Outside sales occur when a salesperson meets with prospects or customers in the field. This sort of sales function is critical to acquire larger accounts, like enterprise customers, for which the acquisition process is usually longer, more complex and it requires the understanding of the target organization. Thus the outside sales will cut through the noise to acquire a large enterprise account for the organization.
Understanding outside sales
Outside sales representatives conduct sales in the field via face-to-face interactions in a location convenient to the prospect or customer.
The work environment of an outside sales professional tends to be less formal and more autonomous since it is outside the confines of an office setting. While the attractiveness of increased freedom cannot be denied, it is important to note that outside sales reps may be required to work on-demand according to the client’s schedule. This often means ensuring they are available outside of normal work hours.
Each outside sales representative may have a territory assigned to them and be responsible for educating the prospect about a product or service. What’s more, they must make their own travel arrangements and be flexible to scheduling changes or delays. Unlike inside sales professionals, those in outside sales place more emphasis on their physical appearance and need to be in the mood to entertain and network whenever the need arises.
Responsibilities associated with outside sales
Here is a more succinct look at the responsibilities associated with the outside sales profession:
Establish and nurture business relationships through regular meetings.
Demonstrate the suitability of a product or service vis-à-vis solving customer problems. This can be done with presentations, hands-on tutorials, and case studies.
Set and achieve monthly sales quotas.
Attend events, conferences, and conventions to present a product to service to interested parties.
Monitor the market for new entrants that could become competitors.
Map the various locations of clients using an app for territory and customer mapping.
Set up sales appointments using mobile CRM tools or by visiting prospects in person.
Research a prospect’s pain points in advance or be able to determine them from face-to-face interaction.
Utilize an outside sales app to keep a record of all customers, sales, hours worked, and generate reports based on tasks assigned and tasks completed.
Manage expenses associated with car rental, airline tickets, accommodation, and client entertainment such as restaurants and sporting events.
What traits does an outside sales rep need to possess?
At the very least, an outside sales rep needs to possess a Bachelor’s degree in communications, business, economics, or marketing. Similar qualifications that show experience in customer engagement may also be adequate.
They must also have a strong phone presence and be confident initiating conversations with prospects. Since no day in outside sales is the same as the last, the individual must also be adept at problem-solving in a diverse range of contexts.
Some of the more obvious traits include strong interpersonal skills, extraversion, detail-orientation, and the motivation and discipline necessary to work autonomously.
Key takeaways:
Outside sales occur when a salesperson meets with prospects or customers in the field.
Responsibilities associated with outside sales include the ability to build relationships, demonstrate products, attend events and conventions, monitor the market for new entrants, and map the location of customers in a sales territory.
Outside sales require the individual to possess a strong phone presence and be able to problem-solve in diverse contexts. A Bachelor’s degree in communications, business, economics, marketing, or similar is essential.
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A sales cycle is the process that your company takes to sell your services and products. In simple words, it’s a series of steps that your sales reps need to go through with prospects that lead up to a closed sale.
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The ZOPA (zone of possible agreement) describes an area in which two negotiation parties may find common ground. Indeed, ZOPA is critical to explore the deals where the parties get a mutually beneficial outcome to prevent the risk of a win-lose, or lose-win scenario. And therefore get to the point of a win-win negotiation outcome.
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The BANT process was conceived at IBM in the 1950s as a way to quickly identify prospects most likely to make a purchase. Despite its introduction around 70 years ago, the BANT process remains relevant today and was formally adopted into IBM’s Business Agility Solution Identification Guide.
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Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.
The general concept of Bootstrapping connects to “a self-starting process that is supposed to proceed without external input.” In business, Bootstrapping means financing the growth of the company from the available cash flows produced by a viable business model. Bootstrapping requires the mastery of the key customers driving growth.
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Outside sales occur when a salesperson meets with prospects or customers in the field. This sort of sales function is critical to acquire larger accounts, like enterprise customers, for which the acquisition process is usually longer, more complex and it requires the understanding of the target organization. Thus the outside sales will cut through the noise to acquire a large enterprise account for the organization.
A freeterprise is a combination of free and enterprise where free professional accounts are driven into the funnel through the free product. As the opportunity is identified the company assigns the free account to a salesperson within the organization (inside sales or fields sales) to convert that into a B2B/enterprise account.
Zero to One is a book by Peter Thiel. But it also represents a business mindset, more typical of tech, where building something wholly new is the default mode, rather than building something incrementally better. The core premise of Zero to One then is that it’s much more valuable to create a whole new market/product rather than starting from existing markets.
Palantir is a software company offering intelligence services from governments and institutions to large commercial organizations. The company’s two main platforms Gotham and Foundry, are integrated at enterprise-level. Its business model follows three phases: Acquire, Expand, and Scale. The company bears the pilot costs in the acquire and expand phases, and it runs at a loss. Where in the scale phase, the customers’ contribution margins become positive.
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A unique selling proposition (USP) enables a business to differentiate itself from its competitors. Importantly, a USP enables a business to stand for something that they, in turn, become known among consumers. A strong and recognizable USP is crucial to operating successfully in competitive markets.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
