new age sales structure ~ the time to boost your Teleslaes Team @ the expense of your field Reps.

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales Representatives

Basics & Training

Both inside and outside sales are extremely valuable to any sales strategy, meaning your inside and outside sales representatives are too. Ideally, you should be utilizing both, but if you have to choose one to focus on due to time and financial limitations, it’s good to fully understand the details of outside vs. inside sales in order to make the right call.

In this guide, we’re diving deep into inside sales vs. outside sales, why one might be more valuable for your company's specific goals over the other, how to hire reps, how to structure your sales team, and much more.

Table of Contents

What is outside sales? Definition of an outside sales representatives

What is inside sales? Definition of an inside sales representative

What does an outside sales representative do?

What does an inside sales representative do?

Inside sales vs. outside sales: key differences

The salary of inside and outside sales reps

The cost and scalability of inside and outside sales

The sales experience requirements for inside and outside sales

Structuring an inside and outside sales team

Make the most of inside sales and outside sales

What is outside sales? Definition of an outside sales representative

Outside sales is the process of selling products and services in person, through face-to-face meetings. The outside sales representative job description includes traveling to meet prospects. This can happen at industry events and trade shows, as well as the prospect’s office, a restaurant, or simply going from door to door. It all depends on what you’re selling, the industry norms and your company’s strategy.

Outside sales is also called field sales. Although outside sales reps do sometimes have an office as their base, they spend most of their time in the field.

Unlike inside sales representatives that may close hundreds of sales without seeing their prospect’s face, the success of outside salespeople depends on their ability to build and maintain in-person relationships with their prospects.

Outside reps build trust through the power of in-person interactions, body language and deeper human connection. Because of their proximity to the client, hiring the right kind of people as your outside sales representatives is crucial, but we’ll touch more on that later.

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What is inside sales ~ Definition of an inside sales representative

Inside sales is the process of selling products and services remotely (as opposed to face-to-face). Inside sales representatives don’t meet their sales prospects in person. Instead, they use phone calls, emails, video conferencing and more to maintain relationships with their leads, prospects and customers.

Inside sales is also known as virtual sales or remote sales. It usually takes place from behind a desk and inside sales representatives have the benefit of being able to sell to anyone, regardless of how far away they are.

In the 1980s, the term inside sales was used to differentiate telemarketing from high-value phone sales that were typical for B2B and B2C sales practices at that time. By the early 2000s, inside sales became a term to help differentiate sales conducted from an office and sales conducted in the field, or territory.

What does an outside sales representative do?

Outside salespeople are often on the go. The core of their job is to meet their potential customers at events such as conferences and trade shows, or out in the field. Oftentimes an outside sales representative will have a territory they cover, where clients are met in their own offices or places of business. Other opportunities for a sale might be outside of a work setting, such as at a golf course or restaurant. It could also involve visiting businesses in your target market as long as they match your current customer needs and personas.

Unlike inside sales, outside sales has a lot less structure. One of the main differences when it comes to outside vs. inside sales is that outside sales reps set their own schedule, depending on the industry, and work in a more autonomous way. Their working hours may differ from the standard 9 to 5, depending on the types of meetings they’ve arranged.

Like inside sales, outside sales follows a sales process and thrives on activity-based selling. On top of standard sales tools (like CRM and a calendar) and channels (like email, phone calls, and text messages), they also often use tools to map their physical sales territories and routes.

Outside sales reps invest a lot of time into each lead they choose to meet. This is why it’s useful to focus on deals of larger value, especially when there’s a number of decision-makers involved. Correctly qualifying leads (and breaking up with prospects that aren’t a fit for their offer) helps outside sales reps make the most of their time on the field. In other words, there’s a lot of strategy involved for an outside sales representative, and quality of a deal is valued over quantity.

To sum up outside sales, here are its benefits:

Stronger customer relationships, as a primary focus is building relationships

Higher close rate (as they focus on a smaller number of leads and spend more time and in-person effort on each)

Keeping a finger on the industry pulse and sales opportunities

Motivated sales reps due to higher commissions

What does an inside sales representative do?

If you’re wondering “what is inside sales?”, you probably also want to know what an inside sales rep does. Inside sales reps work from their home or an office, cold calling, emailing, or reaching out in various cases to generate new leads for their sales team.

Since inside salespeople don’t meet with their prospects in-person and are involved in remote selling, they need reliable tools to connect with their potential customers.

