NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
The Voice of Craft Brands
Mike Mullis, Lead Distiller, Manifest Distilling
All for one...
Why Manifest Distilling’s success goes to the team and its unity
PLUS: Over here You don’t say...
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VOL. 3 : ISSUE 6
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ALL FOR ONE... Why Manifest Distilling’s success goes to the team and its unity
IN EVERY ISSUE: 3 EDITOR’S NOTE Is your town the best for drinking beer?
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4 INSIGHTS Industry News
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OVER HERE Where are your most valuable website visitors coming from?
YOU DON’T SAY... 5 business strategy myths you need to stop believing now
editor’s note
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Is your town the best for drinking beer?
Quick: Which city is the best for drinking beer? Great question, right? So, who do you got? According to website SmartAsset’s fifth annual study of the best cities for beer drinkers, the Queen City (Cincinnati) gets this year’s honor. Why Cincinnati? Like any Cincinnati-based craft beer lover couldn’t tell you that it ranks within the top 25% of the study for all five metrics considered. In particular, the Queen City has top-20 rates for total number of breweries (30); breweries per 100,000 residents (approximately 10) and average number of beers per brewery (approximately 103). If you are going to drop down some money on your favorite one, the average price of a pint in Cincinnati is $4, a relatively affordable price. And if that is not enough, the variety of choices make the city a savory option for even the choosiest of beer lovers. To complete its list, the SmartAsset survey examined the total number of breweries, breweries per 100,000 residents, average number of beers per brewery, bars per 100,000 residents and the average price for a pint of domestic beer with the list of the top beer cities in America. In case you are curious (and we know that you are), the Top 10 include: 1. Cincinnati 2. St. Louis, Missouri 3. Asheville, North Carolina 4. Pittsburgh 5. Denver 6. Bend, Oregon 7. Madison, Wisconsin 8. Portland, Oregon 9. Missoula, Montana 10. Cleveland Other interesting findings include: Six of the cities that made last year’s top 10 did so again this year: Cincinnati, Ohio; Portland, Oregon; Asheville, North Carolina; Pittsburgh; Denver, Colorado and Bend, Oregon. And each of these cities do particularly well when it comes to the number of breweries per 100,000 residents and the variety of beers per brewery. In the grand scheme of things, western and midwestern cities are the place to be for beer drinkers. In the top 10, there are four cities in Western states (two of which are in Oregon) and four cities in Midwestern states (two of which are in Ohio). In addition, across the top 50, 19 cities are located in Western states and 15 in Midwestern states. You can see the report here. As we head into the extended holiday season, here’s to your craft beer brand and team having the very best in the new year ahead. Until then, cheers.
Michael J. Pallerino
In the grand scheme of things, western and midwestern cities are the place to be for beer drinkers. In the top 10, there are four cities in Western states (two of which are in Oregon) and four cities in Midwestern states (two of which are in Ohio).
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insights
3 social media trends
you need to know for 2020 Good craft beer brands know that you have to engage with the people who love your products. So being socially sound is key. As we head into 2020, Influence MarketingHub offers three social trends your brand should keep an eye on:
1. The Personalization Factor
Personalization is a trend you cannot ignore. Remember that customizing your message to your audience sits at the heart of community engagement. The key aspect where businesses and marketers are leveraging the personalization trend is in their delivery of social media ads. Social media platforms have started providing advanced targeting and customisation options for marketers. These let you show the right ads to the right people at the right times.
2. Social Media Communities
While this is not something new, it is something to embrace with more vigor. Social media communities are basically social groups created by brands to provide a networking platform for their customers. These are usually private groups that like-minded people can join to talk about their shared interests. Take Facebook Groups, which bring together existing and prospective customers to engage in a meaningful way. Craft brands also can utilize their social media communities to launch new products, seek customer feedback, and gain valuable customer insights.
3. Social Media as Customer Service
Social media has traditionally been a place for people to connect with their social networks and share photos and videos. Today, more brands are using it as a retail platform, a product discovery platform, and now, even a customer service channel. Many brands are starting to recognize social media networks as platforms for delivering customer service.
Branding Building 3.0 “ Being clear about brand values, and consistent in acting on them, should be at the heart of building any brand. Being transparent about why you do what you do is how brands build a customer base.” — Vicki Brakl, VP of integrated marketing at MNI Targeted Media, on why brand authenticity matters
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We’re No. 1 Survey lists the country’s best beer lovin’ towns Which city is the best for drinking beer? Great question, right? According to Website SmartAsset’s fifth annual study of the best cities for beer drinkers, the Queen City (Cincinnati) gets this year’s honor. The survey examined the total number of breweries, breweries per 100,000 residents, average number of beers per brewery, bars per 100,000 residents and the average price for a pint of domestic beer to come up with the list of the top beer cities in America. Here are the Top 10: 1. Cincinnati
6. Bend, Oregon
2. St. Louis, Missouri
7. Madison, Wisconsin
3. Asheville, North Carolina
8. Portland, Oregon
4. Pittsburgh
9. Missoula, Montana
5. Denver
10. Cleveland
Book Rec
Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others
By Robert Glazer
Does your business have limits? Are you ever tempted to break them? To inspire change in yourself and your team, you must break free from what’s holding you down. That is Robert Glazer’s strategy and he is sticking to it. In Elevate, Glazer reveals four life-changing principles—or capacities—that will allow you to overcome self-limiting beliefs, establish positive habits and find your “why.” As we look to elevate ourselves, we mean so much more than beating the competition. After all, our greatest competition is ourselves. Glazer believe we must find ways to consistently outperform ourselves and our own expectations. Glazer has built a career on accelerating productivity and careers. ELEVATE is based on his five foundational elements necessary for increasing our capacity: Finding Your Why, Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs, Setting Goals and Creating Accountability, Maintaining Health and Wellness, and Establishing Routine and Positive Habits. The key is elevating yourself beyond the edge of your current abilities. Challenge yourself, and the result will inspire others to rise along with you. It’s time to break free of your limits.
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The Voice of Craft Brands
All for one... Why Manifest Distilling’s success goes to the team and its unity
David Cohen, Head Distiller and President
Unity. If you are looking for the guiding principle driving the Manifest Distilling vision, that is where you will find it. When the Manifest team—David Cohen head distiller and president, partners Scott Kennelly, Trey Mills and Tom Johnson—talk about what continues to drive the Jacksonville, Florida spirit brand forward, they talk about each person’s contribution to the cause. Since joining forces in 2016, Cohen, Kennelly, Mills and Johnson have taken all the qualities of American craftsmanship—the grains, its network of co-ops across the country and those spirits, don’t forget the spirits—and turned Manifest Distilling into Jacksonville’s only organic distillery. Nestled in the revitalized downtown area near the baseball grounds and the Veterans Memorial Arena, Manifest continues to make it presence known in the spirits world. Cohen transitioned into the distillery business after spending years in film and publishing, even
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attending the highly touted brewing school “The Siebel Institute” in Chicago, where he became a fixture in distilleries around the Windy City and in Kentucky. Living on the fringes of his dream, he learned the distilling craft, eventually heading back home to Jacksonville to kick things off. With an eye for sourcing the best ingredients, he focused on creating an organic brand defined by high quality. To get an inside look at how the Manifest team creates its magic, CBAM sat down with Cohen, GM Jim Webb and lead distiller Mike Mullis (MM).
CBAM-MAG.COM
By Michael J. Pallerino
Give us a snapshot of today’s craft distilling market from your perspective.
DC: It is split between people trying to guess the next big thing and simultaneously trying to catch up with the current big thing. The other half are the purists, who have a very clear vision, deep sense of community and do it because it is their passion. JW: It really burgeoned about four years ago and is coalescing as the market becomes crowded with quality products. MM: Locally, we are seeing more and more distilleries opening, much along the lines of the space years ago. A scene is being created that will force us to all keep up our game. What’s great here in the north Florida market is that each local distillery has a unique personality.
levels of growth in our first year continue through our third year, due to an emerging cadre of fiercely loyal customers. We also welcomed the acceptance of craft into the major chains here in Florida. JW: The renewed presence of the reenergized Florida Craft Spirits Guild was a welcome addition to the marketplace here. MM: We released our first 100% rye mash bill, and we should have made more of it. Come back in two to four years when the next barrels are ready.
Jim Webb, General Manager
What are some of the trends you see shaping up for 2020?
