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External Sales Team: How to Build One in Six Steps
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CREATE TEST ACCOUNTAn in-house sales hire costs you a salary, recruitment fees and several months of onboarding before the first order comes in. An external sales team promises a quicker route, because you bring in people who already know how to sell. In Germany, the model is well established. The German trade association CDH counts around 34,000 commercial agencies in B2B, which together broker goods worth about €200 billion (CDH, presentation “Outsourcing des Vertriebs”).
In my view, whether it works for you comes down mainly to the briefing, the pay model and how you manage the partnership. In this guide, you’ll learn which types exist, what they cost and how to build your external sales team in six steps.
- An external sales team means that self-employed partners take on sales work for your company. They can be commercial agents, sales agencies, freelancers or a managed service.
- The types differ mainly in how much of the sale they handle. Commercial agents sell all the way to the close, while agencies and managed services usually deliver meetings or interested replies that your own team takes forward.
- There are three basic cost models. Commercial agents work on commission, agencies usually charge €2,000 to €6,000 a month and freelancers bill a day rate.
- You can set it up in six steps. You define the task, describe your target customers and your offer, choose the type and the partner, agree pay and contract, start with a pilot and then manage the work with a handful of metrics.
- Many mistakes happen before the work even starts. If you begin without a briefing, leave the handover point open or name nobody in-house to look after the partnership, you will rarely get good results.
What is an external sales team?
The term covers self-employed individuals or companies that approach customers, book meetings or close deals on your behalf. They work under a contract and are paid by commission, a flat fee or time. If you only hand over individual tasks such as appointment setting, that is external sales support. Compared with an in-house team, the main things that change are costs, management and what happens to knowledge.
| Criterion | In-house sales team | External sales team |
|---|---|---|
| Costs | Fixed costs for salary, employer contributions, tools and workspace | Commission, monthly fee or day rate, depending on the type |
| Getting started | Recruitment and onboarding take several months | Up and running within a few weeks, working smoothly after two to three months |
| Management | Day-to-day leadership by your own sales manager | Agreed targets, a briefing and regular catch-ups |
| Product knowledge | Grows over time and stays in the company | Has to be built up through documents and training |
| Customer relationship | Sits with your team | Sits with the partner or is handed over to your team, depending on the type |
| Flexibility | Capacity can only be adjusted slowly | Scope can be adjusted within the contract term |
| Risk | High fixed costs, even when orders fail to come in | The partner shapes how customers see your company and takes their experience with them when the partnership ends |
What types of external sales team are there?
How strongly you feel these differences depends on the type you choose. In B2B you will mostly come across four, and they differ in how much of the sales process they cover and how they are paid.
Commercial agent
Covers: Selling through to the close in a territory or customer group, often with an existing customer base.
Pay: Commission on the revenue brokered.
Sales agency
Covers: Research, outreach and appointment setting with its own team, sometimes the close as well.
Pay: Monthly fee, sometimes with a success fee per meeting.
Freelancers and interim sales professionals
Covers: Individual tasks or a fixed-term role, such as opening up a new market.
Pay: Day rate or hourly rate.
Managed service
Covers: The path from target company to interested reply, backed by software and a team that looks after your account.
Pay: Monthly fee.
The commercial agent is the classic type. Agents are self-employed, sell your product in their territory and usually represent several manufacturers at once. According to the CDH presentation, the average in Germany is five companies, so you share an agent’s attention with four others.
Agencies and managed services come in earlier in the process and pass the contact back to your team as soon as there is interest. That works well if you want to close deals yourself and mainly need help with research and first outreach. If you are still weighing up whether to outsource your sales at all, it is best to compare these routes and their providers first.
What does an external sales team cost?
What you pay also depends on the type. Commercial agents only cost you money when a deal closes, agencies and managed services charge a monthly fee and freelancers bill by time.
| Type | Typical pay | What to plan for |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial agent | Commission on the revenue brokered, negotiated individually | You are one of several manufacturers the agent represents |
| Sales agency | Usually €2,000 to €6,000 a month in the German-speaking market, sometimes with a fee per meeting on top or instead | Sometimes a one-off setup cost |
| Freelancer | Day rate or hourly rate, negotiated individually | Limited capacity, because only one person is working |
| Managed service (e.g. Leadscraper Autopilot) | Monthly fee, depending on volume | Your team handles the sales conversations and the close |
There is no standard rate for commission. The CDH expressly points out that the commission rate is negotiated individually and depends, among other things, on how much advice the product needs and whether it is new to the market. For trade in goods, the CDH statistics for 2022 give a rough indication for Germany. In 2021, a commercial agency there brokered around €4.5 million in goods on average and earned just under €190,000 in commission for it. That works out at a little over four percent, although the rate in an individual case can be very different.
