I don’t know about you I’ve been in Inside Sales for 18 years. I remember back when we were trying to figure out what to call it so we didn’t have to call it telemarketing
Founders: Dave Elkington & Ken Krogue Quota Marketing doing Lead-Gen for Toshiba, we tested 60 different scripts during that time. Do you know the one that worked the best? “Hi, I’m Ken with Toshiba, are you in the market for a copy machine in the next 6 weeks?” I started the original Inside Sales department at Franklin Quest in 1993, now FranklinCovey, when we were the 2 nd fastest growing small business in America and had no technology except the phone and faxing software. I helped found inContact, a leader in the hosted contact center space. Dave & I started InsideSales.com in 2004. I brought in the Dialer technology, Dave had just finished a fully hosted lead management CRM platform. We were the first company to blend a power dialer with a CRM platform. We became fast friends when we found we both hated telemarketing calls at dinner time. We wanted a new technology, primarily for professional salespeople who sell remotely. Nobody had built technology for Business-to-Business or B2B. and later higher end or bigger ticket B2C call centers found us and now we are the leading provider of inside sales technology in B2B and about 15 B2C vertical markets Pioneers of immediate response w/ Kellogg / MIT We took a different path. When everyone else zigs, we like to zag. Veterans like Bob and Larry, and industry consultants like Aneke, Trish, Josianne, Chip, Mike, and companies like Vorsight covering training & technique. We focused on system and platform,.
Telemarketing began in 1950’s with DialAmerica. By the 1970’s it was a common phrase, but by the 1990’s “tele” was a four letter word to most consumers because of the abusive tactics and the predictive dialer that pounded consumers unrelentlessly. The Do-Not-Call and abandoned call legislation finally put strong boundaries around the industry and predictive dialers but exempted B2B and non-profits. And of course the politicians exempted themselves from the laws also. The telephone and the dialer started the telemarketing industry Image – rotary dial to dialpad to (coming down from above)…
Image – rotary dial to dialpad to (coming down from above)…
But it was the internet and web conferencing that really put Inside Sales on the map - Pivotal - WebEx & GoToMeeting – Primarily because it became all about mimicking the face-to-face sales call remotely –
Professional salespeople selling remotely I love the fact that this association is called Inside Sales Professionals… Siebel simultaneously introduced the CRM solution in the early ‘90’s, and Salesforce reinvented the industry with Software-as-a-Service and on-demand CRM as the new millennium rolled in.
With a name like InsideSales.com, we get asked about trends a lot. We have followed Laura Ramos from Forrester, she played a key role in our research. We were sad to see her leave and go to Xerox at the end of March. She was ranked in the top 50 most influential marketers in the world by BtoBOnline Magazine. For 5 years she has surveyed the top methods of lead generation. It is exciting to see the top 3 represented right here today: InsideSales Executive Events Trade Shows
Where the: Phone meets the Web Google / Omniture / InsieSales.com / Salesforce
Where the: Phone meets the Web Google / Omniture / InsieSales.com / Salesforce
Where the: Phone meets the Web Google / Omniture / Salesforce <lead graphic> Marketing meets Sales In fact, the best use of individual marketing power tools are in the hands of the salespeople Marketing is like the Naval aviators or the Airforce that gives cover overhead. Leads Generation meets Lead Qualification Old School sales preaches to go for a “Yes” or “No” by disqualifying quickly so you don’t waste time. Inside Sales has learned to turn “No’s” into “Maybes” because Lead Nurturing technology takes no time at all and keeps the rep in touch until interest turns to need through education and building relationships remotely.
Technology is mission critical to Inside Sales the Gatling Gun was a disruptive technology that completely changed warfare The assembly line put Henry Ford on the map Power Tools disrupted hand saws, and hammers Robotics moved Japan and Korea to the front of auto-making Inside Sales reps are wrapped in technology like a pilot in a cockpit. Every control and button does something powerful It makes me think of Tony Stark, the Marvel Comics inventor of the IronMan suit that makes him superhuman
Inside Sales reps are wrapped in technology like a pilot in a cockpit. Every control and button does something powerful It makes me think of Tony Stark, the Marvel Comics inventor of the IronMan suit that makes him superhuman
The Ironman Paradigm Just like the Inside Sales generation, Tony Stark is young, he’s cocky, he’s fun, he’s innovative, he tests and researches,
he tests and researches, he’s comfortable with every aspect of technology. He wants a life after a day at the office. He wraps himself in technology to provide incredible leverage.
He wraps himself in technology to provide incredible leverage.
