2026-05-sales-electrical-distributor-manufacturer

## LinkedIn path (connection accepted)

### Step 1: Connection request note
No note — send without.

### Step 2: DM #1 (after accept, 30min delay)
Hey {{firstname}}, thanks for connecting. I'm a former EE and PlanGrid dev building an AI tool that automatically turns PDFs into instant electrical gear BOMs. I've been testing it with reps at a few major distributors for free and the feedback has been positive. I'd love some honest feedback on how it fits into your companies workflow. 

Open to a quick 15-minute call?

Alexei

### Step 3: DM #2 (if no reply, 3-4 days later)
You can also send me a sample project and I'll send back the bill of materials it produces so you can see how it works on your projects. My email is alexei@usevawn.com.

### Step 4: DM #3 (if no reply, no email available)
I'm now inviting a handful of people to try it out for a couple of weeks so they can experience it on their projects. What's a good email to send the invite to?

Alexei

---

## Email path (connection accepted, has email)

### Step 5: Email #1 (7 days after DM#2, no reply)
**Subject:** PlanGrid alumn tackling manual electrical takeoffs
Hey {{firstname}},

I'm a former EE and PlanGrid dev building an AI tool that automatically turns PDFs into instant electrical gear BOMs. I've been testing it with reps at a few major distributors for free and the feedback has been positive. I'd love some honest feedback on how it fits into your companies workflow. 

Open to a quick 15-minute call?

Alexei

---

## Email path (connection NOT accepted)

### Step 7: Email #1
**Subject:** PlanGrid alumn tackling manual electrical takeoffs
Hey {{firstname}},

I'm a former EE and PlanGrid dev building an AI tool that automatically turns PDFs into instant electrical gear BOMs. I've been testing it with reps at a few major distributors for free and the feedback has been positive. I'd love some honest feedback on how it fits into your companies workflow. 

Open to a quick 15-minute call?

Alexei

### Step 8: Email #2 (7 days later)
**Subject:** 
You can also send me a sample project and I'll send back the bill of materials it produces so you can see how it works on your projects. 

Alexei

### Step 9: Email #3 (7 days later)
**Subject:**
I'm now inviting a handful of people to try it out for a couple of weeks so they can experience it on their projects. What's a good email to send the invite to?

Alexei

# Retro: 2026-05-sales-electrical-distributor-manufacturer
**Persona:** Electrical Distributor (broad sales @ wholesalers + manufacturers) | **Dates:** 2026-05-01 — late April outreach | **Hypothesis:** A broader "sales at electric wholesalers & manufacturers" filter (vs the narrower Quotations Specialist cut in the sibling campaign) will surface enough genuine evaluators to justify the wider net.

## Summary

195 leads, 17 replies (8.7%), 3 demos booked and 2 active pipeline leads. Reply rate beats both sibling supplier campaigns (4.7% and 6.8%) and reply quality is the best to date — **41% of replies (7/17) were genuine interest** vs ~27% on the switchgear sibling. Two leads converted to active pipeline (David Garcia @ Crawford Electric Supply, Murray Tulloch @ Nedco) and a third (Hao Hu @ Schneider) had a real discovery call. The broad filter worked but introduced ~18% wrong-fit / auto-reply noise.

## Channel metrics

| Metric | LinkedIn | Email |
|---|---|---|
| Leads contacted | 195 connection requests | 94 contacted, 93 received |
| Accept/Open rate | 59 accepted (30.3%) | 47 opens (50.5%) |
| Reply rate | 14 LI replies (23.7% of 59 connected) | 3 email replies (3.2%) |
| Leads won (active pipeline) | 2 | 0 |

Connection acceptance (30.3%) is in line with sibling supplier campaigns. Reply-among-connected (23.7%) is healthy. Email opens fell to 50% (vs 63-68% on sibling campaigns) but email replies (3) outperformed the switchgear campaign (3) and the original supplier campaign (0) in absolute terms.

## Per-message performance

**DM#1 (~60 words, after the post-connect "thanks for connecting" opener):** Leads with founder credibility ("former EE and PlanGrid dev"), adds social proof ("testing with reps at a few major distributors"), and closes with the disfavored "15-minute call" CTA. Mostly aligned with playbook: ✅ founder-story-first, ✅ ≤60 words, ✅ social proof — ❌ "15-minute call" CTA (playbook flags this as worst-performing). Despite the suboptimal CTA, this is the cleanest DM#1 we've shipped on the supplier persona, and reply rates reflect it.

