A box of samples and a long silence
A new café is opening across town. You drop off a sample kit: two espressos and a filter, a price list and a card. A week later you have heard nothing, and the owner has been roasting and delivering and forgot to call. A month later the café opens serving someone else's coffee.
Across a year, dozens of sample kits go out like this, to cafés, delis, offices and restaurants, and the only record is a few notes in the owner's phone.
Some of the prospects did reply. One said the coffee was lovely but they were tied into a contract until spring. Another wanted to try a different espresso with more body. Both answers were good news, and both were lost, because nobody wrote them down or set a reminder to go back.
Samples go out, nothing is recorded
Wholesale selling in a small roastery is done by the people who also roast, deliver and train. There is no sales team and no CRM, so there is no list of who is at what stage. Following up relies on remembering, and the moment that matters, when the café has tasted the coffee and is deciding, passes without a call.
- Samples are sent without a record of what was included.
- Feedback from a tasting is heard once and forgotten.
- There is no date by which someone should follow up.
- Prospects that said "not yet" are never revisited.
- The owner is the only person who knows the pipeline.
What forgotten samples cost
Each sample kit costs coffee, packaging, a drive or postage, and someone's time to put it together. When it is not followed up, all of that is wasted, and the café that might have been a long term account goes elsewhere. Wholesale accounts are often the steadiest part of a roastery's income, so a leaky pipeline has a real effect on how predictable the business is.
A wholesale pipeline sized for a roastery
- A short prospect record: café name, contact, how you heard of them, and their opening date if they are new.
- Each sample is logged when it goes out, with the coffees included, using a quick form on a phone.
- A follow up task is created automatically for a date you set, and appears in the right person's list or calendar.
- Feedback from calls or tastings is recorded against the prospect, including what they liked, their current supplier and their concerns such as price or equipment.
- Prospects that say "not yet" get a reminder for when they suggested, such as after a refit or at contract renewal.
- When a prospect becomes an account, the record passes into your wholesale customer list with its pricing and delivery day, so nothing is retyped.
| Stage | Recorded now | Recorded in the pipeline |
|---|---|---|
| Sample sent | Maybe a note in a phone | Coffees, date, who took it |
| Follow up | When someone remembers | Task on a set date |
| Feedback | In someone's head | Notes against the prospect |
| Not yet | Forgotten | Reminder on their timing |
| Won | Details retyped | Becomes a wholesale account |
If you already use HubSpot or another CRM, we set this up inside it rather than building something separate.
Following up without trying to remember
Every sample has a next step and a date. The owner opens a list each Monday of cafés to call, with what they tasted and what they said. Feedback accumulates, so you learn which coffees win tastings and which objections come up most. And when someone else in the team picks up a prospect, they know the history before they walk in.
Does your wholesale selling look like this?
- You send samples but do not track them.
- Follow ups depend on the owner remembering.
- Cafés you sampled have signed with other roasters.
- You could not list your current prospects and their stage.
- Feedback from tastings is not written down.