How PARR Lumber Drove $500K in New Revenue with Permit-Driven Sales

Most lumberyards know permit data shows who's building, but they can't turn it into revenue. Permits sit in spreadsheets. Reps don't know which leads are theirs. By the time someone follows up, contractors have already bought elsewhere. PARR Lumber solved this with AI-powered permit automation and generated $500,000 in new sales in six months.

This article was published in LBM Journal in February 2026.

The problem: permits that don't turn into revenue

PARR is one of the Pacific Northwest's largest building materials suppliers, serving professional contractors and builders for more than 95 years. Despite their scale and reputation, they faced the same permit problem every lumberyard faces.

Permits arrived too slowly. By the time someone manually collected and cleaned permit data from multiple jurisdictions, the information was weeks old. Contractors had already started conversations with other suppliers.

Nobody knew who should follow up. Permits sat in spreadsheets waiting for someone to figure out which rep covered which territory and which contractors were already customers. Manual assignment took days.

Existing customers bought elsewhere. When current PARR customers pulled permits for new projects, nobody noticed until the customer placed an order or didn't. Lost opportunities weren't visible until they were already gone.

Follow-up was inconsistent. Without automated reminders, permit leads got lost in the daily chaos of quotes, deliveries, and walk-in traffic. Reps who were good at manual tracking followed up. Everyone else didn't.

The pattern was clear: manual permit processes don't scale. Speed matters, and manual work creates lag that costs deals.

How AI automation solved it

PARR deployed SalesJack, a CRM built specifically for building materials retailers that uses AI to turn permit data into qualified leads automatically.

AI matches permits to existing customers: When permits come in, SalesJack's AI compares contractor names and job addresses against PARR's ERP customer database. Even when "ABC Construction LLC" on a permit shows up as "ABC Const" in the ERP, the system recognizes they're the same company. This matching happens automatically, no manual cross-referencing required.

Leads route to the right rep instantly: AI analyzes territory boundaries and account ownership to assign every permit to the correct rep within minutes of the permit hitting the system. Existing customer permits go to their assigned rep. New prospects route based on territory rules. Zero manual sorting.

AI enriches contact information: Raw permit data often includes incomplete or outdated contact details. SalesJack's AI automatically finds current phone numbers and emails so reps can reach contractors immediately instead of hunting for contact info.

Automated follow-up ensures nothing falls through: The system creates tasks and reminders automatically for every lead. Reps see permit opportunities in their daily workflow alongside quotes and other tasks. Follow-up happens consistently without relying on personal reminder systems.

Analytics show what's working: Managers track permit conversion rates, response times, and revenue from permit-driven opportunities through real-time dashboards. The system shows which reps convert best and where coaching is needed.

The results: measurable growth in six months

$500,000 in new sales from permits that were identified, assigned, and acted on through automated workflows. This is incremental revenue from opportunities that would have been missed or lost to competitors under the old manual system.

Response time dropped from days to hours. Reps contacted contractors within hours of permits hitting instead of waiting days or weeks for manual distribution. Faster response meant more conversations started before contractors committed to other suppliers.

100% lead assignment coverage. Every permit is routed to the right rep automatically. No leads sat unassigned. No confusion about territory ownership. Every opportunity got worked.

Complete activity visibility. All outreach, quotes, and outcomes logged automatically in the CRM. Managers could see exactly which permits turned into quotes and which quotes closed without asking reps for updates or running manual reports.

Eliminated manual permit processing. The team stopped spending hours each week downloading, cleaning, and distributing permit data. That time shifted to selling.

"SalesJack has been instrumental in improving our communication efficiency. It has given my team the ability to receive instant notifications when our customers pull permits or when new contractors are building nearby. It's truly a game-changer."
Jon Grant, Sales Director, PARR

What this means for your lumberyard

PARR's results came from solving three core problems that every building materials retailer faces:

Speed beats competition. The dealer who contacts the contractor first usually wins the conversation. AI automation eliminated the lag between permit filing and rep outreach.

Manual processes don't scale. When permit tracking requires hours of weekly work, it either doesn't happen consistently or it takes time away from selling. Automation made permit prospecting systematic instead of sporadic.

Data quality drives results. When quotes, permits, and account activity live in one system that updates automatically from your ERP, reps prioritize better and managers coach based on real performance instead of gut feel.

Read the full case study in LBM Journal, or see how other building materials retailers are using SalesJack to grow sales through better data and AI automation.

See what permit-driven growth looks like for your yard

SalesJack integrates with building materials ERPs (Epicor, ECI, DMSI, Genetiq, Ponderosa) and automates permit lead generation, assignment, and follow-up so your team focuses on selling instead of spreadsheet management.

Implementation takes 4-6 weeks including ERP integration, permit source setup, and on-site rep training. Your team gets the same automated workflows that helped PARR generate $500k in new revenue.

Book a demo to see how AI-powered permit prospecting works for your specific market and territory structure, or use the Contact page to discuss what systematic permit prospecting could produce at your yard.