Inside Sales Getting More Opportunities from Outbound Calls [INFOGRAPHIC]

It’s a good time to be an inside sales rep, as new data reveals that outbound prospecting isn’t just alive and well – it’s thriving!

In April, we reported that a Bridge Group and AG Salesworks study revealed that in Q4 of 2012, reps were generating 32 opportunities per 1,000 outbound calls. Now, they have updated their data and released it in Outbound Index: issue #2 and the results are promising. Over the past two quarters, the outbound index (opportunities generated per 1,000 calls) has shot up 31%. Sales reps are now generating 42 opportunities that entered the sales organization’s pipeline for every 1,000 accounts prospected. So sales reps and managers should expect more opportunities to arise from outbound prospecting efforts.

Given the size of the data set, we have every reason to believe that the study’s results are showing a real trend with actionable implications. The Outbound Index, which is based on actual transactional CRM data, drew from an expansive data set:

• Over than 50 technologies
• More than 270K touches
• Over 13K conversations

These numbers make a compelling case for outbound prospecting as a sales model. As the authors of the study wrote, “The point of all this isn’t to throw numbers at you, but to get you thinking about how to measure, benchmark, and manager your own outbound.”We couldn’t agree more! Sales managers need to know what percentage of outbound calls are driving opportunities.

One of the main reasons we developed Revenue.io is to give sales managers expanded insight into call metrics. Our softphone app for inside sales enables sales managers to take their team’s pulse in real time, enabling sales managers to not only know the percentage of calls creating opportunities but also driving revenue.

Will your team’s “outbound index” match up with the study?  Now that you have an idea of how many calls should be creating opportunities you can see whether your reps are meeting, exceeding or falling short of expectations.

From The Bridge Group