If you’re thinking about hiring an offshore Sales Development Representative (SDR) team, you need to make sure you set it up correctly.
In a recent episode of our Choose Africa podcast, we shared a conversation we had with an American company whose outsourced sales team in Columbia is failing. We dissected the causes and came to three conclusions that created the lack of results.
Here’s the Preface: Timezone Doesn’t Matter
Many U.S. companies blindly choose LATAM because the time zone aligns closer with the United States. If time zone actually made a difference, India and The Phillippines wouldn’t be the leaders in outsourcing. In fact, most teams in the Phillippines work 9 pm to 5 am their time.
Also, the time difference between African countries isn’t too much different from the U.S. It can range 5 to 8 hours different. Most of our team members in Ethiopia log in around 4 pm or 5 pm their time and log out at midnight or 1 a.m. While that might seem late, most of our younger team members enjoy that schedule as it allows them to go to grad school during the day and log in to work when they get home.
Remember, if someone didn’t want to work U.S. hours, they would not apply to work for an American company. Those choose an outsourcing company because of the additonal benefits that working for an international company brings.
Going back to our conversation with this company, specifically, what they did wrong when outsourcing to Columbia was the partner that they chose and how they set it up.
01 They need to work U.S. Schedule
The best results come from having your remote team members work like any other team member in your company. That means aligning their hours and holidays to your team.
Now in some cases, having an offshore team allows you to easily cover holidays. You can give your U.S. team a holiday off (like Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, etc.) and have your offshore team cover since it’s not a holiday in their country.
In that case, it’s more important to set the number of holidays they take off or come to an agreement on which days will be observed for proper planning and strategy.
02 Massive Turnover Rate
This company was having lots of turnover. While turnover can happen anywhere– the rates they were experience were abnormally high.
That most likely means the team members were not being paid enough. In the outsourcing industry, it’s common to have too many middle men which leads to lower rates for the people actually doing their job.
At CRDLE, we often hire team members who were working at other outsourcing companies for only $0.50 per hour. Depsite those countries having a lower cost of living– this rate is too low and will lead to a high turnover.
03 Don’t Sign Long Term Contracts
This American company had signed a long-term contract which means they couldn’t get out of it– which caused more frustration on their end. Signing a contract for 1 year or 2 years long is simply not a good idea.
Remember, if you have had a negative experience outsourcing, it does NOT mean outsourcing or offshore doesn’t work. It often comes down to the region you hired, the outsourcing partner you chose, your onboarding process, and your sales strategy.
