Inside Sales: A Comprehensive Guide [+ 4 Software]

Inside sales is a famous model in the world of sales that companies from across the world use actively. 

The journey from a lead to a deal is filled with ups and downs. 

Finding a lead to connect with them and engage in a conversation takes a lot of effort. Then comes even the harder part – converting them into paying customers or closing a deal in sales terminology. 

Between all these, there are lots of things to manage and prepare, which can become hectic if you do everything manually like in olden times. 

Now, you have lots of technologies to support your inside sales and make your sales reps more productive and efficient.

This article is all about inside sales and some of the tools you can include in your sales process.

Let’s start!

What is Inside Sales?

Inside sales is a popular and widely used sales model prevalent in B2B, SaaS, tech, and various B2C industries. In inside sales, the sales process is managed remotely, meaning the sales representatives work out of the office.

It relies more on technology to understand the customer and their behavior and engage with them to improve the conversion rate. It is unlike traditional systems where sales require face-to-face interactions.

In inside sales, the representatives’ role is to remotely find leads and nurture, qualify, and convert them into customers. This requires excellent knowledge about the industry they operate in and the products they pitch to prospects. They must have both soft and hard skills to answer prospects’ and customers’ queries and help them solve their challenges. 

Some of the regular tasks of an inside sales rep are:

• Lead sourcing: Sales reps are needed to build an ideal buyer profile by finding companies and individuals highly likely to benefit from and use your product or service. Using sales intelligence software and tools can help you source leads matching your ideal buyer profile.
• Prospecting: After finding the leads, the reps can organize them and line them up for the first contact. You can reach them via emails and cold calls and follow up quickly with prospects who have inquired about your solutions through social media, phone, or email.  
• Scheduling meetings: By scheduling meetings with the prospects, you can listen to their pain points and requirements and address them through demos and presentations of how your solution will benefit them.
• Close deals: Sales reps negotiate with their leads and aim to convert them into paying customers. And if needed, they can pass the lead to a field sales rep for closure. 

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales

Inside sales	Outside sales
Reps source leads and nurture them, all remotely.	Reps connect with each lead in person, where the lead is well-targeted but are only a few.
It relies on email, phone, web conferencing, CRM software, etc., to connect with prospects.	It relies on email and phone to schedule meetings in-person and uses CRM software to enter details and update deal status.
The sales cycle is shorter since the reps work simultaneously on different deals and move them to closure.	Its sales cycle is longer since the reps are required to travel to various locations and meet clients to close deals.
It’s a cost-effective model with a stable salary and fixed schedules for reps. All this needs a one-time investment in the internet, computer, and software.	It’s an expensive model with a high salary for reps and includes costs for traveling and accommodation.

Benefits of Inside Sales for a Business

Accelerates Selling

Inside sales reps get more time to sell than outside sales reps. This is because inside sales reps don’t have to spend time traveling to different places to meet clients. They can do everything remotely, from lead sourcing to nurturing, meeting, and closing the deal. So, they can use that time for more prospecting, following up on the leads, and selling.

Faster Response

Inside sales teams can quickly respond to queries via a phone call or email whenever the prospect has some doubts or needs help. It doesn’t require in-person visits and keeps the prospect waiting for the reps to arrive at their location. Hence, prospects will experience a faster response time with an inside sales rep.

Lower Cost of Sales

Inside sales reps work remotely with a one-time investment in tools and computers without any need for travel and accommodation for meeting clients. Plus, their salary is also stable. So, the overall cost of sales is way lower than outside sales requiring high travel expenditure and compensation.

Scalable Team

Outside sales teams are challenging to scale since hiring reps is location-specific, and you need representatives that are knowledgeable about locations and flexible to change territories. But there is no such thing when you hire inside sales reps and scale your teams since they operate remotely.

Effective Collaboration

Inside sales reps work collaboratively. If needed, one sales rep can transfer the call to other reps to help the prospect get a better idea of something or explain something in their preferred language. But outside sales rely on one person to manage a lead since it involves face-to-face conversations.

