outside sales Archives - Transmission Digest
Does Outside Sales Really Work?

I know outside sales works and so do most of you. You’ve all tried it from time to time. I built my transmission business almost exclusively on it by hitting the road myself in the beginning and then always having an outside salesperson on the payroll. As the commercial about the lottery says, “You have to be in it to win it.”

Tobacco Road

Outside sales is not a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process that allows you to identify the types and number of accounts you will want to service, to prepare the best possible sales materials, to learn techniques that get and keep your foot in the door, to handle objections so you can land the accounts and especially to visit all existing accounts periodically to make sure they continue to exist.

The Best of Intentions

How many of you have said, “Yeah, I’ve got to get out and do some outside sales”? You generally tend to say that when business is slow. You may have every intention of actually doing it, but then life gets in the way. The shop gets busy again, the manager doesn’t come in or a technician quits. Any one of these or 62 other possible problems will keep you from doing outside sales. In fact, pretty much any excuse you can think of will keep you from getting out there, because in most cases if you were being honest, you just don’t want to.