With Global IT spend up 8.6% on 2020 and Gartner forecasting $4.2 trillion to be spent in 2021, the rapid adoption of Sales Development we have seen over the past couple of years is showing no sign of slowing.

Increased competition from established vendors and new market entrants means it’s never been more challenging to engage effectively with future customers and sales development is becoming a critical part of winning market share.

While sales development is critical, delivering it requires significant investment and expertise – recruitment, management, team structure, data, tech stack, sequences, channels of engagement, methodology, the list goes on… Delivering this in today’s world of remote or hybrid working further complicates things.

With so much at stake in an ever more competitive market, getting this function right is crucial. As Gartner has stated “Accelerating early pipeline and lead generation efforts was the most critical CSO initiative for their organisation’s success… an effective sales development program will determine whether an organisation’s lead generation and qualification efforts succeed or fail.”

When thinking about your early-stage sales cycle, it’s important to put yourself into the perspective of the prospect who typically:

– has less time to make decisions

– relies more on suppliers to help build the case

– leverages 4 times more content than previously to educate themselves on suppliers

– is overwhelmed by options, but struggles to differentiate between them

– relies on relationships and trust to make up for ample research time

When thinking about these it is obvious that given the projected $4.2 trillion being spent next year, your Sales development efforts can’t afford not to be competitive. The potential loss is too great. Having data, experience, content, localisation and an agency who gets the importance of their role – working for the prospect– can make the difference between success and failure in 2022.

Using a real-life example let’s think about channel partners. Vendors take great care selecting the right distribution channel and partners are selected carefully based on their track record at selling effectively. So, let me ask a simple question: would you risk your channel number on start-up resellers, or is going for reputation, network and market knowledge critical to its success?

The answer to this question should also apply when thinking about either building an SDR team or partnering with an experienced expert agency.