6 important insights every inside sales team should know
You’re using a top inside sales CRM. You’re prospecting and qualifying leads with LinkedIn. You’ve read every ebook, guide, blog post, and infographic about inside sales that you can get your hands on.
But for some reason, you’re still finding the process of turning a lead into a customer to be grueling and uninspiring. Your emails aren’t getting responses. Your follow-ups are falling flat. You’re even pondering whether you need to start touching up your resume for a new job entirely.
What gives?
Well, there are plenty of things that could be slowing down your inside sales team:
- You’re selling a product that isn’t ready for the market
- You’re selling too early instead of nurturing a lead
- You’re not focusing on the customer
- You’re in a saturated market
- You’re selling a product with a bad reputation
- You’re in a very price-sensitive market
- You’re selling something that is no longer wanted
And the list could go on…
But the great thing about inside sales is this: Whatever is holding your team back might not be a big issue at all. In fact, it’s very likely that you just need an insight or two to get back on track.
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Here are six of the most interesting—and powerful—inside sales insights that you can use to drive results.
You’re competing with 100 other emails each day
The great thing about technology is that you can reach nearly anyone. The bad thing about technology is that everyone else can reach nearly anyone, too. Consider what this means for your buyer’s inbox:
An average buyer gets 100+ emails a day, opens just 23%, and clicks on just 2% of them. [Source: Tellwise] #salesfacts
- Colin Longren (@ColinLongren)
Your buyer’s inbox is filled with emails from other sales professionals, colleagues, managers, and more—clearly, you have to stand out. That’s why it’s so important to create subject lines that are more likely to be opened:
New hires are itching to buy products & services
According to DiscoverOrg, 80% of decision-makers who spend at least $1 million on new initiatives do so in their first 90 days. Thus, it’s important to establish a system for tracking the movement of current connections and potential prospects.
One of the best LinkedIn sales hacks is using Sales Navigator to notify you when specific leads change their job titles or move to a new company.
The ideal email length is 50–125 words
According to recent research, emails of 50–125 words yielded response rates at or above 50%. This makes sense, as more buyers are reading their emails on the go. Keep your emails short (but not too short) and sweet, quickly communicating your key points and making a request if necessary.
Related: Five short email templates that you can steal
When selling to large companies, you’re not selling to one person
Account-based sales are all the rage for a reason.
According to Gartner, in a firm with 100–500 employees, an average of seven people are involved in most buying decisions. That’s seven people who need to believe in the story you’re telling and the idea that you can solve a problem. That’s why it’s so important to keep your company's name and story in the eyes of your prospects as much as possible. You want to build an army of internal champions.
Staying top-of-mind with an entire account can be done by adding different people who work at the target company as connections on LinkedIn. Another great way to stay top-of-mind is to take advantage of LinkedIn’s online advertising suite. From sponsored posts to sponsored InMail, there are plenty of opportunities to leverage LinkedIn to stay top-of-mind.
Most inside sales reps struggle with lead quantity & quality
Over the last few years, the folks at InsideSales.com have been surveying inside sales reps to better understand their challenges. While other challenges have risen and fallen in the eyes of reps, year after year, the challenge at the top of the list is lead quantity and quality:
This information is important because it means you’re not alone.
If you’re struggling with the quality of the leads coming in the door, recognize that this is an issue many reps struggle with. It’s on you to help marketing deliver higher quality leads or to better understand the leads you do have so that you can sell them on how your product or service can solve their problem. The relationship between the sales and marketing department needs to be constantly nurtured, and each needs to understand what the other is dealing with.
The best inside sales teams make a commitment to training
The more you learn, the more you earn.
It’s a simple concept, but so true. The best inside sales teams don’t spend all their time sending emails and leaving voicemails. The best inside sales teams also invest heavily in their professional growth.
CSO Insights recently released a report on the relationship between sales coaching and sales reps achieving quota. The study found that at companies where salespeople felt their management’s coaching skills exceeded expectations, 5% more sales reps achieved quota than at companies where coaching skills simply met expectations, and 10% more achieved quota than at companies where the coaching skills needed improvement.
That’s why it’s so important to invest in education long-term.
Whether it’s seeking out a coach or simply signing up for a sales course, investing time and resources into sharpening your sales skills will help your team close more deals in the long run.
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