Your First 30 Days in Distribution Sales Leadership—How to Build Momentum and Drive Results

Starting a new role as a distribution sales leader comes with high expectations and unique challenges. The industry’s rapid pace, tight margins, and evolving customer expectations demand immediate and sustained focus. Your first 90 days in this role set the tone for your leadership and establish the foundation for long-term success.

This period isn’t just about navigating the new environment; it’s about making an impact. Our latest resource outlines strategies for maximizing your efforts during this period, courtesy of our own chief revenue officer and other sales leaders. 

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what you should do in the first 30 days to better understand your market, and competitors, and assess current strategies.

1. Evaluate Customers and Markets

Before you can make strategic recommendations, you need to spend some time analyzing your customers. Customer and market segmentation enables your team to focus on high-value activities and uncover upselling opportunities. 

Take time to segment them into subgroups based on factors such as: 

• Company size, including the number of locations and products used
• Buying cycles and typical ordering patterns
• Titles and demographics of key decision-makers
• Profitability
• Product purchase categories

Tools like customer relationship management (CRM) software that includes built-in business intelligence (BI) are invaluable here. For instance, White Cup CRM uses AI to analyze customer data and recommend related products or timely outreach based on past purchasing patterns.

2. Assess Competitors

Your competition shapes the market landscape. Your sales and marketing teams will likely have a wealth of knowledge to share about your top competitors, what strategies they’ve tried, and what sets your company apart from theirs. These teams often have a wealth of knowledge from previous research and campaigns, saving you from redoing work that’s already been completed. Their expertise will help you build a clearer picture of the competitive landscape.

To deepen your understanding, explore industry resources like the National Association for Wholesaler-Distributors, Modern Distribution Management, Industrial Distribution, and Distribution Strategy Group. These reports provide key insights into market trends and competitors. Staying informed is also as simple as subscribing to competitor newsletters to track their pricing strategies, promotions, and product launches.

A well-utilized CRM can reveal even more, offering data on competitors who frequently win deals you’ve lost. Analyze this information to refine your approach, whether it’s offering better value, positioning unique product advantages, or addressing unmet customer needs.

For example, if a competitor consistently undercuts your pricing, it may be time to pivot your strategy to emphasize superior product quality or service. Highlighting what makes your offerings stand out can help attract customers who prioritize long-term value over cost alone.

3. Meet With Customers

Customer feedback sessions can help you uncover pain points and unmet needs while helping you better understand what your best buyers value about your company. These sessions offer direct insights that help your sales team craft more tailored strategies, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. They also go a long way toward strengthening customer relationships. 

By listening to customers, you can better align your offerings with their expectations and drive more targeted sales efforts with typically shorter sales cycles.

4. Meet With Key Stakeholders

In addition to meeting with customers, make time to meet individually with key stakeholders from your executive leadership team, sales, marketing, operations and customer service. Here are some questions to help guide these discussions: 

Questions for Your CEO

• What are our top three strategic goals over the next two years, and how should sales play a role in achieving them?
• What metrics are you monitoring most closely to determine the overall health of our business? 
• What are we not measuring that we should? What are we measuring that may not be necessary? 

Questions for the VP of Marketing

• Which customer segments are the most profitable or have the most growth potential?
• What marketing campaigns are in place to target them?
• How does marketing collaborate with sales to develop campaigns, particularly for upselling and cross-selling to existing customers?

Questions for the Product Manager

• How frequently do we have new products or product updates, and how are these shared with the sales team? 
• How do we gather customer and sales rep feedback on products, and what is the process for integrating this feedback into product development or inventory management decisions?
• How well does our product catalog integrate with our ERP and CRM systems for real-time visibility and quoting? How could we improve our quoting process?

Questions for the Director of Customer Support

• What common themes or feedback does the support team hear from customers regarding their interactions with the sales team?
• What processes are in place for customer support to work with sales, especially in handling escalations, cross-sell opportunities, or upsell recommendations?
• How does customer support leverage CRM data in customer interactions, and what data points are most helpful for maintaining and enhancing the customer relationship?

Questions for Sales Territory Managers

• What specific sales goals and KPIs do you focus on in your territory, and how do these align with our company’s broader objectives?
• How would you describe the buying patterns of customers in your territory? 
• Are there untapped opportunities within your current accounts that could benefit from greater attention?

5. Take Inventory of Your Sales Team’s Technology

Many distribution companies use seven or more technologies to manage their business, leading to silos of data and a disjointed approach to customer service. 

This is why integrated solutions are so critical. CRM and business intelligence software that integrates with your ERP eliminates data silos, giving your entire team a 360-degree view of each customer, from recent orders to service interactions.

If your current CRM or BI tool isn’t providing clear, real-time insights, or reporting is time-consuming, it may not be as effective as it could be. Your team may also be missing opportunities to follow up with deals in progress because it requires too much manual effort. 

Quoting is one example of an inefficient process that’s common in distribution because companies typically use an ERP and a CRM that doesn’t integrate. Most team members don’t have access to both systems, leading to confusion and the need to manually gather and enter data between them. 

Get More Expert Advice For Your First 90 Days

If you’re getting accustomed to a sales leadership role at a new company, get more great tips on what to do in your first 30 days and beyond in this great resource.

And stay tuned for an upcoming webinar where we’ll share practical ideas from other sales leaders on how to make the most of your new role!