Sales15 Actionable Inside Sales Tips

It may sound very basic, but without knowing what your company is selling, you’ve already missed that first step on the ladder to success.

Use every resource available to learn more about not just the product or service you are selling, but also the problems your company can help solve and how to solve them.

The more technical details you understand, the more authoritatively you can communicate the benefits and value proposition to your prospects. Presenting only a baseline knowledge, or erroneous information will inevitably drive customers to seek an alternative solution.

In every market new companies will emerge while existing competitors continue to test and evolve their sales strategies.

In order to stay competitive, you need to carry out research on your competitors to assess the advantages and disadvantages of their offering. Comparing these against your own will equip you with a much more detailed picture of the landscape your company is working in. This will allow you to determine the best way to present their offerings to prospects.

Creating a competitor battle card is a great way of showing your findings. For example, InsideOut is one of many consulting companies, but we also offer sales development resources and testing. Our advantage over competitors is in the range of services we offer. We provide testing, call recording, and actionable data driven insights for enterprise level organizations.

Apply this method to your own company and their offerings.

Organisation and time management are two key skills vital to every inside sales representative.

Every day you’ll schedule meetings, make back-to-back calls, research your prospects, and review your sales plays. With so many different tasks and disciplines to juggle, it’s easy to lose track of time.

To avoid this, remove any distractions that have the potential to disrupt your workflow and hamper productivity. Make sure all of your activities are being logged in a CRM – the best systems will provide integrated tools to help you manage your tasks more effectively.

Your sales strategy will inevitably vary between prospects, whether it’s the tone of your communications, cadence, or selected channels.

When it comes to inside sales there is no “one size fits all” solution or universal template when attempting to analyze your prospects. By creating and assigning a BuyerDNA™️ to prospects you can better categorize them. This is based on both actionable data and persona-like traits, allowing you to better understand their complex needs and what communications they respond to most effectively.

Whether picking up the phone, drafting an email, or connecting via LinkedIn, you need to be concise and effective across every channel.

Don’t be afraid to use tools that can help you achieve better results. Using software such as Grammarly, Hemingway, and Coldemailgrader can not only help make sure your emails sound professional, but also have the correct tone balance, being bold but not too assertive.

Motivation is the driving force behind being a better communicator. Treat every new prospect as a unique opportunity – a challenge you can adapt to and learn from!

It goes without saying that having a surface knowledge of your prospect, their business, and industry, can open the door to a sales conversation. However, if you really want to be effective you will need to leverage every available resource to find out more about their specific needs and pain points.

Social media is a powerful tool to gain information on decision makers you wouldn’t get from a company website. Over 70% of B2B decision makers use social media to help inform purchasing decisions. Even if prospects aren’t using LinkedIn daily, they can still leave a breadcrumb trail leading to a successful sales conversation.

Profiles detail their role within a company and how long they’ve been in a specific industry. Not only that, through seeing who and what they are engaging with, you can build a list of common interests and shared experiences to help craft your dialogue with them. Make sure the information is relevant without giving off the impression you are being invasive. Personalize, but don’t be creepy!

Don’t always try closing a sale on the first call. Even if your entire job revolves around the number of sales you make, put the prospect first. When you try desperately to sell something, the conversation becomes all about you.

Inbound leads come to you looking for a solution to their problem. It’s almost like dating – you have to build trust and show shared value before developing a relationship and closing the deal.

Focus on providing solutions and building a rapport – understand the prospect’s BuyerDNA™️ and why they have come to you. Which piece of information have they accessed? Which asset have they downloaded from your site?

Knowing this, you can have the solutions ready for them during your call, giving you an easy, effective conversation starter.

As we’ve already mentioned, social media can be a powerful tool in helping to research individual prospects.

It can also be used to gain insights by seeing what connected contacts in a shared industry are commenting on and engaging with. From this you are able to spectate and identify pain points. The knowledge you gain here can be valuable in helping you to build credibility.

Don’t limit yourself to LinkedIn – Twitter can be just as powerful. Another platform you may not have thought of is Clubhouse. Here, you can drop into live audio chats that often involve decision makers and their close networks.