On the other side is what an employee of your own costs. To take an example from Germany, a salary of €50,000 a year comes to a little over €60,000 once the employer’s social security contributions are added, and that is before recruitment and onboarding. Anyone who wants to calculate their sales costs also has to add tools, workspace and management time.
I often advise smaller teams to start with a managed service, because you don’t have to build anything of your own for research and sending, and the costs stay predictable. With Leadscraper Autopilot, we research suitable companies and decision-makers, handle the personal outreach and follow up. You receive the interested replies together with the research and the message history, and you hold the conversations yourself.
Example calculation for the first three months with an agency
You only see whether an external sales team pays off once you spread the costs over each customer won. The calculation shows the method using example figures. Put in your own numbers, because results vary widely depending on target group and offer.
| Item | Example figure | Calculation |
|---|---|---|
| Fee for three months | €12,000 | 3 × €4,000 |
| One-off setup | €4,000 | Assumed to be one monthly fee |
| Total cost | €16,000 | €12,000 + €4,000 |
| Qualified meetings | 20 | Assumed to be two in the first month, six in the second and twelve in the third |
| Cost per meeting | €800 | €16,000 ÷ 20 |
| New customers | 4 | Assumes that one meeting in five later leads to a deal |
| Cost per new customer | €4,000 | €16,000 ÷ 4 |
You know the cost per meeting after three months. The cost per new customer can only be worked out once meetings have turned into deals. The time your team spends on the conversations comes on top. If the contribution margin from a new customer in the first year is well above this amount, the external sales team pays for itself. If it is below, you need a better close rate, a cheaper type or customers who stay longer. Whether your sums add up in the end depends above all on how you set up the partnership.
Building an external sales team in six steps
The setup works when you know, before your first conversation with a provider, what you want to hand over and how you will measure success. That is why you complete the first two steps in-house before you ask for any quotes.
The six steps at a glance
Define the task
Which part do you hand over, and at what point does your team take over again?
Describe target customers and offer
A written briefing with your target customer profile, the benefits and typical objections.
Choose type and partner
Commercial agent, agency, freelancer or managed service, to suit your product and budget.
Agree pay and contract
Payment model, contract term and what happens to contacts and data.
Start with a pilot
Three months with a clearly limited target group and fixed interim targets.
Manage by metrics
A few numbers, one fixed meeting a week and one point of contact in your company.
Step 1: Define the task and the handover point
First decide which part of your sales work you want to hand over. The easiest part to give away is everything before the sales conversation, meaning research, first outreach and follow-up. That takes pressure off your team, because day-to-day sales work leaves little time for actual selling as it is. According to the Salesforce State of Sales Report 2026, sales reps spend on average only 40 percent of their working time on it.
Also put in writing where the handover takes place. Describe the point at which a contact counts as ready to hand over, for example once a decision-maker has agreed to a meeting or has asked specifically for a quote. Without this definition, you will end up arguing later about whether a meeting was worth anything.
Step 2: Write down your target customers and your offer
An external partner can only sell as well as you explain your business to them. So write down which companies are a good fit for you, which problem you solve for them and which objections keep coming up in conversations. Two to three pages are enough. Your ideal customer profile should be described in enough detail for a stranger to pick out companies from it.
You will need this briefing in any case, even if the partner changes later. It is also the basis on which providers can give you quotes you can compare.
Step 3: Choose the type and the partner
Which type suits you follows from step 1. If you want someone to sell through to the close and look after customer relationships in a region, you talk to commercial agents. One place to find them is the international B2B platform run by IUCAB, the umbrella association of commercial agents, which the CDH also points to. If you want meetings or interested replies for your own team, agencies and managed services are the options to look at. For a time-limited project such as a market test, a freelancer is often the simplest solution.
Use your briefing to get two or three quotes. Before deciding, I would ask every provider about the people involved, about references and for a sample report.
- Who will actually be working for you? Ask for the names of the people who will be making the calls or writing the messages. Speak to them before you sign the contract.
- What experience do they have in your sector? Ask for two reference customers with a similar target group whom you are allowed to call.
- What does a report look like? A real example shows you whether you will get numbers later on or only summaries.
If telephone prospecting is what you are after, the selection criteria for an external cold calling agency are a good place to start.
Step 4: Agree pay and contract
Once you have chosen the partner, the next question is how to pay them. The pay model should match what the partner can influence. A commercial agent who sells through to the close is sensibly paid on revenue. An agency that delivers meetings has hardly any influence on whether you close and is therefore better paid a flat fee plus an amount per meeting. That amount should only fall due for meetings that meet your definition from step 1, so write the definition into the contract. With commercial agents, it is worth running the numbers on different commission rates and tiers beforehand.
