I’m glad to help, just as so many others have helped me.

Only Rule = Get out there and make it happen for yourself!! The craft beer industry regenerated due to self starters. No pity party, no giving up, no whining, no excuses. Dedication, investment of time, money, self and energy is required.

7.27.10

Hi X -

Good to hear from you again – hope you are well and happy.

As a direct person, I’ll get right to it. Take it as firm help/tough love – since you asked, here’s my answer (again). If you don’t want to hear it, stop reading here.

I cut and pasted your original comment per this same request back in April with my suggestions at the time. What have you done about those suggestions? What kinds of inroads are you making per your own initiative? Who knows who you are due to you sticking out your hand, writing letters, making phone calls – persistently? Summed up = How are you marketing yourself, Cindy? It’s entirely up to you, not them.

I’m happy to be hired by you to help you market yourself when you can tell me what specifically you’ve done already and when you’re ready to put forth the dedicated effort to get out and go do it. I’m doing what I do because I am relentless. I chomped at my own bit and ran with it.

Your feet will be fully in the door when you do some of these things.

If you want to hire me to help you, let me know – be glad to be at your service for some coaching. Thanks Cindy – take good care.

Cheers -

Ginger

p.s. unpaid positions are still your choice

Jul 26, 2010

Message            Any ideas as to how I can break into the craft beer industry (not as a brewer)? I have this HUGE passion for craft beer, currently (writing position noted) and (second writing position noted) (unpaid position) on (url). I am chomping at the bit to get my feet in the door!!

Thanks!

Hi X – Hope all is well, good to hear from you. Put your passion to work – what have you done in the last week to try to infiltrate? Followed a brewer? Talked to a brewery about all the different things they have position wise? Volunteered with a brewery for a festival? (GABF is coming up again – perfect networking environ) Waste only happens without action. I know you can get into doing something you love per beer – don’t envy me; do something about it. I created WEB and there’s no reason a smart engaged person like you cannot find a good fit.  Consider this a gentle nudge. Stay in touch – let me know when you’ve made progress – or need another cheer session. Best, Ginger

4.25.10

New comment on your post #1297 “Back in Action”

Comment: I envy you, but in a good way, because I have a huge passion for craft beer and want to work in the industry sooooo badly. It’s a shame that I feel this passion is going to waste and passing me by because I can’t put it to use in a job setting like I would like to.

You go girl!!!

Good stuff begets growth – when people learn, they are the right kind of consumer and provide for growth, whatever your definition of growth is (not necessarily larger).

We’ve got lots of that – good stuff – that can help your brewery and beer business grow.

Want some ideas? Let’s start with just a few.

1. Focus groups, even thus far, from hundreds of women have yielded dozens of categories of information per marketing beer to women. Valuable and useful information.

WEB can help you grow your beer business

2. On premise expertise. Want to figure out how your taproom, pub, brewery, and restaurant crews can better and still responsibly sell more beer and brush up on their customer experience skills? WEB has that kind of knowledge for you.

3. Educational workshops and discussions. WEB has numerous ways to help open the conversation with your consumers, within your crew, as well as from consumers to staff and staff to consumers. They’re all related and all different. Know which one to do when.

4. Events execution. WEB works with you to customize events to best fit your goals, market share, vision, and budgets. Most importantly – WEB helps you get more women holding your beer in their hands, more often.

Need more reasons? Call me to talk about it. 515.450.7757.

This operator is standing by and the women are waiting.

This is what the stolen sign looks like

Yesterday Kate, my Women Enjoying Beer colleague, was running errands in Southern Oregon. She went in to transact a quick errand, and when she came out one of the magnetic signs on her car was gone.

I’m flattered that someone thinks it’s cool but theft is not the answer.

So – to whoever stole it, return it. If you see it and are not the thief, remove it from the car you see it on (as long as it’s not a dark green 4 door Jeep Wrangler or pale silvery blue Honda SRV), and call me at 515.450.7757. I’ll pay the postage to get it back.

Honestly. This makes me angry.

We should expect and get better from our neighbors and community memebrs.

Ironic that we went all over the country for the Home Free Tour (20K miles) and they made it all the way…now, in our own back yard, it gets stolen.

“I would appreciate your removing my email address from you[r] list as I live in Pittsburgh and I think I am on the other side of the world from you and your activities. But thank you anyway.”

Small world - from one coast to the other

Very good. Permission marketing dictates, as should our uncommon good sense, that we act appropriately on this (which I did immediately and from which this person originally asked to sign up).

What struck me was that it really is a small world, two coasts or borders of any country are only separated by miles and mindset.

Be a geek, not a snob, honor thy consumers requests in a timely fashion, small world or not.

Permission marketing is another big point for the female consumer. Ask them how they want to be communicate with and then do just that.

“But that’s so much work!”

Not really – in fact when you ask, they’re helping you figure out how they want to be reached and will be way more receptive.

See it as opportunity. Anytime there’s a conversation, there’s opportunity.

Open the doors that’re knock knock knocking…

Wouldn’t that be a dream channel for real life?

All value, all the time

Well, if you’re in the beer business, you can make this a reality and attract millions more consumers. Millions seems to lofty? Consider even dozens or hundreds more consumers would make a difference.

