care anymore. But yeah, you're right: for my position it's not really that important. It's important for me to understand and to help my team. But for the client, why is it important? I'm not the one who is going to pick up the phone, talk and try to arrange meetings with German companies, you know. I'm just the back-office person who does their magic with, I don't know, lists, numbers and so on.

36:48Dominka: Yeah. I mean, it has changed a bit. But still, if we go back to the question: do you have to speak perfect German if you want to do good cold calling and sales pitches? Of course. If you speak broken German, just speak English then, and trust your luck.

Anamarija: Yeah. And good luck to you.

37:11Dominka: So, this is one of my favorites: "Marketing-generated MQLs are often weaker than meetings generated by outbound teams." Yes. Often? They are always weaker. They are like the scam of the sales world.

37:32Anamarija: I mean, whenever we worked with MQLs, it was really, really odd. In different types of projects, different types of MQLs. It's really not that good. There's so much junk in those MQLs. On the other hand, when you have your team, internal or external, doesn't matter, a team that is doing its job really well, with really good research behind them, good lists of potential clients, prepared, with everything they need, the time, everything on their side … I mean, even if they don't have all that, it's going to be better than MQLs. The high quality comes from cold calling.

38:25Dominka: Always. This will never change. There is no AI prompt in this world that's ever going to be invented that will bring you MQLs that are better than SQLs generated from outbound calls.

Anamarija: I mean, maybe in the future, but I don't think so. I really don't think so.

38:52Dominka: "Sales outsourcing is only a temporary solution until a company builds its own team."

38:59Anamarija: It doesn't have to be. It really doesn't have to be. With a long-term partner of ours, we have been working together for more than two years now. They have one guy working on the German market for them. They are from Poland, just to be clear, they are international. So for Germany they have their own guy, he is the only one, and they also have us. And recently they said: even though you are not our own employees, we really appreciate what you are doing. You are helping this guy so much that he can focus on the clients, make offers, give them support when needed, and so on. He doesn't have to do cold calling anymore. So that's what I said at the beginning: it's a symbiotic relationship between us, and it works perfectly. It works like a charm. So it doesn't have to be a "hey, let's hire you just to quickly expand our pipeline, boost our pipeline" solution. Maybe that's something some companies need, of course. But it doesn't have to be like that.

40:17Dominka: Yeah. And that's exactly what we were already talking about: why outsourcing might even be the future for all those companies that want to enter the German market, the German-speaking market, because they entered the market with us, right? They didn't really have anything going on there.

40:49Anamarija: No, they did. They did, because this guy actually did the cold calling himself, but after a while it was just too much for him. He was actually the only person in the whole company who spoke German.

Dominka: Okay, that's another thing then.

41:02Anamarija: It was too much, and he needed to focus on other things. He also helps the marketing team with some things and so on, with the help of AI for translation, of course. But before AI, he did that by himself. So they obviously needed help. They could have hired somebody from Germany, but they decided to do it with an external team.

41:26Dominka: Well, to conclude …

Anamarija: We are the best.

Dominka: We are the best. Would we rather say: hey, hire somebody, leave us alone, build up your own team? Or would you rather say: hey, you want to enter the German-speaking market? Don't be a fool. Don't build up a team. Build a team up with us.

41:57Anamarija: I think a better way, if you don't already have an internal team, is maybe to try with externals and learn something from them. Keep them forever, if you want. If not, learn from them and then slowly build your internal team.

42:13Dominka: Yeah. I can only say from our experience that a lot of the companies that had worked with us before came back, because they weren't able to build up a team, a long-term team that would help them grow. So the future is outsourcing, I'm afraid.

Anamarija: The future is with us.

42:36Dominka: Yeah, we are the future. Thank you so much. I hope all of our listeners have learned something from this episode, that this might have been an eye-opener for them, and that now they know whether they are going to outsource their sales, or let's rather say hire an agency like us to do their sales, or build up a new team to do it for them. I think the answer might be clear. But still, I'm always somebody who wants to do the opposite of what I've been told, so somebody listening to this might do the opposite. But in the end, if you fail, we are there. Anamarija is on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn. You can subscribe, you can comment, and you are very welcome to watch all the other episodes we've done. This is the forty-seventh episode so far. Three more to go, and then we're at 50. Okay, perfect. So that's it. Thank you so much. Bye!