Inside Sale vs. Field Sale
"Inside Sales" refers to the process of "selling" while being "inside" a company. Traditionally, sales people have to travel to meet customers (coined as "field sales"). Yet with the increasing adoption of technology such as web marketing, online conference, it is possible to conduct a complete sale process without going anywhere.
Inside sale is much cheaper than field sales (i.e.: no fee for travel expenses) and more convenient to manage (i.e.: easier to manage workers when they stay inside a company). Yet, as humans tend to make decisions on emotions more than logic, field sales are still necessary as they are able to establish trust, rapport, and customer-facing support.
An ideal sale cycle would look like this:
- Marketing: Identify important clients through different channels (web marketing, events, etc.) and pass information to inside sales
- Inside Sale: Conduct the first conversation through phone or email, and hear information such as prospects' problems, challenges, etc. If a prospect wouldn't need a customized solution then inside sale could close a deal immediately, or else pass to field sales
- Field Sale: Meet up with customers and engage in more detailed conversations, follow up with proposals, etc.
Essentially, inside sale and field sale are the two processes that must come hand-in-hand.
Now let's dig in the latest trends in inside sales in Japan. Here are the notes that I took from the Inside Sales Conference. For details on each session and its panelists, please click on the Japanese title. (All sessions were conducted in Japanese)
Now let's dig in the latest trends in inside sales in Japan. Here are the notes that I took from the Inside Sales Conference. For details on each session and its panelists, please click on the Japanese title. (All sessions were conducted in Japanese)
AI（人工知能）でセールスの未来はどうなるか | What is the future of Sales with Artificial Intelligence
※How AI and innovation has been adopted in Japan
Adoption of innovation has always been in a top-down process: Big corporations --> SME --> Individual. Example: Big corporations were the first one that make webpages and now anyone could make a personal homepage.
※Difficulties of AI adoption
・Many people have a false impression that AI would work like magic and solve everything. It is important to highlight that this is not true.
・Big corporations are playing active roles in adopting new technologies. Many companies have built their own specialized departments for this purpose (dubbed as IT推進本部).
・Yet, big corporation will always require customization to fit their business needs, so a big number of engineers is required to meet this demand.
・Before development, it is important to define clearly purposes, problems, and solutions that AI could bring.
※How AI has changed the sale process in Japan
Sale process support has been offered in platform-based service, so AI can help to detect what works and what does not in a sale cycle.
急成長企業が実践するインサイドセールスとは | How have high-growing companies implement Inside Sales Strategies
※Common characteristics of successful inside sale
・People who can find the needs of customers and propose solutions
・People who have a "hospitality" and sale-driven mindset
・People who can broaden their business mindsets, who can work well with other functions such as Sales and Marketing
・People who could meet KPI
※How to build an Inside Sale Team
・Define a clear purpose "Why do we need an inside side team" and build an evaluation system and an education system that tailors inside sales
・Review and modify KPI goals frequently
※Manage members' motivations
・Conduct frequent surveys etc.
・Define a clear career-path: Members could choose to move to a senior inside sale position, a field-sale position or to other functions (marketing, etc.) if desired.
※Define KPI for Inside Sales
・Number of appointments with prospect customers
・Number of contacts made during networking events
・Number of useful information taken from phone/email conversations
・Feedback from customers
※Analyze lead quality
・Marketing team will analyze industry's overview, prospect's overview (sales, capital, number of employees, etc.)
・Inside Sales team will analyze existing problems of prospects and come up with solutions
・Marketing and Inside Sales will have a weekly report meeting to share information regarding particular prospects
※Difference between Telephone Marketing and Inside Sales
・Inside Sales focus on analyzing information and how to make use of collected information. They have to come up with solutions for an existing problem/challenges that a prospect may face.
・Telephone Marketing focuses on the number of appointments while Inside Sales could treat other piece of information as target, i.e.: email address
※When to outsource Inside-Sale Process to vendors
・Vendors will mainly deal with low-priority prospects, such as companies with no prior contact, companies that are in information collection stage, companies that exchange business cards at events, companies that are located in non-target areas
・Inside Sale will deal with high-priority prospects, i.e.: companies that demonstrate strong interests, Tier-1 companies, etc.
※Future of Inside Sales in the next 5 years
・Inside-sale function is being underestimated as a low-priority sale function for people who can't do "real" sales.
・Yet, with new technologies and AI, it is expected that inside sale will drive a bigger volume of sales in upcoming years.
・Inside Sales will perhaps be dubbed as "Digital Native Sales"
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