{"id":1467,"date":"2014-04-01T06:30:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T11:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1467"},"modified":"2014-03-24T09:41:09","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T14:41:09","slug":"its-all-real-estate-on-the-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1467","title":{"rendered":"It’s all real estate on the shelf….."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"map<\/a>Last year, one of my former national account managers had an interview with a small, but successful importer.\u00a0 The national account manager had been unemployed for almost a year even though he had years of chain experience.\u00a0 He was in his mid-fifties.<\/p>\n

The interview took place in Washington DC, and as it turned out, he arrived along with seven other candidates, all much younger than he, and all\u00a0claimed to have chain experience.\u00a0 They each were given a case study and asked to create a chain presentation.\u00a0 The importer, led by a young sales manager, had been struggling in recent years, especially with the chains.\u00a0 The company realized they needed help outside of \u201cfeet on the street\u201d sales people.\u00a0 The sales manager, to his credit, after reviewing all the presentations, realized that clearly the work submitted by the senior national account pro was just what he needed.\u00a0 The account pro was hired and sales are now moving upward.<\/p>\n

In a recent conversation with a highly experienced national account manager for a\u00a0major craft brewer, he commented that when he competes against smaller craft breweries in chain presentations, he always achieves his goal.\u00a0 Lack of experience and retail knowledge was apparent.\u00a0 While small local and regional crafts are experiencing success in the on premise, off-premise chain\u00a0remains the domain of the big boys.<\/p>\n

The challenge for these small but growing craft breweries, along with many importers, even those importers who have been around for some time, is just how they can grab some of this real estate on the shelf.\u00a0 For example, I recently received an email from a contract craft brewer regarding Jewel\/Osco.\u00a0 The chain is looking at the brewers products but did not have any of their pricing.\u00a0 The national sales manager stated he did not know he had to submit it!<\/p>\n

This story is classic in that it illustrates why the crafts share\u00a0in the off-premise is much less than the on premise.\u00a0 There are two reasons for this: \u00a0one is the total lack of internal knowledge, skill sets, and unwillingness to hire and retain industry chain experts.\u00a0\u00a0Secondly, this\u00a0craft brewer chose to have their brands distributed by a start-up wholesaler who, obviously, cannot provide assistance in the chains either.<\/p>\n

One of the first questions always asked by either a MC or ABI wholesaler when reviewing possible new brands, either import or craft, is “what chain authorizations do you currently have?”\u00a0 Having a number of authorizations helps the wholesaler determine if either the brand has legs or the brewer\/importer knows what they are doing.<\/p>\n

Either way, until the crafts come to the realization that in order to grow and expand, a sizable investment in developing the off premise is necessary, the crafts that do not, will continue to live in the world of self-distribution or package stores, in limited off premise accounts.<\/p>\n

As my national account friend always states, “It\u2019s all real estate on the shelf!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, one of my former national account managers had an interview with a small, but successful importer.\u00a0 The national account manager had been unemployed for almost a year even though he had years of chain experience.\u00a0 He was in his mid-fifties. The interview took place in Washington DC, and as it turned out, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xRTi-nF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}