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inside salesman

inside salesman noun: a sales representative employed by a retail or wholesale vendor who works on the premises of his or her employer, transacting with customers directly on a sales floor or by telephone, online messaging, etc.

Noun

inside salesman (plural inside salesmen)

  1. (sales) A sales representative employed by a retail or wholesale vendor who works on the premises of his or her employer, transacting with customers directly on a sales floor or by telephone, online messaging, etc.
    • I used to be an inside salesman. My job was to sell via phone and online, and to support several outside salespeople as well.2010, Mark Anderson, “Great Job Security”, in Small Business Trends, retrieved 21 Jun 2015
  2. (sales) Someone employed within the organization of a prospective buyer who serves (whether for good motives or not) as an advocate for a seller's product or service.
    • ASSISTANT COMPLEX . . . . doesn't have enough authority to buy. . . . Show him that your proposition will make him a star in the eyes of his superiors. Keep him as your "inside" salesman.1951, Sales Management, volume 66, page 173
    • Speak with friends who work at the firms you are interested in to try to get the skinny on the corporate culture. With any luck they may volunteer to become your "inside salesman," talking up your strength to those in a position to hire new employees.2002 October 29, Nancy Lloyd, “Bouncing Back From A Pink Slip”, in Washington Post, retrieved 21 Jun 2015

Examples of inside salesman in a sentence

  • Service providers would typically look for an inside salesman (or advocate) and would be looking to understand the personal as well as the business drivers.2008, David Miller, Business-focused IT and Service Excellence, →ISBN, page 69:
  • This is where I think I first learned about the concept of “inside salesman” or the person who is inside the customer organization and really wants you to win.2009, Bill Selmeier, Spreading the Barcode, →ISBN, page 7:

Forms of inside salesman

pluralinside salesmen

Questions about inside salesman

What does inside salesman mean?
Inside salesman means a sales representative employed by a retail or wholesale vendor who works on the premises of his or her employer, transacting with customers directly on a sales floor or by telephone, online messaging, etc.
How do you use inside salesman in a sentence?
Service providers would typically look for an inside salesman (or advocate) and would be looking to understand the personal as well as the business drivers.
What part of speech is inside salesman?
Inside salesman is a noun.
What is the plural of inside salesman?
The plural of inside salesman is inside salesmen.

Words near inside salesman in the dictionary

  1. inside of
  2. inside out
  3. Inside Passage
  4. inside pocket
  5. inside pockets
  6. inside salesman
  7. inside salesmen
  8. inside scoop
  9. inside scoops
  10. inside stories
  11. inside story

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: inside salesman (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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