Successful Distributor Management is imperative to sales. After a successful brand launch it is important to know how to manage and navigate a distributor. Without this knowledge your brand will get lost in the sea of thousands of other brands shelved in the warehouse leaving your bottles dusty and unmoved.

Most large distributors have 10,000+ brands in their portfolios and sell over 100,000 sku’s.  Bringing attention to an independent brand with this much competition can be daunting. With portfolios this large it is extremely challenging to gain share of mind within a distributor sales force. Most quotas given to the distributor sales force are driven by the suppliers that generate the most gross profit to the distributors bottom line.  Suppliers such as Diageo, Bacardi, Pernod Richard, Deutsche etc. dominate.

The first step is understanding how the distributor operates:

On a monthly basis distributors generate their quotas which are passed onto management and then rolled down to the sales team.  These quotas are what the sales reps spend 90% of their time on and is what makes it so challenging for a great independent brand to get any trade focus.  It makes sense that distributors would be set up this way, these brands provide the majority of the distributor’s revenue and they need to keep large suppliers happy, but it is a major challenge for a young brand to be successful.  The cards are stacked against independent brands prior to entering the market.

Because of this every brand needs a face in the market. Someone to remind sales teams of your product, to work with key sales reps and marketing managers and to hold people accountable. Your pricing needs to be implemented monthly to come up with the most comprehensive buying pattern on and off premise. Monthly marketing manager meetings to implement any sales incentives as well as review progress of distribution and volume goals. Attending monthly sales meetings is key to remind the sales reps of your product as well as build relationships with the salesforce and management. Lastly you need to be sure that the salesforce is trained and educated on your brand so it is well represented in the trade with up to date sell sheets and marketing information.

Cheers!