Where Projects Are Won

Modern Lighting Agency Series, Webinar 2 of 3. Where Projects Are Won, with Mike Arnold, VP Sales North America.

Good morning, good afternoon, hello, everyone. And welcome to Where Projects Are Won, the second session in our Modern Lighting Agency webinar series. I'm Mike Arnold, Vice President of Sales for North America at Baucore.

I personally spent almost 30 years working in the AEC industry as a degreed architect, as a leader of a building materials sales team, and a lot of that career in construction technology.

Much of that experience has involved the same challenge that we're discussing today. How do you turn what a salesperson learns in the market, in the field, into information the rest of the organization can actually use?

This topic is near and dear to my heart. Today I I hope our audience is mostly lighting rep agencies who have outside sales teams and being a leader of an outside sales team and an outside sales team member myself through the years, I can tell you that this was a little bit of my Elon Musk moment where he dreamt his whole life of a Tesla Roadster that could flip over cars, I always dreamed of an AI co-pilot that can help me do my job in the field that much easier.

Before we begin, feel free to submit any questions as we go. We'll leave time at the end to address them. So for anyone who's new to Baucore, we build project-driven sales and operating solutions for building material manufacturers and their rep agencies.

Baucore is built on Salesforce technology and designed around a basic operating truth. These businesses, both building product manufacturers and their rep agencies, they don't just sell through isolated transactions, they develop, influence, quote, execute and get paid around projects.

Baucore for agencies was born out of that and brings field sales, incoming RFQ requests, projects, quoting orders, customer service, and commissions together around one project record.

Today, we're focusing on SalesExt, Baucore's AI-powered field sales application. Like any good product release, we've got a nice marketing video. Let's take a look at it before we get started.

some context on who we are, what we're all about. As I mentioned, we are a Salesforce partner which helps us leverage world-class CRM ERP technology.

This webinar is part of a three-session story about the Modern Lighting Agency. In our first session, if you recall a couple of weeks ago, your inbox is running your agency.

We looked at what happens when an RFQ or related request reaches the agency. So we We focused that demonstration really around your quotations or inside salespeople, your triage people that are handling all these inbound requests.

We demonstrated why extracting a bill of materials is only part of the intake. The agency still has to understand the request, identify the project, connect the participants, and prepare the work for quoting.

Today, we move upstream. Before Before an RFQ reaches the quoting desk, and by upstream, I mean your field salespeople, the folks that are in the field behind the windshield every day, or most every day, including your A&D and spec reps and your contractor and distributor sales team.

Before an RFQ reaches the quoting desk, and again, what we had covered in our first webinar, field and spec representatives may have spent months delivering relationships, developing relationships, discussing projects, discussing products, influencing specifications, tracking competitors, and coordinating next steps.

So this webinar series is really focused on that upstream part of the overall lifecycle. And again, the takeaway here is Baucore addresses the entire agency lifecycle from beginning of projects during the specification stage, first conversations, all the way through to the final commission, all around a single project record.

The stack, the Baucore stack, the applications that we've seen in the past in the first webinar, really about Baucore Inbox, that automated AI-powered intake and automation solution, Inbox Intelligence.

Today, we're really focused on SalesExt, that AI co-pilot for the field sales team to help enable them, to to be more effective. Later in our third session in November, one project from first conversation to final commission will bring those two sides together.

We will follow the complete project across field sales, inbox, quoting orders, customer service, and commissions. So the premise is simple. Let me back up here to, again, our agency record here.

The premise for today is simple. An activity report documents that a meeting happened. Project intelligence tells the agency what changed, who is involved, and what needs to happen next.

A lighting agency representative may discuss several projects during one visit with an architect, engineer, distributor, contractor. Some of the people influencing those projects may not even be present, but they're known as participants on those projects.

Afterward, the rep is expected to remember everything divided amongst the correct projects, update the appropriate records, and create the necessary follow-up actions. This is exactly the kind of administrative work that gets delayed or never gets completed or waits till Friday.

