“The Perfect Face” for Inside Sales

“Back in the day”, as TV encroached on the domain where Radio had been dominant, some Radio Stars were unsuccessful in their attempts to transition to become TV Stars. With some, it was said that this was because they had “the perfect face” for radio. In other words, some of those attractive voices didn’t have the eye appeal to match.


As the metamorphosis of Inside Sales has given it a more significant role in Selling, I’ve observed some similar phenomena, though in reverse. I’m not saying, if you’re not a great looking person, you shouldn’t consider Outside Sales and get on the phones right away. I’ve spent the great majority of my fairly successful Sales career in Outside Sales and I’m no Brad Pitt. What I am saying is that you can’t expect to take a good Outside Sales person, put them in an Inside Sales role and expect instant success.

Although I’d had previous involvement with Inside Sales, in its initial, supportive role for Outside Sales, my most significant experience in this arena came from the work I did in the Call Center of a premiere Direct Sales organization. This is where I first observed the phenomena mentioned above. My primary objective in this assignment was to assist this group, as it shifted its emphasis from transactional selling to more of a consultative approach. In doing that, I started by going through the classroom Sales training for new-hires. When it came time to role-play, some experienced “old hands” were brought in from the Call Center. I was matched with one of these “old hands” and I was a bit surprised at my level of discomfort, as I took on the role of the Inside Sales person. When it was the “old hand’s” turn, I noticed that the first thing he did was to roll his chair away from his workstation, put his elbows on his knees, rest his head in his hands and he stared at the floor … not at me, across the room. An “aha moment” for me! I realized that I had brought into that room a set of skills, that I’d honed over the years, that no longer applied because I was no longer able to visually connect with the Prospect.
My “aha moment” in the classroom ended up leading to the area where I was able to make the most significant strides, in developing the consultative selling abilities of this Direct Sales force. When I got to the Sales Floor of the Call Center, of course, I found that some of the Inside Sales people had previous successful experience as Outside Sales people. Within this group, I found that some were managing to succeed in their new environment, while others were “just getting by” and others were failing. The most significant difference I found in these groups had to do with my “aha moment”. Generally, here’s why:

The ones who were failing didn’t recognize why their previously successful approach wasn’t working and they had pretty much given up. With the ones who were “just getting by”, it seemed that they knew what wasn’t working for them anymore but they weren’t sure what to do about it and they were settling for what they could accomplish “in the transactional mode”. Those who were succeeding had become more consultative, in many cases unconsciously, through learning to replace their skills of visual observation with other techniques.

My approach, to start addressing this, was simple. Rather than emphasizing the sense of hearing over the sense of sight, I encouraged the sales people to focus all their senses on the human being who was calling in/being called. I would say, “You see that line of script lighting up on your PC monitor? That’s not just a stream of electrons, that’s a human being. And though they may not use these exact words, they are calling here for HELP! Your job is to learn, as completely as you can, what they need help with, that we can provide. Then, as thoroughly as you can, to communicate what we have to meet their needs and how it will meet their needs.” That turned out to be a great foundation for developing an effective consultative Inside Sales person.

For more on this, I recommend checking http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_May_13/ai_n25408211. How have you approached this? What successful methods do you use that you can help others with by sharing?

Comments
 
greg wease Says:


October 7, 2008 at 2:57 pm edit

Gary – great article.

It has been my experience in the technology and media sectors is that many outside sales reps are now required to allocate a certain percentage of their time in the role of an inside sales rep, especially with the advent of social media and on-line collaboration.

grwiram Says:


October 7, 2008 at 3:32 pm edit

Great point, Greg! In addition to these aspects of New Media Sales & Marketing, the current economy necessitates that a Sales Professional equips themselves to be more of a “Utility Player”. The days when Smilin’ ‘n’ Dialin’, for Prospecting, was as close as an Outside Sales person came to doing true Inside Sales work are as passe as the days of the “Smoke-Stacking” sort of Prospecing I mentioned in an earlier post – http://garywiram.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/the-tech-savvy-sales-organization/.

Nick Moreno Says:


October 17, 2008 at 11:35 am edit

Great article… thanks. The “sales foundation” for both inside and outside sales is to uncover a problem that you can “fix” with your product or service. It’s not about the product… it’s all about the solution.

Thanks again.

Nick

Vern Says:


November 7, 2008 at 9:44 am edit

I really liked your aha moment story because it shows a level of awareness that’s not available for many folks, as is clear by the story of what happened to other outside sales people when moved to the phones. I’d suggest that with such awareness, you may want to start a telesales consulting business of your own.