Ignoring your outside sales strategy is like throwing your wallet inside your own car and setting fire to it. For many, having an outside sales strategy is crucial to expanding and sustaining a business. The additional revenue you could gain makes outside sales totally worth it.
Why? Because it allows you to reach the same market and provide the same products. You can sell the same service to a much larger number of people. For some companies, outside sales can be as important as inside sales.
Here at Selling Revolution, our expert staff answer questions about improving outside sales nearly every day. This is why our article is perfect for you.
We’ll show you 7 Effective Outside Sales Strategy Tips that are designed to boost your business game. We’ll also show you the key difference between inside and outside sales strategies. Let’s get started.
What is “Outside Sales”?
If you want to add another dimension to your sales game, you need to take outside sales seriously. This is because people are far more likely to trust someone they believe has a personal connection with them. Outside salespeople often go out to meet their prospects and customers personally.
Outside sales simply involve a dedicated team of salespeople who will be handling sales from “outside” of their normal workplace. In a lot of cases, outside salespeople even work remotely from home.
If your sales are more structured and you are hoping to make more money in the long run, you may want to consider making sure your outside sales strategy is up to par.
Since there is no single strategy that works for every company, an outside sales strategy is a “collection of tactics that a sales organization uses to attract, retain, develop and close sales opportunities.”
There are a wide variety of outside sales strategies that a sales organization can utilize, however, they can be classified into two main categories:
Prospecting
- Prospecting consists of the methods by which a salesperson attracts new customers. This is accomplished through one-on-one interactions, telephones, networking, and public relations.
- Prospecting is not only an important part of finding clients but also staying in touch with existing clients. Prospecting is not only outbound calling, it also involves communicating with customers in person.
Sales Development
Sales Development- Sales development consists of specific activities used to identify and qualify prospects, produce a relationship with the prospect, and close the sale for the customer.
- Essentially, sales development is the process through which you gain everyone’s trust, who you are, and what your company is all about. It’s no easy task, but you can increase your chances of success with the right techniques and processes.
Inside Sales Vs. Outside Sales
There are Normally Two Ways to Sell:
Inside Sales
- The salesperson inside your company is your sales professional, whether they are a product expert, solution provider, or field salesperson.
- The inside salesperson gets to sit in the office all day, while the outside sales manager has to negotiate deals directly with customers, normally in person.
- Some selling techniques used in an inside sales role, like cold calling, are still valid when you’re selling outside. You can’t simply spam your way to the top.
Outside Sales
- The salesperson outside your company is your salesperson, and they are the ones who can have the biggest impact on your company.
- Outside sales can be an effective way to increase your income. It is a way to increase your sales without having to deal with much of the hassles that come with inside sales.
- It is also a great way to work from home and be your own boss. However, outside sales are not for everyone. If you are not a good negotiator and salesperson, you will not have good experience in outside sales.
Tips to Building a Winning Outside Sales Strategy
Become a Product Subject Matter Expert
What are you selling? If you can’t explain what you’re selling to your prospect or customer then why would they buy it?
The word expertise is overused these days. But in this case, it’s appropriate. To be a successful outside salesperson, you must be an expert at selling products to your prospects.
Admittedly, that’s easier said than done. But it’s true. Here are some things to think about:
- Most likely, your product isn’t sold to the kind of people you’re looking for. Before you develop an outside sales strategy, find out who you want to sell to.
- Make sure your product or service will fit their needs and their budget. Be specific: create some realistic targets. Then, set some achievable timelines.
For example, with your phone numbers, make sure to include information such as local area code and area code exchange. Take some time and do some research on this.
There are plenty of articles and studies out there that can help you create these target figures
What Type of Team do You Need for Outside Sales?
Whether you are in sales, or you are looking to start a new sales team, you’ll need the right people. Sales is a competitive game, and outside sales is no exception. It’s hard to win when you’re up against the best of the best.
Your team should always be able to identify your core customer. What is your ideal customer profile? What do they look like, act like and work for? You need this person in order to build a successful outside sales strategy.
The team should also be experts at targeting prospects who are making buying decisions all the time. They’re the type of customers who can’t be ignored and will be making buying decisions each and every day.
The Best Outside Sales Teams:
- Know how to put together the best overall plan to pull in prospects.
- Consider the specific needs of the clients that they are working with.
- Have a background in sales and can sell the product to the customer.
- Knows how to identify the core customer.
Most importantly you want salespeople on your team who don’t waste your time on customers who are not buying frequently. They don’t buy your products or services as much as those who are buying them every day or every week.
Perfect Your Recruiting Technique – Then Rinse and Repeat
Once you’ve identified the ideal target market, there are a few things you can do to customize your recruiting process.
Create a scalable and repeatable sales system. Not every company is the same. The type of work you do and the number of clients you serve are going to be different as well.
That said, a company of any size needs to perfect their recruiting. Once you know how to pull in just the right type of people to your team just repeat the process.
This will make hiring go much smoother in the future. You will know you are hiring the right people for your team just by repeating your winning steps.
Be Certain Your Sales Managers Know What They are Doing
The most important thing is to make sure that the sales managers are the right people for the job. It’s the relationship between the sales manager and the business owner that’s the most important factor in promoting sales.
You have to know the strengths and weaknesses of the people you’re dealing with and you have to know their preferences and how they prefer to communicate with others. You also have to know how you can influence those preferences.
If you know these things, you will have a very good chance of improving your business. Plus, you’ll be able to increase your sales volume.
Your sales managers are the key to improving your salespeople’s retention levels. If you want to increase your sales volume, you have to stay on top of your business.
Talented managers know how to guide, mentor, and stay on top of their team. They need to know their team and how to communicate with them effectively. If you don’t have managers that care about their team, you’ll lose the best people.
Bring Your Sales Processes up to Speed
Bring Your Sales Processes up to SpeedLet’s face it: you are NOT helping your business grow by using outdated sales processes. As with any business process, outside sales strategies need to constantly be maintained for growth.
Consider an overhaul of your sales technologies to ensure you can bring in and keep the best customers. One excellent way to do this is to modernize your sales process and switch to a central cloud-based system.
Cloud Systems:
- Can help you deal with all your sales leads in one place no matter where they are located. Your salespeople can take advantage of all the content and features on the platform to automate their workflows.
This will allow your teams to create the best sales strategies possible.
Provide a Live Chat Service:
- One of the best things about chat is that it connects you and your customer to give them a real-time, private conversation. Customers love this service. They are willing to stay online to try and resolve issues and problems on a live chat.
- This gives sales the perfect opportunity to solve their customer’s problems more quickly.
- Live chat service is also the perfect avenue to introduce customers to new services or to upsell products.
Sync Your Sales and Marketing Departments
For most companies, this seems like an odd or even impossible concept. But it isn’t. Try aligning your sales and marketing departments. This gives you the chance to create an extra resource to work with.
This new alignment strategy is going to allow your sales team to get further sales. Why is this possible? Because now you will have a marketing strategy that is carefully designed to speak to all your different customers.
Your outside sales team should be an extension of this strategy with the marketing team. Customizing and integrating your services offers a more tailored approach to meet all the customer’s needs.
Let’s say that sometimes your customers want to purchase from your inside sales department. Your inside sales team might not have the particular product, but the outside sales team does. Inside sales can now instantly transfer the customer to outside sales, who should be making the sale.
Reward Loyal Workers Through a Multi-Tiered Incentive Structure
If you have the funds to pay people for reaching performance goals, make sure you have multiple incentives for them. When most people are making a commission or incentive, they’ll be willing to work hard to reach a goal.
One of the most effective incentives for salespeople is the prospect’s “cash bonus” they’ll get. If you’re in a larger industry, chances are you’ll already have a large base of loyal clients. They would really appreciate a nice cash bonus.
You could also set up a similar strategy for the most loyal of customers.
Here are Some More Ideas for Offering Incentives:
- Offer the same discounts to inside salespeople and outside salespeople.
- Focus on the most profitable sales partners. This will motivate others into catching up with their peers.
- Offer training for salespeople and sales managers.
- Keep in touch with current customers who’ve shown the most loyalty.
- Promote special products through your social media pages for top selling salespeople and customers.
Why Selling Revolution can Help Bring the ‘A’ Game to Your Outside Sales
We hope you enjoyed our article on 7 effective outside sales strategy tips. These tips will help you determine which way your business should be heading. Your outside sales strategy should hopefully enhance and bolster your business, creating more revenue for you and your team.
With the right customizable services and team backing up your sales, there’s no limit to how far your business can go. Let Selling Revolution help.
You might know exactly what you want, but do you know how to get it? With over 65 years of combined experience and sales knowledge, Selling Revolution knows more than a bit about taking your business to the next level and beyond.
Book a call with us to get your outside sales strategy kicked into high gear.