More and more B2B companies are adopting inside sales. Yet many people still wonder: "How is it different from cold calling?" "How do I set up an inside sales team?" "What KPIs should I track?"
This article covers everything from the basics of inside sales, to the differences with field sales, a step-by-step guide to building your team, and KPI setting for maximizing results—all explained in a beginner-friendly way.
Inside sales refers to sales activities conducted remotely from within the office ("inside") using tools such as phone, email, and video conferencing—without visiting the customer in person. It is sometimes also called "remote sales" or "virtual sales."
The approach originally developed in the United States, where the vast geography made it physically impractical to visit every prospect in person, so phone-based non-face-to-face selling became widespread early on. In Japan, adoption began to accelerate in the late 2010s and expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The defining characteristic of inside sales is its role as a "bridge" between marketing and field sales—nurturing and qualifying leads generated by marketing, then handing off high-probability opportunities to field sales (outside sales) for closing. It is not simply cold calling; it is a strategic sales activity that deeply understands customer challenges and needs, delivering the right information at the right time.
Because inside sales uses the phone, it is often confused with telemarketing (cold calling for appointments). However, there are fundamental differences between the two.
The goal of telemarketing is to make as many calls as possible and secure meeting appointments. The basic approach is to reach out to a list in large volumes over a short period, winning by "quantity." In contrast, the goal of inside sales is to build medium-to-long-term relationships with prospects and convert them into opportunities when buying intent is high. It combines multiple channels—phone, email, video meetings, chat—and takes a "quality"-focused approach.
In short, telemarketing is a one-shot approach aimed at "getting the appointment," while inside sales is an ongoing approach aimed at "maximizing opportunity quality." Understanding this distinction is the first step toward building inside sales correctly.
Inside sales and field sales are often discussed as complementary sales methods. Let’s clarify the characteristics and role division of each.
Field sales is an outside model where reps visit customers and conduct face-to-face meetings. In-person communication makes it easier to build trust, and it is well suited for complex proposals and large deals. Inside sales, on the other hand, operates remotely from the office, eliminating travel time and dramatically increasing the number of daily touchpoints.
In a typical division-of-labor model, inside sales handles lead nurturing and qualification, while field sales handles closing (winning deals). Within the flow of Marketing → Inside Sales → Field Sales → Customer Success, inside sales occupies the critical position bridging marketing and field sales.
However, not every company adopts this division model. Depending on deal size, lead volume, and team size, inside sales may handle the entire cycle through closing. Designing roles that fit your own situation is key.
Why is inside sales attracting so much attention right now? Let’s look at three key drivers.
In B2B purchasing, buyers now complete most of their research online before ever contacting a sales rep. They gather information through websites, whitepapers, and webinars, and only reach out to companies after significant evaluation. This shift has increased the value of inside sales, which can engage prospects during their online research phase and provide information at the right moment.
With labor shortages becoming more acute, organizations must maximize results with limited headcount. Relying on field sales alone to handle every lead is neither time-efficient nor practical. By introducing inside sales to handle qualification and nurturing, field sales can focus on high-probability deals, dramatically improving overall sales efficiency.
Since the pandemic, restrictions on in-person meetings drove rapid adoption of online selling. Buyers have also become comfortable with video-based meetings, creating an environment where inside sales can thrive. This trend has persisted well beyond the pandemic, and non-face-to-face selling will remain a mainstream approach going forward.
Inside sales is broadly divided into two types based on how outreach originates. Understanding when to use each is critical.
SDRs are inbound-focused inside sales reps who respond to leads generated by marketing—such as website inquiries, webinar attendees, and whitepaper downloads. Since these prospects already have some interest, SDR-generated opportunities tend to convert relatively easily.
BDRs are outbound-focused inside sales reps who proactively reach out to target accounts. They are often paired with ABM (Account-Based Marketing) strategies and are effective for winning large deals and entering enterprise markets. While the lead time to conversion tends to be longer than SDR, deal sizes are typically larger.
For those considering inside sales adoption, here is a five-step guide to building your team.
