Sonoma Bakery: Optimising Sales Reps Productivity

Key Capabilities Demonstrated

Sales and Territory Planning

Optimisation and Implementation

Administrative reduction

Better customer engagement

Sales reps now save 1 full day per week to spend with clients

Overview

Sonoma Bakery is a Sydney-based wholesaler known for its delicious, handcrafted baked goods. They specialise in a wide variety of treats, including artisanal breads, pastries, and custom cakes, supplying to local cafes and restaurants with fresh, high-quality products. As their business grew, so did the complexity of managing their sales representatives’ routes and customer relationships.

Challenge

Sonoma Bakery faced significant operational obstacles that were impacting their growth potential:

Time-consuming planning: Sonoma’s current process made it difficult to effectively manage visit cycles

Missed opportunities: Sonoma experienced inefficient scheduling that resulted in missed key accounts and lost business

Lead conversion struggles: Sonoma’s sales team faced difficulties converting potential customers

Resource misallocation: Sonoma’s representatives weren’t spending time in the most valuable areas

Low-value focus: Sonoma staff spent excessive time with low-potential accounts at the expense of high-value customers

Visibility gaps: Sonoma’s management had no insight into which accounts were being visited

Strategic limitations: Sonoma found it impossible to allocate resources or identify coverage gaps effectively

Scaling challenges: Inefficiencies hindered Sonoma’s ability to grow operations in a competitive market

Partner Value

Think Beyond partnered with Sonoma Bakery to transform their sales operations:

Deep performance analysis: Think Beyond identified high-performing sales cadences through data assessment of Sonoma’s operations

Strategic account identification: Think Beyond pinpointed high-potential, high-value customer opportunities for Sonoma

Tailored business cycles: Think Beyond created customised visit schedules aligned with Sonoma’s account potential

Salesforce Maps implementation: Think Beyond deployed powerful location intelligence capabilities for Sonoma’s team

Sales Cloud optimisation: Think Beyond enhanced core CRM functionality to support Sonoma’s field sales activities

Field-centric configuration: Think Beyond designed tools based on understanding how Sonoma’s salespeople perform in their field.

User-led approach: Think Beyond prioritised solutions based on Sonoma’s real user needs over technology-driven changes

Visit cycle automation: Think Beyond implemented a system to automatically schedule Sonoma’s visits based on ideal frequencies

Efficient account assessment: Think Beyond created tools to help Sonoma evaluate accounts more effectively
Administrative reduction: Think Beyond shifted Sonoma’s focus from planning to customer relationship management

Results

The partnership delivered remarkable results for Sonoma Bakery. Each sales representative now saves approximately 8 hours per week – effectively cutting planning time by one full day. This dramatic increase in efficiency has transformed how the sales team operates, allowing representatives to spend more time with high-value accounts and focus on relationship-building activities that directly impact revenue. Management now enjoys complete visibility into account visits and coverage, enabling strategic decision-making based on actual field activity data.

By partnering with Think Beyond, Sonoma Bakery has successfully transformed their sales operations. The sales process has become more proactive, with representatives able to anticipate customer needs and respond quickly to opportunities rather than constantly playing catch-up with administrative tasks. The business is now better positioned to serve their customers while growing more efficiently in the competitive wholesale bakery market, with streamlined processes creating a scalable foundation for future growth.