Brainforge Knowledge

2025-12-09_laura_wholesale

7 min read

Meeting Agenda: Laura (Wholesale) Discovery Call

Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM PT (1 hour)
Attendees: Laura (LMNT Wholesale Manager), Uttam Kumaran, Awaish Kumar, Shivani Amar

Note: Questions below include context from Jason (IT) and Carlos (E-commerce) meetings. Pre-populated answers are marked with “(confirmed)” to validate with Laura.

POST-MEETING SUMMARY

Fill this section out after the meeting concludes - see MEETING_WORKFLOW_GUIDE.md for instructions

Key Learnings

Current State:

  • Add major insights about how wholesale currently works
  • Pain points discovered
  • Unexpected findings

Data Sources & Systems:

  • List of systems Laura uses
  • How data flows
  • Data quality/trust issues

Quick Wins Identified:

  • High-impact opportunity (e.g., automate RFM analysis)
  • Automation opportunity
  • Reporting improvement

Answers to Key Questions

Reference question numbers from below and provide concise answers

Q1-4: Wholesale Business Model

  • Q1: Wholesale segments → A: Fill in after meeting
  • Q2: Behavioral differences → A: Fill in after meeting
  • Q3: Customer journey → A: Fill in after meeting

Q5-8: Current Data Sources & Reporting

  • Q5: Systems used → A: Fill in after meeting
  • Q6: Monthly reporting process → A: Fill in after meeting

Q9-12: Key Analytics Questions

  • Q9: 1st/3rd purchase timing → A: Fill in after meeting
  • Q10: Top wholesalers → A: Fill in after meeting

(Continue for other question groups as needed)

Decisions Made

  • Decision about tool/process
  • Alignment on definition

Follow-Up Needed

  • Laura: Action item (Due: Date)
  • Brainforge: Follow-up task (Due: Date)

Meeting Objectives

  1. Understand wholesale business model and customer segments
  2. Review current wholesale reporting and data sources
  3. Identify analytics gaps and desired insights
  4. Document wholesale KPIs and metric definitions
  5. Understand the wholesale-to-Shopify data flow
  6. Explore RFM analysis and churn prevention opportunities

Demos/Walkthroughs Requested

  • Wholesale program overview

    • Customer segments (Trusted Health, Bulk Buyers, Specialty Retail)
    • Account structure and hierarchy
    • Order process flow

  • Current reporting process

    • How you track wholesale performance
    • Google Sheets CRM walkthrough
    • Monthly reporting contribution

  • Shopify wholesale data

    • How wholesale orders show up in Shopify
    • Tags and filters used to identify wholesale
    • Differentiation from DTC orders

  • Account management workflow

    • How you identify top customers
    • Churn indicators you watch for
    • Reorder cadence tracking

Questions to Ask

Wholesale Business Model

  1. Can you walk me through the three wholesale segments?

    • Trusted Health (gyms, chiropractors)
    • Bulk Buyers (manufacturing plants, universities)
    • Specialty Retail (small grocery chains)

  2. How do these segments differ in behavior?

    • Order size and frequency
    • Product mix preferences
    • Pricing and margins

  3. What’s the typical customer journey?

    • How do wholesale customers sign up?
    • First order to repeat order timeline
    • What defines an “active partner”? (purchased in last 18 months?)

  4. How many total wholesale partners are active?

    • Monthly growth rate
    • Churn rate

Current Data Sources & Reporting

  1. What systems do you use to manage wholesale?

    • Shopify (confirmed as core platform - Jason/Carlos meetings)
      • How are wholesale orders tagged/tracked?
      • What tags exist? (Jason mentioned “Steve for tags” - is this Steve from tech team?)
    • Google Sheets CRM - What’s captured here?
    • Stord (Fulfillment View) (launching January 2026 - Jason meeting)
      • What data do you need from Stord?
      • Andy is leading Stord implementation on tech side
    • Guru (confirmed - internal FAQs database)
    • Gorgias (confirmed - CX platform, data flows into Source Medium)
    • Source Medium - Do you use this for wholesale analytics?
      • Carlos mentioned data quality issues requiring manual validation

  2. Walk me through your monthly reporting process:

    • What metrics do you report?
    • Where does the data come from?
    • How long does it take to compile?
    • Do you contribute to the same monthly report as Carlos? (His takes 10-15 hours)

  3. What’s currently manual vs. automated?

    • Carlos spends significant time on manual data pulls - how about you?

  4. How do you reconcile data across different systems?

  5. How does wholesale appear in Carlos’s e-commerce dashboard?

    • Is it a separate channel/line item?
    • Do you reconcile your numbers with his?
    • Any discrepancies between your tracking and his?

Key Questions Laura Has Flagged

From prior notes, these are analytics questions Laura wants answered:

  1. When are folks making their 1st purchase? 3rd purchase?

    • How would you use this insight?
    • What actions would you take based on it?

  2. Who are our top wholesalers?

    • How do you currently identify top customers?
    • What criteria matter most? (revenue, frequency, product mix?)

