There’s been a lot of talk ever since our 2009 InfoUSA study revealed that the inside sales industry was projected to grow at 7.5% per year over the next five years, while outside sales industry jobs is stagnating at 0.5% growth.

bNet Business’s Geoffrey James even sounded off on the topic, questioning the reasons behind the slow obsolescence of outside sales when the sales process and buying cycle have become even more “touch” intensive and complex.

In my mind, however, the trend is significant, but hardly inexplicable. The Web has made one of sales’ primary functions—distributing information to prospects—a much different activity than before. Even for complex purchases, there’s a wealth of information about available products and services, and the average prospect has significantly less of a need to rely on a sales rep to provide actionable information . . . .

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Sales TriangleLast week I overheard a conversation between one of our client implementation consultants and a former prospect who had just come on as a customer. One of the first things our implementation team does with a new client is hold a Business Plan Review, designed to identify a client’s key processes and value areas.

In a nutshell, the question this new client asked was, “How does defining all of these process steps directly benefit my sales reps?”

As much as we tout the benefits and productivity of a good sales process linked to a CRM software system, the short answer to this question is, “Sometimes they don’t.” . . . .

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mission_impossibleBusinesses of all sizes have more options than ever when it comes to outsourcing basic services to save time and costs.

IT. Payroll. Shipping. Point-of-sale. Credit checks. Credit card processing. Legal.

I bring this up because at some point, a lot of companies ask the same question about their sales organization: “Can we outsource this?”

The reasons for asking are pretty compelling. For businesses without a lot of experience, building a fully-realized sales team—one that’s aligned with company goals, product, and marketing initiatives—is at best a challenge. At worst it’s Mission: Impossible.

The problem is so pervasive that at least once a month we get a prospect who expresses disappointment that we AREN’T an outsourced sales prospecting company (“Oh, you mean you just sell the product and consulting, you don’t actually make the sales calls? Shoot.”) . . . .

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As a C-level manager for my company, I get pitched on new technology products a lot. Now obviously I’m a big believer in the power of technology to transform inside sales and marketing processes. When I started 20 years ago as a sales manager at then Franklin Quest (now Franklin-Covey), the coolest technology on the…

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