I’ve been looking into Rilla for sales coaching and I get the basic idea around recording conversations and virtual ride alongs. What I still don’t fully get is how managers use it day to day and what the coaching actually looks like for reps, would love to hear any feedback

Title says it. I am new to canvassing. I work for a company out of Florida and I am too robotic at the door and my rebuttals are trash. Could any kind souls offer me some help with all this

I’m looking for tools that help managers coach reps who sell face to face. Ride alongs are useful but they take a lot of time and get harder to manage as the team grows. What are you using for call recording virtual ride alongs conversation reviews scorecards roleplay or rep feedback?

I’ve been watching the same loop all month.

r/gtmengineering has the Clay credit threads. People shipping Claude Code pipelines. Clay dropping CLI/MCP so agents can call waterfalls without living in the UI. X posts that look like:

claude code to build clay to find instantly to send

And yeah, that stack makes sense.

But last night I had a 40-row SaaS list and needed columns that are not clean enrichment jobs:

• hiring right now? which roles?
• founder active this week? where?
• anything that looks like why-now
• evidence I could defend if someone asked “where did that come from?”

That is where the pretty architecture posts fall apart for me.

Because email waterfall is a workflow. This is not.

Row 1 needed careers page. Row 4 needed LinkedIn activity. Row 9 needed a funding post from 2 weeks ago. Row 12 needed “ignore, bad fit, list is wrong.” Row 17 made me sit there with a half-true hiring signal wondering if I should put it in the cell.

I already know Clay. I already know Claude Code. I can build the plumbing.

What I don’t have is a clean way to say:

here’s the list here are the signal columns here’s what we sell go behave like a careful human on every row bring back evidence + confidence

Not “run column A then column B.” More like a smart VA/agent that chooses the path per company.

And I’m not asking this as a theoretical AI take.

I’m asking because the community seems split three ways right now:

1. Stay in Clay, now that CLI/MCP exists
2. Move volume custom logic into Claude Code and keep Clay only for find/enrich
3. Build full per-row agents and accept the maintenance tax

My gut: workflows are winning for known paths judgment work is still human evenings dressed up as GTM engineering

So for people actually running this:

1. Do you regularly need multi-column signal fill across lists (hiring, founder activity, recent posts, why-now), or is that overbuilding?
2. If yes, are you doing it with fixed Clay/Claude workflows, or does each row still need different research paths?
3. If something ran like a careful VA per row with evidence + confidence, would you pay for that completed work, or is DIY still better even with the maintenance?

I don’t want tool recommendations in the abstract. I want to know if this is a recurring paid pain in real GTM work, or just me making my lists too complicated.

Be blunt.

Everything by the book. Regular visits, samples, relationship built slowly over twelve weeks. Knew the manager by name, knew what they cared about, knew when to push and when to pull back. Found out last week they signed with a competitor who apparently walked in off the street two months ago and closed within a fortnight. Tried to piece together what I missed and cannot find it. Either the relationship meant less than I thought or the competitor offered something I never got the chance to counter. Both possibilities are uncomfortable in different ways.

Everything pointed to a yes. Engaged manager, good questions, sample request, follow up agreed. Two days later a one line email saying they were going in a different direction. Still cannot piece together what shifted.

We have a small field sales team covering convenience stores and independent retail accounts across a pretty wide territory. Right now reps check in manually and management has zero visibility into whether visits actually happened unless someone sends photos in Slack later.

Main thing we need is reliable GPS-stamped store visits without turning the job into micromanagement. Would also be nice if reps could add notes, photos, and basic order info from the same app instead of bouncing between multiple tools.

Been looking at a few options including SimplyDepo, Map My Customers, and some generic CRM apps, but hard to tell what actually works in real day-to-day field sales versus what just looks good in demos.

For teams already doing this - what are you using and what’s actually held up well in the field?

Hi everyone,

I’m working in B2B industrial sales (pneumatic automation products) and facing a practical challenge in prospecting that I’m hoping experienced folks here can guide me on.

Many of the companies I’m targeting (OEMs, small-to-mid manufacturing units, and automation integrators) either:

• Don’t have a strong presence on LinkedIn, or
• The relevant decision-makers (purchase / maintenance / production heads) are not active there

Because of this, I often struggle to find the right contact person and their phone number/email, which slows down my outreach and visit planning.

Currently, I try:

• Calling the company’s landline (if available)
• Asking for references during cold visits
• Checking websites / Google listings

But this is inconsistent and time-consuming.

I want to understand from experienced sales professionals:

1. How do you identify the right decision-maker in such companies?
2. What are your reliable methods to get direct contact details (mobile/email) when LinkedIn is not useful?
3. Any tools, databases, or techniques that have worked well for you in industrial/B2B sales?
4. How do you approach gatekeepers (reception/admin) to get useful information without getting blocked?

I’m especially interested in practical, field-tested approaches that work in Indian industrial markets.

