WOW, 8,516% in case sales growth in the first six months of the year, compared to 2007, that’s a pretty powerful number for our ShotPak™ brand of cocktails.
It is well documented that companies that continued to be aggressive in sales and marketing during economic downturns also made sure they stayed in sight and top of mind with their customers, consumers and prospects in order to be successful.
Our philosophy with the ShotPak™ brand has always been publicize, advertise or we perish! The next quarter we are placing more marketing dollars into initiatives that have direct and measurable numbers impact.
These resources are going into highly targeted tactics at both P.G.S. our machinery division and B.P.G., our beverage division. We are trying to generate demand for both products, through more support for the sales forces, providing strong leadership and additional promotions at trade shows, increased customer visits to the plant, supporting many charity events so we can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. This includes more use of online web tactics to explain and detail our products.
It has been reported by “B to B Magazine” that the web and e-mails etc. are far and away the most popular of the interactive tactics. However, these messages must reach end users who want news, otherwise the spam box is the final destination!
One of our ‘Big Numbers’ used in selling premade machinery is minimum waste at under 0.25%. This low figure gets immediate attention. Remember you buy the machine once and the premade pouches for the next 20 years. So minimum waste is the number that makes the sale.
With our ShotPak™ brand, one of the key numbers we mention is that if they want to stay one step ahead of the competition, they need proper pour control or a ShotPak™ pouch. This pouch is a fool proof, pour control system in place as soon as you introduce the pouch behind the bar. Zero loss, is the number that gets attention, compared to bar habits of over-pouring, to poor inventory control, to outright theft – that can drain bottom line profits. Remember the bar often represents 30% or more of the cost of doing business. As an example if you have 100 pouches in the bar, 30 are sold and 70 remain in inventory. No shrinkage with the pouch. Now that’s a nice number!
We should point out that another feature of the ShotPak™ cocktail pouches is they follow accurately their various recipes. Drink recipes are about a balance of ingredients. Remember 20% more alcohol does not make a drink better, just like 20% more salt will not improve your soup!
Now to energy, a pet subject of mine where another interesting number about energy usage is that solar and wind have been around a long time and they are not going to make a difference long term, if you think we have to consider them as an alternative source. So very close to zero input from these socially polite must support energy sources and of course corn ethanol is a fraud impressed on us by the politicians. Even if we used all the corn in the USA it would not add up to 4 million barrels of oil a day and many animals and humans would starve. We must think nuclear reactors to reduce our oil dependence on others and now the numbers will really count in our favor with this change.
Some ideas about both our machines and the ShotPak™ Brand. Based on the market place we now live in, we are under going brand reinvention, so we can continue to lead the market. Remember it is my philosophy and thus current strategy to get the ShotPak™ brand right and increase distribution in order to get more value as a multiple of cash flow. Only this way will we see the stock price increase above present levels.
Looking ahead we will continue to push our outstanding quality for both machinery and ShotPak™ brands. Our re-brand theme is as a purveyor of “quality products”. For the ShotPak™ brand we will continue to launch new cocktails, ensure distribution throughout the USA and in a 100 + countries and the state of the company will be in the numbers!
