Another video, quick update on the leg. And thank you for everyone who reached out.
The leg is fine.
It was a cramp. I iced it. I rested it.
I do this thing called myofascial release where I take these medieval tools and I mash muscles that are painful and the next day they just feel great.
I’m hitting the Ultimate Frisbee course this Sunday, and I’ll let you know how it goes. Hopefully we don’t have another cramp in the leg. Awesome.
So, let’s talk about today’s topic. And you’ve been hearing about it a lot in mainstream media and you’ve been hearing a lot about it from the figureheads.
Craft is mature.
Okay, SBS has actually been talking about it for maybe a few years now. I can say that confidently.
What does that mean?
It simply means that the growth of the industry has slowed down or stopped. That’s it.
Mature markets don’t mean death. They don’t mean falling off a cliff. They don’t mean evaporation. They don’t mean annihilation. They simply mean things are slowing down.
Question for you: Restaurant industry has been mature forever. How many successful restaurants are there? Hotels. Hotels have been mature forever, decades. How many successful hotels are out there? There’s a lot.
Maturity doesn’t mean scary things.
Maturity simply means, in my opinion, we may need a strategy shift. We may need to change our thinking. We talked about bad habits last week. Today we’re talking about a strategy shift to combat the mature market.
In our recent talks, we offer a free analysis at the end of the talks. I’ll explain that to you more at the end. But we’ve done about a hundred of these analysis and counting. They keep coming in and the results are pretty consistent. Pubs and taprooms are profitable and, in some cases, wildly successfully. Wholesale is not.
Our data also is coming back that the opportunity to sell in wholesale is shrinking.
Call it shelf space, call it distributor consolidation, call it consumer shift in behavior, call it beer education. I don’t know. But the opportunity to sell packaged beer to chains, to retailers, to independents is shrinking.
Profitable. Shrinking. How is this going to change our strategy?
I don’t know your particular situation, so I can’t speak to it, but I can say that a good plan for 2024 moving forward is that we need to look at our strategy and we probably need to change that strategy up knowing everything that we know.
Some of you out there have successful statewide distribution. And in some cases you have micro-regional distribution.
Micro-regional. You like that?
You’re certainly not regional. No one’s regional anymore and you better not be nationwide. So, you’re micro-regional or statewide. If that’s the case for you, keep it up, keep doing what you’re doing.
But for the majority of the people that are listening to this, right, we needed a strategy shift, right?
So, back to the analysis, we do a free analysis for all the people that attend our talks as a thank you for joining those talks.
And the analysis basically breaks down your business units to a very detailed level. And while I’d love to offer the analysis to everyone that’s watching this, it just wouldn’t land well without the talk. The talk and the analysis go hand in hand, and it’s really important that we do the two.
So, here’s my favor. Here’s my ask:
Do you know someone at your guild? Do you know someone either on the board? Do you know the executive director? Do you know the program manager?
I would love an introduction to them.
I would love a softball. Can you tee me up a softball with the guild and say: “Hey, this guy, chris@sbstandard.com has some very important information for our guild.”
If they can’t slot me into the conference, I’ll come at the front end. I’ll come at the back end. I’ll host my own thing.
But the bottom line is we need more guilds knowing what we do and helping us get the word out because we’ve been talking about this stuff. And the mainstream media is just now catching up to it.
- If you happen to be a brewery, you’ve dominated statewide distribution, if your retail location is kicking butt or multiple locations are kicking butt, and you just want everything validated: Drop me a line. Reach out. I’ll be happy to validate it for you.
- If you’re a brewery where you’re what I described earlier, which is wholesale is shrinking/retail is doing well. You have a ton of capacity and you don’t know what to do next: Drop me a line. We’ll talk it through.
Happy to talk it through and walk you through my experience, which is the experience of hundreds of breweries that we’ve worked with to guide you through this.
Look forward to checking in next week, talking about my leg, talking about my Utimate Frisbee success…or not success and getting back to you in another video.
All right. Have a great week.
-cf