Who's in the Room
Sarah Chen
15 years in distribution and 3PL operations. Joined Pacific Distribution as Director of Fulfillment in 2018, promoted to VP in 2021. Oversees 4 warehouses totaling 1.2M sq ft across the western US, managing ~900 associates. Previously held operations roles at a major regional grocery chain and a tier-1 automotive parts distributor. Known in the industry for her work on labor efficiency during peak season -- she presented at MHI in 2023 on "Managing Volume Spikes Without Headcount Spikes." Has an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas and a background in industrial engineering. She is pragmatic, numbers-driven, and does not entertain vendors who can't speak her language.
What Matters to Sarah
Cost-per-pick reduction, peak season throughput without proportional headcount, error rate trending (she tracks this obsessively), worker safety metrics, and WMS integration complexity. She measures everything and expects vendors to present in her units, not their own.
Marcus Webb
Technical evaluator on Sarah's team. Owns the WMS (Manhattan Associates) and all automation integrations. Has blocked or slowed two previous automation vendor evaluations due to API integration concerns. Low public profile -- engineering background, not a speaker or content creator. His questions will be about integration architecture, not ROI. He will ask about your API documentation before the first demo is over.
Get to Marcus early. If he's skeptical, nothing you show Sarah will matter. Ask him in the first 5 minutes: "What integration challenges have you run into with other vendors?" Let him vent. Then show him the Manhattan Associates connector documentation.
Meeting Frame: Solve Her Peak Season Problem
Sarah's burning issue is not daily throughput -- it's peak season. Last Q4 she had to hire 200 seasonal workers, 30% of whom were unusable on day one and another 40% quit before week three. Her labor costs for 90 days of peak consumed 60% of her annual labor budget increase. The conversation should open there. Acme is not "automation." Acme is how Pacific Distribution handles Q4 without the hiring panic.
Don't Open With ROI Math
Sarah has sat through a dozen vendor pitches that lead with "you'll save $2M a year." She will tune out in the first minute. Open with her specific situation -- the MHI presentation, the peak labor problem -- and let the ROI math land later once she's nodded at the problem framing. The numbers hit harder when she's already agreeing with you.
Why This Meeting Matters
The labor market in warehouse/fulfillment has not recovered to pre-2020 availability. Pacific Distribution operates in markets (Sacramento, Reno, Phoenix) that are structurally tight on warehouse labor. This is a structural problem, not a temporary one -- automation is not optional for a 3PL at their scale, it's inevitable. The question is which vendor they go with first.
Pacific Distribution's WMS is Manhattan Associates -- one of the two systems Acme has a pre-built, certified connector for. This is a genuine technical advantage and Sarah's team will know it matters.
MHI 2024 Industry Report
"Labor availability is cited as the #1 constraint on fulfillment capacity by 71% of distribution executives surveyed."
Deloitte Warehouse Automation Study
"3PL operators with greater than 1M sq ft under management report 18-month average payback periods on mobile robotics deployments."
Why Sarah Cares
She already knows automation is coming -- her job is to pick the right vendor and get the integration right. She needs a vendor who won't blow up her WMS, won't require a 14-month implementation, and can show her numbers from an operator she respects. Not a vendor who sends her a 60-slide deck.
PRODUCT Acme Fleet Platform
Lead with the outcome, not the technology. Save the technical architecture for Marcus.
The Problem Statement
Opening Line
"Most warehouses aren't understaffed. They're under-automated at the exact moments volume spikes. The 90 days of peak season cost Pacific Distribution more than the other 275 days combined -- and that's a solvable problem."
Why Sarah Cares
This maps directly to her 2023 MHI presentation thesis. She will recognize you've done your homework.
How Acme Solves It
The Core Pitch
"Acme deploys a fleet of AI-guided picking robots into your existing facility. No racking changes. No facility modifications. The robots arrive pre-configured to your SKU map and are picking at production rate within 24 hours. Your throughput capacity becomes a dial you can turn, not a headcount problem you have to solve every Q4."
Pause after "picking at production rate within 24 hours." That number surprises people. Let Sarah react before you move on.
