Sales Outsourcing For Manufacturers Requires More Than Prospecting
Manufacturers often know which companies they want to sell to but lack the time, people, or process to consistently reach those prospects. Sales representatives are pulled in many directions, managing existing customers, quoting, having technical discussions, and handling account management, leaving little time for new business development.
We provide manufacturing sales outsourcing to handle the front end of the sales process, giving your sales team valuable time back. Our outsourced sales and marketing for manufacturers combines outbound prospecting with inbound marketing and sales coordination. We identify companies that fit your target market, build and verify prospect lists, contact prospects by phone and email, respond to inbound inquiries, follow up on RFQs and quotes, and nurture prospects who aren’t ready to buy.
Your sales team will have a consistent flow of qualified opportunities without requiring you to build and manage an entire internal sales development team.
Who is The Integrated Program Best Suited For?
This program is designed for manufacturers that need additional capacity for new business development and want sales and marketing activities managed through a defined process.
- Those that need a consistent approach to new business development
- Those whose sales representatives do not have enough time for prospecting
- Those with prospects that have complex or long buying cycles
- Those that are entering a new market or expanding into a new customer segment
- Those that need inbound lead follow-up and outbound prospecting managed as one coordinated sales-development process
- Those that need SEO, website content, or landing page support to help prospects find and evaluate the company before they speak with sales
- Those that need to be found by buyers who are using AI tools to research suppliers before contacting sales
- Those that want to add sales capacity without hiring and managing an entire internal team
- Those willing to define their target customers, qualification criteria, and sales handoff process
- Those with a sales team in place that can take qualified opportunities and close the business.
What Is Included In The Integrated Program?
Our outsourced sales and marketing program can combine several activities based on the manufacturer’s goals, target market, and existing sales process.
Target Market Development
Before outreach begins, Athena learns about your company, products, services, competitive position, who is an ideal customer and their geography, size, annual spend, and other characteristics that define a good prospect. We use this information to create the target market profile. Our team builds a list of companies that fit the profile and finds contact information for several key decision makers.
Outbound Prospecting
Once we build, clean, and verify lists of companies that fit the target profile, we contact prospects through a scheduled series of phone calls, voicemails, emails, and other appropriate outreach.
The objective is to identify companies with a potential need, determine whether they fit your qualification criteria, and secure the next appropriate step with your sales team.
Inbound Lead Follow-Up
Website inquiries and other inbound responses can receive timely follow-up rather than waiting in an inbox for a salesperson to become available. We contact the prospect, assess company and project fit, gather opportunity details, and document the conversation so the appropriate sales resource can take over when needed.
RFQ And Quote Follow-Up
A submitted RFQ or quote does not always lead directly to a purchasing decision. Athena can follow up on open RFQs and quotes, determine whether the project is still active, identify changes in timing or requirements, and keep opportunities moving through the sales process.
Sales Coordination
In addition to following up RFQ/quotes from targeted accounts and inbound leads that Athena secures on your behalf, we will follow-up with up to 15 of your own internally sourced RFQ/Quotes to help move them through to close.
Future-Interest Nurturing
Some prospects fit the target market but do not have an immediate project. Instead of treating those prospects as lost leads, Athena records the appropriate follow-up timing and continues communication so our client remains under consideration when a need develops.
Marketing Support
Outbound sales works alongside marketing activities that help prospects find, evaluate, and remember your company. Depending on the program, marketing support can include targeted emails, case studies, and LinkedIn social media posts. Marketing content can also support outbound conversations by giving prospects useful information about your company’s differentiators and capabilities.
SEO And Website Support
Athena performs a technical audit of your website to determine whether prospects and AI systems can find and understand it and that the path to conversion is clear. Depending on the website, Athena will either build a new foundational launch pad website with plans for additional pages added over time or update the existing site with technical SEO adjustments. It also includes content planning, optimizing conversion paths, and new pages or blog content tied to the target markets being pursued. In addition to website content being focused on helping prospects find answers, it is also optimized for search engines and AI systems.
Sales Process Management
We work with management and the sales team to identify process improvements, review pipeline activity, and address obstacles affecting new business development. When needed, we execute a process improvement plan.
Athena Handles The Front End; Your Sales Team Handles The Sale
Manufacturing sales outsourcing works best when responsibilities are clearly defined. Athena’s team handles prospecting, qualification, follow-up, and nurturing while the client’s sales team focuses on opportunities that require technical expertise, pricing, engineering, and final sales decisions.
| Athena SWC Handle | Your Sales Team Handles |
|---|---|
| Target-market profiling and refinement as needed | Technical sales conversations |
| Prospect list development and verification | Application and engineering discussions |
| Outbound calling, voicemail, and email | Pricing and quoting decisions |
| Initial prospect qualification | Detailed RFQ development |
| Website SEO and related content development | Technical proposal development |
| Inbound lead follow-up | Customer meetings |
| RFQ and quote follow-up | Negotiation |
| Appointment setting and sales handoff coordination | Final proposal and close |
| Future-interest follow-up and nurturing | Account management |
| CRM activity tracking and documentation | Customer relationships |
| Sales process reviews | Strategic account decisions |
| Pipeline visibility/reporting | Content review and approval |
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Learn why the traditional sales model often breaks down in complex manufacturing sales and how a structured inbound/outbound process can give sales teams more qualified opportunities to pursue.