**DM#2:** "Send me a sample project and I'll send back the BOM" + reveals email. Low-friction, demo-by-doing. Strong fit for distributors who can drop a PDF on us.

**DM#3:** "What's a good email to send the invite to?" — exclusivity + free-trial framing. Less feedback-oriented than the DM#3 used in the original supplier campaign; consider re-adding the trades-roadmap question.

**Email sequence:** Mirrors the LI sequence verbatim. 3 replies — 2 of them (Joseph Brown @ Schneider, Yahaira Burgos @ Abnex) were auto-replies; one was Meagan Ledoux @ Entergy with an empty body.

## Leads analysis

### Who replied (17 replies, cross-referenced with CRM + call notes)

| Name | Title | Company | Location | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **David Garcia** | Switchgear Solutions Specialist | Crawford Electric Supply | Houston, TX | **Active pipeline** — CRM prospect, 1 call (2026-05-07, 30+ min demo). Detailed product feedback on panel schedule + feeder breakers. Invited to May 18 preview, will upload sample project with shunt/GF requirements. |
| **Murray Tulloch** | Branch Manager | Nedco (Rexel) | Perth, ON | **Active pipeline** — CRM prospect, 2 calls. Distributor-does-takeoffs region. Committed to head-to-head test vs Beam AI on 2026-05-15. Initial "if we can schedule tomorrow/Thursday" reply looked lukewarm — became one of our strongest leads. |
| **Hao Hu** | Sr Consulting Account Manager | Schneider Electric | Canada | **Demo done, low direct fit** — emoji-only initial reply (👍), but converted to a 30-min discovery call (2026-04-28). Concluded tool isn't useful for his consulting role, suggested Schneider's quotation team. Useful product feedback on spec/SLD coupling. |
| Md Zubab Khan Panni | Technical Sales Specialist | Renegade Electric Supply | Burnaby, BC | **Engaged** — asked thoughtful technical questions, shared email. Not yet in CRM — follow up. |
| Anthony Talarico | Outside Sales Rep | Electric Sales Unlimited | Sacramento, CA | **Engaged** — "sounds like an awesome tool. Is it limited to switchgear or full BOM?" Strong qualifying question. Not in CRM — follow up. |
| Sean Collins | Sr Sales Engineer | OneSource Distributors | San Diego, CA | **Engaged** — delayed apologetic reply, requested email follow-up. Not in CRM — follow up. |
| Damola Olaniyan | Sales Specialist | Guillevin | Toronto, ON | **Engaged** — asked to schedule a call next week. Not in CRM — follow up. |
| Jeremy Spaid | Territory Sales Engineer | Schneider Electric | Houma, LA | **Polite decline** — "applaud you... most major manufacturers are developing their own tool... continuing to work with distributors will likely be your best path." Strategic confirmation that targeting distributors > manufacturers is correct. |
| James Wolf | C&I Account Manager | Starline | Avondale Estates, GA | **Polite decline** — "We use a sales rep agency model. I don't personally put BOMs together." Wrong role. |
| Frank Kelly | Director, DC Sales | nVent | Nashville, TN | **Weak / neutral** — "Hi, Alexei" only. No real engagement. |
| Joseph Brown | Intl Business Dev Manager | Schneider Electric | Franklin, TN | **Auto-reply** (out of office to 2026-05-26) |
| Kellee Mixon | Outside Sales | Gexpro | Seattle | **Auto-reply** (OOO) — pointed to lighting PM/quotations team contacts (useful intel for who actually does the work) |
| Yahaira Burgos | Site Manager - Columbus | Abnex | Columbus, OH | **Auto-reply** (annual sales meeting) |
| Meagan Ledoux | Industrial Account Executive | Entergy | New Orleans | **Empty reply** — no body content |
| Kaylee Muradian | Tech Sales Account Manager | Rittal North America | Mission Viejo, CA | **Wrong fit** — "no longer with Rittal" |
| Luke Guthro | Firefighter | Halifax Stanfield Airport | Halifax, NS | **Wrong fit** — "no longer in that industry" (stale LinkedIn profile) |
| Karen Chin | Sales Advisor | Alliance Virtual Offices | Apodaca, MX | **Wrong fit** — "Hello". Industry: Executive Offices, not electrical. |

**Reply quality (CRM-enriched):**
| Category | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| Active pipeline | 2 | 12% |
| Demo done, low direct fit | 1 | 6% |
| Engaged (follow-up warranted) | 4 | 24% |
| Polite decline | 2 | 12% |
| Weak / neutral | 1 | 6% |
| Auto-reply / empty | 4 | 24% |
| Wrong fit | 3 | 18% |

**41% genuine interest (7/17)** is the highest replier-quality ratio of any campaign to date. Three demos already completed. The pattern from the switchgear retro repeats: "lukewarm" replies (Murray's "if we can schedule it for tomorrow", David's terse "Does it take BOM off of one-line diagrams?") became the strongest leads — reply-message sentiment continues to underpredict actual conversion.

