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Nature's Path
This large, privately owned company with 100s of SKUs, in many distribution centers in several classes of trade, embraces TurnLink for its shelf auditing features, real-time digital turnover processing, and promotion management while using their computers and their iPads.
In 2008, Nature's Path Foods decided to employ their own team of Direct Sales Representatives in the Northeast and Midwest territories of the United States, rather than using outside brokerage companies for these regions. Their change in product representation produced sales results that they were happy with, however managing all of the new data that their reps were amassing by physically calling on accounts themselves, became a logistical issue for management and team members. Excel account lists and audit sheets, Word turnover templates, and Outlook contacts were too disjointed, time-consuming and cumbersome to tie all of the important data together into something usable and actionable to continue to increase sales performance by their direct reps.
Erik Eaton, then Director of Sales East at Nature's Path Foods, knew there could be a better way. After investigating all of his options, including custom built iPad applications, popular handheld digital ordering systems, and traditional CRM applications, Erik was recommended to TurnTree Solutions by Natural Products Consulting guru Bob Burke.
After a 30 minute demo with Erik, Regional Sales Manager Melanie Wills, and a TurnTree Sales Representative, Erik and Melanie knew their search had come to a favorable end. TurnLink Sales Manager solved 99% of Nature's Path Foods' sales data needs out of the box with an annual price tag of nearly a quarter of the closest quote from a product that solved only some of their needs.
After an intense vetting of TurnLink, Erik, who has since been promoted to National Accounts Manager, received corporate approval to set his team up with the application. TurnTree Solutions deployed 15 iPads to the regional reps in the Northeast and Midwest and over a two week period helped Erik and Melanie setup the 100+ skus, 15+ Distribution Centers, 50+ Promotions, and 1000+ retail accounts in their new TurnLink Sales Manager account.
Flash forward to April 2024 and Erik and his team could not be happier with the solution TurnTree has provided them.
Here are just some of the benefits that the Nature's Path direct sales representative team has gained from their use of TurnLink:º Reps can perform audits on their iPads while in a store in real-time with no work to do after leaving the account.º Creating and transmitting turnover orders can be performed in meetings with buyers at the store to pass on deals, slot new SKUs, and fill voids in product offerings. UNFI Eastern Region's digital turnover ordering allows Nature's Path reps to add items to the buyer's pending file in real-time through their iPads. Emailing turnover orders to other third party distributors is also a breeze from within the TurnLink Sales Manager.º Management can easily login and review everything their reps are doing, including audits, turnover orders, notes, and much more, while saving reports in various formats to review with other team members.
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PROBAR
After years of selling only direct to stores, PROBAR moved into distribution and although they use a web-based ERP for accounting, they were not happy with its CRM features, so signed on with TurnLink and got their new employee trained and producing results in one day thanks to its powerful features created for CPG representatives.
PROBAR creates delicious, convenient, healthy plant based food products. They strive to become a leading provider of REAL FOOD choices while maintaining a commitment to quality, sustainability, and fantastic taste. The company has been very succesful in fulfilling these goals and make some incredibly great bars which have been growing rapidly since the brand's inception in 2004.
In 2005, their General Manager was tasked with the selection of a software solution for needs such as accounting, recipe and lot tracking, inventory handling, customer relationship, order entry and more. After visiting with QuickBooks, TurnLink and various other solutions for parts of their needs, PROBAR decided to use an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution that would be able to do everything in one system. As expected, such an application came with a much higher price tag than using a few different integrated systems together, such as QuickBooks and TurnLink, but PROBAR was in a position to go this route and felt it was their best choice at the time.
Over the next five years the company continued to grow their product offerings, accounts, and staff, and still only sold their product wholesale directly to retail stores, not through any third party distributors. As they grew, however, they were never happy with the CRM functionality of their ERP and struggled to really use it, much less help their sales efforts by using it.