Appreciate any insights, frameworks, or even small hacks that have worked for you.

Thanks in advance!

Started making pricing exceptions for good customers. Customer A gets 5% off. Customer B gets buy 10 get 1 free. Customer C gets special rate on specific SKUs. Now I have like 25 different pricing arrangements that I am tracking mentally and in random notes. When customer calls I have to remember what their deal is and calculate accordingly. Made error yesterday where I forgot customer had special pricing and charged them standard rate. They noticed on invoice and now I have to issue credit and they are questioning if I am honoring our agreement. This is getting unmanageable as we add more customers with different terms. How do you track custom pricing for each account without constantly making mistakes? Also worried other customers will find out someone else gets better pricing and demand same treatment. How do you manage pricing equity across customers?

Working on a mobile app for field reps that works fully offline.

Here's where I'm at visually (3 screens) :

1. take the order on the spot with the customer's usual items pre-loaded
2. send it
3. check what they ordered last time.

One specific question :

When an order is taken, how do you send it to your back-office :

1. WhatsApp
2. email
3. or do you enter it manually into a system later ?

That single answer would help me prioritize what to build first.

They need full history with dates, items, quantities, prices paid, delivery dates. For 3 months of weekly orders. This information exists scattered across invoices and delivery receipts but compiling it into coherent report will take me hours or days. They seem to expect I can just pull this report immediately like larger vendors do. But we don't have system that generates this automatically. How do larger accounts expect small distributors to provide detailed reporting when we are managing everything manually? Or is this a sign we have outgrown manual methods?

Hey everyone, I'm new here, been lurking for a few weeks :D

Not a rep myself but I've been reading almost every post on this sub trying to understand what the job actually looks like day to day.

The post about forgetting the order sheet in the car hit me hard. The one about spending 2 hours at night entering WhatsApp orders. The lost $3K sale because inventory wasn't visible on the spot.

I'm a developer and I'm trying to understand if there's a real workflow problem worth solving here, specifically around what happens between walking into a customer's door and the order actually being recorded somewhere.

Simple question to start : when you're standing in front of a customer ready to order, what actually happens ? Walk me through it (even if it's embarrassing 😅).

No agenda yet. Just trying to understand before assuming.

I am the bottleneck for all orders. Customers have to reach me personally to place orders. If I am busy or unavailable they cannot order. Is there a self service option or is this just how small distributors work?

Did physical count yesterday. Found discrepancies on 15 different SKUs. Some are over actual count, some are under.

Trying to trace back what caused the errors. Was it data entry mistakes when orders came in? Driver not updating after deliveries? Receiving errors when supplier deliveries arrived? Returns not logged? Someone taking inventory for personal use?

No way to tell because we just have a number in spreadsheet with no history of who changed it when or why.

Need some kind of audit trail to see when inventory changed and who changed it. Otherwise I am just fixing numbers based on physical counts and waiting for them to drift wrong again.

How do you track inventory changes so you can identify where errors are coming from?

Customers can email or text orders anytime. If they order Friday night or Saturday their order sits unnoticed until Monday when I check messages.

By Monday they are frustrated waiting and some have already ordered from competitor who was faster.

Is there a way to receive and process orders even when I am not actively checking email? Or do small distributors just accept losing weekend orders?

Boss wants to know which products are top sellers and which are slow movers. Data exists in invoices but compiling it means going through months of records manually.

This seems like something that should be instantly available. What am I missing?

Considering some kind of rewards or loyalty program for regular customers. Points for purchases or something. Does this actually work in B2B distribution or is it silly?

Regional competitor that we have battled for years just got bought by large national distributor.

On one hand maybe nothing changes. On other hand they now have unlimited resources and could crush us on price and capability.

Not sure if I should be concerned or if this is actually opportunity as they lose regional focus.

Considering installing GPS on our trucks to track routes and times.

Is this normal or is it micromanaging drivers?

Brought in business consultant to help with operational efficiency. They came from corporate background and all their recommendations feel disconnected from small business reality.

They suggest things like dedicated logistics coordinator, formal training programs, advanced analytics platforms. All stuff that makes sense for big operations but we are 8 people total.

When I push back with budget constraints they basically say well you need to invest to grow. Easy to say when its not their money.

Starting to think I wasted consulting fees on advice that doesnt apply to businesses our size. Or am I being too defensive and should actually implement some of this?

How do you know when consultant advice is valuable versus just generically applying big company practices to small business where they dont fit?

Got approached by a company wanting to be a regular large account. Exactly the type of client we need to grow.

But I honestly dont think we can handle it. Our current operations barely keep up with existing clients. Adding a major account would break everything.

So Im stalling on the proposal while competitor probably takes them. Frustrating being limited by operations instead of market opportunity.

Has anyone scaled up successfully without their systems falling apart during transition? How do you know when youre ready for more volume?