Developing an Inside Sales Program

As is always the case, distribution topics seem to come in waves. It seems as if a topic comes into my circle of influence and repeats for about 90 days. Or perhaps it seems that way because I become more aware of the topic and tend to hear it throughout my daily interactions with clients, guests and colleagues.

This quarter, I am more aware of the importance of inside sales programs in the distribution space. For those of you who have been around me for a number of years, you will often hear me talk about this role, or team, being equal to field sales programs. Unfortunately, this has not been a popular opinion for much of my distribution career, but a kid can still hope.

Let’s look at the numbers. From a seated position inside the office, the average internal salesperson can touch at least 30 customers daily versus the field salesperson averaging about 10 meaningful customer interactions. And I may be a little light on the number of customers an internal salesperson can reach with the aid of modern technology.

I should also note that “inside the office” may be an expression of the past. An inside sales team may be partially or fully remote. The environment is rapidly changing.

This topic came up in a recent interview I was doing with my friend Gui Messina, executive director of HARDI Mexico. Gui and I talked about the differences in distribution sales between Latin American and North American wholesale distributors.

One of the myths he is trying to crush in the Latin market is “quoting is selling.” We both agreed that this is still a problem in the North American market, but to a lesser degree. This led us to a discussion about how strong North American wholesalers in the HVACR space have dramatically enhanced their revenue by developing robust inside sales programs.

A further benefit of these programs was the ability to be flexible with sales direction. The inside salesperson can be hyper-focused on a product or category, or the strategy might be to become more diverse in the categories offered to the customer base. A well-trained inside person can move between strategies daily; field sales associates often have difficulty switching directions quickly or moving between strategies.

Driving New Revenue

The mission of this inside sales team is to make outbound contact with customers to drive new revenue. I want to clarify this because inside sales is often considered an inbound customer service function with some opportunity for add-on selling. We all know that adding lines to an incoming order can become a struggle in the heat of battle. The program I am advocating is a more deliberate hunting for sales versus an opportunistic add-on sale.

If I were starting a team in my company, I would begin by identifying an individual with solid customer service experience, an interest in discovering new revenue opportunities, and a comfort level with variable compensation methods. One way to identify candidates might be to come up with a simple outbound calling program with your existing customer service team; I often suggest this to clients.

Ask the associates to make six to 10 outbound calls a day to dormant accounts. Let’s face it, we all have a ridiculous list of past customers who have not placed an order in the past 12 months. Many of them have existing lines of credit with us. For one reason or another, we are not getting that business.

Start by generating a list of dormant accounts and divide up the list among the internal associates. Rather than throwing them to the wolves, I will help by creating a script and a list of questions to help them get comfortable with the initial contact.

In the initial script, I am not trying to sell anything. I am directing the associate to determine if the company is still in business, if the customer is aware they have an open line of credit with us, and if we have accurate contact information for accounting and purchasing decision-makers.

During this phase, we are teaching our associates how to make outbound contact and doing a little customer database cleaning at the same time. I would gather the team each week to let them talk about their interactions. What worked? Where were the challenges? Let them laugh about the particularly difficult individuals they encountered and how to move past those interactions. During these meetings, you will begin to see who is energized by these calls and who is not suited for this role.

I should also note that we need to have some place to deposit the information they are gathering. This would be a great time to use the customer relationship management (CRM) built into your existing distribution software or an external CRM currently used by your field sales force.

一两个月之后,我将介绍几个questions into the script: Where do you usually buy your products? What do you like about those suppliers? Are there any products you have a difficult time obtaining? This is teaching basic information-gathering and listening to customer pain points.

Dormant Categories

By this time, the candidates may have started developing some simple relationships. If this is happening, introduce some specific category campaigns. Just as we have dormant customers, we also have dormant product categories.

Years ago, I helped a concrete supply house develop a campaign to drive ladder sales into the customer base. Clearly, they were not known for stocking and selling ladders, but all it took to double their revenue in the category was a focused campaign driven primarily by inside personnel.

As the creme rises to the top, I would split off those candidates who are beginning to thrive in this new outbound calling environment. Keep them fed with both dormant and house accounts. Remember, most low-performing accounts can be improved with a little attention. They simply don’t know what your company can offer.

I am always reminded of the simple axiom; you never get the opportunity to showcase your service without securing the first sale. As your new candidates begin to drive revenue, introduce them to technology solutions, such as email marketing techniques or outbound text communication. The sky is the limit here.

Before I leave you, I want to share a cautionary tale. At least 25 years ago, my family distributorship embarked on a similar campaign to create a telesales program. Yes, that’s what we called it back then, but the concept was the same. One female sales associate thrived in the position through fearless smiling and dialing.

指导她每月flye客户群r we mailed out, she developed a nice little account base producing almost $40,000 in gross margin per month. Not bad for an inside program. Her revenue was seeing steady growth with tremendous potential. So after a few months of success, what did we do?

In our infinite wisdom, we decided to give her a car and an outside sales territory. It was what we knew, but we failed to recognize the opportunity for her to create a whole new sales team based on the telesales model.

I share this with you because I don’t want you to repeat our mistake. If you develop a rockstar in this new program, let her create a team of rockstars. Mine your existing customer base and don’t fall into old patterns. If you need help getting started, my door is figuratively open.