Then, in 2010, PROBAR decided to shift certain classes of trade's major sales through third party distributors, including UNFI in the natural foods marketplace. This time of change and evolution to their business model opened the opportunity to look at and revise some of their other internal practices, which included a new focus on building a stronger inside sales force. In order to do this, Sales Manager Stephen Hennessy knew they would either need to figure out how they could use thier ERP's CRM functionality, or find a new, quality CRM application to give his staff the tools they needed to continue to grow the brand.
Stephen decided it would take much work, training and customization to get their current ERP to help them and was pleased to revisit TurnLink, which had grown and matured over the years between. TurnLink included so many out-of-the box features specific to their needs that they knew it could work well and get up and running right away.
PROBAR was ready to employee 5 to 10 new sales people to begin making 40 to 50 calls per day in order to help move product through their new distributors by gaining new accounts, converting old direct accounts into larger distributor accounts, and pushing new skus to other existing accounts.
To begin, the PROBAR team hired one employee, Russell Smock, who would call buyers at accounts who purchase from UNFI. Russell let them know about all the great PROBAR products that were now in distribution, offered samples when necessary, and gained new placement into many new accounts. The company was new to both TurnLink and selling through distributors, and the employee was new to PROBAR that very day he started making calls, but thanks to the incredible features and simple learning curve of TurnLink, Russell had an incredibly successful first day and has been cruising ever since. Read Russell's email to management after his first day on the job.
Here are just some of the features that made PROBAR's adoption of TurnLink easy, quick and successful:º Easy to use company written templates as sales scripts and guides for making successful calls (especially for new employees) and to integrate the answers and feedback into a note stored within each account's record forever.º Simple call scheduling module with load balancing grid of upcoming calls and templates for prefacing the reason for scheduling the next communication with the account.º Distribution Centers (DC) that accounts used are listed within the account and display the items and their prices that are carried in each related distributor that the account purchases from, along with the store's account number at each DC where they buy from.º All company sell sheets, order information, and pertinent digital files are available to attach to emails that can be generated, sent, and stored inside the account's Company Overview. Anyone can email the most current, correct version of important sales data from any device, mobile or otherwise, while logged into TurnLink without needing to have a copy of the files on their machine!º Ability to create and transmit turnover orders to their third party distributors from within an account's Company Overview while on the phone call. The order form only allows the user to order the SKUs that are carried in each distribution center that services the account, so new reps do not need to memorize or cross reference several other documents to properly turn over orders. These orders are then emailed as a PDF file to distributors, or in certain cases, like with UNFI Eastern Region, can be digitally transmitted and confirmed from within TurnLink in real-time.º Direct Orders can also be entered into TurnLink and then exported into xml files that are importable into NetSuite®
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Navitas Naturals
This rapidly growing organic food company automates their inside sales team, outside brokers and wholesale website order portal, requiring no human data entry of a large percentage of all their direct orders.
In 2006, natural product sales afficianado, Wes Crain, had recently joined founder Zach Adelman at Navitas Naturals to help his mission to bring nutrient rich whole foods produced using organic agricultural methods with minimal processing to the masses. The company was in it's third year and as sales began to grow rapidly, Wes informed Zach that to properly grow and manage an internal sales team he would need a CRM/Sales Order Entry system that could offer their growing team a quick learning curve, industry specific functionality, and integration into QuickBooks.
In November of 2008, after extensively researching and comparing the options, Navitas began using the TurnLink Sales Manager to automate their needs and provide a comprehensive system to roll out to their team. As their revenues and sales team members more than quadrupaled over the ensuing years, Zach and Wes could not be any happier that they had made the move to TurnLink as soon as they had after starting up.
