Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing..

The last seven of nine Ryder Cup matches between the US and European teams have been won by the Europeans.  The PGA of America selects the captain for each event, historically choosing a captain in their mid, to late 40s, with the thought that they would be familiar with the tour players who were generally younger.

In the 2012 Ryder Cup, the US team had a four point lead going into the singles competition and still they lost.  The PGA of America, tired of getting beat, changed direction and appointed Tom Watson, this year’s captain.  Watson, now 64 years of age, has appointed Ray Floyd and Andy North, co-assistants, both of whom are also in their 60s.  The PGA’s has appointed leaders with experience who know how to win and take the 2014 team to victory.

While I was running Warsteiner, the agency had about 260 wholesalers in the US.  While that number is small compared to the number of AB or MC wholesalers, Warsteiner had multiple wholesalers who had distribution rights for the brand statewide.  Ten years ago, Glazer’s had Warsteiner in 12 states representing around 22% of Warsteiner’s US business.

I often get the question from craft brewers: which are better, a statewide distributor, or a local distributor?  It is not an easy question for anyone to answer as both models have their plusses and minuses.  The next question I am frequently asked is: how do I manage this new territory?  Who can I hire?

As I have discussed in several past postings, craft breweries initially hire sales reps to fit their culture.  This usually works as long as the sales continue to grow equaling production capacity.  Then there comes a point when ownership realizes that getting to the next step requires professional help.  This takes courage for the brewery to go this route.

The number one request from a distributor who wants to see a vendor be successful is that the vendor needs to put a sales rep in the market.  This can, however, be economically unfeasible to any vendor.   Just as a distributor cannot have a sales person for each account, a brewery cannot have a rep for each market.

The beer industry continues to struggle, but why?  Pabst is now looking for its fourth CEO in five years!  NAB is looking for a new CEO to turn around its declining trends.  Mike’s is changing its go-to market model, by eliminating experienced beer sales people and hiring younger, inexpensive people with the idea of churning and burning.  This is simply putting feet on the street, but accomplishing very little other than to make the wholesaler feel good that there is a rep in the market.

Wholesalers complain to vendors about the quality of their hires who are young and inexperienced.  At the same time, it is the position of most vendors that the wholesaler has a lack of focus on their brand, or a lack of internal skill sets to sell crafts!

Both tiers need to have realistic expectations from their business partners, however, in doing so; they both need to understand the value of having experienced beer professionals. Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing!