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Inside Sales Software Buyer's Guide
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Are you a sales professional? If yes, you may know the terms outside and inside sales. These are the top strategies that the sales team usually argues around inside and outside sales. However, both strategies blend with time to give a whole new look to sales and leads.
Do you think inside and outside sales are different from each other?
We need to deep dive into inside and outside sales to answer this question.
» What is Inside Sales?
It can be a bit daunting if you want to know the definition of inside sales, as it is more of a concept. But let us humor you. Inside sales is a concept to identify, nurture, and turn leads while sitting on your desk at home or office.
With digital channels, emails, and phones, it has become easier to sell a product or service to the customer remotely. Inside sales are extremely popular in B2B markets, such as the tech industry and SaaS. The sales representative can sell the product from home or office desk without going door to door.
Whereas outside sales are the one that requires the salesperson to meet with the prospects at industry events, conferences, and shows to sell the product. With the increase of technology, the inside sales have skyrocketed since it is just a call or email away. Unlike telemarketers, inside sales reps don't have any specific scripts, and they are creative and trained people who can think on their toes while selling services or products to the prospect.
The sales representatives can also sell or make prospects through video calls (Google Meet and Zoom), text messages, and LinkedIn. Technology has only increased the knowledge and skills of sales professionals involved in inside sales, contrary to telemarketers. The lines between the field and inside sales are becoming blurry with time, especially with the coronavirus.
Now, the sales representatives use sales automation tools, inside sales software, productivity software, appointment scheduling software, sales dialers, CRM software, and other tools to sell the product or work remotely.
Let us give you a bit more details about the inside sales examples:
› CRM Tools – CRM or Customer Relationship Management Tools are the ones that are a central location for the business's systems and information. It aims to align tasks and collaboration between marketing, sales, and customer support (when necessary).
› Sales Calling and Tracking Tools – It is a tool that offers features like recording and placing calls, creating email digests, logging calls automatically, and browsing details that one can share with the team.
› Reporting Tools – It helps the reps or sales manager to track the data points and customizable metrics to monitor combined or individual success, sales tactics, and improvement.
Inside sales also include high-ticket sales that are now part of outside sales. With time, the inside sales model will become the future of the sales market as it is easily handled in a remote environment.
Using the inside sales model, the sales reps obtain more leads, take more meetings, and connect with more prospects. It has managed to increase the overall quota of the inside sales market.
To make the sale, professionals need to capitalize on CRM software that can help them keep track of operations and take necessary measures. The inside sales reps invest time to understand the prospects and markets, such as pain points, who is the ideal customer, typical roadblocks, and primary objectives.
» What is Inside Sales Software?
Now that you know what inside sales are; next, you need to understand how to leverage the strategy. Inside Sales Software has made it easy to help the sales teamwork with the prospects and close the deals. The wide range of functionality helps in performing tasks like organizing meetings, managing leads, and generating leads.
However, choosing the ideal inside sales software depends on the requirements of the professionals. It is essential to choose the right product and suitable options. First, understand why you need inside sales software.
Inside sales are divided into different stages that determine the type of tool that you might need.
#1 Prospects
The first stage is finding the right prospect or potential customer and searching for their details. One needs to identify the opportunities, collect the information, and save it to the CRM for further processing. There are lead directories, purchase lists, and several other tools to find the details of prospects. The aim is to access the contact details, know prospects' requirements, and control the whole process.
#2 Qualify
The next step is the prospect's qualification, meaning knowing whether the respective person will make the purchase or not. Sales reps can't connect with thousands of people listed in the CRM. Hence, it is essential to determine the right candidate with buying intent and the need to make the purchase. This will help centralize the repository for the information of the interested prospects that one can connect with without wasting time pursuing everyone.
#3 Engagement
Next is the engagement aspect, in which one can convert leads. In this, the sales reps connect with the prospect reinforcing relationships. It is not simple as making one call and closing the deal, and it includes multi-steps where the customers will listen to the details, build trust, and obtain timely information about the service or product.
The stage requires a sales engagement tool that helps facilitate high-quality interactions across channels. The automation tools help in creating an inside sales funnel, such as tracking the conversation, following up, and outreach campaigns, to close the deal and build a relationship with customers.
#4 Meeting
The next stage demonstrates the product's features and benefits to the customers that can convert to final purchase. The customers meet with the sales reps that help them understand the product by alleviating pain points and achieving goals. Meet schedulers support the sales reps in demonstrating the product at the desired time and ensure that customers are available for the meeting. The meeting schedulers can make the appointments easier without awkward situations.
With this said, the significant tools upon which the inside sales reps depend are:
› Lead Generation Tools allow users to record the prospects and their primary information.
› CRM Software allows users to manage the prospect's data, such as website, website bio, email, phone number, name, and company address, in a single place.
› Sales Engagement Tools allow users to optimize outreach prospects and get more repliers using data-driven strategies. It can also track the emails sent out to the candidates and the best time to get in touch with them.
› Meeting Scheduler Tools allow users to schedule a meeting by eliminating the requirement of email threads and phone calls. It shares the availability preference and links with the desired time.
› Miscellaneous Tools are the other required tools that are becoming extremely popular among salespeople, such as online meeting tools, calling tools, sales intelligence tools, sales data tools, and sales email tracking and automation tools.
Sales Intelligence tools are the ones that allow sales reps to conduct a deep search for the company with data points such as firmographics, technographics, and signals to match the ideal buyers. It goes through thousands of datasets to come up with accurate results, including information such as current contracts, purchase history, digital footprint, and business objectives.
