What New Reps Get Wrong

One of the biggest mistakes in your first sales job is confusing motion with progress.

If you’re new to sales and wondering, “Why am I not getting sales yet?” this is usually the reason.

The cure? Structure.

There are two types of activity in sales:

1. Maintenance Activity

• Responding to emails
• Researching endlessly
• Internal meetings
• Proposal tweaks
• Administrative work

This feels productive. But it rarely answers the question: How do I build a sales pipeline as a new sales rep?

2. Pipeline-Building Activity

• Prospecting calls
• Conversations with decision-makers
• Setting first appointments
• Following up consistently
• Asking open-ended diagnostic questions

This is how you generate leads when you’re new to sales. This is what belongs inside a daily prospecting plan for beginners.

If you want to know how to be successful in your first 90 days in sales, understand this:

• Only pipeline-building activity creates future revenue.
• Revenue is a lagging indicator.
• Pipeline activity is not.

If you’re asking yourself what you should be doing in your first sales role each day, start here.

Build pipeline first.

Everything else comes second.

Need structure? You know where to find me.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions. Artificial Intelligence may have been used in part to create or edit this content.