So as you know, a lot of these field reps are out every day in the car, in the morning, four or five meetings, looking to fill their calendars.

SalesExt approaches the problem differently. The salesperson reports the visit naturally by voice. SalesExt then prepares the project updates, participants, topics, and next actions for the salesperson to validate.

That distinction is important. AI prepares the salesperson, validates the Baucore system, moves the work forward. We're not going to spend today going through a long list of features.

Instead, we're going to follow a lighting agency field salesperson through a realistic day. We will begin with the morning route brief. What am I doing today?

What do I need to know about these accounts that I'm visiting? Prepare for two scheduled account visits, capture both visits from the car, validate the resulting project information or intelligence over lunch, and then use a gap in the schedule to identify a worthwhile cold call opportunity nearby.

Our storyline for today is one visit, multiple projects, one voice report. So, let's begin at the start of the day. So, I've got my handy-dandy phone application up here.

So, this is my phone. The rest of this demo is going to be live looking at the Baucore mobile app and the SalesExt feature within the Salesforce app.

But first, let's start like everybody else does, and that's on email. I'm getting up in the morning and I see here that a routing brief has been sent to me by Baucore.

So here's my daily route brief for today and it looks like I'm headed from Lafayette to Sacramento about an hour in the car. I've got architects in the morning, distributor contractors in the afternoon, I've got a gap between 12 and 145 and here is a high level summary or a dossier on why I'm visiting these people.

Now this could be signals that's coming from your CRM. It could be tasks that are open, topics that are open from last meetings. It could be that you haven't visited this account in the recommended cadence.

You know your account's best. Maybe you this type of architect for their volume you visit once a quarter. Well it shows that we're overdue on just that regular cadence.

It shows that we've got open topics from our last visit. It shows in a suggested agenda. Then later on, we've got another architect meeting with Adis Architects.

I could easily click into any of these records to go look at the entire account record and so forth and so on. There's that gap.

Now, notice the gap. AI could suggest a meeting for you and we'll take a look at that here a little bit using the near me feature on the mobile tool.

Then finally, in the afternoon, some distributor meetings where I see projects in flight, actual project records, things that are missed or past due or whatever the case might be, and again, multiple projects with a contractor.

So that gives me a good summary of what's going on. From my e-mail intake in the morning, I get in the car, I arrive at my first meeting, DGA Planning and Associates.

So here, again, I'm just using the Baucore Salesforce mobile app, and I'm getting a full picture of the account, the contacts there, the projects that they're related to, all of that kind of context that's available on my mobile phone.

So again, this is native Baucore Salesforce mobile app that just downloads and connects to your database. So here's my account view, here's all my details regarding that account, address, projects, last visit date, phone number, and so forth.

So all right, I've reviewed all this information. I can also just take a look at my calendar here and I see that calendar item that's sitting there related to that event also shows some interesting details that have been gleaned from the database regarding suggested next steps, action items, things like that.

So I've done my account review, I go in, I go talk to DGA, and now I come out ready for my visit report. So I simply just click on visit report.

It knows where I am. It knows that DGA planning was the first meeting and I'm sitting in their parking lot. So now I'm just going to dictate to the visit report tool, to the SalesExt tool, my visit report.

Met this morning with Richard Price at DGA Planning Architecture Interiors, their Sacramento office. The meeting ran about an hour. Richard is the architect on the PG&E Antioch Service Center improvements project.

Design is moving along and he expects the lighting package to go out to bid in the next few weeks. He wants us to stay close on the especially long life LED and easy maintenance for the service yards.

That is what Boris LaTecia PG&E cares about most. Turner Construction is the general contractor so I need to get in front of Cliff Kunkel on pricing.

Richard offered to make the introduction. Richard also brought in Daniel Grandy from the San Francisco DGA office who is new to me. Daniel is working on a couple of interiors jobs and wants to see our decorative linear and pendant lines.

Richard also suggested that I connect with Karen Kuklin at the Mountain View office, since she handles most of their tenant improvement work. Overall, a strong meeting.

