Inbound Organization

Chapter 20Inbound Selling

Inbound selling takes the inbound philosophy and integrates it into a modern sales process to deliver a superior buying experience. Inbound salespeople are respectful, friendly, and human, and focus on helping first. They listen to buyer feedback, make thoughtful recommendations, and leverage strategic content to provide the right information at the right time. They are careful to move at the buyer's pace and look to create a long-term relationship with good fit customers.

Two key ideas define inbound selling: (1) inbound sales teams base their entire strategy on coordinating the buyer journey, and (2) inbound sales teams deliver information in the buyer's context and personalize the whole sales experience, rather than running the same sales process for everyone.

Table 20.1 shows some of the significant differences between traditional sales and inbound sales.

Table 20.1 Differences between Sales Techniques

Traditional	Inbound Sales
Sells to all companies	Works primarily with the ideal buyer profile
Sells to everybody	Works primarily with targeted buyer personas
Calls all leads	Prioritizes leads that are close to the Consideration and Decision stages
Asks questions about research history	Reviews lead intelligence, lead notifications, and previous contact history based on available data
Calls and leaves one message—sends one email to get in touch	Creates value-added outreach and engages multiple times to make a connection
Treats all prospects ...