If you have your finger on the pulse of Inside Sales, you know that breaking the ‘prospecting’ and ‘closing’ functions into two roles has crossed the chasm. Role specialization is here to stay. 

One of the big benefits is that specialized teams are responsible for a very clear piece of the sales process. You can measure effectiveness, add or subtract headcount, and course correct as needed.

Sadly, it’s not all joy in Whoville.

I’m noticing a concerning trend. More and more often, when revenue goals are missed, companies look at their Sales Development teams and assume that is where the problem lies.

In some instances, it certainly is. But I’d hazard a guess that at least half the time, the problem lies further down the sales funnel – right at the feet of either the Sales Reps or, potentially, the sales process itself.

 
Continuing our annual tradition, I've rounded up the very best of our writing and thinking from the past 12 months. So with a big thank you to our readers, new and old, here's the best of what we shared in 2013.

Most Commented Articles

A couple of emails hit my inbox last week back-to-back.

The first was from Glassdoor, Best Places to Work 2014, announcing their 6th annual employee choice awards. The second was from Craig Ferrara of AG Salesworks, 7 Things I Want My Inside Sales Team To Know For 2014.

Now, I love Glassdoor. It's the best way to get the inside dish on the Pros and Cons of working at a given company. So I wondered, what if I grabbed a bunch of those reviews and compared them to Craig’s list?

Experiment time!

Here is the process I used:

• Logged into Glassdoor and picked out the B2B tech companies from the Top 50
• Drilled into Sales reviews only (inside, AEs, SDRs, etc.)
• Exported the most recent 100 reviews

I got busy parsing and found something pretty interesting.

 
Last week, I was challenged to write about 'how I work.' Inspired by LifeHacker, Anthony Iannarino moved the idea into the sales field.