Sales Development and Inside Sales Definitions

Sales Development and Inside Sales Definitions

For many people the terms Sales Development  and Inside Sales can have very different and varied meanings.  The definitions can often be interchangeable and are therefore very confusing.

I will briefly explain here the main definitions and try to give them some context.

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales   and    Inside Sales vs. Telemarketing

The simple definition is that an Inside Sales representative is someone who is acting as a salesman from the comfort of an office or home office as opposed to a field or outside rep who traditionally travels to his clients’ location.

In synch with what I just described I recently found out that the official dictionary definition is:

“Individuals who sell by phone and normally do not leave the office.”

Ken Krogue has a very good article on this subject and simply starts it off by saying:

“The most pragmatic definition of Inside Sales is simple: inside sales is remote sales.”

According to this same article, it is often said that the term Inside Sales was originally coined in order to differentiate itself as being a professional business-to-business (B2B) selling practice as opposed to ‘telemarketing’ which is a business-to-consumer (B2C) practice of calling everyone once with the aim of closing the deal in one go with a fixed script.

Ken Krogue goes on to say that by the late 1990’s Inside Sales was used to differentiate itself from outside sales and has been made possible by the invention of video /  conferencing thus allowing sales reps to share their screens and demo products to prospects without the expensive requirement of travelling to their location.

Sales Development = Inside Sales – Lead Qualification

This form of Inside Sales (Sales Development) refers to a rep whose primary aim is to qualify ‘sales ready’ leads (inbound or outbound) and formally hand them over to a more senior and experienced sales rep who specializes in closing deals. The advantage of this ‘slice and dice’ system is that each rep focuses on his main skills whether that be:  lead generation, qualification, sales development, deal closing, or account management. Many (non SaaS solution) technology companies have adopted this system, thus allowing them to hire more junior (& cheaper) lead qualification reps to learn their trade whilst working on the beginning of the sales cycle and searching for the ‘good’ leads; This, therefore, permits the more senior (& more expensive) sales reps to focus their attention on the qualified leads that are ready to enter a higher level of discussions and usually already interested in receiving a demo and hearing more about pricing.

These lead qualification experts can be called Inside Sales reps, Business Development reps, Sales Development reps or Internal Sales reps. All of these ultimately refer to the same job description as described above.

My blog will focus on this section of the sales cycle and I will use the term Sales Development.

Hybrid Inside Sales

The hybrid model of Inside Sales/Sales Development is very popular nowadays, and is particularly common in technology hubs such as Silicone Valley or Israel as it suits the SaaS model of selling remotely and selling via monthly recurring revenue streams. This new definition of Inside Sales refers to a sales rep who is involved in the entire sales cycle from start-to -finish via the phone, screen sharing & video conferencing technologies; but may from time to time travel to visit a prospect or customer.  According to many people this method seeks to get the best from all worlds.

In my opinion there is no one model that is better than the rest. It is truly a case of finding which model matched your specific requirements.

In conclusion it is important to mention that according to The Bridge Group, Inside Sales & Sales Development are the fastest growing careers with year on year increase in new jobs created & career demand of 54%.

It is easy to understand why Inside Sales and Sales Development are becoming so popular when we consider that they benefit both the company and the individual. Organizations are turning to this model because it is a pure form of professional sales with the added benefit of saving companies time & money on travel expenses. Job seekers are also now choosing this new career path as they see long term growth and increasing demand for their skill sets within today’s modern and evolving market.