What Are Inside Sales?

Inside sales refers to the sale of products or services by personnel who reach customers through phone, email, or the internet. Other ways to define inside sales are "remote sales" or "virtual sales." It is called "inside" because these sales reps remain indoors, often at a call center or company office. Inside sales may or may not be outsourced to a third-party vendor.

Inside sales can be contrasted with outside sales, where people physically go out and meet poten🐈tial customers.

Understanding Inside Sales

Unlike 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:outside sales personnel, inside salespeople traditionally do not travel. Despite this, they are still proactive about contacting potential 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:customers and may engage in 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:cold calling. However, a c🍨ompany ma🧸y also designate incoming calls from prospective customers as inside sales. In addition, a company may outsource its inside sales duties to a third party instead of conducting sales in-house.

The advent of the telephone and its use as a sales tool gave birth to the distinction between inside and outside sales. The term "inside sales" was created in the 1980s to differentiate 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:telemarketing or telesales from high ticket phone sales common with business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales practices.

Unlike telemarketers who read from scripts, inside sales reps are highly trained, creative people, who determine a sales strategy for selling products and services to customers. By the late 1990s or early 2000s, the term "inside sales" was being used to mark a difference between inside and outside sales.

Sometimes inside and outside sales personnel and practices work together for greater efficiency. For example, an inside sales individual within a department may handle the legwork of creating and organizing sales appointments for outside sales personnel, otherwise known as lead generation. In some cases, inside sales personnel may be used to upsell incumbent customers by adding ancillary products or services to theiꦜr order.

Advantages of Inside Sales

Purchasing goods and services online or by🍌 phone is popular among consumers, looking for ways to simplify their lives. It even has its own industry as🎃sociation, .

Meanwhile, the ways most inside and outside salespeople operate are converging. Increasingly, outside salespeople are making more sales remotely and inside salespeople are going out in the field. This convergence is aided by new sales-facilitating technologies, as well as changing customer buying habits and attitudes about how products and services are sold. This has led to a new moniker for inside sales: "sales in the cloud."

The Role of the Inside Sales Representative

Insider sales reps often earn a modest base salary followed by sales commissions and performance bonuses. Because inside sales will take place🌳 online over the phone, representatives may want experience in telemarketing ꦚor customer support and develop a pleasant demeanor when calling strangers. One perk of inside sales is that you can often do the job remotely or from home.

In 2024, according to , the median base salary for an inside sales representative is about $50,000. However, salary differences can vary greatly among compa🥂nies. For example, an average salary of $50,565 while an average salary of $37,500, according 🍒to PayScale's data.

The Bottom Line

Inside sales relies on professionals selling products and services from behind a desk in an office, call center, or from home. Inside sales uses telephone, email, and other online methods to make contact with prospective clients and close sales. With the growth of e-commerce, inside sales involving social media and driving web-based traffic has become a priority for many companies, including legacy 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:brick-and-mortar retailers.