Using Inside Sales to Build Your Business | 180fusion

What is Inside Sales?

Inside sales is a sales model that is currently dominant for representatives in B2B, technology, SaaS, and a variety of B2C industries that sell high-ticket items. It involves remote selling, high-touch sales, and highly-trained representatives that conduct a vast majority of transactions over the phone or through email.

In the past fifteen years, there has been a mass increase in the use of the inside sales model. Due to the advances in technology, highly skilled and knowledgeable representatives are able to give presentations, conduct demonstrations, and provide presentations interactively and online. As a result, they can conduct much of the work once assigned to field representatives at a fraction of the overall cost required for field activity. There are companies such as that help companies looking to develop high-performance inside sales teams learn and utilize technology to increase productivity and increase revenue.

Remote sales, of course, are nothing new. In the past, cold-calling phone marketers or field agents generally utilized a script and received little, if any, training on the product or service being sold. As a result, telemarketers were often unable to close deals or were used as an appointment-setting service for outside field sales reps who would later seal the deal in person with the consumer at their home. Another difference is that, unlike telemarketing which often focused on low-cost items, inside sales utilizes highly trained and skilled representatives who deal in high-ticket items and high-volume sales and develop a true customer base.

How do inside sales affect operational costs of my business?

Generally speaking, the inside sales model is cost-effective. Inside sales representatives can obtain more leads, even without the added benefit of automatic dialing systems. On the whole, outside sales calls cost substantially more than inside sales calls because they involve time and travel. Field representatives in the outside sales model command much higher base pay rates, often due to their time and travel. And without the cost of time and travel, inside sales representatives carry a much higher sales quota. The result? Inside sales model results in significantly higher profits for your business since more sales are coming in while employee cost is minimized.

How do I manage the inside sales team?

For most businesses, it makes sense to hire an inside sales manager. It becomes the responsibility of this manager to recruit, train, coach, mentor, and guide the teams of inside sales representatives. It is also his job to measure the team effectiveness and monitor all aspects of the process. The inside sales manager will help set the number of calls required of the representatives, the number of leads that are addressed, and the number of meetings that are booked and accomplished.

How will inside sales affect my business reach?

The goal of any business is to make money, and building your business and addressing scalability means creating an online presence and opening new markets within your industry. Using inside sales will allow you to reach beyond the confines of community, state, and even country boundaries, allowing you to market your product or service to a truly global market. Potential consumers will be able to research your business and inside sales representatives will be trained to use webinars and video conferencing to create a customer trust, loyalty, and confidence in your company. Once reserved for face-to-face transactions, this level of intimacy can be built remotely. Your consumers can expect greater access and faster response times; you can expect a reduction of cost in your product sales which will mean increased gross revenue.

Is this worth the investment of time and effort?

The inside sales model appears to be the business model of the future. The behaviors and expectations of consumers are changing, and the advances in technology allow businesses to meet these. The ever-increasing use of social media is simultaneously increasing the need for inside sales as consumers turn more consistently and confidently to remote purchasing, even for expensive items. The use of telecommunication devices and mobile applications are playing a huge role in how businesses can and should operate.

A second consideration is that many of the best and most qualified individuals for sales employment want to work remotely. If your company wishes to hire the most knowledgeable and skilled among sales representatives, it will need to capitalize on the inside sales models. It is worth the investment of time and effort.

What questions do you have about the inside sales model as it relates to your industry, product, or service? Feel free to comment below.