Profit Is Won (or Lost) in the Field, Not Spreadsheets

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a distributor who had just “lost” their primary vendor status on a million-dollar account that had been built over 20 years.

It did not happen because of tariffs. It was not freight costs or a competitor undercutting them on price. The customer had hinted, several times, that they were frustrated and considering other options. The rep heard the warning signs but never logged them.

Leadership never saw it. By the time the dip showed up in sales reports, it was too late to react.

We are all focused on tariffs, but that single oversight cost more than any tariff increase ever could.

And that is the point. Headlines like tariffs grab attention, but the bigger story is happening inside every distributor. Profit is not leaking because of policy changes. It is leaking because the most valuable insights live in conversations and never make it to the people who need them.

Why This Knowledge Matters

Think about what your reps hear every day:

• A customer mentions a competitor’s delivery promise.
• Another asks why rebate terms seem inconsistent.
• A vendor hints at raising prices after the next quarter.
• A buyer casually notes that their new boss wants to shake things up.

Each of these details could change your strategy. But if they are not captured, they vanish.

Yet many companies spend six figures on outside market intelligence while ignoring the free intelligence coming directly from their own field teams. That is like putting a weather station on the roof while ignoring the fact that your windows are open and rain is pouring in.

I have seen it when a veteran rep retires and takes years of customer nuance with her. I have seen it when managers assume accounts are fine until sales start dipping. I have seen it when leadership is blindsided by a vendor policy change that reps already knew about.

These are not data issues. They are knowledge issues. And every time knowledge disappears, sales and profit disappear with it.

What Spreadsheets Miss

Spreadsheets and dashboards are useful, but they only show the past. They capture quantitative performance, not the context that drives it.

• A report shows sales dropped. It cannot show you why the customer hesitated on last week’s order.
• A dashboard shows lost accounts. It cannot show you the competitor who had been calling on them for months.
• A spreadsheet shows revenue slowing. It cannot show you that a vendor flagged higher freight costs weeks ago.

By the time the numbers show the issue, the money is already gone.

What You Can Do Today

You do not need a full digital transformation to start fixing this. You can begin with habits and light systems that make field intelligence part of the business.

For sales reps:

• End every call with a two-minute recap. Capture three things:
  1. What changed in the relationship.
  2. What was promised or committed.
  3. Any risks or opportunities that surfaced.
• Keep it simple. A voice note, a text into a shared thread, or a short form. Perfection is not required. Consistency is.

For managers:

• Block 30 minutes a week to review notes across reps.
• Look for repeated themes: delivery complaints, competitor mentions, price pressure. One-off issues are noise, patterns are signals.
• Share summaries across departments so purchasing, operations, and finance all see the same field intelligence.
• Close the loop with reps. Let them know their input led to action. That feedback builds buy-in.

For executives:

• Treat field intelligence as a strategic asset, not busywork.
• Designate a single place where insights live, whether it is a shared dashboard, weekly digest, or purpose-built system.
• Measure outcomes. Did acting on captured insights retain a key account? Did it help anticipate vendor changes? Share those wins with the organization.

Examples of Impact

• A distributor tracked competitor mentions across the sales team. Within weeks, leadership spotted a pricing trend in one territory and responded before losing share.
• Another logged customer complaints about freight. They quickly realized one warehouse was responsible for most of the issues. Fixing it improved retention and profit.
• A third encouraged reps to capture short recaps after calls. One flagged a possible rebate change. Leadership prepared early and avoided a costly surprise.
• A fourth used weekly note reviews to spot customer concerns about e-commerce ordering speed. Operations invested in a simple upgrade, which not only prevented churn but also created an upsell opportunity.

None of these required massive systems. They required consistency and discipline.

What I Have Learned as the Founder of Tromml

When I started Tromml, I thought the hardest part would be connecting systems and cleaning messy data. That work matters. But over and over, what moves the needle most is not buried in ERP tables. It is in conversations.

The distributors who thrive are the ones who stop waiting for spreadsheets to explain yesterday and start building habits to capture what their people know today.

Profit is not something you tally at the end of the quarter. It is created in real time, in the field, in the conversations your people are already having.

Profit is won, or lost, in the field. Not the spreadsheet.

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