Inside sales software must offer customizable options, integrate with other tools, and should be easy to use. On top of that, it should be the right fit for the team, from the representative to the manager.
» What are the Top Features of Inside Sales Software?
The market is well-equipped with inside sales software with several available options for trial. The throat-cutting competition has made it difficult for professionals to determine the right product. However, the fact is that it is not difficult to find the right and world-class inside sales software platforms. All you need is to know all the significant factors before choosing one.
Whether you are looking for free inside sales software, or the best one, you need to know their features. Without further ado, here are the top inside sales software features that one must be aware of while making the final purchase.
#1 Lead Scoring and Qualification
Let us give you an example. You have a list of thousands of prospects that have shown interest in a service or product similar to yours over the last five years. Some did it recently, and some are from five years ago. However, if you start interacting with every one of them, it will simply waste your time and prospects. In such a case, it is best to determine the quality of the leads before reaching out, especially if you are working on commission-based work.
The sales reps don't have to waste their time with junk leads when they can spend time on quality leads. It is easy to convert quality leads (most of them), making lead scoring and qualification a significant feature. This feature lets one know which leads are marked qualified based on their actions and readiness to buy.
#2 Sales Tracking
The stage of the sales journey needs to be determined in real-time. This can be achieved using the sales tracking tool that monitors the progress of the work and adjusts it according to the success rate of the prospect. It tracks revenue, insight into the prospect, and funnel without depending on guessing games. It offers a better track of follow-up and services, ensuring that the funnel moves forward. It also forecasts the success rate of the tracking by setting goals on an annual, monthly, weekly, or daily basis.
#3 Lead Distribution
One sales rep can't manage all the leads, and hence it is essential to distribute leads among the team. It can be easily done using lead distribution tools that work on specific parameters to assign the right salesperson's funnel with the right leads. It tracks the sales reps' ability and understands how they close the lead. Then, the tool divides the leads according to the knowledge and experience of the salesperson. For instance, the fresher won't get qualified information. Instead, they will get small leads.
#4 Email Automation
How many times do you receive a sales call in a day? Sales reps spend most of their time calling and figuring out the CRM workflow, emailing prospects, and performing tasks. It is becoming a time-consuming task for the representatives. However, email automation tools can help eliminate manual labor and increase revenue-generating activities. This tool allows users to track engagement, keep connections alive, and follow up on tasks or schedules with a few clicks.
#5 Off-Page Lead Capture
All the leads are from the website, and some come through third-party websites and phone calls that make them off-page leads. It is essential to know the source of these leads and how you can solve the issues. The inside sales software platform can easily capture such leads and understand their sources, such as from a form and mouth-to-mouth marketing. It can integrate with other tools to cut lead leakage and invest in worthy channels.
» What are the Benefits of Inside Sales Software?
Currently, inside sales software is the central part of businesses that have streamlined remote working. It helps increase the team productivity and overall revenue of the company. However, what makes it different from others?
Here are some of the significant benefits of inside sales software that make it an ideal choice in the market.
#1 Resource Efficiency
The inside sales software platform is highly not just cost or time-effective but a resource-efficient tool. It covers several job roles around the products that have eliminated extra charges for businesses. The reps can work from behind their desks or at home to get more results and increase their productivity. It offers convenience to users who used to travel around or meet prospects.
#2 Scalability
Inside sales software has increased the scalability of the business. It has decoded the math behind the business and used a sales strategy to train more people and get a hundred times the revenue. It is also cost-effective, making it a valuable company model for streamlining multiple processes using a single tool or software.
#3 Agile Methodology
The inside sales software follows the agile methodology that has incorporated new processes over the existing ones to make efficient changes. The A/B testing of CRM tools has offered better and more automated results than manual work, with better communication between the team members. The constant updates and reports on the leads have made it easier to keep track of the job without slacking off.
#4 Easy Prediction
The calculative approach of inside sales software has made it easier for the sales reps to predict the outcome of the respective prospect. As a result, it is easier to determine the company's overall revenue. One can plan future strategies based on these predictions to achieve the target.
#5 Task Automation
The automation process has made it easier for the individual sales reps to know what to do and how to work on the tasks. One can identify the manual processes and time invested in them using the tools to determine how to automate them to save time and simplify the work. It is also easier to collect data, get approvals, process payments, and obtain commissions.
» How Much does Inside Sales Software Cost?
The inside sales software cost depends on the product and its features. Several options are available in the market based on the fundamental features, purchase options of budget, and current infrastructure for different industries. The variables help determine the type of inside sales software one may need, such as enterprise inside sales software, mid-market inside sales software, and small business inside sales software.
The right inside sales software solution depends on the organization’s requirements and budget. Hence, it is best to find out all the software details before finalizing the purchase.
» Conclusion
The future of the sales market is here with the inside sales model. Amid the pandemic, businesses have embraced the inside model for all the strategies that have impacted the business landscape. Companies have managed to earn more and become more productive with time. This speculates that the inside sales model will be a game-changer for remote work technology.
It has managed to gain dominance in the market, making it easy for employees to work remotely. However, the inside sales model has also increased the popularity of technology (which was already at its peak). Technology such as dialers, CRM software, conversation intelligence, and social selling tools are a few popular ones.
The on-demand economy has made it easier for sales reps to embrace the new world and give an edge to the company to thrive. It helps them stay abreast with their competitors and ensure to stay prepared when it comes to selling products using the best possible tool. The future of digital sales is taking a new turn, making teams more productive, increasing business opportunities, and leading towards growth.