B2B Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales: 2024 Breakdown

In this article, we go over what B2B inside sales & B2B outside sales are, their advantages, disadvantages, and where they’re most effective.

We’re in the midst of a digital revolution, and the way businesses operate is changing rapidly in any sector you could imagine.

One of the most significant places we’re seeing these changes come into play is the way businesses sell to other businesses.

The world of B2B sales is constantly evolving, and with the rise of digital solutions, inside sales are becoming a mainstay tactic for companies around the globe.

But what is inside selling, and how does it differ from the more traditional outside sales techniques?

• What is B2B inside sales?
• The inside sales process
• Inside sales advantages
• Inside sales disadvantages
• Where B2B inside sales is most effective
• B2B inside sales tips & strategies
• What is B2B outside sales?
• The outside sales process
• Outside sales advantages
• Outside sales disadvantages
• B2B outside sales tips & techniques
• Inside vs. outside sales: What’s the difference?
• Integrating a CRM for inside sales and outside sales

What Is B2B Inside Sales?

To put it simply and shortly: 

B2B inside sales refers to a sales process where businesses sell to other businesses through remote engagements. 

Inside sales takes place through online or telecommunication methods, with sales teams working from the office, home, or another remote location. 

It’s recently become more prevalent than ever for a few reasons, including (but not limited to) lower costs and a general move towards digital solutions.

Reliance on digital solutions, for one, means a couple of things: 

Inside sales reps can often utilize much more structured processes, require less travel to do their jobs, and are generally easier to organize than their outside sales counterparts.

And on the topic of structure and organization, the inside sales process often follows the same basic structure. (Though, every company’s process is going to differ for their teams’ needs.)

Taking A Look At The Inside Sales Process

To give you a better idea of all this buzz we’ve been talking about, let’s go a bit more in-depth with just how the inside sales process looks.

1. Prospecting

Virtually every sales process has to start with the prospecting phase.

You’re probably already familiar with this step, but this is where your reps will go and find the potential customers you’ll eventually be leading further down your sales funnel.

2. Filtering & Qualifying Leads

Here’s where you’ll want to qualify or “filter” those prospects from the last step.

Not every prospect is going to be an ideal customer. And to maximize your profitability, you’ve got to separate those prospects from the ones you really want to move down the pipeline.

3. The Demo

Next is the demo phase. 

Here’s where your reps will show off exactly what your product or service can do for the prospect. 

They’ll also likely have to handle objections and start really selling the idea as a solution to the prospect.

A software company might give a free demo of their virtual product, or an agency might help get them a small, quick win with their service.

4. Closing

And here’s our favorite part: 

Closing.

This is where the salesperson will go for the actual sale. They’ve (hopefully) handled most of the objections and gained the interest of the prospect. Now, all there’s left to do is to come to an agreement and close the sale.

But once your reps have closed, they’re not done yet...

5. The Post-Close Phase

The post-close phase is where you take the prospects that have turned into actual customers and continue to foster your relationship with them onwards.

It’s a vital step in the process because it ensures customer satisfaction, a deeper level of trust, and potential referrals down the line.

The Advantages Of Inside Sales

Inside B2B sales are becoming more and more prevalent for a reason, or to be more precise — for plenty of reasons.

So let’s talk about some of the biggest benefits to inside selling:

Lower Costs

Inside B2B sales tend to have a lower cost to implement than outside for a few reasons. The most obvious of these is that your sales reps won’t have any travel costs since they’re doing their job remotely.

Next, inside sales reps tend to have lower bonuses and salaries than their outside sales representatives. This makes them great for organizations on tighter budgets. (But that doesn’t mean inside sales is any less effective!)

Easier Organization

Without much of the unpredictability you’ll get with outside sales, inside B2B sales teams tend to be much easier to organize, and the processes involved are often more structured too.

Everything from scheduling meetings and taking discovery calls can be done entirely remotely.

Flexibility

Working with prospects through virtual-means means that there’s a lot more flexibility when it comes to the inside sales cycle. 

