If you are deciding whether to in-house or outsource your agency’s new business function (specifically the outbound lead generation aspect of the role) then this post may be of interest. For the sake of simplicity we will refer to this role as new business manager although they go by many other titles such as business development manager etc.
How Long Do They Stay?
The average tenure of people undertaking this role in creative or marketing communications agency is just a little over twelve months – after which, of course, we don’t necessarily mean that they leave the agency; they may well do so well as to get promoted or move into a different role. The thing to remember is that the role itself is seen by many as a stepping stone and those who excel may quite rightly want to move away from the front line and start taking what they believe to be a more strategic approach.
Regardless, the fact remains that you wanted someone to, let’s be clear about the role we’re talking about here, cold call your prospects and arrange a date and time for you to meet them; and you will have to find someone new to undertake this arduous role every twelve months.
How Much Will They Cost?
The basic salary of a good NBM will be £40k and if they hit their target then they should be earning another £15k bonus (OTE £55k). Employers NI and pension will add another £8,250, recruitment £6k and data another £12k (if you don’t spend this on good data then there is no way your NBM will be able to perform to a top level as they will be spending too much time researching and not enough on the phone).
There should also be factored in about another £500 per month for subscriptions, telephone costs etc.
So the total cost is about £87,250 per year. in-house or outsource your agency’s new business
… and What do They Achieve?
Our research tells us that, on average, an internal new business person makes about thirty calls per day, so, taking holidays, bank holidays and an average sickness of 5 days per year into account means about 500-600 calls per month, which, given current access and conversion rates means connecting with about 30 decision makers from which they will likely arrange about three or four meetings per month.
Which, strangely enough, is about the same as Manifest would do for an annual cost of less than half the amount the internal resource would cost. So whether to in-house or outsource your agency’s new business is a no brainer really!