Skills That Are Needed to Excel in Inside Sales

• Excellent Communication Skills with active listening 
• Inside-out knowledge of the product you sell
• Ability to engage with the clients and show empathy
• Building relationships through storytelling
• Doing research and using the CRM
• Using social media for social selling
• Time management and organization
• Following up with the clients
• Collaboration with the teammates
• Persistency and problem-solving mindset
• Persuasion and negotiation

Role of an Inside Sales Rep

• Staying updated with all products and services offered by own company
• Keeping informed about the products and services of the competitors
• Maintaining a customer database (existing and potential)
• Researching and getting new leads
• Understanding the needs of the customers to identify sales opportunities
• Communicating with potential customers through outbound calls
• Answering user queries and sending other information via emails
• Following up on leads to convert them into customers
• Demonstrating features of products and services to the customers
• Upselling products and services
• Closing sales and achieving sales targets

Major Inside Sales Technologies

Phone

Communication via telephone is still prevalent in sales. Sales reps use a CRM or auto-dialer software with an in-built phone to call prospects and leads. These tools make communication a lot easier while letting you manage the call history, which leads are to call next, follow up, and so on. You can make calls with a click, transfer calls to another rep, leave voicemails, and enjoy much more functionality.

Lead Scoring

For businesses receiving a large number of leads daily, it becomes difficult to manage them. It may breed inefficiency and increase the chances of losing quality leads because of a lack of organization and prioritization. This is where you can use a lead scoring tool. It will help you prioritize potential leads and identify better opportunities based on the lead profile and interaction with your site or app.

CRM Software

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a tool with a centralized database that lets you access and store prospect data. This way, reps can get a clear view of all the sales activities and manage the pipeline better. In addition, the software automates administrative and manual work to free time reps can dedicate to selling more.

Event Tracking Tool

Using an event tracking tool, you can capture visitors’ engagement and activities by integrating them with your product and site. It will give context to your leads’ buying intentions and help you engage in meaningful conversations with the prospects and build excellent rapport with them.

You can track their site behavior and understand visually their interactions, their buying journeys, how good their chances are of buying your solution, etc. You can maintain each data log chronologically and manage everything efficiently.

Reporting Tools

Reporting tools allow you to track valuable metrics and gain actionable insights. It will also help you identify the top performers inside your sales team and correlate their sales activities, such as calls made, emails sent, appointments scheduled, tasks done, etc. This way, you can reward them while training others that need help to amplify their performance.

Email Management System

Emails are one of the most professional and widely used communication channels, even in the age of social media. Organizations often make first contact with emails. So, using an email management system, inside sales teams can send emails in bulk, create email templates and save them, and track click and open rates. You can even integrate it with other tools to avoid frequent app switching and manage everything easily.

Strategies Used for Inside Sales

Using CRM Software Effectively

CRM software is designed to help you track your clients in your sales funnel. It comes with helpful features and functionalities to organize outreach efficiently.

So, when you use this software, always plan the best way to reach your prospects and schedule them in advance to increase your chances of getting considered and not annoy them. You can also plan to follow up and be ready with all the information your prospects may need from you.

Use Sales Intelligence Tools

Using sales intelligence tools, you can find the best way to communicate and close deals. These tools can collect data on the number of touchpoints your leads had before conversion.

This helps you analyze the number of touchpoints you can expect for each customer. It will also provide you with insights on the approach you can use to convert them into a customer.

Excellent Communication Skills

Selling is an art. It requires you to garner your prospects’ trust. This is why you need excellent communication skills while talking to them and maintaining your confidence. You must also be ready to explain everything in the easiest way possible while being polite, professional, and friendly. Whether making the initial contact, following up, or after-sales, you must listen to them carefully and help them wherever possible.

Knowledge about the Product/Service

Everything can go in vain if you don’t have good knowledge about the product or service you are selling. You must know the pros and cons and be ready to answer your prospect’s queries accurately.

Inside Sales Software

Now, here are some of the tools you can try for inside sales. 

#1. Pipedrive

Stay on top of your game by managing your inside sales with Pipedrive. It makes the whole process easier, more efficient, and less complicated while handling inside sales. This flexible and powerful software for inside sales comes with excellent features and usability.

With Pipedrive, you will get more time to indulge in selling than data handling or manual data entry. This is an easy solution for your entire sales tracking requirements. It unifies all the tools you use with robust integrations. It also offers you a single, streamlined display of sales processes to provide clarity and keep everyone updated.

