Smashing Inside Sales, Part 1: An Introduction to Phone Sales
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This article is part of a 6-part series called Smashing Inside Sales, a guide to making it rain in inside sales!!
Part 1: An Introduction to Phone Sales
Part 2: Open, Problem, Solution, Close
Part 3: Inner Game (In progress…)
Part 4: Objections and Frame Control (In progress…)
Part 5: Building Rapport
Part 6: Cognitive Tricks (In progress…)
Phone sales. Telemarketing. Cold calling.
There are a couple names for the world of cash-grabbing, highly calibrated, and iron-willed salespeople. A career in which you jump into strangers’ heads every day to push, pull, charge, maneuver, sugarcoat, bulldoze ‘til you close the deal. A universe where the hardest worker isn’t always rewarded for their efforts, but the hardest working and smoothest one is. The phone doesn’t care where you’re from, what you look like, what car you drive, what your gender is. Within these walls, confidence rules the day…
Welcome to Inside Sales!!!
Inside sales is not an easy gig. Say you’re in Austin, TX and you’re looking to get started in the field. You get to the interview and you’re dazzled by the free snacks and drinks, the ping pong table, and the PS4 on deck. Everyone looks like they’ve having a freakin blast. Yeah they pay $8 an hour and you’ve got mandatory quotas to hit or else you’re out. But the recruiter says you’d have to literally stare at your phone all day long to not hit your quota. And, I mean, the top closers are making 6 figures after commission! You sign the offer letter and start with stars in your eyes.
The cracks start to show. Turns out there’s no time to enjoy any of the fun shit because you’re dialing the entire day getting yelled at by strangers on the phone. Off the phone your manager spends all 8 hours you’re at work barking at your team to keep dialing. You wanna sneak in 30 minutes to eat food and remain a functioning human but you feel guilty about it because it’s halfway through the day and you’ve only made $32 before taxes. Turns out the training they promised was “everything you needed to succeed” was ass. They gave you a script and said go for it. forgetting the whole “sales training” part.
Meanwhile, “Peter”, three seats away, is who-the-hell-knows-how making 11 sales every 10 dials. He’s making an absolute killing. He’s got the lines, the confidence, the conversation, the closes, the lack of fear. He’s got so much swagger he’s probably closing your girlfriend while you’re dialing through lunch. What the fuck is going on???
I have been both the loser in this story, and the winner in this story. I’ll tell you a little about myself and what’s possible, then let’s learn how to make some cash.
How I got into (and thrived) in Inside Sales
I’ll be honest, I didn’t grow up wanting to become a great salesperson. I wanted to be a great lawyer…the silver-tongued Harvey Specter from Suits, not Jordan Belfort. As my story would unfold, I found the road to becoming a lawyer kind of boring, so I left law school for tech, knowing I wanted to build a software startup one day. While I was studying for my technical job, I knew I had to learn how to sell my startup one day to customers, cofounders, employees, investors, etc. So I entered sales and ultimately thrived.
At my last gig before entering tech, I was CONSISTENTLY in the top 15% of an almost 150 person sales floor at a leading startup in Austin, TX acquired for 210M. I hit 100% to 150% of my quota every single paycheck. The money was rolling in 💰, my team looked up to me, and job security wasn’t something I had to worry about.
Take a closer look at these numbers. The number to the left of my name is my rank out of 150 people. That’s 4/150, 5/150 and 6/150 people, putting me in the top 3–4%.
The only reason I achieved this level of excellence is practice. I was making 150–300 phone calls a day. That’s more than a thousand calls every week. I was having conversations 7+ hours a day, with thousands of people every month. Results like these require thousands and thousands of phone calls.
Getting to this level will also require loads and loads of failure. At my first job, I had the most dials and the worst performance. Everyone knew I was the worst. It was embarrassing and a career low point. I definitely didn’t imagine being in a position to teach others how to sell, then. You’ll find this guide covers some really basic, almost common sense concepts. This is because after such taking the ridiculously fat L that was my crap performance at my first sales job, I put my ego away and became a student of the game. I absorbed all I could from the pros. I focused on the tiniest details of communication to find what was separating the best from the average from the worst.
Today, every little technique, every little mistake is etched into my skull from thinking about them so long. I remember exactly which techniques in which situation meant closing sales, and which mistakes that meant I wasn’t going get to p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶b̶o̶y̶s̶ enjoy the weekends next month. 😭 I share these lessons with you here, so, hopefully, you won’t make the mistakes I made and that you get better, faster.
The 5-Part Guide to Smashing Inside Sales
We’ve got 5 more parts to cover. I’ll be rolling them out over time, but if you’re new, read each part in order. If you’re experienced, skip to Part 5 and 6 for the more advanced concepts.
🗺 Part 2: Open, Problem, Solution, Close
Every sale is structurally identical. Every sale. Not just in phone sales, but in most commercials you’ve watched and anytime anyone’s pitched you anything. Learn the universal sales structure and why the age-old formula works so incredibly.
👑 Part 3: Inner Game
You might be wanting to skip this chapter on the mental, “inner game” aspect of sales. After all you’re not here to reach enlightment…you wanna close some deals, make it rain up in this joint!! I promise reading this will help you make it rain. We’re talking an Atlanta strip club when Future is in town, make-it-rain money.
You will be dealing with a lot of rejection and coming to work with the right mindset is critical to your results. Without a positive attitude you are royally fucked in inside sales. Totally, totally fucked. It doesn’t matter if you have the skills. You’re still fucked. Positive thinking is incredibly important.
🚫 Part 4: Objections and Frame Control
“I’m not interested.” “She’s in a meeting now.” “I can take a message/take your email.” “I don’t have the money/time.” “Call me back in a couple months.” “Kill yourself.”
I have heard a lot of objections, lies, power plays, and just plain mean things over the phone. Most people will just say things to get rid of you, some assholes will try to take control of your call and dismantle your self-esteem. But, don’t worry: there are ways to turn many of these situations around and you’ll learn them here.
😄 Part 5: Building Rapport
I’m sure you have friends. I’m sure they like you at least a little bit. I’d bet they’re pretty similar to you, too. But, if you’re you™, with only one body and voice and personality, how do you get a old southern cowboy, a new mother, and a stoner dude to all like you in less than 10 seconds? This section explains the science behind rapport and how to get everybody to like you.
♠️ Part 6: Cognitive Tricks
If you’re a geek about psychology like me, this will be your favorite section. Push-Pull, Framing, and a bunch other mind games to GAIN POWER over the prospect, whether in the form of manufacturing an addiction to you or capturing their attention. Get the prospect thanking you for your time and calling you back. This section is your ace in the hole when dealing with leads who’ve seen it all and are familiar with the tricks of the trade. I wish I knew them all but I don’t, so let this be your starting point for learning advanced sales techniques.
🗣 “Knowledge without practice is nothing” 🗣
I cannot stress enough that practice makes perfect. You will NEVER get good by only reading. And after you’re done reading this and start practicing, you’ll have to keep learning from others and reading other stuff because there’s always more to learn. Becoming great at inside sales will take time and hard work, and if you are dedicated, you will see results. So…
Let’s get started with basic sales structure 👉
Jump to another article in this series:
Part 1: An Introduction to Phone Sales
Part 2: Open, Problem, Solution, Close
Part 3: Inner Game (In progress…)
Part 4: Objections and Frame Control (In progress…)
Part 5: Building Rapport
Part 6: Cognitive Tricks (In progress…)
