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9 min read

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales: Which is Better for Your SaaS?

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales

Updated on August 18, 2024.

You’ve set up your SaaS business, and you are probably wondering whether you should hire an inside or an outside sales team. As a result of the pandemic, many companies are rethinking their sales team model. Whether inside or outside, you need to pick the salesforce that matches your needs. 

What is inside sales?

Inside sales is a critical element of SaaS sales, emphasizing building relationships over long-distance communication.

It involves selling products or services via phone, email, or online channels rather than face-to-face interactions.

To be a successful inside sales pro, you need to excel in communication, leveraging technology to reach prospects, generate leads, and close deals efficiently.

Essentially, it’s about focusing on understanding client needs, nurturing prospects through personalized engagement, and addressing objections.

Inside sales thrives on a balance of human interaction and technological tools, enabling businesses to connect with a wide audience.

What is outside sales?

Now, let’s take a minute to break down outside sales.

Outside sales plays a vital role, relying on face-to-face interactions to foster relationships and close deals.

These sales pros often travel to meet clients, building trust through personal connection. They excel in presenting products or services in-person, negotiating contracts, and delivering customized solutions.

Outside sales teams often manage long-term relationships, adapting to various industries and customer needs. To be successful, they need to assess situations on the spot, demo products firsthand, and handle complex negotiations.

When done right, the personal touch in outside sales can create lasting bonds that drive customer loyalty.

The difference between inside sales and outside sales 

In a B2B sales strategy, the main difference between outside and inside sales lies in the size of the deal.

The inside sales team would sell products remotely without meeting clients. They may also sell upgrades to existing customers. 

The outside sales team focuses on large, complex enterprise-wide deals that may require face-to-face interaction. 

Inside vs. outside sales: Business impact

When deciding between inside and outside sales strategies, it’s essential to consider how each can impact your business.

Cost-wise, inside sales tend to be more budget-friendly. Remote sales teams only need basic tools like computers, phones, and internet access, which is especially beneficial as hybrid work models become more common.

On the other hand, outside sales bring additional expenses such as travel, lodging, and transportation, whether for meetings, conferences, or trade shows.

From an efficiency standpoint, inside sales often result in more sales opportunities and quicker sales cycles since reps don’t need to travel and can readily access tools. However, enterprise sales often involve multiple stakeholders, where an outside sales approach can create a stronger impact by bringing decision-makers together in-person.

In terms of scalability, inside sales teams can connect with customers globally through video conferencing, allowing businesses to hire from a larger talent pool and reduce the need for travel. And some large deals are closed without any in-person meetings.

However, many enterprise clients still value the personal connection that outside sales provide. On-site visits help focus meetings, foster collaboration, and allow for better relationship building, particularly when physical products or training are involved.

Inside vs. outside sales: Team structure

The structure of inside and outside sales teams remains largely similar.

Each member of a sales team brings a particular skill set that contributes to its overall success. Here’s a general breakdown:

  • Sales directors are in charge of overall sales operations, strategy development, and driving revenue growth.
  • Sales managers handle the day-to-day of their teams, ensuring sales goals are being met, providing training, and mentoring reps.
  • Sales reps (whether inside or outside sales) engage with prospects to move them through the sales process and cultivate relationships that lead to conversions.
  • Sales engineers are experts on the company’s products, helping to address technical concerns and resolve complex issues.
  • CS representatives serve as the support team, assisting with customer inquiries, issues, or requests during the post-sales process.

Inside vs. outside sales: Required skills

Outside and inside sales reps require different skills to succeed.

Inside sales reps primarily communicate through phone calls or messaging, and must excel at building relationships remotely.

Meanwhile, outside sales reps should be comfortable with public speaking, giving presentations, answering questions on the spot, and working independently.

Both types of sales reps need core skills, including:

  • Sales and negotiation: Understanding prospects’ needs, explaining solutions, and closing deals.
  • Account management: Handling multiple prospects and organizing follow-ups.
  • Customer service: Providing easy access and personalized interactions.
  • Product knowledge: Knowing the product thoroughly to address customer needs.
  • Problem-solving: Resolving challenges that arise during sales.
  • Teamwork: Collaborating effectively with others.
  • Prospecting: Using CRM tools for lead generation and identifying quality prospects.

Inside vs. outside sales: Sales model

Choosing the right sales approach isn’t easy.

In the past, B2B sales teams made their decisions based on the type of product or service.

Large companies with physical products typically needed outside sales teams, while smaller businesses and low-cost services relied on inside sales teams to close deals.

