FOMO is real

 What’s FOMO? Fear of missing out, and it’s rampant in our beer market right now. The trend is to consistently be brewing and selling the next best thing, the new shiny object. And what’s great is that it works (sort of), but there's a dark side.

 There are hundreds, if not thousands of breweries that are building their businesses on one-off, special releases that no one will remember 6 months from now. But here’s the catch, new products and limited runs are easy to sell, so it seems like a no brainer. Make a whole bunch of new, one time only, limited run, wacky brews backed by some amazing label graphics and clever marketing and you’ve got yourself a successful brewery, right?

 Nope. Unless you're in this for the short term or have plans to sell off your brewery.

 Yes, this seems like a great idea right now, but this is NOT a sustainable business model. Eventually your target customer base is going to get tired of the “next new thing”, it’s called squirrel syndrome. If you want to grow your beer business for the long haul, you should have some core beers or flagship products that you can consistently make without any quality issues and that your team knows how to move in the market (whether that’s your sales reps or yourself). 

 I'm not knocking innovation here, I'm talking the gimmicky one-offs with everything, but the kitchen sink.

 Consumers refer to core products as “old faithful”, the “fallback” beer, their “go-to”, or as I call it in my house, my “refrigerator beer”, because it’s always in stock in my fridge, no matter what other kind of crazy brew is sitting next to it. 

 Flagship beers are not going away anytime soon, because these beers put you on the map and people keep buying them. These are the beers that people drink more than one of and consume on a regular basis.

 It’s easy to sell one-offs, it’s harder to really get to the heart of beer sales and know how to sell your core items.

 Learn how to sell the beer that’s not in the spotlight and you can keep your business profitable for the long term. Remind them why they love these beers. When you learn how to tap into the story and the experience that customers build a relationship and connection with, and quality they know that they can rely on, you get something special - brand loyalty. 

 And with the current state of the beer market, we could all use a healthy dose of brand loyalty. If you want to survive, you’ve got to go back to basics. Learn about business, learn about sales, and learn about marketing. Learn to sell your flagships. If you can differentiate your brand and build a loyal customer base, you will be in great shape.

Cheers,

Julie