The Challenge

Sales in Death Spiral and Covid-19 

By the time Ramona was in its third year of business, sales had waned considerably. By January of 2019 sales had dropped more than 85% due to a lack of sales leadership, cash constraints and lackluster performance via Ramon’s distribution network. With large volumes of inventory sitting in warehouses and potential coding out in the coming months the pressure was high to find a way to accelerate sales, deplete aging product and pave the way for successful year and fund raise.

The Solution 

Outsourced Sales and Sales Operations

Ramona hired Venice Made to run Sales and Sales Operations in June of 2020. Once on board it was critical to understand sales velocities, challenges within the distribution network and true opportunity within the active customer base. Due to Covid, the vast majority of the Ramona sales network had collapsed. Beer, Wine and Liquor distribution within on premise venues had all but disappeared and distribution sales staff furloughed. Our first key step was to do a deep dive into all active accounts and determine if any or all may be available to push out new inventory. For any and all retail accounts where Ramona had been approved but had voided out, we began to activate. 

Distribution Partnership Repair 

As a national brand, Ramona had more than 37 distribution partners. None were meeting sales goals and very few had had communication with Ramona for more than 12 months. One by one, we conducted training, refreshed go to market collateral and sales decks, product positioning relevant to key retailers and in store merchandising tags, POS collateral and display containers. For distributors who were not well positioned to support Ramona for retail sales we shifted to new partners, created renewed interest, enthusiasm and momentum. 

Dial, Dial, Dial 

A key component of Covid consumer behavior shifts were both a larger percentage of grocery spend on wine and alcohol and take-out meals with alcohol or liquor included. Venice Made deployed a team of 7 direct sales reps to hit the phones. We worked hand in hand with distribution sales reps to bridge gaps on resources and time. Venice Made developed a deep CRM to capture both distribution and retail network customers. 

The Results 

• Within 4 months of engagement, Venice Made placed Ramona on 891 new shelves.

• Sales spiked by 483%.

• With the incremental growth at such rapid pace, Ramona was able to begin to build out a Direct-to-Consumer sales platform which would support a broader brand awareness effort and continue to expand sales and success.