David needed only a slingshot to down Goliath.
So one can say, right solutions in the hands of adept inside sales reps can change a sale team’s fortunes. Agile inside sales teams are a result of best in class training and sales management. Thus, work and productivity apps are a big part of a successful sales team.
Assuming that you have an inside sales team in place, let’s look at the basic apps that are needed to get the ball rolling in the right direction (especially for B2B businesses). It would be the best decision to set up the base right from the start as you move ahead multiple changes only add up to the overheads and loss of time. Following are the ‘6 tech solutions to streamline your inside sales team’.
1. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)
CRM is a must-have for an inside sales team, but many companies are still stuck to Excel Sheets. These organizations keep multiple excels to house inside sales information. So my question is, how many excels will you keep without clogging your brain?
Can using excel help you to keep lean call logs, tasks boards, calendars or call response triggers etc. Even if you are audacious to record all that, taking a look back at these is a huge task in itself.
Alternative:
You can always go for a Freemium CRM like Zoho, Sugar CRM, HubSpot CRM Insightly etc. These will make your inside sales team’s effort streamlined. Upload all existing and new prospect lists to a CRM. Create user-specific views for inside sales reps. This helps in setting the ownership and sharing of records which are ready to be called.
CRM helps you to set up sales dashboards that reflect key sales performance indicators. Like the number of calls made, call types, leads generated, pipeline status etc. This not only reduces the time take in report consolidation but also helps in keeping a track of individuals, teams and organizations performance.
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The main thing to consider while opting for a CRM is that when you move from a free to a paid solution – will it fit your budget? Also, see if the solution possesses all the features that you might need in the next 3 years. Some points to consider are:
- Integration with 3rd part tools
- Email Campaigns
- Reports and Dashboards
- Level of customization (least should be needed, but the system should be flexible)
- The software’s page load time – remember the fact that Marketing & Sales folks will be using this continuously, speed is an important factor. Heavy CRM systems do have the tendency to demotivate sales reps.
- Cost/User/Month: per user pricing is way better than contact record pricing.
Zoho CRM is the front runner in the SMB space because of its feature sets and simple pricing (starts at USD10/user/month). Also, ZOHO has a suite of productivity solutions that seamlessly integrate with their CRM. This suite is more like a pick, pay, and use. With a single sign up, each user has access to the free version of all the solutions in the ZOHO suite. But integration with 3rd party apps is still a concern.
Other recent entrants such as Hubspot CRM, which first revolutionized the marketing automation market and then realized the need for a CRM (still the fact remains a CRM is a CRM) and then there is Insightly which is also gaining momentum in the market due to its pricing, 3rd party integrations, and feature set.
2. Marketing Automation Platform
Here, the most vital questions to be answered are –
Do you plan to have an ‘inside sale only’ marketing mix?
Or
Do you plan to have a multiple channel marketing program that is (pay per click search marketing, social media advertising, search engine marketing, email marketing, landing pages, forms and more?
Or
Do you need lead scoring, user behavior tracking, and drip campaigns in place for better lead management?
If you plan to use such a multi-pronged strategy, then a marketing automation platform should be in your priority list. Marketing Automation Solutions if implemented from early stages can help businesses manage leads in a better way and have better control over the marketing programs.
While discussing the same, another common query is if a company requires both; a CRM and Marketing Automation System or jus either one of it.
To answer the same; this totally depends on the type of business and kind of marketing operations opted in the company. If feature sets of both are required either for a single solution which can complement both sides such as Hubspot, Leadsquared, and Infusionsoft or if both are from different vendors, make sure they have a tight integration.
Alternative:
If the organization is using only email marketing and cold calling to get new clients, a Marketing Automation Platform becomes an overkill. So one can manage with a quality CRM and a good email marketing solution like Mail Chimp, Vertical Response or the like.
3. Telephony Infrastructure (NonDialer based)
Inside sales involves dialing and talking to people 90% of the time so it becomes important to make the process as seamless as possible. The more the number of dials -> better number of interactions -> leading to more leads and conversions.
In the old world order inside sales people used fixed line phones or hard phones. These are basically very difficult to manage for instance; you need to manually key in the dials.
Also, hard phones are the additional expense to the business and also affects the productivity of the inside sales team. For B2B businesses, a dialer-based solution would only make each and every call as cold as it can get.
In this competitive business environment, it is important for the salesperson to gather as much information as possible about the prospect before the dial. In a dialer based environment, it is more like a call center wherein a number of calls dialed are given prominence.
