Sales Meetings Kick Off First-Ever Collaborative Sales Planning Process
In a typical year – with the National Sales Meeting and distributor summits in rear view – Heaven Hill Brands and distributor teams get to work creating sales programs for all key brands for the upcoming fiscal year.
Designed to help Heaven Hill achieve certain brand targets, the annual sales programs create goals, targets and incentives for distributor reps and managers, as they place and promote our products in key accounts across the country.
But, the FY22 sales planning process will bear one important difference this year, compared to that of previous years. This time Heaven Hill and our largest distributor partner, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, are coming together in collaboration earlier, aligning on strategic program objectives, channel specific opportunities, prioritization and program development.
“The main difference between now and even one year ago, is the word collaborative,” said John Smart, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships. “In the past, our Regional Managers would be working on their Sales Activity Worksheets (SAWs), essentially on their own, and, at a corporate level, we were designing a complete sales calendar without our partner ‘buy-in’ and insight.”
An Expanded Partnership
The collaborative planning process builds on our 35-year partnership with SGWS – a partnership that grew substantially last year when Southern Glazer’s became our distributor in 39 states across the U.S. As part of that expanded relationship, Heaven Hill also greatly enhanced its position within the Transatlantic Division of Southern Glazer’s.
As participants in the division, Heaven Hill has the benefit of an entire SGWS sales force dedicated only to the distribution of Heaven Hill, Bacardi and Patron brand portfolios.
“This increased focus is extremely beneficial for us, as our products are, for the most part, complementary with that of Bacardi and Patron,” John said.
With our participation in the Transatlantic Division also came new ways of working between SGWS and Heaven Hill. Now, SGWS partners 50/50 with Heaven Hill on program incentives, and our sales team has realigned to focus on and interface directly with peer members of the SGWS Transatlantic team.
The Creation of Camp Hill
With the expanded relationship and new ways of working also came the need for a more collaborative sales programming process with SGWS.
“This process is a new way of bringing everyone together and formalizing our collaboration,” said Group Product Director Hannah Venhoff, who, together with John and Rob Rubinstein, led the development of a process to facilitate engagement from both companies.
In creating the new process, now called Camp Hill, Hannah and the team identified and leveraged opportunities for collaboration and engagement at all levels of both organizations, beginning at brand planning through the development of sales programming.
“Southern Glazer’s is known for being brand builders,” Hannah said. “We knew we would be remiss if we didn’t use their insight, knowledge and experience to build programs together.”
Since its inception, Camp Hill has driven phases of engagement across peer Heaven Hill and SGWS teams – from the senior leadership and Group Product Directors to national accounts and local sales teams.
FY22 Charge the Hill Planning Toolkit
As part of the Camp Hill process, our 2021 National Sales Meeting and SGWS Summit were both re-oriented to promote enhanced collaboration, with the distribution of the FY22 Charge the Hill Planning Toolkit to every summit participant.
Designed to include everything a member of the SGWS sales team would need to build, support and execute sales programming for the year, the sales manual/toolkit set the stage for the collaborative planning process to follow. It features a sales calendar, spotlights on individual brands’ strategy, marketing programs and key merchandising tools, the Charge the Hill “must do” off- and on-premise brand strategies, as well as shelf standards outlining favorable shelf management strategies.
The toolkit as well as the all-virtual format of our summit – which made it easier for more SGWS team members to attend – both garnered positive feedback from our major distributor partner.
Relationships Matter
In a discipline driven by relationships, Heaven Hill’s ability to connect with the SGWS team and build “buy-in” for sales programming is important now and for the future of this partnership, John said.
“It’s important that we emphasize – not only are we going to provide goals for you; we’re going to help you be successful,” he said. “If they perform well, then we perform well, so our goals run in conjunction with the sales programs and vice versa.”
Heaven Hill’s new, collaborative approach to planning sales programming is rooted in the belief that greater participation yields better results.
“One of our tasks as a supplier is to try and influence a distributor that is substantially larger, and with other supplier interests, in a positive way,” John says. “To do that, we have to be very prescriptive, thoughtful and planful.”
Some of the most common incentives focus on shelf management – getting our products competitively shelved, either adjacent to their brand family or to key competitive category products. Others might reward managers based on their team’s performance in brand placement.
The Future
While the team is satisfied with the launch of Camp Hill – especially in a year made more challenging by the global pandemic – Hannah says we are focused on continuous improvement. “With the introduction of each phase of our new collaborative effort, we’ve been able to learn and expand further on the great foundation that has been laid,” she said. “Just imagine what all we’ll be able to accomplish in the months and years ahead.”
For now, Sales and Marketing look forward to the completion of sales planning, which provides the foundation for the execution of brand programming at the broader level. “Our sales programming is truly where the rubber meets the road,” she said. “It’s where our brand strategies come to life.”