DC: Carrying forward with the split analogy, one side pushing the envelope with flavored and ready to drink (RTD) beverages like spiked seltzer, peanut butter whiskey, and the other side, an evolving maturity of aged product that is now old enough to be competitive with the major national brands. JW: More and more quality craft products are hitting the market. The industry is maturing. MM: We are hitting our four-year mark, which is allowing us to release more aged products. We are also still experimenting with small batch releases. We released a small batch brandy last year that sold out almost overnight, so am looking forward to larger batches next year. We are also working on some single malt whiskey projects.
Were there any surprises this year?
DC: With respect to Manifest, we saw the same
What is the Manifest Distilling story from a brand perspective?
DC: There was extreme attention paid from the beginning to a perspective, through bottle and label production. This stems from strict brand guidelines, to an unrelenting quality control process. JW: Everyone who is involved with MD is both an employee as well as a brand ambassador. No joke, but we all have drunk the Kool aid and are in this passionately.
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Manifest Distilling
Walk us through your branding strategy.
DC: Consistency. Both in product design and product quality. Our strategy is very similar to our overall mission. Manifest embodies the belief that something can truly be created from nothing. And we are greater than the sum of our parts, which has shown through hospitality, consistency (again) and a desire to deliver a world-class product.
DC: Simple: Be authentic. People love a good story and want to know the people behind that story. A brand can only be as good as those elements. JW: It is all about relationships and making your customer feels that he or she is a personal and integral part of your brand. MM: We create a local product that is more so a quality product. Local gets us in the door, the quality keeps us there. And each batch we do is even better. I can’t wait to see what the next five years bring us.
Distillery cat, Ginny, named after our gin.
What is the one thing every craft spirit brand should be doing in the way of marketing?
DC: Be transparent. The consumer is savvier than ever and will ultimately see the truth behind any puffery. JW: Engaging locally, but always with an eye to expansion regionally. The rest will grow organically.
What’s the biggest issue today related to the marketing/sales side of the craft distilling business today?
DC: In Florida, it is draconian regulations preventing craft distilleries from building their brands by selling and engaging directly with the consumer. JW: We are pretty much the only industry that cannot sell its products directly to its consumers due to these post-prohibition era laws.
What is the secret to creating a branding story that your consumers can buy in to?
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“It is all about relationships and making your customer feel that he or she is a personal and integral part of your brand.” — Jim Webb, GM
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MM: Showcase local collaborations. When two local brands can work together, they both benefit far more than just working on islands.
What do you see as some of your biggest opportunities moving ahead?
DC: Deeper penetration into the Florida market outside of our home area here in Jacksonville, plus expansion into the Southeast region of the US. JW: Incorporating more events at our distillery over the last two years has driven customer engagement to new levels.
Manifest Distilling
MM: Getting our product out there to more people. We make a great product and getting that product into more markets is key. Three years ago, we were only producing a couple barrels of whiskey a month. Now we have multiplied that production and consumer response has been increasing.
What’s the biggest item on your to-do list right now?
JW: Getting through the holiday party and event season. MM: We are about to start the bottling of two new products, so balancing the time spent there with the regular day-to-day operations.
How does your tasting room space integrate into your branding/marketing strategies? July-Aug-2019.pdf
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JW: It is our direct customer focal point. Again, it goes back to brand guidelines.
Does music and/or other arts play a role in your overall brand strategies?
JW: We directly support several local charitable arts and cultural organizations. We have created unique artist series bottles for the Jacksonville Area Cultural Council, as well as for The Stage Fund, an organization supporting the performing arts. MM: Does our bi-annual Gin & Juice Party count? DC: We are always looking for ways to engage and give back to our community. We are local, and support many local arts and cultural organizations through events, direct product donations and collaborations.
12:46 PM
Random shots with the Manifest Distilling crew What’s the most rewarding part of your job? Jim Webb: Engaging with our customers. Mike Mills: I get to do what I love to do. I enjoy coming to work. It’s not really a job when you enjoy what you do and everyone around you.
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What was the best advice you ever received? David Cohen: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said: “Be a builder, not a cynic.”
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Webb: Give more than you take. What’s the best thing a customer ever said to you? Cohen: We hear a lot of “Thank you for what you do,” both from complimenting a product they have enjoyed, to hearing that we are making a difference in our community.