50 Dials a Day 350 Dials a Day Peter Ostrow is here at the show, an analyst from Aberdeen whose recent report about Inside Sales shows that the average rep makes 50 calls a day. Trish Bertuzzi’s study said Inside Sales reps make 42 calls a day, Lead Gen makes just over 50. Our in-house staff of lead generators and many of our clients average 350 calls a day, each! That is a 7x increase! 2/3 rd of Inside Sales organizations are still generalists, they take a sale from lead to close Our first landmark study by Dr. James Oldroyd from Kellogg found that those who broke the sales process into specialties have a significantly higher close ratio. A recent study that appeared in United Airlines Magazine from the United Travel Association that showed that the average close ratio of outside sales is 40%, inside sales is 16%. Our studies are a little higher at 18.5%, but the point is clear. Specialties like lead research, lead response, appointment setting, lead qualification, closing, implementing, supporting When Dave and I rolled to beta in 2004, I was still EVP at UCN, what is now inContact. We showed it to 5 companies and 3 of them bought it 1 was the PeopleWise Division of LexisNexis, but the deal was they wanted me to consult with them for 3 months. Their sales had been flat for 2 years. They were structured in 3 specialties Lead Gen Inside Sales Outside Sales I went in 2-3 mornings a week for 3 months. They wanted me to work with Outside Sales because they thought that was their leverage, I said “No” and worked with Lead Gen instead, because I know it’s all about the leads. They went from 20 calls a day and ½ a lead per day, to 170 calls a day and 6.5 leads a day in a few weeks. They had 3 consecutive record months and the outside team actually sent us an email asking us to slow down because they were getting too many leads. I watched everything they did and recorded the places they wasted time. We captured 10 time wasters, since then we have found 5 more for a total of 15 time wasters. Dave had the team build technologies that addressed 9 of the 15. Some were strategies or techniques, or good hiring. Others were voice mail, and note taking, and immediate response.
2/3 rd of Inside Sales organizations are still generalists, they take a sale from lead to close Our first landmark study by Dr. James Oldroyd from Kellogg found that those who broke the sales process into specialties have a seven points higher close ratio. A recent study that appeared on United Airlines from the United States Travel Association showed that the average close ratio of outside sales is 40%, inside sales is 16%. Our studies are a little higher at 18.5%, but the point is clear. Specialists like lead research, lead response, appointment setting, lead qualification, closing, implementing, supporting When Dave and I rolled to beta in 2004, I was still EVP at UCN, what is now inContact. We showed it to 5 companies and 3 of them bought it 1 was the PeopleWise Division of LexisNexis, but the deal was they wanted me to consult with them for 3 months. Their sales had been flat for 2 years. They were structured in 3 specialties Lead Gen Inside Sales Outside Sales I went in 2-3 mornings a week for 3 months. They wanted me to work with Outside Sales because they thought that was their leverage, I said “No” and worked with Lead Gen instead, because I know it’s all about the leads. They went from 20 calls a day and ½ a lead per day, to 170 calls a day and 6.5 leads a day in a few weeks. They had 3 consecutive record months and the outside team actually sent us an email asking us to slow down because they were getting too many leads. I watched everything they did and recorded the places they wasted time. We captured 10 time wasters, since then we have found 5 more for a total of 15 time wasters. Dave had the team build technologies that addressed 9 of the 15. Some were strategies or techniques, or good hiring. Others were voice mail, and note taking, and immediate response.
The 15 Time Wasters Strategy Hiring Management Motivation Finding Leads Immediate Response Persistent Response Dialing Voicemail Training Sales Process Lead Process Fulfillment Overhead Too Many Notes – OUA model Post Mortem Go to our site and get this paper
We partnered with MIT, SKKU, and infoUSA, the largest business lead and list provider in the world to do the largest survey of it’s kind. MIT surveyed 400,000 companies and found the following: Inside Sales is growing at 7.5% while Outside Sales is growing at .5%, almost stagnant THAT’S 15 TIMES HIGHER GROWTH RATE The new generation is being raised on inside sales, not outside sales statistically. The old, Tommy Boy approach of going face to face on a road trip is almost dead, and in many industries isn’t even attempted. The Hybrid Inside/Outside model is emerging also very rapidly Inside reps work on the phone until a large client requires face-to-face, then they fly out and travel. Many high-tech companies base their entire sales model on inside sales Marc Benioff revealed in his book Behind the Cloud that they built Salesforce on Telesales or Inside Sales for the first 6 years. Then they went to a hybrid, then they added meat-eating outside sales reps They did the same thing for every country/continent. They started with inside sales, then hybrid, then local outside reps…. Very smart, most effective
