Sales, inside

Differentiating channel offerings to customers based on what they are willing to pay for (e.g., direct, inside sales, e-sales, third party distribution)... 

I have a good friend inside the company that started as a customer service representative three years ago. Today she is in inside sales and last year she was the TOP salesperson for the entire eastern region. Keep in mind this person is persistent, dedicated, driven, and has excellent communication skills. If she wanted, she could be an outside pharmaceutical sales representative. However, she is not willing to relocate and is very happy with her current position. 

Reply Typically some sort of pharmaceutical experience is better than non-pharmaceutical, but copier sales or anyone who has performed well in "outside" sales, not inside sales, and has stayed at a job for a while. Job Jumping is probably the largest killer for candidates to get jobs. 

Transaction section (comparison with direct competitors) Relative performance with respect to lead-time Relative performance with respect to lead-time reliability Relative performance with respect to price Relative performance with respect to technical support Relative performance with respect to field sales force support Relative performance with respect to product quality Relative performance with respect to inside sales support Relative performance with respect to overall ease of doing business with the company... 

Relative performance with respect to inside sales... 

Amy Vallance, Sales Representative Midwest, West and Southwest U.S., and Western Canada 281-550-5855, vallancea bnpmedla.com Brandon Miller, East Coast Sales Manager Eastern U.S. and Canada, Latin America 610-436-4220 x8513, miller bnpmedia.eom Patrick Connolly, Sales Representative, Europe Patco Media-London, 99 Kings Road, Westcliff on Sea, Essex SSO 8PH, England 44-1702-477341, FAX 44-1702-477559, patco44uk aol.com Peg Van Winkle, Inside Sales 614-760-4222, vanwinklep bnpmedia.com Christopher Wilson, BNP Custom Media Group 248-244-8264, wilsonc bnpmedia.com... 

By putting some paid and outbound tactics to work in parallel with your inbound efforts, you can drive leads further down your funnel at a faster rate. This part discusses the importance of paid programs like pay-per-click ads, content syndication, direct mail, event marketing, and inside sales. 

Sales lead If the lead is truly qualified and he heis had a good conversation with the inside sales team, he is passed on to an Account Executive (AE). The AE also speaks directly with the lead and heis seven days to either turn the lead into a true sales lead, or send him back to m irketing for lead nurturing, where marketing adds that lead into a ceimpaign to re-engc e him over time. 

What does your sales team look like Do you have inside sales reps and account executives, or do you only have an outside Scdes team ... 

Inquiry to marketing qualified lead (MQL) This is the percentage of conversion from initial inquiry to MQL. A MQL is defined by a lead that marketing deems qualified to push to the inside sales team, based on specific, predetermined criteria. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) Email marketing Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) u> Content syndication Direct mail Event marketing Inside sales... 

Creating the Final Touch with Inside Sales... 

An interesting aspect of an inside sales team is that many companies classify them as peirt of marketing because they help close the loop between Scdes and marketing. As a marketer, you need to be close to your sales team so that they can turn your leads into opportunities and qualify them to eventually be closed/won deals. By including inside sales as part of your marketing, you can cement the bond between the two teams. 

And other companies include their inside sales function as part of their core sales team because the pcirtnership between inside sales and field sales cements a solid sales process. How to structure your inside sales team may or may not be up to you, but you should know that there cire options. 

The inside sales function is a critical part to lead generation and ensuring that all of your effort eis a marketer pays off in the end. 

Inside sales teeims need to have sales acumen and be excellent communicators on the phone, which is a very specific and heird-to-find skill. Your sales reps need to be interesting, engaging, credible-sounding, and able to serve up a rebuttal for any form of rejection a lead gives them. Test their communication skills by doing extensive phone screens and role-playing. 

Linkedln is a great resource for good inside sales teeim candidates. Scout for people who have phone sales experience in high-volume businesses such as technology. You probably will find a lot of reps with phone sales experience within the technology sector. 

Here cire some other characteristics to look for when searching for your winning inside sales tecim ... 

Excellent written skills Your inside sales teams will be spending time creating emcdls, so make sure they know how to write one. 

A desire to succeed and move up In mcuiy organizations, the inside sales team members get promoted to account executives. 

You need to think about how your inside sales teams will be measured and what their daily activities consist of. A good rule of thumb is that cm inside sales rep should spend about two-thirds of his time Ccdling on inbound leads (sourced through marketing efforts) cmd the rest of the time cold Ccdling and researching. 

For example, Marketo wants their inside sales reps to have about 40-60 meaningful interactions with leads per day. This means a good phone Ccdl or email exchange. This does not include voicemcdls or hcmg-ups — these are not meaningful in any way. 

How do you come up with an inside sales quota You take your number of daily meaningful interactions (say, 50 in this case), multiply that by 20 (because there are generally 20 business days in a month), and multiply again by two-thirds (because we know the reps are only spending two-thirds of their time qualifying leads). This gives you a target of interactions per month per inside sales person. 

You can take this number, about 650 in this case, and divide that by 2.6 (which is the average number of calls it takes our inside sales reps to qualify a lead), and you can target your inside sales reps to work with about 250 quality leads per month. 

Be sure to take into consideration your own sales cycle. Your inside sales reps may be qualifying more or fewer leads, depending on your sales cycle and how many leads your marketing team generates. 

Because leads do most of their reseeirch online before they speak to a sales rep, in order for your inside sales teeims to truly have the knowledge they need to speak directly to a lead, they need in-depth information about lead activity. 

Many CRM systems have the ability to send emails, but they simply don t have the type of functionality needed for detailed tracking. But with marketing automation integration, sales can track email performance and get alerts when a lead engc es with an email. Inside sales tetims can create their own text-based emails or use a variety of templates that marketing creates. 

But what happens when a lead leaves marketing s hands and goes to sales You need to have a concrete lead qualification path that inside sales reps can follow before they know whether to qualify them and send them onto an account executive, or send them back to marketing. 

A marketing-qualified lead can be defined as a lead that is defined as good by marketing. This means that the lead has hit a specific score or has had an interesting moment, indicating that an inside sales rep should call her. 

After a lead is sent to sales, your inside sales reps need to accept those leads. This step is often absent from many lead funnels, but it s an important step to pay attention to. Your sales teams need to take your MQL and make sure that the lead is close enough to purchasing to be qualified by sales and ultimately sent to one of your outside sale reps. 

According to Sirius Decisions, there are specific reasons an inside sales rep might not qualify a lead. They include... 

If a lead is unable to be qualified by your inside sales rep, the lead should be recycled back to meirketing so it can be nurtured again or removed from the mix. 

Shows interest The lead seems very interested in your product or service. She has downloaded a variety of cissets, watched a demo, cmd had a positive interaction with your inside sales rep over the phone. 

Many services, such as Boxpilot, specialize in automated voicemails. These are fanteistic to use before events to ramp up attendance, and you won t be wasting the time of your inside sales reps calling to promote your event. Automated voicemail services allow you to create your own script and use your own voice talent. Think of using your CEO s voice, or even that of a famous person, if you can afford it The service calls your potential registrants during off-hours and leaves your voicemail on their machine. VoilM While you re asleep, you get tons of new registrants for your event. 

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