Start by clarifying why you are introducing inside sales. Define the specific challenges you want to solve—more meetings, better lead utilization, improved efficiency. At the same time, clearly define the scope: from lead receipt to handoff to field sales, or all the way through closing.
Define the audience your inside sales team will approach. Establish your target by industry, company size, department, job title, and challenges, and create a detailed ideal customer persona. The clearer your persona, the more effective your talk scripts and email templates will be.
Design the end-to-end workflow from lead receipt to field sales handoff. This includes lead scoring rules, initial outreach timing and channels, follow-up cadence and scenarios, the definition of a qualified opportunity, handoff criteria, and information-sharing methods with field sales. The SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) definition—what conditions a lead must meet before being handed to field sales—must be agreed upon by marketing, inside sales, and field sales together.
Set up the tools that will support inside sales activities. At minimum, you need an SFA/CRM tool for managing lead information and activity history, plus a video conferencing tool. Adding a Marketing Automation (MA) tool enables lead scoring and behavioral data tracking, significantly improving outreach quality. You don’t need a full-featured stack from day one—start with a minimum setup and expand as operations mature.
Assign the right people and build a training program. Key skills include active listening, problem discovery, communication, and IT literacy. Whether you transfer existing sales members or hire new ones, preparing talk scripts and conducting role-play training are critical to early success. Start small with 1–2 people, identify winning patterns, and then scale gradually.
Measuring inside sales performance requires the right KPIs. Here are the essential metrics and tips for setting them.
The most important KPI for inside sales is the number of qualified opportunities handed to field sales (SQLs). Rather than raw appointment counts, focus on "quality meetings" that meet defined criteria. Using SQLs as your KPI prevents the problem of setting many appointments that never convert, and keeps field sales collaboration smooth.
In addition to the outcome metric of SQLs, monitor the process metrics that lead to them. Key process KPIs include calls and emails sent (activity volume), connect rate (percentage of calls where you actually reach a person), meaningful conversations (calls where you successfully uncover needs), and opportunity conversion rate (percentage of meaningful conversations that become SQLs). Tracking these process KPIs helps you pinpoint bottlenecks. For example, if call volume is sufficient but connect rate is low, revisit your calling times; if connect rate is good but conversion rate is low, improve your talk script.
The most important thing when setting KPIs is to avoid metrics that focus solely on "quantity." If you only measure call volume, reps will optimize for volume at the expense of relationship building. Balancing quantity and quality in your metrics is the key to maximizing inside sales results. Also, evolve your KPIs as the team matures: during ramp-up, emphasize activity volume to build habits; once stable, shift toward quality metrics like conversion rate and post-SQL win rate.
Finally, here are the key points for making inside sales work.
First, build strong alignment with marketing and field sales. Inside sales does not produce results in isolation—the quality of its "connections" with adjacent teams is what drives outcomes. Design systems for lead handoff criteria, deal feedback, and lost-deal reason sharing.
Second, adopt a customer-centric communication approach. The role of inside sales is not to book appointments, but to understand customer challenges and communicate how your company can help solve them. Focus on dialogue that meets prospects where they are, rather than one-way pitches.
Third, build a continuous improvement cycle powered by data. A key strength of inside sales is that every activity is recorded and accumulated. By analyzing which channels produce the most conversions and which outreach timings are most effective, and iterating on those insights, your entire sales organization will steadily improve.
Inside sales is a non-face-to-face sales approach leveraging phone, email, and video conferencing, serving as a critical bridge between marketing and field sales. Unlike telemarketing, its core purpose is to create high-quality opportunities through medium-to-long-term relationship building with prospects.
When building your team, follow the five steps: define purpose and roles → set targets → design workflows → implement tools → train your people. Center your KPIs around SQLs, and monitor process metrics like call volume, connect rate, and conversion rate to identify and fix bottlenecks.
When designed and operated well, inside sales has the power to dramatically boost your entire sales organization’s productivity. Start small, find your winning patterns, and scale from there.
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