When we leased the Graham Street lot in 2019, we set up a business line. For two years it was mostly a nuisance. Half the calls were robots. The ones that were real usually needed a detail nobody manning the phone actually knew. The rep would take a message, walk out to the yard, come back, call the customer back, miss them, play phone tag for three days.

In 2021 we unplugged it. Direct quote from the yard manager that week: "if everyone has to email me, I can walk the yard while I read."

What happened: our average quote time dropped from ~14 hours to ~3 hours. Lost leads fell by about 40% (we used to lose people to phone tag, now we lose nobody to phone tag). And the yard manager is visibly happier.

The tradeoff is real — you can't hop on a call and get a same-minute answer. But you can walk into the yard, which is arguably better. Or you can email with photos, which is definitely better for a physical inventory business.

We understand this is unconventional. We also understand it's what has let us grow the business without growing a sales team.