Inside sales is exploding. Remote reps armed with cutting-edge sales technology are driving explosive revenue growth across every industry. But crafting an elite inside sales machine takes much more than tossing some reps in a virtual bullpen. This comprehensive blueprint reveals how to architect high-performance inside sales teams that deliver legendary results.
The Growing Importance of Inside Sales
The inside sales model has exploded in popularity over the last decade. While old-school field sales teams pound the pavement to meet prospects in person, modern inside sales teams leverage the power of technology to connect with buyers remotely.
According to Harvard Business Review, the inside sales model grew by more than 20% annually from 2015-2020. It’s clear that inside sales are becoming the dominant sales strategy for many B2B companies.
Why Companies are Embracing Inside Sales
There are several compelling reasons why inside sales makes sense for modern businesses:
Lower Costs
Inside sales teams require much less overhead than traditional field sales. Companies save big on expenses like travel, lodging, dining, conference fees, gas, and more. Inside sales reps work from the comfort of their home office and use tools like email, social media, and phone to connect with prospects. Leaning into inside sales is an easy way to trim the fat.
Increased Scalability
It’s much easier to scale up an inside sales team than field sales. To grow your inside sales team, you simply need to train and onboard new sales reps. There’s no logistical challenges around territory planning or in-person ridealongs. Inside sales teams can grow 5X faster than field sales teams.
Real-Time Insights
Inside sales teams utilize technology like conversation intelligence platforms, sales engagement software, and CRMs to unlock a treasure trove of data and insights. Managers gain visibility into rep interactions, monitor pipelines, listen to calls, and track micro-conversion rates to optimize their strategies. It’s sales analytics on steroids.
Improved Work-Life Balance
Work-from-home inside sales roles typically provide more flexibility and better work-life integration than field sales positions which require extensive travel. The hybrid remote schedules common in today’s inside sales teams lead to higher job satisfaction and retention rates. Happy sales reps equal better performance.
The Evolving Role of Inside Sales Reps
The day-to-day responsibilities of inside sales reps have changed dramatically thanks to new sales technologies and strategies:
Gone are the days of cold calling random lists hoping to strike gold. Today’s inside sales reps leverage intent data, predictive lead scoring, and account-based strategies to only touch the ripest leads. Their prospecting is surgical, not spray and pray.
Inside sales reps focus more on customer education, problem-solving, and relationship-building than pure product-pitching. Buyers today are overwhelmed with information and crave a consultant mindset from sales reps.
Full Sales Cycle Ownership
The handoff between SDRs, BDRs, and account executives is fading away. Many inside sales reps now take leads from initial contact to closed deal while managing the entire pipeline. Specialization is out, end-to-end sales cycle ownership is in.
Data-Driven Optimization
Modern inside sales reps continuously analyze their performance data to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. Sales managers leverage tools like conversation intelligence platforms to pinpoint areas for individualized coaching and training. It’s a far cry from the sales quotas and leaderboards of yesterday.
The combination of new technologies and evolving buyer expectations has changed inside sales roles for the better. Sales professionals must embrace data, relationships, and a consultative approach to thrive in the fast-paced world of inside sales.
Step-by-Step Guide to Build a High Performing Inside Sales Team
Constructing an elite inside sales team takes careful planning and execution across many facets of your sales organization. From defining your strategy to providing the right tools and culture, every element matters. Follow this step-by-step guide to build a scalable, successful inside sales team poised to drive revenue growth.
Define Your Inside Sales Goals & Metrics
Before assembling your dream team, you need crystal clarity around your inside sales objectives. Ask yourself:
- What are our overall revenue goals?
- How many new customers do we want to acquire?
- What target renewal or upsell rate do we expect?
- How quickly do we need to scale up?
With numerical goals framed up, identify the key performance metrics you’ll track to measure progress. Inside sales teams commonly track:
- Call connect rates
- Conversations per rep
- Meetings booked
- Sales cycle length
- Lead conversion rates
- Proposals sent
- Win rates
- Customer lifetime value
Choose a core set of KPIs that align to your goals and will be used to evaluate rep performance. This data-driven approach helps the entire team stay focused on what matters most.
Create Detailed Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They include demographics, behaviors, goals, challenges, and motivations your prospects share.
Well-defined buyer personas help your inside sales team tailor their outreach, engage more effectively, and improve conversion rates.
Start by segmenting your total addressable market into subgroups. Identify common themes within each segment around:
- Firmographic data like industry, size, and location
- Role, department, and seniority
- Goals and challenges
- Purchasing priorities
- Decision-making habits
Compile these insights into a few core buyer personas. Give each a name and backstory. The more detailed the better.
Share personas with your sales development reps so they can personalize emails, social messages, and calls. When they intimately understand the buyers, magic happens.
