An eBook by

BREWERIES

5 MODERN SELLING TECHNIQUES

5 modern selling techniques for breweries

Beer. We love the stuff on a warm summer’s day (and any other day for that

matter). In fact, over 25 million of us Brits guzzle down the amber nectar,

keeping over 700,000 in employment and generating a retail value of £18

billion a year. It goes with most things, from sporting events or celebrations,

from a roast dinner to a curry, after work in the week or in a pub garden on a

Saturday afternoon, beer in Britain is most certainly big business.

“Beer generates a retail value of £18 billion per year.”

But what’s more interesting is the number of craft breweries popping up

across the country, rivalling the big name brewers that once saturated

the market. Microbrewery export sales are also booming as our foreign

counterparts are developing a thirst for British beer and sales have almost

doubled in just two years.

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5 modern selling techniques for breweries

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This influx of breweries into the market however, has led to an exponential

rise in the amount of competition. The beer market is rather unique in that

price is not always the biggest factor in decision-making. Customers are

often willing to pay a bit extra for a craft beer if it’s brewed locally or pushes

the boundaries of traditional beer.

Think about the likes of Brewdog

for example, whose entire approach

to brewing has ousted them from

many traditional brewery trade

groups and associations but that has

since served to make them one of

the biggest British success stories in

recent years.

For many breweries, their business

has come out of a love and a passion

for beer and brewing alike. As such,

adapting to succeed in what has

become one of the most challenging

industries in the Western world can

be incredibly difficult.

The solution: many breweries often struggle to maintain

a competitive advantage in this busy marketplace.

Employing a modern approach to selling can often be

all the impetus your company needs to storm ahead.

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An influx of breweries has led to an exponential rise in competition.

Throw a Curveball

The industry is chock-full of the typical approach to selling: regular Monday

or Tuesday call days; a lot of sales calls being made on a wing and a prayer;

those tiresome ‘milkround’ calls that every sales rep and customer within

the industry has become accustomed to which involve nothing more than

checking in to say hello and chitchatting about how dreadful the weather

was at the weekend. This approach doesn’t make sense sales-wise in the

modern brewery industry.

What can you do?

Get away from the routine call schedule. How many of your competitors

must call on your customers on a Monday or Tuesday too? By the end of

the day, imagine how bored they’d be after seeing and talking to potential

suppliers all day. Your call at 3pm on a Monday will not grab their attention.

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So take a different approach, take them a coffee or call on them on a Thursday.

Be more personable than the average sales rep: send them things you think

they might be interested in; leave them some free samples; offer them a

personal promotion based on their past buying habits.

Don’t make a routine out of your approach to sales. Instead, monitor and

maintain your relationships with your on-premises accounts. If that means

taking a slightly different approach to your tactics, so be it. No one ever said

that selling beer should be done by the book. It’s all about being unique,

whether that’s in taste, your approach to sales or both. Don’t be afraid to

stand out. A lot.

Midlands based Purity Brewing have been one to champion out of the

box sales and marketing tactics. They have built up such an incredible

following and awareness within the local area that this is now spilling over

into neighbouring counties and even as far afield as London. They sponsor

countless local events, have an incredible Twitter presence and are stocked

everywhere from traditional pubs to top restaurants and bars.

LaLaLager

Lager

5 modern selling techniques for breweries

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Become a trusted advisor

Working in sales is not all about making money. You

need to become someone your customers can rely on if

you want to create long-term revenue. While you know

your beers inside out, your customers need not feel like

another cog in your money making machine.

With many hundreds of suppliers knocking on their

doors, it can often become hard for your customers

to find one to trust, so share your passion, ask for their

opinion and become someone they can come to for

advice. Share your knowledge, impart your wisdom and

be a trusted advisor to your customer.

TRUST

CONSULT

KNOWLEDGE

EXPERTISE

What can you do?

A proactive approach to your customer service is the best way to encourage

repeat sales and willingness to purchase complementary products from your

range. Don’t wait around for your customer to come to you with questions;

go to them with information and advice.

Every call doesn’t have to be a sales call. Use calls to share interesting news,

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start a blog that they can go to any time, give them the inside track to any

new products you’re working on and just be on hand when they need you.

Not only will this add value, but you’ll also be front of mind when they come

to think of re-ordering. This rings true for your prospects too and taking a

different approach to your sales tactics can be a welcome change for some

and all the encouragement they need to give you a ‘yes’.

Get social

The advent of social channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook mean

you can now have an around the clock presence in front of your customers.

As any small, upcoming brewery knows, one of the main things holding you

back is getting exposure for your product. Social media is not a quick fix

and it can take time to build up even a reasonable following, but it can be a

stepping-stone in the right direction to success.

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How can you use social media?

With a constant online presence, your sales team can interact on a more

personal level with your customers and prospects. A tweet here or there is

a lot less intrusive than a constant barrage of phone calls. Use social media

channels to stay at the forefront of your target audience, interact with your

local community and grow your local presence before you take a punt on

national and international dominance.

Social media is more than a pure promotional tool; you’ve got the power

to tell your story exactly how you want it to be told but you must interact

with your community of followers. The beauty of social media is that you

can have instant conversations with your customers. What’s more, the rise

of blogs and social media means that you can share news, updates, new

products, events and tidbits from your team on a daily basis, to thousands

of people.

With their finger on the pulse, your sales team can step in if a customer is

asking for recommendations, if they’re unhappy with a competitor product

or even if they’re planning their next knees-up, simply by monitoring simple

hashtags and keywords. Software such as Hootsuite will allow you to follow

any hashtag you please, so why not keep a beady eye on your competitors?

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If your biggest rival uses the hashtag #DaviesBrewing and is getting a lot of

chat online, find out what they’re doing and do it better. Alternatively, you

can use the Twitter search bar as you would Google to search for terms. So,

if a disgruntled drinker is grumbling about Flynn IPA online, you can find out,

step up and offer your product as an alternative.

Social media itself presents a number of powerful opportunities for your

brewery and you can use it to stay close to your customers. Here are just

some of the ways social media can be your secret weapon:

Use it as a customer advice channel if they need help picking a

product for their weekend.

Why not run competitions to grow followers? For example,

Brewdog has recently asked the public to help craft their newest

beer, with people voting via Twitter on various elements of the

brew from beer style to ABV and even its name!

One final thought, don’t use your social media as a sales channel,

it’s seriously not cool. Use it to share news, help your customers

and impart some wisdom, but don’t use the hard sell technique on

your social media, your followers will be dropping like flies.

Twitter can be particularly powerful, so if you don’t have a presence on there

yet, get to it and stake a claim to your Twitter page. I’m sure you saw some

internet chatter last month about a chap starting a Twitter spat between

mobile phone providers O2 and Three during O2’s free pizza giveaway

campaign. The end result? He got free pizza for the rest of the year and O2

came off as social media legends with tens of thousands of retweets and

favourites. It’s not the first time the mobile phone company has come up

trumps on social media either, and it certainly won’t be the last.

#DaviesBrewing

Did you mean: I want to stalk Davies Brewing?

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5 modern selling techniques for breweries

Your data is a goldmine. You just need a drill!

5 modern selling techniques for breweries

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Leverage your data

Every business, no matter how big or small, has reams of data, and it’s this

data that can be a veritable goldmine when it comes to making cold, hard

cash fast. Studying your customers in detail and identifying opportunities

ahead of your meetings can turn a run of the mill meeting at The Dog and

Duck into your best deal of the week. Doing your homework can really make

the difference.

LaLager

Big Data in practice

The likes of Heineken have used Big Data to craft

some incredible real time marketing campaigns

and subsequently, their sales have rocketed. With

partnerships with the likes of Facebook and Google,

Heineken have access to a huge amount of data and

customer insight. They’re using this to develop real-time

event driven and truly personal marketing experiences.

In store sensors are being trialled to capture the data of

their customers as they are physically standing in front of

the shelves in a store. How is their beer being purchased?

Are customers responding to their promotions? Which

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are most effective? The data they capture is then being used to develop

and tweak their marketing strategies, even changing packaging, in store

promotions or placement on the shelves. These refined marketing campaigns

are based precisely on how their customers are buying their products.

What can you do?

Despite battling the seemingly endless sales and marketing budgets of

the big players, the more modest brewery can now easily step up and

tackle them head on. Big Data tools have come to the mainstream and can

empower the smaller players to compete, without investing huge amounts

of money.

Good Big Data tools can slice and dice your sales data in such a way that

you can identify trends and opportunities. For example, if The Dog and Duck

has bought your top selling beer from you for the last 6 months, but are yet

to order this month, it will alert you to this easy sales opportunity. Or if they

are regular customers of yours, but they’ve not yet tried your new beer –

why not offer them a knock down price to encourage sales?

Big Data tools make sales and marketing easier, removing the need to

sift through reams of data to find even the tiniest sales opportunity. This

automated analysis will leave your sales team to do what they do best: sell.

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Add value to every sale

As with anything, the devil is in the detail and, when it comes to sales, it’s

the little gestures that make all the difference. Think about what keeps you

going back to the same garage or the same hairdressers, is it the price? Or

is it the friendliness, the level of service and the going above and beyond?

I’d hazard a guess at the latter. A good price of course helps, yes, but if we

are made to feel special and like we are looked after, we’ll often reward a

business with our long-lasting loyalty.

How can I add value?

Read on and you’ll find out.

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Some salespeople perceive adding value as something that will cost them

an arm and a leg. But don’t forget how powerful a simple courtesy call or

visit can be a week or so after they order. How are they getting on with their

order? Is everything as expected? Is there anything else you can do to help?

A well-used CRM will help you to stay on top of customer orders and make

sure you reach out at just the right time to say hello and see how they’re

getting on.

Show your customers (and even

your prospects) that you’re thinking

of them, you don’t have to go all

out and pitch them every time you

contact them. Gently nurturing them

and looking after them will make

reordering from you easier and you’ll

be front of your prospects’ mind

when they do come to make an

order.

Our sales performance software makes every call more personal and more profitable, effortlessly turning any good sales person

into a great one.

#SELLSMART

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