The channels they’re using for their entire inside sales process include:

Phone calls / Emails / Video conferencing / Live chat / Text messages

In other words, they can take a cold lead and turn it into a paying customer without leaving their desk. They need a stable internet connection and a way to conduct phone calls with quality audio.

Inside sales reps need the skill of picking up verbal and audible cues in their sales conversations, because they usually don’t meet a client face-to-face (video chats being the exception). Without this skill, inside sales reps will struggle to move their deals forward.

Inside sales offers a more predictable schedule. Based on their sales conversations, reps can quickly identify their prospect’s position in the sales funnel. As a result, inside sales reps can plan their daily and weekly activities accordingly.

Let’s say the inside sales representative has a goal to close 10 sales. Their ideal pipeline in this case might include 200 incoming leads for this period. They know they qualify about half of all leads, which brings them 100 good leads to work with. If they usually close 10% of all their qualified leads, they know this is enough for them to hit their goal, as that’s a lot smaller of a margin than outside sales representatives are usually responsible for.

Knowing these benchmarks, what a qualified lead looks like, and expectations helps them stay on track and meet quotas.

And if you empower them with a CRM to track their efforts, they’ll be unstoppable.

Inside sales and more opportunity for optimization of funnels

As they are selling remotely, inside sales reps have the power to switch their focus from one sales funnel stage to the other quickly. Likewise, when they disqualify a lead based on the lack of needs or budget, they can move to a qualified one right away, without wasting too much time.

On top of that, they can communicate with dozens of leads on a daily basis and automate a lot of their communication.

Because they’re in an office (rather than the field), they can get clearer insights not only on their own results, but on the collective performance of the team. Working towards shared goals can strengthen unity and teamwork.

“The critical skills for inside sales reps include listening and rapport building over the phone or in video calls,” explains Jaakko Paalanen, Chief Revenue Officer at Leadfeeder. “Organization skills are crucial, too, since they’re probably handling a higher volume of accounts.”

The the main benefits of having inside sales reps:

A well-defined, strategic sales process

A shorter sales cycle

An opportunity to scale

The power of teamwork

More time to focus on selling (instead of admin, travel, etc.)

The salary of inside and outside sales reps

If you’re building a team of inside or outside sales reps, you want to make sure you’re offering compensation that will attract top performers.

On the flip side, if you’re the one looking for a job in such a team, or you’re already in such a role, you want to make sure you get what you’re worth.

Let’s look at the average salary for several countries (accurate as of December 2021).

Inside sales vs. outside sales salary: United States

Inside sales representative salary (US, Glassdoor): $44,482 per year

Inside sales representative salary (US, PayScale): $45,448 per year

Outside sales representative salary (US, Glassdoor): $57,696 per year

Outside sales representative salary (US, PayScale): $50,368 per year

Inside sales vs. outside sales salary: United Kingdom

Inside sales representative salary (UK, PayScale): ￡25,011 per year

Outside sales representative salary (UK, PayScale): ￡26,413 per year

Inside sales vs. outside sales salary: Ireland

Inside sales representative salary (Ireland, PayScale): €32,537 per year

Outside sales representative salary (Ireland, PayScale): €32,211 per year

Inside sales vs. outside sales salary: Australia

Inside sales representative salary (Australia, PayScale): AU$55,744 per year

Outside sales representative salary (Australia, PayScale): AU$58,079 per year (AU$65,100 per year for the territory sales representative title)

Inside sales vs. outside sales salary: Canada

Inside sales representative salary (Canada, PayScale): C$47,491 per year

Outside sales representative salary (Canada, PayScale): C$50,894 per year

Inside sales vs. outside sales salary: South Africa

Inside sales representative salary (South Africa, PayScale): R134,342 per year

Outside sales representative salary (South Africa, PayScale): R154,002 per year

Note that salaries depend on the specific country, its standard of living and market fluctuations. Different situations call for and value the types of sales representatives differently.

Shale Ronan-Duggan, head of business development for Dataships, a data privacy software company, has noticed that there’s a difference when selling into different markets:

“The biggest difference I have seen is a cultural one. For instance, here in Ireland people respond better to a face-to-face meeting—maybe once in the sales cycle. When selling into the UK, however, the end-to-end process can be done completely over the phone.”

“With new technologies, face-to-face interactions can now be achieved as inside sales through video calls,” he continues. “For me, the key to being successful is training all sales people, inside or field-based, in the same sales methodology.”

