SAM Case Study

A sales management consultant to the insurance and financial industries competes with national publishers by customizing his Sales Activity Planner (SAM) books with his customer’s unique training tools. Some large accounts have thousands of sales people in the field while others may have only hundreds. Many clients receive custom books in quantities as low as 10 to over 8,000. Selling planners in various editions and quantities grew to be a logistical nightmare for his small staff and limited space. Compounding the problem was an antiquated e-commerce ordering portal that was capable of recording purchases but was not integrated with the print manufacturer.

AccuLink was well acquainted with SAM having produced planners for most of the explosive growth years. Acculink and SAM approached the solution as true partners whereby AccuLink coordinated a long-term strategy that included marketing strategy, logistics and financial controls.

AccuLink provided web design, copy writing and technical support in the redesign of the SAM website. All landing pages were recreated and linked logically to ease purchasing products sold by the SAM organization. AccuLink also constructed the e-commerce orderXpress portal for credit card enabled purchasing of SAM planners and other offerings. Not only is this site integrated with the AccuLink printing production facility but it also monitors inventory levels and tracks all shipments from the AccuLink fulfillment center.

The sales consultant avoided a costly move to a new warehouse office complex and significantly reduced the labor, time and turmoil associated with managing over 50,000 orders per year. In addition to reducing inventories with “just in time” printing services, the client has reduced delivery time and shipping expenses by 1/2. To calculate ROI one must take into account the ability to avoid the construction of a costly warehouse addition, dedicated employees for managing highly seasonal work and disruptions to normal business activities during the fall ordering season. Having a fully automated and integrated system handling order creation through to fulfillment has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year!