The short answer
Inside sales is selling remotely, from the office or from home, by phone, email and video call. Field sales, also called outside sales, is selling face to face at the customer's premises. In Dutch the two are the binnendienst and the buitendienst. Inside sales handles more conversations per day at a lower cost per conversation, so it suits smaller deals, shorter cycles and products a buyer can understand on a screen. Field sales costs a rep's travel time for every meeting, so it earns its place on large deals, long cycles with several decision-makers, and products that need to be seen, measured or installed. Most B2B teams in Belgium and the Netherlands now run a hybrid: inside reps find and qualify, field reps close the larger accounts.
Definitions follow the Wikipedia entry on sales, read on 1 October 2026. No official Belgian or Dutch source publishes the cost of a sales visit, so the comparison below names the cost drivers and leaves the numbers to you.
What inside sales and field sales mean
The difference is where the conversation happens. An inside sales rep runs the whole process remotely: first call, discovery, demo on a shared screen, proposal and follow-up. A field sales rep sells at the customer's place of business, usually after booking the visit by phone.
The Dutch terms carry an older meaning worth knowing when you write a job ad. A commercieel medewerker binnendienst traditionally handled quotes, orders and customer questions in support of the vertegenwoordiger or accountmanager buitendienst who visited customers. Inside sales in the modern sense is a selling role with its own targets, not an order desk.
How the two models compare
Aspect | Inside sales | Field sales |
|---|---|---|
Where it happens | Phone, email, video call, LinkedIn | At the customer's office, site or plant |
Typical deal | Smaller, more standardised, often a subscription or repeat order | Larger, customised, often a multi-year contract |
Typical cycle | Shorter, fewer people on the buyer's side | Longer, several decision-makers and formal approval |
Conversations per rep per day | Many | A few, limited by travel |
Main cost per conversation | Rep time and tools | Rep time, travel time, car and expenses |
What a field visit costs compared with a video call
A video call costs the rep the meeting plus preparation. A field visit costs the same, plus:
Travel time. Paid selling hours in which nobody is sold to. Around Brussels, Antwerp and the Randstad, rush hour matters more than distance.
The car and expenses. Company car or mileage allowance, fuel or charging, parking, sometimes lunch or an overnight stay.
Fewer meetings per day. A rep who can hold several video calls in a morning may manage one or two visits.
Scheduling friction. A cancellation on the day loses the travel as well as the slot.
To compare the two for your team, take a month of calendar data and work out, per channel, the rep hours per held meeting (travel included), multiply by the rep's full employment cost per hour, add travel costs, and divide by deals won. Set that cost per won deal against the average deal value in each channel. The visit is worth it when it wins deals a call would lose, or wins them bigger.
Hybrid models
Four set-ups are common in B2B teams today:
Inside books, field closes. An SDR prospects and qualifies remotely and books a visit for a field account executive. How to organise the booking side is covered in B2B appointment setting.
Split by account size. Field reps own key accounts; inside reps handle smaller customers and new business below a deal-size threshold.
Split by stage. Discovery by video, a site visit for the demo, technical survey or negotiation, and everything after signature remote again.
Field reps with inside days. Fixed days for calls and follow-up, visits grouped by area on the other days.
Which roles sit where
Role | Usually | Why |
|---|---|---|
SDR or BDR | Inside | Volume: many first contacts, fast follow-up, meetings booked for someone else |
Account executive, smaller deals | Inside | Demo and proposal work on a screen, and the deal does not carry the cost of travel |
Account executive, large or technical deals | Field or hybrid | Several decision-makers, a site to see, a contract to negotiate in the room |
Key account manager | Field | The relationship is the product, and regular visits protect it |
Account manager, smaller customers | Inside | Renewals, upsell and check-ins across many accounts |
The SDR role and its handover to an account executive are described in what an SDR does. What an account manager owns after the first deal is in what an account manager is.
When to move from field to inside sales, or add it
Three questions tell a company that grew up with a buitendienst whether it is time.
Territory density. How many good-fit accounts sit within a reasonable drive of each rep? In a dense area a field rep can chain visits; where accounts are thin on the ground, most of the day is driving. In Belgium language adds a layer: a French-speaking inside rep can cover Wallonia and Brussels from the office without a second field team.
Deal size. If the average deal is small relative to the cost of the visits it takes to win it, those deals belong inside. Many companies keep field reps for accounts above a threshold.
Product complexity. Software, services and standard products can be shown on a screen. Machinery, installations and anything that needs a site survey still benefit from a visit at one stage.
Buyers who ask for a video call when you propose a visit point the same way. For an inside team calling Belgian companies, cold calling in Belgium covers preparing the list and choosing the opening language.
Territory planning with radius-based lists
Once you know which accounts deserve a visit, a radius-based list is the simplest planning tool:
Start from the rep's base. Draw a radius around it that matches a realistic day of driving, shorter in congested areas.
Filter on your ideal customer profile. Activity code, headcount band, legal form. Accounts that fit but are too small for a visit go to the inside team.
Check the address you will visit. The registered office is not always where the buyer works or the equipment stands.
Cluster by day. Plan each field day around a group of nearby accounts, and fill the gaps with calls.
Cover the rest remotely. Good-fit accounts outside every rep's radius go to inside sales rather than being left untouched.
This is where Bizzy fits. You search for companies within a radius of an address, for example within 20 km of Ghent, and combine it with activity codes, headcount, legal form and other filters in the same search. Belgian company data comes from the KBO register, including establishment units with their own addresses, and filed accounts from the National Bank of Belgium; Dutch companies are covered through Creditsafe data. Each company comes with its contacts, and lists push to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Teamleader Focus or Odoo, so field and inside reps work from the same records. You can start for free; the plans are on the pricing page.
Decision table: inside, field or hybrid
Situation | Best fit |
|---|---|
Small, standard deals, many prospects, short cycle | Inside sales |
Large deals, several decision-makers, long cycle | Hybrid: inside prospecting, field closing |
Physical product, installation or site survey | Field sales, with inside booking the visits |
Dense territory, good-fit accounts close together | Field sales is affordable |
Accounts spread thinly across the country | Inside sales, with planned field days |
Several languages to cover | Inside reps per language before field reps per region |
Measuring both models side by side
Compare channels on the same numbers: meetings held, conversion from meeting to opportunity to won deal, cycle length, average deal value and cost per won deal. Track them per channel, not only per rep, or you will not see whether the visits pay back. Which metrics belong on the dashboard is covered in sales KPIs.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between inside sales and field sales? Inside sales sells remotely by phone, email and video call; field sales sells face to face at the customer's premises. Inside handles more conversations at a lower cost each; field wins where a visit changes the outcome.
What do binnendienst and buitendienst mean in sales? They are the Dutch terms for inside and field sales. Traditionally the binnendienst supported the buitendienst with quotes and orders; modern inside sales is a selling role with its own targets.
Is an SDR inside sales? Almost always. An SDR prospects, qualifies and books meetings remotely, often for an account executive who may sell inside or in the field.
When should a company add inside sales? When field reps spend more time driving than meeting, when small deals do not cover the cost of the visits that win them, or when buyers prefer video calls.
Photo: a street in the beguinage of Diest, EmDee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons