Take Inside Sales to the next level

What’s Next for Your Inside Sales Team

Inside or TeleSales has become a critical component of many companies’ sales and marketing strategy. Well executed Inside Sales strategies have delivered 5 to 10 percentage point improvements in margins, increased customer satisfaction and helped improved field productivity. With an ability to make hundreds of calls a week and at a cost often half that of field reps, Inside Sales can enable a cost effective volume and velocity play. The challenge is how to take your initial success to the next level.

Many organizations have launched Inside Sales initiatives with the best of intentions and have followed the five basic rules of a successful launch:

· Executive Sponsorship and/or leadership – A truly successful leader of Inside Sales must be an equal player at the table with field and channels, and continue to be an evangelist for Inside Sales. As Inside Sales evolves there will be a series of critical conversations around compensation, channel conflict, and account ownership that must be had.

· Integrating Inside Sales into Routes to Market – Inside Sales must built into the Routes to Market strategy upfront. It is not simply “Bolted on” or just another overlay but is a critical element of the mix on a par with the field or Partner.

· Substantial investment in Change Management – Plans were created early on, true buy-in was obtained from key stakeholders and change leaders, and a series of consistent communications kept everyone on the same page. Key behaviors were identified and a systems of rewards and dialog drove adoption.

· The team took the time to hire key talent – The deployment team focused on hiring the right people in the key positions. Leaders who are flexible, adaptable and inspiring helped drive the organization through the ever changing rules of engagement and morass of internal politics to create a strong link to key stakeholders and a robust team ready to drive results.

· Processes are aligned and repeatable, and decisions are made based on data and facts not hunches – Focus was on the fundamentals. The initial build out was targeted to a couple of key markets, customer groups or products. Foundational processes were built and infrastructure and eco-system were established.

If all these elements are not in place or weren’t well executed it is worth going back and getting them right. If they were, congratulations, you fit in the 50% or less of companies that get them all right the first time. Now you need to harness the true power of Inside Sales.
Based on discussions with numerous sales, marketing and Inside Sales executives, as well as CEOs and COOs, there are some basic questions senior management will ask;

1. How do we realize the cost benefits that were promised as part of this project? –Inside Sales can reduce your E/R by as much as 50%. Lack of return can be based on a number of factors: overlapping compensation plans that have not evolved, inadequate shift of lower end transactions, over staffing in key areas, focus on the wrong market or customer.

2. What part of this can be outsourced and what is core to my success? This is one of the top questions being asked by sales and marketing execs today. There are large numbers of outstanding companies that specialize in all aspects. Careful consideration must be given to what is core to your success and what is core to the value Inside Sales brings… lead gen, qualification, simple transaction closure, and farm team for field, are among the many roles

3. How do I leverage Inside Sales/Tele to increase my agility/flexibility by rapidly changing product, market or messaging focus? - Too tightly linking Inside Sales to either a marketing or sales team can inhibit flexibility. Inadequate closed loop systems and poor information flows will slow down or eliminate the speed and quality of “customer feedback” to key decision makers.

4. How do I take advantage of Inside Sales to create a volume and velocity model that is tied to the web and helps me drive more transactions, quicker and more cost effectively? – Inside Sales can make hundreds of calls and penetrate quickly via use of phone and email. They are well positioned to take advantage of web-based sales, chat, and co-browsing, but each of these must be done with specific plans, outcomes and measures of success in mind. They must also be part of your overall web strategy, not bolted on.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will explore each of these in more depth and suggest possible ways to attacked each of them. This is not intended to be a cookbook, but rather the start of a discussion or dialog around what does Inside Sales mean to your organization and how will you truly make it a competitive advantage you can use to drive profitable growth as we emerge from the current economic challenges.