Why Inside Sales Matters

While the term ‘inside sales’ may conjure images of behind-the-scenes documentaries or even elite sales clubs, the reality is quite different. In reality, inside sales is a newly emerging method of selling that can create greater efficiency, sustainability, and even profitability compared to more traditional sales tactics.

What is inside sales?

Simply put, inside sales relies on remote methods of identifying new leads, nurturing prospects, and closing sales. The digital age has seen rapid technological advances, and consumer behaviour and marketing methods have evolved as a result. Customers are increasingly buying online, and businesses have shifted gear accordingly. Big brands and top performers across B2B companies, SaaS and the tech industries, as well as some B2B industries like retail, have switched to remote sales activities.

While you may be sitting there thinking 'isn’t that just telemarketing?' there are some distinct differences you need to be aware of before embarking on your inside sales journey. Firstly, inside sales hinges on a high volume of high-touch transactions taking place over the phone and internet. There are no sales scripts and no need to personally have a conversation for every touchpoint. Much of it is automated, and where personal conversations occur, they are just that, conversations, rather than cookie-cutter sales scripts.

While a telemarketer could simply read a script prepared by someone else, inside sales reps need to be very knowledgeable about what they sell, highly skilled, as well as proactive in their approach to sales and driven to ensure the success of their efforts.

Spending on sales technology has skyrocketed in recent years, with the advent of new technologies prompting businesses to invest heavily in inside sales methods. Those technologies have allowed sales reps to present their products and services in new and innovative ways, through online presentations and video demonstrations, all while performing and hosting all their other sales-related activities remotely. This approach is far more cost-effective, reducing the cost per contact while increasing the number of leads reached each day. The result is far greater response rates and improved ROI.

The inside sales model also has the added benefit of simplifying the transaction process between customers and sales reps. Without the need to meet in person and go through the laborious process of presenting and sorting out payment options, the whole process is streamlined. Collaboration, feedback, and modifying the sales process where needed are also far more efficient.

The modern world doesn’t just give the option for a tech-savvy approach to sales, it requires it. To remain competitive and be successful, incorporating inside sales is reaching a point of requirement. Given that, here are some key areas to develop in order to implement an inside sales strategy.

Understanding your prospects

Sun Tzu once famously observed that the highest art of war was not to beat your enemy but to deny them battle. It’s surprising how frequently this principle can be applied to inside sales, as a great rep working within this system will be able to sell without actually selling.

No hard sales pitch, no cold calling, none of the tactics that have become so worn they seldom work anymore. In order to successfully sell to people without selling, you need to have a full understanding of their needs. Researching your prospects and discovering as much about them as possible via social media and analytics is an invaluable way of ensuring you’re putting out offers that people want to pick up.

When you do that, you successfully create a product they want to buy without you having to do much beyond make them aware it exists and tell them more about it. You can provide concise and current information that effectively matches the pain points and counters the objections of your prospective buyers simply by taking the time to learn about their habits, interests, and behaviours.

Understanding your product or service

In order to effectively sell a product, you need to fully understand it. Having a high level of understanding and knowledge about the working of what you are offering is crucial. Not only does it enable you to better present your offer in a way that will appeal to your prospects, but it also allows you to effectively answer all their questions. You can even pre-empt their questions by preparing FAQs that are included on your website or sales page or even emailed out as part of a weekly newsletter.

Your prospects don’t care about the product you want them to buy. What they will care about is something that can solve a problem they are having or make their lives easier, happier, or more prosperous. You need to understand what you’re offering well enough to look at the issues you’ve identified in your prospects and effectively match the features of your product and service to those problems. By doing so, you demonstrate that you have something highly valuable to them - a means to achieve their goals, solve their issues, or improve their personal or professional lives.

Leverage social selling

The world we inhabit has been fundamentally changed by the advent of social media. One of the biggest shifts in recent years where sales are concerned has been the rise of social channels, and the ability to sell to people directly through social media. These days a viral video and the right influencer promoting your product will generate more sales than any amount of cold calling or personal visits possibly could.

Social media is also an excellent place for research, and while you can learn much about your prospects here, you can also be assured they will be doing the same. With the average adult spending two and half hours per day scrolling through social media, many now base their buying decisions on the information, branding and content they find on social channels.

Cultivating an engaged, informative, and modern online presence is a vital element of inside sales.

Embrace new technology

With so many technological advances, one of the biggest reasons businesses find themselves falling behind is a lack of technological evolution. The right technology can create ease and flow in your sales, automating many elements and streamlining many others. When you’ve got great tech solutions, it shows, in your customer journey, and the ease with which you attract new prospects.

An effective CRM is the difference between a well-engaged audience who converts on autopilot, and hours of time wasted cold calling prospects who have no interest in speaking to you. With the right Customer Relationship Management tools, you can automate many of your interactions with customers. Create email sequences to nurture new subscribers, deliver any promised lead magnets in an instant, send out personalised content based on previous actions taken by each individual, and automatically share specific offers at set points in the buyer journey.

Analytics can also provide you with invaluable data about who is opening your emails, clicking through to your website, and taking other key actions. Integrating everything into reporting tools can speed up the process of analysing all that data. By combining the right tech you can create a seamless experience that takes people from social media platforms or SERPs pages directly to your website, where they find an irresistible offer and subscribe to claim it. Emails or SMS messages are automatically sent out on a schedule to further arouse their interest, and as they buy from you they are automatically encouraged to review, recommend, and buy again.

Overall, leveraging inside sales will create far better results for your business. If you need training for yourself or your team, please get in touch, or take a look at our sales training options.