(Accelerate Business) How it works: Sales development, inside sales + prospecting
Inside sales and sales prospecting are essential parts of any business. These departments can be the key to your success if you know how to hire them from the right sources.
This article is specifically about what sales development, inside sales, and prospecting are. We’ve also included a few pointers on where these roles overlap with each other and some of the success stories of people who have excelled at them.
- Sales Development
- Inside Sales
- Prospecting
- How to grow your sales team
- Virtual assistants for sales development
Sales development
Definition
The role of sales development is to find companies who may be interested in our product or service. This can be done by cold calling, emailing, sending a postcard, and even attending trade shows, conferences and meetings.
One might think that sales development is a simple job. But in reality, it’s not. Selling your product over the phone can sometimes be extremely difficult as most people don’t hold their calls very well on the phone, which makes this job tense and nerve-wracking; especially if the business you are calling is huge or something big that may affect your project in one way or another.
But what if the business you are calling is actually interested in your product? Well, then you would need to build a relationship with them. You would need to tell them more about your product and services, the value it offers, and what it can do for their company.
Once they are interested in your product, you would have to introduce them to someone who can actually close the deal on your end, such as a salesperson or a business development manager.
Famous sales development professionals:
- Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
- Louis Grenier, Everyone Hates Marketers
- Daniel Ramsey, MyOutDesk
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Inside Sales
Definition
The role of the inside sales is to book appointments with leads over the phone. This requires you to have a very friendly and optimistic voice that can directly influence the potential customer in a positive way. Inside sales usually require a lot of communication with various departments inside their companies.
The inside sales usually work from a customer relationship management platform or CRM. However, you can also find them in various different departments inside of their companies such as the technical support or even a marketing department.
Opportunities: Inside sales often talk and communicate with other departments inside of their companies which makes it easy for them to introduce customers to other departments inside of their company. They may also possess certain skills that would allow them to influence certain departments to make more sales for the company, such as finance and development.
Because they have access to more information than other people who work outside of their company, they can easily pitch products or services that are related to the department they are talking about over the phone.
Famous inside sales professionals:
- Dave Ramsey, Ramsey Solutions
- Dave Elkington, InsideSales.com
Prospecting
Definition
The role of a prospect is to find customers that may be interested in buying our product or service. This can be done by cold calling, emailing, sending a postcard, and even attending trade shows, conferences and meetings.
We’ve been taught from an early age that it’s best to stay away from strangers and to only talk to people you know rather than strangers. In a perfect world, this would be true. But in real life, we make mistakes and it’s important that business owners learn from our mistakes rather than learn from the mistakes of others.
This is why developing relationships with people before you approach them is of utmost importance for any type of sales job. People you go to school with can introduce new clients to you which may soon lead to new opportunities for your business not only through that relationship but also through that person’s friends and family members as well.
Communicating in writing is effective because you can show people how enthusiastic you are about your product or service while also setting expectations regarding what your product or service was made for and what their needs are.
Every sales job has a different degree of prospecting that needs to take place. Some jobs might require a lot of prospective calls or emails while others might require the customer to do it. Prospecting is an art all in itself and takes years to perfect.
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How to develop your sales team
#1: Set a process and stick to it.
Prospecting is a continuous process and the more you can stick to your plan, the better your results will be in the long run. As I mentioned above, an email is the most effective way to communicate for a sales job.
You just have to make sure that your prospecting process is set up properly and that you don’t get sucked into the trap of spending too much time on one person.
If you’re sending out hundreds of emails and only getting one response, then you must think about how you can improve your process so that more people respond.
#2: Have a clear target market for new prospects.
Think about who your ideal customer is and write it down on paper. Are you looking for older women, young girls, middle-aged professionals? Write down as much as you can about your target demographic. If you need some help with this check out this article here.
#3: Tie your dream into some larger ambition.
A lot of people who are starting a business have dreams of quitting their day job and using their business to retire early or travel more. When I started my first business I was single and living with my parents, but I knew that having an online business would allow me to build some financial independence for the future.
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How virtual assistants can help in sales development
Virtual assistants can manage day-to-day tasks that don’t require specialized knowledge or experience. This allows the sales team more time for their primary responsibilities. They can fill in the gaps of the team and help to make sure that all the details are covered.
MyOutDesk offers relentless talent matching for career-oriented virtual assistants — with proven track records & digital expertise — at up to 70% less than the cost of a traditional employee. Add a new hire to your team — without the headaches of payroll, taxes, insurance, retirement, office & equipment costs.
Calls:
Virtual assistants can conduct research for calls or appointments, making it easier to answer specific questions that prospects may have. They should have experience with customer service call Scripts and be able to create presentations for each call. Virtual assistants can schedule calls using online scheduling tools, such as Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar. They should be able to handle appointments with prospects via email or phone. This includes reminding them of upcoming meetings, sending directions and parking information, and organizing files that need to be reviewed ahead of time. Virtual assistants can also help in organizing and managing documents that need to be reviewed or sent to prospects during the sales development process.
Presentations:
Virtual assistants can help with the organization of presentations. This includes scheduling, sending reminders, and helping with collecting information from the prospect via phone calls or e-mails. Virtual assistants can also maintain the database, or CRM, that will be used for reference during calls.
Other factors:
Companies that want to outsource their sales development team can save time and money by hiring a virtual assistant. Sales development professionals can focus on creating sales for the business while outsourcing the other details to this team member. Virtual assistants can create calls or appointments automatically, saving valuable time. They also have experience with researching useful information online. They would be able to provide research that would be relevant to the conversation during a call or appointment.
- Persuasive
- Persistent
- Excellent communicator and listener
- Good at reading/understanding people
- Prospects on a regular basis
A virtual assistant working with SDRs will make calls and send emails to prospects. This can include sending emails to companies directly and making calls to decision-makers when necessary. This person should also be able to confirm appointments via phone or email and manage appointment schedules for follow-up purposes. It is also important for this person to be able to track contacts through a CRM system like Salesforce. So, they can provide updates on the current status of sales leads when needed.
So, you should be asking yourself if virtual assistants can help you grow your business & team.
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