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social media
By Dalana Morse
Over here
Where are your most valuable website visitors coming from? The goal of online marketing is to drive as many visitors as possible to a given website. While this can be a worthwhile cause, it is also important to remember that not all website visitors are created equal. A certain subsection of your visitors will inherently be more interested in buying your product, contacting you, or just generally engaging with your website or brand in a productive way. These are the visitors that you want. So, where do they come from? Most websites will attract visitors in three different ways: 1. Referral: A visitor will come to the website by clicking on a link from a blog or another website. 2. Social: A visitor will come to the website through a social media platform such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. 3. Search: A visitor will come to the website by searching for a topic on a search engine and clicking through to your site. This is known organic search traffic. In order to decide where to focus the majority of your energy and marketing budget, it is always helpful to know which one of these three sources provides you with the most valuable website visitors. The answer will vary from one business or industry to the next, so you will need to look at your analytics to know for sure. You will want to find out which visitors: • Convert: Determine which source delivers visitors who will buy your product, download
your e-book or brochure, contact you, or whatever you decide is a "conversion" for your business. • Come Back: Check to see where your return visitors are coming from. Return visitors are much more likely to be interested in your business than visitors who visit once and never come back. • Spend Time on Your Site: Review which visitors are spending a lot of time on your website. Even if they are not converting immediately, at least they are spending time learning more about your company and are interested in what you are doing. After spending your time analyzing this data, one source of traffic will most likely stand out to you as the most valuable one to your business. For most companies, it is a good idea to focus the majority of your time, money and energy on this source in order to maximize your returns. Of course, you should continually reevaluate your data to see if anything needs to be changed over time.
Dalana Morse is the founder of DAM Media and Design, a boutique design and digital marketing firm located in Fort Worth, Texas. Dalana is a seasoned professional with a diverse background in marketing, web and media design, digital and social media marketing, and search engine optimization. Having served in marketing leadership roles for close to a decade, her experience spans both B2B and B2C industries including multifamily and single family real estate, electrical and utility technologies, and visual branding agencies. For more information, visit dalanamorse.com or dammediaanddesign.com
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Does your project have what it takes? Being the best takes a team effort.
In today's commercial construction industry, the successful new builds and renovated projects are the ones with every part of the team working in unison to deliver on time, under or on budget and in sync. From design, to engineering, to building and management, the best projects feature the best teams.
That's why Commercial Construction & Renovation is looking for your team. Our third annual “CCR Project Profile Awards ” will recognize the best-of-the-best construction projects from the top down with awards for New Construction Project and Renovation Project. To help select these special projects, we're building a special committee from our Editorial Advisory Board to pour through the nominations. After they select the projects, we'll identify winners in the following sectors:
• Retail • Restaurant • Hospitality • Federal
• Healthcare • Shopping Center • Multi-housing
So, how do you get your project nominated? Here’s what you need to give us:
Project title: _________________________________________________ Location: ____________________________________________________ Designer: ____________________________________________________ Contractor: __________________________________________________
Deadline to submit form: Feb15, 2020
Subcontractors:_______________________________________________ Number of square feet: _________________________________________ Year started: _________________________________________________ New or Renovation:____________________________________________ Completion date: ______________________________________________ Why this project should be nominated?____________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________
> Submit all images for award entries to: https://spaces.hightail.com/uplink/BOC
Send your nominations forms to David Corson, publisher, at davidc@ccr-mag.com.
myth busting
By Rich Horwath
You don’t say... 5 business strategy myths you need to stop believing now Pick a myth, any myth: Lightning never strikes the same place twice. It does. There is no gravity in space. There is (just less). Humans only use 10% of their brains. They use more. Which myths or half-truths have permeated your brand and what effect have they had on your business? Running a business on myths, flawed business principles and baseless assumptions creates needless confusion and a lack of strategic direction. A study of 10,000 senior executives showed that the most important leadership behavior critical to company success is strategic thinking at 97%. As good strategy is at the core of any organization’s success, it is important to understand the strategy myths that may be keeping your team from reaching greater levels of success.
