What is the Role of Inside Sales Representative in 2021?

Who are inside sales representatives? What makes it different than other sales representatives? 

Sales is about speed and if you want to increase your lead conversion rates faster than your competitors, inside sales is the perfect solution.

With the demand rising in the process of inside sales, the development of inside sales representative too is increasing its demand.

If you work in inside sales and want to become a better inside sales representative among your peers, this article can guide you with just a few easy steps.

But before we can jump in, let’s brush the basics first.

What is inside sales?

The team at Close.io (the inside sales thought leaders) explains, ‘’Inside sales is the act of identifying, nurturing and turning leads into customers remotely.’’

In simpler terms, Inside sales deals with contacting clients from any place you are currently residing in. You could make calls from the comfort of your home to capture and convert your potential prospects into qualified leads.

Sitting in an office space to do this job hasn’t become mandatory at all. Instead, few sales reps cater to their clients even after their working hours.

Inside sales are growing 15 times faster because the modern sales market demands it. In the years of telemarketing,  sales reps were asked to sell their products and services by visiting each of their client’s door to door.

Not only was this a tiresome task it also added a lot of intrusion in the daily schedules of clients. When inside sales gained popularity in the 1980s, it changed the way sales were being looked at.

Let’s understand this with a comparison sheet: 

Telemarketers	Inside Sales
Sales scripts were made to be read just the way it was.	1. Scripts that are personalized that  draw the attention of many prospects.
2. The cost of traveling itself to meet clients was expensive.	2. The cost here is spent wisely on tools (Customer relationship tools, social selling, email trackers, follow-ups alerts) which helped sales reps working in this process to speed up their work to capture leads.
3. Interrupting the client’s schedule was one major reason for rejection.	3. With detailed research and real-time data, it became convenient for sales reps to understand when they should dial the number.

With the rise in such convenience during a good technological growth period, inside sales also increased the demand for inside sales representatives. 

Who are inside sales representatives?

Inside sales representatives are members of the inside sales process.

You can refer to them as telemarketers but the role they conduct in sales is different.

For instance, previously salesmen also referred to as telemarketers then would meet clients face to face each day to sell their products. They had to follow a particular sales pitch and had to conduct the action of sales without even requesting for a meeting. It would be an on-spot sales performance.

Coming back to years later, today inside sales are much more knowledgeable and smarter when it comes to catering their qualified leads. With real-time data available, it became easier for an inside sales representative to keep a track of when they can contact their clients.

Even the sales pitches have been changed. Today sales pitches that are more personalized stand a higher chance to retain a lead on the phone for long.

Take an example of you. You cater to so many cold calls each day, how many such calls draw your attention?

When you begin to hear the common sales pitches over call, you become alerted that it is a sales call and immediately cut the call. But what if that sales call was more personalized?

What if that sales call stated your problems first rather than just selling the brand, wouldn’t you like to hear what the sales rep had to say?

An inside sales representative aims to conduct just this. The reason for its rise in the market is because these are new leaders who are studying and adapting how modern leads need to be captured.

Inside sales representatives don’t need to have a specific location to convert leads, they can make calls from the comfort of their home and even assist their leads at any time.

In today’s market, you want to deliver your customer experience exceptionally well, you need to be there when they need you. (includes your leisure days too).

Another reason why inside sales representatives are increasing their demand on the sales market because they are the ones who clear focus stresses on closing deals.

From monitoring, every minute detail of their prospects to creating a personalized sales pitch that will grab their attention, inside sales representatives is more result-oriented.

They leave no stone unturned when it comes to retrieving the leads which will prove to be beneficial for the solution they are selling. 

With such an engaging demand, what are the factors that prove inside sales representatives to be quite an asset for a business?

How can inside sales representatives help your business achieve better conversion rates?

1. Pull potential prospects through human touch

Where the world is growing and developing with the technological changes but when it comes to your customers, human touch is a great tool to win their attention in today’s scenario.

Being an inside sales representative requires you to contact your leads either via phone calls, emails or social media engagement. For this to take place, you require an individual who is capable to empathize with your lead’s problems.

Inside sales rep makes it happen.

From drafting personalized emails to engaging in the way your prospects prefer, inside sales is grabbing the attention of prospects quicker and easier.

Let’s understand this with an example:

When you engage with your customers say for example in a group or during a meeting, how would you cater to them?

Would you blankly nod your head or reply to them in the style you talk?

Inside Sales representatives are trained regularly on how they should communicate with their leads. This is important not only to capture leads but also to highlight what the brand represents.

See it in this way, would you purchase a product if it doesn’t list out how it can benefit you?

This is the same with your customers.

Customers today want a solution to their problem, they want to be able to trust someone who can help them.

They are looking for a brand that hears their problem first. If you’re going to follow the traditional way of selling via the same sales pitch, do you think you will be able to win over them?

Inside sales representatives communicate with leads every day and they are trained to speak in a manner that convinces clients that they are the right person to be approached. Speaking humanely is a priority.