You will get a fully-customizable sales management system that is flexible and easy to adjust. So, when you can easily change everything, you can personalize different aspects easily. Since Pipedrive is available on mobile, you can sell engage in active selling. Its CRM applications make your sale management quick and simple so that no crucial information is missed.

Pipedrive comes with real CRM tools to manage leads and drive sales faster. This intuitive software enables maximum output for minimum input and offers 200 pages of different functions without requiring any training. So, log in to your account, fill in the pipeline details, and start selling.

You can try Pipedrive for FREE to get full access without revealing your credit card information.

#2. Freshworks

Freshworks offers Freshsales CRM with AI-based software for lead scoring, automation, phone, email, reporting, event tracking, and more. It will help you increase your productivity, improve collaboration, and lower the cost of acquisition.

Using Freshsales, your sales representatives can collaborate quickly with different departments and move deals through the sales funnel. It also enables managers to provide immediate feedback and conduct regular meetings to outline strategies.

You will get tools like CRM software, phone, web conferencing software, sales acceleration software, and more to help your reps win more sales and schedule appointments, and create a healthy and fast-moving sales pipeline without spending more time on traveling.

In addition, your reps can use an email management system to send mass emails, draft and save amazing emails to use as templates, track click and open rates, and nurture customer journeys.

Similarly, using a lead scoring tool, you can solve each problem effectively and prioritize your sales leads. Additionally, set scores depending on your lead’s characteristics like job title, company, country, etc., along with interactions with your products, emails, and website. This tool also lets you identify potential leads that can convert and gives you more time to engage with them.

Furthermore, Freshsales offers event-tracking software that integrates with your product and site to capture visitor engagement and activities. These insights will provide you with a visual idea of your leads’ activity, their buying journey, and whether they are potential leads or not.

You can use their reporting tool to identify your top performers and their sales activities. It will help you understand their difficulties so that you can help them and accelerate sales while rewarding the performers.

It offers a freemium plan and 24×7 email and phone support for every customer. It also offers a 21-day trial for FREE.

#3. UpLead

Get 95% data accuracy for B2B prospecting with UpLead. It lets you build prospecting lists easily from your irregular data, low-qualified leads, and bad-fit buyers.

With UpLead, you can find the top leads’ accurate contact information to keep your sales and marketing efforts strong. You can also use more than 50 search filters to find companies and contacts matching your customer profile. In addition, you can easily collect your contacts’ emails and phone numbers and data like technologies they use for your conversation.

UpLead lets you verify lead data in real-time using their email verification system to ensure you always connect with qualified, real leads. The tool will also help you grab mobile and dial phone numbers without hassle. In addition, find leads actively looking to purchase your product or service and engage buyers intending to buy before the competitors can reach them.

Find more than 40 data points for thousands of prospects at once and export the information directly to your CRM. Interestingly, UpLead has a provision for refunding you the credits for poor and bounced data, which is impressive.

It also integrates seamlessly with solutions like Zapier, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Outreach, Woodpecker, and more. You can even use Chrome extensions, 16k+ tech data points, and an API to scale prospecting.

#4. Copper

View your entire sales pipeline with Copper. It enables you to understand your customer journeys and sales engagement and effectively tracks customer data and opportunities for sales reps.

Copper helps improve your sales team’s productivity and efficiency and prevents opportunities from being lost. It will also help you understand the path to reaching your goals with an intuitive platform that your team can easily adapt within minutes.

From finding the leads to conducting meaningful conversations and closing the deals, Copper CRM makes every step less complicated. This is a user-friendly tool that sales reps can use to manage their leads and deals effectively.

Apart from tracking and organizing sales opportunities, it can automate your manual, repetitive data entry.

You can capture leads easily with phone and emails and qualify them quickly. You can also track email open rates and get deal alerts for prioritizing your hottest leads to build a stronger pipeline.

You can also drag-and-drop pipelines that are easy to customize and get each sales activity and history with a click. You will also get a visual status indicator to view the progress of each lead and identify stalled opportunities.

You will get a built-in dashboard and reporting system that integrates natively with Google Workspace.

FAQ

Conclusion

Inside sales is becoming bigger in the world of sales. So, it’s essential to understand more about it so you can introduce it hassle-free in your sales processes. And to make the process less complicated and more efficient, you can try inside sales tools that can save you time and offer lots of features and benefits. 

You can try out these lead generation software to start the sales process.