Spreadsheets can track orders, production status, and shipment updates, but not if long-term growth is the goal.
Since 2010, Pack Leader USA has manufactured and sold pressure-sensitive and shrink-sleeve labelers, filling equipment, and capping machines to businesses and distributors across North America. In early 2015, Pack Leader USA partnered with TANK New Media (TANK) as a strategic partner and full-service marketing agency.
Because they had a growth mindset, Pack Leader USA always strived to reach the next level. One of the first steps they took to position themselves for growth was to bring on our team for a website redesign. They knew that a better site would increase their brand visibility and improve online lead quality. Once their website was in place, their attention shifted to gaining marketing and sales traction. That’s when they became an ongoing Strategic Growth Program client. Within a short time, they were closing 75% more deals with their existing sales team.
With so many great systems in place, areas that lacked efficiency become painfully evident. With marketing and sales efforts humming along, Pack Leader USA’s sales team began experiencing a backlog of orders and an increasingly more challenging handoff to the manufacturing line for fulfillment, which created frustration for employees and customers.
Manual data entry, duplicate information, and lack of department coordination resulted in wasted time and reduced efficiency.
With a significant bump in deals being closed every month, the production team was responsible for manufacturing more equipment and faster to meet lead times. However, the process that was in place to handoff the deals from sales to production was clunky and outdated. Hours were wasted manually creating and duplicating documents and records post-sale in order to queue up orders for the production team. The process was inefficient and caused a lot of problems. Both the sales and production departments were getting frustrated with the lack of coordination.
This isn't an uncommon experience for manufacturing businesses. When manufacturers start, they often use Excel spreadsheets to document information and notate production status. Usually, this system works to keep their lines moving for a while. But, it's not a good long-term solution.
Pack Leader USA experienced this first hand. They reached a growth point in which spreadsheets were no longer manageable or appropriate — they caused more problems than they solved. Teams had difficulty upkeeping a custom Excel spreadsheet for each order and machine status. It was almost impossible for anyone to know when a machine was completed and shipped to the customer.
Pack Leader USA desperately needed a way to streamline operations and improve communication, so they leaned on TANK to help them leverage HubSpot Sales Hub and Service Hub.
Pairing HubSpot with Monday.com provided the perfect solution for managing sales, production, and shipping operations.
To identify the root causes of the handoff and communication problems, we mapped out Pack Leader USA's current processes from the point of sales handoff through product completion and shipping. Taking the time to map out each stage helped to ensure the right information was being captured efficiently, and it revealed opportunities for automation.
Knowing and understanding their processes, we customized HubSpot CRM and HubSpot Sales Hub to meet Pack Leader USA's data and sales management needs. Because HubSpot syncs information constantly and provides access to real-time data, the handoff process now had the potential to be much easier and transparent — no more confusion or guessing. Once HubSpot was in place, we integrated the project management system, Monday.com, to provide the perfect solution for Pack Leader USA to manage sales, production status, fulfillment schedule, and shipping operations.
Optimizing integrated software and new processes helped to address specific needs and pain points.
Setting up HubSpot and Monday.com to meet Pack Leader USA's specific needs and pain points was done in several steps.
First, we set up pipelines in HubSpot to trigger the start of the production process by using a custom field sync between the two systems. Then, once a deal was moved to Closed Won in HubSpot, it triggered production tasks to be created on Monday.com. This automation feature allowed us to set up a series of customer notifications, taking the pressure off the sales team by eliminating the need to track down production-critical information from customers. From here, the fulfillment team could move orders through each phase of production by using status and board columns.
This system not only provided a quick and accurate view of each order for the production team but also allowed the sales team to check on equipment status and provided automatic email updates to keep customers notified and happy. By streamlining the handoff process between the two departments and leveraging automation throughout the entire process, the production team could focus on building high-quality modular labeling, filling, and capping equipment and not deal with needless frustration or cumbersome processes.
Having the right strategy, systems, and software in place can KEEP your manufacturing company on a growth trajectory.
Our team at TANK worked with Pack Leader USA to identify system breakdowns and provide solutions. Being positioned to grow as a manufacturer means having systems and processes in place that can grow along with your company. That's why we approached and evaluated everything systematically and recommended long-term solutions and an ongoing partnership that would help keep sales growing, communication transparent, handoffs seamless, and departments aligned.
Our mission as a growth-focused HubSpot Solutions Partner is to ensure our manufacturing clients, including Pack Leader USA, have effective, streamlined, and results-driven marketing, sales, and service systems to meet business and growth goals.
Explore our Solutions or set up a free consultation to learn more about our Strategic Growth Programs and how they utilize strategies, systems, and technology to turn confusion and cumbersome processes into efficient, optimized, and streamlined experiences for both employees and customers.
