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The inside sales profession is moving into the future faster than ever, but there are some long-standing questions that still linger on many salespeoples' minds. Luckily, we’ve come far enough as a profession to definitively answer some of these pesky questions and save budding sales teams a lot of headache.
Keep reading for the top ten burning questions about inside sales and their answers:
This one keeps coming up, year after year. Let’s set it straight once and for all, folks – it’s the "cold" that’s dead. Absolutely continue to make calls, but there’s no excuse for not including modern social sales intelligence in your approach. There is so much information out there that calling cold is just plain rude and an increasingly poor investment of your sales team’s time.
Inside sales organizations are growing exponentially faster than outside field organizations. For every outside rep you hire, 15 inside reps are being hired. Where is this talent going to come from? Well, the days of handing HR a job description and expecting them to fill it are rapidly coming to a close. The best way to grow a sales team is to design a targeted new-hire strategy and develop an always-be-recruiting system. The best sales organizations take charge of sourcing their own talent. And, here again, social media is getting big. Lively job posts are to be found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Freshen up your approach. Inside sales superheros are not trawling Craigslist and Monster.com ads.
LinkedIn continues to be the number one corporate social sales tool, so start there. Pick up speed by getting your team’s profiles, groups, and strategies targeted for maximum engagement. When your team starts pumping up their profiles and connections together, their prospecting power is going to start increasing exponentially.
The pressure has never been so great. Inside sales is in the hot seat, accounting for more than half of a company’s revenue, so management is tasked with a lot. They must lead and motivate their teams, bring in substantial revenue numbers, and track progress so they can continue “selling” the value of their fabulous (and often misunderstood) team.
First, determine what social media tools resonate best for your target audience. Stick to a few tools — LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Next, determine how many stages you have in your sales process, from beginning to end. Then take all of this and create a road map that includes tools and stages. Then, of course, track everything and measure effectiveness.
Today’s enterprise and complex sales cycle require a robust nurture strategy that includes multiple touches of contagious content to your prospects. Remember, Customer 2.0 likes to self-educate and that can take time, sometimes a lot more time than you’re comfortable with. When a prospect suddenly disappears, don’t panic. Stay on their radar by providing periodic, useful content while positioning yourself through social media as a trusted expert in the industry. Reaching out over and over with “just checking in” messages is, however, a big no.
Metrics are necessary when tracking the productivity of your sales team. Setting metrics depends on your sales cycle, target audience, and talent. Most outbound sales organizations have softened up on hard outbound metrics and instead measure “talk time,” which is a good indicator. With the end of the "cold" in cold call, social media metrics have to become a part of the equation too. A well connected, active rep who stays on their prospects’ social media radar will have much better effectiveness on the phone and via email.
I wish all sales management understood the importance of sales training, but sometimes you’ll have to take the first important steps into the Sales 2.0 ecosystem on your own. The inside sales profession tends to be lonely and isolating. After risking rejection on an hourly basis, you need an energizing and motivating influence. There are lots of great sales blogs out there that can help. You might also want to look into some individualized coaching to help you get to the next level of sales excellence.
No-Po = "No Power" and "No Purchase Order." You may have been escorted back to the No-Po Zone because you failed to show value at the higher level. When you call high, you have to talk high. Bring a business reason and sales intelligence to your engagement strategy at this level. LinkedIn is a fantastic resource for figuring out how the higher level of an organization is thinking.
Today’s customers want to trust you. If you use outdated qualification techniques, they will not engage. Current Environment, Business Needs, Decision Making Process (and people involved), Decision Making Criteria, Competition, Budget, Timeframe, and Next Steps are all the TeleSmart Qualification Criteria package and I’ll stand by that any day.
About the author
Josiane Feigon is a pioneer, maverick, and visionary in the inside sales community, and is one of the Forbes Top 30 Social Salespeople in the World. She is the author of Smart Sales Manager and the best-selling Smart Selling on the Phone and Online and the founder of TeleSmart Communications, a leader in developing inside sales teams and managers. Follow Josiane Twitter and connect on LinkedIn.
For more on inside sales strategies and trends, subscribe to Josiane's blog and sign up for her Email Newsletter. If you need weekly injections of inspiration and motivation, sign up for the Smart Selling Motivational Texts.
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