An MSP business is more likely to be involved in outside sales than inside sales, but this is going to differ per MSP. As a rule of thumb, the terms represent opposites. Inside sales represent remote selling— like through a website store. You’re selling from the inside of your business. Meanwhile, outside sales involve face-to-face interactions with potential clients. You’re going outside the domain of your store to secure new clients.
Facilitating Inside and Outside Sales
If you’re going to maximize both categories, you need to design interior infrastructure properly pertaining to different sales focuses. As an example, inside salespeople are likely going to be working from a telephone or managing a website. Some of the channels they’ll be using include:
- Emails
- Phone calls
- Live chat
- Videoconferencing
- Messaging via text
Meanwhile, outside sales representatives generally follow more homogenous channels. Whether meeting in-person inside your office, in a restaurant, or on the premises of prospective clients, the channel is essentially the same. However, the way that individual interfaces with leads will differ. It’s going to include a basic process that outside sellers need to be familiar with. That process looks like this:
- Connection with leads is established
- The outside seller hears client needs and difficulties
- Once these are understood, solutions from your company are presented
- Objections from the lead arise and are addressed by the outside seller
- Once the footwork is complete, the deal is closed via appropriate conversion “ask”
Maximizing Inside and Outside Selling Opportunities
As an MSP business, you’re more likely to emphasize outside sellers than inside sellers until you reach a certain size. Most of your clients will be either interfaced with directly by those in your company’s top management or acquired by referral. Until you reach a certain level of effectiveness, you likely won’t have an interior sales team. However, it’s not a bad idea to get a few guys started that direction if you have anything that can be feasibly sold in a remote capacity. Keep in mind that conversions and the size of clients will differ based on inside or outside sales. Still, overall, the numbers will likely be similar.
Sellers of any kind seek the conversion. You’ll want to crunch the numbers to determine whether salary or commission or a combination of the two is best. A good rule of thumb is to start sellers off in inside sales, then circulate them to outside sales once they start to perform well.
Maximizing Selling Potential
An MSP business needs to respect the reality that different sellers will be more or less appropriate for differing needs as they relate to your business. However, MSP needs will also shift. Determine which is more integral to your specific model: inside or outside sales. From there, hire the proper people, put them in the proper position, and be careful that you get them on the right sort of pay scale. Such tactics will help you maximize conversions from either category.
