Should I Start Off With Inside Sales or Outside Sales? Are you new to sales and asking yourself the universal sales question, “Should I start off with inside sales or outside sales?” Many share the same thought and I have five things to help you figure out a better way to go.   Inside sales vs outside sales  Every company is different, however, inside roles typically have the SDR (sales development rep) or the BDR (business development rep). Depending on the company, these may be different roles done by different individuals.  The business development reps may be the ones finding new prospects for the business. For some companies, the sales development reps are focused on the inbounds. When the sales come in through marketing or via the website, the sales development reps will get more information making them the first line of contact with the SDRs.They talk to potential clients, qualify them, and set them up for appointments.  An inside sales rep who’s also doing outbound tasks has a lot of work. The upside to outbound sales is getting a bigger commission than the person who’s doing solely inbound tasks.  The business development reps need to qualify people, follow up, and make sure that they know their company’s products and services to have meaningful conversations with potential customers.  For other companies, this doesn’t matter.  If you’re on inbound sales then your job is to generate opportunity whether it’d be through cold calling or setting up appointments for outside sales reps. If you’re on outbound sales then your job includes taking the first appointment, having a deeper discussion with the prospect, and building value with the prospects. You need to dive in and understand their needs to be able to go to the most important parts of the sales process which are the pitch, presentation, and closing the deal.  Inside sales first  If you’re new to sales, the best path you can go is inbound sales. Here are the reasons you need to consider why.  The decision of whether to go to inbound or outbound sales depends on the complexity of the product or service you’re selling. Consider a B2B sales scenario in which you’re selling a product with a certain level of complexity (computer software or something from the medical industry). Coming right out of college, you may not be used to such a level of complexity. Doing outside sales and having to develop the ability to sell the product and talk about it convincingly is not the easiest route.  This scenario will be different if you’re selling a simple product. You can easily up your game, learn everything about the product, and sell it in no time.  So, the first thing you should do is to evaluate the complexity of the sale that you’re doing. If the product is something that you’re not familiar with, learn as much as you can about the product first before you consider doing outside sales.  Industry The second thing to consider is that each industry has different ways of doing things.  Take for example a government-based industry. The deal size for government-based industries can go from $30-$150,000 and the sales cycle can run from 6-18 months. If you’re not knowledgeable about how that works, then you’re not going to last. You need to know what the industry is and make sure that you understand how it works.  Going to the inside gives you the opportunity to learn things and understand the lingo and the processes of the industry.  One thing I’ve learned from doing inside sales for the government is that every city government typically has a buying cycle anywhere around the October timeframe or sometime during the summer. Typically, a sales rep’s job from January to June is doing demonstrations. You can’t expect to close deals on those months. The government-industry has long sales cycles and new sales reps need to understand that before jumping into the game.  Sales cycle  Outside sales are good if you can close your product within 30 days but if it takes longer than that, then you