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There’s a question that should take ten seconds to answer. In most wholesale operations, it takes twenty minutes.
“What’s going on with this customer?”
Your rep needs to know before they make the call. Are they current on payments? What did they order last time? Did marketing run any campaigns with them recently? Does ops have any concerns? What’s the relationship health?
Simple question. But here’s what actually happens:
Open the CRM—maybe it’s Salesforce, maybe it’s HubSpot, maybe it’s a spreadsheet someone maintains because the “real” CRM doesn’t actually work. Find the contact. Scroll through notes from six months ago. That’s a start.
Jump to the ERP to check order history. Navigate the clunky interface. Wait for it to load. Scroll through dropdown menus to find the last order. Okay, three weeks ago, $3,200. Good.
Now for the tricky part. Slack message to finance: “Hey, what’s the AR situation with Green Valley?” Wait for response.
Another Slack to marketing: “Do we have anything running with this account right now?”
Email to ops: “Can you check if we have inventory on those SKUs they usually order?”
Ten minutes later, you’re still waiting. You make the call anyway. The buyer mentions they want to increase their order size. “Let me check on inventory and get back to you,” you say.
The order sits in limbo. That’s $5,000 in revenue delayed because your systems don’t talk to each other.
This is how wholesale teams lose millions in revenue every year.
Not because people aren’t working hard enough. Research shows that sales reps spend only 28-36% of their time actually selling—the rest is consumed by administrative tasks, data entry, and hunting for information trapped in disconnected systems. That means your field rep, who you’re paying to build relationships and close deals, is spending less than 15 hours per week on actual revenue-generating activities.
The rest? They’re working as human integrations between systems that refuse to talk to each other.
The $250,000 Per Rep Tax
Let’s talk about what this actually costs.
Your average wholesale field rep manages about 30 accounts. McKinsey research on B2B sales productivity found that leading companies who removed non-selling tasks from their reps freed up 20% more sales team capacity. When reps get that time back, they don’t just work on existing accounts more effectively—they can actually manage more accounts at higher quality.
Here’s the math: If your rep manages 30 accounts and each generates $15K annually, that’s $450K in revenue per rep. But if that rep could manage 40 accounts instead (because they’re not spending 70% of their time on admin), and each account grows 15-20% instead of 5% (because the rep actually has time to nurture relationships), you’re looking at $700K+ in revenue per rep.
That’s a $250,000 opportunity cost. Per rep. Per year.
Just from fragmented systems forcing your most expensive revenue generators to work as data entry clerks.
Multiply that by your team size. Now multiply it by the number of years you’ve been running this way.
The Franken-stack—that beautiful combination of ERP, CRM, spreadsheets, email, Slack, and hope—isn’t just annoying. It’s bleeding your business dry.
We Know Because We Lived It
Before we built Superbud, we ran an eight-store cannabis retail chain. We lived in the chaos from both sides—as buyers dealing with vendors whose systems made simple transactions complicated, and as operators trying to make sense of the tools that were supposed to help us move faster but instead slowed us down.
Every conversation with wholesale vendors followed the same pattern. The sales rep would call, confident and friendly. Then we’d ask a simple question—“Can you break this case into units?” or “What’s my current balance?”—and we’d hear keyboard clicking. Lots of clicking. “Let me check…” More clicking. “Can I call you back on that?”
We knew what was happening. They were toggling between systems, hunting for answers that should be instant.
As operators, we saw the other side too. Data silos waste an average of 12 hours per week per employee, according to recent industry research. We watched our own teams burn time reconciling information between our POS system, inventory management, and accounting software. We saw opportunities slip away because someone didn’t have the complete picture at the right moment.
Most operators accept this as “just how wholesale works.”
We didn’t. We couldn’t. Because we knew it didn’t have to be this way.
So we built what we wish had existed.
How It Should Actually Work
Let’s go back to your field rep (let’s call her Sarah), calling Green Valley Dispensary. The buyer, Tim, texts: “Want to talk about an order. Can you call me?”
In the world that should exist:
Sarah pulls over. Opens her phone. Taps on Green Valley. She sees everything in 10 seconds:
- Sales context: Last order three weeks ago for $3,200. Average order is $3,400. Tim viewed the new Yuzu Lemon product page yesterday. Sarah visited the store two weeks ago and discussed expanding into edibles.
- Finance context: Payment health shows 90 days past due. But there’s a note from accounting: “Negotiated payment plan, approved to sell into, payments current on plan.”
- Marketing context: Green Valley is in an active campaign for new product launches. There’s a suggestion flagged: “Vendor day recommended—timing is good based on inventory turnover.” Training materials are ready for the Yuzu Lemon launch.
- Operations context: Yuzu Lemon: 47 cases available. Blueberry Yums (Tim’s usual): 89 cases available. Three-day delivery window available.
Sarah calls Tim back in under a minute. She’s not scrambling. She’s not asking him to wait while she “checks on something.” She has the complete picture.
“Hey Tim, thanks for getting on that payment plan with accounting—appreciate you working with us on that. Let’s definitely push this order through. I saw you were checking out the Yuzu Lemon yesterday—perfect timing, we have plenty in stock and it’s moving fast at other stores.”
“Marketing set you up with training materials and an incentive program for the launch. And I was thinking—want to schedule a vendor day? We could come in, do some staff training, maybe bring samples. I can coordinate with our ops team to make sure inventory timing lines up perfectly. You, Natalia, and Greg usually all there on Wednesdays?”