However, in today’s market, businesses are now finding creative ways to showcase products and secure deals across various channels. Virtual meetings, interactive demos, and self-service models supported by inside sales reps are becoming the norm.

Inside vs. outside sales: Tools

Sales teams rely on tons of tools to enhance their processes and achieve their goals.

Here are the main ones:

  • CRM software: CRM platforms provide a full view of the sales pipeline, track contacts and deals, and automate tasks.
  • Lead gen software: These tools help identify and organize leads while automating personalized communication during outreach.
  • Call tracking software: These tools sync calls with other channels, track conversations, and monitor outbound call volume.
  • Communication tools: Tools like Zoom for video conferencing, Slack for collaboration, and messaging apps like WhatsApp Business help connect with prospects and the rest of your team.
  • AI & chatbots: AI-driven chatbots streamline interactions and improve customer experience.

Inside vs. outside sales: Tracking success

When it comes to measuring performance between inside and outside sales, the main difference is related to the activities tracked.

Outside sales performance is often measured by territory penetration, which tracks how many locations reps have visited in their assigned area, often using route-planning software.

On the other hand, inside sales teams are evaluated by outgoing call volume and contact activity.

Some common performance metrics include appointment setting rate, lead response time, win rate, acquisition cost, close rate, lifetime value, and churn rate.

What do inside sales reps do? 

Inside sales representatives remotely prospect, nurture, and convert leads to customers. They guide their customers through the sales process, work closely with prospects to understand their problems, needs and conduct product demos

Inside sales reps may:

  • Sell software by showcasing demos over a web conference and screen sharing.
  • Manage Referrals from inbound leads, e.g., customers that land on the website and fill out a contact request.
  • Follow-up on incoming Leads.
  • Encourage existing customers to upgrade their software packages.

The Inside Sales model is the most commonly used sales model for SaaS companies. 

The benefits of inside sales

As a SaaS company, there are real benefits to sales teams making their sales calls remotely. 

B2B customers prefer remote sales

Studies show that up to 80% of B2B decision-makers prefer remote interactions with inside reps over in-person visits. This preference is partly due to safety concerns emerging from the pandemic and the ease of attending a virtual sales call compared to an in-person visit. 

Inside sales agents can reach more customers 

Inside sales agents don’t need to travel long distances to meet customers. Being able to work remotely enables them to schedule more appointments across more expansive geography. 

It’s cheaper to use inside agents

Outside sales agents come at a higher cost than inside sales agents. External agents aren’t office-bound; they incur personal cell phone and data costs, use company cars or use their vehicles and claim for expenses that include fuel. In B2B SaaS sales, outside sales agents will be accommodated by sales engineers, which adds to the expense. 

Clients already work remotely

Many clients will continue to work remotely (full-time or according to a hybrid model) far beyond 2021. If clients aren’t office-based, they are far less likely to meet sales staff in person. 

What do outside reps do? 

Traditionally, outside sales reps spend most of their time selling in person. Outside sales reps may:

  • Present their company’s SaaS solution at industry conferences.
  • Attend industry-related networking events where they may meet prospects.
  • Visiting client premises and introducing themselves (cold calling).
  • Conducting face-to-face sales demos
  • Handling sales administration (including contracts and subscriptions).

However, the lines have blurred between outside and inside sales. Outside sales reps spend 45.5% of their time selling remotely. Like inside sales reps, many outside sales reps use email, social media, and virtual conferencing to reach their customers. 

Many SaaS companies will use both inside and outside reps to sell their solution. 

The benefits of outside sales

Experts in long and complex sales cycles

Outside sales reps work well for SaaS businesses with long sales cycles and complex software and often target larger accounts. After all, an enterprise client with thousands of potential users of your solution may not want to close a deal with a new SaaS vendor over the phone. 

Great for high stakes opportunities

B2B SaaS companies often use outside reps when there is more money at stake, e.g., selling to large organizations with thousands of potential users compared to small, self-service SMBs with a few users. The bigger the financial commitment the prospect will need to make, the more in-person nurturing they will require. 

How to successfully sell remotely

The pandemic was a game-changer, and almost all companies (and their outside reps) will have to try their hand at remote selling. Not all of them will get it right. Uninspiring Powerpoint decks and design mockups aren’t good enough to close a deal. 

Screen Sharing and doing live run-throughs are effective but always seem to fail at the worst possible moment- Just ask Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Pre-recorded videos are safe and valuable but dull. 

Walnut can help you create bug-free and fully customized demos for your client, ideally suited to remote sales. You can use annotations to make your demo more intuitive and share engaging panels for collaboration between your sales team and prospects. 

Remote sales are here to stay. Make sure that you have the right tools to close your deals.

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