Updated on March 31, 2013: Initially this was meant for inside sales, but after further pondering this is equally valuable for outside sales people. This is probably due to the tougher economy where outside / field sales people are facing the following two scenarios:
- Delays in closing of deals due to uncertain economic climate change
- Increasing of quotas on a quarterly basis
When you began a career in sales and got hired to do 'inside sales' - a term the industry uses for people who sell only by staying stationary at one place - you get all excited about the product (or service), the company, the people, etc. only to find out that the honor and recognition is given to the ones bringing the deals - or what the industry terms 'outside/field sales'. So you would think is there any value in inside sales / lead generation sales?
1. Building a funnel - the typical flow of a sales funnel resembles this flow: leads -> call -> meeting -> demo/presentation -> contract -> negotiation -> close (might not be the same in all organizations - but this comes close). Most organizations are very adept at moving from calls to meetings and might be achieving ratios of 30-60% for each step of the process! But what they lack are the skills to increase their number of leads - the more leads in the funnel the greater the number of deals you close!
2. Front line to the prospective buyer - when calling up companies in search of opportunities - inside sales people can provide a lot of valuable information that might otherwise be missed simply because they call so many prospects. Some of the things they can uncover:
- Incumbent product/service
- New projects currently being considered
- Issues or problems - this is is a starting point for having a business and developing a solution for it.
Why might these be valuable? It gives you a heads up on what your target market is going through helping in future product development. Social media has also helped out herein the B2C space area.
From a salesperson perspective - keep things organized so that you can return to these customers at a future date to sell additional modifications to your product / service.
3. High churn / attrition of customers - companies are facing challenges times where customers are demanding more service for less cost (2008 financial crisis pushed this as companies have become conservative). Now, more than ever, you need to keep maintaining a consistent flow of qualified leads and ensure you make quota.
I hope you find these reasons valuable to push yourself in cold-calling and in helping achieve your quotas. Good luck!
I hope you find these reasons valuable to push yourself in cold-calling and in helping achieve your quotas. Good luck!