Take this cultural difference into account when hiring for either inside or outside sales roles in specific countries. Use the above numbers as a baseline for their respective countries. Notice that there’s a pattern? Outside sales professionals are paid slightly more than inside reps.

Here’s the case for higher salary for outside sales representatives:

Outside sales reps are likely to have a higher close rate

Deals closed through outside sales are often larger than inside sales (as outside sales reps usually work on higher-value deals)

Field reps often have more years of sales experience

Being out on the field requires lots of adaptability from a sales rep’s perspective. The more experienced they are, the easier it is to handle any curveballs and unforeseen circumstances.

Based on the PayScale reports mentioned earlier, outside sales vs. inside sales commissions seem to reflect this, too. For example:

In the US, inside reps get an average $9,822 commission, while outside reps get an average $15,123 commission

In the UK, inside reps get an average ￡5,000 commission, while outside reps get an average ￡5,500 commission

Salaries and commissions for sales reps should reflect the value of their skillset, talent and the results they create for their team.

The cost and scalability of inside and outside sales

As well as the salaries associated with hiring inside and outside sales reps, there are also costs to consider around commissions, and the growth potential that comes when hiring for these roles.

The cost and scalability of an inside sales team

With an inside sales team, your budget can go a long way. All these reps need are a computer, a solid internet connection and a CRM to help them always stay on track.

As you add more inside reps to your team, the cost of running your sales operations doesn’t skyrocket. New costs include a new hire’s salary, an additional CRM seat and sales training.

With a bigger team that operates from your office, or even their own home if they work remotely, you can now reach more prospects and upscale your sales. On top of that, with a great CRM tool your inside sales team will be able to:

Streamline lead generation and scoring

Automate reminders to check in and follow up with leads

Visualize their sales pipeline

Focus on the right deals at the right time

In other words, you’ll be able to multiply your sales results at a lower cost, with minimum risk.

The cost and scalability of an outside sales team

Growing your outside sales team will usually cost you more than just salaries and CRM seats, but the argument is that the payoff is exponentially higher. Also, in some cases depending on the industry, product, and stage your business is in, the cost might be well worth it.

Your field reps rely on the quality of their in-person meetings. This means that for every new rep, you must ensure the budget for flights, dinners, meeting rooms, accommodation, a company car and more.

On top of that, face-to-face conversations can’t be automated. Your rep can’t have the same conversation with more than one lead at the same time. These conversations also last longer than a typical phone call or an email exchange.

In other words, an outside sales representative can only be closing one deal at a time. They spend significantly more time switching (i.e. traveling) between two leads than an inside sales rep does.

Outside sales means managing a single relationship at a time.

If you’re selling high-ticket products or services, investing in outside sales reps can yield returns for many years to come.

“Match your offering’s lifetime value to the customer acquisition cost and make sure it’s over three times higher,” suggests Jaakko Paalanen. “If you can accomplish that ratio with a repeatable process, outside sales could work for you.”

Deeper customer relationships are often behind higher customer lifetime value and loyalty. Steven Benson, the founder and CEO of Badger Maps, a route planner app for field sales reps, describes a trick to maximize outside sales performance despite the scalability challenge:

“Identify the skills that a rep needs to be successful on your team and figure out who has the deepest expertise in each of those skills. Then, prepare your top reps to ‘clone’ themselves—in other words, transfer those skills to the rest of the team.”

Benson continues by saying that “group sessions are a great way to get everyone on the same page. Top-performing reps can show the rest of the team how to utilize their techniques as part of weekly or monthly training sessions. Make learning an ongoing part of the job and maximize knowledge retention.”

“With the right cloning strategy, your entire outside sales team will start closing more deals,” he concluded.

Outside sales is harder to scale because of the higher costs that come with hiring more reps, so this sales strategy is a smart approach when you’re aiming for slower, long-term growth. When you need to grow faster, inside sales may be a good, cost-effective initial focus. Expanding your outside sales team will suit you when you’re ready to invest more into in-person customer relationships.

The sales experience requirements for outside sales vs. inside sales

Looking for superstar salespeople? If you want to hire for specific roles in inside and/or outside sales, there’s one truth to keep in mind: all high-performing sales reps are great communicators who are driven by understanding their prospects and focused on results.

That said, the way they’ll have to use these skills in an inside sales model compared to the outside sales environment is quite different. Let’s look into both.

Inside sales experience requirements

When reviewing the CVs of potential candidates for inside sales representative jobs, here’s what you’ll want to look for and ask about in your interviews.

