April 18, 2025
Founded in 1956, Swish has grown from a family-owned janitorial supply distributor into a leading provider of cleaning and sanitation products across Canada. With 300+ employees and 15 locations, it combines the personal touch of a local business with the reach of a national operation.
Swish’s competitive edge has always been its people: the sales reps, customer care teams, and leaders who truly know their customers. But as the company expanded, it needed a way to scale without losing the personal connections that set it apart.
Before Proton, Swish’s sales process was disjointed and reactive. Swish had an existing CRM, but its low adoption made it more of a burden than a solution. The team focused on their top 20–30% of accounts, leaving many customers under-engaged.
“Sometimes the feedback we’d get from customers was that they didn’t hear from us enough,” Victoria Blair, Sales Enablement Leader at Swish, said.
Every branch had its own way of managing customers, and reps worked in silos, creating major challenges:
As leadership looked to upgrade their entire sales strategy, they knew they needed a new CRM that supported a proactive and collaborative sales process. Proton stood out for three key reasons:
1. Centralized Customer Data
Proton pulls customer data from Swish’s ERP into one easy-to-use platform. It gives inside sales, outside sales, and the customer care team access to the exact same information so no one has to waste time digging through old emails or spreadsheets.
“Just think of the best assistant you’ve ever had,” said Dave Purdy, General Manager of Swish’s Whitby Branch. “You can plug an account number or contact name into the system and get all the information you need within seconds.”
2. Real-Time Visibility and Collaboration
Proton makes it easy to see who is working on what. Reps log activities, leave notes, and tag teammates to ensure smooth handoffs. This transparency is the backbone of Swish’s collaborative selling model. Managers also get visibility into sales activity, making it easier to track progress and support their teams.
“Proton helped us collaborate with other Swish team members by giving us visibility into each other's activities,” Zeina Shahabeddin, Swish’s Inside Sales Leader shared. “If I was working on an account and knew Mike had been in contact, I could tag him and say, ‘Hey Mike, I spoke with this person today, and I think you might be interested in giving them a visit.’ That visibility made a huge difference for us."
3. AI-Driven Sales Insights
Proton doesn’t just store data, it helps reps turn that data into sales insights, and those insights into dollars. The platform provides AI-driven recommendations on which products to pitch, which customers to follow up with, and where new revenue opportunities might be hiding.
Swish’s choice in Proton was further solidified by the fact that the platform was built exclusively for distributors. Unlike other horizontal CRMs, the system didn’t require lengthy or expensive customizations to work for Swish’s business model.
“The value of Proton for our industry is that right out of the box, it speaks our language”, said Jason Moorehead, VP of Sales at Swish. “It understands what challenges distribution companies have.”
Rolling out a new CRM in a company with “zero CRM culture” was no small task, but Swish treated it as a business transformation, not just a software update.
Leadership set the tone early. Swish’s VP of Sales and General Managers were hands-on, using Proton themselves to show its value. Their involvement sent a clear message that this wasn’t optional, it was the future of Swish’s sales strategy.
To drive adoption, Swish identified several Proton Champions to test the platform and provide feedback before rolling it out to the entire team. Regular training sessions, newsletters, and open feedback loops also kept the momentum going post implementation.
“We’ve gone from zero CRM culture to everyone talking about Proton every single day,” said Victoria Blair, Sales Enablement Leader at Swish. “That in itself within three months of launching has just been spectacular.”
Proton is helping Swish grow without losing its personal touch by making customer engagement more efficient and strategic. Here are the results their team has seen so far:
1. Revenue Growth Through Smarter Selling
Since adopting Proton, Swish has attributed $3.2 million in new revenue directly to the platform. The platform’s AI-driven recommendations help reps identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities every day that they might have otherwise missed.
“One of our new reps, Jake, pitched products to a large account based on Proton’s recommendations,” Zeina Shahabeddin, Swish’s Inside Sales Leader shared. “The customer said, ‘I never knew that Swish supplied those products.’ Now we’re in the final stages of closing a huge deal with that customer—all within Jake’s first 90 days.”
2. Expanded Customer Coverage
As we mentioned before, Swish’s sales team had previously spent the majority of their time serving just 20-30% of their customer base. Now their team-selling model, powered by Proton, divides the workload across teams, so that they can cover more ground together.
3. Improved Customer Experiences
With all sales teams accessing the same data, customers never have to repeat themselves when talking to different reps. Whether it’s an inside sales call, a follow-up from an outside rep, or a quick customer care inquiry, every interaction feels connected.
This consistency reinforces Swish’s commitment to delivering personalized service for each and every customer. Customers know Swish understands their needs because the entire team is aligned.
Beyond Swish’s traditional sales channels, Proton also improved the company’s eCommerce performance by using AI to analyze customer purchase history and populate recommended product carousels for their website to connect customers with the items they genuinely need. In just the first few months of 2025, the recommended product carousels have driven $1.6M in revenue for online orders.
Proton immediately freed up time for Swish’s sales team. “Before Proton, it would take me 10 to 15 minutes to do my research on an account,” said Zeina Shahabeddin, Swish’s Inside Sales Leader. “Now it’s just a minute or two.”
That time savings adds up. Reps are making more calls, having better conversations, and spending more time actually selling—which has helped Swish close more deals, faster.
In early 2024, Swish was growing 2.8% year over year. For the same period in 2025, that number jumped to 7.8%—after they rolled out Proton across the sales team. By streamlining rep workflows and giving leaders better visibility into the pipeline, Swish nearly tripled their growth rate.
Managers saw the impact, too. Instead of pulling reports from multiple systems, they now get everything they need in one place.
“Now I can just check Proton, filter for the inside sales team, and I have all the reports I need,” Zeina said. “I don’t need to check another report to see activity levels.”
Swish set out to scale its sales process without losing its personal touch. With Proton, they’ve built a collaborative, data-driven sales culture that’s driving real results: they’re now growing 2.8x faster, they’ve added $3.2M in new revenue, plus $1.6M in eCommerce sales.
By making sales smarter, not harder, Proton has helped Swish reps get the insights they need to close more deals and stay focused on what matters most: serving customers.
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