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Education
StreetSmarts SM
The emerging inside/outside sales hybrid
By Dee and Emily Karawadra nicating with prospective customers ‒ without leaving
Impact PaySystem the office. These methods have proven to be highly effec-
tive in building relationships and supporting merchants
n the payments industry, most ISOs and merchant remotely.
level salespeople (MLSs) now use a mix of inside
and outside sales teams due to a shift in merchant Customer acquisition costs have influenced the evolu-
I acquisition practices from in-person cold calling to tion of inside sales teams. As ISOs and MLSs have ex-
phone sales and digital media campaigns. In this article plored alternative ways to reach new merchants, they've
Dee and Emily share their perspectives on this phenom- also weighed the associated costs. It's no surprise they've
enon. deemed the operational costs of supporting inside sales
teams to be far less than supporting traditional outside
From Emily sales teams, which require mileage and entertainment ex-
penses to be paid along with benefits and commissions.
New selling avenues hastened a drastic change in the
sales landscape roughly 10 years ago when outside sales Generally, outside sales representatives earn 12 to 18 per-
teams started transitioning into inside sales teams due to cent more than inside sales representatives. The top sal-
the high costs of supporting the outside sales model. ary for field representative is $65,000 a year, compared
with their inside counterparts' top salary of $50,000. From
Today, inside sales is nothing like the automated a cost perspective, it is understandable why inside sales is
telemarketing and appointment setting of old. Now, becoming a favored business model.
inside sales professionals are often referred to as "remote"
or "virtual" salespeople who directly interact with According to SalesLoft.com, use of inside sales is grow-
customers. According to Investopedia.com, "An inside ing 15 times faster than use of outside sales, mostly due
sale is the sale of products or services by personnel who to convenience. The site reflects a 7.5 percent increase in
reach customers through phone, email or the Internet." annual inside sales team growth, versus only a 5 percent
growth rate for outside sales.
The Internet and social media platforms opened new ways
of doing business and revealed new methods for commu- As companies consider how to transition outside teams
to the inside, lines between the two have begun to blur.
Consequently, a new sales arm is emerging, which is a
The merchants we're able to hybrid of the two.
make relationships with are Insidesales.com, in partnership with the American As-
the merchants we keep even sociation of Inside Sales Professionals, Top Sales World
and the Association of Professional Sales, compiled and
after their contracts expire. reported sales statistics for 2017. According to the study,
face-to-face/field sales comprised 71.2 percent of the over-
all sales force; remote/inside sales accounted for 28.8 per-
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