  3. How do you currently filter/segment in Shopify?

    • Steve is likely from tech team (Jason’s meeting) - what tags has he set up?
    • Can you show us the tag structure?

  4. What insights would help you prioritize which accounts to focus on?

Wholesale KPIs & Metrics

  1. What are your primary KPIs?

    • Monthly revenue targets (by segment?)
    • New customer acquisition
    • Retention/churn metrics
    • Average order value
    • Others?

  2. How do you track customer lifetime value (LTV)?

  3. How do you measure account health?

    • Reorder frequency
    • Order size trends
    • Days since last order

  4. Are there early warning signs of churn you look for?

Product & SKU Analysis

  1. What products are most popular with wholesale customers?

    • Drink mix vs. Sparkling
    • SKU preferences (30ct vs. 12ct vs. singles)

  2. How did the recent pricing/product changes (Jan 2026) impact wholesale?

    • Discontinuation of 30ct SKUs
    • 12oz Sparkling rollout
    • Specialty Retail feedback (“spicy meatballs”)

  3. Do different segments prefer different products?

  4. How do you track inventory allocation for wholesale?

Customer Segmentation & Cohorts

  1. How would you ideally segment your wholesale customers?

    • By vertical/industry?
    • By order frequency?
    • By product preference?
    • By geography?

  2. What cohort analyses would be valuable?

    • First-time buyer cohorts by month
    • Repeat purchase rates
    • Revenue retention curves

  3. How do you identify customers at risk of churning?

Refrigerator Program & Sparkling

  1. How is the refrigerator program tracked?

    • 404 refrigerators shipped (Oct 2025)
    • Impact on sales
    • Partner satisfaction

  2. How do you measure Sparkling performance in wholesale?

    • Revenue split: Drink mix vs. Sparkling
    • Partner adoption rates

Authorized Online Resellers (AOR)

  1. How do you track Authorized Online Resellers separately?

    • Revenue attribution
    • Monitoring compliance
    • Pricing control

  2. What’s different about managing AORs vs. traditional wholesale?

Data Quality & Challenges

  1. What’s the most frustrating part of your current reporting?

  2. Where do you feel like you’re “flying blind”?

  3. What data do you wish you had but don’t?

  4. How accurate is your Google Sheets CRM?

    • Is it kept up to date?
    • Single source of truth or duplicated elsewhere?

Attribution & Marketing

  1. How do wholesale customers discover LMNT?

    • Inbound inquiries
    • Outbound sales (who does this?)
    • Referrals

  2. How is wholesale marketing tracked?

    • Email campaigns to wholesale partners
    • Trade shows / industry events
    • Give-A-Salt program impact

Wholesale 360 Vision

  1. If you could see all wholesale data in one place, what would you want?

    • Account overview (history, orders, revenue)
    • Purchase patterns and trends
    • Health scores and alerts
    • Product recommendations for each account

  2. What analyses would help you grow wholesale faster?

  3. What would help you reduce churn?

  4. How would you like to identify upsell opportunities?

Integration with Other Channels

  1. Do wholesale customers also buy DTC on Shopify?

    • How do you track this?
    • Any cross-channel analysis?

  2. Do retail launches (Target, Walmart) impact wholesale behavior?

    • Cannibalization concerns?
    • Complementary growth?

Future Roadmap

  1. What’s on your wholesale roadmap for 2026?

    • Growth targets
    • New programs
    • Product launches

  2. How will wholesale data needs evolve?

Data Infrastructure & Technical Questions

  1. Access & permissions:

    • Team uses SSO via Google Workspace (Jason meeting) - do you have access needs?
    • API credentials stored in LastPass (Jason meeting)

  2. NetSuite migration (Q4 2026):

    • Phil/Finance/Supply Chain leading this (Jason meeting)
    • How will this impact wholesale operations?
    • Currently using QuickBooks - do you interact with it?

  3. Data warehouse & reporting tools:

    • We’re evaluating options for centralized data warehouse
    • Would you want wholesale dashboards in a BI tool vs. Google Sheets?
    • What reporting tools have you used before (Looker, Tableau, etc.)?

  4. Stord integration (January 2026 launch):

    • What fulfillment data do you need automated?
    • Currently manual pulls from where?
    • Andy (tech team) leading implementation - have you aligned on data needs?

Resources Mentioned/Requested

To be filled out during/after meeting

  • Access to Google Sheets CRM
  • Sample Shopify wholesale export
  • List of Shopify tags for wholesale
  • Stord fulfillment reports
  • Wholesale account list (top 50-100 customers)
  • [ ]
  • [ ]

Action Items

To be filled out during/after meeting

Laura

  • [ ]

Brainforge (Uttam/Awaish)

  • [ ]

Shivani

  • [ ]

Notes

Space for additional notes during the meeting

Key Insights

RFM Analysis Opportunities

  • Recency: Days since last order
  • Frequency: Number of orders in last 12 months
  • Monetary: Total revenue contributed

Churn Watchlist Criteria

Quick Win Ideas

Graph View

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