2. Sell the brand’s message better

Scribd speaking about this pointer states, ‘’When brand messages are shared by employees on social media, they get 561 percent more reach than the same messages shared by the brand’s social media channels.’’

You know why?

Because people will always tend to invest in a solution if its shared across from another individual. For instance, if you are recommended to try a product from someone whom you know, your actions will be triggered to invest in that solution.

Why don’t you take an example of your Linkedin account? How do you manage it?

Whenever you share your brand’s posts, have you observed how the number of views you get, it is always higher in number when compared to your brand itself. Social Media Today states,     ’’Content shared by employees receives 8 times more engagement than content shared by brand channels.’’

Today your leads wouldn’t just trust you blindly, for them to even try your products, they will always seek a referral to learn more about you. Zety explains this point, ‘’92% of buyers trust product/service referrals from those they know’’.

With the online world growing and developing into various business sectors, inside sales representatives have the biggest advantage in hand which their fellow telemarketers years back didn’t.

They are no longer restrained to just capturing clients on the phones or emails, they can easily retrieve and tap clients via social media. The best examples to learn from are Instagram and Linkedin. 

Let’s understand this better with an example:

Say your brand is called AXC and you have 10 employees working in your company. Your brand has a minimum of 300 followers.

On the other hand, each of your employees since they engage in your social media accounts frequently managed to have 600 followers in their connection.

When you share your weekly blogs, you do it on the first day by sharing it via your brand. Here the views have reached to almost 50 people in one day. The second day it grows to another 10 and just like that you receive a total of 70 views from your brand.

After a week, you share that same blog on your account, the number keeps increasing and few of your followers even reshared it. The number of views you managed to get as close to 150.

What happened here?

• Since you have a loud number of engagements each day, you managed to pull the attention of your leads with your activity.
• Since you have many mutual connections and were able to build a good network with few of them, your content was viewed and shared by them because your audience knows that you will share information that would be relevant to them.

3. Capturing leads have become faster

Earlier for telemarketers, there was a lot of time being wasted to capture clients.

Today sales reps make more than 30 calls a day to capture their leads, which means that it would be 2 times more interactions when compared to the traditional sales reps.

This is amazing because in 2019, your competitors have increased and if you want to highlight yourself in the crowd you have to take faster measures.

As mentioned earlier, the inside sales representative have everything they need with just a tap of a button.

For instance, to find a qualified lead, they would first research about them, collect their information, study their problems and then dial their number.

This is an easier step as you know who you are talking to and how you can help them. This speeds up the sales process and lets you sell better.

Another example where inside sales reps can tap leads quicker is through callback software. 

For instance, callback softwares such as Limecall offer prospects to get in touch with sales reps in 28 seconds. Imagine in 28 seconds your prospects can call you and you can easily clear all their doubts and push them towards becoming a hot lead in a shorter period.

All these tools, online support, and research data give inside sales reps the opportunity to achieve their sales target conveniently.

Let’s understand with an example:

• With a CRM tool inside sales reps can easily find all the information about their warm and hot leads in one place. You can easily set follow up alerts so that you never miss out on any opportunity to convert your leads.
• With callback software such as the one mentioned above, you can easily trigger the attention of your clients to get in touch with you in a shorter period. If this happens, you win a golden opportunity to win them over during their decision period.
• With the real-time data you have, it becomes easier to track down your target audience as you understand what their needs are, when is the right time to call them, what type of communication they prefer as well as how they can be beneficial for your business.

4. Proves to be a cost-effective and efficient decision 

Earlier telemarketers use to frame their sales process on more traveling. Since they had to meet clients face to face they would have to travel to far places which prove to be a very expensive act from the company pockets.

To reduce this traditional practice, inside sales representatives have a solution.

Instead of intervening with the client’s busy schedule, these reps first communicate with the clients over call and then schedule a meeting.

Zety has stated in its article, ‘’75% of buyers would rather not meet face-to-face’’.

Why would they?

They don’t have an idea about your product, they don’t know how you can help them and they don’t even trust you.

For a business to tap clients in this way can be difficult, which is why the inside sales process can be helpful.

By having inside sales representatives to cater to the sales process, businesses can benefit hugely, for instance:

• Since inside sales can be conducted without any restriction on location, it becomes easier to employ sales reps from any part of the globe.
• Inside sales save huge amounts of money on having to travel regularly to meet clients and instead invests your money on fruitful tools that will increase your conversion rate higher

A business spends ample amounts of money which would enforce all their selling activities too. Draw more qualified leads towards their brands.

With inside sales reps, this becomes a whole lot easier.

How?

Because the business invests in improvising and helping sales reps to be better at their job.

For instance, technology keeps on changing. In fact that it keeps developing every time. To keep a track and implement it in business, you can’t keep hiring numerous manpower who are familiar with the latest trends.

The wiser decision would be to educate and train your current sales reps to understand the new technology change. 

