Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Inside Sales Director

🎯 Role Definition

The Inside Sales Director is a senior sales leader responsible for building, coaching, and scaling a high-performance inside sales organization focused on driving predictable revenue through inbound and outbound channels. This role owns quota delivery, pipeline management, CRM data integrity, sales playbook execution, forecasting accuracy, and cross-functional alignment with marketing, customer success, product, and sales operations. Ideal candidates have proven experience leading inside/remote teams in B2B or SaaS environments, are data-driven, and can convert strategy into measurable growth and repeatable processes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Inside Sales Manager with consistent quota over-attainment
Senior Account Executive or Business Development Manager (B2B SaaS)
Sales Operations Manager with hands-on revenue responsibility

Advancement To:

VP of Inside Sales / VP of Revenue
Head of Sales / Senior Director of Sales
Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

Lateral Moves:

Director of Sales Operations
Director of Customer Success
Head of Growth or Revenue Enablement

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own full P&L and quota for the inside sales organization, setting aggressive but achievable monthly, quarterly and annual revenue targets, ensuring the team consistently meets or exceeds ARR/MRR goals.
Lead recruiting, hiring, onboarding and ramp plans for inside sales reps and team leads; build a scalable hiring pipeline and reduce time-to-productivity through structured enablement.
Design and implement the inside sales playbook including ideal customer profiles, cadences, objection handling guides, talk tracks, demo scripts and qualification frameworks to increase conversion rates and shorten sales cycles.
Manage CRM (Salesforce or HubSpot) ownership across the team: enforce data hygiene, opportunity stage definitions, activity logging standards, and automated workflows to ensure forecast accuracy and actionable reporting.
Forecast weekly and monthly sales results with precision: analyze funnel metrics, win rates, pipeline coverage, and risk factors; present concise, data-backed forecasts to executive leadership.
Drive outbound prospecting strategy — build specialized SDR/BDR programs, prospecting sequences (SalesLoft/Outreach), account-based outreach with LinkedIn Sales Navigator and ZoomInfo enrichment to increase qualified pipeline.
Partner closely with marketing to optimize lead routing, MQL to SQL conversion, co-develop targeted campaigns, and implement SLA-driven follow-up processes to improve lead quality and velocity.
Implement and monitor KPIs such as quota attainment, average deal size, lead response time, conversion rates by stage, activity per rep, churn-in-trial and pipeline velocity; use insights to coach and iterate.
Coach and develop inside sales managers and reps through regular 1:1s, call coaching (recording & review), ride-alongs, pipeline reviews and competency-based training to lift performance and retention.
Build and maintain compensation and incentive plans aligned to company goals; set quotas, accelerators and SPIFFs that motivate desired behaviors and reward over-performance.
Lead cross-functional programs with customer success and renewal teams to create frictionless handoffs, reduce churn, and pursue expansion opportunities from inside sales-sourced accounts.
Drive product and pricing feedback loops from the prospecting and demo stage into product management and pricing teams to improve win rates and deal economics.
Implement territory segmentation and account assignment strategies to ensure equitable coverage, balanced quotas and maximum market penetration.
Optimize sales technology stack and integrate tools (Salesforce, outreach automation, sales engagement platforms, CPQ, eSignature) to reduce administrative overhead and increase selling time.
Own complex deal desks for contract exceptions, approval workflows and commercial negotiations for inside-sales-sourced opportunities; work with legal and finance on playbooked templates and escalation paths.
Execute regular competitive analysis, win/loss reviews, and buyer insight research; translate findings into training, messaging and objection-handling collateral for the team.
Create scalable onboarding curricula, certification paths and role-based learning journeys to accelerate rep ramp and create consistent customer experiences.
Run weekly pipeline and deal reviews with managers; triage at-risk deals, set action plans with owners, and escalate when necessary to preserve forecast commitments.
Build a high-performance culture that emphasizes continuous improvement, accountability, transparency, and career mobility; lead by example with high activity and process discipline.
Oversee multi-channel inside sales channels including inbound lead handling, rapid-response demo scheduling, remote product demonstrations, and transactional closing for SMB and mid-market segments.
Design and manage cross-sell and upsell programs for inside sales to capture expansion revenue, collaborate with CSMs for coordinated outreach, and track attach rates and expansion conversion.
Lead the implementation of sales enablement initiatives such as battlecards, playbooks, objection templates, and recorded role-play sessions to raise overall team competence.
Standardize metrics, dashboards and reporting (Tableau, Looker or Salesforce dashboards) for real-time visibility into KPIs and to inform executive decision-making.
Manage budget for headcount, tools and investments for the inside sales function; measure ROI on enablement, tools, and campaigns to prioritize spend.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Partner with HR and Talent Acquisition on employer branding and sourcing strategies for inside sales talent.
Represent the company at recruiting events, industry conferences and virtual hiring fairs to attract top inside sales candidates.
Assist finance with quarterly business reviews and long-range planning related to inside sales capacity and revenue forecasting.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expert-level experience with CRM platforms (Salesforce strongly preferred; HubSpot acceptable) including admin-level knowledge of workflows, reporting, and opportunity management.
Proficient with sales engagement tools (SalesLoft, Outreach), prospecting tools (ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator) and call recording/coaching platforms (Gong, Chorus).
Demonstrated skills in funnel and pipeline analytics: building dashboards, understanding conversion rates, calculating sales velocity and required pipeline coverage for quota attainment.
Strong financial acumen for quota modeling, compensation design, deal economics, and forecasting (ability to model ARR/MRR impact).
Experienced with sales enablement systems and content management (Seismic, Highspot) and creating structured onboarding/certification programs.
Familiarity with CPQ, eSignature, and contract management tools (DocuSign, Conga) to streamline closing workflows.
Data-savvy: ability to work with exported datasets, pivot tables and basic SQL queries or collaborate with sales ops to extract actionable insights.
Experience designing and operating outbound playbooks, account segmentation logic, and territory planning frameworks.
Competent in A/B testing of messaging/cadences and interpreting results to optimize outreach performance.
Knowledgeable about SaaS metrics and go-to-market models (ACV, LTV, CAC, ARR retention) and how inside sales contributes to growth stages.

Soft Skills

Inspirational leader and coach with proven ability to recruit, retain and develop high-performing sales teams.
Strong written and verbal communication skills for crafting messaging, training materials and executive-level presentations.
Strategic thinker who translates business goals into executable inside sales tactics and measurable KPIs.
Data-driven decision maker who balances quantitative insights with practical sales instincts.
Collaborative cross-functional partner, able to align marketing, product, CS and operations to remove friction and drive shared objectives.
Resilient problem-solver who manages ambiguity, reprioritizes quickly and navigates competing stakeholder needs.
Excellent time and project management skills with a bias for action and continuous improvement.
High emotional intelligence and coaching presence for delivering feedback, running performance reviews and developing careers.
Negotiation and influencing skills to win internal approvals, shape commercial terms, and close prospects.
Customer-centric mindset focused on delivering a frictionless buying experience for SMB and mid-market buyers.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics or related field.

Preferred Education:

MBA or advanced degree a plus, especially for candidates coming from strategic or enterprise-focused backgrounds.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration
Marketing
Communications
Economics
Finance

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

8–12+ years in B2B sales with progressive responsibility; at least 3–5 years in a people manager or director-level role leading inside or remote sales teams.

Preferred:

Proven track record of leading inside sales in a SaaS or technology company, consistently achieving quota, scaling teams from early-stage to growth, and owning CRM-driven forecasting and coaching programs.
Experience working with SDR/BDR models, inbound and outbound motions, and cross-functional GTM alignment (marketing, sales ops, CS).