So, what can be done about this?
Softphones, which use VOIP (voice over internet protocol) or latest technologies like WebRTC are the answer, cloud telephony service providers such as Vonage and Ring Central provide both desktop and mobile apps. These are new age apps with a cloud-based support infrastructure that allows the team to be agiler and device independent.
Most of the cloud telephony providers have integration with leading CRMs making it possible to dial from within the CRM, with automatic call logs and recordings.
Alternative:
Skype Messenger is a worthwhile add-on to your inside sales team’s toolkit. It is a flexible application with a built-in messenger and video streaming support.
Just recharge to get a number and select a plan and get going. Though it doesn’t have call record and CRM integration and other feature sets like the cloud telephony providers, you could install 3rd party application for call recording. But this isn’t as reliable as one may wish for. You can use Skype click to dial plugin to achieve direct dial feature.
Also, Skype Manger gives you the ability to manage multiple Skype accounts, recharge accounts or numbers, and manage to bill. This is specifically built for businesses that want to use Skype for their communications.
Recently launched Skype web version has removed the dependency on Skype app install and has added features like conference invites via URL. More features are on the way so keep an eye since this might be a game changer.
We Suggest:
For a small business use SKYPE and keep it simple! Else if needs are for the enterprise app then definitely go for a cloud telephony provider.
4. Data Platform Access
For a small or medium business, the greatest hurdle must be to get quality prospect list (B2B) for your inside sales team. The best solution would be to have an in-house data building/market research team. 3rd party B2B database helps the in-house data team or sales reps to expeditiously fine tune data based on special filters. Especially for B2B businesses, 3rd party source can provide contacts that are verified and not easily available on the Internet, they also provide information such as the direct number that are a real value add.
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Subscriptions to data platforms like Zoom Info, data.com, Hoovers and discover.org would add value to your inside sales efforts. But these data sources are pretty expensive and might be heavy for Startups and small enterprises (can cost up to USD2000/Month). The standard plans also pose limitations on searches and exports.
A note of caution, though; bulk B2B list sellers are a big ‘Nay!’ because of the quality of the list would be inferior most of the time. This takes up the in-house team’s time to re-run and clean the list to qualify leads and fix flaws.
Alternative:
LinkedIn is a good source for businesses and contacts and offers plans specifically for sales teams. A couple of premium accounts will definitely be handy for data building and inside sales team.
HubSpot’s paid version comes with contact data mining feature, which lets you add a user or company from the web by just typing it inside the search bar in the CRM. This is just an add-on feature; this can’t really substitute a data team.
Legion Analytics also provides a viable alternative but it doesn’t provide masses of data, it helps in seeking ideal customers.
5. Conference Bridges
If you are selling a product/service that requires multiple cycles of assessments to sell or running a corporate presentation is part of your call, then a cloud-based Conference Bridge with screen sharing and telephony dial-in feature is a necessity for your sales team.
One important factor to look for is voice and sharing quality of the providers while shortlisting. And also the availability of local dial-in feature for target demography.
We Suggest:
Uber conference and Go to Meeting are great tools that Startups and small businesses can use. As mentioned earlier, Skype can also be an alternative, with its new web version and conferencing features.
6. Email Client
An inside sales team should have a dedicated email client (desktop) as sending emails will be the second major task after tele-prospecting. While on a cold call sales reps need to send – emails, assign tasks, setup meeting invites or manage calendar etc. The default web clients that are provided by the email service provider are generally clumsy (you can typically make out the difference from the emails received) and menace to handle. To ease work and improve productivity a desktop email client is a must.
We Suggest:
Nothing can beat Outlook, but then you have the licensing cost involved. Alternatively, Thunder Bird is a great free email client that startups and small business can use. This works on both windows and Mac and integrates with all POP3/IMAP email settings. People who are habituated to outlook might find onboarding thunderbird a bit difficult and might tend to crib.
If you want to chuck an email client from the picture and are ready to move to a new email service provider, then Google mail for enterprise could be the answer. Almost everyone has a Gmail account and are used to the interface. Also, the email deliverability will never be an issue, not from Google servers.
P.S – Before selecting inside sales toolkit, companies need to undertake a phased planning which involves forecasting current and future business needs, budgetary considerations etc. Also frequent changes to setup the tools cause unnecessary delays and additional overheads. It’s a good idea to plan as much for the future from the beginning.
To know how businesses like you can set up inside sales toolkit, please contact us @ http://www.businessmojos.com/#contact-us
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