Many years ago when I started my career in sales, I was working in Account Development for Bay Networks and few other companies in the Silicon Valley. The first few months I was given the Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama as my sales territory. Nothing like going to bed at nine at night so I can be at work and start cold calling at five in the morning. Working in inside sales was something like paying my tuition for learning the basic of sales. I have learned many valuable skills that I could never gain if I was just thrown in to the field. The good thing about inside sales is that you have the entire resources of the company to assist you in making your efforts successful. From managers, mentors, engineers and executives to marketing, it is all accessible for your sales efforts.
I soon realized that in inside sales preparation for the call was just as important as making the call. Every afternoon as the business hours came to an end in the EST and Central Time Zones, I would prep for my next day's prospecting efforts. CRM systems in the past did not provide all the information you needed to be successful. We would use a traditional Corporate Directory to find names of executives to call.
Besides preparation, what I soon learned is that inside sales is a numbers game. If you do not make enough sales calls, you simply will not make enough sales. Making sales calls has the best return on investment compared to any marketing activity or advertising since it is personal, one on one communication. If you have an 8 hour working day in inside sales, you should be able to make 100 to 120 dials per day. From each day's activity you should be able to reach at least 20 to 25 suspects or prospects to have a conversation with. I count each conversation to be at least a minimum of 2 min of talk time. That is not the talk time for the rep but for the prospects. By providing a short customized pitch to the prospect and following up with questions that engaged the prospect.
Simply the 80/20 rule is 80% of the time the prospect should be talking and 20% of the time the sales rep should be asking questions to probe the needs of the prospect. If you are managing an inside sales team, what matters is looking at the total talk time of your reps and making sure that they are at least making the necessary dials and having 1.5 to 2 hours of continues talk time with prospects per day.
What I learned about training inside sales reps over the years is that it is very important for the manager to listen in on the live calls with prospects. Unless they listen in with a clipboard in hand and provide guidance to the rep, how can the rep get any better? Many reps fear having the call monitored and of course recording of calls is after the fact is good for quality assurance but very little of value in training. Sitting in a conference room with your inside sales rep and placing calls for a few hours with a clipboard at hand enables you to give real feedback to the reps and help them direct the conversation flow.
Working in inside sales is a tough job. It is a constant rejection, dealing with rude folks and denial. What matters is how you view the entire process. If after every rejection you take a moment to analyze what went bad with the call and improve your next call, than you can become a better sales rep over time. Ask for feedback from the manager. At the end of the day, no one wants to do a job and be a failure. If you do not seek the advice of your peers and managers over time, you will not be able to attain your goals and targets. And when it comes to compensation and commission, the sales rep will be the one that has vested all that time and with no tangible results.
One challenge that I always faced while managing inside sales reps was having reps who demonstrated inconsistent results. One day they had great day at work and the next it would be a total bomb with no talk time or nothing to show for. Unfortunately, most of these reps had two issues:
First, they got impacted by external things that did not relate to the work at hand. They brought the baggage from home into work and it impacted their performance. The second was a direct result of the above- they simply did not get excited about the product or service. Regardless of how good or bad your night was, the next day at work needs to be a positive one. I realize this is easier said than done, but the reality is if you are not feeling well or if my rep is not "pumped up" about the work or product, have them take a day off. Nothing is worse than having a monotone voice of unexcited inside sales rep on the phone with a hot prospect to kill the opportunity at hand. It can kill all prospecting efforts by itself. Inside sales reps are trained to make calls to solve prospects' problems. They have to connect and to be highly responsive and show a can-do attitude in order to engage. Bringing old baggage from home and having that impact your calls does not make anyone want to talk to you. This is just as bad as leaving the prospect in suspense. The conversation will drag on. You wasted his time and yours by failing to make the best first impression.
Finally, rude salesmanship may work for NY but in most of the states people work on schedule, sell the interview and get a convenient time to talk to the prospect. At the end, belief in what you are offering is the best thing since slice bread. Having no conviction in your own product and service offering will not produce sales.