The best example would be when inside sales reps were accustomed to contacting clients via phone and email, the trend of social media engagement too sparked a hype.

Today so many inside sales reps have active social media accounts where they interact and grasp qualified leads much easier.

Inside sales representatives are focused on closing deals, they have all the information they require at their fingertips. For a business, this is a huge advantage as they can convert leads much quicker and faster when compared to their competitors.

The 2019 sales market is growing. It expects the modern sales reps to consist of the skills that will make it easier for them to conduct their work smoothly. 

The competition is getting tough which is why we curated the top skills you require to prepare yourself to become the finest inside sales representatives for the futuristic sales market.

Fold your sleeves and let’s get converting your leads faster.

Mould yourself into the 2019 inside sales representative image with just 3 easy tips.

1. Work on your research skills

Inside sales representatives shift all their focus on closing sales deals.

If you want to do the same, there is only one easy way you can tap your qualified leads quicker.

Increase your researching skills.

As you know inside sales representatives communicate with prospects over the call which means that before you can even dial the number, you need to know the entire story related to your clients.

Let’s understand this with an example:

Sam who is a sales rep wants to sell his callback software to Mat. He does brief research about Mat and dials the number. During the conversation, Matt asked Sam a few questions like:

• What makes you different from other callback software vendors?
• How can your solution help me in this situation?

Sam who just had conducted brief research on Mat and his company started to pause and stammer because he had no answer. The result? He had to face the loss of a potential client.

Research is really important for an inside sales representative because it gives you all the exposure you require to sell your solution better.

For instance, let’s understand what would happen in both scenarios:

Without research:

• You would be unaware of what your client’s actual needs are
• You wouldn’t be able to sell your solution better
• Without proper research, you won’t be able to cater to any questions your clients put across to you.

With research:

• You can empathize with your client’s better
• Selling becomes easy since you are aware of the needs are
• You tend to cater to all questions being thrown at you by your clients more confidently
• You can relate and compare as well as speak how your solution will help grow their business in the long run.

Researching various platforms have grown. The below pointers can give you a headstart to begin your research about your client’s:

• View your client’s accounts via their social media handles such as Linkedin or Instagram, where ever they are online.
• View the blogs they share and written by them.
• If you have mutual connections, enquire and ask about them
• View recommendations on their website and Linkedin account
• Don’t miss out on quora and twitter as many audiences interact there

2. Build your rapport skills

Inside sales representatives don’t engage with the client’s face to face often and have more conversations over a call.

But this doesn’t mean that the task seems easy.

Being an inside sales representatives should consist of enhancing and improvising on your rapport skills.

See it in this way, if you are going to engage with someone who has a weaker rapport, would you be interested to continue your conversation with them?

You wouldn’t because they failed to make an impression in the first call itself.

As an inside sales reps, your rapport skills should be structured in such a way that you can easily connect with your audience better.

You can try the below tactics to enhance rapport building:

• Communicate with your colleagues
• Move away from plain scripts, personalize your scripts to sound more real
• Be warm and friendly when you speak to your prospects so that you can get them to be open and more comfortable during the conversation
• Learn to empathize well with your prospects
• Match the tone and speed of the communication according to how your prospects are interacting
• Listen well to what your prospect’s needs are and find a solution to that directly

With almost half of your interactions taking place over call, framing a good rapport at the beginning of your calls can be a good start.

3. Your communication matters

 38% of communication relies on the speaker’s tonality, while a mere 7% favored content.’’

It’s not about what you talk to your prospects, it’s about how you sell it to them.

You can have the most rewarding solution in your hand, but if you fail to communicate the selling USP the right way, your prospects wouldn’t even stop to turn.

As mentioned earlier, your engagement with your prospects relies more on communicating with them over calls and other forms of interactions such as emails, etc.

For instance:

Which line would you choose from the below:

• I have a product that can help your business grow more leads.
• The solution which I am offering can grow your business 3x more due to its efficient quality of filtering leads easily and quickly.

The latter is the one that sounds more promising and engaging. 

There are a few factors that you need to keep in mind when structuring your communication patterns such as:

• Never interrupt your prospects. Let them finish what they have to say and then you may begin
• Speak in a friendly tone so that you can get your prospect to open up during the conversation
• Speak normally and don’t go too fast.
• Listen and communicate to what your prospects ask you
• Retain an empathizing tone and sound real when you speak
• Avoid any standard dialogue sheet, you are here to solve real problems. Be genuine
• Be positive in every sentence you deliver

At the end of your call, how you conveyed your solution is what will stay more profoundly in the minds of your prospects. Ensure that it be a fruitful one.

What do you think?

Are you too impressed with the fact that inside sales reps can make a huge impact in the business industry?

It is 2019 and the sales market requires sales reps who understand the market and also acquire the skills to cater to the right target audience.

Was some information new to you? Would you like to add some more factors?

We would love to hear them all. Share your opinions by tweeting us.