Richard sees us as a go-to lighting resource and I would rate the relationship as warm. Send Richard the catalog and spec sheets for exterior and yard lighting.

Set up a lunch and learn at the Sacramento office with their team. Ask Richard for the introduction to Cliff Kunkle at Turner. Add Daniel Grandy and Karen Kuklin to the DGA relationship and booking visit with Karen, next visit in about three weeks.

As you can see, that was a little bit lengthy of a visit report. Some would be very short. Hey, here's what happened. Here's what I need to do next.

This one was pretty in depth. Discussed projects, discussed existing people that were at the firm, new contacts. You can see now that the transcription has been made, and now SalesExt is ready to extract all the customer information, all the relevant topics, the contacts, attendees at the meeting, participants in projects, and so forth.

So, I'm going to let that do its thing, and I could get in the car and now drive to my next meeting. So, let's do that.

So, in my next meeting, here's ADIS Architects, and I could route directly to them using my cell phone, right, directly to that location. I can go back to the Salesforce Baucore app and see the details regarding my next meeting, which is with ADIS architecture.

So, AI is going to be doing its thing on that visit report. I could, if I wanted to, validate the details right here in the car, but I got to get moving because I'm late for this meeting with ADIS.

All right, so second visit report. Let's just dive in here again. I have full access to their details, to reasons to visit, to the full details on this account, the contacts, etc.

So here, let's get started with another visit report for ADIS. We have our meeting and let's create another visit report here for ADIS architecture. Okay, met with Joe Vella at ADIS Architects in their Sacramento studio on our street, about an hour, good conversation.

Joe walked me through the Pharrell Avenue state preschool classroom building relocation. It is a K through 12 job, so the lighting needs to be budget conscious, but still meet Title 24 and day lighting requirements.

Joe is leaning toward a simple, durable classroom lighting package with occupancy controls. He asked us to put together a basis of design with two alternates, one at a lower price point.

He also mentioned that ADIS is staffing up their K-12 practice and that the San Jose office is where most of the school specs get written.

He introduced me by email to Afsha Ali and John Difendurfer in San Jose, both new contacts for us. I want to set up a call with them this week.

Joe asked about lead times on the classroom fixtures and whether we could support a bid day substitution request quickly. I told him yes and I will confirm the lead times with the manufacturer today.

Relationship solid, Joe trusts our recommendations, and this is a good chance to get specified early. Prepare a basis for design with two alternates for Ferell Avenue, confirm classroom fixture lead times with the manufacturer, and e-mail Joe, schedule a call with Asha Ali and John Difendurfer in San Jose offer a K-12 lunch and learn on controls and Title 24 at Asha and John's contacts on the ADIS account.

Okay, so there again, easy. My notes have been transcribed into the visit reporting tool and generate with AI. This visit report is going to be created while I'm driving to lunch.

Okay, so we're going to switch now for a second to, hey, again, I'm in the, I'm in the lunch. I've got my laptop open at a cafe.

Tell me about my visit reports. So here I can see the desktop experience for those visit reports. And there's two right there, one for ADIS and one for DGA planning architecture interiors.

and I could go into them and see what the results are. Remember, we also have a little bit of time in our schedule. So if I look at my calendar here, I see that we've got about an hour and a half to burn before I have to go to these contractor calls in the afternoon.

So we'll tackle that here in a second. I'll go to the first-vision report for DGA. We'll look at what's all been extracted here. We have attendees, Daniel, Richard, those were existing contacts.

I don't have to add them to the database. They're already there. Of course, I was present in the meeting as well. I've got some other contacts, maybe leads, projects, participants with projects that have been extracted.

So you can see here, PG&E, Antioch Service Center improvements project, create a new project. There isn't one already in the system. It will actually find and try to match to an existing project.

Here's a couple of contacts, Daniel Grandy, Karen Kuklin, et cetera, that were found within this report. The rest of it, you can see time, date, even a GPS clock in, clock out if you prefer.

