Time and time again, the notion that signing on with a distributor will mean less work for sales for your company is a myth.
“I know the horror story we heard from a local is that he didn’t have a sales staff. He got absolutely nowhere fast,” recalls Richard Bernacki of Penguin City. “It took them a while to get out of that agreement and release them because neither of them were doing anything for each other.”
You do need sales, he said, but you have to have it make sense.
“When you add up your sales department, your production/labor, and your cost of goods sold, it really has to make sense,” Bernacki told other brewery owners at a session on moving out of self-distro at the 2024 Ohio Craft Brewers Conference. “If you have too many salespeople, then you might be in the red there. It’s always very important to consider all of that.”
For Penguin City — Bernacki and Aspasia Lyras-Bernacki — the co-founders began with self-distro and established their sales team then expanded the team while hiring a VP of Sales to be the point for communicating with their distributor.
“You really want them to be invested in your brand, not just with money, but you want them to share your vision for your brand,” Bernacki said. “Keep in touch with them.”
Lyras-Bernacki said having plans to go to your distro partner is key.
“Presentations and pitches, as soon as we signed with a distributor,” she said. “You have to present yourself and you have to pinch yourself. You’re always selling yourself and they put you out there to do that.”
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Penguin City was doing pitches and promotions before signing on with a distributor and it led to the connection with their now VP of Sales.
Will Zuschlag was a rep for a regional liquor distributor and Lyras-Bernacki collaborated with him through Jameson’s “Drinking Buddies” promotion.
“We were self-distributing and Jameson has the money to promote,” she said. “They needed to find a local to connect with the local beer scene. So what we did was created a whole program called “Drinking Buddies, it was a shot and a beer program, and we piggybacked off of Jameson.
“We were able to get placement in bars and festivals. We worked really well together because we weren’t competing with each other. I promoted him, and he promoted us. I really love that we connected with him. “I liked him so much that we made him our VP of Sales because I liked how he worked in the liquor industry and I thought that he would be a good fit for us.”
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