“Oh, and I saw you had those three cases of Blueberry Yums in a cart last week—those are still selling great for you. Let’s add those in. I can shoot you back an updated order in the system and you can click to accept, or I can push it straight to fulfillment right now if you want.”
Tim’s impressed. “Yeah, Wednesday works. And yeah, push that order through—appreciate you keeping track of all this.”
That’s a $5,000 order closed in three minutes, a vendor day scheduled, and a stronger relationship because Sarah showed up fully prepared.
Not because she’s superhuman. Because her systems work the way wholesale operations should work.
The Four Things That Actually Change When This Exists
1. Complete Customer Intelligence, Not Fragmented Data
Every order. Every interaction. Every payment. Every marketing touchpoint. Every ops note. Every piece of intelligence about a customer lives in one place, accessible to everyone who needs it.
Sales sees finance concerns. Finance sees sales opportunities. Marketing sees operations constraints. Operations sees strategic account priorities. Leadership sees the complete picture.
85% of companies acknowledge that decisions based on stale data lead to incorrect conclusions and lost revenue. When everyone works from the same real-time intelligence, decisions happen in 10 seconds instead of 20 minutes.
This isn’t a CRM. It’s not an ERP. It’s not even a “system of record.” It’s a revenue hub where all participants involved in revenue—sales, marketing, ops, finance, leadership—work together from shared intelligence.
2. Field Reps Sell Instead of Administrate
Your reps don’t work at desks. They work in parking lots, retail floors, coffee shops, and cars between appointments at 3pm on a Thursday. Your tools should work where they work.
Mobile-first interface. Automatic activity capture so reps aren’t manually logging every call. AI-powered suggestions that surface relevant intelligence right when it’s needed. Voice notes that convert to structured data. One-tap actions that replace ten-step workflows.
Top-performing B2B companies have offloaded as much as 50% of non-selling tasks, opening up 20% more sales team capacity. That’s not just efficiency—that’s 20% more revenue capacity from your existing team.
Give reps complete customer context instantly. Watch them manage 40+ accounts instead of 30. Watch each account grow 15-20% year-over-year instead of stagnating at 5%. Watch them generate 50% more revenue without working longer hours.
That’s not theory. That’s what happens when you remove the administrative burden that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
3. Buyers Get the Digital Experience They Expect
Not every transaction needs a rep. Some buyers just want to reorder their regular SKUs at 11pm on a Tuesday. Let them.
A private branded storefront with account-specific pricing, full catalog visibility, and frictionless reordering. Your buyers get the digital experience they expect in 2024. Your reps get more time for strategic accounts.
Self-service doesn’t replace relationships. It supports them. Because when buyers can handle simple reorders themselves, your reps can focus on the conversations that actually matter—growth opportunities, new product introductions, strategic planning.
4. Marketing Finally Knows What Works
Marketing shouldn’t be shooting in the dark. They should know exactly which accounts engaged with campaigns, which promos drove orders, which vendor days generated ROI.
Real-time campaign tracking tied directly to revenue outcomes. Marketing can coordinate with sales and ops on the accounts that actually need attention. No more “we sent 1,000 emails and got 50 opens” vanity metrics. Real attribution. Real ROI. Real coordination with the revenue team.
When marketing can see that an account viewed a product page, sales can follow up with context. When marketing suggests a vendor day, operations can coordinate inventory. When a promo runs, everyone knows which accounts should be targeted and which shouldn’t.
That’s not “sales and marketing alignment.” That’s everyone working from the same intelligence.
Why This Matters Now
The wholesale world is changing fast.
Buyers expect digital experiences. Field reps need mobile tools. Compliance requirements are getting stricter. Competition is intensifying. Margins are getting squeezed. The teams that win over the next five years won’t be the ones with the biggest field force—they’ll be the ones who combine relationship-driven sales with intelligent systems that let everyone work together efficiently.
You can’t do that with a Franken-stack. You can’t do that with tools built for inside sales in 2005. You can’t do that with ERPs designed before smartphones existed.
McKinsey’s analysis of nearly 500 B2B companies found that top-quartile performers generate roughly 2.5 times higher gross margin than bottom quartile for every dollar invested in sales. That gap isn’t from working harder. It’s from working smarter with unified systems.
You need a Revenue OS built for how wholesale actually works in 2024 and beyond.
The Bottom Line
Wholesale operations shouldn’t run on duct tape.
Your field reps shouldn’t spend 70% of their time being human integrations.
Your teams shouldn’t work in silos on incomplete information.
Your customers shouldn’t get fragmented experiences because your systems don’t talk.
Your leadership shouldn’t be flying blind on revenue operations.
There’s a better way.
One revenue hub. Shared customer intelligence. Field-first tools. Practical AI. Complete collaboration between sales, marketing, ops, finance, and leadership.
We built it because we lived in the chaos and knew something better needed to exist. Thirty-plus wholesale brands are using it. 100% retention. 50% more revenue per rep. 70% of rep time returned to selling. 10 seconds to understand any customer instead of 20 minutes hunting across systems.
We’re operators who learned to ship software. We design in the field. We ship fast. We keep what works and kill what doesn’t.
And we’re building the Revenue OS for wholesale teams who are done with duct tape.