Build an Ideal Inside Sales Team Structure
The typical inside sales team structure includes:
- Sales development reps (SDRs)
- Business development reps (BDRs)
- Account executives (AEs)
- Sales manager
SDRs respond to inbound leads and qualify them. BDRs specialize in outbound prospecting and initial lead engagement. AEs focus on developing leads into customers. The sales manager coaches and oversees the team.
Map out your ideal structure based on your sales process, customer lifecycle, and revenue goals. Remember to consider:
- Number of prospects contacted daily
- Average sales cycle length
- Target meetings booked per rep
- Historical closing rates
This math will determine how many SDRs, BDRs, and AEs you need. Don’t be afraid to evolve the structure over time as you scale.
Streamline Your Hiring & Onboarding Process
Hiring superstar sales talent is challenging, but absolutely crucial. Design an efficient recruitment process to assess candidate competencies and fit.
- Define your ideal rep qualities and skills
- Establish a consistent interview structure
- Incorporate roleplaying to evaluate selling ability
- Assess culture add, not just revenue potential
- Check references to confirm past performance
Once you’ve selected top performers, focus on fast, effective onboarding.
- Pair new hires with a mentor or “buddy”
- Set 30/60/90 day goals
- Overview your sales process and tools
- Conduct 1:1 training sessions
- Shadow successful team members
- Make ramping up to full productivity expectations clear
Solid onboarding drastically reduces early attrition rates and shortens the path to new reps contributing.
Implement Effective Sales Training Programs
Your learning and development initiatives empower reps to deliver peak performance. To build a sales training curriculum that sticks:
- Leverage microlearning formats like short videos
- Gamify training with incentives and leaderboards
- Roleplay common scenarios like objections and presentations
- Review call recordings to sharpen communication skills
- Share training resources and materials in a central hub
- Test comprehension with quizzes and certifications
- Refresh training continuously, not just at onboarding
A blend of instructor-led workshops, self-paced elearning, and ongoing coaching ensures your team is always expanding their skills.
Set Clear Expectations & Goals for Reps
The top inside sales teams all have clearly defined expectations around:
- Activity metrics like calls made and emails sent
- Conversions rates by sales stage
- Appointment setting and meetings completed
- New business pipeline targets
- Renewal, upsell, and cross-sell targets
- Overall sales quotas
While these standards apply team-wide, each rep also needs individual quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals tailored to their ramp. Regular one-on-ones provide the opportunity to set expectations and review progress.
By spelling out responsibilities in detail, your inside sales team will never wonder what they need to do in order to thrive.
Optimize Your Inside Sales Compensation Plans
Compensation drives behavior. Are your commission structures and incentive programs optimized to motivate your inside sales team?
Effective inside sales compensation plans:
- Establish fair base salaries benchmarked to industry and experience levels
- Include a commission based on new sales, renewals, and expansions
- Incorporate monthly, quarterly, and annual performance bonuses
- Provide rewards and SPIFs for reaching certain sales milestones
- Use sales contests, recognition, and leaderboards to spark friendly competition
- Structure commissions to encourage teamwork and collaboration across roles
- Review plans annually and get feedback from top reps
Take the time to perfect comp plans that inspire your team to push themselves. They will thank you in revenue results.
Provide the Right Technology & Tools
There’s no shortage of sales technologies on the market today. Arm your inside sales reps with solutions that accelerate productivity:
- CRM for pipeline visibility and customer data
- Conversation intelligence to capture insights from calls
- Email tracker to optimize outbound campaigns
- Sales engagement platform to automate follow-ups
- Embedded emails and chat for website visitors
- Marketing automation for lead nurturing
- Sales training software with microlearning
- Motivational tools like leaderboards
Before implementing new tech, ensure it seamlessly integrates with your existing stack and workflows. Too many disjointed tools backfire. Identify where automation can absorb tedious tasks so your team can focus on selling.
Foster a Culture of Motivation & Growth
A collaborative, winning culture gives your inside sales team higher purpose. Promote openness, recognition, development, and fun.
- Celebrate standout rep achievements publicly
- Encourage team bonding and non-work connections
- Solicit input on policies that affect sales teams
- Ask for feedback on manager relationships
- Empower reps to share wins, losses, and best practices
- Support healthy work-life balance and flexibility
- Help struggling reps with compassion and patience
- Provide advancement opportunities to top performers
With the right culture, you attract and retain top talent, boost engagement, and maximize sales productivity. Don’t underestimate its strategic importance.
Building a standout inside sales team takes focus across multiple facets – from planning the structure to perfecting compensation and fostering culture. Follow this comprehensive blueprint as your roadmap to assemble an inside sales team that delivers legendary results.
Inside Sales Strategies to Boost Performance
Constructing an elite inside sales team is only half the battle. You also need to implement proven inside sales strategies, techniques, and processes to achieve insane growth.
Let’s explore 12 powerful ways to improve lead generation, nurturing, communication, and more within your blossoming inside sales organization.
Prospect Smarter with Targeted Lead Gen
Gone are the days of cold calling random prospects or buying generic lead lists. Today’s top-performing inside sales teams take a targeted approach to lead generation and outbound prospecting.
Start by getting crystal clear on your ideal customer profile (ICP). Analyze your best-fit accounts and contacts and look for patterns around:
- Demographic data like industry, title, company size
- Firmographic details like tech stack and algorithms
- Psychographic info like challenges, goals, and motivations
Armed with this ICP knowledge, get strategic with your outbound efforts:
- Prioritize accounts that closely match your ICP
- Leverage intent data to detect early research signals
- Uncover “lookalike” prospects similar to current customers
- Customize value propositions by persona and segment
When you combine targeted outbound strategies with well-optimized inbound lead generation, your inside sales team will be lined up for success.
Align Marketing Content to Buyer Journeys
Too often, sales and marketing teams operate in silos. But when you align content to the distinct stages of your customer journey, conversion rates improve.
Coordinate with marketing to develop tailored assets like:
- Free tools, demos, and trials for lead nurturing
- Edu content to establish your authority around buyer pain points
- Case studies and ROI calculators proving value for evaluators
- Analyst reports and proof points to build confidence
- Pricing and promotions to entice decision makers
- Implementation guides and checklists for new customers
Reps should have a content quiver ready for every phase of the buying cycle. Map assets directly to the questions and concerns that arise as leads progress towards a yes.
Personalize Your Outreach for Each Prospect
Even the most seasoned inside sales reps can fall into the trap of sending batch template emails and messages. But when you tailor outreach uniquely for each prospect, engagement skyrockets.
There are several ways to incorporate personalization:
- Research prospects on LinkedIn and social media to find common interests
- Add custom touches based on previous interactions with them
- Reference pain points or goals they’ve expressed
- Include dynamic merge fields like name, company, and role in emails
- Segment and adjust messaging based on their firmographic data
- Send follow-ups triggered by their website behavior
The extra effort to personalize pays off tremendously in building trusted relationships.
Focus on Developing Relationships & Trust
For today’s savvy B2B buyers, the old product-pitching sales tactics simply don’t work anymore. Leading inside sales teams realize their primary role is building relationships first, selling second.
Use these tips to strengthen connections with prospects:
- Initiate small talk and learn about them as individuals
- Ask thoughtful questions and actively listen without judgments
- Empathize with their challenges and frustrations
- Provide valuable education tailored to their needs
- Avoid overly promotional language and focus on being helpful
- Follow-up consistently while respecting their time
- Express genuine interest in their business objectives
- Share insights from other customers in similar shoes
When your reps develop authentic relationships, prospects willingly open up on problems, goals, and the buying process. This transparency leads to higher sales.
Master Consultative Questioning Techniques
The most successful inside sales reps view themselves as trusted advisors rather than product pushers. Consultative selling emphasizes asking intelligent questions to guide prospects, not lecture them.
Some examples of excellent consultative questions include:
- “What results are you looking to achieve?”
- “How will you measure the success of this initiative?”
- “What’s your timeline for getting this implemented?”
- “Who else is involved in the decision process?”
- “What factors are most important to you?”
- “How does your team currently handle this process?”
- “What’s the cost of not solving this now?”
The 80/20 rule applies here – your reps should aim for just 20% talking and 80% asking during sales conversations. Curiosity and willingness to explore needs wins deals.
Handle Objections with Empathy & Persistence
Prospect objections and concerns are inevitable in sales. Celebrate them! Objections signal your prospect is engaged and progress is happening.
To overcome objections, inside sales reps should:
- Pause and listen closely without interrupting
- Repeat back objections to confirm understanding
- Show empathy and agree where appropriate
- Ask follow-up questions to uncover root concerns
- Provide supporting facts, resources, and proof points addressing objections
- Leverage testimonials and case studies when possible
- Summarize how you’ll resolve concerns in a consultative manner
With persistence, patience, and empathy, most objections turn into opportunities to build trust and strengthen relationships.
Perfect Your Pitch with Roleplaying & Coaching
Even rockstar reps need regular coaching to sharpen their skills and perfect their core pitch. Dedicate time each week for 1:1 pitch roleplaying sessions.
Start by recording a baseline pitch delivery from each rep. Then provide feedback:
- How clearly did they communicate your value proposition?
- Did they lead by focusing on pains vs leading with product features?
- What objections do they need help responding to with more confidence?
- How can they better display subject matter expertise?
- What parts did they rush or gloss over?
Then roleplay pitch scenarios together. Have the rep implement your coaching tips in real-time and do follow-up recordings to track improvement.
Prioritize Listening Over Talking
The damaging stereotype of the smooth-talking salesperson who can sell ice to Eskimos is dated and ineffective. Savvy modern reps allow the prospect to drive conversations.
Train your inside sales team to:
- Listen intently without thinking about a rebuttal
- Limit interruptions and distractions
- Avoid talking over prospects
- Clarify rather than assume meanings
- Let the prospect speak 60-70% of the time
- Paraphrase back key points to prove comprehension
When reps become active, patient, empathetic listeners first, the rest of the sales process flows naturally.
Utilize Social Selling on LinkedIn
Social selling should be every inside sales rep’s secret weapon. platforms like LinkedIn offer a goldmine of intel and access to buyers.
Teach your team tips like:
- Research prospects before outreach
- Share valuable insights rather than pitches
- Join industry and niche interest groups
- Connect with leads and provide helpful content
- Partner with marketing to repurpose owned assets
- Give and get recommendations
- Follow trigger events like new roles and promotions
- Keep profiles updated with achievements
The more value reps add in social spaces, the more they earn trust and inbound interest. Harness this free selling channel.
Leverage Automation to Streamline Workflows
Juggling manual administrative tasks wastes precious selling time for inside sales reps. That’s where sales automation swoops in to improve productivity.
Common inside sales workflows to automate include:
- Data entry like logging calls, events, and notes
- Import leads from other systems to your CRM
- Lead scoring and routing to reps
- Email and SMS templates for outreach
- Call, text, and email reminders for follow-ups
- Appointment scheduling and calendar syncing
- Reporting and dashboards for metrics
Choose tools with robust APIs that connect your sales tech stack into one efficient workflow. The hours of gained productivity compounds.
Never Stop Following Up & Nurturing Leads
You’ve surely heard it before – most sales happen between the 5th and 12th touch. But too many inside sales reps give up after a call or two. Develop a mindset of perseverance and consistency.
- Include multiple follow-up activities in your sales cadence
- Send a series of value-focused email drips to nurture leads
- Use chatbots and SMS to engage at scale
- Monitor prospect behavior to trigger smart follow-ups
- Continuously look for new reasons to check in and add value
- Track response metrics to optimize your outreach timing
- Employ sales engagement technology to automate the process
Following up respectfully but relentlessly sets you apart from the competition and proves you’re serious about solving buyer needs.
Use Advanced Analytics to Optimize Operations
Modern inside sales teams rely on data-driven insights to guide their strategy. Below are a few ways to leverage analytics:
- Track lead quality over time to refine prospecting
- Analyze win/loss rates by rep, offer, or segment to update training
- Review call and email analytics to improve rep messaging
- Monitor handle times, talk ratios, and hold times for coaching areas
- Look at activity rates and pipeline trends to forecast revenue
- Model hypothetical changes and project their business impact
- Deliver key reports and a sales dashboard to stay aligned
Advanced analytics takes the guesswork out of managing inside sales teams. Let the data guide your path to peak performance.
Key Differences Between Inside Sales and Field Sales
While inside sales and field sales models share the same end goal of driving revenue, there are some fundamental differences in the approach. Understanding contrasts in prospecting, sales cycles, costs, and required skillsets allows you to optimize for your unique business needs.
Lead Prospecting Process
Inside sales reps rely heavily on inbound marketing and outbound tools like email automation and social engagement to generate prospects. Field reps focus more on in-person networking events, tradeshows, referrals, and cold door-to-door outreach to fill the pipeline.
Sales Cycle Length
Since inside sales teams use technology to connect with prospects remotely, their sales cycles tend to be shorter than field sales. However, field reps spending in-depth face time with buyers often achieve higher average deal sizes.
Opportunity to Close Ratios
According to research, outside sales reps enjoy around a 40% close rate once Proof of Concepts (POCs) are in progress. Inside sales reps see lower deal closing rates of roughly 18% after demos commence. So field reps see higher return on pipeline investment.
Costs and Overheads
Inside sales teams cost significantly less than field sales teams, with over 80% lower overhead on average. Outside sales activities like travel, entertainment, conferences, gas, and lodging expenses add up quickly. Inside sales provides better economies of scale.
Sales Team Structure and Roles
Inside sales departments center around SDRs for prospecting and SQLs and AEs for demos and closing. Field teams still rely more heavily on traditional account executives and territorial/segmented structures. Responsibilities can vary greatly between models.
Building Rapport with Prospects
Outside sales reps invest substantial time in on-site visits, dinners, events, and immersive conversations to build deeper bonds with buyers. Inside sales reps must establish trusted advisor relationships quickly, often starting with mere LinkedIn profiles and cold calls.
The choice between optimizing a field sales team, inside sales team, or hybrid approach depends entirely on your sales velocity, average deal size, lifetime value, cost considerations, and buyer preferences. Test across models to determine the best structure for your unique business needs and objectives.
Key Differences Between Inside Sales and Field Sales
Inside sales and field sales represent distinct models to engage prospects, move opportunities through the funnel, and drive revenue growth. While the end goal is the same, there are some notable differences in the approaches.
Let’s explore the contrasts around prospecting processes, sales cycles, costs, team structure, and rapport building techniques. Understanding these nuances allows you to build the optimal sales engine for your business.
Lead Prospecting Process
The starting point for any sales team is filling the top of the funnel with promising leads. Inside sales and field sales teams source leads quite differently:
- Inside sales reps rely heavily on marketing generated inbound leads from tactics like pay-per-click, content offers, and webinars. They also prospect potential accounts via outbound email, social media, and cold calling.
- Field sales reps drive more outbound, high-touch lead generation based on networking events, trade shows, door knocking, and asking for referrals. They also leverage marketing for some inbound tactics but take an active role in pursuing leads.
The blend of inbound and outbound prospecting typically differs based on sales model. Inside sales teams take a more marketing-driven approach to lead gen.
Sales Cycle Length
Once leads enter the sales funnel, the time it takes to move from prospect to closed customer also impacts teams.
- Inside sales cycles are shorter since communication happens quickly online. Deals can progress from lead to opportunity faster without on-site visits.
- Field sales cycles tend to be longer due to the logistics of scheduling face-to-face meetings, site visits, contract reviews, and stakeholder alignment. But longer cycles also yield higher average deal sizes.
According to research, the typical inside sales cycle is 15-20 days shorter than field sales on average. But individual deal values tend to be 50-60% lower than field sales.
Opportunity to Close Ratios
The chance of closing business once an opportunity progresses to later stages also differs between sales models.
- For field sales teams, close rates for opportunities reaching the POC or evaluation stage often exceed 40%. The in-person relationship building pays off here.
- Inside sales teams typically close around 18% of opportunities that make it to a proposal or contract stage. The lower close rate means inside sales reps must work more leads to generate a sale.
So while inside sales cycles are faster, field sales reps enjoy higher lifetime value thanks to larger deal sizes and win rates.
Costs and Overheads
When it comes to operating costs and overheads, inside sales again has a clear edge:
- Inside sales teams require just a phone, internet access, and basic office setup. Tools are affordable SaaS solutions. There is almost zero travel budget or entertainment costs.
- Field sales teams incur steep expenses including flights, rental cars, gas, lodging, dining, entertainment, trade show fees, and technology. These costs can quickly add up, especially for national or global teams.
According to research by Corporate Visions, field sales call costs are 400% higher than inside sales calls on average. For companies focused on scaling efficiently, inside sales teams drive much higher ROI.
Sales Team Structure and Roles
To support their distinct prospecting and sales processes, inside sales and field sales organizations also differ in department structure and responsibilities:
- Inside sales centers around high-volume SDR and BDR prospecting support feeding a smaller number of account executives. Roles focus on efficiency and leveraging technology to drive scale.
- Field sales organizations still rely heavily on traditional account executives aligned to geographic territories or strategic accounts. Support staff is limited to assistants and sales ops. Responsibilities emphasize hands-on selling and account management.
There are also hybrid structures blending both models. But purely inside sales teams purposefully align structure to sales velocity and efficiency.
Building Rapport with Prospects
The approaches inside sales and field sales reps use to connect with buyers also contrast:
- Inside sales reps have mere seconds on an intro call or brief emails to demonstrate value, empathy, and excitement. They must establish trusted advisor relationships quickly, often starting from LinkedIn profiles and cold calls.
- Field sales reps invest substantially more time on site visits, dinners, events, and immersive conversations to build rapport with buyers. They sell solutions rather than products thanks to deeper problem understanding.
While field sales reps enjoy relationship-building advantages, inside sales professionals employ a range of techniques to foster surprisingly personal connections.
Choosing between optimizing an inside sales team or field sales team depends entirely on your sales velocity, deal size, lifetime value, and willingness to support field travel costs and overheads. For many companies today, a blended model makes the most sense.
Compare structures, metrics, costs, and processes across inside sales and field sales models. Then structure your sales organization and talent strategy to best align with your business growth objectives and ideal buyer interactions.
Metrics to Track for Inside Sales Success
What gets measured in sales gets improved. That’s why adopting the right tracking metrics is crucial for inside sales teams aiming to hypergrow revenue.
With so much data at their fingertips, sales leaders often suffer from analysis paralysis. They over-index on vanity metrics that sound nice but provide little operational value.
Let’s explore the six core metrics your inside sales team should be religiously tracking, reporting on, and making strategic decisions based on.
Call to Connect Ratios
This foundational activity metric reveals how effective your reps are at engaging prospects over the phone and transitioning to valuable conversations.
To calculate your call to connect ratio, divide the number of calls connecteds by the total calls made for any period. For example:
Rep Jane made 150 calls last week and had 45 conversations. Her call to connect ratio is 45/150 = 30%
Benchmark this for your team weekly. If the ratio falls under 20%, it signals your messaging may need adjustment to spark more prospect interest.
Meetings Scheduled and Held
Converting promising prospects into sales meetings and presentations is the critical next step in your inside sales funnel.
Track both the raw number of sales meetings scheduled as well as the percentage of scheduled meetings that actually get held. cancelled meetings signal poor lead qualification or overpromising value.
If your scheduled to held meeting ratio is lower than 70%, revamp how you qualify MQLs before your reps spend time proposing agendas and scheduling on calendars.
Lead to Opportunity Conversion Rates
This metric reveals how effectively your inside sales team converts leads into qualified opportunities that warrant further sales nurturing.
Divide the number of SALs or SQLs generated by the total new inbound leads for any timeframe. For instance:
Rep Pat received 35 new leads last month and created 12 qualified opportunities. Her lead to opportunity conversion rate is 12/35 = 34%
If this rate falls below 30%, it likely shows unsatisfactory lead follow-up and qualification skills.
Sales Cycle Length
Knowing your average sales cycle length – the time from initial lead contact to closed sale – is imperative for forecasting and pipeline management.
Calculate average cycle length by dividing the sum of all cycle lengths by the total number of deals closed over any period.
Sales Leader Jane closed 9 deals last quarter. The cycle lengths were 15, 22, 17, 19, 20, 18, 16, 21, and 14 days. Her average cycle length = (15+22+17…) / 9 deals = 18 days
Trend this metric to catch cycle delays early. Lengthy sales cycles strain resources.
Win Rates
Your sales team win rate reveals the percentage of proposals or quoted opportunities that convert to revenue.
Win rate is calculated by dividing total closed won deals by the sum of closed won + closed lost deals. For example:
If Rep Tim closed 8 of 12 proposals last month, his win rate is 8/12 = 67%
High performing inside sales teams should target win rates over 50%. If your win rate falls below 40%, revisit lead qualification.
Net New Revenue Generated
While activity metrics are important, sales leaders must track real revenue results.
Calculate net new revenue from new customers only on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Do not include renewal accounts here.
If each inside sales rep has a $50K new revenue target, and your team has 4 reps, your total target is $200K. Compare target vs actuals to assess sales performance.
While additional sales metrics like call length, win/loss analysis, and sales velocity matter, master these six core KPIs first. They will unlock a wealth of insights to supercharge your inside sales machine.
Tools to Empower Your Inside Sales Teams
The modern inside sales tech stack is exploding with solutions promising to enhance productivity, analytics, and performance. But with so many overlapping options, navigating the sales software landscape can be overwhelming.
Let’s break down the core must-have technologies your inside sales team needs to crush goals across prospecting, pipeline management, communication, and reporting.
Conversation Intelligence Platforms
At the heart of any inside sales stack should be a conversation intelligence platform to capture insights from all customer calls, video meetings, and verbal interactions.
Conversation intelligence platforms use AI to automatically transcribe, analyze, and create actionable coaching insights from sales calls. Key capabilities include:
- Real-time conversational guidance for reps during calls
- Smart categorization of key details like objections and competitor mentions
- CRM integration and call logging to centralize data
- Search transcripts for keywords
- Sentiment analysis and talk pattern tracking
- Coaching commentary and annotations
By tapping into every customer conversation, sales managers make each rep interaction more valuable while ramping top talent faster.
CRMs
A robust customer relationship management platform is mission critical for inside sales teams to optimize workflows, report on performance, and centralize prospect data.
Your ideal CRM should handle key tasks like:
- Prospect/account data management
- Activity and call logging
- Lead scoring and routing
- Pipeline and forecast reporting
- Quoting and proposals
- Email integration and tracking
- Sales cadence automation
- Analytics and dashboards
Top CRMs like Salesken and HubSpot integrate seamlessly with conversation intelligence, phone, email, and an array of sales tools to create a seamless system.
Email Tracking Software
While phone calls drive the highest conversion rates, email still dominates communication volume for inside sales reps.
A dedicated email tracking tool helps reps:
- Know when prospects open or click on emails
- Track email response times
- See email forwarding and social sharing
- A/B test subject lines for optimization
- Improve follow-up timing based on activity data
- Monitor sender reputation and spam rates
- Schedule send times and set reminders
Email analytics uncovers lead engagement, campaign performance, and rep hijinks impacting productivity.
Social Media Monitoring Tools
With buyers spending 20% or more of their day on social media, inside sales teams must harness these platforms for research, prospecting, engagement, and monitoring.
Social listening tools empower reps to:
- Identify prospect pain points based on social conversations
- Respond to questions and objections in real-time
- Join relevant industry groups and discussions
- Share educational content to establish thought leadership
- Monitor brand mentions and keywords
- Automate social post scheduling and publishing
- Aggregate profiles and track influencers
Platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Sprinklr optimize social selling productivity at scale.
Sales Engagement Platforms
To orchestrate multichannel outreach across calls, email, SMS, chat, and social, inside sales teams rely on sales engagement platforms.
