when defining outside sales it is helpful to consider its analog inside sales inside sales professionals tend to work inside an office environment during set hours while utilizing the telephone or a variety of other communications technologies such as email video conferencing social media or screen shares they rarely travel to meet clients if at all however given the significant advancement in technology there is now a trend towards a hybrid inside outside model of employment which only requires outside sales when necessary rather than as an essential function of bringing in business this is particularly beneficial when a company needs to reduce costs 
inside sales personnel tend to work within a team with more direct supervision they must be comfortable with cold calling to earn new business and conversant enough to be able to explain a product or service inside out with few or no visual aids or prototypes the widespread adoption of communications technologies has seen inside sales grow by leaps and bounds compared to outside sales one estimate has it that for every one outside sales professional that is hired 10 inside sales people are brought onboard outside sales tends to be more strategic in nature meaning that it can entail meeting with c level decision makers to help them devise and implement business strategies outside sales is more likely to be utilized when selling more complex and expensive goods and services the orders placed from the outside sales process also tend to be larger than those made by way of inside sales inside sales in practice is more of a function of the quantity of interactions over the depth of those interactions 