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I had several companies ask us over the last couple of weeks what inside sales actually is and how it can help their organization. I often respond by telling them:

Inside sales is where the customer comes to you. They can email, call or fill in a form on your website. Inside sales is responsible for the initial interaction and nurturing of a lead for the rest of the sales team. Many companies choose inside sales as their lead distribution point for the rest of the sales team. Often times once a lead is warmed-up, the lead is handed off to their outside sales force to try close close the lead and turn them into a customer. This process is often further refined and can vary significantly within many organizations.

The opposite of an inside sales person would then be considered the outside sales person. This often involves the salesperson traveling to the potential customer or account in order to make sale. Often, this individual is good at closing the sale and has experience with dealing with resolving objections within the sales process. However, once again, this roles and responsibilities may be mixed a bit between inside and outsides sales persons depending upon the organization.

An inside sales person can be instrumental to enabling the outside sales force to focus on closing leads and not having to constantly warm-up leads. Everyone knows that cold calling, emailing, etc. and following up on inbound sales requests can be a very time consuming process. Generally, it is best to assign this role to be specifically management by one or more individuals in the organization. The inside sales person(s) should be following up with potential leads at regular intervals and provided with the latest technology to make them more efficient. Some of these tools include centralized calendaring to assign leads to the outside sales force, lead reports to identify campaigns that are effective and call/email logs to replay potential lead history for the outside sales team. Providing your inside sales force with the right tools can make all of the difference in a pleasurable sales experience for your potential customers.

What about the right tools for managing the inside sales and outside sales teams? If you are a sales person inside of a company or even an executive running a business, you would be hard pressed to be successful within today's environment without the appropriate tools for your inside sales and outside sales team. This includes the lead lists, appointment calendars and lead tracking systems the keep a company running smoothly enough to follow up with their potential customers. Most systems that provide these types of features are called CRMs or Customer Relationship Management packages.

There are numerous CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools available on the Internet today ranging from free to commercial. The right solution for your organization really depends on the reporting tools and capabilities that match your environment. In the end, one package will not fit every business. A company that is new to CRM systems should always plan on investing a significant amount of time in tuning and configure the CRM to meet their business' needs. In the end, it is often worth hiring someone to consult on CRM package that you choose in order to make the most of the "technology".

In the end, the structure of the sales team (either inside or outside) really depends on the type of business and the structure of the sales cycle. This can vary from organization to organization and should be re-evaluated each quarter to identify both strengths and weaknesses.