Distributor Information

[Red Pine]

Hey All, looking for some hints and pointers from those that have been successful in initiating contact and securing distribution in states other than your home state. I've been trying to push into MN (I'm in ND) and have been able to get a conversation going with a couple distributors only for it to fizzle out or hear "We are not interested/able to add your products to our portfolio at this time but perhaps in the future".

Secondary question on the same topic. I have a distributor I'm interested in working with and have re-initiated contact with them. Planning to speak with them after Labor Day but in the meantime they're requesting updated product information. I have a pretty simple sales sheet I've sent in the past. Just basic info about my products, pictures of the bottles, general tasting notes. Do you send more than this and if so, what are you sending?

Thanks in advance to everyone for sharing and wishing continued good luck to everyone.

[captnKB]

To pull your products into a state beyond your home state most distributors are going to expect some sales support. 

In some cases this can be a part time sales rep who calls and visits state accounts regularly. Some states and distributers will only sign you on if you provide a full time rep.

If you are going to an out of state distributor and not offering any sales support in their market, it would not suprise me that the distributer was not interested in carrying your product

[SlickFloss]

Minnesota is not the state I would recommend someone jump into without a firm understanding of distribution.

Let's start here instead, what I want you to do is divide your annual cs sales in your home market by your total throughput capacity and provide that figure.

As an example say 900 cs / year sold and you could make 12000 cs (flat nines)  6a-6pm Sunday-Sunday* (900/12000)=.075. The denominator should be your actual potential throughput, not your actual production number.

 

If you're not calculating sales in hundreds of flat nine liter equivalents or hundreds of six packs (i.e.if you're tracking bottles) and have a capacity for thousands of flat nines with all due respect you need to drastically improve your home market first.