For example, the sales team has different resources—time, talent and budget—than the marketing team or the IT team or the HR team. How they allocate those resources determines their real-world strategy. It is important to understand company, product and other functional group strategies to ensure that your strategies are in alignment. But their strategies are not a replacement for your strategies. Myth Buster — Identify the corporate strategies, product strategies, functional group strategies and your strategies, and seek alignment.
Strategy Myth #2: Strategy is a once-a-year process
Let's break down some of the more popular business myths:
Strategy Myth #1: Strategy comes from somebody else
“We get our strategy from the brand team/upper management.” This is a common refrain when managers in other functional areas are asked who develops strategy. It is also wrong. The strategy that you execute should be your own strategy. Why? Because each group’s resources are going to be different.
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In a recent webinar presented to more than 300 CEOs—“Is Your Organization Strategic?”—the question was posed, “How often do you and your team meet to update your strategies?” The percentage of CEOs who meet with their teams to assess and calibrate strategies more frequently than four times a year is only 16.9%, with nearly 50% saying once-ayear or, “we don’t meet at all to discuss strategy.” A study of more than 200 large companies showed that the No. 1 driver of revenue growth is the reallocation of resources throughout the year from underperforming areas to areas with greater potential. Strategy is the primary vehicle for making these vital resource reallocation decisions, but as the survey showed, most leaders aren’t putting themselves or their teams in a position to succeed. If strategy in your organization is an annual event, you will not achieve sustained success.
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It is important to understand the strategy myths that may be keeping your team from reaching greater levels of success. Myth Buster — Conduct a monthly strategy tuneup where groups at all levels meet for one to two hours to review and calibrate their strategies.
Strategy Myth #3: Execution of strategy is more important than the strategy itself
A landmark 25-year study of 750 bankruptcies showed that the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy was flawed strategy, not poor execution. You can have the most skilled driver and highest performance Ferrari in the world (great execution) but if you are driving that Ferrari on a road headed over a cliff (poor strategic direction)—you are finished. A sure sign of a needlessly myopic view is that everything is an “either or,” rather than allowing for “and.” Strategy and execution are both important, but make no mistake that all great businesses begin with an insightful strategy. Myth Buster — Take time to create differentiated strategy built on insights that lead to unique customer value and then shape an execution plan that includes roles, responsibilities, communication vehicles, time frames and metrics.
Strategy Myth #4: Strategy is about being better than the competition
Your products and services are not better than your competitors. Why? Because “better” is subjective. “Is our product better than the competitor’s product?” is the wrong question. The real question is, “How is our product different than the competitor’s product in ways that customers value?” Attempting to be better than the competition leads to a race of “best practices,” which results in competitive convergence. Doing the same things in the same ways as competitors, only trying to do
them a little faster or better, blurs the line of value between your company and competitors. Remember that competitive advantage is defined as “providing superior value to customers”—it is not “beating the competition by being better.” Myth Buster — Identify your differentiated value to specific customer groups by writing out your value proposition in one sentence.
Strategy Myth #5: Strategy is the same as mission, vision or goals
Since strategy is an abstract concept, it is often interchanged with the terms vision, mission and goals. How many times have you seen or heard a strategy that is “to be No. 1,” “to be the market leader,” or “to become the premier provider of …”? Mission is your current purpose and vision is your future purpose, or aspirational end-game. Goals are what you are trying to achieve and strategy is how you will allocate resources to achieve your goals. Misusing business terms on a regular basis is like a physicist randomly interchanging the chemical structures of elements from the Periodic Table. You can say that the chemical structure of hydrogen is the chemical structure for gold, but that doesn’t mean it is true. Starting with an inexact statement of strategy will derail all of the other aspects of your planning and turn your business into the equivalent of the grammar school volcano science project with reddyed vinegar and too much baking soda. Myth Buster — Clearly distinguish your goals, strategies, mission and vision from one another. If left unchecked, strategy myths can cause you and your business to fail. A ten-year study of 103 companies showed that the number one cause of business failure is bad strategy. Arm your team with the strategy myth busters and your business will soar higher than a pigeon with a belly full of uncooked rice.
Rich Horwath is a New York Times bestselling author on strategy, including his most recent book, “StrategyMan vs. The Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan.” He also is CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute, strategy facilitator, keynote speaker and creator of more than 200 resources on strategic thinking. To sign up for his free monthly newsletter, “Strategic Thinker,” visit StrategySkills.com.
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