Sales reps are in higher demand than ever before thanks to advancements in remote communication technology. Is this, however, implying that inside sales are becoming a more effective sales tactic than outside sales? Certainly not. It all depends on the product or service that an organization is offering. In reality, the most effective sales organizations employ both internal and external sales teams so that they can collaborate and concentrate on their respective strengths. Well, just to ensure you make the right decisions here on out, this post will help you understand why most businesses do not have to wage a war between inside vs outside sales.
What is Inside Sales?
The process of selling goods or services to prospective buyers from a remote location is known as inside sales, also known as remote sales or virtual sales (as opposed to face-to-face). Inside sales operations were once mainly performed over the phone, but today’s inside sales representatives use a variety of digital communication tools. This includes email, text messages, social media, video calls, and customer relationship management systems (CRMs). In SaaS (software as a service) and B2B sales, the inside sales model is most popular (business to business).
What do inside Sales Representatives Do?
An inside sales rep in a sales organization collaborates with the marketing staff, business development reps, and outside sales reps to achieve the company’s revenue targets. Despite the fact that inside sales reps do not travel to meet with potential customers face to face, they are still essential to a company’s revenue growth and customer acquisition goals.
Execute Sales Strategies
Inside sales reps are responsible for designing and implementing a sales plan for selling goods or services remotely. An inside sales rep is a highly skilled sales position that needs excellent communication, negotiation, study, and social skills, as opposed to traditional telemarketers who follow prewritten scripts.
An inside sales rep is a highly skilled sales position that needs excellent communication, negotiation, study, and social skills, as opposed to traditional telemarketers who follow prewritten scripts.
Prospect New Leads
Prospecting (doing research on potential customers) and lead generation are the responsibilities of inside sales reps. They create leads through cold calls and emails. Their main objective is to convert leads into paying customers. To complete this mission, an inside sales representative must establish a positive rapport with their prospects in order to close the sale. However, since most inside sales reps are paid on commission, they are encouraged to be selective with which leads they pursue in order to close as many sales as possible in a short period of time.
Record Customer Relationship
CRM is a sales enablement tool that many inside sales teams use to keep track of customer details. CRM software is an automation tool that helps inside salespeople organize customer information, handle customer interactions, and store customer data more effectively. These platforms provide phone features to make calling leads faster, and they also monitor customer interactions in real-time so salespeople can have the most up-to-date contact history at their fingertips.
Benefits of Inside Sales
There are many advantages to eliminating the travel time and costs associated with field sales.
Efficient Sales Process:
Inside sales cycles are shorter than outside sales cycles because the process of attracting prospective customers is simplified and the stakes of an actual transaction are smaller.
Reduced cost-per-contact:
Since inside sales reps follow leads via phone, email, or other forms of electronic communication, there is little investment needed per contact. This also means that the number of possible interactions every day can be increased.
Greater consumer accessibility:
Inside sales allows the team to be accessible whenever it is most convenient for your customers.
What Is Outside Sales?
Outside sales, also known as field sales, is the practice of marketing goods or services to prospective buyers outside of the salesperson’s office via in-person meetings. Face-to-face meetings are usually held in a suitable place for the prospective customer. These places include the prospect’s office or a local restaurant, but they may also be scheduled at industry-specific activities such as trade shows and conferences.
Since outside salespeople must travel to bring in new customers, outside sales expenses often include plane or train fares, hotel rooms, car rentals, dinners, and incidentals related to entertaining clients.
What Are the Duties of an Outside Sales Representative?
In order to bring in new customers, an outside salesperson must work outside of their sales organization’s office. Field sales reps usually work for bigger, more costly accounts, so spending the extra time and resources on face-to-face meetings with potential customers is worthwhile.
Concentrate on a specific geographic area:
Outside sales reps operate independently and set their own hours. However, they must be available at all times to travel anywhere within their sales area to close a deal or attend to the needs of a current client.
Meet with leads:
A sales firm usually has a team dedicated to generating client leads for outside sales reps through cold calls and CRM platforms. When an outside sales rep receives a lead, it is their responsibility to meet with the lead in person to create a personal link, listen to their needs, discuss how their product meets those needs, and close the deal. Until landing a meeting with an upper-level decision-maker, an outside sales rep should need to meet with lower-level employees first.
