6 Tips for finding a great Inside Sales Job
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 23, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Want more after reading this post? Read my Getting Hired and Succeeding in Your Ultimate Inside Sales Job whitepaper.
April, one of my blog correspondents, wrote this week that she’s moving to another geographical location, and she’ll be looking for a new inside sales job in the tech industry. We always try to help match up people that have taken our inside sales training courses with new companies when appropriate, but April is located far from us, in a locality that we’re not serving right now. She’s starting from scratch, and wanted a few tips on finding a new company. Many of you reading this blog post have been, or are in the same position.
Finding a great new job takes planning and foresight, so here are 6 great things to build upon as you identify and go after an inside sales position at a new company:
1) Update your LinkedIn profile. Ensure that your LinkedIn profile has been completely updated. Include in your contacts as many professional people as possible that you actually know, including colleagues and customers. Don’t invite people you don’t know, or haven’t talked to in awhile. In the case of the latter, why not call again, have a conversation, then mention you’ll send a LinkedIn invitation to him or her. Many employers are reading LinkedIn profiles before they read résumés, so make sure your LI profile is spotless.
2) Identify companies for whom you’d like to work. Read business section in your target area’s local paper, focusing on stories about companies that are doing interesting things, hiring, or getting venture capital funding. In our local paper, I regularly read the quarterly Venture Capital report, as those are often the companies with immediate inside sales hiring budgets.
3) Visit those companies’ websites. Once you’ve identified companies of interest, visit those companies’ websites. Begin your process by first selecting a company whose product or solution offering resonates with you, and you have a passion for. You’ll want to be in love with the solution offering before you interview, and your interest and enthusiasm will be apparent during your eventual interview.
4) Identify your target individuals at those companies. On the company’s website, find out who the top sales and marketing execs are. Plug their names into LinkedIn to see if you have mutual contacts. If you do, you can cold call them, mentioning the names of common associates. In addition, under the “people” search box in the upper right of the LinkedIn screen, type the name of your target company and the term “inside sales” (but don’t uses quotation marks). You may find that the inside sales manager is listed that way, and you can cold call that person, too.
5) Cold call your prospect company’s contacts. Since your new job will involve cold calling, show them that you’re fearless, and love doing it!
6) Prepare for a world-class interview by honing your interview techniques. Unless you’re a world-class interviewee, read Allison’s post in my blog about preparing for an interview. It’s the best document I’ve seen on the art and science of interviewing, so don’t wing it, prepare for it.
OK, so there are 6 critical elements to finding a position at a company that’s right for you. Following these steps will give you a head start on others who may be competing with you for the job, and you'll be expected to compete, just as much as you would for an order or a next call to action on the telephone. Add them to your Best Practices Playbook.