Building the Perfect Relationship with Your Beer Vendors by Danny Flad

Managing the inventory and cost control for beer at a busy bar or restaurant can be a daunting task indeed.  You must keep costs down and sales high while making sure you don’t run out of product or have too much on hand.  One key element to accomplishing these tasks is to have a good relationship with your beer vendors.  They are the lifeline for beer entering your establishment and can offer many services to help your bar become a more successful enterprise.  Here are a few tips for making your relationship with your beer vendors perfect.

1. Let your beer vendor focus on their job, not yours: If you find yourself relying on your delivery person or sales associate to tell you how much beer you have, how much beer you need, what brands are popular, and how fresh your beer is, you are failing as a bar manager.  A good bar manager has his or her finger on the pulse when it comes to beer in their bar or restaurant.  They should be conducting a weekly inventory and know exactly how much product they have and how much they will need until their next delivery.   They should have strict control over where their beer is stored and how it is properly rotated to ensure that the freshest product is served first.  While delivery persons and sales associates can be helpful in achieving these goals, they should never be relied upon to be the only person monitoring them.  As a bar manager, you should form the strongest relationships with the vendors who do the best at their job, not your job.  Good distributors deliver their product on time in a friendly and courteous manner.  Good sales people impart product knowledge to you and your staff and provide you with the support and materials you need to successfully promote your products.  If you are ignoring companies that do these things well simply because another company saves you the trouble of doing your own order or rotating your own product than you are simply a lazy manager.

2. Try out a case of any new product: When a beer vendor comes to you with a new product, try out a case.  Vendors get bonuses and promotions based on how many placements of a new product they can get during its debut.  By helping them out, you are building a relationship of trust and ensuring that they will be much more likely to help you out in a pinch.  If you’ve ever called for an emergency delivery and gotten a voice mail message, you’re probably not the one who’s been helping out your vendors with new products.  It’s okay to say no if you’re sure that the product is an absolute dud and won’t sell, but every now and then, throw your vendor a bone.  If the product doesn’t sell, mark it down and get rid of it.  If it’s a big hit, keep it in stock.  If marking down one case of beer is enough to grossly upset your bar costs, lock the doors, close the bar, and start a new business; this one’s obviously a failure.

3. Be a courteous customer: You can hardly ever walk behind the scenes in a restaurant without hearing someone rant about the last idiot they had to serve.  Waiters, bartenders, and managers alike love to complain about customers who don’t know what they want and are clueless as to how to order properly.  At many bars and restaurants, however, when the beer vendor shows up, you guessed it, nobody knows what beer they carry, no one knows what to order, how much anything costs or where the check book is.  As a bar manager, you and your staff should extend the same courtesy and basic knowledge towards your vendors that you would so like to see from your own customers.  It’s not hard.  A beer vendor needs to know what time to be there, what to bring, where to put it, and how to get it paid for.  If you and your bar staff can’t accomplish this, spend a little time working out a system to do so.

4. Be a trigger-puller: When a decision needs to be made regarding your vendors, make it!  Do you need to add a few kegs for a busy weekend?  Will you give a new product a try?  Do you have to preside over a host of endless meetings and a polling of the staff to answer basic questions like these?   If so, your establishment is probably always behind when it comes to the next big thing and you are probably constantly changing your orders or asking for special deliveries because no one could make up their mind.  When it comes to placing an order or adding a new product, the worst decision is none at all.  Even when the answer is no, vendors love a trigger-puller.  If you have a reputation for being decisive, vendors will want to work with you because they can get an answer swiftly and move on to the next account.

5. Let your vendors know who’s in control: Always maintain control over your vendors’ actions.  Given enough leeway, aggressive vendors will cover your establishment with tacky posters, rip down other vendor’s promotional materials, and force their own oversized deliveries into your beer cooler.  As a bar manager, it is important to let your vendors know that every action they take in your establishment must be authorized by you.  Often times, vendors will try to railroad you by going to the staff or above your head for decisions concerning the bar.  They will also drop off deliveries without your approval by getting unauthorized people to sign for them.  When this happens you cannot simply post a passive aggressive note labeled “beer guys,” in the cooler.  You must confront the vendor in question directly and make perfectly clear to them that you are the one in charge and that you will be making all decisions concerning the bar.  If similar behavior continues, confront the vendor again and force them to put you in contact with their supervisor.  Once in touch with the supervisor, explain to them that this is their last chance to stop this behavior before their products are no longer welcome in your establishment.

If you practice these tips, chances are you will feel much more in control of the beer in your bar or restaurant and you will find that you have developed a new found respect amongst your beer vendors and coworkers alike.  Remember to be decisive, courteous, and open to new ideas, but above all, never let anyone try to circumnavigate your authority.