#150 - Field Sales Part 1: Sean Lynch, Halfday & Liquid Death
The Startup CPG Podcast
Startup CPG
4.9 • 642 Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2024
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join Daniel Scharff in this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast as he dives deep into beverage with Sean Lynch, known as the head of sales during the blast off years at Liquid Death and now President at Halfday. Daniel and Sean have a discussion focused on the growth of sales at Liquid Death especially around the field sales team responsible for so much of its success.
Sean also emphasizes the strategic importance of hiring team members aligned with brand values and reflects on his experiences with trade show strategies that drive business growth.
This episode is sponsored by SimplyDepo. SimplyDepo is a super sales and merchandising platform designed to help emerging brands win independent stores. Powered by technology, they help you find potential customers, digitize all ordering and merchandising activities, and get all the store insights you need to scale your business. If you are looking for solid management support to scale, visit https://get.simplydepo.com/startupcpg/
Listen in as they share about:
- Halfday Iced Tea's Brand Story and Products
- Sean's Experience at Liquid Death
- Sales Strategy and Execution
- DSD Network Building
- Team Structure and Roles
- Management and Verification
- Hiring and Team Culture
- Trade Shows and Exhibitions
- Advice for Early-Stage Brands
- Tactical Advice for In-Store Success
Episode Links:
Halfday Website
Liquid Death Website
Sean Lynch LinkedIn
Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.
Show Links:
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- Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
- Episode music by Super Fantastics
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey listeners, many brands have their own field sales team. If your brand does, this message is for you. |
| 0:08.3 | Are you looking to improve the efficiency of your field sales reps and have more transparency in the field sales and merchandising of your product? |
| 0:16.5 | Wouldn't you love to keep and manage all the data in one place while juggling all the different orders, customers, and deliveries? |
| 0:23.6 | Our partners at Simply Depot are here to help. |
| 0:27.6 | Simply Depot is a super sales and merchandising platform designed to help emerging brands win independent stores. |
| 0:34.6 | Their technology helps you find potential customers. It digitizes all |
| 0:39.3 | ordering and merchandising activities, and it gets all the store insights you need to scale your |
| 0:44.6 | business. To learn more, email info at simplydepo.com or visit them on the web, simplydepo.com. That's |
| 0:53.7 | D-E-P-O or check the link in the show notes. |
| 0:58.9 | Be sure to mention the Startup CPG podcast. |
| 1:22.2 | Thank you. You have to understand that the DSD world, especially if you go into one of the bigs, whether it's like Coke, Pepsi, KDP, and as a Bush course, you have to understand the markets that you're launching in. |
| 1:29.1 | You also have to understand that these folks are as an emerging brand or a partner brand. |
| 1:33.7 | You have to understand where their heads are at, alignment with those teams. |
| 1:36.8 | And so it's really critical that you understand any of their portfolio, their way of working, |
| 1:41.8 | be that you have some momentum in line of sight that you can actually create a market for them because you can go in there and they're going to ask a lot. |
| 1:48.6 | A lot of these folks, you may think that the job's done when you signed an agreement with a DSD partner, but if you don't have a strong presence within a market and you're aligned with that internal sales organization and team, it's going to be frustrating for them, but most importantly, it's going to be frustrating for you |
| 2:02.9 | because you're just going to lose time. |
| 2:08.8 | Hello, CPGers, a wonderful welcome to all of you, and I'm so excited for you to hear today |
| 2:13.3 | from an absolute legend. |
| 2:14.8 | It's Sean Lynch. |
| 2:15.9 | After a four-year stint leading sales at Liquid |
| 2:18.1 | Death, he recently joined Half Day Ice Tea this February as president. I wanted you to hear |
... |
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