Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams), gave a talk about sales at MIT today. At one point, someone asked him for how much would he sell Sam Adams to Anheuser-Busch. To paraphrase his answer, he said that he already eats three meals a day and being able to eat six meals a day adds no extra value and isn't interesting to him.
Jim's first experience as a beer salesman landed him on Washington Street, which apparently has no bars, and State Street, which also had no bars. Luckily, he eventually found a bar and made his first sale. The company currently has some 400 employees of which 240 are salesmen, 100 are brewers, and the rest do all the other things. They did not have anyone in marketing for the first 10 years of their existence. The lesson is sales, sales, SALES!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment