The Ultimate Guide to

Inside Sales
Insights into Team Building,
Challenges, Metrics and Selling for
Success : Excerpts from the Inside
Sales Box Blogs.

Karik Kakar | Francis Cyriac | Silky Sinha

Insidesalesbox.com: An All-In-One
Inside Sales Software

A Publication of INSIDE SALES BOX

 Contents

Introduction to Inside Sales 3

Building an Inside Sales Team 12
Challenges faced by Inside Sales 22
Technology Enablers for Inside Sales 32
Best Practices for Maximizing Outreach 42

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Chapter 1
Introduction to Inside Sales

 Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales- can we zero in on one?

 7 Helpful Tips for Inside Sales Beginners.

 Inside Sales is Not Telemarketing. Period.

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 Chapter 1
Inside Sales Vs. Outside Sales –
Can we zero in on one?

Traditionally, sales organizations were primarily dependent on their outside sales team,
who work on face-to-face sales model, to engage with existing clients and prospective
customers. In turn, the inside salespeople used to merely assist them in completing their
daily tasks and other back-end operations. But, today, with increasing competition and
tremendous pressure on the sales team to deliver, companies are feeling the
requirement for a more structured and target-oriented inside sales department.

The question here is...Can the inside sales rep ever produce the same results as that of
an outside or a field sales person? Will he/she be able to match up to the level of
relationship that an outside sales rep develops with customers? In our opinion ―YES‖.

According to a recent study, inside sales is growing 7.5%, compared to outside

sales at only 0.5%.

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 Chapter 1

With the boom of sales acceleration platforms and digital selling techniques like web-
conferencing, CRM system, sales leader-boards, social media, and analytical tools, the
inside sales representatives have undoubtedly got a competitive edge. The availability of
sales engagement hubs have made inside sales processes even more competent. Also,
there are scenarios where inside sales approach can prove to be more efficient for an
organization than the field sales -the reasons primarily are:

•It is easier for inside sales team to handle certain accounts that don‘t require a personal
visit
and can be dealt via virtual meetings.

•An inside sales representative can work on a lot many opportunities in a very short span
of
time as compared to an outside sales representative.

•Outside sales representatives are often expensive than inside sales representatives.

•It takes lesser time and cost for an inside sales team to penetrate new markets.

According to study conducted by David Mitchell, Gartner Research Group, “Inside Sales
was the sales team type that was most likely to deliver their sales quota or over-achieve
against those targets. Their sales cycles were shorter and they had a better win: loss rate
than other sales colleagues” in outside sales capacities.

To stay ahead of the competition, organizations need to plan their sales operations
process and engage the departments depending on the selling stage and the type of
products or services sold by the company. There is not a single sales formula that work for
every company. Depending on the size and volume of sales, a company can even decide
to get rid of one of these departments. SME's and Large enterprises, who need both the
teams, can define customers and territories for both inside and outside sales team or work
with a blended approach. In a hybrid or blended pattern, the inside sales team can focus
more on lead generation, business development, follow ups and so on whereas the
outside reps can be utilized to close a deal in case a customer asks for a face-to-face
meeting or there are other constraints that can‘t be handled via virtual platforms.

Every organization needs to figure out the best sales process for their business and hire
salespeople catering to their specific needs.

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 Chapter 1
7 Helpful Tips for Inside Sales Beginners

Generating sales leads and dealing with customers over calls might sound very daunting
to a new inside sales representative. While there is no substitute for experience, if
guided appropriately, one can surely give an exciting start to his/her career. Keeping a
few important aspects in mind can boost your morale before you set out on the inside
sales track.

Have you just started out in Inside Sales? Here are 7 tips that can have a high impact in
your success

1. Listen More, Talk Less

Stop talking and start listening to your prospect carefully. Try to detect the problems that
your prospect might be experiencing and offer the solution to those problems through
your products or services. Educate them about the benefits that your offering can
provide them, hence solving their problem. All this can only happen if you listen to them
well

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2. Never Debate with the Prospect to Close the Sale

Facing sales objection is something very common in this field. So, don‘t make an issue out
of it and never argue with the prospect, otherwise you will definitely end up losing the
order. Instead, take that sales objection as an opportunity to communicate new and unique
information about your product/services and try to change the opinion of the prospect
regarding your offering.

3. Set your Own Goals and Track your Metrics

Every inside sales representative is assigned with the goals and targets by their respective
managers. In order to accomplish those targets, you need to set your own goals on a daily
or weekly basis. And, always keep a track of your own activities and manage your basic
pipeline. You should summarize at the end of a week about how many calls you made,
how many suspects got converted to a prospect, how many appointment were set and so
on. By doing this, you will be able to identify your weaknesses and work on improving
them.

4. Prepare and Research Extensively

Be completely ready before reaching out to a prospect. Have a clear understanding of

your offering and its benefits and USPs. Don‘t rely on that generalized sales
pitch/presentation that has been provided to you, it will hardly work in B2B sales.
Research about each lead before making the call and try to personalize the
message/presentation in a way that looks appealing and convincing.

5. Follow-up Diligently

This is something an Inside Sales Rep can‘t ignore if he/she wants to generate sales.

Organize your follow-up by sending newsletters, valuable content, greetings and other
engaging stuff periodically. It helps to create a positive experience within your existing
customers even if they are slightly annoyed with your products/services.

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6. Live by the Golden Rule of Sales

Always treat your prospective customers as you would like to be treated by them. Follow
these golden rules and gradually see your sales quota being achieved:

• Call prospects during suitable time windows

• Respect your prospect‘s time

• Always leave a meaningful voicemail

Do not Get Discouraged

Don‘t expect that you will be a top performer and deliver exceptionally from the first day
itself. It might take some time for an opportunity to get closed, but don‘t lose heart as this
is a field that requires dedication and determination.

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Chapter 1

“ If we had no winter,
the spring would not
be so pleasant: if we
did not sometimes
taste of adversity,
prosperity would not be
so welcome. ”

- Josh Billings

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 Chapter 1
Inside Sales is Not Telemarketing

Inside sales are generally mistaken with telemarketing, because of the same
medium at use- telephone. But this misbelief impedes the relationships between
inside sales team and clients. It ends up in depreciating the significance of inside
sales and the efforts they put in to generate leads. These are two different entities,
with different goals, and different approaches in dealing with prospective clients.

Telemarketing is believed to have begun in the 1950‘s by DialAmerica Marketing

Inc., reported to be the first company to dedicate to telephone sales and services.
By late

1960‘s, telemarketing became a common phrase used to describe the process of

selling over the phone.

Inside Sales Vs. Telemarketing

By late 1990‘s, the term Inside sales was introduced to differentiate themselves
from

Outside sales.

Telemarketing is a scripted, single call-close sales approach that operates as a

mindless phone drone to normally perform a low ticket sale. Telemarketers engage
with customers once (a single phone call) and passes it on as a closed deal or a
lost deal.

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On the other hand, inside sales is a non-scripted (might use campaign-specific

talking points), multiple call or touch points-close sales approach that operates as a
professional and personalized system to perform a high-ticket sale. They are highly
trained, adept salespeople acumen and ingenuity comparable to outside sales, a
far cry from telemarketers.

Today, telemarketers are known to operate with dated predictive dialing systems,
which call clients at dinner times, and refuse to hang up infuriating the customer.
Telemarketing drove such a negative mindset among customers that laws were
passed to regulate the use. Nowadays, inside sales uses power dialing technology
(predictive dialer 2.0) that uses big data, predictive analytics, algorithms, and
machine learning that improves the dated technology and removes the stigma of
telemarketers calling at inappropriate times.

Inside sales thoroughly research the target market, and industry vertical; identifies
target qualified prospects, their needs, pain points, and identifies the willingness to
engage. And telemarketers plainly shoot in the dark, without understanding the
need, or educating themselves about the customer before interacting.

What Inside sales do is highly commendable because it takes more effort and
patience to close a deal over the phone than a face-to-face engagement. Want to
know how inside sales convert a lead?

Build rapport and relationship with credibility and trust

Provide knowledge and expertise to clients to take educated decisions

Validate the compatibility of value proposition and customer requirements

Execute sales over a number of touch points

Let me repeat myself. Inside sales is NOT telemarketing!

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Chapter 2
Building an Inside Sales Team

 5 Traits to Look for When Hiring an Inside Sales

Representative

 5 Sales Performance Metrics to Track your Inside

Sales Reps

 Simplest Approach to Weigh your Inside Sales Reps

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 Chapter 2
5 Traits to Look for When Hiring
An Inside Sales Representative

Sales is a very important function within every organization. Hiring right

salespeople can lead to a steady increase in sales. And an inappropriate selection
can lead to eroded profits, damaged customer relationships, and a bad brand
image in the market. Keeping these warnings in mind, it's important to not only
grow your sales force, but to grow it appropriately.

Evaluating a candidate for inside sales would be different from examining for a
face-to-face selling job. The sales hiring procedure would also depend on your
company‘s stage and the products or services you sell.

An inside sales representative must possess the following 5 traits to get through
the selection process and outlast in the corporate world. Check out how you can
judge a prospect on these required traits.

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 Chapter 2

1. Hunger to Achieve

An inside sales rep must have the desire to work tirelessly towards a high and
distant goal (which revolves around selling obviously). He/she needs to put intense
and repeated efforts to accomplish those goals. They must do what it takes – from
making a certain number of outbound calls to boldly networking to reach the
decision maker. A recruiter might find it hard to recognize those who are high in the
need for achievement and those who are not. But with the help of a few questions,
you can detect it. Have a look:

 What are your standards of success on your job and how do you measure
them?

 When setting a high standard for yourself and/or others to follow; what
kind of examples do you try to set, and what are you trying to demonstrate?

 What do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far and why?

 What kinds of sacrifices you made to become successful?

2. Competitiveness

A great inside sales rep has to be competitive. This quality is marked by a person‘s
strong desire to exceed and intense determination to win. While being excessively
aggressive is definitely not encouraged, a healthy balance between ambition and
determination is required to be successful. The questions to diagnose if the
candidate is truly competitive could be:

 How do you act when you encounter competition?

 Give me an example of when you competed hard and won.

 When was the last time you were competitive, and what were you doing?

 Where do you rank on your sales team?

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3. Optimism

The best inside sales reps are the ones who have a positive attitude and are
optimistic.

They should not break down when they get a ―no‖ for an answer. If they lack the
optimism to overcome hurdles like these, then they aren‘t likely to last very long.
Look for evidence by asking questions like:

 Tell me about a time when you experienced a setback at work. How did it
impact your confidence and what did you learn from it?

 When was the last time a customer annoyed you and how did you
respond?

 When was the last time you kept going while everyone else was giving
up?

4. Persuasiveness

Great inside sales reps must know how to convince the prospects and clients and
adapt them to their way of looking at things. It‘s not about getting others to
acknowledge your arguments; it‘s about making them engulf your message and
believe that it is in their best interests. and accomplishments shared by them.
The questions to check if the prospect is persuasive could be:

 Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to

successfully convince someone to see things your way?

 By providing examples, convince me that you can adapt to a wide variety

of people, situations and environments.

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5. Integrity

A sales rep should possess great integrity. They should be endowed with strong
moral values and should be honest with their superiors, co-workers and clients. Ask
these questions to judge the prospect on integrity:

 We are often confronted with the dilemma of having to choose between what is
right and what is best for the company. Give at least two examples of situations
in which you faced this dilemma and how you handled them.

 Give me an example of an ethical decision you have had to make on the job.
What factors did you consider in reaching this decision?

 Have you ever had to bend the rules or exaggerate a little bit when trying to
make a sale?

There is no perfect way to predict the outcome of a new hire. However, you can
always evaluate the individual based on the above-mentioned personality traits and
form an opinion based on the experiences.

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 Chapter 2
5 Sales Performance Metrics to
Track your Inside Sales Reps

Inside Sales Reps often focus on making high volumes of calls instead of dialing
smart calls. They tend to emphasize more on quantity than quality. But ideally a
manager must ensure that his/her team spends their precious time wisely by
making smart dials. This will lead to more number of quality conversations which in
turn will result in higher qualified opportunities.

With the availability of exciting Marketing Automation software, CRM platforms and
Auto-Dialer technologies, inside sales reps can easily have access to more data
within less time leading to fruitful conversation with the prospects.

Inside sales managers must evaluate the sales reps on the following 5 metrics to
ensure top performance from their team:

1. Attempts per Lead

Most inside sales rep give up after 2-3 attempts to contact each lead. As a
manager, you should not just pay attention to the number of dials per day but also
number of dials per lead.

According to The National Sales Executive Association “80% of sales are made on
the 5th-12th contact”.

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Make sure that your reps are making at least 6-8 attempts to contact a lead before
calling it a poor or waste lead.

2. Number of Touches to Convert a “Suspect” to a “Prospect

It is important for a inside sales representative to make numerous attempts to

reach out to a lead. However, as a manager, you need to keep a track that on an
average how long it takes for a rep to have the first conversation with the lead. The
time to contact matters as it directly impacts the time taken to close a deal.

3. Percentage of Call Connects

It measures how many times you actually get connected to a person and speak
with him/her. If you are contacting X number of leads in a day and get to speak with
Y number of people then X/Y is your percentage of call connects. There could be
many reasons that your sales rep is performing low on this metric, such as poor
lead list quality, not calling the right people at the right time, using outdated
technology like not having a local presence auto dialer that can show local number
on a prospect‘s caller ID. Understand this data as this will have a direct impact on
productivity.

4. Opportunity Conversion Rate

If your sales reps are contacting a high volume of leads but are not able to take
them to the next level, then it is really alarming for you. Make sure you track the
below mentioned points to improve their opportunity conversion rate.

 Behaviour of your reps during a call-> friendly or formal or casual or rude

 Quality of conversation they have with a lead

 Ability to handle sales objections

 Knowledge gathered about a lead before contacting him/her

 Level of understanding of the product/service they are pitching for

Ideally, a healthy rate of 5-7% of connects being passed over as qualified leads
should be achieved by all the sales reps. A conversion to qualified lead could be a
scheduled follow-up, scheduled demo or face-to-face appointment setting. This
metric allows a manager to track quality which will ultimately lead to high closed
business numbers.

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5. Skills to Gather Relevant Information

There are many organizations which are currently not willing to purchase your
offering but might become a quality future prospect. In this scenario, an inside sales
rep must have the ability to gather important information from them such as the
appropriate decision maker‘s contact details, the current technology or solutions that
they are using etc and save them for future.

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 Chapter 2
Simplest Approach to Weigh your
Inside Sales Reps

Are you familiar with how National Football League (NFL) and Major League
Baseball (MLB) recruit their finest players? How the coaches come up with their
game plan? It is quite simple. The answer lies literally in the film rooms and
scouting. NFL and MLB scouts travel all across the country to recruit the best
players for their team, and the coaches come up with the team‘s game plan based
on their teams previous recorded film or of their competition. Either ways, coaches
and scouts largely depend on their players game on the field to gauge their
performance.

Same is true for inside sales managers. Managers success lies in their uncanny
ability to asses talent in their team and to be spot on in their evaluations. Inside
sales managers can know almost everything about their inside sales reps from
listening to their call recordings. For instance, in cold calling, inside sales managers
can know how their sales reps bypass gatekeepers to get to the decision makers.
Do they blow up when the gatekeepers reject them? Are they able to create a
meaningful rapport with the decision makers? Do they earn the right to present their
value proposition or do they just push it into the conversation?

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Akin to cold calling, closing attempt can also teach a lot about the inside sales in
how they do business. Do they promote asking questions? Do they ask merely
close ended questions making it simple for the decision makers to put them off? Do
they handle objections well? Like I said, a lot can be learned about the rep from
just carefully listening to their recordings.

As an inside sales manager, everything you need to know about your reps is in the
recordings. It just matters on how closely you are listening. Everything you will
need to know on how and where to help your reps, and to evaluate their progress
after training is there on tape.

Here are a few takeaways to help you get the most out of your reps recordings;

 Listen to the recordings and grade them based on their qualifying and closing
calls. Identify how to upgrade your lower reps to A-grade reps, and how to replace
your lowest performing reps.

 Listen to your top performing reps. Listen how they start a conversation with a
prospect, how they negotiate, how they handle objections, and how they close a
deal. Script out their conversations, and give them to the rest of your team.

 Use the best recording in your sales meetings, like how NFL and MLB team
meetings are; they play the best gameplay to reinforce their strategy and to
motivate the team. By constantly playing the best gameplays, your team ultimately
becomes better.

A word of advice for all inside sales managers; if you are not recording or listening
to your reps recordings, then you are missing out on the easiest and most effective
tool available to you. The easiest way to do this is to employ an agile customer
interaction hub that integrates voice logging capability with telephony (auto-dialer)
capacity.

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Chapter 3
Challenges faced by Inside Sales

 Top 7 Challenges Inside Sales Managers Face

Today

 Are You Aware of Your Sales Engagement

Challenges?

 5 Most Common Sales Objections Inside Sales Rep

Should Know

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 Chapter 3
Top 7 Challenges Inside Sales
Managers Face Today

It has been rightly said that ―With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility‖. And in
addition to responsibilities, leadership brings challenges also. Inside Sales
Managers, being leaders themselves, encounter many challenges during the course
of their career. But they must learn to tackle these challenges appropriately
otherwise it can hamper the team‘s morale and company revenues to a considerable
degree.

Here are 7 most common and severe challenges that an Inside Sales Manager
comes across:

Challenge #1 Hiring & Recruiting Right People

Hiring right salespeople is always a challenge for managers because a wrong

selection can lead to damaged customer relationships and eroded sales numbers.
You need to evaluate a candidate smartly depending on your company‘s products
and

services. Inside Sales reps must possess a few traits to outlast in this field and a
manager‘s job is to identify those traits in a candidate.

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Challenge #2 Training, Development & Coaching

In order to make sure that your sales reps deliver the results you expect, provide them
with enough training and coaching to develop and enhance their skills, traits, and
attitude. But one common challenge is finding the time to train them since most of the
manager‘s time is spent on setting goals/targets, analyzing data and reviewing sales
numbers.

Challenge #3 Retaining Talent

As a manager, you can‘t afford to lose your top performers to your competitors. Loss of
even a few key employees can be devastating to a company. Sales leaders must take
proactive measures to overcome this challenge and to ensure long term employee
commitment.

Challenge #4 Enabling Tools & Technologies

It has been found that managers either don‘t bother to facilitate their inside sales
representatives with technology tools or are confused among too many technology
choices available. Sales managers must evaluate their team and their selling
requirements appropriately before deciding on the necessary tools and technologies
so that the reps are productive and are able to meet their targets.

Challenge #5 Compensating Employees

Retaining employees sometimes directly relates to the compensation being offered to

them. Satisfying top talent on this front is a challenge for managers. It is important for
managers to implement a structured reward and recognition program that is healthy
and unbiased.

Challenge #6 Finding Quality Leads

Salespeople often come across poor leads that turns out to be a complete waste of
time. Having a few quality leads is much better than simply dialing endless number of
waste leads. But finding good quality leads is a real challenge for both the sales
managers and sales representatives.

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Challenge #7 Longer Sales Cycles- > Deals Taking Longer to Close

Length of a sales cycle is one of the greatest challenges for sales leaders. When
closing of a deal takes a long time, it directly impacts the revenue flow and spirit of the
team. So, managing the timescales and resources properly until the deal is closed is
very important for a sales manager.

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 Chapter 3
Are you Aware of your Sales
Engagement Challenges?

Customer lifecycle starts with Sales Engagement which is the most crucial part of
your business as it kick-starts your business journey. Success of your overall
business depends on how better you get with time in closing sales vis-à-vis your
competition. Your team might not be aware or at worse bother about industry
benchmarks and the point where your competitors stand on the scale for marketing,
inside-sales and sales results.

With an advancement in technology along with the change in market

dynamics, competition in the industry and skill set dynamism for inside-sales/
sales activities; there are various challenges which your marketing and sales
team face today.

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Multiple channels – an inhibitor or an opportunity? Unlimited opportunities to

connect!

Marketing & Sales is challenging like never before. Prospects are available 24X7 over
multiple channels available today on numerous mobile and fixed devices you can
think of. One may look at this complexity as an inhibitor to prospect outreach.
However, these multi channels if aptly leveraged could be a game changer for your
business. Multimedia today is embedded with Voice, SMS, Chat, Social Media, Email,
Web channels. Challenge lies in seamlessly integrating the channels for a unified
sales engagement with the customer.

Leads getting lost, lead management a headache? Intelligent Lead

Management is the solution <>

Secondly, as the world has become a common market place, there are more and
more leads, prospects and customers data to deal with. Different tools like emails,
website, marketing automation, CRM are used to work upon and manage the data
independently or in loose sync with each other across the sales engagement cycle
resulting in loss of opportunities, inefficiencies and un-productivity.

Finding a way to outpace your competition? Personalized Sales Experience is

the differentiator $

Thirdly, as competition is intense in the market like never before, today a

personalized approach is recognized as something which is going to be differentiator
in your sales. Inside sales and sales guys work on the leads and opportunities
respectively, personalized experience get very difficult to deliver as they tend to have
limited knowledge of the leads/ prospects. Dynamic Segmentation of the leads/
prospects based on their crucial characteristics, past interactions and external factors
need to be

―intelligently‖ done to get an insight on how and when to contact them for a
personalized sales experience to supercharge sales.

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Improving your team performance still a challenge? On the Job tech tools are
your friends :)

Fourthly, a non-performing inside-sales/ sales reps are detrimental to your business.

To stay on the top of your inside-sales/ sales process, it is very important that your
inside-sales/ sales teams are trained, groomed and motivated continuously. One way
is to hire the sales trainers to get the fundamentals right and get the sales guys work
in mock sales situations. On the Job assessment and training is recognized as the
most effective way to get your sales reps on the top of their jobs. But to monitor, train,
and motivate the reps On-The-Job is regarded as a challenge unless there are
appropriate technology tools for the same.

Losing an edge in making informed decisions? You can’t ignore Data Driven
Sales

Last but not the least, right and actionable information received at the right time can
help you assess your marketing and sales activities performance, inside-sales/ sales
rep performance, mitigate the risks, and improve upon the results. Your management
needs to understand and strategize the KPIs to assess the performance of inside-
sales/ sales reps and the marketing & sales activities/ campaigns being run.
Challenge lies in the collating the required data at every step of your marketing and
sales cycle and then mapping the data and use the data over well defined KPIs and
metrics to get the actionable info on real time and periodic basis to the make the
necessary operational, tactical and strategic decisions.

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 Chapter 3
5 Most Common Sales Objections
Inside Sales Reps Should know

The most frustrating aspect of sales are Objections. I think we can all agree on this.
But, we also got to accept the fact that sales objections are expected in every selling
process. There are no sales without a few roadblocks. This goes for both inbound
and outbound sales.

Picture this; you‘ve done your research on your prospect, identified whom to contact,
the best time to contact, made your initial contact, and even got an appointment. But
just when you thought things are going real smooth and you are just a few seconds
away from closing the deal. BAM!, you get hit with a ‗but‘. Your product/service is
great, but I don‘t think we see an opportunity or, I think your product will do wonders
for the company, but I don‘t think the board would agree to this. You feel like you have
hit a brick wall. After all the hard work, all the research you did, all the time you
devoted for a single prospect, he just blows you away. It is frustrating, isn't it?

But what if I say, objections are opportunities. Opportunities to influence and convince
qualified prospects to purchase and weed out the prospects that are not a good fit for
your offering. And to convert objections to opportunities, you will have to learn how to
overcome them.

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A simple way in tackling sales objections is by overcoming them even before your
prospect gets a chance to voice them. It is not as easy as it sounds. Before you even
think of tackling your prospect‘s objections, you need to know what kind of objections
he/she is going to voice. To get out of the frustrating rollercoaster of objections and
move into a serene and positive addressal of objections, every sales rep needs to be
apprenticed with the most common sales objections. This helps them in building
tactics, and plan their counter-attack when the time comes.

So, here are the most common sales objections every Inside Sales rep come across;

Sales Objection #1: “We don’t have the budget to..”

This is probably the easiest objection a prospect could come up with. He/she would
say things like they have no room in their budget to purchase your product, or they
might be looking for a discount. The bottom line is always the biggest hurdle for
clients, and you will be required to justify your cost. Cost is probably the most difficult
objection to overcome, no questions there.

Sales Objection #2: “We don’t see the need for your services”

‗Need‘ is especially the most prevalent objection observed in the sales of complex
product or services. This is mostly because of unidentified needs of the prospect,
value proposition, or if the prospect is overwhelmed with a lot of information. They are
perplexed whether the product would be a right fit or not.

Sales Objection #3: “I can’t make a decision alone on this”

In many cases, prospects get off the hook with this. Because the person you are
talking to does not have the authority to make an immediate decision. For larger
companies, there would be committees involved in the buying process, which makes
life even harder for the inside sales rep.

Sales Objection #4: “We are all used to things this way”

Your prospect might be comfortable with the things they are used to. That‘s quite
common. It is human nature to be complacent and fear change. If a prospect is
complacent, it is because he is ill-informed about the opportunity or potential, so it is
the sales rep that should take the extra step in explaining the over-arching problem.

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Sales Objection #5: “I can’t make a decision right now. How about you call me
next month?”

Prospects procrastinating is not new to inside sales. They would come up with non-
committal responses to put the sales process on hold to buy them some time, or just
object. But the chances of them coming back are really slim.

Understanding and being familiar with sales objections will help sales reps to arm
themselves with the right counter-attack and inside sales strategies that will tip the
scale in their favor. Strategising yourself to handle every objection will transform you
into one of the best salesperson.

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 Chapter 4
Technology Enablers for Inside Sales

 6 Must-Have Technologies for Inside Sales

 5 Signs that your CRM is not an ideal fit for Inside

Sales

 5 Reasons Inside Sales Reps Need Intelligent Dialers

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6 Must have Technologies for
Inside Sales

Having the right tools and technologies in place can significantly increase the
productivity of inside sales reps which in turn boosts the sales revenues for the
company. These technologies have their own benefits that can drive the
management of capturing a lead to its closure in an effective way. There are various
tools which make it possible for inside sales representative to create customer
intimacy without a face-to-face interaction.

But not all organizations are bothering to provide their sales team with these sales
enablement tools and are hence making it more challenging for them to achieve
their targets.

According to a survey conducted by AA-ISP‘s, lack of adequate tools and

technology was ranked the 3rd most major challenge out of 15 for Inside Sales

But managers aren't intentionally withholding technology from reps. According to

Bob Perkins, AA-ISP founder and chairman, many leaders are confused as to which
tools their sales forces truly need..

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Below, I have listed down the 6 most important and effective tools and technologies
required for Inside Sales Reps to deliver exceptional results

1. Mobile Device

Sales representatives need to stay in touch with their customers and prospects 24*7.
The customers might contact them at any point in time during a day, making mobile
the utmost important tool for a sales rep to have. It is a medium that allows you to
contact customers in the manner they prefer to be communicated with- be it a call,
email, text or a LinkedIn message.

2. Wireless Headset

Sales reps must use wireless headset as it is very comfortable and makes life easier.
With better signal range in most of the headsets these days, you can stand up, move
around, and concentrate in your work in a better way. It lets you free up both your
hands to use a computer, handle documents, make notes and makes you more
productive as you can pay more attention to the customer.

3. Screen Sharing Tool and Online Meeting Software

With a screen sharing tool, sales reps can share anything that is appearing on their
screen at the moment, with their customers. One can use this tool for sharing desktop
graphics, charts, images, audio or video with potential clients or add a real-time visual
presentation in order to enhance the credibility of the information.

Availability of online meeting softwares like GoToMeeting and WebEx give your sales
people the ability to conduct and host a meeting anytime, by sharing their desktop
with prospects and customers.

4. User-friendly CRM System

CRM is something a salesperson who wants to excel in his/her career can‘t get away
with. You require a quality CRM to manage your leads and accounts in an effective
way. With the help of dashboards, you can have a complete view of your customers,
sales pipeline and other sales related activities. It also helps you with lead routing and
tracking, personalized messaging, prioritization of responsibilities and tasks etc. It
helps you increase productivity and build stronger customer relationships. It provides
you with tools that can be accessed in real-time, providing reports that are accurate
and up to date.

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5. LinkedIn

Today, the best source for sales representatives to generate and nurture leads is
LinkedIn. You can easily identify relevant prospects, ask for referrals, and build and
maintain relationships with them. Harness the LinkedIn network of each and every
employee of your company and reach the decision-makers and influencers in a single
click.

6. Auto-Dialer

Inside Sales happens to communicate with most of their customers through a phone
call. Therefore, it is important for them to have a sophisticated auto-dialer or
predictive

dialer to effectively source more opportunities and close more deals. An intelligent
dialer improves productivity of the sales rep by reducing their manual effort and
calling a prospect at the best possible time. With functionalities such as local area
code systems, a dialer raises the probability of a customer picking up the call, thereby
improving connect rates.

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5 Signs that your CRM is not an
Ideal fit for Inside Sales

Businesses have identified the need of CRM systems and modules for actualizing
their Inside sales team objectives. A CRM expedites the inside sales team processes,
through sales force automation functions and helps accelerate their performance.
Inside sales team require a unique infrastructure to operate at their full potential. Poor
technological infrastructure, ineffective lead nurturing and human errors may end up
in proportionate losses for businesses.

But, not all CRM systems are ideal for inside sales. It does not matter how many bells
and whistles the software has. At the end of the day, your CRM should be a
facilitating tool that help Inside sales accelerate their core operations. Employing a
CRM that is not ideal for your inside sales is one of the top 5 Gaps in Inside sales
that you cannot compromise on.

Wish to test whether your CRM is the right fit for Inside sales?

Here are 5 signs indicating your CRM is not ideal for Inside sales;

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Imbalance between company management visibility and rep productivity:

CRM modules that do not agree between company management visibility and rep
productivity will impede the efficiency of the sales team. If the CRM processes are
overbearing or too focused on minutiae, the reps would be reluctant to use the
technology.

CRM not Logging all activities:

CRM should be intelligent to log all activities with the leads, so the rep himself will not
lose track of his leads‘ statuses. This will also help supervisors in ascertaining the
performance of each rep based on the quality and progress of the leads.

3. Generic communications:

Your Inside sales should be allowed to send customized communications to their leads
and contacts, because there is nothing a customer or a lead will hate more than a
generic email or interaction that is not positioned to them.

4. Absence of Sales Force Automation tools:

Sales Enablement tools speedens and streamlines all the phases of sales from lead
management to forecasting. Provision of savvy capabilities like pipeline management
functionalities such as opportunity prioritization, real-time reporting etc. These tools
automate sales processes improving the efficiency and productivity of the team while
increasing revenue. This will turn your software into a dynamic and prospect
engagement tool.

5. No integration with intelligent telephony features:

Seamless integration with intelligent telephony features are really crucial for the
effectiveness of your inside sales team. Configuring your team‘s dialing functions with
algorithms and Business Intelligence to enhance routing and connect rates improves
the revenue growth rates. With automated dialing features like preview dialing and
click to call, you have what you need to actively engage with your contacts improving
customer retention, and bottom line.

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Now that you know your CRM may not be adequate for your team, what are you going
to do next. From where I see, you have two options; (1) You can try to be happy with
what you have, or (2) Implement a Sales Engagement Hub, that will tackle the hassles
in your present solution, and boost inside sales operations. Your Call!!

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5 Reasons Inside Sales Reps Need
Intelligent Dialers

Inside sales reps do most of their business through a phone call, whether it is making
an appointment, following-up, closing a sale, etc. But how many sales rep have a
sophisticated dialer system that actually helps them in sourcing opportunities and
closing more sales. Sales managers have now gradually raised awareness about the
use

of CRM tools that automates most of the sales operations. Likewise, specialized
sales dialers can also accelerate productivity, along with lifting connection rates, and
making prospect conversations more successful. This has a direct impact on
business margins.

Inside sales managers tend to be complacent with an ordinary VoIP telephony

system, merely because it works so well with the rest of the employees. Their
success lies in their pace of connect, prioritization skill, and prospect insights. And
when did a regular desk phone help reps in achieving these?

Apart from saving a lot of time from manually dialing prospects, here are 5 top
reasons why inside sales team need specialized dialers to be in their A game.

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1. Contextual Customer Information at a Single Window

Sales reps often spend a great deal of time researching the prospect and the
company. And prior to the call, they toggle through a storm of applications and
windows to extract relevant information. According to CSO Insights, 42% of sales reps
say they don‘t have the data they need before making calls. With intelligent dialers,
reps can slash the time exhausted to research prospects prior to calls, since now
dialers trigger CTI screen pops that displays relevant contextual customer information
aggregated from multiple applications to a single window display. This could also help
in building instant credibility with prospects.

2. Higher Connection Rates

When you get a call from a toll-free number, how often do you answer the call? This is
exactly how prospects feel. People are generally wary to pick up calls from numbers
they don't recognize. They are reluctant to answer calls from toll-free and long-
distance numbers. But what if it is from a local area-code? Local Connect or Local
Presence Dialing feature plays to this advantage. This give sales reps a better chance
to connect with international prospects by altering the area-code displayed at the
prospect‘s caller ID.

3. Effective Monitoring and Coaching

Inside sales managers require accurate call data to successfully make revenue
predictions and coach teams. But sales rep barely enter call data into the CRM. They
indulge in other activities, because they don‘t deem logging call recordings and data to
be an important activity. But with dialer integrated with the CRM, call recording and
data can be automatically logged into the system relieving this activity from the reps.
This ensures the manager that all calls have been logged and are ready to be
reviewed, because the simplest approach to weigh your inside sales teams is by
listening to their recordings.

4. Call your Hottest Leads First

Most of the hot leads are lost because they either go unnoticed or the reps don't
respond fast. Sales managers are to make sure that the best and the hottest leads are
contacted before any other opportunity. Dialers serve this purpose by making sure the
hottest leads are given the highest priority in the call list.

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5. Call Prospects at the Best Possible Time

Sales reps face a lot of rejection mainly because of calling prospects at the wrong
time, and it might even end up in losing their business forever. Dialers can now
configure the best time to contact prospects based on successful dialing history and
other data. This will ensure reps are calling prospects at the best time window.

The world of sales is continuously changing. Inside sales managers should decide on
whether to make use of such technologies that have transformed the competitive
landscape. Investing in intelligent dialers can pay you back in spades with more
successful sales conversations, connection rates, and sales closures.

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Best Practices and Templates for
Maximizing outreach

 When is the Best Time for Inside Sales to Call their

Prospects?

 5 Inside Sales Strategies to Accelerate Lead

Generation

 10 Killer LinkedIn Strategies for B2B Inside Sales

Prospecting

 Inside Sales Quick Tips: 5 ways to Improve Prospect

Connect Rates

 5 Cold Calling Techniques for Inside Sales that Really

work

 Inside sales cold email templates and strategies that

worked for us

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When is the Best Time for Inside
Sales to Call their Prospects?

Inside Sales reps are required to master various roles to push leads into their
pipeline. At the time of prospecting they become a private investigator. During
pitching they take up the role of a solution consultant. When following-up they
become the master of words. Sales reps have a lot going on their plate, but the best
of the lot is when they become psychologists, identifying the behavioral patterns of
their prospects and taking advantage of it. This helps them operate and adapt to the
conditions of the client‘s convenience.

Everyone will agree that reaching a high-level executive on the phone on the first try
is a rare phenomenon. But according to a recent study by Bridge Group and AG
Sales works, more than 40% of high-level executives are willing to answer calls from
inside sales reps. Why? It is all attributed to Sales Engagement Hubs and Sales
Acceleration Platforms.

When the reps are provided with clear and relevant information on key decision
makers, they are able to address their needs and their pain-points. It is all about
personalization. A bland pitch by a sales rep will not get him/her beyond the
gatekeeper. Another major contributor to this is Local Number Masking functionality
that alters the number of the rep‘s caller ID to a local number, which increases both
the chances of picking up the phone and builds credibility to the caller.

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Now that we have agreed on the fact that phone calls help inside sales a lot more than
it used to, we need to know how this can be used to your advantage. High-level
executives, key decision makers, etc are willing to answer your phone calls, but you
cannot expect them to answer every call of yours. You will have to strategize each and
every call that you make to your prospect. The foremost step; identifying the ―Best
Time‖ to call. Inside sales reps should not just know whom to call, but when to call.
This will beyond doubt, maximize the chances of adding prospects to your pipeline.

Research on Existing Information

Inside Sales reps normally call prospects on intuition- that they might be available
during this time, the gatekeeper will be on a break, etc. This is the age of data, and
now sales teams are entirely data-driven; mere intuition is not going to help your team.
Implement a data-based sales prospecting strategy. Here is a simple infographic that
will help you in identifying prospecting windows to call:

Holidays should be Call Blitz Days

Call blitz days have become a common approach in inside sales organizations, where
reps overdrive their calling streaks pushing sales metrics off the charts. During
holidays inside sales reps normally take a time-off, but little do they know about the
potential of call blitzing at this time. Holidays have become very feasible for this
approach, because nowadays executives work during holidays too, and especially if
they work for start-ups. Holidays are not anymore insignificant for lead generation.

Utilize sales call metrics

With evidence-based and data-driven sales prospecting overpowering intuitions,

examining your own sales call metrics will help you in coming up with an accelerated
calling strategy. You might observe that your industry or organization has a better trend
of calling success in Fridays, which were normally considered as the worst days to call
prospects. It is very critical for inside sales managers to closely examine the call
metrics to truly ascertain the times when leads enter the pipeline.

These guidelines would definitely help you in generating more leads in your pipeline,
but shouldn‘t be an excuse NOT to call your clients everyday. Top inside sales
performers take the whole day to their advantage for reach outs, follow-up, and
closures.

But always give absolute priority to inbound inquiries over anything else.

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Holidays should be Call Blitz Days

Call blitz days have become a common approach in inside sales organizations, where
reps overdrive their calling streaks pushing sales metrics off the charts. During
holidays inside sales reps normally take a time-off, but little do they know about the
potential of call blitzing at this time. Holidays have become very feasible for this
approach, because nowadays executives work during holidays too, and especially if
they work for start-ups. Holidays are not anymore insignificant for lead generation.

Utilize sales call metrics

With evidence-based and data-driven sales prospecting overpowering intuitions,

examining your own sales call metrics will help you in coming up with an accelerated
calling strategy. You might observe that your industry or organization has a better trend
of calling success in Fridays, which were normally considered as the worst days to call
prospects. It is very critical for inside sales managers to closely examine the call
metrics to truly ascertain the times when leads enter the pipeline.

These guidelines would definitely help you in generating more leads in your pipeline,
but shouldn‘t be an excuse NOT to call your clients everyday. Top inside sales
performers take the whole day to their advantage for reach outs, follow-up, and
closures.

But always give absolute priority to inbound inquiries over anything else.

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5 Inside Sales Strategies to
Accelerate Lead Generation

As the rough economy intensifies in manifolds, the inside sales team are stifled in
culminating their efforts in building a structured and efficient pipeline of quality leads.
The Inside sales manager should work closely with the lead generation function of
his/her team to create campaigns, strategize, and measure results. As an inside sales
manager you are expected to have a lucid understanding of your prospect‘s pain
points and priorities and how your products or solutions can fit into their needs. This
will help you in establishing strategies, pitches, techniques, etc that resonates well with
your prospects.

Fortunately, there are a number of inside sales strategies that you can start off with
that will help you in generating leads and business.

1. Establish a fool-proof lead generation pipeline

Your inside sales force should have the unremitting focus on generating actionable,
quality leads. They should be singularly focused on building and improving the lead
generation process. For this, they are to be trained consistently to deliver complex
value propositions to prospects in the hostile climate of cold calling. They should
understand the pain points and requirements of the prospects they target before
initiating a conversation.

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2. Cultivate Internal Accountability

Inside sales force should be personally committed in generating quality leads to the
sales pipeline. They should be held accountable for their pipeline after a few months of
training (ideally 6 months). This will imbibe a sense of ownership and
acknowledgement for the efforts construed in building a quality sales pipeline. An
outsourcer for instance take responsibility and strict adherence to metrics to create an
actionable sales pipeline. Develop the way of life of an outsourcer and cultivate that
mentality in your team.

3. Make a pitch that prospects cannot refuse

Work with your marketing team, customer support, product management, etc, and
create a pitch that your inside sales team is able to advocate your value proposition.
The pitch your inside sales force uses is invaluable in generating business.

4. Razor-sharp focus on Metrics

Analyze inside sales performance on metrics that actually matter. Parameters and
criteria of evaluation should be transparent, encouraging your sales force to optimize
their efforts in achieving their targets. Make sure these metrics properly align with
company‘s marketing and sales functions.

5. Invest in automation tools

Technology has advanced along with the toughening nature of sales, and companies
are expected to invest in technology tools that is capable of expediting inside sales
processes making their efforts more productive and effective. A sales engagement hub
will provide tools to optimize targeted campaigns, analyze the effectiveness of each
campaign, and facilitate in developing and improving the ‗best-of-best‘ processes. And
if you are currently using an Inside sales technology tool, make sure your technology
is ideal for your inside sales process.

Building an inside sales team may sound like a cakewalk, but the strategy
specifications is that what will make a difference between average sales and
remarkable sales growth. To build an ongoing, successful pipeline of actionable leads
that meets and exceeds your expectations, you must establish bullet proof processes
and accountabilities.

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10 killers LinkedIn Strategies for
B2B Inside Sales Prospecting

“Top Sellers” use LinkedIn 6 hours or more per week to grow their business. How often
do you use it for engaging with your customers and prospects?

Although, traditional selling and communication channels such as phone and email are
tried and true, social media platforms like LinkedIn can also immensely increase sales
performance.

According to a latest LinkedIn report, “1 of every 3 professionals in the world is on

LinkedIn”.

If you are not already optimizing LinkedIn to boost revenues then you are missing out
on one of the most valuable opportunities. LinkedIn is the best social network for lead
generation being the greatest source of B2B sales intelligence and research data.
Many inside sales reps are using it for prospecting and lead generation and are
witnessing a huge increase in opportunities.

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Here are 10 tips for using LinkedIn for Inside Sales Prospecting:

TIP #1: Build an awesome profile page

Your prospects can anytime look at your profile to find out relevant information. So,
make sure it delivers a professional impression of both you and your company.

 Ensure that your profile is 100% complete

 Use a nice close-up ―Picture‖ that stands out and looks professional

 Use a powerful ―Headline‖ that indicates how you can cater to your prospect's needs

 Include current links to your company‘s site and your other social media pages

 Get heaps of ―Recommendations‖ from existing happy customers, colleagues, co-

workers and former employers

 Keep your profile updated, always

TIP #2: Join Useful LinkedIn groups

You can undoubtedly make more connections by joining groups on LinkedIn. It can
give you insights about your prospects and their companies.

Join your respective industry groups

Join relevant groups in which your clients and customers are involved in

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You can also leverage groups to discover the prospect‘s pain areas and then
addressing those challenges with valuable and authentic answers. So, actively
contribute in group discussions and establish yourself as thought leaders so that you
easily get noticed by your targets and stand a chance to approach them.

TIP #3: Connect to your Customers and Prospects with Smart Search Facility

Don‘t miss out the opportunity of connecting with your prospect on LinkedIn
immediately after the first contact or even before. LinkedIn‘s advanced ―search‖ facility
provides a fabulous way to find people by title, company, location, etc. Through a paid
(premium) account you can add company size and seniority level also. Search for
people from your target industry using relevant keywords and find lot of prospects.

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If you don‘t want to send a connection request at first then by only looking at a certain
number of profiles may earn you a few prospects. As you look at people‘s profiles, a
certain number of them will always look back. And that‘s a good excuse to reach out to
them with a friend/connection request.

TIP #4: Leverage the power of InMail

According to LinkedIn, sending InMail is 30 times more likely to get a response than a
regular mail. Through InMail, you can reach any of LinkedIn‘s 300+ million members
without having their phone number or email address. This will get you a professional
and credible outreach—with your LinkedIn profile attached.

TIP #5: Keep the Message Short and Simple

Renowned author ―Jill Konrath‖ emphasizes on the power of 3×3 i.e.no more than
three paragraphs and no more than three sentences per paragraph in a message. So,
keep your message short and sweet.

Search for a common ground and mention the same in the message. Go through their
profile and the insights to find the same. Coming up with a reference would be great
but if not so, then you can see which school or college they went to, their hometown,
their former companies etc.

Provide a call-to-action such as Request for additional information/Set up a demo/Visit

the Website/Schedule a Call, etc.

TIP #6: No more Cold Calling

Gain valuable insight by accessing customer‘s profile and current activities. An inside
sales representative can learn enough about someone to make a call more relevant
and useful to them. Use the information properly to easily understand and analyze the
customer before having the first interaction.

TIP #7: Follow your Prospect’s and Customer’s companies

Try and learn what is happening in your prospect‘s companies. Discover any changes
happening in their companies that can help you spot new opportunities. So, always
stay up to date.

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TIP #8: Share Valuable Content

LinkedIn is a fantastic medium to share your business content. In fact, a survey of

LinkedIn members found that LinkedIn is considered to be the most effective social
network for delivering B2B content. So, always stay connected with your customers
and prospects by sending them relevant information, articles, blogs, etc. Don‘t let them
forget you at any point in time. By delivering useful and engaging content, you‘ll drive
engagement and help your message spread faster.

TIP #9: Ask for Referrals from your Customers

“91% of the customers say they will give reference. Only 11% of the salespeople ask
for it”

Check the LinkedIn network of your customer and find a few relevant accounts who
can be your prospect. Then get yourself introduced to that prospect through that
customer. Research shows that prospects are significantly more likely to respond to
your message when you reference a common connection.

TIP #10: Optimize LinkedIn for Prospecting before or after any Event/Trade
Show/Seminar

Connect with LinkedIn after an event or a trade show

Send them a connection request on LinkedIn reminding them of the positive

experiences shared in the booth. Do this immediately after the event so that they don‘t
forget you and accept the request.

