Top 5 Reasons why Inside Sales succeeds — Autodesk’s version

Last week, Autodesk held their annual ONE TEAM Conference in Vegas and dedicated a Leadership Summit for their resellers and partners.  The talented Bill Griffin, VP of Channel Sales and recipient of the CRN Channel Chiefs for 2011 by CRN Magazine, is the mastermind behind the success of Autodesk’s  strong and vibrant Partner Program.

Bill’s opening keynote was inspirational and motivating, fun and very engaging. As he announced Autodesk’s aggressive growth plans for FY12, Bill encouraged his resellers and partners to also think and dream big this year. Autodesk’s business model is channel-driven and their commitment to providing their partners with all the products, knowledge, business acumen is exceptional.

One of the sessions was focused on building and growing an inside sales organization and Deb Keith, Director of Inside Sales delivered this topic. I was invited to speak on one of my favorite topics — Inside Sales. Deb brings a wealth of experience in building and and managing successful inside organizations.

She shared her Top 5 Reasons Inside Sales Succeed:

1. Being clear on the objective
2. Hiring the right people
3. Building the appropriate coalitions
4. On-boarding quickly
5. Effective motivation and reward

This topic is very timely as Inside Sales continues to experience monumental growth as Inside sales organizations are quadrupling their sales teams this year.

According to Inside Sales Remote Sales Industry Research, by 2012 companies are adding inside sales departments at a rate of 7.5% per year.  Inside teams are chartered with more revenue responsibility than ever before, and the good news is that spending is up: about $2 trillion in cash is held by US corporations and $2 trillion in cash is in US banks.

This supports Autodesk’s projected growth charter, and the smart choices companies are making to implement inside sales departments.