The contract should also settle the points that most often cause confusion later.
- Term. Agree a short pilot phase first, before you commit for longer.
- Territory and customer group. Set out which region, sector or customer list the partner is responsible for and which customers your own team will continue to look after.
- Contacts and data. Clarify who owns the contact lists and call notes that are built up and in what form you will receive them when the partnership ends.
- How the partner presents itself. Decide under which name and from which sender address the partner will operate.
Have the contract legally reviewed before you sign. After that you can get going, although not yet at full scale.
Step 5: Start with a pilot
I recommend a pilot of around three months with a clearly limited target group, because an external team first has to learn your product and your arguments. Expect the partnership to be running smoothly only towards the end of that period. What the pilot mainly shows you, therefore, is whether the target group and the messaging work.
Agree interim targets that can be checked. Sensible examples are the number of companies approached, the number of conversations with decision-makers and the number of meetings. Closed deals are not yet a suitable yardstick in the first few weeks, because in B2B more time usually passes between the first conversation and the order.
Step 6: Manage with a few metrics
After the pilot you need a fixed routine. For me, a short meeting once a week and a report with four numbers are enough, namely companies approached, conversations held, meetings booked and the quotes that came out of them. In addition, name one person in your company who answers the partner’s questions within a day.
Give the partner feedback on every contact they hand over, too. If your team rates a meeting as a poor fit, the partner needs to hear the reason, otherwise the mistake will be repeated. As soon as the first meetings have turned into orders, the cost per new customer from the example calculation joins the list as a fifth number.
Common mistakes when building an external sales team
Even with these six steps, there are places where the partnership keeps getting stuck. In my view, most problems arise during preparation or in the first few weeks, when the two sides are not talking enough.
- Starting without a briefing. If all you give the partner is a website and a price list, you get interchangeable outreach. The partner then knows neither which companies really fit nor how to answer typical objections. Allow enough time for the briefing and go through it together in the first meeting.
- Leaving the handover point open. As long as it is unclear when a contact counts as ready to hand over, the partner will count meetings differently from you. You end up paying for conversations your team considers worthless.
- Looking only at the price. A cheap meeting that never turns into an order costs you more than an expensive one with a decision-maker, because your team spends time on conversations that are going nowhere. So don’t compare quotes on the price per meeting alone. Follow the example calculation through to the cost per new customer.
- Pulling out too early. In the first few weeks the partner is still learning your offer and testing which messaging lands. If you cancel after four weeks without a deal, you pay for the onboarding and never get to see the result. It is better to use the interim targets from the pilot to decide whether to carry on.
- Nobody is responsible. Without a fixed point of contact, questions go unanswered and contacts that have been handed over are only called once their interest has already cooled. Name one person who runs the weekly meeting and makes sure every contact handed over gets a prompt call back.
Conclusion
An external sales team gives you sales capacity without having to hire and onboard first. Which type suits you depends on how far the partner should take the sale and what you want to keep in your own hands.
My advice is to begin with what you can do on your own, meaning the task and the briefing. After that, you get quotes and start a three-month pilot. You only decide whether to expand your external sales team once you know what a new customer has cost you.
If you want to hand over research and first outreach and hold the conversations yourself, Leadscraper Autopilot is an easy way to start. We find suitable companies and decision-makers, approach them personally and pass the interested replies on to you.
Frequently asked questions about external sales teams
When is external sales support enough instead of a full external sales team?
External sales support is enough when your team can close deals itself and only needs help at one point, such as research, first outreach or appointment setting. A full external sales team that sells through to the close is more likely to be what you need if you have no salespeople of your own at all in a region or sector.
What does an external sales team cost per month?
Sales agencies in the German-speaking market usually charge €2,000 to €6,000 a month. Commercial agents only cost you money when a deal closes, because they work on commission. Freelancers bill a day rate or an hourly rate.
Which companies benefit from an external sales team?
An external sales team is worthwhile if you need capacity faster than you can hire, if you want to test a new market or if your team spends too much time on research and first outreach. It is less suitable as long as your offer has not yet been clearly described.
Can I pay an external sales team purely on commission?
With commercial agents that is the norm, because they sell through to the close and take a share of the revenue. With agencies a flat fee is more common, sometimes topped up with an amount per meeting, because they put in the research and outreach up front. Some agencies also offer pure pay-per-meeting billing.
How can I tell whether my external sales team is working?
In the first few weeks you can tell from the interim targets, meaning companies approached, conversations with decision-makers and meetings booked. After about three months you know the cost per meeting. The decisive number is the cost per new customer, which you can only calculate once meetings have turned into orders.
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