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When growth is on the horizon and operational efficiency becomes mission-critical, business leaders often face a pivotal decision: Do we hire internally or bring in an external consultant? For roles like Revenue Operations or GTM strategy, the answer can dramatically influence your company’s agility, budget, and long-term scalability.
Let’s explore the pros and cons of each option - and why, in some cases, hiring an external RevOps consultant like Candybox can give you an edge.
Internal Hire: Familiarity and Focus, But At What Cost?
Hiring a full-time employee can seem like a safe bet. After all, they’ll be embedded in your company, immersed in its culture, and (ideally) committed for the long haul. Here’s a more nuanced perspective.
✅ Pros of an Internal Hire:
- Company-Specific Knowledge: An internal team member learns the ins and outs of your systems, teams, and workflows.
- Cultural Alignment: They become a part of your team, potentially contributing to cross-departmental collaboration and morale.
- Focus and Availability: A full-time employee is dedicated solely to your business, available on demand.
❌ Cons of an Internal Hire:
- High Fixed Costs: Salary, benefits, training, and overhead costs add up quickly and represent fixed recurring costs on your company’s balance sheet. Additionally, you’ll be paying them whether or not there’s enough work to justify it.
- Hiring Risk: Finding a unicorn with RevOps experience and a skill set that spans both the strategic and technical is tough in the current hiring market. A bad hire can set you back months and tens of thousands of dollars, not even counting the time spent sourcing and interviewing candidates.
- Limited Perspective: One person brings one background and one set of experiences, even if they have many years experience in RevOps. Your internal hire may lack exposure to your specific company vertical, cutting-edge practices, or specific technologies that are important to company growth.
- Ramp-Up Time: Even experienced hires need time to onboard, learn your stack, and build internal relationships.
External Consultant: Strategic Impact, On-Demand Expertise
When you partner with a RevOps consulting firm like Candybox, you get far more than an extra set of hands - you get a powerhouse of expertise, flexibility, and ROI.
✅ Pros of Hiring an External Consultant:
- Immediate Access to Deep Expertise: Skip the ramp-up. The best consultants hit the ground running with proven playbooks in Salesforce, HubSpot, GTM strategy and more.
- A Team, Not Just a Person: You’re not hiring one RevOps manager - you’re gaining access to a full bench of specialists such as CRM architects, developers, project managers, and strategists.
- Cost Efficiency: For the same or less than a full-time hire, you get more horsepower. Plus, services can often be expensed as an operating expense, protecting your EBITDA.
- Scalable Support: Need more help during a product launch? Less during slow seasons? The right consultant will scale with you.
- Cross-Industry Insights: Our consultants bring knowledge from other high-growth companies, allowing us to offer proactive solutions based on industry best practices.
❌ Cons of an External Consultant:
- Not In-House (Literally): Some companies worry about the lack of physical presence or "watercooler" interaction, although collaboration tools often bridge that gap effectively.
- Perceived Commitment: Consultants may not attend your holiday party (although some of us would love an invite!) but they'll be there when your pipeline breaks the week before your board meeting.
- Potential for Poor Fit: Not all consultants are created equal. A misaligned consultant - whether culturally, technically, or strategically - can waste time, create friction, or leave behind technical debt. That’s why it’s critical to partner with firms like Candybox that offer transparency, proven processes, and references.
- Knowledge Transfer Risk: If a consulting engagement ends without proper documentation or internal enablement, you risk being left with systems your team can't fully support. Look for consultants who prioritize sustainable, self-sufficient solutions, not dependency.
When Should You Hire an External Consultant vs. an Internal Employee?
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of whether you should hire an external consultant or make an in-house hire. The choice is nuanced and depends on your business context, timelines, and strategic goals. Below, we break down some common scenarios to help you decide which path is the right fit.
When an External Consultant Is the Right Choice:
You should consider hiring an external consultant if speed is essential and you need results right away. Consultants bring ready-to-go expertise and proven frameworks, helping you avoid the ramp-up time that comes with new hires.
External support is also ideal when your internal team lacks deep technical or RevOps experience. Whether you're implementing a new CRM, optimizing an underperforming stack, or launching a complex integration, a seasoned consultant can navigate challenges swiftly and confidently.
Consultants are perfect for project-based or variable workloads. If your business has ebbs and flows, such as gearing up for a major product launch or scaling back during a slower quarter, external teams like Candybox offer on-demand flexibility without locking you into long-term costs.
They also bring cross-industry insights. Unlike internal hires who've typically worked in one or two environments, consultants draw from dozens of client engagements and can apply those lessons to your business in real-time. So if you're building out your strategy or approaching an inflection point where this strategy insight is critical, a consultant could be a good choice.
Finally, if you're part of a PE- or VC-backed company, consultants can be expensed as operational costs instead of adding to fixed payroll, which helps preserve EBITDA and enables more agile financial planning.
When an Internal Hire Might Be the Better Fit:
On the other hand, hiring internally makes sense when you need someone to be deeply embedded in your company over the long haul. If your CRM processes are well-established and you're mostly focused on day-to-day operations and incremental improvements, a dedicated in-house employee may be sufficient.
Internal hires are also valuable when tight integration with other departments is key. Being present in the office or on internal communication channels full-time can help foster better relationships across sales, marketing, and customer success teams.
If you're in a highly regulated industry or handle particularly sensitive customer data, compliance needs might make in-house ownership more appropriate.
And of course, if you're building out a long-term RevOps department, investing in an internal team may make sense, especially if you have the time and budget to train, develop, and retain that talent.
What Sets Consultants Like Candybox Apart
Ultimately, the decision isn’t only about internal versus external - it's about strategic value. Here's what sets Candybox apart when you're evaluating RevOps solutions:
- More Expertise for the Same (or Less) Cost: A single full-time RevOps hire might cost you $120–180K/year. With Candybox, that investment gets you an agile team with cross-functional expertise.
- Proven Experience Across Industries & Platforms: We've helped VC-backed SaaS startups, enterprise teams, and everything in between.
- A Blend of Strategic & Technical Expertise: Unlike many consulting practices, we will approach your GTM systems with an eye to scalability and best practices with the technical chops to back it up.
- Strategic Alignment with PE/VC Expectations: Outsourcing RevOps allows portfolio companies to maintain lean teams while still executing at a high level. And yes, outsourced services often hit your P&L differently than headcount.
Final Verdict: Invest in Results, Not Just Resources
If you're wondering "Why hire an external RevOps consultant?" or "Is it better to outsource CRM implementation?" - you're already asking the right questions.
The reality is that growth-stage companies need results, not just resources. While internal hires can often be a great long-term decisioon, but do also come with longer timelines, higher costs, and narrower capabilities. A consultancy like Candybox can deliver faster time to value, deeper expertise, and flexible engagement models - making it the valuable investment for modern RevOps.
Ready to accelerate your CRM strategy without the internal overhead? Let’s talk.
