What is inside sales? strategies, challenges, tips, & channels
Many professionals get confused when they came across the question – “what is inside sales?” and if you’re one of them, read this newsletter in which we’re going to explain the inside sales in detail along with its various strategies.
Businesses have taken their tents and found a new place called the internet. Just like every important element of our lives, technology has changed the face of sales.?
Both – Businesses and customers have grown comfortable with sales inside an office. Companies have started to build a workforce that finds prospects inside four walls. And customers are pretty much comfortable with that too!
With inside sales, businesses are putting more effort than just selling their products. They want to actually many professionals get confused when they came across the question – “what is inside sales?” and if you’re one of them, read this newsletter in which we’re going to explain the inside sales in detail along with its various strategies.
Make the customers happy by understanding their problems and needs.
The same time when inside sales kicked its way up, the importance of customer support also grew humongous. And of course, as the technology will change, the face of sales will also change.?
So what exactly is inside sales? And what is the difference between inside and outside sales? Keep your eyes on the following pages to know every important thing about inside sales.
We’ll also discuss some tips and techniques that’ll help you improve your inside sales team.?
What is inside sales?
Inside sales is the process of connecting with prospects or customers via calls, emails, or other online channels, rather than meeting them physically like old times. In inside sales, technology and the medium of connection play an important role.
Inside sales teams are the first members who connect with prospects, understand their needs, answer their questions, and qualify them as a lead.
Inside sales team takes the leads forward from the marketing team and makes sure the prospects fit with their product.
Inside sales vs outside sales
The difference between inside and outside sales is pretty much evident.
In outside sales, you have to travel places to meet prospects/customers. This clearly adds travel, hotel, and food expenses.?
While inside salespersons work remotely or inside the office environment to deal with prospects/customers via calls, emails, or other mediums.?
This method of sales clearly saves a lot of expenses for a business. According to Harvard Business Review , inside sales reduce the cost-of-sales by 40-90% compared to outside sales.
What are the challenges faced by Inside Sales Representatives?
Inside sales, undoubtedly, is challenging. However, once you get a hang of it, you understand that almost every sales rep faces the same challenges and ultimately overcome them.?
In day-to-day sales, there are several forces that act as obstacles for the inside sales reps that make it difficult for them to meet their quotas.??
But, where there’s a will, there’s a way! There’s absolutely no challenge that you, an inside sales representative cannot get ahead of.?
We have listed some of these challenges that you may face in your inside sales career and how you can overcome them with just a little perseverance.
1. Overcoming an increasing number of competitions?
Starting a business is easy, but increasing competition makes it challenging for inside sales reps to find and retain clients. To overcome this, study competitors' competitive advantages, assess your own USPs, and present them effectively to potential prospects.
2. Not having enough time to get it all done?
Sales representatives often struggle with time management, losing time on lead nurturing, follow-ups, and data entry. To overcome this, businesses should invest in CRMs, automate tasks, and ensure sales reps aren't distracted by external factors like in-office noises and social media notifications.
3. Ensuring that they get high-quality leads
Sales representatives often encounter numerous leads, but not all are the right ones. Prospecting the right leads can be challenging and hinder deal closure. Effective communication between sales and marketing teams is crucial, and management should arrange meetings to address concerns.
4. Staying motivated in an indoor environment?
Inside sales jobs can be monotonous due to the same office and people daily. This can lead to lost motivation and distraction. To overcome this, sales reps should view each client interaction as a unique opportunity and focus on improving their client's experience, allowing them to adapt and stay motivated.
5. Coming up with innovative outreach ideas
Clients are becoming accustomed to personalized emails, but inside sales reps struggle to implement it effectively. To overcome this, use automation, optimize emails and texts, and use templates to show thorough understanding of clients.
Important mediums of inside sales
There are three main mediums for inside sales agents.?
Let’s understand the importance of these three mediums in present sales:
Emails
From marketing to support, email has been an enormous tool. The marketing team drives various campaigns to find possible customers, and the inside sales team connects with them to make sure they fit their product. Rather, their product fits these prospects.
About 73% of 18-24-year-olds use their phones to check email.
In outside sales, customers prefer to meet in office hours only. While emails have no boundaries. Inside sales professionals can reach prospects at any time. Now that emails are on mobile too, it has become extremely convenient to reach prospects.?