Sales engagement tools help reps:
- Import prospect contact data
- Sequence multichannel activities into cadences
- Generate notifications and reminders for follow-up tasks
- Track engagement rates by channel
- Update prospect interaction history automatically
- Append contact and company intel to records
- Report on cadence effectiveness
Leading solutions include Outreach, SalesLoft, Groove, and Mixmax – most offer CRM embeddings for data flow.
The foundation of every world-class inside sales stack starts with conversation intelligence software coupled with a CRM. Then incorporate supporting tools for email, social media, and sales engagement based on your tech sophistication.
With the right solutions, your inside sales team will be primed for productivity, informed selling, and breakout revenue growth.
Tips for Reps to Thrive in Inside Sales Roles
Mastering the art of selling over the phone or computer takes dedication, resilience, and specialized skills. I’ve compiled my top tips for aspiring rockstars who want to crush sales goals in an inside sales role.
Follow this inside sales advice to become a top producer on your team.
Become a Subject Matter Expert on Your Product/Service
Nothing sinks an inside sales call faster than failing to answer basic product questions or clearly explain your value prop. Savvy buyers will see right through reps who lack expertise.
Establish credibility by becoming a true subject matter maven on what you sell:
- Immerse yourself in training materials and specs
- Shadow demos led by veteran teammates
- Document FAQs and technical limitations upfront
- Overprepare for prospect questions you’ll encounter
- Attend conferences and connect with thought leaders
- Get certified on new offerings before promotion
- Continuously expand your knowledge through courses
Owning your product expertise gives buyers confidence in you and establishes authority. Do the work upfront to avoid fumbling on calls.
Research Prospects to Make Personalized Connections
Prospects have zero tolerance for reps who pitch before researching who they are talking to. But with some quick social media digging, you can personalize outreach for instant rapport.
- Review prospects’ LinkedIn profiles and work histories
- Check for shared connections on LinkedIn
- Follow key accounts on Twitter to learn pain points
- Subscribe to industry newsletters prospects might read
- Identify prospects active in relevant LinkedIn groups
- Search social bios for college, hobbies, or hometowns
Armed with just a few personal details, you can craft emails, social messages, and calls that feel custom and relevant from the first touch.
Set Clear Daily Goals to Stay Focused
The scatterbrained inside sales rep who skips from task to task rarely finds success. Maintaining ruthless focus is crucial.
Build daily habits around setting S.M.A.R.T activity goals:
- Specific – Tasks should be precise like “25 cold calls” not vague like “prospect”
- Measurable – Frame goals by numbers like calls, connects, meetings set
- Achievable – Challenge yourself but keep goals realistic
- Relevant – Align activities to your sales objectives
- Time-bound – Attach deadlines like “by 2pm today”
Review metrics daily and weekly to ensure your efforts align to targets that move the revenue needle.
Block Time for Critical Activities Like Follow-Ups
Time blocking is an inside sales best practice to protect blocks of time for vital prospecting, calling, emails, and follow-up.
Without time blocking, critical but not urgent activities get crowded out by whack-a-mole busywork.
Some tips:
- Block 1-2 hours daily for focused prospecting
- Reserve late afternoons for follow-ups and reporting
- Set daily appointments for inbound lead outreach
- Schedule time on your calendar and stick to it
- Limit internal meetings to preserve selling time
- Batch routine tasks like logging calls and emails
Honoring time blocks prevents you from falling into a reactive trap.
Leverage Sales Coaching to Continuously Improve
The best inside sales reps obsess over continual improvement instead of resting on past achievements. Make coaching and mentorship a cornerstone of your growth strategy.
Some ways to extract maximum value from sales coaching:
- Ask managers if you can shadow top performers
- Request recorded call reviews to analyze strengths and gaps
- Identify regional reps with skills you want to learn
- Have managers monitor your CRM dashboards for cadence consistency
- Book regular pipeline review and metrics-focused check-ins
- Practice call roleplays to sharpen objections and presentations
- Probe managers for sales ideas during in-person meetings
Keep an open, growth mindset and coaching will fast track your sales mastery.
Finding success in a fast-paced, high-pressure inside sales environment requires equal parts skill, strategy, and attitude. Adopt these habits and approaches to stand out on your sales team and build a book of happy, loyal customers.
FAQs About Building an Inside Sales Team & Strategy
Transitioning to or scaling up an inside sales team comes with many questions on structure, compensation, tooling, metrics, and more. Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions around constructing a high-performing inside sales organization.
What is the difference between inside sales and telemarketing?
Inside sales focuses on nurturing and closing complex B2B opportunities over time. Reps act as trusted advisors guiding buyers through education, evaluation, and expansions.
Telemarketing employs high volume cold outreach to consumers selling simple, low consideration products like extended warranties. It’s a pure numbers game.
Inside sales develops relationships; telemarketing completes transactions. The techniques, tools, and objectives differ greatly.
What sales metrics should inside sales reps track?
Inside sales reps should religiously monitor:
- Call connect rates – Percentage of conversations from call attempts
- Meetings set – Total sales appointments booked
- Lead conversion – Percentage of leads moved to SQL/SAL
- Sales cycle length – Average time from prospect to deal
- Win rate – Percentage of proposals leading to revenue
- Net new MRR/ARR – New recurring revenue generation
Sales managers should track these plus forecasts, turnover, coaching hours, and more.
How large should an inside sales team be?
The optimal inside sales team size depends on sales velocities, pipeline coverage models, and revenue objectives.
Generally for a balanced model, plan for:
- 1 Sales Development Rep (SDR) for every 2 Account Executives
- 1 Sales Manager for every 8-10 Account Executives
- at least 2 SDRs to enable performance comparisons
Build your revenue plan, model lead and deal capacities, and right-size your team accordingly.
What tools does an inside sales team need?
Must-have tools for inside sales include:
- CRM and sales engagement platforms
- Conversation intelligence software
- Email tracker and automation
- Sales coaching and training systems
- Sales motivation software like leaderboards
- Video and screen sharing for demos
- Marketing automation system
Evaluate new sales technologies for user adoption rate and data integration capabilities before purchase. Your stack should sync into an efficient system.
How much do inside sales reps make?
Base salaries for inside sales reps range from $40K for SDRs to $90K for senior account executives.
Total compensation with commissions can reach:
- $70K+ for Business Development Reps
- $150K+ for Enterprise Account Executives
- $200K+ for Sales Managers
Use base plus commission models tied to conversions and renewals. Desired earnings drive performance.
What are the keys to inside sales success?
Winning inside sales strategies include:
- Laser focus on ideal customer profiles
- Personalized, consultative selling
- Leveraging sales enablement technology
- Specialized processes for each sales stage
- Data-driven management and optimization
- Obsession over sales talent development
- Creating a collaborative sales culture
With the right sales talent, techniques, and tools in place, an inside sales team can drive explosive revenue growth at scale.
Other Common Questions :
What are the main differences between inside sales and field sales?
The main differences include lead prospecting processes, sales cycle length, opportunity-to-close ratios, costs and overheads, sales team structure and roles, and rapport building with prospects. Field sales is more expensive but yields higher deal sizes while inside sales is more efficient and scalable.
What sales metrics should inside sales reps and managers track?
Important metrics include call-to-connect ratios, meetings set, lead conversion rates, sales cycle length, win rates, and net new revenue generated. Track both activity and revenue metrics.
What is the ideal inside sales team structure?
A typical structure includes Sales Development Reps, Business Development Reps, Account Executives, and a Sales Manager. SDRs generate leads while AEs close business. Managers coach and oversee the team.
What tools and technologies do inside sales teams need?
Must-have tools include conversation intelligence software, CRM, email tracking, sales engagement platforms, sales training systems, and sales motivation software like leaderboards.
How do you build an effective inside sales compensation plan?
Effective plans include a base salary benchmarked to the role and experience, commissions tied to conversions/renewals, and performance incentives like bonuses and SPIFFs.
How can inside sales reps deliver more personalized outreach?
Research prospects on social media, identify shared connections, note past interactions, use merge fields in emails, and tailor messaging based on interests and challenges.
How many calls should an inside sales rep make daily?
On average, inside sales reps make 45-100 calls per day depending on quota, sales cycle length, and inbound lead volume. Strive for at least 100 outbound touches daily.
What are some best practices for sales coaching and training?
Roleplaying, call review sessions, formal sales training courses, mentoring programs, skills certifications, and continuous refreshers/workshops.
What are keys to success for inside sales reps?
Becoming a subject matter expert, personalizing outreach, setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, time blocking, leveraging sales coaching, and continuously improving.
Summary
Constructing a high-performing inside sales team takes a strategic, methodical approach across prospecting, hiring, enablement, sales processes, and culture. Keep these core takeaways in mind as you build out your sales machine:
- Define your sales model, ideal metrics, and revenue goals upfront to align activities.
- Create detailed buyer personas to inform personalized prospect interactions.
- Assemble a specialized sales team structure with clear roles and responsibilities.
- Look beyond resumes to hire driven, consultative sales talent.
- Invest heavily in sales enablement, training, and coaching programs.
- Motivate and incite friendly competition with sales contests and SPIFs.
- Provide inside sales reps with core technologies like conversation intelligence software, CRM, and sales engagement tools.
- Implement defined, optimized processes for reaching, qualifying, engaging, and closing leads.
- Analyze key sales metrics religiously to pinpoint optimization opportunities.
- Support work-life balance, career growth, and a collaborative team culture.
With the blueprint and strategies covered throughout this guide, you are equipped to build an efficient, productive inside sales engine designed for rapid and sustainable growth.
Focus on continuous improvement across people, processes, and technology. When your inside sales flywheel starts spinning, results will skyrocket.