Why Some Packaging Companies Struggle to Develop New Business

June 29, 2026

Your sales projections for 2026 likely included repeat business, current customer growth, reactivation of dormant accounts, and new accounts. Now that we are more than halfway through the year, it is time to evaluate how those projections match reality. For many packaging manufacturers, the area most likely to fall short is new account development.

The New Account Gap

While existing customers may keep revenue steady, there is only so much room for growth. New accounts are what help replace lost business, reduce customer concentration risk, and create room for growth. When new account development stalls, it doesn’t take long for the business to feel it.

For many manufacturers, growth projections fall short because they lack a strategy for new account development. Revenue targets often assume a steady flow of new opportunities, but the sales team may not be able to sustain that flow consistently. The result is a gap between the growth the business expects and the actual capacity available to win new accounts.

This gap is easy to overlook because it does not always show up as an obvious sales problem. Account managers may still be busy, and existing customers may still be ordering, but if no one has the bandwidth to prospect, follow up, and move new opportunities forward, the pipeline shrinks over time.

Why Traditional Sales Roles Struggle With Prospecting

Many packaging companies ask the same salespeople to manage current accounts, quote new work, handle customer issues, attend meetings, perform administrative tasks, and find new business. While it may seem efficient, existing customers with immediate needs will consume a large portion of their time, leaving little time to find new business.

Prospecting requires time, repetition, and follow-up. It also requires a different mindset than account management. A salesperson who is strong at maintaining customer relationships may not be the right person to research target accounts, make repeated outreach attempts, qualify leads, handle rejection, respond to objections effectively, and continue to nurture prospects that are not ready to buy yet.

With so little time, it is no wonder leads may sit in the CRM without follow-up. A website form, trade show conversation, or referral may look promising at first, but it still needs a structured next step. Someone must qualify the company, understand the packaging need, determine timing, and decide whether the opportunity is worth moving forward. If that responsibility is not clearly assigned with a timeframe, the lead may get lost in a salesperson’s regular account workload.

The issue is not necessarily about the salesperson’s effort. It is more likely to be due to how the role was designed. When sales are acting as account managers, they are often measured on keeping current customers satisfied, protecting existing revenue, and responding quickly when something goes wrong. While these responsibilities are important, they also compete directly with new business development. When a current customer needs help and a new prospect requires the fifth follow-up call, the current customer usually takes priority.

Sales team demographics can make the problem harder. Some corrugated companies have experienced salespeople with deep customer relationships at one end of the spectrum, newer salespeople who are still learning the business at the other, and fewer mid-career salespeople in between. Senior salespeople may understand the market but may be less interested in cold outreach. Younger salespeople may be willing to prospect but need coaching, structure, and enough product knowledge to hold a useful conversation with a buyer.

This design creates an operational constraint. Getting in front of new accounts requires clear accountability, defined sales activity expectations, and follow-up discipline. A lead nurture process cannot be overlooked either. Corrugated buyers may be tied to current suppliers until there is a quality issue, service problem, capacity constraint, price pressure, or new packaging need. Without a defined process and structure, new account development becomes the work that, in theory, everyone knows is required but, in reality, few execute consistently.

What Companies Can Do

If new account development is a priority, the sales structure must support it. That usually means making specific changes to hiring, incentives, process, and how front-end sales get done. The goal is to create a repeatable system for generating and advancing new opportunities and allowing the sales team to focus on closing sales.

Hire for Lead Generation

When new account development is a priority, companies should hire specifically for that function. A lead generation or business development role is different from an account management role. The concept of division of labor is often used by manufacturers that consistently see new account growth. The division of labor applies the same production logic used in manufacturing to the sales process by separating work by function and skill rather than piling responsibilities onto a single role. Prospecting, qualification, content development, account management, and closing are treated as distinct activities, each owned by people suited to that work. This structure reduces salesperson fragmentation, removes nonselling tasks from revenueproducing roles, and creates a measurable, repeatable flow of qualified opportunities. The result is higher productivity, a better use of talent, and a sales process that can scale when required.

Align Incentives With the Behavior You Want

Many sales compensation structures unintentionally discourage prospecting by rewarding account maintenance and repeat revenue more than new opportunity creation. When commissions are tied primarily to existing customer sales, salespeople are financially incentivized to spend their time servicing known accounts, resolving issues, and protecting current revenue streams. Prospecting, which is time-intensive and carries uncertainty, becomes a lower priority because it does not produce immediate or predictable compensation.

Over time, this misalignment fragments the sales role and limits pipeline growth. Salespeople remain busy, but much of their time is spent on customer service and administrative work rather than active selling. Without adjusting compensation to support new business development, even well-designed sales processes struggle to deliver the revenue needed to meet sales goals.

Build a Structured Approach

Without a defined sales process, each salesperson works in a silo, doing their own thing, making lead generation inconsistent and difficult to measure. A structured sales process establishes how leads move from first contact to the active sales cycle, with defined stages and criteria at each step. For example, it specifies what activities must occur, the cadence for activities, how a lead is qualified, when follow-up occurs, and who is responsible for each step. Without this structure, sales activity becomes reactive, and lead generation becomes sporadic outreach rather than a controlled system. A documented process creates consistency by replacing subjective judgment with clear decision points and expectations.

More importantly, a defined process makes lead generation measurable and manageable. Activity levels, conversion rates, and opportunity flow can be tracked at each stage, allowing issues to be identified and corrected before they impact revenue. This structure makes lead generation an ongoing operational function rather than a series of disconnected efforts. When the process is designed correctly, it produces a steady flow of qualified opportunities into the sales pipeline.

Consider Outsourcing Front-End Sales Activities

Front-end sales activities (i.e., target market profiling, prospect research, inbound and outbound outreach, lead follow-up, qualification, and ongoing nurture of future opportunities) require investments in the following:

Sales processes design, implementation, maintenance, and improvement
Additional personnel (e.g., sales development rep, sales coordinator, content creator, SEO strategist)
Tools and technology to execute (e.g., CRM, marketing automation, list development software, market analysis tools, SEO tools, web forms)

Building a front-end sales capability in-house is difficult and expensive. Outsourcing allows companies to establish a defined, repeatable process for engaging the market without adding resources from revenue-producing activities.

The value of outsourcing the front end is the ability to execute that process consistently at scale. A dedicated team follows defined qualification criteria, maintains regular contact with prospects, and keeps opportunities visible as they move toward the active sales cycle. Activity, conversion rates, and throughput can be measured and adjusted over time, creating a steady flow of qualified opportunities rather than reliance on occasional outreach or inbound luck. When done correctly, outsourcing replaces fragmented effort with a controlled system that supports long-term pipeline health and makes sales performance more predictable.

Growth Requires More Than Sales Coverage

Maintaining current accounts and developing new business are not the same job. When packaging companies expect one role to handle both without additional structure, new account development becomes inconsistent. A more deliberate approach to hiring, incentives, process, and execution can help turn new business development into a more reliable part of the overall growth strategy.