How ABC Supply Raised the Roof on Sales Leadership
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When you supply one out of every four squares of roofing materials in Colorado's $2.5B market, you have earned the right to feel good about your business. But ABC Supply's Rocky Mountain District Manager TJ Neil wasn't interested in coasting. He wanted his branch managers to be better sales leaders. And he needed training that would actually stick.
That was three years ago. Pitch Lab is still working with ABC Supply today.
About ABC Supply
ABC Supply Co. is the largest wholesale roofing distributor in North America, with over 970 locations across the United States and Canada and more than 20,000 employees. Their Rocky Mountain District covers eight branches along Colorado's Front Range, spanning Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
With over $50 million in on-hand inventory and a team of 20+ branch managers, the district runs a serious operation. TJ Neil knew that even a small improvement in how his managers led their teams would have a big impact on the business.
Their Challenge: Great Branch Managers Running on Instinct
ABC Supply's Colorado branches were growing. But the way branch managers led their sales teams had not kept pace.
🚩 Every manager was doing it their own way. Some had developed strong market plans and tracking methods on their own. Most had not. There was no consistent standard, no shared playbook, and no easy way to spread what was working across branches.
🚩 Performance varied wildly from branch to branch. Without a common approach to sales management, results depended too much on the individual manager. Regional leadership had no reliable way to coach branch managers or hold them accountable.
🚩 Training had to work for action-oriented leaders. Branch managers are not interested in sitting through lectures. TJ needed something that would engage his team and give them tools they could actually use the next day.
The Solution: Raise the Roof on Sales Management
Pitch Lab designed and delivered several intensive half-day training sessions built specifically for ABC Supply's branch managers. Not generic sales training. Practical sales leadership development tailored to the realities of running a roofing distribution branch.
The sessions covered three areas:
Hiring Better Outside Sales Reps >>
Branch managers learned how to identify the right candidates before making a costly hire. That meant knowing what to look for on a resume, how to cut through interview performance and find the real person underneath, and how to sell the opportunity to top candidates who have options.
Building a Culture of Accountability >>
Managers got concrete tools for running effective one-on-ones, tracking the right metrics, and having the kind of direct conversations that actually change behavior. The goal was not more meetings. It was better ones.
Sell on Value, Not Price >>
In a commodity-driven industry, the easiest thing to do is discount. Pitch Lab helped managers teach their outside sales reps how to define what makes ABC Supply different and shift client conversations from cost to outcomes. Less discounting. Stronger margins.
The Pitch Lab Difference: Engaging Training that Drives Results
Pitch Lab's approach is built around engagement, not information transfer. Sessions combine interactive group work, breakout challenges, and peer discussion so that branch managers are solving real problems during the training, not just listening to someone talk about them. Every session ends with leave-behind materials managers can put to work immediately.
The Results: Three Years and Counting
What began as a one-time training engagement has evolved into an annual cornerstone of ABC Supply's leadership development program. The training sessions have become a crucial part of their strategy to maintain sales excellence across their extensive multi-state territory.
What started as a single engagement has become an annual part of how ABC Supply develops its branch managers across the Rocky Mountain District.
"I've worked with Jay over the years in various capacities and he brings a unique combination of deep sales expertise and a training style that actually keeps leaders engaged. What I appreciate most is that I can trust him to deliver sessions that are interactive and immediately actionable.
Jay also built us a custom AI tool trained on all of our training materials and leave-behinds, so our branch managers have on-demand access to everything they learned long after the sessions ended. The quality of the sales manager training makes it a valuable investment, and my team loved the sessions so much they're already asking when the next one is."
-- TJ Neil, Rocky Mountain District Manager, ABC Supply
“Jay Mays has been a critical part of my team's success! He has helped ABC supply Englewood grow value to not just our sales team but our market.”
— Adam Sprague, ABC Branch Manager, Englewood, CO
Key Takeaways for Distribution and Manufacturing CEOs
✅ Standardize without stifling. You can create consistent sales management practices across your branches without killing the entrepreneurial spirit that made each location successful.
✅ Invest in your managers, not just your reps. Most sales training focuses on the front line. The bigger leverage point is the people managing them. Better managers build better teams.
✅ Make training stick. The best session in the world fades without tools managers can reference and use back on the job. Leave-behinds and trained AI tools are not an afterthought. They are part of the outcome.
✅ Retention is a result. When a client comes back for three years running, something is working. The best proof of any training program is whether leaders ask for more.
Want to learn more about how Pitch Lab can raise the roof on your sales leadership team? Click here to dive deeper into our sales manager training curriculum.
