A common (if not highly politicized) argument against outsourcing is the idea of giving away work and that it’s a mark of laziness (or worse, corporate greed). What they don’t tell you is that this argument is based on the idea that work itself is pretty scarce. In reality, there’s actually far too much work needed just for trying to keep a complex business process simple.

Likewise, the work of an outsourced lead generator doesn’t necessarily imply that you’re sacrificing your own livelihood. There is a lot that needs to be done in the B2B sales process. There’s only so much that a single sales team can do to nurture leads and research prior to appointments without an additional burden of minor tasks.

Because when minor tasks take up a major workload, you’ll have a major problem.

Review your standard B2B sales process. What does it involve?

Contacting prospects – Whether it’s cold calling, email, social media, or tradeshows, you’ve got to get a foot in the door. How much time do you want to spend on that when you still have a longer sales meeting to push for?

Understanding prospect needs – There’s a lot of complications to discuss during sales meetings but they’ll be harder to understand when you know next to nothing about their business. That’s what lead nurturing is for. But much like the simple act of making contact, you end up consuming a lot of time that could be spent on prepping your value proposition.

Organizing lead data – Engagement is one thing but organizing records of your conversations can be something else. Where are you going to put it? Who’s going to control access? What’s the dossier going to look like and will it help your study of the prospect?

Granted, these tasks might not even cover half of the other things you need. Different industries could have a different set of problems. Different problems could mean a different set of information required. That’s a lot of work for just one team.

Unfortunately, the simplicity of tasks like making calls, organizing emails, and maintaining the CRM only add to the deception that you don’t need more people to do it. Yet by the time you realize just how much you’ve spent on the first half of the process, you realize that you’re way in over your head.

That’s why people outsource. In a way, you are giving away work but it’s also proof that work itself isn’t as scarce as it seems. Staying focused on the job in front of you can produce more results than just adding more to a volume of work that doesn’t actually produce anything.