Inside sales is the dominant sales model for reps in B2B, tech, SaaS, and a variety of B2C industries selling high-ticket items. Put simply, inside sales is a way of handling sales remotely.

Inside sales reps typically work alongside a team of other inside sales colleagues in a shared office environment – making their job different from the face-to-face sales model pursued by outside sales reps at their clients’ business locations.

There are typically two divisions within the inside sales department: Sales Development Reps (SDRs) and Business Development Reps (BDRs). SDRs focus on inbound sales like warm leads from potential clients who have performed an action on the website — downloaded content, requested a demo, utilised live chat, or attended a webinar.

These warm leads are typically from small businesses and commercial industries. SDRs make contact with these leads, and log information into a CRM platform where a more senior sales person, called an Account Executive (AE), will begin nurturing these opportunities in the sales pipeline.