In short, build and maintain an active presence within as many relevant networks as possible.

Thoroughly researching your prospect is key, but it’s only part of the battle.

Even if you have identified their issues and linked those to solutions your company offers, a conversation still needs to take place before the deal is made.

Instead of info dumping or getting caught in analysis paralysis, condense your notes, hitting key points while remaining an effective communicator. Be prepared, but not laser focused. Remember that there are other prospects in your pipeline, waiting to talk.

It doesn’t matter if you have all the skills – you also need a persistent mindset to succeed as an inside sales rep. 

Be determined and prepare to chase up prospects. Commit yourself to remain on their radar even if it leads to an eventual rejection. The average salesperson will reach out 6 to 8 times  – leverage every channel and make sure you are employing a multi-touch strategy.  

Although it’s important to be consistent, it’s just as important to realize that with every prospect there is a cut off point. This might be after 20 touches, or 30. Again, think about time management and understand you have other prospects in the pipeline. This cut off point should come naturally to you based on their BuyerDNA™️.

Accept the fact that prospects are hardened to cold calling. There’s a good chance they will have encountered cold emails pretending to be personalized, too.

Selling can be an inherently uncomfortable experience points out Zendesk’s Enterprise Account Executive, Lane Caruthers. However, in showing awareness of this and embracing the discomfort, you can become a better salesperson.

Think creatively when talking to prospects for the first time and make sure you succinctly explain the value proposition of your company. Be genuine in how you personalize communications.

Email continues to be one of the most powerful tools available to sales reps.

Even with the advent of instant messaging and video conferencing, it remains the primary method of communication for many of us operating in a business environment. In fact, 86% of business professionals prefer email over any other form of communication.

With inboxes barraged every day, how can you stand out? Be creative – get expressive with how you word and present your emails. Experian reports that 56% of brands who use emojis in their email subject lines had a higher open rate.

80-90% of a phone call is tone. As with any other form of communication, you need to be authentic in how you deliver your message.

This can be detected through your tone of voice. Remain neutral but not passive, assertive but not aggressive. It can be a tough balance though one that is ultimately learned through sales training. Focus on your value proposition and key selling points, avoid hesitation, and don’t be afraid to use a script.

Tone needs to be matched with energy. If you are not enthusiastic, then why should anyone else be?

It’s also important to listen to your prospect even if they interrupt or question your pitch. Develop your active listening skills as this is key to selling in all roles. Learn to listen and understand instead of simply listening to respond.

Even if you’ve spent ages researching your prospect and fine tuning your messaging, there’s always a chance that they’ll miss your call, email, or InMail. Here are some useful insights that could help you be more effective in timing your outreach.

For phone calls, a Salesmate study reveals that Wednesday is the best day to make sales calls, typically yielding the most successful call conversations. Unsurprisingly, Friday is the worst day to make sales calls. As for the time of day, phoning between 4PM and 5PM is best with 10AM and 11AM being similarly effective.

As for email, Hubspot have some insights to share that can help sales reps who are aiming to reach decision makers:
“ B2B emails for the average 8-5 office employee are best sent mid-week around 10AM. However, entrepreneurs and executives open email more frequently than the average employee, so day of the week matters less. The best time for these individuals based on open and click rates is on Saturday at 10 AM.”

Don’t take these statistics as gospel. Combine this data with your BuyerDNAs and other valuable insights you’ve learned about your prospects.

Connecting via LinkedIn is a great way of engaging with prospects though, as we’ve discussed, you’ll need to interact with them first before sending out an invite. Even once they’ve accepted, there’s a chance your InMail messages will get buried among dozens more.

Stand out from other sales reps and competitors by keeping on top of new and emerging methods of communication to help improve the effectiveness of your sales messaging.

Try LinkedIn video. This is one way of reaching out to prospects that is currently being underutilized – a LinkedIn voice or video can easily help by helping to diversify your existing touch pattern. When making a game plan, remember that video is the most captivating form of comms, followed by voice, then InMail.