Anyone who lives and works along the Jersey Shore knows a familiar cycle: winter quiet gives way to spring cranes and summer tours of half-finished homes. That rhythm keeps the region’s construction supply distributors on their toes. They don’t sit in back offices waiting for purchase orders to roll in. They put boots on the ground. Outside sales, sometimes called field selling, is all about showing up where the work happens. If you’re wondering what outside sales is, it’s essentially the art of selling business-to-business and face-to-face. Reps meet contractors on job sites and at their main offices. Those relationships drive much of the economic momentum at the shore, and the tools to manage them are evolving.
Travel through Ocean City or farther north in Monmouth County and you’ll see a diverse mix of projects. One project is a modest beach bungalow renovation. Another consists of sprawling spec houses. Condo towers and municipal pier rebuilds. They all have one thing in common. Each one requires materials, and every job is a potential account.
National figures hint at a complicated landscape. One report shows revenues for building material dealers inching up just over 1% while unit volumes slipped. The number of independent dealers has fallen by about a fifth since 2010, yet their payrolls have grown by roughly 20%, underscoring how competitive this business has become. Locally, demand is strong. The Jersey Shore remains a magnet for second homeowners and remote workers, but price volatility and supply challenges have squeezed margins. Against that backdrop, distributors who invest in personal relationships are the ones grabbing new business.
Inside sales owns a major place in the overall sales ecosystem, but the southbound lane of the Garden State Parkway reminds you how crowded that lane can be on a summer morning. Field sellers weave around the actual traffic. Between real bridge construction and unpredictable schedules. They start early, often before the coffee shops open, to catch a builder on site. RepMove’s data shows that the average outside salesperson makes about five visits a day, while top performers log nearly fourteen. That difference translates into serious revenue because roughly one in five visits leads to a new order or an unplanned add-on.
A job site visit entails building on the prior visit, which in turn built on the last. A seasoned rep knows when to check with the general contractor. Whether the mason needs another pallet of block or what to do when a surprise inspection pops up. That rep also notices when trades are behind schedule and suggests alternatives, adding value that a remote order taker never could. Dillon Baird, RepMove’s founder, built his first version of the app after years of driving from one site to another with his phone in the passenger seat and 3+ apps open. He realized long ago that the best field salespeople act as problem solvers. They listen, ask the right questions and offer solutions. In B2B construction supply, a territory might span zip codes or whole counties, and reps must juggle everything without much (i.e. any) supervision.
Another challenge of selling along the shore is geography. Towns are strung along barrier islands and peninsulas, so planning a day’s route is like threading a needle. A wrong turn can mean a 30‑minute detour through a busy downtown full of tourists wandering crosswalks and jumping out at intersections. Salespeople who wing it might manage four or five stops. Might. The ones who plan, identifying clusters of clients in Cape May County one day and focusing on Atlantic County the next, are the ones who see their commission checks grow. Yet even the most organized rep can fall behind when traffic snarls or when an inspector shows up unannounced. That’s where technology comes into play.
RepMove started as a mobile route planner and note tracker but has grown into a full customer relationship management system built for field teams. Rather than a generic CRM that forces users to shoehorn their workflows into rigid templates, RepMove speaks the language of construction supply. Distributors can log accounts by job site. They can tie multiple subcontractors to a single location. They record purchase orders or credit notes right from the truck. For managers, the platform offers a real‑time view of activity. Who visited whom or which quotes are pending. Where follow‑ups are slipping. It’s right there.
The results from customers in other regions show what’s possible. Tool Country, a Colorado distributor, adopted RepMove’s route planner and mobile CRM early on. Before, their reps were averaging four to six stops a day. After implementing the software, Tool Country reps routinely hit ten or more stops. This led to a 67% jump in sales visits and a 13% increase in orders. Owner Aaron Berger credits the app’s scheduling tools for helping his team set more ambitious targets. “My guys went from hitting four to six stops a day on average. Now they’re building routes and trying to hit ten plus stops a day pretty easily,” he said in a customer story. The lesson isn’t that his salespeople suddenly began working harder; it’s that better planning revealed pockets of opportunity they’d been missing.
RepMove also simplifies follow‑up. Instead of scribbling notes and hoping to remember them days later, reps use the app to dictate or type updates. They attach photos and set reminders. They use AI to create follow-up emails from notes. When they step off a job site, they record tasks: send a quote to the electrician, follow up on last week’s lumber order, ask the GC about the next phase. Because the notes live in a shared system, inside sales staff back at the office can see what happened in the field and tee up orders or check inventory without making the rep repeat themselves. Integration with enterprise platforms such as NetSuite and Epicor means new job sites or customer records can sync automatically, eliminating double entry.
How does that translate to the Jersey Shore? Consider a mid‑sized distributor in Ocean City covering Cape May, Atlantic, and parts of Cumberland counties. Their reps spend summers hopping between barrier islands, ferrying across causeways. In the past, they used spreadsheets and static maps. With RepMove, they visualize their accounts on a map, cluster stops, plan routes that avoid drawbridge openings, and time their visits around shipping schedules. When a rep checks in on a remodel in Stone Harbor, the system prompts them to swing by a new custom build just up the road. Back in the office, a manager watches as stops are completed in real time. If a supplier short ships sheetrock, the manager can arrange a quick substitution while the rep is still on site, avoiding project delays. The result is a smoother experience for customers and a tighter, more efficient sales operation.
Value‑added services matter more than ever. As margins tighten, distributors who can install trusses or pre‑hang doors and deliver load‑bearing posts at off-hours have a leg up. The industry data shows installation services account for billions in revenue among large chains, and independent dealers have found a lifeline in custom millwork and similar offerings. That local shop in Somers Point that started as a bare‑bones lumberyard now runs its own truss plant and pre‑hangs windows. Managing those diversified operations requires coordination across outside and inside teams, and RepMove’s central dashboard makes that coordination possible. It isn’t about glitz or gimmicks. It’s about giving field reps the structure and information they need to make good decisions.
There’s a larger story here about how technology and human relationships combine to fuel growth. The Jersey Shore continues to draw investors, second homeowners, and families looking for a new home base. Construction crews will be busy for the foreseeable future, and supply distributors that invest in their field sales teams will reap the rewards. Tools like RepMove don’t replace the need for a firm handshake or an in‑person walk through a muddy job site. They make sure those touches happen more often and with better follow‑through. Learn more at https://repmove.app.
