Sales Outsourcing is the practice of having an external company become a virtual sales force for you. It is differentiated from value added resale in the usage of a "shared risk" model -- that financing model requires both the client and the sales entity to invest in the actual sales program. This is differentiated from telemarketing in that it requires direct recruitment of sales personnel with specific backgrounds for each sales campaign, as opposed to the generalist sales rep (where the sales rep may represent many companies) popularized in telemarketing.
Sales outsourcing firms provide accountability regarding all sales results and activities while representing the brand of the client. For the end-customer, it usually appears as if the client sold the product themselves rather than the sales outsourcing firm. The outsourcing firm is, in essence, an extension of the client but is responsible for all operations associated with direct sales activities (often receiving sales engineering and initial product/service training support from the client.)
