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Monitoring your beverage distribution system

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  • Monitoring your beverage distribution system

    MONITORING YOUR BEVERAGE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM? STAY CLOSE TO YOUR DISTRIBUTOR.


    So if you are a winery, or a brewery, or a beverage manufacturer hiring a distributor, outline precisely what you expect and set up a time table for regular communication. You might want to talk to your distributor once month on the phone and once a week by email. Make a on-site visit once every quarter as well. Whatever the cadence, make sure the distributor is in agreement with your plan.

    "The more professional distributors are going to be very accustomed to that way of working, particularly if there are high expectations for the product line. They are going to expect manufacturer to be involved. Infact, they will want you the manufacturer to be involved.


    "If you don't train your distributor on how to sell your products, you will sell it only once". "You have to help the distributor make a market".

    The monitoring process should be a matter of routing. Document your goals, then follow them regularly to make sure you are meeting them. Regular monitoring with distributors helps the manufacturer's stay close to their product and the real market. The objections that the distributor faces helps the manufacturer gauge on where they stand and how they can improve if needed.

    You have to put your company in the power position.

    For you to be in the power position, you have to have something to offer this distribution company. Something that the dozens of other beverage companies aren’t able to offer them.

    **Important Note: None of this will work if you have not identified a niche of resellers and distributors to work with. If you’re still trying to call everyone and be everything, you will likely fail. Choose the companies you wish to work with now, before it is too late, and focus only on them.

    You have to determine what would make a distributor want to carry your product over someone else’s, remembering that they primarily care about 3 things:

    That your product will sell.
    That carrying your product will give them a competitive advantage.
    That your company isn’t going to dissolve or go bankrupt this year.

    In other words, they want to know that they can make money off of you.

    Did the sales dip because of distributor? or because a manufacturer could not help fix the problem distributor was facing? or because the product itself was not cutting it? It could be lot of things beyond just the distributor not working behind your product. The feedback loop needs to be generated through the distributor monitoring process.

    Absent monitoring, distributor is likely to stop pushing your product, leaving it to fester in the marketplace - a manufacturer's worst nightmare.
    Read More Here: http://beveragetradenetwork.com/en/m...2ab6b-48731073
    Cheers!
    Banjo Bandolas
    Probrewer.com
    v- 541-284-5500
    banjo@probrewer.com
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