In an increasingly competitive beverage alcohol market, building a distilled spirits brand requires not only great products but also a robust sales strategy. The operational challenges of running a distillery and building brand recognition often leave limited bandwidth for effective sales efforts. Corning & Company offers a comprehensive solution, providing production, packaging, warehousing, and regulatory compliance services alongside a highly skilled brand sales team. This white paper explores how engaging Corning & Company’s end-to-end platform—especially its sales capabilities—can help brands overcome key challenges, enabling them to grow efficiently in the market.
Launching and scaling a distilled spirits brand involves navigating a complex mix of production, regulatory, and marketing hurdles. Success in this industry is not only determined by the quality of the product but also by how effectively the brand can reach consumers and retailers. Many emerging and small-to-medium-sized brands struggle to maintain a consistent sales presence, often lacking the resources to build an in-house sales team. Corning & Company’s platform includes an outsourced sales force, providing an expert team ready to connect brands with distributors, retailers, and consumers. This white paper outlines the benefits of engaging Corning & Company’s complete solution, with a particular focus on how its outsourced sales team helps brands overcome sales challenges and accelerate growth.
This white paper examines the inherent challenges of building and operating a distillery, contrasted with the benefits of leveraging an end-to-end solutions platform like Corning & Company, which offers production, packaging, and warehousing services tailored for beverage alcohol brands.
Capital-Intensive Setup and Maintenance
Running a distillery is capital-intensive, requiring significant investments in equipment, infrastructure, and ongoing operational costs. The financial demands of maintaining production quality and meeting compliance standards can often detract from the resources needed to support sales efforts.
Skilled Labor and Expertise Needs
Distillery operations require specialized expertise, from distillers to quality control and regulatory compliance professionals. Balancing these operational requirements with building and managing a sales force is challenging for many brand owners. A focus on production often means less time and resources for sales and distribution efforts.
Production Scalability
Scaling production to meet demand while maintaining product quality is difficult without the proper infrastructure. Brands must balance the risk of producing too much, leading to unsold inventory, or too little, causing stock shortages that could damage brand reputation. Scaling is not just about production but also about scaling market access and sales capabilities.
Access to Distribution Channels
Establishing and managing relationships with distributors and retailers is essential for growth but can be daunting for new brands. Many brands lack the industry connections or the ability to effectively navigate distribution channels. Securing retail space and distributor partnerships requires an experienced, dedicated sales team—a resource that small and emerging brands often do not have.
Building Brand Awareness
In a crowded market, standing out among established competitors requires continuous sales and marketing efforts. Emerging brands must overcome consumer inertia and compete for shelf space and visibility, making it critical to have a sales team that understands the market landscape and can advocate for the brand.
Cost of Building an In-House Sales Team
Hiring, training, and managing an in-house sales team is expensive, especially for small-to-medium-sized brands that are also navigating production costs. Many brands may not have the financial capacity to hire full-time sales representatives, making it harder to scale their presence in the market.
Corning & Company offers more than just production and packaging services—it provides an integrated, outsourced sales force tailored to the unique needs of spirits brands. This approach enables brands to scale production while simultaneously building a strong market presence.
Corning & Company’s outsourced sales team acts as an extension of the brand, bringing extensive industry knowledge and established relationships with distributors, retailers, and key market players. This team takes ownership of the sales process, ensuring that the brand’s products are effectively represented and placed in front of the right audience.
Established Industry Connections
With years of experience in the beverage alcohol industry, Corning & Company’s sales team has existing relationships with distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. This network dramatically reduces the time it takes for brands to get their products into distribution channels and onto shelves, bypassing the long lead times required to build these relationships from scratch.
Cost Efficiency and Flexibility
Hiring and maintaining an in-house sales team can be prohibitively expensive. Corning & Company’s outsourced model provides brands with a dedicated sales force without the fixed costs of salaries, benefits, and training. Brands pay only for the sales efforts they need, enabling them to scale sales capacity as the brand grows.
Market Strategy and Customization
The outsourced sales team works closely with the brand to understand its unique market positioning and goals. Whether a brand is focused on expanding regionally or breaking into national retail chains, Corning & Company tailors its sales strategy to align with the brand’s objectives, maximizing market impact.
While the sales team works to build market access, Corning & Company’s broader service platform ensures that operational needs are fully managed.
Production and Packaging
Corning & Company’s production capabilities allow brands to scale production quickly and efficiently, without needing to invest in their own facilities. With flexible production options, brands can test new products, launch limited editions, or scale up for mass-market releases, all while maintaining consistent quality.
Warehousing and Inventory Management
Warehousing services include storage for raw materials, work-in-progress spirits, and finished goods. Corning & Company also manages inventory on behalf of brands, reducing the need for significant investment in storage infrastructure and allowing brands to maintain optimal inventory levels based on real-time sales data.
Compliance and Regulatory Support
Compliance with federal and state alcohol regulations is a complex and ongoing process. Corning & Company provides regulatory support to ensure that all products meet the necessary legal standards, reducing the administrative burden on the brand and allowing them to focus on growth.
By outsourcing sales efforts and operational management to Corning & Company, brand owners are free to focus on core business functions, including brand building, marketing, and consumer engagement. This allows them to craft stronger brand narratives, create more meaningful connections with their target audience, and ultimately drive consumer demand.
A small-batch whiskey brand struggled to break into retail markets outside its home county due to limited sales capacity and lack of distributor relationships. By partnering with Corning & Company, the brand outsourced its sales efforts to an expert team that leveraged existing relationships to expand the brand into new regions. Simultaneously, Corning & Company managed production scale-up and compliance, allowing the brand to focus on consumer engagement and marketing.
A new gin brand aimed to launch nationally but did not have the resources to hire an in-house sales team. Corning & Company’s outsourced sales team built a strategic plan to enter key markets while managing production, packaging, and warehousing for the brand. This comprehensive approach allowed the brand to expand efficiently without overextending its financial and operational capacity.
Engaging Corning & Company’s outsourced sales team, along with its broader end-to-end services platform, is the ideal solution for small-to-medium-sized brands and emerging entrepreneurs in the distilled spirits market. This approach allows brands to grow without the heavy burden of managing production, compliance, and sales in-house. By leveraging Corning & Company’s established network, sales expertise, and operational capabilities, brands can accelerate their market presence and focus on long-term strategic growth.
Building a successful distilled spirits brand requires more than just a great product—it requires effective sales, distribution, and operational management. Corning & Company provides a holistic solution that not only manages production, packaging, and compliance but also delivers a highly skilled outsourced sales team. This end-to-end service enables brands to expand their market reach while minimizing operational burdens, creating a clear path to sustainable growth and profitability.
For brands looking to scale their market presence and improve sales performance, contact Corning & Company to learn more about how our outsourced sales team and end-to-end solutions can help you achieve your business goals.
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