If you think about that, just that act of clocking in, clocking out, You can connect that to a Concur expense reporting system or whatever, right?

So now you're now you're saving the extent the the the awful expense report at the end of the month Just on driving around and getting those mileage.

So general information of course is Visit report was tagged to Richard at DGA planning. I could of course pivot over I see an AI summary of of what was discussed, the Antioch Service Center improvements project, et cetera.

I could see some highlights of the call, which later show up as participants on those projects. I could see some report topics, yard lighting, decorative linear and pendant, pricing, et cetera.

I could see my tasks and the attendees on this as well. So think about the topic extraction, learning your line card. How often are you getting asked by a factory or a manufacturer, what have you done for me lately?

How often are you in the field talking about our products? So the topic extraction is trained on your line card, and it was reportable later, right?

Hubbell lighting, parking lot lighting, you know, energy efficient controls. whatever it is that you're listening for, that you want to report on, it's just part of management topics, part of how SalesExt gets trained on your line card.

And then finally, these tasks, right? Tasks, for me, send catalog, inspect sheets. I remember that in the conversation. That's already created for me as a task.

And of course, it's got a due date. Here's a lunch and learn. It interpreted when that was supposed to happen in early November. I got an introduction from Cliff Conkle, all these different action items that were prepared for me.

Well, what about bridging that divide to your inside sales team? Thinking about forwarding tasks directly through the system from a field visit to a quoter.

Hey, we're 10 % high on this PG&E project. We need to re-quote this by Friday. send that to Sue or John. Martha needs to send this sample out in her next run to Sacramento.

Martha gets an alert. Martha gets a task. Sue and the quoting group gets a task related to the project specific to the ask. So tasks aren't just for you, but they're also a way to communicate that valuable field intelligence directly to the people that can take action on it right now, not waiting till Friday or the end of the day, not having to go camp out in somebody's doorstep or a cafe to get all my CRM notes entered, it's already done.

So there's my visit report. Of course, I can pivot on DGA. I can see all the previous visit reports that have been created for that in my desktop view.

So let's switch back to our mobile experience. We've gotten all of our visit reports done, tasks, new contacts, new projects, all that kind of good stuff is done.

Now then, remember that gap that we had in our schedule? So let's think about how we can enable a map view of your accounts and your projects near me, right?

So I'm sitting in Sacramento or in this case in Lafayette, California. Are there accounts near me that I should be visiting? I've got a couple hours to burn.

I'm headed between here and Folsom. Who should I be visiting? Are there any projects that are currently under construction that I probably want to go visit?

So, just using this simple map view, I can see those accounts. I can see projects. I'm going to see right around me, there's a few red flag accounts, right?

There's a few red flag accounts, and the ones that are green don't necessarily need any follow-up. The ones that are red might need follow-up.

The ones that are yellow, et cetera. So, just clicking on Lark Lane, they're an owner. Their account status is green. The reason why is we're on track.

We visited 12 days ago. We're within our cadence. Well, what about Central Costa Sanitary District? They're an owner. Here's an address, phone number, but I can see that their account status is red.

They've got some overdue tasks. There's three follow ups past due. There's a project that's awry. There's something that needs my attention. So I might wanna visit that Sanitary District or go a little bit further out.

And again, let's just quickly navigate here to this account, A2R Architects. All right, I'm gonna do a cold call with A2R Architects. They were red or green or whatever the situation might be.

I'm gonna do a quick visit report here. And again, this is a cold call. There's A2R Architects. Quick cold call drop down or drop in with A2R Architects.

Susan at the front desk said that John Smith is the principal who you'd really need to talk to. He's got familiarity with us in the past.

Good timing. He's got a project that he'd like to look at the Acoustical Interior Lighting LED products from Lunalight. Stop by next Tuesday to get to see him in person.

That's it. Simple, you know, 20-second message, 20-second visit report for of that cold call example, generate with AI, and when I go back to the office, I'll have my action items, I'll have my visit report, and away I go.

