Inside sales: find out what it is and how to do it

Does your business go to the customer in order to generate sales or does the conversion process take place remotely? If you’re still following the traditional path, now is the ideal time to invest in inside sales to increase your team’s productivity, achieve more sales, and lower costs!

Are you interested? Then read our article dedicated to this amazing strategy!

What is inside sales?

Inside sales is an internal sales structure. You may be more familiar with the term “remote sales”.

In many cases, sales teams still meet with customers in person, but inside sales is a growing alternative that offers other sales methods, such as by phone, email, videoconferencing, and social media.

Make no mistake: inside sales isn’t the same as telemarketing. Telemarketing uses a single, aggressive sales approach for multiple audiences.

Inside sales, on the other hand, works with a series of contacts with customers to determine whether they are truly interested. Afterwards, a specific strategy is outlined for these potential customers.

You might be wondering if inside sales is worth it, right? We can confidently tell you that it is, and there are a number of benefits to prove it.

Later in this post, you’ll be able to check out each one and we’ll provide tips on how to implement this structure in your business.

What is the difference between inside sales and field sales?

There are many differences between these two strategies. While inside sales focuses on remote selling, field sales aims at in-person sales.

This type of selling is also important in more complex negotiations, which work with higher ticket prices.

The B2B market still uses field sales as an increasingly in-person sales process, since it’s necessary to bring products and services to customers. This ensures that companies build a closer and more assertive relationship with them.

However, inside sales is an excellent option for businesses that need a faster flow and a higher sales volume.

What are the benefits of inside sales?

Inside sales might be the ideal sales technique for you! Check out the positives points of investing in remote sales:

It optimizes time spent on processes

You have to admit that meeting each customer individually and in person is quite time consuming. Inside sales is a way of optimizing processes.

Your team will be able to sell to a large number of customers in a short period of time. This is not only due to the tools used in this structure, but also to the forms of capturing and converting leads so customers can be better informed to make a decision when it’s time to make the purchase.

It increases the sales team’s productivity

With sales happening at a faster pace, your team also becomes more productive and improves overall business results.

The team is motivated and expands the contact list of potential customers, unlike the in-person model, which is restricted and takes more time and energy from salespeople.

A sales funnel with greater predictability

One point that needs to be stressed is the predictability of the sales funnel.

By means of inside sales, there are a number of digital marketing strategies applied in order to attract more sales.

The funnel within this structure becomes much clearer, thanks to sales metrics that indicate the leads’ current stage in their buyer’s journey.

It reduces costs with the acquisition of customers

The CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is also reduced with the inside sales strategy.

Your business will spend less to gain new conversions. You’ll save money and scale your business results!

Nowadays, digital tools deliver many features at very affordable prices. Compared to the traditional sales method, investments are smaller and in many cases, more advantageous.

Implementing inside sales in your business

If you are interested in inside sales and want to implement it in your business, follow our step-by-step instructions with 5 tips. Write everything down and be sure to put it into practice!

1. Qualify your team

In order to work with a new sales method, you need to have a good understanding of the processes involved. Therefore, before you kick off this remote system, make sure your staff is qualified and prepared for the transition.

Explain to them how this new phase will work, if the team will be divided between other sales formats, and be present during the adaptation. A good idea is to provide training so that everyone is in line and well informed.

2. Invest in quality content

You can never have too much valuable content!

Have a strategic plan for your content, adding information that solves your customers’ pains and awakens a desire to buy to social media, email lists, a website, blog, and other channels.

Your team also needs to be supported with good informational material with content marketing techniques, such as copywriting and the use of mental triggers. This will make the conversation between the salesperson and customer more assertive and attractive.

3. Have a suitable structure

In order to apply inside sales to your business, you’ll need to invest in good equipment, services, platforms, and tools.

Start with the basics: a good internet connection, good computers, and a good phone system.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a system that is critical for a good internal sales strategy. With it, you’ll be able to gather contacts in an organized manner, closely monitor the sales funnel, and plan the next interactions.

Other important tools are those aimed at creating and triggering content on digital channels.

4. Make a gradual transition

If you still invest in field sales, don’t change your sales format all at once!

As we said earlier, you need to prepare your team, but you also need to prepare your audience.

Talk to your customers and gradually bring the changes to them. This will be an adaptation phase, so get a feel, especially with more traditional and long-time customers, for how they receive this remote style.

Take it one step at a time and retrace your steps if necessary!

5. Monitor results indicators

Metrics are a big advantage in the remote format because they’re readily available on digital platforms. So make sure you monitor them!

They’ll let you know the true progress of your conversions, your investments, and your sales team’s work.

Below are a few important KPIs that you need to keep an eye on, such as:

• Ramp-up time (average time for your salespeople to reach goals)
• Conversion rate (sales rate)
• Average ticket (the team’s average sales amount)
• Total sales
• Conversion per lead (the number of leads that become customers).

A modern sales technique allied with technology

Inside sales is indeed a modern way of generating conversions. With so much ease, it’s already possible to negotiate products and services from different niches for different types of customers.

This format has arrived to optimize processes, lower costs, improve your view of conversion, and create a work environment that is more productive.

Today’s workflow calls for processes to be increasingly tied to the remote system, and this is where inside sales shines!

But don’t forget that there are important steps in the implementation of inside sales, such as qualifying your team, investing in good content, having a suitable structure, making a gradual transition, and monitoring your results indicators.

Customer service is extremely important in order to be successful in this sales strategy, which is why we created a blog post to improve your customer service!