Lead Generation For Dummies

Chapter 15

Creating the Final Touch with Inside Sales

In This Chapter

Combining your lead-generation efforts with sales follow-up

Prioritizing hot leads for sales outreach

Working with sales to outline the lead hand-off process to avoid a leaky sales funnel

Training your sales teams to deliver your marketing messages and content to leads

No lead can turn into a customer without the help of inside sales — they are your team on the front line and are often the first people to speak directly to a lead. What is an inside sales team? According to sales thought leader Ken Krogue, “Inside sales is remote sales, or sales in the cloud.” Many B2B companies with longer sales cycles have both inside sales teams who qualify leads and set appointments (sometimes called sales development reps, or SDRs), and account executives who engage in a relationship-based in-person sell. (This is sometimes called field sales because those folks are out in the field.) Why does this approach work? You want to qualify your leads before you actually start selling them a product, so your inside sales teams qualify ...