Inside sales – is it a good career choice

 Inside sales – is it a good career choice?

Overview –

 

So, in this article, I will share my decade extensive experience of working as an inside sales rep in India. 

As I have worked in the inside sales domain for quite some time, I would like to put forward whether being an inside sales rep is a good career choice in 2022 or even after that.  

This overview includes how to make you suitable for an inside sales interview, what are the industry expectation from an inside sales representative (ISR), what are the skills that are essential to perform this job in a better way, a few important tips, and tricks, and how to shape up your future in inside sales or any other direction.  

Here are important topic of discussion will be as follows –

 

·        What are Inside sales with a brief background

·        Industry expectation from an ISR?

·        ISR job and responsibilities

·        Future of an ISR and

·        Conclusion

 

So, let’s begin the discussion with the definition of Inside sales.

 

 

What are Inside Sales?

In simple words, inside sales is any sales process that involves selling products or services using a phone, internet, and a system (laptop, desktop) called inside sales. As the sales guy sells the product or services seating inside the office or inside their home it is called ‘inside’ sales. No in-person meeting happens in the inside sales role.  

But, inside sales are not limited to cold calling or sending emails to their prospects. Nowadays we have seen the very increased use of online meetings platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and WebEx. Because of the pandemic, most of the meetings are held online and not offline. And this increases the importance of ISR, they are taking exceptionally good advantage of these online meeting platforms to communicate with their prospects in a virtual face-to-face platform. Which results in increased sales.  

Industry expectation from an ISR - 

 

In this paragraph, I want to discuss with you what are the industry expectations from an inside sales rep. As the name suggests, it involved sales, so revenue generation for the company is the prime objective of an ISR. The advantage of being an inside sales rep is that they can sit in one state and sell the product in any other state. He need not visit the client's place for the sales to happen. Because of this key advantage, many companies are hiring ISR’s for lead generation, prospect identification, online product presentation, participating in the complete sales process, and closing the deal sitting inside the office. Inside sales work coordinated with the field sales and marketing team to provide all sorts of support for the deal to close.  

Companies are looking for ISR who are good in communication skills, listening skills, emailing skills, social media skills, problem-solving skills, and have the will to make a respectable number of cold calls.  

ISR Jobs and Responsibilities in the post-pandemic era - 

An ISR plays many important roles in its day-to-day operation. I am sharing them in brief in a step-by-step manner.  

 

1.   Prospect Database – A prospect database is a list of target audiences that includes their phone number, email id, location, and other details to understand them better.  

Many companies buy databases from database providers such as Fundoodata or Dataguru. Which provides a highly accurate database with many vital details of the customers in India.  

But sometimes ISR teams need to prepare their database using Google, LinkedIn, or other online free tools.  

 

 

2.   Calling Script preparation - calling script is a very catchy brief about a product or solution that inside salesperson uses to start the discussion over the phone with their prospects. These cold calling scripts are usually short and are prepared to create interest within the prospects.  

This calling script is prepared with the help of inside sales, field sales, marketing teams. Sometimes top management involves themselves in the preparation of cold calling scripts.  

 

3.   Product Knowledge - Not only inside sales but every person within the organization must understand their product very well. A technical person will understand the product technically, but a salesperson will understand the product from a sales point of view, such as target audience, competitor analysis, pricing, USP, use cases, and many more.  

 

4.   Cold calling - You know that cold calling is necessary for an inside sales rep. The more one makes cold calls the more chances are to connect with the prospects.  

 

5.   Listening - It is an important yet underrated skill. When you start listening to your customer about their pain points, their concerns, why they are accepting or declining your solution, you will understand the market better. 

 

6.   Sales funnel creation - sales funnel refers to tracking the customer journey from the first cold call to the closing. Many prospects drop at various stages of this sales funnel, but an ISR keeps track of all those activities. All the activities are logged into the sales funnel.  

 

7.   Online meetings - It is a very new role for the ISR. This pandemic teaches us the importance of online meetings. You can meet your prospects online and present the solution online only. Still, it looks like you are setting in a face-to-face with your prospect. Over zoom, Cisco, or WebEx, you can conduct an online meeting which is amazingly effective in a sales process. Using this online meeting you can understand the needs of the prospects better than by telephone.  

 

8.   Negotiation and closure - negotiation involves a discussion between buyers and sellers about a particular product or service. Negotiation is such a process in sales where everyone benefits both the buyer and the seller. So that the buyer gets the product and the seller gets the customer.  

above are the important roles and responsibilities of inside sales personnel in their day-to-day task. All the above skill sets are necessary for any ISR who wants to grow as an ISR or in any sales profile. Let me now take you to the future of ISR in the next paragraph. 

Future of Inside Sales Reps in India - 

Whenever you join any company as an inside salesperson you want to know about your future. In my decade-long journey, I have seen that many ISR grows to become head of ISR, many moves to field sales job, and many into the digital marketing field. If you understand how to identify a prospect, how to reach out to them, how to convince them about your product, and how to sell your services to them and make them happy then you can surely grow in your sales career and move to any other department based on your preference. What you learn in your ISR career is especially important. The knowledge you develop while working will help you to grow in your career. The advancement of the online meeting platform helps ISR to conduct an online meeting with their prospects and this way they do not depend on the field salesperson. As the demand for ISR is increasing day by day we can say that the future of ISR is safe.  

 

 

Conclusion -

If you think you are good at selling but do not want to be a field salesperson from the beginning of your career, then you can go for the inside sales profile. A sale profile will increase your confidence while talking to anyone. This confidence in communication will help you in professional as well as personal communication.  

Inside sales profile helps you understand the market needs and demand of the market. This information is vital for all types of sales profiles. Understanding the market will even help you to start your own business.  

An inside sales rep can move to other domains such as field sales, key account management, partner management, marketing, email marketing, online marketing, digital marketing, social media expert, and many more.  

Based on all the above information, you can say that inside sales have relevant demand in the industry, they get a good package as they are the backbone of any sales process and are necessary to the sales department within any company. Thus, I can conclude that if you are choosing to be an inside sales rep then it will be a good career move for long-term prospects.  

Thanks for reading !!! 😊😊😊

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