Develop relationships:
An outside sales representative’s ability to build relationships is just as essential as their ability to sell. Although an outside sales rep may meet a potential client in a formal setting such as a trade show or conference, they will also develop a rapport with them by entertaining them in a more casual setting, such as over drinks at a bar or a round of golf.
Advantages of Outside Sales
Despite the high cost of consumer acquisition, an outside sales approach has many advantages.
High close rate
Due to the extra time and personal attention provided to their smaller number of leads, outside sales reps have a high close rate.
Clearer Communication
Outside sales reps often use their ability to make in-person presentations and use body language to support their pitch.
Outside sales reps often use their ability to make in-person presentations and use body language to support their pitch.
Flexible Hours
Outside sales reps have the ability to set their own hours and work a flexible schedule.
Larger Deals
Outside sales are more likely to land bigger, more lucrative offers than inside sales.
Inside vs Outside Sales Difference
For Inside vs outside sales, processes the overall objectives are the same. However, there are some main differences between the two sales techniques.
Communication style
Inside sales teams use networking technology such as phone calls, email, text messages, and social media to connect with potential clients remotely. Outside sales teams, on the other hand, fly to meet prospective customers in person for face-to-face sales meetings.
Price of Product
Outside sales teams primarily market costlier goods and services to justify the expenses on trips. Deal sizes in the outside sales model are usually larger than deal sizes in the inside sales model for the same reason.
Length of the sales cycle
The length of the sales period is much shorter for inside sales than it is for outside sales. This is because inside sales typically deal with lower-cost goods with lower profit margins. So spending a lot of time attracting a customer isn’t cost-effective. Customers need more time to be convinced to make a purchase because outside sales deal on more costly products. They would need a longer sales period to close deals as a result.
Close rates
Inside salespeople close at a low pace, while outside salespeople close at a high rate. This is because Inside salespeople have a low cost of customer acquisition, they concentrate on contacting a large number of leads. If an inside salesperson’s lead doesn’t buy, it’s not a big deal because the salesperson didn’t waste a lot of time or money acquiring the lead. Outside salespeople, on the other hand, have a far higher customer conversion rate because it makes no sense for them to give up on a client they’ve been courting: if they don’t make a deal, they’ll lose a lot of time and money. It makes financial sense to spend as much time with a prospective buyer as you need to close the deal in outside sales.
Work environment
Inside sales reps typically work in an office with a group of other inside sales reps. Both of whom are directly supervised by an account executive or a senior-level sales chief. Outside field reps, on the other hand, normally work alone and don’t have as much supervision from their bosses.
Despite these gaps, the distance between inside and outside revenue is narrowing year after year. As new technology makes remote communication simpler, many outside sales reps are adopting a hybrid outside/inside sales approach. For example, an outside sales representative can always meet with prospective clients in person to secure new business, but they can then use remote contact methods to maintain relationships with current clients.
Why Inside Sales Is Better Than Outside Sales?
Internal sales representatives make 49% more social touches, 8.8% more emails, and 45% more phone calls than outside sales representatives. Inside sales representatives are much more likely to have daily workloads that are predictable and well-defined, with targets for the number of calls made, meetings scheduled, and proposals submitted.
What Is Inside Sales Mean?
Internal sales representatives make 49% more social touches, 8.8% more emails, and 45% more phone calls than outside sales representatives. Inside sales representatives are much more likely to have daily workloads that are predictable and well-defined, with targets for the number of calls made, meetings scheduled, and proposals sent.
What Are Examples of Inside Sales?
Cold phoning, cold emailing, social selling, and virtual demos. Where they work is the key distinction between inside and outside sales.
Why Do You Choose Inside Sales?
Jobs in sales are highly sought-after and can be very rewarding. Inside sales, where you utilize technology to connect with leads and develop commercial partnerships, is one of the fastest-growing sales professions. If you desire to work in business-to-business sales, software as a service, or high-end consumer goods, this role is right for you.
