When most distributors talk about inside sales, they are usually referring to customer service agents. Yet, customer service personnel are generally more reactive than sales agents, because their goals are to make customers happy and solve problems. They are, like their titles, providing support and services to customers.

Proactive inside salespeople, on the other hand, are set apart from customer service reps. These are trained sales agents who love to take a more active, leading role in customer interactions. They are all about managing accounts, finding opportunities and building relationships in a proactive way. They’re just like field sales reps, but instead of working behind the wheel and physically visiting their customers, they work from behind a desk and use the phone to connect.

Having the right people in the right positions is critical. For inside sales, you want a sales-oriented skill set — someone who is going to pick up the phone day after day, create relationships and look for opportunities.

Assign inside sales reps to accounts that have opportunity to grow and may not be getting touched by field salespeople. These accounts will typically be the B and C accounts within the organization. An additional strategy is to take the bottom few accounts from field sales rep bases as they are probably not being contacted anyway.

As with any program, it’s important for leaders to define goals and benchmarks for success. 

For a proactive inside sales program to be successful, it’s critical to devote the right resources to it. Make sure that all reps have the proper training, background and support to be successful at an inside sales job. Don’t try to split inside sales reps’ responsibilities between customer service and sales, because these are different skill sets.