One among the main reasons for selling becoming more inside is the technological developments such as lead generation and nurturing using digital tools, customer relationship management (CRM) tools and web conferencing solutions.

With ‘smart’ devices and technology allowing round-the-clock connectivity anywhere, customer availability is not a restriction anymore.

The requirement for long business meetings over lunch is fading. Inside sales today achieve what the field sales team has been delivering over the years. So, what is inside sales?

Know What Is Inside Sales

Generally speaking, inside sales is a method of selling your products or services remotely through email, social channels or phone. In the process, you carry out the tasks of identifying and nurturing leads and converting them into business or sales.

This sales model has gained much prominence today in B2B businesses, where there are customers with specific and complex needs. Moreover, the inside sales people, who do lead generation and renewals, go through the advanced steps of assessing customer needs, finding solutions and closing sales deals.

Benefits of Inside Sales

There are some major benefits of having inside sales and they are:

• Increase cost efficiency using technology: The digital marketing tools like email marketing, data, analytics, social platforms, content creation, video hosting, etc., assist the inside sales team to hit the right prospects easily thus shortening  the sales cycle and reducing the conversion cost.
• Greater flexibility: You have the flexibility to scale up the inside sales team depending on the business strategy or marketing conditions at a reduced cost.
• Find time for ancillary tasks: There are several prospecting and administrative tasks that go to make an effective sale. With enough time at office, the inside sales team spend time efficiently on supplementary tasks other than converting leads to sales.
• Can predict revenue: A company with a successful inside sales team is in a position to predict the revenue a sales person brings. They collaborate with marketing and work together to fill the sales funnel.
• Adapt to changing demographic: The chances of responding to funnel marketing campaigns by the target buyer is higher today. The changing trends can be better adapted by the strong inside sales team by resorting to cost-effective upselling and cross-selling.

Some Reasons Why Inside Sales Is Necessary for B2B Businesses

The three aspects mentioned below are critical to have inside sales for B2B companies.

Changing Buyer Behaviors

Over the time, the B2B customer behavior has changed considerably that you are required to deliver the similar online buying experiences in the B2B space too.

The Future of Commerce reveals that about 49 percent of B2B customers are more likely to make work-related decisions visiting websites, which are ready with the product information they want.

They want their queries addressed and needs met through live interactions. Of course, this leads any B2B business to a faster sales process.

You need to keep in mind that your prospective buyers are a way ahead when they come to you for more information. They would have done the pre-purchase work of visiting your website and social media pages and collecting information from them, review sites and customer testimonials.

They look up to you for specific information that helps satisfy their expectation about the product or service now, as well as in the future and advocate their decision to buy. Bear in mind that this purchase process happens every time with much focus on making quick decisions. It is presumed that not many B2B vendors have active engagement with their buyers owing to much irrelevant content offered by the marketing team.

Easy Sales Technology Solutions

Advanced sales technology solutions have helped companies generate, measure and analyze captured customer data. With these solutions, B2B businesses can increase sales productivity and sales conversions through enhanced demand generation. For instance, the SaaS technology helps leverage B2B sales processes through user-friendly tools.

The job of sales team has become easier today with the inside sales team and marketing collaborating and working on developing sales processes using big data and industry-specific sales and marketing intelligence, as well as shorter sales cycles.

The use-friendly technology solutions are easy to use by the inside sales team, who can be easily trained and updated on easy changes.

Changing B2B Business Sales Model

The business sales model of B2B companies is changing owing to heavy competition. A product needs constant improvements and upgrades to enable a buyer to invest in it.

This helps B2B businesses not invest heavily but focus on small-sized investments, which helps improve business cash flow while easing capital expenditure.

The inside sales find it easy to upsell and cross-sell using the steady flow of leads and short sales cycles.

It is up to the B2B businesses to use inside sales to improve sales processes to compete with others and increase the return on investment (ROI).