In a B2B company, the main activities of Inside Sales teams include qualifying, selling and up-selling, primarily through the phone and sometimes on the web without the necessity of meeting prospects in-person. For this, Inside Sales representatives need to be able to navigate an organization by phone and have engaging conversations with different roles in an organization.
In recent times it can also be used in context of in-bound calls where the prospect initiates the call inquiring about the product/service which is screened by the Inside Sales team. This is a relatively newer phenomenon with the advent of the web and with a lot of product companies relying on the web as an inbound Lead engine. In addition to engaging the prospects on the phone and web meetings, the Inside Sales team needs to be able to conduct web demos and presentations.
Why Inside Sales is Important in Lead Generation
- Inside Sales can be the bridge between Marketing and Sales.
- They can take input from the Marketing Team in the form of potential sales from marketing campaigns and then qualify them for Sales.
- In organizations where Inside Sales is managed well, the funnel will never go dry and the pipeline velocity is faster.
- It is also very important to set-up the Inside Sales team for success.
- It is good for Inside Sales to have had exposure in sales; it will help them feel as part of the sales group with common goals, targets and territory management.
- They need to be very well versed with a value based selling process and have to ensure that they pass qualified Leads (and not wrong Leads just to make up numbers).
- In some organizations, Inside Sales might also be responsible for smaller transactions with the sales team only focused on larger opportunities.
However, today, the lines are blurring between Inside Sales and Field Sales, with organizations experimenting with their sales models, allowing sales representatives that are primarily Inside Sales go on customer visits when required. Other experiments which we have seen are where Inside Sales are also active in social media and engage in discussions with prospects as an additional responsibility.
Measurement of Inside Sales Success
- Inside Sales team’s measurement of success can,
- Be the number of appointments set
- Revenue in a deal closed
- Overall number of calls done and conversations
A lower weighted attribution in revenue in the final metrics would make the Inside Sales team feel under-appreciated.
How can Marketing Automation Make a Difference
Marketing Automation with a direct integration with Lead generation system and CRM would definitely help Inside Sales team in two contexts-
- One, in terms of providing insights into behavior of Leads and providing context for follow-ups and,
- Second, in terms of putting together metrics for their performance.
In lead management, the number of ‘Marketing Qualified Leads’ converted to ‘Sales-Ready Leads’ would be the true indicator of performance and can easily be set-up by Marketing Automation Systems.
Also read on - B2B lead scoring, Lead management software