LBS increases Sales by 22%, while saving 100s of hours per month on Inventory Management

Tools we used:
QBO
LBS Distribution connects licensed California cannabis retailers with the finest cultivators, artisans, and manufacturers to create a robust supply chain of legal cannabis throughout the state. When they approached Headquarters, they didn’t have efficient systems or automations in place to manage their inventory and sales. They knew this would be a roadblock to their growth. Our team swiftly put systems in place and significantly increased their efficiency. Highlights so far include:
Saving their inventory team 100+ hours/month
Increased monthly revenue by 22%
Reduced invoice collection speed from 40 days to 26 days
Testimonial Image

"We’re 100% more productive in sales enablement and finance operations — we didn’t have anything like that before Headquarters."

Ross Haley

CEO

LBS Distribution

The Challenge

A lack of systems and automation to manage inventory and sales was preventing LBS from increasing their revenue. This impacted their:

Sales team - Reps were wasting time on admin tasks instead of selling. They were using an ERP but it was restrictive and provided no inventory insight for the sales team — meaning they didn’t know what they had available to sell.

Inventory team - Inventory specialists were bogged down in technology they weren’t familiar with, manually tracking and entering every piece of the PO, manifest, and production order process into their ERP and Metrc. This created a high risk of errors and compliance issues, increasing risk of penalties. There was also the threat of production orders being held up if there is an issue with documentation.

Accounts Receivable (AR) - Invoices weren’t getting paid, meaning the sales team wasn’t getting paid on time! Bottom line: The company’s existing processes were inefficient, open to risk, and stunting their growth.

How Headquarters Stepped Up

Phase 1: ERP and Inventory Management

HQ took over the ERP System management and data entry, following lbs.' existing SOPs. First, we deployed a team of cannabis ERP specialists who supported their Metrc and Acumatica. They track inventory correctly to ensure compliance and leave much less room for error.

Now, all production orders, invoices, sales orders, manifests, and purchase orders are processed quickly to keep them moving and fulfilled efficiently. HQ continues to manage their production order process, inventory management, create their outbound manifests and sales orders for products distributed through Nabis, along with other final paperwork to be sent back to LBS team (i.e., PO, summary report from ERP system, copies of manifests).
Phase 2: ERP and Sales Team Integration

It was crucial to give the sales team better inventory insight. Our sales specialist gave the client’s sales team ERP access, so reps can easily see WHAT they have to sell and WHO they need to sell it to! We then helped the client:

1. Start their leads list based on which retailer is best fit for certain products
2. Called all retailers to gather buyer contact information at each one
3. Build out their HubSpot CRM
4. Import leads into HubSpot and create segments for personalized outreach

Additionally, our sales ops specialist set up a weekly dashboard for senior management to track revenue and sales rep activity.
Phase 3: AR Service

To combat slow collections, HQ provided our AR service to collect payments on open invoices. We used our database of retailers to speak to the best person at each retailer to get the client paid timely.

All AR data is now up-to-date and categorized properly in their accounting system. Plus, the sales team has an accurate view of their performance since invoices are being paid on time!

The Results

HQ’s comprehensive service saved lbs. significant time and money, increasing their profitability. Now, their team can focus on their actual jobs and what they do best — no more wasting time on ERP management and tedious administrative tasks!
The ERP shows what is in inventory, reps can spend more time selling
Reps spend less time tracking inventory themselves
Managers spend less time researching new prospects

And we did it all with a 0 increase in headcount, saving them hundreds of thousands in the long run!