Stop selling your beer

That’s right, I told you to stop selling your beer. Not completely, just not to the folks who don’t want it. Gasp! But I need more beer sales, why would I stop trying to sell as much beer as I can? And who doesn’t want my amazing craft brews that I’ve spent months perfecting? Because you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Ask any sales or marketing professional from any industry on this planet and they will tell you what I’m about to tell you - you cannot sell your product to everyone.

I decided to talk more about this issue after having a candid conversation with a local brewery owner in my home state of Colorado while we were at the infamous Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival in Breckenridge earlier this month. He said to me “we might not have the most flashy taproom or a huge marketing budget or an outside sales team or distributor partners, but we make sure that everyone who walks through our door knows exactly what we do and gets matched up with the right product, so they have the best experience possible and they remember that the next time they go to choose a beer brand, and we make sure that our branding clearly conveys what kind of products we offer for certain kinds of beer drinkers.” Dramatic pause for my brain to stop exploding. Yes, yes, yes! I wanted to scream and I had to fight hugging him, because he’s 100% right. 

You need to sell your brands to the right customers, at the right time, in the right place, and in the right method that defines your unique brewery vision and clearly states your value proposition to your targeted customer base. Lots of fancy terms here, I’ll give you an example.

You know how annoyed you get by door to door salespeople. Why do you think that is? It’s because they don’t know you, they don’t know what you need or want, they have no idea what your schedule looks like or if you have the money to buy whatever they’re selling, and they have disrupted your day with an ambush-style sales pitch that makes it really hard to squeeze in that “no, thank you” and then close the door. They’re selling to every person that opens the door, there’s no personalization to it, and the human brain doesn’t like that.

That’s what you’re doing when you try to sell your beer to everyone. You’re assuming that everyone wants all your beers, all the time, and that you can tell them about it in the same way, every single time you interact with them. This will not work. It’s aggressive, insulting, evasive, and impersonal. Consumers today don’t have the patience to keep the door open and give you a polite decline, they will metaphorically slam the door in your face and move on to the next brand that has taken the time to get to know when they will be home and not busy, what kind of beer drinker they are, their purchasing power, where they buy beer, how they buy beer, and know what kind of benefit they will get from that beer on their terms.

Today’s market is all about customization and working smarter, not harder. You don’t need a huge marketing budget or an army of sales reps or a distributor partner, what you need is a clear go to market strategy based on proven principles of consumer buying behavior. Understand why people buy things and you can crack the code on how to reach the right customer for your brand. Connect with that specific type of customer and explain why your product is a great fit, and watch your beer sales increase with minimal investment on your part outside of a little time and effort to educate yourself about consumer behavior. This combined with some smart business decisions about your overhead and expansion plans, and you've got a winner.

This is our new reality in the beer industry. Those that fall behind will join the ranks of the closed brewery stats from the BA, and those that choose to fight will use business training, continuous education, smart financial decisions, and efficient systems as ammunition.