Field sales reps who blended virtual and in-person outreach during the pandemic consistently outperformed those who relied solely on in-person contact. The most efficient field sellers use virtual tools for prospecting, qualifying, and maintaining momentum, and reserve in-person visits for the moments that carry the highest return. If you are back to spending your days driving across territory lines without a system for when and why you show up, you are leaving money on the table.

What the Pandemic Revealed About Field Sales Efficiency

I know that the COVID shutdown is squarely in the rearview mirror, and many of us have to dig into the archives to remember the details. But I’ve been interviewing clients for the past six months, and one truth keeps rising to the top. It’s a truth that many of us have forgotten.

My COVID experience started when I left LaGuardia in New York City the first week of March 2020. I flew to San Francisco, where I was working with a tech company, and the town was a ghost town. My client had about 40% of their workforce show up. I flew back to Atlanta and did a field ride with one of my customer reps named Jason. We were sitting in the car after several door knocks with very little success when the radio announced that the NBA season was being canceled. It was at that moment that I knew things had really changed, and I did not get on another plane for over a year.

The Truth Most Field Teams Have Forgotten

2020 was an okay year. Everybody was figuring it out. But 2021 and 2022 were mostly good, and for some people, they were the best years they had ever had.

There were real reasons for that. Scarcity in product, shifting buying habits, certain businesses lifted by the tide. But the thing most people are not talking about is that field-based sales teams were forced to use virtual communication channels to prospect and hold client meetings, and they still had really good years. There is a reason for that. Virtual communication channels are incredibly efficient.

Now, if you are a field-based sales rep, I can already hear you rolling your eyes. And I want you to know I am not a fool. I know there is an extreme power in looking another human being in the eye, shaking their hand, and sitting across a conference room table from them. In-person communication creates an instant emotional connection that AI will never accomplish. You can read the room, pick up on body language and expressions, and build trust in a way that a text or a voice on the phone simply cannot match.

But I also want you to look at your calendar and your bank account. If you spend the entire week driving across territory lines, sitting in traffic, and waiting in lobbies for thirty-minute meetings, you are not maximizing your potential. You are bleeding active selling time.

The Poker Chip Framework

The choice is not between being a road warrior or a screen jockey. It is about integration and blending. We need to respect the power of in-person interactions and save them for the moments that truly matter, while using virtual tools to handle the heavy lifting of prospecting, qualifying, booking meetings, and maintaining momentum.

I often ask field-based clients this question: what if I gave you fifteen poker chips on the first day of the month, and every single time you stopped in on a prospect without a meeting, or checked in, or touched base, you had to give me one chip back? What would you do differently?

That is the question you need to ask yourself.

I know that everyone listening who works in the field can tell me about that one time, or those numerous times, when stopping by unannounced paid off. Maybe it turned into your biggest account. That is exactly why I gave you fifteen chips. An effective strategy sometimes includes dropping by strategically to advance a sale or shake a prospect loose. But are you also accounting for the hundreds of times you got stopped at a guard shack, could not get onto an elevator without a pass card, walked into a four-by-four room with a phone that nobody answered, or got turned away by a highly effective gatekeeper? When you add in the drive time, you realize there is a massive opportunity cost to just driving around your territory.

Field sellers have forgotten the efficiencies they were forced into during the pandemic. The reps who still use those tools and processes are outselling peers who simply got back in their cars and returned to business as usual.

Qualifying Before You Use a Poker Chip

Before you hop into your car tomorrow, think through “Do you have a strong understanding of what your ideal customer profile looks like?”

I did a field ride with a client a few years ago. The rep was straight commission and drove forty-five minutes one way in Southern California to visit a prospect he had googled. He knew nothing about the client, the size, or how much product they bought. He only knew they were in a niche that had worked before. When we pulled up to a four-thousand-square-foot building with three parking spots, I knew he had made a massive mistake. He spent twenty minutes trying to sell them something, tucked tail, and left. Being Southern California, it took an hour and a half to get back to civilization, where he made his second call of the day.

When thinking about your ideal customer profile, consider the size of the business and the niches where you have had success. Look at your current customers who get real value from you and identify what they have in common with the prospects you are targeting. Build a targeted list using your company’s tools where there is a high likelihood of success.

Set a hard rule: do not use a poker chip on a prospect unless you know with near certainty that they fit your ideal customer profile. Qualify using your tools. Qualify using the phone. Talk to a gatekeeper, customer service, or even their sales team. They do not have to be actively looking to buy, but they should at least be a viable prospect for what you sell. Then, and only then, do you use a poker chip for an in-person door knock.

Building a Day That Works

As a field seller, I am not here to tell you how to manage your territory. But an ideal day is one where you called ahead and filled your calendar with meetings: new prospects you have qualified, existing customers with expansion potential, existing customers where you are meeting new contacts, and active deals you are advancing. For customers who simply reorder or that you have not spoken to in a while, use Teams or Zoom. As a last resort, a phone call.

Spend time each week using the phone to book meetings, qualify prospects, and create familiarity with targets. When they know your name before you show up, your poker chip goes a lot further. Concentrate your prospecting into sprints. Book anchor meetings in the areas you plan to visit by car. Fill your day before you get in the vehicle.

For existing accounts, stop running a milk route. Driving to the same customers repeatedly for small repeat orders when a phone call or email would accomplish the same thing is not a strategy. It is a habit. Maintain those relationships because the moment you stop showing up entirely, a competitor walks in the door. But does it have to be every two weeks? Could it be every month or every two months? Think about the relationship you have and manage your time accordingly.

The Bottom Line for Field Sellers

To be the most effective you can be, you must master both the virtual and in-person environments.

If you rely solely on virtual, you risk becoming a commodity. If you rely solely on in-person, you will get outpaced by competitors who run circles around your calendar. Blend both. Do more with the same amount of time, or less, without degrading the customer relationships that matter most.

Use your poker chips wisely.

The reps who never adapted after the pandemic didn’t just have a strategy problem — they had a mindset problem. Brad Adams tackles that head-on in his micro-course, Navigating the 4 Sales Mindset Pitfalls. In just seven minutes, you will learn the four mindsets that hold salespeople back from peak performance and the tactics to overcome them.