The Value Of Outsourced Sales And Marketing For Manufacturers
An outsourced sales and marketing program gives manufacturers additional capacity for new business development without requiring the company to hire, train, and manage every role internally.
- Maximize inbound marketing return on investment by tracking lead activity, follow-up, pipeline movement, and sales results.
- Target selected A-list prospects through defined criteria, verified lists, and coordinated outbound outreach.
- Shorten sales cycles and improve conversion rates by keeping qualified prospects moving through a defined follow-up process.
- Increase sales rep productivity by allowing your sales team to focus on selling and closing qualified opportunities.
- Improve pipeline visibility with insight into prospect status, outreach activity, buying stage, and conversion rates.
- Reduce the risk of aging or losing inbound inquiries, RFQs, quotes, and future-interest opportunities.
- Convert longer-term opportunities into sales-qualified leads through scheduled follow-up, documented timing, and continued communication.
- Add experienced sales and marketing capacity without hiring, training, and managing every role internally.
Athena’s outsourced model was developed specifically around providing sales and marketing resources as an ongoing service rather than a short-term project.
Success Stories
Corrugated Packaging and Display Manufacturer
$4.5 million sales pipeline developed through Athena’s integrated inbound/outbound program
Custom Profile
$16.7 M quoted and $2.5 M closed With Athena’s Front-End Sales Support Model
Tooling Company
Tooling Company Rebounds From Industry Downturn, Secures $6M in Annual Sales Potential
RB Royal
Company Generated 51 Quotes ($4.6M) in a Foundational Year With Athena SWC
Manufacturing Industries That Benefit From Integrated Services
Athena works with manufacturers across industries with complex B2B sales processes, including:
FAQs About Our Integrated Program
Our integrated program manages the front end of the sales-development process through inbound and outbound activities. Athena can identify target accounts, build prospect lists, conduct outbound outreach, respond to inbound inquiries, follow up on RFQs and quotes, nurture future opportunities, and coordinate qualified opportunities with the client’s sales team.
Our integrated outsourced sales program provides access to a team with sales, marketing, coordination, and process-management capabilities. Athena’s model is designed around an ongoing sales and marketing process rather than simply providing an individual salesperson.
Yes. Outbound calling is one component of Athena’s sales development process. Calls are made to prospects that fit the established target market profile and are combined with other outreach such as email and voicemail. We record all calls and provide them to the sales team for review.
Yes. Athena’s integrated programs include follow-up on website inquiries and other inbound responses. The team qualifies the opportunity and determines the appropriate next step for the client’s sales team.
Yes. RFQ and quote follow-up is included in Athena’s current integrated inbound/outbound service. Athena can contact prospects, confirm whether the opportunity remains active, gather timing and requirements, and document the activity for the sales team.
Athena can place future-interest prospects into a nurture process. Follow-up is scheduled based on the prospect’s expected timing, allowing the company to remain in contact rather than treating the prospect as a closed or lost opportunity.
It includes marketing required to execute the program, such as SEO, content, targeted email, and social media.
Athena will perform a technical evaluation of your website, looking at how it is built, what CMS it is built on, whether it is being crawled and indexed properly by search engines and whether it can be improved without starting over. Typically for a WordPress site, we look for ways to improve it. If the existing site is limited by weak code, proprietary tools, poor structure and a lack of useful pages, we will recommend a launchpad site.
A launchpad site gives the manufacturer a stronger starting point without building a full website at once. It includes the core pages needed to explain the business, support quote requests, and give buyers enough information to take the next step. After launch, we continue adding service pages, product pages, technical content, and blog posts based on search data, buyer questions, and business priorities.
Athena’s primary role is the front end of the sales process: identifying prospects, generating interest, qualifying opportunities, and coordinating the transition to the client’s sales team. Technical sales conversations, pricing, quoting decisions, negotiations, and customer relationships generally remain with the manufacturer’s team.
The program can be a good fit for manufacturers with a defined target market but without the internal capacity to consistently pursue new accounts. It can also help companies entering new markets, expanding their target customer base, or looking for additional sales capacity without building an internal sales-development team.
The program may not be a fit for companies that only want a list of names or individual activities, expect an outsourced team to replace their technical sales staff, are unwilling to define their target market and qualification criteria, or already have sufficient internal resources and processes for prospecting and lead follow-up.
We track marketing and sales activity through the CRM and report how inquiries, qualified opportunities, pipeline activity, and recorded sales outcomes relate to the work performed through the program.