50 Hours a Week Back to Selling, and Reps Who Never Have to Be the Bad Guy

The Setup

A growing wholesale brand: nearly 200 open invoices across its stores, five sales reps, and a small back office that does everything else.

Collections had landed on the reps. Every store visit meant two conversations: what to order next, and when the last order would be paid. By the brand's own estimate, its reps spent about half their time on collections.

That's the most expensive way to collect. The rep is there to build a relationship and win the next order. Asking for money in the same breath makes them the bad guy, and every hour spent chasing is an hour not selling.

What We Took Over

The brand handed the follow-up to us. In its first month, every piece in the brand's own name:

The Reps Stopped Being the Bad Guy

Now the asking comes from the brand's AR department, on a schedule, in the brand's name. The rep isn't the one chasing anymore. They walk into the store to talk new product, sell-through and the next order, which is the conversation that grows the account.

Their list still tells them who's behind, so they're never caught off guard. If a buyer brings it up, the rep can say "our AR team has that" and get back to selling. A rep who calls to connect instead of collect gets their calls answered.

The brand's own count: collections went from about half of each rep's week to about a quarter. Across five reps, that's roughly 50 hours a week back to selling.

The Back Office Got 12 Hours a Week Back

The work we took over would have landed on someone. Done by hand, that first month is about 12 hours a week, counted conservatively:

• 5 minutes to send an invoice
• 5 minutes to look up a balance and write a reminder
• 10 minutes to pull one rep's list together
• 2 hours a week keeping the collections spreadsheet current

Add it up and it's about 62 hours a week across the sales team and the back office. That's more than a full-time hire.

And the Money Still Came In

Taking collections off the team didn't mean collecting less. The same month, the same brand collected $417,560 in past-due invoices, $172,876 of it in the first week. Read that story.

That's ShelfSpace: invoices with a Pay Now link, a steady reminder schedule, phone calls and final notices for the old ones, interest-free payment plans, and a weekly list for every rep. All in your name.

A Note on the Numbers

The 50 hours is the brand's estimate of its reps' time, based on 40-hour weeks, not a stopwatch. The 12 back-office hours are our conservative count of the work we did for them. We'd rather show you how we got there than round up.

The Result

About 50 hours a week back to selling, 12 more off the back office, and $417,560 in past-due invoices collected the same month. Same team, same stores.