What is the best process for supporting your brand? You've grown it beyond what you and a few sales folks can handle. You're starting to spread beyond just your region. So, you've built a marketing team, a key account team and hired a director of sales. Landing with a national distributor is hard to do. Instead, you may have to use a patchwork or web of various distributor models to get your brand to retailers.
Has your key account team had success in gaining authorizations, and, more importantly, getting into the POGs of retailers. Let's face it, being authorized is one thing, but, getting into the POG is EVERYTHING. This is the first, and certainly not the last question prospective distributors will ask. It all hinges on this. Why on earth would a distributor want to take up space on their warehouse floor and on their trucks for a brand that THEIR sales teams have to sell in at a local level? They've already got enough brands to sell without having to take on another unproven one.
Let's face it, distributor sales teams are going to focus on the brands that sell best. This is where their volume comes from, so, it makes sense. Even if your brand delivers a substantially higher GP and revenue per case for the distributor compared to their other brands, it's all about volume. However, there is a time and place for your brand and even if velocity is slower, you have to be able to sell the distributor on the revenue and profitability benefits. To increase your brand's value, you have to show the distributor you've got skin in the game. You have to be willing to support them with key account programming at the local level. You can't just piggy-back off the distributor's own key account relationships in hopes of landing authorizations or POG space. For one, it does nothing to build your own reputation among the buyers of the world. Second, the next hot item that comes down the pike for the distributor in a few months, the buyer is going to say, "sure, I'll give you space... just put it in the place of one of your other brands". And, since your key account team has no real relationship with the buyer or distributor key account team, you're now outside the POG looking in. Because you haven't invested locally with the distributor, your sales are now suffering.
You need a team to call on the regional or market unit level of your distributors. You need people who deal everyday with sales center managers, area sales managers, district managers and even the up and down the street sales reps. When you have those relationships, that's where your brand begins to flourish and grow. You have somebody every week in a distributor sales meeting reminding the sales teams to remember that you have a hot retail coming up next week with their biggest retailer. You present monthly and quarterly reviews to the sales leadership teams. You spend time with district managers who are visiting stores in a given market. You actually spend a few days a week riding with local sales reps on their routes helping them to sell your product. You invest time with them showing them you care. You take them to lunch, give them a polo shirt, run incentives and track, rank and publish their progress. You create a competitive culture within their organization and pit one sales team against another for bragging rights... or even better, a free trip to the Caribbean or a nice cash prize.
The moment you stop doing all of this is the moment when your distributor stops caring. Sure, they'll be more educated on the category, they'll definitely know more about the brand itself and they really like you. But, you know what they say; "out of sight, out of mind". When no one is there to harass them every week about voids, out of stocks or lack of displays when in a hot ad, they forget about you and your brand really quick. If your brand's volume was skyrocketing versus the category, then, maybe you don't need to do all those things. But, when your brand represents less than one percent of the distributor's volume and you're number ten on a list of ten different monthly priorities that the sales reps have in a given account, all of a sudden, your nice GP and revenue don't mean that much.
It's all about relationship building, from the very beginning, all the way through to when your brand finally hits the big time. You wouldn't have made it this far if you relied on yearly distributor visits and occasional email reminders about your brand. No, you put in all the hard work required. You supported the distributor with front-line folks of your own and showed them you're willing to invest in their success. You've seen huge volume growth year over year. Why would you decide to change it all now? You're not the big baller, yet. You're a small fish in a very big ocean. You still need the inflatable floaters on your arms to keep your head above the water. Mess with this before it's time and you'll sink.
This blog is the opinion of the author. No individuals or companies mentioned have any affiliation with this blog. Gregg W Shore is a 29 year beverage veteran who writes his blog @DrinkPro, A View of the Beverage Industry, from the Inside Out. Connect on LinkedIn and follow on Twitter @DrinkPro