You won’t have to account for things like flights, traveling, or any of the inconvenience that may come with the physical aspect of outside sales.

Inside sales give you the advantage of location flexibility. You could be closing a prospect from your home office or from a beach in Bali — it’s your choice.

Shorter Funnel

And one of the last big advantages of inside sales is the length that sales funnels tend to be. 

Usually, a customer takes less time to get from the beginning to the end of the customer journey with inside sales since there are no physical boundaries between you and a sale.

One of the best parts? Inside sales gives you the opportunity to automate more of your sales funnel.

Scalability

And possibly the best reason to do inside sales?

Scalability.

Since running a remote sales process can allow you to further utilize software systems to automate tedious tasks, your sales team can focus on closing deals. (One way to do this is through investing in a sales CRM.)

Also, with a remote sales team, you can hire people from anywhere you’d like, which can make hiring sales talent a lot easier, and more affordable.

The Disadvantages Of Inside Sales

Now remote work and closing a deal from anywhere in the world sounds cool, but there are some downsides to be aware of.

Less Personal Connection

For certain companies, the lack of in-person connection may make it harder to build the trust necessary to close the deal.

Certain industries that require a lot of trust or sell a physical product may struggle with inside sales because of this.

Tech Maintenance

While we mentioned a lower cost above, the high reliance on tech with inside sales means you’ll have to keep a very good handle on staying up-to-date with all of your tech solutions.

What Is B2B Inside Sales Best For

Taking on an inside sales team for a B2B operation is a good idea in quite a few scenarios. 

For one, the lower costs and greater flexibility make them a great choice for smaller organizations and ones still in their early growth stages.

Great candidates for utilizing inside sales are SaaS companies, digital agencies, or any company capable of working remotely.

One thing to keep in mind is that with less personal connection comes harder-to-build trust. This means that inside sales is fantastic at selling lower-price solutions to prospects.

Products and services with significantly high price tags, though? While not impossible, it may take a little more work if you don’t have a well-established brand in your industry.

B2B Inside Sales Tips & Strategies 

To run successful inside sales operations, a detailed, organized structure is a vital piece of the puzzle.

A few things to keep in mind:

If it weren’t apparent, tech and digital solutions are your best friends. A small inside sales team can drastically increase their output with the right tools in play.

Things like CRM systems and other SaaS solutions can go a long way in increasing your productivity with inside sales.

Another aspect to remember is that with the lower amount of personal connection, you’re going to need a higher volume of calls, emails, and other forms of outreach to really be at the spot you’ll want to be. 

With this in mind, your sales reps should be able to handle things like back-to-back calls and a large volume of email and messaging communication throughout their days.

Inside Sales Reps Responsibilities

Inside sales reps need to follow well-defined sequences and playbooks to successfully close the deal. They typically need to be able to align with predictable schedules and sales goals - they aim to achieve a specific set of thresholds.

What's more, inside sales reps use technology a lot. In fact, inside sales teams depend on a variety of software that helps with phone calls with customers, quickening sales cycles, and the improvement of overall performance.

To sum it up, successful inside salespeople have discipline and technical literacy on top of excellent sales skills.

What Is B2B Outside Sales?

B2B Outside Sales is probably the type of sales you’re more familiar with — or at least, the traditional B2B selling tactic that comes to mind for most.

It generally involves longer sales cycles, often high-ticket services or products, and the most drastic difference is that there’s an in-person face-to-face aspect between sales reps and their prospects.

With this in mind, it shouldn’t be too surprising that for companies $500m and bigger, 71.2% of their sales force are outside or field reps.

So how does this in-person dynamic impact the outside sales cycle?

The Outside Sales Process

While the sales cycle in both inside and outside sales might look the same at first glance, there are a few key differences that spring up when you take a little deeper look into things.

The first of those differences is the fact that outside sales reps are often working with very high-level prospects.

And combined with the fact that it takes more to set up an in-person meeting than a digital one, outside sales reps are going to be working much more around their prospects’ schedules than inside sales reps might be. 