Calls
Calling has seen a unique growth in the past two decades.?
I mean, back then, people used to cold call to ask if prospects are available in the office so then can chat face-to-face. Now, it’s all about selling your products, right from calls.?
Isn’t that a huge change?
That’s not it. Ever since business VoIPs (Voice over Internet Protocol) are introduced, businesses are becoming global without leaving their offices. You can make business calls from native to any country you like by simply having virtual phone numbers.?
Virtual phone systems offer great comfort to businesses to reach overseas customers and expand their business. According to CBS , CEOs spend 25% of their time on calls every day!
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Virtual meetings
Calls and emails are certainly missing an important element – visuals. In the last few years, video conferencing has become an enormous hit.?
As we said, businesses have grown to be global, the tools have also been modernized. For inside sales representatives, video conferencing tools like Zoom, GoToMeeting, or Adobe Connect have been a great help.
Reps can virtually give demos to their prospects and explain how their product works with screen sharing. This is the easiest way to make sure your prospects understand the products thoroughly.?
Successful inside sales strategies & tips
Now that we have understood the basics of inside sales, it’s time to step into the well of strategies. If you’re an inside sales representative or leading a team, here are some good inside sales strategies & tips:
1. Understand your products thoroughly
Before taking those phone client calls, you MUST make sure you know the product very well. You might things what’s on the stake – you might not be able to answer a few questions. Big deal!
NO.
There’s much more at stake than you know – Brand reputation.
The prospect is not going to come back to understand your product again. He’ll find a different solution. He will definitely not care if you’re new to your job.?
To save yourself from this massacre, you must take a solid training. Use every single feature of your system to understand how everything works. Ask questions to your superior about various scenarios and how your product can help.?
This is one of the best inside sales techniques you’ll ever come across.
2. Use templates
This is one of the finest inside sales tips.
Let’s admit. As an inside sales agent, you’re going to deal with a lot of new inquiries every day.
You clearly don’t want to waste time typing the same email over and over again. The better approach is to create templates that can be used multiple times.?
Although, you do not want to sound too generic.?
The idea is to create personalized templates for the initial conversation to save time and energy. Besides just names, give some time in designing a catchy subject line and meaningful content.?
3. Use your time wisely
Rather than feeding data manually in CRM, use smart integrations that bring your data to the system.?
For example:?
By simply integrating your CRM with these apps, you don’t have to jump back and forth to get information. This will save you a lot of time and you can focus on the right things.
4. Don’t try to sell on the first call
We get it. Your entire job is about selling. You will be evaluated based on how much sales you have made.?
But, is it really okay to sell on the very first call?
I hardly think so. On the very first call, try to build a rapport with the prospect. Understand their business pain points and identify if your product can really solve their problems or not.?
When you try to sell something, the conversation becomes all about you. When you try to help someone, it becomes prospect-centric. We should never forget that your primary goal is to help customers.?
Best inside sales channels
As an inside sales representative or manager, you need a strong set of tools.?
Tools that can help you maintain data and increase your overall productivity.?
We’re mentioning some of the best inside sales channels for your reference. The idea is to suggest areas where tools can improve your performance. Like; for Analytics, you can use 6sense. But you can also pick a better alternative
1. Customer relationship management (CRM)
A CRM is essential for managing prospect data, assisting in contact, pipeline, and deal management.
2. LinkedIn outreach automation
LinkedIn is a solid source for fresh leads. It is responsible for 80% of B2B leads from social media.?
You might want to adopt a LinkedIn outreach automation tool that can bring fresh leads from LinkedIn to your CRM. Lead Connect, Zopto, and Alfred are some solid options.
3. Appointment scheduling
It creates a bad impression of the brand when you forget to call your customers. To save yourself from such horrible events, you can take the help of appointment scheduling tools.?
Tools like Calendly, Doodle, and SetMore give you notifications so you never miss an important meeting. These tools take care of time zones as well, so both parties get a notification at the right time.
Bottomline
Inside sales is a deep-sea consisting of a lot of tips & techniques. The learning in this field is endless. All you have to do is observe your actions and reactions very closely. Once you find your pace, there are endless opportunities waiting for you.
Still, we hope these inside sales tips, strategies, techniques, and tools will provide great value to your business. There are some tools that can solve provide multiple sales problems.