The advancement in technology has changed the landscape of sales in the last few decades and has led to the rise of inside sales. Still, most of the businesses adopt outside sales for selling products and services. On the other hand, using inside sales provides many benefits including reduced cost of customer acquisitions.
Today, inside sales is the most prevalent sales model for sales organizations in B2B, Technology, SaaS and a variety of B2C industries.
In this beginner’s guide, we will walk you through what is inside sales, the importance of having an inside sales team and the list of tools that can help your inside sales team to work efficiently.
What is inside sales?
Inside sales is the process of identifying, nurturing and turning leads into customers remotely. The most common method of inside selling is through the website, email or over the phone.
| Inside sales | Outside sales |
| Salesperson conduct business remotely through tools such as phone calls and emails | Salesperson conduct business in-person, often traveling to the customer’s location |
| Cost-effective sales model as it requires only computer, software and internet connectivity | Expensive sales model, which includes travel cost |
| Shorter sales cycle because of the lesser likelihood of face-to-face interaction | Longer sales cycle because they have a lot of preparation work to do |
| Rely on the phone, email, CRM software (such as www.HelloLeads.io) and web conferencing tools to communicate with prospects | Rely on phone and email to schedule in-person meetings and CRM software to update the status of deals |
| Show confidence about the product or the service they sell | Foster stronger and longer-lasting relationships with their clients |
Why do you need an inside sales team?
Increase collaboration: Inside sales promotes collaborative work involving the team, manager and the sales team members which facilitates better team cohesion.
Enhance productivity: Sales people, with inside sales, can contact and do business with more number of leads over call without spending time on travel.
Reduce acquisition cost: Since sales team members acquire leads via phone and email, with a little investment a large number of potential contacts can be acquired.
Skills of an inside sales team
1. Communication skills
It is crucial to have good tone, pitch and clarity in speech since your communication with customers is over the phone. Sales professionals should try to subtly mirror the prospect’s tone of voice and style of talking. This helps prospects feel familiar and comfortable and also helps you to create rapport.
2. Active listening skills
Sales professionals and sales executives should actively listen to the conversations of prospects. Great listening skills can help you to understand more about your prospect’s business requirements and current pain points. This can help you to sell more effectively and offer a better solution.
3. Prospecting skills
As an inside salesperson, it is important to have good prospecting skills. It is always better to research about your prospect before you make your first contact with them.
4. Product knowledge
You should have adequate product knowledge on how the product works and what business value it offers. So, it is important to spend time researching what you are selling. With good product knowledge, salespersons can craft their sales pitch and highlight the best features of the product to suit the customers need and to solve their current challenge.
5. Demo skills
Apart from understanding the product, sales associates and sales executives should be able to communicate how their product or service meets a prospect’s needs. Sales team members need to understand the prospect’s pain points and actively demonstrate the features and benefits of their product and service offerings that solves their pain points.
6. Objection handling skills
It is essential to learn how to handle objections. A salesperson should understand the objection clearly, ask for more information and address their concerns by clearly communicating how your solution helps solve their business challenge.
6 Must-Have Inside Sales Tools
1.Phone
Phone conversation is still one of the most valuable interactions that salespeople can make with a prospect. A CRM software that integrates phone calling functionality makes it easier for salespersons to call and reach out to prospects. Salespersons can simply click on the number to dial and when the calls are automatically logged in the system, it hugely helps for further follow-ups.
2.Email management system
Email remains important in business communication. With an email management system, sales executives and sales associates can reach out to more number of leads and customers quickly by sending mass emails, bulk emails and can track them. CRM software allows building customized communication journeys for each prospect and manages the frequency of emails accordingly. Most of the CRM software has the means to optimize emails for different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile phone) and email clients (Outlook, Gmail), which is critical for a consistent user experience.
3.Lead scoring
If you have a large number of leads, it is difficult for your inside sales team to figure out which prospect has to be contacted now and who is really interested in your product or service. A lead scoring tool can help you to identify which leads are most likely to buy by scoring each lead based on lead’s attributes including professional information, website visits, signing up for webinars and requesting price quotation. Lead scoring helps your sales teams to prioritize leads and engage with the leads who are ready to make a purchase.
4.Prospecting tools
Considering the inside sales team’s remote engagement with prospects, it is critical for sales executives to correctly identify relevant prospects and engage with them. These tools work in real-time to track the prospects who visit your site and point out your most engaged visitors.
A good CRM software can intelligently track your prospect’s activities and arrange them in a relevant order to help salespersons to manage their sales activities.
5.Reporting tools
Using reporting tools, you can track a variety of metrics through which your team can monitor their performances, areas for improvement, sales strategies that are working, and sales strategies that need review and modification.
A good sales reporting tool should also allow you to create reports quickly and easily.
6. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
A CRM is a vital sales tool that allows you and your sales force to store all your business information in a central location. It also helps your sales team members to stay on top of their sales pipeline.
Using a CRM software allows your inside sales team to provide the best customer service and at no matter where they are.
Final thoughts on inside sales
Inside sales has become more dominant with the constant introduction of new technology and tools that aid in the sales process. With the right tools in place, you can reach out to more leads who are most likely to make a purchase and get the best results.
Feet on the street is dead and the future is finger on the phone.
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Thasks alot Preethiya
Your mail has really been helpful. I put it to work and its really been worworking for me.
Elvis.
MNy thanks . We have inside successful team
Have questions if you can help