Inside Sales Lead Management Featured Article

New research on telesales performance has driven home what most sales pros already know: If you follow protocols set up by successful salespeople, your own success will follow.

That was just one finding from CSO Insights (News - Alert)' “2015 Inside/Telesales Performance Study”, an adjunct to the company’s 2015 Sales Performance Optimization study.

While there were a number of new insights revealed, some key highlights jumped off the page. They include:

• Win rates are seven percent higher for those companies that have a formal sales methodology that is followed by representatives;
• Reps are 26 percent more successful at prioritizing accounts to pursue when their company has established a perfect prospect profile; and
• Sales reps have a 12 percent better chance of making quota when firms do a good job of hiring.

"This report presents what we view as the top ten inside/telesales metrics, either because of their significant change over the past year, the discrepancy between inside/telesales' metrics and field sales', or changes we feel are trending in an important direction," said Barry Trailer, Managing Partner at CSO Insights.

According to the company, more than 250 firms responded to this study worldwide, and data was collected on more than 100 sales-effectiveness-related metrics. As part of this broader project, CSO Insights asked questions relating to the performance of the respondents' inside sales teams.

“The study's objective is to understand the current challenges inside sales teams face, why those problems exist, and to provide insights into how inside sales organizations can effectively increase the entire companies' overall sales performance,” CSO Insights said in a statement.

One final finding showed that inside sales in general has become more focused and strategic, with inside and outside reps working in tandem.

"Today, inside reps support a field counterpart and share the load of a larger quota,” said Jim Dickie, Managing Partner at CSO Insights. “Today's field rep is relying on the inside counterpart to close as much business as possible and perform other critical tasks such as identifying additional key buying influences, additional new opportunities, and more."