Activity + Efficiency – The Power of Inside Sales

Let’s start with the simple assumption that a bored salesperson is bad for the company and potentially dangerous to themselves.

If we extend the assumption that no matter who we hire their individual list of names, past customers, partners, etc will be exhausted in the first 2-6 weeks.  

So how do we solve the problem??? In traditional companies we do marketing events –the outcome of these marketing events is a list of names.  Some are good – some are bad – and we rely on field sales to qualify them (they never make notes, update crm systems, and usually think to themselves I would rather work the 3 opportunities I have in front of me than spend another 5 minutes cold calling – I know I used to be one of these guys and I was guilty on all fronts).

Hence we built a leveraged model that used inside sales to qualify leads, set meetings, and close the loop with marketing.  This is a tough job – expect some burnout.

The economics are a “no-brainer” if you look at the benefit provided verses the loaded cost of sales without inside help.  An inside rep will improve the number and quality of first meetings from 2-4 per week to greater than 6 per week (outside people will be doing repeat calls and channel recruiting also).   A fully loaded sales team of rep and SE can cost upwards of 35k per month…why not amortize that cost across twice as many meetings for an additional ten percent spend.

Key elements to establish:

-       How do you define a qualified meeting

-       Comp plan for inside that measures on meetings

-       What percentage of meetings do you expect to lead to revenue

-       What percentage of meetings should meet qualification criteria

Remember that Sales people are like professional athletes (in more than ego)  they need practice to become world class.   And like pro athletes they will get into trouble in the “off-season”.