They’ll likely have to travel frequently to meet prospects where they are, sometimes on short notice, and be able to adapt their schedules on a whim.

All of this extra hassle involved isn’t without its rewards, though.

It’s all necessary to build the trust needed to close with these high-level prospects.

The Advantages of Outside Sales

While more traditional and not as innovative as inside sales, outside sales do have their place in the sales world.

Outside Sales Is More Personal

With outside B2B sales, your reps are building a much more personal connection with their prospects. 

This face-to-face connection builds a higher level of trust, meaning customer relationships will often be stronger. 

It’s Easier To Sell High-Ticket Products

Running an outside sales team costs more money for a good reason.

Higher trust and deeper-connections mean an easier time selling high-ticket items. 

Not As Much Tech Upkeep

While keeping up with the times is still important, it’s not quite so cut-throat as it is with inside sales teams.

That’s not to say digital and tech-based solutions won’t help an outside sales team — because they absolutely will!

The Disadvantages Of Outside Sales

And just like anything traditional, there are some downsides when it comes to B2B outside sales.

There Are Higher Costs

Higher salaries, larger bonuses, and travel costs for each outside sales rep means that it’ll have a higher operating cost than an inside sales team would have.

Outside Sales Is A Longer Process

The cycle in an outside sales setting is going to be longer for a few reasons. 

For one, things don’t move as quickly as they do in the digital world, and then consider the fact that you’re selling high-ticket items to C-Suite executives, and it starts to make sense why that may be.

Less Flexibility

Since outside sales reps need to work around their prospects’ schedules to make things work, there isn’t as much flexibility on their end.

In-person meetings cost more and require more commitment from sales reps and prospects. A meeting could require across-country flights and strictly scheduled dates that are scheduled weeks to months in advance.

What Is B2B Outside Sales Best For

One of B2B outside sales’ biggest strengths is selling to the C-Suite, as we’ve mentioned before. Running a B2B outside sales team can be costly, so it makes sense to spend that money on higher, enterprise-level clientele.

Any product or service that relies more on trust and customer relationships is a good candidate for an outside sales team.

The higher costs also mean that it’s more ideal for companies with much larger budgets.

B2B Outside Sales Tips & Strategies

As we’ve mentioned before, trust and relationship building between prospect and sales rep is critical for outside sales to work.

Keep in mind that while a process is still vital for an outside sales process to work, things tend to be a bit less structured than outside sales.

With these things in mind, your sales reps should be able to adapt easily and operate under the stress that comes with executive-level negotiations. 

Dealing face-to-face with prospects will also require that reps are “people’s people,” it’s not quite the job for introverts. So having the capability to build rapport with anyone in your industry will be key.

Outside Sales Reps Responsibilities

Outside sales teams mainly focus on building relationships with top-ranking executives.

That's why outside sales reps must have high levels of empathy, emotional intelligence, business acumen, and a firm grasp of B2B sales strategy.

Outside sales professionals must also be open to flexible daily schedules, be prepared to travel, or make last-minute face-to-face meetings and presentations.

Since outside sales reps usually work alone, they should have excellent management skills and be self-motivated.

Inside Sales vs Outside Sales: What Is The Difference?

The key differences between inside sales and outside sales are the deal sizes, costs to run the sales teams, interactions between sales reps and prospects, and the type of prospects your reps will be dealing with.

To put it short, inside sales reps work remotely, which comes with benefits like increased organization, automation, scalability, and flexibility in location. Outside sales deals with in-person meetings and reps that have a higher cost, but can create deeper connections with prospects to close bigger, enterprise-level deals.

Some of the most successful sales organizations implement combinations of both inside and outside sales to great effect, with inside sales often acting as a “support.”

Integrating An Outside And Inside Sales CRM

While inside sales tend to be the more tech-oriented version, both strategies can hugely benefit from integrating digital solutions like CRMs.

CRMs(or customer relationship management), like VipeCloud, help to manage client data and transform the way your inside and outside sales team operates.

Want to see how Vipecloud can improve your sales processes with automation? Request a free demo today!