How Commonwealth Joe achieved a 9 day sales cycle

When it comes to product development, Commonwealth Joe is on the cutting edge of using technology and real-time data to improve the coffee and beer drinking experience for all.

(Read as: They’ve perfected the art accessible in-office kegerators, and a recipe for nitro brews that’s strong enough to excite even the most grizzled tech bro.)

However, when it comes to landing clients, Commonwealth Joe’s tech stack was far from cutting-edge. Actually, the small but agile beverage company relied solely on spreadsheets when it came to generating, distributing, nurturing, and closing leads.

Their day-old-beer stale sales process needed a refresh.

“We couldn’t scale manually past 30 customers,” said Timothy Corey, head of the sales team at Commonwealth Joe.

To bring their sales team into the digital age, Commonwealth Joe began researching CRMs that could blend with their existing workflows while still helping them scale effectively.

CJ’s sales process headaches

The team at Commonwealth Joe relies on several channels to generate inbound and outbound leads, including:

• Purchased lead lists
• Marketing campaigns on LinkedIn
• Paid Facebook ads
• Cold calling

To organize in their leads, Commonwealth Joe devised a workflow:

Though the workflow is clear-cut, the execution wasn’t always ideal. Piecemeal lead management meant Commonwealth Joe:

• Had issues with lead distribution
• Qualified too few leads
• Was unable to prioritize prospects
• Had limited lead nurturing processes
• Lacked strong follow up

Each of these components stifled Commonwealth Joe’s growth. Poor lead management meant unnecessarily long sales cycles, and inability to scale beyond 30 customers, which directly impacted the company’s bottom line.

The jolt they needed

With Close, Commonwealth Joe experienced the joys of their first sales CRM platform. And, now the team has developed a caffeine-like addiction to its features — namely the email automation functions.

The sales team at Commonwealth Joe:

• Sends over 3,000 emails a month using Close
• Uses email templates 100s of times a month

But, most of all, Commonwealth Joe gained visibility into their sales process.

Equipped with Close, they can make more informed, efficient decisions that help reduce time spent throughout the sales cycle and increase the company’s revenue.

Close allows us to see where we should spend our time and effort. We can look at our sales for the same quarter last year and know what worked well and what didn’t -- this allows me to know where to put my energy, on what companies, and in what markets.

Timothy Corey
Commonwealth Joe Director of Sales

Cold brew (and sales energy) for all

The increased organization from their workflows proved beneficial for Commonwealth Joe instantly.

In fact, from cold call to close, Commonwealth Joe leveraged the capabilities of Close to land HomeAdvisor (a company with more than 500 coffee drinking employees) in just nine days. Mic drop.

That’s something worth toasting. 🍻