An inside sales representative is a sales professional responsible for acting upon sales leads and generating new deals and sales with pre-existing customers. Their duties are many but can generally be boiled down to the following: building lasting business relationships with clients, understanding customers' needs and wants, and cooperating with other staff members in order to close on deals. Additionally, the sales representative does a lot of client research, looking into their requirements, as well as a lot of calling people and emailing them, too, all for the sake of achieving quarterly or monthly quotas.
How To Become an Inside Sales Representative
Summary. We reviewed real candidate profiles to learn the best path to become an inside sales representative. We'll guide you through the education, experiences, and skills hiring managers look for in an inside sales representative.
-
Most companies require a inside sales representative to have a bachelor's degree degree in a related field, such as business or marketing.
-
It's important to have relevant work experience, with typical job requirements ranging from 2-4 years in related fields.
-
Common job titles before becoming an inside sales representative include customer service representative, sales representative, and sales associate.
-
Hiring managers expect an inside sales representative to have soft skills such as customer-service skills, interpersonal skills, and physical stamina.
-
Once you have all the required skills and experience, it takes an average of less than 1 month of job training to become an inside sales representative.
-
Getting a certification as a Certified Sales Professional (CSP) will help you to earn more as an inside sales representative.
Before becoming an inside sales representative, 66.0% earned their bachelor's degree. When it comes down to graduating with a master's degree, 4.0% inside sales representatives went for the extra education. If you're wanting to pursue this career, it may be possible to be successful with a high school degree. In fact, most inside sales representatives have a college degree. But about one out of every seven inside sales representatives didn't attend college at all.
Those inside sales representatives who do attend college, typically earn either business degrees or marketing degrees. Less commonly earned degrees for inside sales representatives include communication degrees or psychology degrees.
How to become an Inside Sales Representative in 5 steps:
- Step 1: Explore inside sales representative education
- Step 2: Develop inside sales representative skills
- Step 3: Complete relevent training/internship
- Step 4: Research inside sales representative duties
- Step 5: Prepare your resume
Key Steps To Become an Inside Sales Representative
Explore Inside Sales Representative Education
If you're interested in becoming an inside sales representative, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 66.0% of inside sales representatives have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 4.0% of inside sales representatives have master's degrees. Even though most inside sales representatives have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an inside sales representative. When we researched the most common majors for an inside sales representative, we found that they most commonly have business, marketing and communication.
Inside Sales Representative Major Percentages Business 35.80% Marketing 10.30% Communication 8.50% Psychology 4.90% Other Degrees 40.50% Develop Inside Sales Representative Skills
It'll be a good idea to develop inside sales representative skills before applying for a job. Here are some skills commonly requested in inside sales representative job descriptions:
Skills Percentages Customer Service 21.52% CRM 6.42% Outbound Calls 5.22% Product Knowledge 4.39% Work Ethic 4.01% Complete Relevent Training/Internship
Inside sales representatives spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. During this time, new inside sales representatives learn the skills and techniques required for their specific job and employer. The chart below shows how much time it takes to gain competency as an inside sales representative based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real inside sales representative resumes.
Average Amount Of Time At Training
Research Inside Sales Representative Duties
When you decide to become an inside sales representative, It's important to know what duties and responsibilities are required for this position. Some common responsibilities are a part of most inside sales representative jobs. Here is a list of the main duties that define the role:
- Coordinate commercial sales and manage projects with HVAC contractors for Georgia district.
- Accomplish tasks in a timely manner.Skills UsedComputer, math, reading wiring schematics.
- Generate leads through the use of Linkedin, firm websites and legal magazines.
- Manage and develop a nationwide territory through cold calling utilizing LinkedIn?, DiscoverOrg.
- Manage help desk support for company ERP system as well as employee hardware and software issues.
- Manage a team of 15-25 ISE's through effective sales coaching, call monitoring and creating sales spiff programs.
Prepare Your Resume
Finally, when you already have checked the skills and responsibilities for this role, you can start creating your resume. Everything that goes into creating a perfect resume can take hours, days, or even weeks. No worries, we created a resume builder to make this process as easy as possible with tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and a summary.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Inside Sales Representative Resume templates
Build a professional Inside Sales Representative resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Inside Sales Representative resume.Apply For an Inside Sales Representative Job
Inside Sales Representative Jobs
