It's not you, it's the market

I've been lucky enough to get to speak at a bunch of recent industry events, including CBC and CBP Connects, but I've also been writing a lot as the new Industry Editor of PorchDrinking.com. Exciting stuff, but this is not about me.

It's about you and your craft beverage business. It's the beginning of Q3 and let me tell you, not many organizations are meeting their annual sales projections so far this year.

It's not you, it's the market.

2022 was supposed to be sunshine and rainbows. Our recovery year, full of optimism and dollar signs.

It hasn't quite played out that way.

We're halfway through the year and things have been all over the map. Our typical bell curve in craft beer has looked more like a mountain range or cartoon snake.

On-premise is on the rise, but velocity is still not up to pre-pandemic levels. Off-premise is still stacked up against tough year-over-year comps, so it might look worse than 2021, but in reality, it's fairly normal.

Retailers are still overwhelmed with new products entering the retail space. Don't believe me, read this from Jeff Alworth of the Beervana Blog.

But don't beat yourself up, none of us had a crystal ball to predict a war in Ukraine, a slumping labor market, insane inflation, and astronomical freight costs.

This is probably how you're feeling.

So here are some quick tips for the rest of 2022:

You might have to revise some of your ambitious sales projections for the remainder of the year. This doesn't mean slashing your goals, but be realistic about how the rest of the year will play out and know your numbers.

Pricing is out of your control. If you haven't taken a price increase this year, know that it's most likely to be necessary sooner rather than later. There is no magic formula for pricing. Consumers will pay what they can bear but do your homework and know your marketplace landscape.

You can't squeeze velocity out of already hurting on-premise accounts. You're going to have to make up that volume somewhere else.

C is for consolidation. Keep a close eye on middle-tier consolidation, as well as data mining company and freight company mergers, this will affect our industry, whether you realize it or not.

All retailers and distributors are understaffed, and the ones with employees left are totally burned out. Be kind, practice empathy, and know that you might have to go above and beyond your normal duties as a supplier sales rep or manager, but it won't be like this forever.

Get strategic with your selling time and celebrate small wins - incremental gains through adding accounts in new areas or recovering PODs can add up to big gains by the end of the year.

That's for now my friends. More coming soon. Keep your heads up, July 4th weekend should yield some nice boosted numbers across the US and we still have Q3 to make some magic happen.

Stay positive!

(this blog post was written in July of 2022 and reposted by request)