How? By properly courting the female consumer.

Let me tell you about value for the female consumer.

Value for women includes:

• Time value otherwise known as the experience. If they are going to take the time to do something, they want it to be worth while.
• Enjoyment value. They want the involvement to be enjoyable.
• Educational value. Women like to and want to learn. A better educated consumer is a great thing for the beer community too.
• Dollar value. Be it $8 for a six pack of canned beer they want or $22 for a dinner table bottle of special beer they want to share (like yummy Bruery Beers). Whatever the price tag, it’s not the low or high of the actual dollar – it’s how much it’s worth to them.

Value.

One of the top three things women consider in their relationship to beer. Drink that up.

What tools are in your tool box?

Adage from Sullivision: Tools left in the toolbox never built anything.

And, adding to that, unless you pick up the tools to build something new or repair something in need of attention, you’re never going to get anywhere.

For those of you in the beer business community – breweries, restaurants, vendors, suppliers, retailers, distributors – you’ll never go one step farther earning female market share unless you pick up the right tool to genuinely garner the female beer consumers’ attention. You don’t deserve it if you don’t use the right tools and you’ll certainly pay for it if you use the wrong tools.

How do you know which tools to use?

Ask women what they want, gather data from them, apply it properly. As a specialist, I can tell you that there are so many ill fated attempts to market to women because the lens is all wrong.

The lens has to be from the woman’s perspective; not from yours, no matter how smart you think you are (or actually are). And regardless of if you’re a women in the industry – being of the industry is different than being the consumer.

You’re not the woman, she is. Ask her, act on that information and you’ll both come out ahead.

Like Marti Barletta says, the first rule of marketing is to understand your market. The second? Understand your consumer.

Here, here!

A few unfamous beer enthusiasts hard at it

Let me tell you about a few unfamous beer enthusiasts.

1. Sue. She’s come to the Women Enjoying Beer meet ups from the beginning of the year, is a home brewer and truly loves beer. She loves engaging in it and with it, she loves meet up with other female beer enthusiasts, and has a great sense of humor. She’s very careful with her money AND she makes it a point to make all the events she can (so far she’s batting a thousand). I’m humbled and pleased. Thanks Sue.

2. Michele. She’s a beer lover and has a ready laugh. She’s sharp and spreads the word about good beer with lots of folks – don’t ask me to count how many people she brought to events last year. She also helped line up a very informative group abroad for me to talk with about beer. Suffice it to say she’s up for the Oscar for her participation. Thanks Michele.

3. Kim. She’s game to try different things, loves to experience new pairing of beer with foods, and generously hosts focus groups for the cause. She was one of the very first people I met when I moved via another fabulous friend and her arms were open in welcome. Suffice it to say a beer with Kim is always in order! Thanks Kim.

I could write columns on the incredible women who have gladly joined the fun, helped with the research, and in general opened their arms to beer. Especially since the exbeerience this time is focused around them. Not in a patronizing or ‘oh-isn’t-that’cute-she-likes-beer’ way. In the ‘hell-yea!-I-want-to-be-part-of-it’ way.

Invite them in. There are millions of women waiting to be included.

Look for more unfamous women beer enthusiasts in the future.

WWW raft trip on the Rogue

Whew! How life goes round and round…

Friday was a fabulous Oregon Hops Growers Association BBQ hosted by S S Steiner in Brooks, Oregon. I was lucky enough to get to go and met several hops growers and other beer community enthusiasts and supports. Good people all (great food too!).

From Sunday through Tuesday I’ll be on the Rogue River with White Water Warehouse on a signature Raft & Craft Trip.

Joy, Bob and I will be plotting more beer and rafting adventures for 2011. In the meantime, visit their site and get in touch with questions. A raft trip would be a fantastic way to celebrate and reward your staff, treat your friends, and in general enjoy a few of the wonderful things our country affords us.

Now, where’d I put that paddle…

Thank you for good press

A thank you today to several people and their media who have so graciously covered Women Enjoying Beer. They include:

• BrewPublic
• The Ashland Daily Tidings
• Mail Tribune
• Examiner.com
• Houston Chronicle
• Top Fermented

Surely there are more out there that I am omitting unintentionally.

Suffice it to say, good press is good press and the women of the world who enjoy beer and want to learn more about it want to thank you as well.

One reason to thoroughly coat your mouth when you taste your beer it because we have tastebuds all over our mouth – tongue, cheeks, back of the throat, and the roof of the mouth.

Larry and Don at Napa Smith

We recently had the pleasure of a tour and visit with Don Barkley, at Napa Smith, and I asked him about this. I asked him about how beer makers completely taste and swallow and wine makers taste and spit it out. (Napa Smith makes both quality beers and wines hence the question). More specifically I inquired about if and why beer should be swallowed when tasted vs. the traditional wine spitting out after a thorough mouth coat.

He shared that he believes that it’s important to swallow because the different flavors you get from beer will best include the swallowing of the beer for those flavor purposes. Said another way, you get different flavor experiences when you completely swallow your beer.

Never mind that attractive (to some) beer burp to re-experience it.

So be sure to really taste your beer. Let it coat your entire mouth and then enjoy the swallow. The whole experience involves from the tip of your lips to the drop down the gullet.