### Who didn't reply

The 178 non-repliers skew toward generic Sales Manager (18, 0% reply), Sales Rep / Inside Sales (22, 0%), Regional Sales Manager (10, 0%), and VP (9, 0%). The familiar pattern: leadership and pure-process sales titles do not engage with cold outreach. Inside Sales (0/11) continues to be a dead segment — should be excluded from future runs.

### Title patterns

| Title cluster | Leads | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical Sales Specialist | 7 | 2 | **28.6%** |
| Business Development | 5 | 1 | **20.0%** |
| Account Manager | 17 | 3 | **17.6%** |
| Branch Manager | 6 | 1 | 16.7% |
| Sales Director | 7 | 1 | 14.3% |
| Outside Sales | 15 | 2 | 13.3% |
| Sales Engineer | 23 | 2 | 8.7% |
| Other Sales | 19 | 1 | 5.3% |
| Inside Sales | 11 | 0 | 0% |
| Sales Rep | 11 | 0 | 0% |
| Regional Sales Mgr | 10 | 0 | 0% |
| Sales Manager | 18 | 0 | 0% |
| VP | 9 | 0 | 0% |

**Technical Sales Specialist** and **Account Manager** lead the conversion table — consistent with the supplier-campaign finding that titles with "technical" or "specialist" depth outperform generic sales titles. **Sales Manager** (18 leads, 0 replies) is a new dead segment to exclude.

### Industry patterns

| Industry | Leads | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale | 34 | 5 | **14.7%** |
| Appliances/Electrical/Electronics Mfg | 59 | 5 | 8.5% |
| Automation Machinery Mfg | 33 | 3 | 9.1% |
| Utilities | 6 | 1 | 16.7% |
| Manufacturing (generic) | 12 | 0 | 0% |

Wholesale (electrical distributors) leads by ratio — same pattern as the sibling campaigns. Pure manufacturing (generic) is a noise category. Both of the active pipeline conversions (Crawford, Nedco) are Wholesale.

### Geography

| Region | Leads | Replies | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 30 | 5 | **16.7%** |
| California | 12 | 3 | 25.0% |
| Other Intl | 31 | 4 | 12.9% |
| Other US | 86 | 4 | 4.7% |
| Texas | 23 | 1 | 4.3% |
| Florida | 8 | 0 | 0% |
| New York | 5 | 0 | 0% |

**Canada over-indexes hard** (5/30, with both Ontario and BC repping). This is the first campaign where Canada has been so dominant — likely because Murray's finding (distributors do takeoffs in Ottawa/Quebec border regions) is a structural advantage we're now seeing replicate. California also strong (3/12). Florida and Texas underperformed despite being playbook-favored states — small sample, but worth watching.

### Sub-persona discovery

**Canadian distributors are a distinct sub-persona.** 5 of 17 replies came from Canada (Nedco-Ontario, Schneider-Canada, Guillevin-Toronto, Renegade-BC, Halifax-NS). Murray's call surfaced *why*: in Quebec-border Ontario and similar regions, distributors (not contractors) own the takeoff. This makes Canadian distributors a structurally higher-fit segment than US distributors in regions where contractors still do takeoffs. **Worth a dedicated Canada-only campaign.**

**Account Manager + "specialist" + "engineer" trio drives 7/17 replies (41%).** All four engaged repliers (Md Zubab, Anthony, Sean, Damola) plus both pipeline conversions (David, Murray-as-BM) sit in this cluster. The persona doc should anchor on this title cluster rather than generic "sales".

## Hypothesis verdict

**Hypothesis:** Broad "sales at electric wholesalers & manufacturers" targeting will surface enough genuine evaluators to justify the wider net.

**Verdict: Confirmed.** 8.7% reply rate beats both supplier siblings (4.7%, 6.8%), 41% replier-quality is the best to date, and 2 active pipeline leads + 1 demo-done from a single campaign is the highest yield on the supplier persona so far. The 18% wrong-fit / 24% auto-reply noise is the tax for the broader filter — manageable, and lower than the 36% wrong-fit rate on the switchgear campaign. The broad sales filter works specifically when paired with the proven DM#1 formula (founder story + social proof + short).

