Outside sales, also known as field sales and territory sales, encompasses selling face-to-face out in the world. Rather than inside sales, which is selling remotely, outside sales reps call on clients at their places of business, attending trade shows, or knocking on doors.
Reps operate without a formal schedule and must juggle their own meetings and customer follow‑ups. It demands self-reliance. While it's a more hands‑on approach that costs more to run than inside sales, it often brings in larger deals. If you've ever wondered what is outside sales, are looking into it as a potential career, or need to scale your business and are considering building an outside sales team, you're in the right place. This is the ultimate guide to outside sales.
Outside sales is the practice of selling products or services in person. Reps spend their days on the road, aka out in the field. They meet prospects and customers face-to-face to build relationships and share how their solutions could meet a customer’s needs.
As these reps work autonomously outside of traditional oversight, self-management and drive are basic, foundational elements to success. Many sales operations can now be managed more efficiently with inside sales, but despite the prevalence of the digital world, entire industries still depend on traditional outside sales to power growth. Many buyers often still need to see a product up close or require hands‑on support for high‑stakes purchases.
Outside sales takes various forms, but when boiled down there are two dominant flavors of field selling.
The first type is business‑to‑business (B2B) field selling. Reps manage a territory, a book of accounts that are often, but not always, defined by geography. Some territories span zip codes. Others span entire states. B2B field reps spend months nurturing relationships. These are not one and donw deals. When a rep finally gets an "in", these relationships can last for years.
Think of a pharmaceutical representative calling on the same doctor’s office quarter after quarter. They bring lunch for the staff and answer questions about new drugs and market regulations. Not every visit, or even the vast majority, will result in a sale. Trust is paramount. Deals take longer. But the payoff is larger.
"You need to be a problem solver. When a prospect or customer has a problem, you’re the go-to person to provide a solution," said RepMove's Founder and CEO Dillon Baird. Before founding RepMove, Dillon spent a decade in the field as a successful outside sales rep. He stresses active listening and being a consultant more than a sales rep.
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The second type of outside sales is business-to-consumer (B2C) field selling, which is often referred to as door‑knocking or canvassing. Think a solar rep who rings every bell on a street or a pest‑control seller who keeps showing up unannounced. Canvassers rely on volume, quickly pitching a simple offering to homeowners or small businesses, dealing with frequent rejection and occasional success. Their days are packed with cold introductions and short sales cycles. But don't sleep on it as a career. Successful reps can pull in massive commissions.
Field sellers often command higher compensation than their inside counterparts, and cost more in terms of overall overhead, because they handle bigger, more complex deals. So what is outside sales earning potential?
According to Indeed’s salary data from August 2025, the average outside sales representative in the United States earns around $87,380 in base pay and takes home roughly $22,560 in commissions. The low-end is around $45,000 in base salary and the high-end approaches $170,000. While the exact figures vary by industry and region, outside sellers often earn high wages because they drive a direct impact on their employers' growth.
RepMove aggregated data from thousands of customers and datapoints from January to July of 2025. The average outside sales rep makes 5.1 visits per day. The top 10% of reps visit 13.9 customers and prospects daily. The bottom 10% average 2.07 visits a day.
Stretch the average of 5.1 visits across a five‑day workweek and you get roughly 25 visits per week, about 112 visits each month and 1,326 visits a year. The top performers are a different breed: they have nearly 69 visits a week, about 306 visits a month, and 3,614 visits each year. The tenth percentile have about 10 visits per week, 46 per month, and around 538 per year. Field sales rewards consistency and persistence. Reps who put in the time and effort to visit more customers create more opportunities and see the results.
Not every visit is a sales call with a current customer. In fact, many reps should try to fit more prospect visits into their days. RepMove’s 2025 data also reveals how reps balance prospecting with account management.
On average, 18.1% of visits involve new prospects. The top 10% of outside sales reps in terms of prospect visit rate dedicate 38% of visits to hunting for new business. The bottom 10% of reps for prospect visit rate invest just 2.04% of their visits looking for new business.
Managing customers and prospects is a balancing act. Many leaders want their reps working as much new business into their days as possible, but current customers often take precedence. The key for reps is to know when a customer issue urgently needs an outside sales rep to step in and when it can be passed over to the support team or managed later.
A field rep’s calendar largely involves traveling between meetings and managing follow-ups. It also involves administrative time devoted to planning routes, updating a CRM, and sending in call reports.
Reps start by mapping their territory and prioritizing existing accounts and prospective customers to hit. Some reps plan routes the night before. Some plan each week out in advance. Others wing it. You can guess which of these groups see the most success.
Reps then hit the road and head out to offices, jobsites, or trade shows to meet face-to-face. They aren’t just selling. That’s too short-sighted in this world. They’re creating rapport and building relationships. Each visit builds on the last. Outside sales reps typically manage a geographic territory and analyze the most optimal way to divide their time across their area. They spend their days presenting product demos and answering questions face‑to‑face.
They often, but not always, handle their own logistics. This includes planning routes, setting meetings, and ensuring they have product on-hand to present. Because they’re not tethered to a desk, field reps need strong time management skills and adaptability. Last‑minute changes hit from out-of-the-blue. Traffic, weather, unexpected cancellations—these are part of the proverbial territory.