All right, so again, context within the mobile app, being able to see the history, seeing red flag updates, red, yellow, green, who needs to be visited.

So if you think about, there's my report, Again, Susan, John Smith, projects, context, all that kind of good stuff, and I'll create that report and have that waiting for me, there's nothing for me to do when I get back to the office.

All that heavy lifting has been done, the visit report has been created. So that's, you know, if you think about going back to your schedule, thinking about, okay, that was pretty useful.

I had an hour and a half of time and I was able to fill it with a cold call on a Red flag to count for some reason.

I'm moving the ball forward, right? I'm exercising that business development muscle that I'm hired to do because I'm behind the wheel five days a week So let me just close on Again, you know, here is those visit reports Being able to pivot, a cold call, drop in at A2R Architects, the job is done.

So in conclusion, a mobile experience, a desktop experience, a tool to enable field sales team members to gather intelligence from the field, be more productive in their day planning, find accounts that should be visited, concepts like cadence, how often should we be visiting these accounts, topics that carry over from previous visits to future visits, topic extraction around manufacturer names, tasks, attendees, projects, participants, etc.

So that again that's the near me app which allows for that map-oriented view and where we go with that is think about it. You happen to have an hour and a half free today.

Well, what about next Tuesday where you have a blank schedule? SalesExt can help you plan your entire day using those signals, using that red, yellow, green, do I have projects that are amiss, something overdue?

Who should I be seeing on my Oakland to San Jose tour? That sort of thing. So we're at the bottom of the hour, 11:30. This wasn't going to be a very long one today.

Again, covering that SalesExt tool, we will now open up the conversation for any questions. See if there's anything in the chat. So some agencies that we're working with have some pretty specific requirements for SalesExt.

They have their own lingo around, Hey, every time we visit, we want to report the fact that the sample was dropped off. Sample is topic management.

Other agencies are like, hey, we've got several different sales strategies that we might employ on a particular project. That can be listened for. Again, think about the dictation of the rep to the app, create new project, create new contact, look for existing project.

Here are my updates, as natural as they would speak. Any kind of dictation, we'll pick those things up and help them get their job done faster. I don't see any questions in the chat. We're happy to demonstrate this live to your agency.

It is an adjunct to the Baucore suite. It's appropriate for and available today on the Salesforce app exchange, can be configured for whatever nuances around your specific agency, but think about how much time you're giving back to those field sales reps to go squeeze in that extra call.

Stop with the heavy lifting data entry. The one thing that reps hate in any system is data entry. So using natural voice dictation to create those visit reports, those follow-on items, action items, all done behind the scenes.

Communication back to inside sales team about a project that's in the fly-in. Think about how valuable that could be. Getting joy back to the role of the folks that are behind the wheel four to five days a week.

So as a follow-up, those who are in the call, there will be a recording here that you can access later. And certainly, if you'd like to look at a more personalized, in-depth interview or a demonstration, we're happy to do that.

A question came in: can dictated, delegated tasks be reviewed before AI assigns and sends them to another staff person?

a verified task so that other staff are not set to an accurate chore. So for sure, there's two ways that this is gated. Number one, like I mentioned, AI suggests humans validate.

So as that human is going through and looking at that visit report and validating the new people and validating those action items, they won't get sent until they click the checkbox and says, yes, this is what I want this person to do.

So it shows the name of that user, it shows the task, it's associated with the visit report. So there's that human, the sales rep being able to do that, and then there's a second gate check if you really wanted to, which is an approval of the overall visit report, which could get sent to a manager, that sort of thing.

Of course, if there's topics that you forgot about, and you wanted to add to that visit report, you can always do that when you're back at lunch, validating that visit report and sending it on.

All right, I think that's all the questions that we've got. We thank you for your time. This video will be up probably within the next day or two in a follow-on email.

Okay everybody, thanks for your time. We look forward to seeing you in session three, which is in November.

Look at our website. Always a lot of great information on baucore.app. Thanks for joining us. Bye.