Process-driven selling: Inside sales benefits from a well-defined sales funnel and clear sales activities that move a deal from one stage to the other, often quite fast. A sales rep that can show you how and why a CRM drives their daily and weekly action items is a valuable one.

Genuine excitement about working in a team: Unless it’s a remote role, inside sales jobs involve spending 40 hours a week in an office. The more comfortable your reps are being around a team, and the more driven and energized they are by them, the better their results.

Ability to communicate clearly, both in writing and over the phone: Inside reps have a limited window to deliver their message to the decision maker they’re talking to. There’s no room for fluff or vague promises. Whether they’re having their sales conversation through email, social media, live chat, or web conferencing they have to articulate their messages well.

Readiness for fast-paced selling and openness to change: A short sales cycle can mean frequent switching between various sales funnel stages, leads and tools. It also means that as the team shifts priorities, the rep needs to be open to changes in quotas or sales strategies that may happen as a result.

Outside sales experience requirements

Here’s what to look for when hiring a high-performing field sales rep.

A self-starter who enjoys working on their own, outside of the office: Field sales can be quite lonely, but for the right person, that’s not a bad thing. A great outside sales rep will thrive working on their own, focusing on one relationship at the time.

Efficient time management and appointment setting: If they don’t arrange their own meetings, routes and goals for the day in the field, outside reps don’t get anything done. Their schedule depends on their prospecting skills, and a good field sales rep knows they have limited time and energy, so they won’t waste it on the wrong leads.

Openness to new environments, people and roadblocks (literal and figurative): No two days are the same in outside sales. Every person, meeting and location is unique, and that can be a challenge on its own. Look for a rep who will make the most out of every situation, including a delayed flight and a last-minute cancellation.

Charisma and the ease of building in-person rapport: These are arguably the most difficult skills to test for, but you’re looking for a person that can make their leads feel good after speaking with them in person. They’re great at active listening, reading non-verbal cues and facial expressions, as well as the tone of voice. Making instant connections comes easy to them.

Inside sales vs. outside sales: key differences

Throughout their sales process, both inside and outside sales reps:

Establish a personal connection with their leads

Listen to their challenges and pain points

Present solutions relevant to these pain points

Address objections

Close deals by asking for business

The difference is that outside sales representatives most often do all this all at once during meetings with their prospective clients, while inside sales reps usually split this between dozens of email, text and phone call touchpoints.

Because of how hands-on this process is, outside sales naturally results in a longer sales cycle, built around standing relationships with clients. Unlike inside sales, the in-person relationships that outside sales thrives on can’t be scaled or automated. However, by working with less leads at once and focusing on the individual needs of each person they meet with, outside sales reps are likely to close a higher percentage of deals in their pipeline.

“For us at Cognism inside sales is our predominant approach, due to the locations we target and our relatively small deal size, so we build trust online,” says Jonathon Ilett, Sales Director at Cognism.

“However, outside sales is beneficial for larger deal sizes and we actively promote face-to-face engagement for these deals, so the sales team are actually doing a hybrid role: for more transactional deals, our reps use the phone or give remote demos (inside); for complex solution sales we encourage face-to-face engagement (outside).” he adds.

Again, if you’re looking for long-term large-scale growth, and can afford it, outside sales representatives might be your way to go. If you need fast results that fit into a smaller budget, you may need to focus on inside sales only.

Structuring an inside and outside sales team

Earlier, we talked about the cost and scalability of inside and outside sales teams, but what about when you need both teams to work together? How can you ensure they work in sync instead of stepping on each other’s toes?

The current impact of inside and outside sales in companies

The pandemic has forced sales teams to shift from in-person events to remote selling at a rapid pace. According to LinkedIn’s 2021 State of Sales Report, 34% of survey respondents say they will be hiring significantly more inside sales representatives.

Further, a McKinsey report on how sales has changed during COVID-19 found that sales leaders on average now consider digital channels twice as important than before the pandemic. This is reflected in the finding that 90% of B2Bs have transitioned to a virtual sales model.

The pandemic has overwhelmingly forced outside sales teams to adapt to inside sales technologies and processes. It’s possible that, for the next several years, a hybrid model could be the new normal. Keep this in mind when considering how to hire for, structure and manage your inside and outside sales teams.

Three ways you can structure inside and outside sales

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to structuring your sales team; it will always depend on your market, company goals, industry and many other factors.

