What does an Inside Sales Representative do?

An Inside Sales Representative sells remotely by phone, email, and video. They generate opportunities through outbound outreach, qualify inbound leads, run discovery calls and demos, negotiate, and close deals against a quota, while keeping activity and pipeline data current in the CRM. They rarely meet customers face to face.

What is the difference between inside sales and a sales development representative?

A sales development representative only generates and qualifies leads, then passes them on, and is measured on meetings booked. An Inside Sales Representative typically owns revenue: they run the sales conversation and close the deal. In smaller teams one person may do both, so define the scope in your posting.

What should I look for when hiring an Inside Sales Representative?

Look for verified quota attainment, call volume comfort, and coachability. Ask candidates to walk through a real deal from first touch to close, then run a short mock discovery call. How they ask questions and handle an objection live tells you more than any resume claim.

How should I structure compensation for inside sales?

A 50/50 to 60/40 split between base salary and commission is typical, with on-target earnings stated clearly and no cap for overperformance. Pay commission monthly or quarterly so feedback stays tight. Publishing realistic on-target earnings in the job ad measurably improves the quality of applicants.

Inside Sales Representative Job Description

Sales candidates compare offers on numbers, and a posting without any is read as a company hiding something. Average deal size, cycle length, quota, on-target earnings, and the split between inbound and outbound: those five figures decide who applies. Everything else in the description is secondary to getting them on the page.

This template covers a full-cycle inside seller, so trim it if your representatives qualify and hand off rather than close. Before you edit, settle the daily activity you genuinely expect, since a team making forty calls a day and one making twelve considered ones are looking for different temperaments and should say so.

Describe how the ramp works and what support exists in the first ninety days, because that period is when most of these hires fail or leave. Advertise where sellers actually look, which increasingly means their own networks rather than a job board. The generator below can produce a full-cycle, inbound, or high-volume version of the description.

Written by Yağmur Erge, HR Content Specialist at Hirex. Reviewed by the Hirex Recruitment Team.
Last updated September 1, 2026.

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About the Inside Sales Representative role

An Inside Sales Representative sells remotely by phone, email, and video instead of visiting customers in person. They work a steady rhythm of outbound calls and follow-ups, qualify inbound leads, run product demos or sales conversations over video, and close deals, all while logging activity and pipeline stages in a CRM.

The role sits at different points of the funnel depending on your model. In some teams, inside sellers own the full cycle from first call to closed deal, typically for smaller deal sizes with shorter cycles. In others, they focus on qualifying and developing leads that field or enterprise reps close. High-volume environments can expect 40 or more calls a day, so resilience matters as much as skill.

Be explicit in your posting about the sales motion: inbound versus outbound mix, average deal size, sales cycle length, quota structure, and on-target earnings. Inside sales candidates compare offers on these numbers, and vague postings lose the strongest performers to companies that publish them.