As a brewery manager, you rely on your sales team to effectively sell and promote your products to key accounts and distributors. It’s important for you to understand the various tasks and responsibilities that your sales reps handle in order to support them and ensure the success of your brewery. In this blog post, we’ll be outlining a few key things that your sales reps might work on with distributors in order to help you better understand their role and how you can help them succeed. So without further ado, let’s dive into the list!
- Developing relationships with key accounts
- Managing distributor inventory
- Coordinating promotions and events
- Providing training and education to distributor sales staff
- Tracking sales and managing budgets
Today, we want to focus on #2 on our list and discuss the sales rep’s role in managing distributor inventory. Ensuring that there is enough product on hand to meet demand is crucial for the success of any brewery, and it’s the sales rep’s job to work with distributors to manage inventory levels and avoid shortages or excesses.
Distributors are your first customer
As a brewery manager, one of the most effective ways to improve the operations of your sales team is to focus their efforts on the first customer in the supply chain: the distributor. Distributors play a crucial role in the distribution and promotion of your products, and by working closely with them, your sales reps can ensure that there is enough product on hand to meet demand, avoid shortages or excesses, and maintain a strong and consistent presence in the market. By focusing on the needs and concerns of your distributors, your sales reps can develop strong relationships and identify opportunities for growth and success. In this way, you can greatly improve the performance of your sales team and the success of your brewery.
The single best thing your sales reps can do?
As a sales rep, it’s important to regularly review and assess sales trends and inventory levels with distributors in order to project future orders and identify when a distributor may be at risk of running out of stock. By gathering data on current inventory levels and sales trends, you can identify patterns and trends that may indicate opportunities for improvement. You can also use this data to forecast future demand for the brewery’s products and identify when a distributor may need to place additional orders in order to meet customer demand.
By proactively reviewing and analyzing sales trends and inventory levels with distributors, you can help ensure that your products are always in high demand and well-stocked at the distributor. This can help drive success for your brewery and improve customer satisfaction. By taking the time to review and assess these key areas on a regular basis, you can project future orders and identify when a distributor may be at risk of running out of stock, allowing you to take proactive steps to prevent shortages and keep your products moving.
Put your work into action
One way that sales reps can put the work of reviewing and assessing sales trends and inventory levels into action is by reviewing and potentially recommending orders to distributors on a regular basis. By regularly reviewing and analyzing data on inventory levels and sales trends, sales reps can identify opportunities to increase demand and sell more.
To recommend an order to a distributor, sales reps can follow these steps:
- Gather data on current inventory levels and sales trends: By tracking inventory levels and sales data on a regular basis, sales reps can identify trends and patterns that may indicate opportunities for improvement.
- Forecast future demand: By forecasting future demand for the brewery’s products, sales reps can help distributors plan for and manage inventory levels more effectively.
- Identify opportunities to increase demand: By analyzing data on sales trends and customer preferences, sales reps can identify opportunities to increase demand for the brewery’s products.
- Recommend an order to the distributor: Based on the data and analysis, sales reps can recommend an order to the distributor that will help meet customer demand and improve inventory management.
By taking action with orders to distributors on a regular basis, sales reps can help ensure that the brewery’s products are always in high demand and well-stocked at the distributor. This can drive success for the brewery and improve customer satisfaction.
Fact, your brewery is no more than 1% of distributors’ sales
In today’s complex and crowded craft beer market, distributors are struggling to keep up with the increasing number of suppliers and SKUs that they need to manage. With so many different products and brands to choose from, distributors often have limited time and resources to devote to any one supplier. As a result, sales reps who are able to effectively focus their efforts on actively working on order creation with distributors are more likely to be successful.
One key fact to remember is that for any one craft brewery, your sales likely make up less than 1% of a distributor’s sales. This means that it is more important for you to be successful than it is for the distributor to see you be successful. As a result, it’s important for sales reps to be proactive and focused in their efforts to influence orders from distributors. By taking the time to review and assess sales trends and inventory levels, sales reps can identify opportunities to increase demand and move product. By recommending orders to distributors on a regular basis, sales reps can help ensure that the brewery’s products are always in high demand and well-stocked at the distributor.
By focusing on order creation and working closely with distributors, sales reps can help their breweries stand out in a crowded market and drive success in an increasingly complex and competitive industry.
Real money on the line
Changing the process of managing sales trends and inventory levels at the distributor can have a significant impact on the success and profitability of a brewery. Craft Portal, a company that analyzes about 3 million bbls in annual sales, has found that its average out of stock rate is 4% across its clients. This demonstrates the importance of effectively managing inventory levels and sales trends in order to prevent shortages and increase demand for the brewery’s products.
When Craft Portal works with clients to implement its systems and processes, it measures the pre and post out of stock rates to track the impact of its efforts. Prior to working with Craft Portal, clients often experience out of stock rates of 10% to 25%. By focusing on order creation and using technology to automate and streamline workflows, Craft Portal has helped its clients significantly reduce out of stock rates and improve sales trends and inventory management.
This demonstrates the significant impact that focusing on order creation and working closely with distributors can have on the profitability and success of a brewery. By getting your sales team focused on working with distributors more, you can help your brewery stand out in a crowded market and drive success in an increasingly complex and competitive industry.
Learn more today?
In summary, changing the process of managing sales trends and inventory levels at the distributor can have a significant impact on the success and profitability of a brewery. By focusing on order creation and using technology to automate and streamline workflows, companies like Craft Portal have helped their clients significantly reduce out of stock rates and improve sales trends and inventory management. If you want to learn more about how Craft Portal can help you use technology to automate and create streamlined workflows for your sales reps, consider reaching out to them for more information. Craft Portal works with more than 60 suppliers, servicing thousands of distributors, and collectively selling 3 million annual barrels of beer. By working with Craft Portal, you can tap into their expertise and resources to help your brewery stand out in a crowded market and drive success in an increasingly complex and competitive industry.