There are only a few ways you can approach inside and outside sales for your team:

Separate inside and outside sales reps

Inside and outside sales teams working together

Hybrid sales reps that work on inside and outside sales

1. separate inside and outside sales reps

In this setup, there’s no real overlap between your inside reps and field reps (outside sales representatives). Everyone works on their own leads. Each team has separate daily, weekly and monthly quotas.

If you choose to go this way, you enable everyone to do their best work without depending on the other team. You can assign leads based on their size, which is quite an expected approach in B2B sales.

You can assign small and medium-sized companies as leads to the inside sales team. These deals move through the sales pipeline faster and fit the nature of remote inside sales.

Large companies (with potentially large deals) can then be assigned to field reps who can invest more time into relationship building that requires face-to-face interactions.

2. Inside and outside sales teams working together

This approach still keeps the sales teams separate. All the reps still only do inside or outside sales, but they collaborate and help each other move leads forward and close deals.

For example, your inside sales team can work with leads that are located far from your office before outside sales reps plan to visit them. Inside sales reps have a refined process to identify more specific pain points and potential objections and help your field reps prepare (or save them a trip) if the lead turns out to be unqualified.

3. Hybrid sales reps that work on inside and outside sales

With outside sales teams spending almost half of their time selling remotely, a hybrid sales team seems to be the direction many sales organizations are taking.

So how do hybrid sales reps organize their time and take proper action with their leads?

When they’re in the office, hybrid sales reps make the most out of their time at their desk.

They keep an eye on their pipeline and follow up in a timely manner.

They monitor their inbound leads and prioritize reaching out to the hottest ones.

They automate repetitive tasks and streamline their sales process to free up time for outside sales.

When they head out, they focus on the leads of highest value. They’re well prepared based on the pain points they uncovered when qualifying these leads, and they have a plan on how to approach them. They’re adamant about tracking their activities on the field the same way they do in the office.

Brian Forrester, the co-founder of Workshop Digital, an SEO and digital marketing agency, describes their hybrid approach to inside and outside sales this way:

“We don't need dedicated inside sales reps and we don't need dedicated outside sales reps, so consolidating the responsibilities allows us to operate a very lean sales team and still hit our sales goals. For our small business, this hybrid model is more cost-effective. Our internal sales are scalable as we close them entirely over the phone or via web conferencing, and we do this for about 80% of our new business prospects.”

“However, certain key accounts, as well as local businesses near Richmond, VA, require outside sales functions including more in-depth and personalized strategies and face-to-face meetings,” he added. “While we aren't "pounding the pavement" and knocking on doors to generate prospects, some of the prospects do require an outside sales approach. We've become more adept at assessing those needs and layering on the right approach over time.”

The tools to empower your inside and outside sales reps

Whichever team structure you decide is right for you, you need the tools that will allow your sales reps to work at their best and collaborate efficiently.

As Stan Masseueras, Intercom’s sales director for European region explained: “The democratization of productivity and communication tools has been extraordinary over the past five to seven years. It has never been easier and cheaper to sell to, manage and support your customers wherever they are and connect with them at a deeper level.”

“We’ve evolved toward a world where inside sales reps travel to meet customers strategically and field reps are boosting their productivity by making the most out of modern communication solutions,” he adds.

Here’s a list of our tool suggestions:

RM. With Pipedrive's features, you can work from a visual sales dashboard that enables everyone, both in the office and on the field, to keep track of their work and their goals. Our mobile CRM is a dream, even when offline.

Lead generation. LeadBooster, enables your sales reps to react quickly to the warmest of prospects—those who visited key pages on your website—and make the most of their outreach.

Sales calls. Streamline your call workflows easily with Aircall or Pipedrive’s CRM Email tracking and communications feature feature, which lets you avoid busywork and focus on engaging with customers.

Email marketing and automation. With Autopilot, design and build customer journeys for specific leads in your team’s sales pipeline. They can use any channel where they talk to their leads to deliver personalized messages and close more deals.

Make the most of inside sales and outside sales

With everything you know about your company, lead types, deal sizes and industry, you can use this guide to identify the budget and skills you need to build a high-performing sales team that suits your business.

If you’re low on budget and want to scale, or have a shorter sales cycle, you should consider hiring inside salespeople. If, on the other hand, you sell a product or service that would benefit from face-to-face engagement with prospects, where your salespeople build long-lasting relationships, consider focusing on hiring a team of well-qualified outside sales representatives.

You may think that you would benefit most from the best of both worlds, with a hybrid sales team able to kill it on their cold calls and charm potential clients in person.