Key Differentiators (Speak Marcus's Language)
Technical Differentiators
- Pre-built Manhattan Associates connector -- certified, bi-directional, 4-6 week integration vs. 6-month custom builds with other vendors
- On-premise ML inference -- route optimization runs on-robot, not in the cloud; no latency dependency, no data sovereignty issues
- Human-in-the-loop exceptions -- robots escalate to pickers for damage, weight anomalies, or ambiguous barcodes rather than making bad decisions autonomously
- Fleet elastic scaling -- robots can be deployed across any of your 4 facilities under a single license; pay-per-pick pricing scales with volume
Why Sarah (and Marcus) Care
The Manhattan connector is the key that opens the door. Every competitor requires custom WMS integration. Acme's certified connector is a 6-week implementation vs. 6 months. That's not a feature -- that's the difference between going live before Q4 2025 or after.
The Numbers (Introduce These Late)
ROI Framing
"At your scale -- 5,000-8,000 picks per day -- Acme typically brings cost-per-pick from $0.42-0.55 (fully loaded labor) down to $0.14-0.18. Operators at 1M+ sq ft see 14-18 month payback periods. I can run your specific numbers in the calculator before our next call."
Don't anchor on a specific dollar figure today. Offer to run the numbers for her specific facility as a reason to book a second call. That's the close for this meeting.
EVIDENCE Reference Cases to Name-Drop
Use these only if Sarah asks "who else are you working with?" Have them ready but don't volunteer them unprompted -- it sounds like a pitch deck.
| Account |
Size |
WMS |
Result |
| Cascade 3PL (Seattle) |
800K sq ft, 3 facilities |
Manhattan Associates |
Reduced peak headcount by 180 temps. Cost-per-pick: $0.52 to $0.16. |
| Desert Sun Distribution (Phoenix) |
1.1M sq ft |
Blue Yonder |
Q4 throughput up 34% with same FTE count. Error rate: 0.8% to 0.09%. |
| Redwood Fulfillment (Sacramento) |
600K sq ft |
Manhattan Associates |
Live in 5 weeks from contract. Sarah is in the same market -- she may know the ops lead there. |
Why This Matters for Sarah Specifically
Redwood Fulfillment is in Sacramento -- the same labor market as Pacific Distribution's flagship facility. If Sarah knows their ops lead, a peer reference call is the most valuable close in your toolkit. Ask: "Do you know anyone on the Redwood team? I'd be happy to connect you directly."
Anticipated Questions and Objections
Marcus: "What does your API look like for Manhattan Associates?"
Short Answer
"We have a certified connector -- bidirectional real-time sync with the Manhattan WMOS API. I'll send you the integration doc after this call. It covers all the standard inventory events, order release, and pick confirmation flows. Most ops teams have it live in 4-6 weeks with their existing IT resources."
Send Marcus the integration doc within 2 hours of this call. Do not make him ask again.
Sarah: "What's the downside if a robot fails mid-shift?"
Short Answer
"The fleet is designed so any individual robot is non-critical. If a unit goes offline, the fleet rebalances pick assignments to the remaining robots within seconds. For a fleet of 30, you're operating at 97% throughput with one robot down. We also keep a 10% spare ratio on-site at no cost for facilities over 500K sq ft."
Sarah: "How long does implementation actually take?"
Short Answer
"24 hours to first pick, 4-6 weeks to full integration with Manhattan. We've never had a Manhattan integration take longer than 8 weeks -- and that was a customer with a heavily customized WMS instance that took time to document. Your baseline contract includes a go-live date guarantee."
Sarah: "We evaluated another robotics vendor 18 months ago and it was a nightmare."
Short Answer
"I hear that a lot. Most of the integration horror stories I've heard involve custom WMS builds that turned into 9-month projects. That's specifically why we built the Manhattan connector -- to take that off the table. Would you be willing to tell me what broke? I want to understand whether we have the same gap."
This is a gift. Let her describe the failure. If it was integration-related, you've already solved it. If it was operational, you'll learn something real about what the evaluation process needs to address.