Weeks one to four: build the target list, not the pitch
When an importer takes on a new line, the instinct is to start presenting it. The more productive first month is spent building the account list the principal will eventually be shown: which hotel groups, restaurant groups, institutional caterers and grocery buyers are realistic for this product, who the chef and purchasing contacts are at each, and which of them already buy an adjacent line from you. That list is the asset. Presentations without it produce activity that cannot be reported.
Weeks five to nine: sampling in waves, with receipt confirmed
Samples go out in waves rather than all at once, because a wave can be followed up properly and a hundred simultaneous couriers cannot. Each despatch is recorded with the recipient kitchen and a follow-up date a few days after expected arrival. The purpose of the confirmation step is to separate silence caused by disinterest from silence caused by a box sitting unopened in a chiller, which in practice accounts for a surprising share of the leads written off in the first two months.
Weeks ten to thirteen: convert what moved, report what did not
By the end of the first quarter the principal will ask what happened. A useful answer names the accounts that ordered, the accounts that sampled and are waiting on a menu change, and the buyer types where the product did not land at all. The last group is the valuable one, because it tells the principal whether the problem is price, specification or fit, and it is the part no spreadsheet assembled the night before a review has ever been able to show.