Promote your upcoming events and seminars on LinkedIn group

LinkedIn being the largest community of professionals can be very useful and effective
for promoting any upcoming event or seminar. You can easily connect with your target
audience, send them invites, and timely follow-up using this platform.

So, don‘t wait, start optimizing LinkedIn and initiate social selling activities today for
developing and managing your prospects and to have a competitive edge over other
players in the market.

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Inside Sales Quick Tips: 5 way to
Improve Prospect Connect Rates

Inside sales struggle to improve their prospect connect scores, since these are
existingly been used as metrics to study rep performance. But does merely getting
connected with your prospect cut it? Inside sales reps should focus on connecting
with the right decision maker of the account, than wrestling in a maze with infinite
call transfers to finally get lost in the voicemail abyss.

Using low quality prospect lists to carry out phone based inside sales campaigns
can be a major productivity killer. Simply connecting with random name from the list
is not real connectivity if the that person is not the right person to target. It‘s critical
that inside sales reps have all the basic groundwork done and dusted before starting
a campaign. Going into a call armed with information makes a world of difference
from working off more qualified information which increases the odds in your favour.

Here are a few ways that can improve your odds in connecting with your prospect:-

1. Get Direct Phone Line Extensions of Decision Makers

This might seem as a herculean task to perform, since decision makers of

organizations are very discreet on how they disclose contact information. But with a
few tricks up your sleeve, you just might be able to get your hands on them.

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Bypassing the gatekeeper is the major advantage in getting direct phone lines, and it
can be done with the help of Sales Intelligence tools (paid data sources), and there is
one trick Steve Richards of Vorsight follows, where you can punch in **6 when you
reach a voicemail. It says ―enter last name, followed by pound sign.‖ Put in the last
name and it spits the extension number at you. Now that you have that magic 10 digit
direct dial number, once we dial that, we have a much high probability of having a live
conversation with the senior executive.

2. Identify the Best Time to Call

Sort your account data by location and time-zones, and identify the best time and day
of week to call prospects. Inside sales reps are required to know when to reach their
prospects, as to best suit their time window of convenience. Studies have shown that
contact rates from 4 to 6 pm are higher than other time windows. Wednesdays and
Thursdays have proved to be more favorable to sales reps than any other day.

3. Build Targeted Prospect List

While building lists, identify target decision makers based on job profiles and
responsibilities rather than by titles. This will ensure that you are connecting with the
right person in the company and won‘t have to spend time navigating trying to find the
right person to speak to. Try to gather account intelligence on the target prospects on
previous interactions made by people from the same company. Leveraging references
can help you in passing through gatekeepers.

4. Identify Alternate Decision Makers/Contacts

Try to gather information on alternate decision makers in the account, especially if you
are working on large accounts, where there would be multiple decision makers. Having
access to such information, will provide you with a Plan B for an alternate path into the
same company. Even by adding influencers to the account will help you in getting
―hard to reach‖ decision makers.

5. Mask Caller IDs to Local IDs

How many times have you answered a call from ―a blocked number‖, ―an international
number‖, and ―a toll-free number‖. The senior executives would also go through the
same thoughts. These numbers are red flagged, and the chances of decision makers
answering such calls are really slim. A local caller ID on the other hand has shown to
be 17% to 193% more effective in getting people answer. With a Local Presence Dialer
like Local Connect, reps are able to mask the original caller ID with a local caller ID,
which has proved to increase connect rates dramatically.

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While it is impossible to guarantee that your prospects will answer your calls, it is
important to ensure that all factors that can be controlled are set up to the best
possible level.

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5 Cold Calling Technique for Inside
Sales that Really work

Cold calling – sounds scary, Right? You are not the only one who considers it a
dreadful process. The truth is that many inside sales reps look at it as the most
troublesome aspect of sales. Unfortunately, you can‘t get away with it if you really
want to boost your sales revenues and find potential customers.

Here are a few tips that will let you make a flawless cold call and become a #Quota-
Crushing sales rep:

1. Never Attempt to Sell in your First Call

First call should be more focused towards information gathering and relationship
building. An inside sales representative has to sell the appointment and not the
product in the first conversation. Try to make the prospect interested in what you
have to offer and then push for an appointment.

2. Dig out the Benefits that will Foster your Potential Client Buy from You

Find out that key benefit which will provoke your prospect to like your
product/service and eventually lead to a purchase. Meanwhile, at the same time
also look out for a reason or fear that might refrain the customer from buying. Be
ready to face both these circumstances and handle the objections appropriately.

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3. Research Your Target

Calling a prospect without enough preparation should be a strict NO. Every prospect is
different and has different pain areas, needs, and requirements. The more information
you have about the prospect, the much better position you will be in developing a
selling relationship with him/her. I have discussed in one of my previous blogs-how
Social Selling as a research tool can help you in creating and nurturing meaningful
customer relationships that lead to attainment of sales quota.

4. Prepare and Rehearse your Opening Statement

The opening statement is really crucial for the success of a call. Include benefits of
your offering or a reference point in it. In fact a great start would be to mention what
exactly qualified the suspect to become a potential opportunity for you- adding a value
to your statement. It must create a thought in their mind that you might be able to do
something for them. You can opt for sales call script for some of the prospects for
which you don‘t have enough information.

5. Treat the Gatekeepers as Potential Allies

Don‘t consider them as obstacles of your cold calling process. In fact being polite and
respectful might earn you a lot of ―inside information‖. By telling the reason for your call
and why their bosses would be interested in talking to you can lead to an initial
conversation with the decision maker.

Always stay focused, be persistent and never give up as "Eighty percent of new sales
are made after the fifth contact‖.

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Inside Sales cold email templates
And strategies that worked for us

Inside sales teams often struggle to come up with the best cold email templates and
processes to connect with cold prospects. They are expected to generate
opportunities from a cold list of prospects assigned to them. Traditional processes
include sending out a detailed company profile and then calling the prospects
repeatedly with no results. Our inside sales teams were going through similar
challenges until we revamped our prospect outreach process. The new process that I
implemented generated over 30% more leads than traditional outreach techniques.

How I did it?

There are a lot of resources online that help you in doing research on what works best
for your industry. After considerable amount of research, I came up with a 5 step
process for our prospect outreach. We have since utilized this inside sales strategy
across our entire team and have seen considerable benefits.

I am happy to share my cold call email templates here; you can utilize them as per
your own discretion.

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Step 1: First contact email

Here is a template that I used

Highlights:

 Personalized subject line that will encourage the reader to open the email

 Introduction on the first line as it is the first time that you are connecting with a
prospect

 Mention of the core pain points that helps you identify with the prospect

 Subtle introduction of our company with some strong customer references

 Request for identification of authority

In this mail, I am not trying to sell them anything; my objective here is to connect
with the right prospect.

Results: I got around 20% responses from this mail

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