Outsourcing sales means outsourcing what you know about your market

I've never liked selling.

Which is exactly why I should be careful about who does it for me.

Lately I've been thinking about handing part of our prospecting to an outside agency. One that gets paid on results. On paper, it's perfect: they do the part I don't enjoy, and I only pay when it works.

On paper.

Every "no" is information

Since Yeray and I started Foxnice in 2014, almost every customer has come through us. Not because we're brilliant salespeople. Because there was nobody else.

In 2023 I spent a good chunk of time doing cold prospecting from Olot. It's not glamorous. You write, you wait, you get ignored, you write again.

But every reply teaches you something. The one who says the price is too high. The one who doesn't understand what you're offering. The one who says "we already have something for that", and you realise you've been describing the wrong problem.

That's not sales. That's market research you get for free, as long as you're the one reading it.

PagoCRM didn't come from an idea on a napkin. It came from hearing the same kind of problem from clubs until it was obvious someone had to fix it. If someone else had been doing the listening, I'm not sure we'd have noticed.

When you outsource sales, you don't just outsource the emails. You outsource the ears.

What a spreadsheet can't tell you

An agency will report back. Contacts made. Replies. Meetings booked. Neat columns.

What the columns don't carry is the tone. The hesitation. The question that tells you your pitch is confusing. That stays with whoever had the conversation.

And there's something else. Whoever writes on your behalf is spending your name. If they describe you badly, the people who say no won't remember the agency. They'll remember you.

I'm not saying don't do it. We tried a commission-based sales channel in 2024, and I'd try new things again. A small company can't do everything itself, and pretending otherwise is just pride with a to-do list.

But I think there are a few conditions worth setting before you start, not after.

• Write down who the customer is. Not the sector. The exact customer, with the problem you solve for them.
• Agree on what counts as a result before anyone sends a single email.
• Read the replies yourself. The real ones, not the summary.

That last one matters most. It's the only way to keep the ears while you lend out the voice.

Patient money, impatient channels

We've grown without investors, paid for by client work. That money is patient. It lets us be slow.

A sales channel is a different thing. I suspect it doesn't deserve the same patience. If it works, you'll see it. If it doesn't, the worst thing you can do is keep feeding it because "it needs time".

If we go ahead, I'll find out soon enough which one this is.

For now, the only thing I'm sure of is this: I can delegate the selling. I can't delegate knowing who I'm selling to.

I still don't like selling.

I just like not knowing even less.

P.S. If you ever get a cold email from us that you don't understand, reply anyway. Someone here should read it.