In addition to handling their initial needs, as Navitas grew rapidly they were pleased that TurnLink was able to solve needs they did not even know they would have in their infancy including:º Importing digital orders placed through third party systems from major accounts of theirs including Whole Foods Market, HEB, Vitamin Shoppe, Giant Eagle and Amazon.com, requiring no manual entry of many of their orders.º Importing of orders placed by retailers directly into the wholesale order portal of their website www.navitasnaturals.com.º Ability to give Outside Sales Representatives logins to TurnLink where they can add notes, contact information and most importantly, place orders directly into their system.º Ease of adding MapMyStores Store Finder to their website to steer consumers to the 1000s of accounts that carry their items, while easily reporting on which zip codes their website visitors are searching.
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Way Out Wax
After making candles for over 32 years, this socially responsible Vermont brand hired a veteran Sales Manager and added CRM so their sales team no longer needed access to QuickBooks and could be managed and productive via a simple web-based application. TurnLink allows WOW sales team members to sell and report on sales from anywhere in the world, while the shipping department can one-click synch their Sales Orders and Customer Info into QuickBooks to be fulfilled.
Since 1993, Way Out Wax has been hand-crafting high quality candles in the Green Mountains of Northern Vermont and have set themselves apart not only through their love affair with essential oils, but also through their aversion to all the chemical additives, fragrances and dyes that are so prevalent in the candle industry. In 2007, owner Jim Rossiter knew that their reliance solely on outside brokerage companies was not doing their brand, sales, or bottom line any justice.
Along comes new Marketing Director Anna Barrett who was assigned with the task of making Way Out Wax a more efficient, streamlined operation. One of her first moves was to start using the TurnLink Sales Manager for all of their CRM and sales order entry needs to organize these efforts in a web-based application that she could manage and monitor no matter where she was in the world.
After hiring Susan Miller as their new Sales Manager, Anna hoped that their usage and love of TurnLink would be accepted by this new sales guru, even though she had 30 years of sales management under her belt. Sure enough, Susan not only embraced the company's use of TurnLink, but began raving about it to former and current colleagues. "TurnLink has made me more organized as a Sales Manager while providing an incredibly simple, efficient system that our inside sales reps can quickly learn and benefit from immediately," said Susan in early 2011. "I have been in sales for over 30 years and I wish I had a tool like this years ago."
In January of 2011, a huge winter storm hit northern Vermont and most companies had to close their doors for a few days because employees could not make it safely to work, resulting in a day or two of lost sales efforts. Way Out Wax did not have to put their sales members safety in jeopardy by requiring them to come in to the office during the storm but were still able to produce their normal amount of sales for those days. "Since we use TurnLink and it is web-based, I was able to let my employees stay home and work," said Jim Rossiter. "Sales did not drop a bit for Way Out Wax and business went on as usual even though our offices were empty. And I rested better knowing that my great sales members did not have to risk life and limb driving to work!"
Way Out Wax has benefited from TurnLink in these ways and many more, including:º Importing digital orders placed through third party systems from major accounts of theirs including Whole Foods Market, Pharmaca, and independent retailers using Scan Genius, requiring no manual entry of many of a large percantage of their orders.º One-click synchronizing of TurnLink sales orders into QuickBooks which has eliminated the need for sales members to access QuickBooks, thus minimizing license costs and inconsistent data entry that comes with inexperienced users working in the accounting package.º Adding MapMyStores Store Finder to their website to direct consumers to the 1000s of accounts that carry their items and then easily report on which zip codes are being searched by their website visitors.
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Jungell, Inc.
Producers of organic candy bars and natural glucose products opened their doors in 2010 and were able to connect their national traveling sales folks, company owners, and multiple direct distribution warehouse shipping departments while hosting their QuickBooks file in one location and integrating with UPS.com to avoid any double entry by using TurnLink from day one.
Suzanne and Christopher Angell wanted to create a great tasting organic candy bar that was healthier for people and better for the planet. Made with Fair Trade Certified® and great organic ingredients, Angell bars were launched at Expo East in Boston 2010.
They prepared for their launch by understanding the need for a mix of third party distributors and direct distribution and the necessity of solid accounting, inventory and sales technology systems to be put in place. After some research, trial and error, Jungell decided to host their QuickBooks file at a third party company that runs QuickBooks on their servers making it accessible anywhere via the web for the on-the-go owners of this young brand. Jungell's logistical model involves multiple warehouse locations from where they store and fulfill their various chains of distribution. With TurnLink they are easily able to both process turnover orders through major natural distributors like UNFI and Nature's Best, and differentiate which of their fulfillment centers their direct orders should ship from for each client.
In addition to smoothly handling Sales Order entry for and from the multiple distribution facilities in the Jungell model, TurnLink greatly facilitates the rating of shipments from their direct orders and the creation of UPS shipment bar codes via UPS.com. As orders are entered into TurnLink, the weight of the order is tallied and displayed in the Order Cart. When an order is ready to be completed, the sales person can click one icon and receive real-time shipping rates based on their accounts with any or all of UPS, FedEx and USPS. After a batch of orders is queued to QuickBooks for synchronization by their shipping team, TurnLink exports a file containing the information from each order, including weight and shipping method, which is then imported into UPS.com to create all of the shipping labels with bar codes needed to ship all of the orders in the batch, eliminating double entry that plagues many companies, new and old! -
Topline Marketing
This New England brokerage firm began their company using ACT for CRM and Excel for calculating commissions, but quickly outgrew these systems and has continued to thrive, while gaining major efficiencies by using TurnLink and a Commission Importing and Reporting module.
Representing some of the greatest Natural Health and Beauty & Grocery brands in the industry, including Aubrey, Bach, Burt's Bees, Dr Bronner's, Gaia, Garden of Life, Grandy Oats, Navitas, Plum Organics, PROBAR, Radius, Weleda, and Zukay Live Foods, you can understand why the hard working President and CEO Karen Farrell chose to call her company Topline Marketing.
When Karen began her company in 2003, it was just her, current General Manager Leah Gootkind, and current Sales Manager Jeff Minehart, pounding the streets, selling quality product while working on their mission to 'Keep Natural Food Stores Natural'. She began storing all of the accounts and contacts she was amassing and doing business with in ACT so that she could remember buyers' names, schedule herself reminders to do things, keep track of which vendors were carried in each store and generally have somewhere to store all of the information in her head that made her business work. ACT worked fine for Karen in the early days, but as her accounts and relationships grew and she found herself spending FAR TOO much time calculating commissions paid and payable to her growing team of sales representatives, she decided to find a better solution.
In 2004, Karen was introduced to the TurnTree team and explained her needs to import Excel files containing accounts with their account numbers and monthly sales figures from various different vendors (brands) every month. She had been cutting and pasting the data for far too long and it was becoming a major misuse of time that she could have been utilizing to sell more product. However, it is also the way her company earns revenue and compensates it's employees so automating this task and somehow integrating it with her CRM would be the ultimate solution.
The TurnTree development team, along with Karen, designed a Custom add-on module inside of TurnLink that would allow her to do exactly what she wanted and automate the calculating of commissions. After the initial integration, subsequent upgrades added more functionality including Excel exports and year over year commission comparisons. This custom solution instantly paid for itself in time saved, but TurnLink also was able to greatly expand some of the ways Karen wanted to use her ACT database but could not, with standard out of the box features including...º Relating chain headquarters office, contacts, and product approvals to the individual retail locations within that chain.º Knowing which vendors sold to each account, and which third party distributors also serviced those accounts to handle both models to cater to all of her vendors.º The ability to store shelf audits indicating which SKUs are being carried in each account and what their Actual Retail Price, shelf space, location, height, and any other information is. This information is stored and each time a change occurs in subsequent audits, the modifications are also committed to the history of that account. These audits are exportable into Excel files to share with vendors.º Being able to automate turnover orders to third party distributors made the Topline central office much more efficient in gaining new placement and passing on specials for it's distributed vendors' SKUs.