Beyond the Relationship: The 2-Hour Habit for Proactive Territory Growth
Your reps are busy, and every customer gets taken care of. So why do the territories look the same as last quarter?
It’s easy for your sales reps’ schedules to fill up with service calls. The job seems to constantly be pulling your team toward repair and maintenance rather than actual selling. By Friday the week has been incredibly busy, every customer got taken care of, and yet the territories look no different than they did last quarter.
Nothing went wrong, and that’s the tough part to separate: a week can be fully consumed without producing a single piece of new business.
Factory and distribution reps are known for being great at relationship selling and follow-through. New business development and proactive selling are areas that could use some attention. But what’s the difference, and how does your team make the shift?
What’s the Difference?
The difference between relationship selling and proactive selling is real, and your team needs both.
Relationship selling: Time spent intentionally building a connection so strong that a client buys from your rep because of who they are, not just what they sell.
Proactive selling: Time spent intentionally creating or advancing business that only exists because your rep created it.
Strong relationships keep customers buying from your team, but the growth they bring can plateau over time. Proactive selling is how a territory keeps growing past that.
Here are a few examples of proactive selling:
Proposing a business or growth plan to a customer
Bringing a customer an idea that could improve their business, operation, profitability, or ability to serve their customers
Meeting with a new prospect or new decision maker
Introducing a product, service, or solution based on a specific customer need
Re-engaging a dead account with a reason to reactivate business
Creating introductions to new departments, locations, decision makers, or potential customers
And here’s the test. A rep can run it on anything in their calendar by asking: was this appointment made to check in, or to deliver something I’ve prepared as part of a growth plan?
Three Moves
In my experience it comes down to three things.
Protect the time. Proactive selling doesn’t just happen in the time between everything else. It needs dedicated and non-negotiable time on the calendar. The habit is setting that time aside every week, starting with two uninterrupted hours for creating new opportunities.
Go deep. Reps need to understand their customers at a deeper level, personally and in business. That understanding is what provides context and purpose, and that’s where opportunities start.
Create the opening. Reps need to look for chances to connect what they offer, service or product, to what the customer wants to accomplish and what they value. It usually means looking at a much bigger picture.
What Doesn’t Count?
A customer visit, quote, lunch, product demonstration, or follow-up is not automatically proactive selling. The distinction is intent: is your rep responding to existing business or intentionally creating new business movement?
Two reps can have identical calendars, and one of them is growing while the other is going through the motions. The daily calendar can’t tell the difference, but your year-end can.
Working With MB Resources
What your reps need are habits for growth, the depth to find what others miss, and someone in their corner to help them build their skills. That’s where I come in, working with factory and distribution reps to create those habits. Instead of a canned program, I meet each rep where they’re at and get them to their full potential sooner.
I’d like to hear about your team, where you want to see growth, and what that growth could be worth.
When are you free to talk?
Matt Butler, MB Resources | 801.244.4844 | matt@mattbutler.org