Face-to-Face Closes 2.5x Better, But Inside Sales Makes 7x More Calls

I just got a tip from John Sutton, a friend of mine at Sendside, who read a survey on a United Airlines flight last week from the United States Travel Association that found business leaders estimate face-to-face selling converts 40% of prospects to customers, while virtual selling (Inside Sales) converts 16%.

That means face-to-face selling closes 2.5 times better than remote selling. We found roughly the same ratio at Inside Sales about four years ago.  Our current ratios place remote closing ratios around 18.5%, so the gap is narrowing.

Inside Sales teams cover way more ground in terms of prospecting than true face-to-face salespeople. In fact, very few face-to-face salespeople actually prospect in a face-to-face mode any more, so the here is where the numbers skew.

Almost all face-to-face (Outside) sales reps have switched to an Inside Sales model for their prospecting, and they pick up the phone to set their appointments.

We have found that lead generation reps (with power dialer technology) make 7 times more prospecting calls than manually dialing.

What does this mean?

It points to a hybrid model where you prospect remotely, and go face-to-face to close the big deals where it is still cost effective, otherwise sell remotely.

Top 20 Articles on www.KenKrogue.com

  1. What is Inside Sales? Our Definition of Inside Sales – 15,262 Views
  2. Inside Sales Best Practices – 1,445 Views
  3. Inside Sales Tips by Ken Krogue – 923 Views
  4. KPI – Key Performance Indicators – 822 Views
  5. Inside Sales versus Outside Sales – 489 Views
  6. Is Leaving a Voicemail Worthwhile? – 408 Views
  7. 6 Reasons Salesforce Users Need Hosted Dialer Technology – 370 Views
  8. Behind the Cloud – Ken’s Notes – 305 Views
  9. Inside Sales Tips – No Vacations Last Week of the Month – 275 Views
  10. Funny Inside Sales Videos – 247 Views
  11. Demand Generation Tactics and Strategy – 245 Views
  12. Inside Sales Tips – Skip to the Beep – 245 Views
  13. Inside Sales Tips – Interest is The Counterfeit of Need – 220 Views
  14. Inside Sales is Top Method of Lead Generation – 205 Views
  15. Inside Sales Tips – How LinkedIn Gives you 3 Free SEO Backlinks – 189 Views
  16. Inside Sales Training – 179 Views
  17. Marketing B2B 4 Quick Email Tips – 154 Views
  18. Inside Sales Tips – Specialize – 140 Views
  19. Leadscon East Vendors Need to Drink their Own Medicine – 133 Views
  20. What is Lead Response Management – 127 Views

    Author: Ken Krogue |
    Summary of Ken Krogue’s Forbes articles

    Receive email updates from the Sales Insider

    Related Posts

    Posted in