Successful outside sales reps also share a critical, and too often overlooked, trait: resilience. A traffic jam causes you to miss an appointment and lose a deal. An hour commute across town gets canceled 5 minutes before the planned meeting time. Obstacles out of their control hinder even the most well-prepared reps. But the best take it in stride and keep moving forward.
The pressure of face-to-face prospecting and the hard rejection that comes with it also cause many reps to simply focus on current customers, becoming more account management and less sales-oriented. It’s a trap even the best can fall into that underscores the need for balance and self-awareness in the field.
Field sales teams org charts depend on the size and complexity of their business. At a large enterprise, such as a nationwide equipment rental firm, the hierarchy might start with a Chief Revenue Officer or Vice President of Sales overseeing multiple Regional Directors. Each director manages several Regional Sales Managers who handle Territory Managers and Account Executives in specific markets. These reps are supported by Inside Sales Coordinators, Service Managers, and Customer Success Teams who help with quotes, billing and after‑sale support.
In a mid‑market company like a regional medical device distributor, the structure is flatter. A Director of Sales might oversee a handful of Regional Managers, each with a team of Outside Sales Representatives. These reps work alongside Clinical Specialists or Product Specialists who provide deep product knowledge during demonstrations. Some mid‑size firms also employ Sales Development Representatives to set appointments and Account Managers to handle renewals.
A small business, such as a local construction supply distributor, has a leaner setup. The owner or general manager often serves as the sales leader. One sales manager might oversee a small team of a few outside reps covering different counties or zip codes, with an inside sales rep or customer service rep handling orders when the field team is on the road. Regardless of size, most structures follow the same principle: field reps own their territory and rely on support staff for paperwork, logistics, and service after the sale.
Modern field sellers use a suite of tools to stay efficient and informed. If you're wondering what is outside sales technology, here are a few categories of tools.
Mobile CRM: Reps need to log notes after each meeting, update opportunities, and check inventory on the road. A mobile CRM’s interface enables this to happen quickly.
Sales enablement: Digital catalogues and presentation tools help reps show products and pricing on mobile devices to close deals faster.
Calendar & meeting scheduler: Ranging from native mobile apps to more advanced meeting schedulers that allow customers and prospects to place time on a rep’s calendar.
Route planning & mapping: Perhaps the most critical tool in the bag of an outside sales rep, route planning apps let reps plot out the most efficient path between multiple daily stops. Using real-time traffic data and other variables, route planning tools give reps extra time they can then devote to more visits.
Generative AI: Not every customer interaction happens in-person. Reps often take calls on-the-go and AI‑powered coaching and conversation‑intelligence tools analyze recordings. They surface phrases that resonate with buyers and help reps refine their pitches.
Note-taking: Some reps use notebooks. Others use note apps. These tools are searchable to help reps remember key insights from prior meetings. They enable voice-to-text for faster notes. Some include AI to rewrite notes into polished updates or even follow-up emails.
Outside sales platform: Then there’s RepMove. It’s a modern field sales CRM and app that’s built for outside sales. Reps track notes using voice-to-text and AI to create follow-up emails. They scan business cards to create new contacts almost instantly. Every note gets tracked and stored on an account record. Reps also plan and optimize routes within the tool. They can store sales enablement documents and share them via integrated email. They track follow-ups and action items within a calendar.
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Reps can sign up and use it just for themselves or, if on a team plan, all the data gets stored to a shared database where management can see their activities in real-time to find opportunities to improve team performance and coach reps to success.
Outside sales drives growth in multiple sectors, particularly those with complex products or those that require hands‑on inspection.
Construction supply and equipment rental companies send reps to jobsites to meet with the different trades to offer their products. Medical device and pharmaceutical companies rely on field reps to educate doctors and hospital administrators about new technologies or drugs, answer clinical questions, and help with compliance. Industrial manufacturers of heavy machinery or specialized components use outside sales to demonstrate operation and handle custom specifications. Wholesale distributors of plumbing, electrical or HVAC supplies maintain field teams to service contractors and builders. Agriculture and food service suppliers send reps to restaurants and farms to check inventory and upsell new products. Even in technology and telecommunications, enterprise software and hardware vendors still deploy field reps to secure large accounts and attend trade shows. Anywhere a handshake or a walk‑through of a facility helps close the deal, outside sales is likely at play.
Outside sales is a numbers game at the end of the day. Success depends on optimizing limited time to create more opportunities to sell. Outside sales reps on average only spend about 33.54% of their time on revenue-driving activities, according to Forbes. That means about 5 hours and 20 minutes every day are available to drive more sales. The reps that decrease this time spent not selling win.
So how do reps ensure they're spending as much time as possible? It starts with measurement and structure. RepMove is the ultimate tool for sales route planning, note tracking, and everything reps need to quickly improve. If you're not ready to dive into a paid tool (you can try RepMove free), download a free customer visit report template to track notes, sales, and your key performance metrics. Check out these ChatGPT outside sales prompts. Maximize every visit and add at least 2 stops to your daily routes.