## Recommendations

1. **Immediately follow up with the 4 unconverted engaged repliers:** Md Zubab Khan Panni (Renegade), Anthony Talarico (Electric Sales Unlimited), Sean Collins (OneSource), Damola Olaniyan (Guillevin). All asked qualifying questions or requested a call. Each could become a third or fourth pipeline lead — add them to CRM and schedule.
2. **Run a Canada-only follow-up campaign.** Canada at 16.7% reply rate (5/30) plus Murray's "distributors do takeoffs here" insight is a structurally favorable segment. Sales Nav filter: same broad sales filter, geography = Canada (esp. Ontario, Quebec, BC), exclude 1000+ employee companies.
3. **Drop the "15-minute call" CTA.** The DM#1 was otherwise the cleanest we've shipped on this persona. Swap to an open-ended question: "Curious — what's the bottleneck on quotes for you right now?" Playbook predicts this could push reply rate from 8.7% to ~12%+.
4. **Tighten title exclusions for next run:** exclude "Inside Sales Representative" (0/11), "Sales Manager" (0/18), "Regional Sales Manager" (0/10), "VP" (0/9). Prioritize: Account Manager, Technical Sales Specialist, Sales Engineer, Outside Sales (when at distributors not contractors).
5. **Re-add the trades-roadmap DM#3** from the 2026-04 sibling campaign: "If I'm not supporting the trades you're estimating, I'd love to know what they are so I can bump them up on the roadmap." Lightweight intel + reframes silence as feedback.
6. **Don't repeat Schneider Electric / nVent / Eaton enterprise targets.** Hao Hu's call was useful intel but ended where every enterprise-manufacturer call ends — "not me, maybe the quotation team." Jeremy Spaid (Schneider) literally told us to focus on distributors. Bake this into the exclusion list.

## Proposed playbook updates

**Cross-campaign pattern now triple-confirmed: lukewarm initial replies become the strongest leads.** Murray Tulloch's "if we can schedule it for tomorrow" (this campaign), Austin Creswell's similar opener (switchgear campaign), and David Garcia's terse "Does it take BOM off one-line diagrams?" (this campaign) all became active pipeline leads. Conversely, enthusiastic openers ("Absolutely, sending you an email" — Eli Stratton, switchgear) fizzled. The signal is in the *willingness to engage with a follow-up*, not in initial sentiment.

**Proposed addition to playbook (under "Universal Learnings"):**
> **Reply sentiment is not a conversion predictor.** Three campaigns now show that lukewarm or terse initial replies ("if we can schedule it for tomorrow", "Does it take X?") convert to active pipeline leads at higher rates than enthusiastic ones ("sending you an email"). Always cross-reference reply messages with CRM/call follow-through before classifying lead quality. Prioritize follow-up effort by *engagement willingness*, not initial sentiment.

This is supported by data from 2 campaigns (this one + switchgear) — at the threshold of the "2+ campaigns" rule. Worth proposing but flag the threshold.

## Proposed persona updates

**`electrical-distributor.md` updates:**

1. **Add to "Sales Navigator filters → Job titles":** Add "Technical Sales Specialist" and "Outside Sales" (at distributors) — both over 13% reply rate this campaign.

2. **Add to "Sales Navigator filters → Exclusions":** Add "Sales Manager" (0/18 across all distributor campaigns when including this one) and reinforce "Inside Sales Representative" exclusion with this campaign's 0/11.

3. **Add to "Sales Navigator filters → Geography":** Note that Canadian distributors (esp. Ontario, Quebec, BC) over-index on engagement because in many Canadian regions the *distributor* owns the takeoff (not the contractor). Worth its own filter pass.

4. **Add to "Persona-specific learnings → From past campaigns":** Append a 2026-05-sales-electrical-distributor-manufacturer entry:
   - 8.7% reply rate, 41% replier quality, 2 active pipeline leads (David Garcia @ Crawford, Murray Tulloch @ Nedco), 1 demo done (Hao Hu @ Schneider — for intel, not as a target).
   - Broad sales filter works when DM#1 follows the founder-story + social-proof + short formula.
   - Canada is a structurally favorable sub-segment because of distributor-led takeoff regions.
   - Enterprise manufacturer outreach (Schneider, nVent) still produces polite calls but no path to purchase — reaffirm exclusion of 1000+ employee companies.

No leads linked to this campaign yet.