Inbound Vs Outbound Sales: Guide To Decide What Works For Your Company

The debate about the differences between inbound vs outbound sales has been going on forever in sales expertise. When locked in a constant dispute, picking the right approach for your company can be daunting.

If you are wondering whether to build an inbound sales machine, form an outbound sales team, or establish a hybrid sales force, consider reading this article until the end.

Inbound-only businesses base their preference on inbound as it lets brands attract customers, be cost-effective, and scale efficiently. However, people who prefer outbound selling exploit to exploit this powerful means to establish trust, close big deals, and stay in control.

Vital Differences Between Inbound Vs Outbound Sales

The fundamental difference between inbound and outbound sales is in who begins the sales relationship. Inbound sales get initiated by the prospect while sales representatives contact the potential client first in the case of outbound sales.

Your foundation strategy must consider your sales team set-up, objectives, target audience, product or service, and other variables that might be exclusive to specific situations.

Here are explained the fundamental differences between inbound vs outbound sales -

Inbound Sales

• The prospect approaches the company seeking information to solve their dilemma, demands, or iron out any pain points.
• The prospect conducts their research, refers to blogs, attends a webinar, seeks an appointment for a free consultation or any other means.
• The prospect submits their email to receive a free ebook, an infographic, or any other tool.
• An inbound salesperson might get in touch with them through email or call.
• Inbound prospects typically have a greater sense of awareness and are more engaged to initiate.

Outbound Sales

• The salesperson approaches the prospect to offer them their service/product.
• The salesperson might indulge in cold emailing, cold calling, or cold texting the prospect.
• Outbound leads are typically less aware and not too firm on engagement grounds.

Both techniques are dynamic to expand the business of a company and boost revenue. The strategy you implement will depend on several variables, accounting for the type of business you operate, average deal size, and how aware customers are about the solutions you offer.

A Detailed Approach To Inbound Vs Outbound Sales

Here is a meticulous approach to understanding sales approaches as-well-as some sales prospecting techniques for you to obtain a sharper picture of what strategy you could choose for optimum growth of your business -

Inbound Sales

With inbound sales, companies attract interested prospects and see if they are fit to use their product. Inbound sales emphasize customer needs where the salesperson adapts to the buyer's journey and operates as a committed advisor.

The inbound sales process includes four stages -

• potential clients - In this stage, you engage with the people that stop by the showroom and transform them into leads. For instance, you might get their contact details and approval to send information via content downloads, webinars, or live chat.
• Get in touch with leads - The next step is to help the leads embrace their needs and decide whether you can help them. In this stage, they are acknowledging your solutions as part of their targets.
• Delve deeper - In this stage, you initiate a conversation with the newly acquired leads to establish trust and dive deep into their challenges to understand if your products meet their needs and determine sales opportunities.
• Urge on a solution - When you feel confident that your offering meets the needs of your prospects and you have gained their trust, advise them on how your product is ideal for their needs.

The inbound sales methodology is remarkably cost-effective since you target and engage only with people who have shown an interest in your organization. However, this method can be time-consuming initially to build content and generate good quality leads.

As per research conducted by The Aberdeen Group, 62% of the salespersons who do not harness inbound social selling miss their quotas.

Outbound Sales

If you are looking for outbound sales tips, know that in this case, businesses pitch their message to their prospects via cold calling, social selling, or email marketing. In outbound sales, the sales representatives approach leads instead of waiting for the leads to arrive at their doorstep as in inbound sales.

Some might dismiss outbound sales because of its intrusive methods of pitching to prospects. However, outbound sales is still considered valuable in several situations. 

Outbound sales holds some advantages over inbound sales that include -

• Immensely targeted outreach
• Personal contact with prospects
• Prompt feedback and results
• Control over marketing and selling pace

The outbound sales process comprises five stages -

• potential clients - Establish your target market and market segments, and arm your team to approach them.
• Generate leads - After figuring out your audience, obtain their contact information through an in-house lead generation team, by acquiring a database or outsourcing sales lead generation.
• Contact and qualify leads - In this stage, the outbound sales team approaches the list of contacts by email or phone to understand whether they are a fit for your product or service. If they are, they move on to the next step; if not, they remove them from the list.
• Boast about your solution - In this step, the sales department sets up a meeting or a demo to explain all the benefits of the product or service to the prospects.
• Close the deal: If the customer gets convinced with your solution, the final step is to get the agreement contract signed.

People equate outbound sales calls to a desperate attempt to acquire leads through cold contacting; however, outbound sales involves the direct result of data-driven research. You must have a precise understanding of the outbound sales techniques to excel in this expertise and receive affirmative responses to cold calls.

Final Words

It is imperative to consider several factors such as the current state of your firm when picking a sales approach for your company. However, consider using a mixed technique to grow your pipeline. 

Once you acquire inbound leads from, let's say, content marketing, then you can use outbound means to follow up with them, qualify them and sign the contract with your prospects. 

If you are short on inbound leads in the first place, an outbound sales strategy, when executed accordingly, can be incredibly efficient to fill up your funnel. Harness the potential from the best of both worlds through intelligence gathering of inbound sales as-well-as the proactive outreach of outbound sales.

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