The professionals at OutPerform are thought leaders in inside sales. We have been helping many of the biggest and best sales organizations define and deploy their inside sales channel strategies for over 20 years. Chip Kudrle founded and hosted the original Inside Sales Executive Forum, which started in 1995.
Today’s Inside Sales Environment
It seems like just yesterday that the term “inside sales” was being used to label the internal sales support/order entry professionals that every sales team employed. Over the past 20 years, the term has changed quite drastically. Today, inside sales is oftentimes one of (if not the most) critical go-to-market strategies a company may have.
Inside Selling Challenges
In spite of the success of the inside sales channel, there continue to be challenges in maximizing its execution. For example:
- Making Contact: Being able to reach someone live on the phone to engage in the selling process.
- Dealing with Voicemail: Over 80% of business-to-business telecommunications goes through voicemail making it difficult to position your value.
- Quality of Dialogue: Once you do reach someone live, trying to engage them in a meaningful conversation, given all of the other things competing for their time and attention.
- Building Relationships/Customer Perception: Demonstrating enough value in the initial call to position yourself as a valuable resource to the customer. Utilizing those opportunities to build a relationship on a personal level.
- Time Management: If an inside salesperson does not manage their time effectively, they are probably not driving enough of the right activity to be successful. Being able to focus on the calls that are important versus getting caught up in reactive, tactical busy work.
Inside Sales: How tactical vs. strategic are your training needs?
To address the challenges above, the first step is to fully understand the current state of the inside sales environment. How tactical versus strategic is the job? Consider the different types of outbound (or inbound) calls an inside salesperson on your team makes (or receives). Which of these would you label as “strategic” vs. “tactical”? Strategic calls lead to the achievement of an ISRs goals (e.g., sales, cross-sell, retention). Tactical calls take you away from the achievement of your goals (e.g., billing questions). This first step of assessing the current state and envisioning where you would like to be, will set the bar for any additional training, processes, systems or tools that need to be developed.
Inside Sales Training Solutions
OutPerform will work with your inside sales teams to implement the right solution to address your development needs. OutPerform will work with you to customize the right training and tools to increase the effectiveness of every customer interaction. The first competency – “Activity Planning” – helps inside salespeople understand the importance of driving the right kind of activity on a regular basis. The second competency – “Pre-Call Game Plan” – focuses on assessing the various calls conducted and understanding how to prepare for those calls most effectively. The third competency – “Quality of Dialogue” – focuses on call execution and the mechanics of each step of the call process. All of these competencies are fully customized to your sales environment through a thorough tailoring process that includes hours of call observation and ISR and manager interviews.
Articles an Inside Sales Professional may be interested in (click on the article to download):