Women Enjoying Beer (WEB) is an education based company that develops and serves the female beer consumers, starting with her first. WEB also works with professional beer community members to accurately and successfully market beer to women.
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May 21, 2013
Does your world need more labels? More identifiers? Do you want or need more delineation of what makes this such-and-such or so-and-so? Do you prefer to fly with fewer labels and definitions, preferring to define what it is that’s important within your own world and contexts?
I recently read a thought by a long-standing and well-respected (me included) brewery professional. The words were part of a longer sentences to the effect that “craft beer” does need to be defined and identifiable.
I disagree. Here’s why.
I’ve talked about labels and titles before. Starting with WEB, I know for a fact and from our qualitative research, that female labels and titles can be helpful or harmful. This is true with any category.
- Good: Women, females.
- Bad: Chicks, broads, babes, girls, vixen.
Any labels in any circumstance that is denigrating in any way, regardless of a closed (non public) audience or not can and will have an impact. When we name things, when we assign them labels and titles, we need to be super aware of this fact: it’s not about what you think is clever or appropriate. It’ll always be judged by others, who may or may not have a vested interest or concern in the name.
Do we have male groups using: Dicks, Dudes, Well-hung and other references to the person’s physical make up? I’ve yet to see one.
No, beer does not need other delineations. As it is there is a reverse snobbery that is growing in the beer world, specifically the line in the sand is using the ‘craft’ label to do so.
My take: Let it go. Beer is beer. Yes, I agree it matters to be transparent and to know where your beer came from. Just as it’s important to know where the pooch you acquired came from (for care reasons) or the milk in your fridge came from (health reasons), or the car or bicycle parts came from (quality, fair trade). There are way more important things to concern ourselves with per beer. Like the fact that almost all beer makers still don’t understand women make 75 – 85% of all purchases across categories AND there are many brands that are still using sexism and gender based marketing. How about we enlighten ourselves on the majority global population and beer first instead of getting too far ahead of ourselves.
At the beginning of the day until the end, it’s all beer. If you want to judge, do it privately and without admonition of others for enjoying what they want to, can and choose to imbibe.
Are these “craft” hops or not? Who cares….
So you know, it’s not without internal dialogue with myself and talking with others that I came to this decision on how I choose to define beer. A comment from another long-standing well-respected member of the professional side of beer threw my nascent thinking over the edge for the better. Stating that all things are ‘crafted’. I can happily live with that and stand behind that idea, over a definition that leaves out perfectly qualified products that others have deigned outcasts.
Some would argue that labels can help the reader and learner better quantify what it is that they’re pursuing. I’ll give you a tiny bit of head way here, though very tiny. Labels are only helpful if they define facts, not opinions or variably definable attributes and characteristics. The whole idea of education is to learn, proactively and actively seeking the increase your knowledge in your own way and through the methods that best resonate with you.
Putting a box around a definition of something like beer that is truly universal can only be limiting in a not so great way, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s all raise whatever glass of whatever beer we want to drink in context and be happy for it.
Recent Entries
May 20, 2013
As it relates to women and beer, here are 10 things that need to change for progress of women + beer together:
1. Focus on quality, not sex, to sell your beer brands.
2. Remove all sexualized images and sexually suggestive names and titles related to women and beer.
3. The assumption must be made that women enjoy beer. It’s about flavor.
4. Get rid of old, out of date, outmoded, and archaic thinking that women don’t enjoy beer.
5. Women must speak up more, more often, more loudly, in more places and in front of more people about what they think about beer. Men need to not tolerate it or encourage it either. Letting it go isn’t helpful – it’s damaging.
These two get it.
6. Educational opportunities must be created by breweries, distributors and retailers far and wide to educate female consumers.
7. These educational opportunities must be fully respectful, with no demeaning or inappropriate language (i.e. Girls Night Out), focusing on women as a market share to be reckoned with. And they are.
8. Full respect for beer, women, and men needs to be the mantra.
9. Everyone has a female they care about. This must transfer to women + beer.
10. Commensurate representation, with both women and men, needs to be part of the images, branding, and company make up of beer focused businesses and organizations.
Finally: It’s not about gender. It’s about opportunity. The goal is to have gender in relation to beer one day be a moot point.
What are you going to do about it right now?
May 19, 2013
- If you put together a top 10 list of favorite songs, what songs would be on it?
- What if you put together a list of your top 10 go-to foods?
- What ten places top your list for desired residence?
Now where would you fit on someone’s Top 10 list? And what kind of list would you want to be on?
Belle’s a Top 10 Napper
I find this idea intriguing: being on a top 10 list of some sort. What intrigues me is the reason I’d be on it – or the company. For me, what I do is who I am so it’s synonymous for me, though not perhaps for everyone else. Plus there are things I ‘do’ in my life that are outside women and beer (though I can tie any two concepts together…that’s for another time).
My dream lists include Top 10 Creative Thinkers, Top 10 Cook-from-the-hip Cooks, Top 10 Thought Leaders.
Then there are shorter lists like Top 1 Women + Beer Specialist and Top 2 Dog Companions (my husband is the other!).
For me the reason why I’m on the list is of more import than actually being included.
What lists would you like to be on?
Continued tomorrow…
May 18, 2013
We hear the word marketing bandied about everywhere. So do you know what marketing is, and what a marketer does?
The short answer is this: They’re listeners, advisors, and guides. Giving you the benefit of their skills, insight, intelligence, and expertise to assist with your success in reaching the designated target market you wish to sell to.
You have to be able to bring a product to the market and specifically to the market that will buy your goods. That’s marketing. And it’s not just a good thing, it’s essential.
A fitting marketer will help you have plenty of success.
A marketer is a huge part of successfully investigating a desired market location and researching bringing a product to that market. It can be a good or service of any sort. The market location can be specific geographically, for a brick and mortar store, or a virtual online location for global access.
No matter “where” you want to be, a marketer is the one who has the skills, expertise, acumen, and way of thinking to bring your ideas successfully to market. The AMA covers it well in this definition.
Women Enjoying Beer is a company with marketing services on the menu. We offer marketing services to widely varying clients. Already operating companies, companies in formation, private individuals who want guidance and expertise, and many others. We get a lot of free work requests as well, though they’re not “Please give me free work” direct requests. They come in the form of various asks: Can you just tell me…, Can I pick your brain…., Would you be willing to share some ideas…
In all these case the answer is Yes! of course we can help you. And you need to expect to pay for the high value input you desire, just as you expect high quality from your cheese monger and plumber.
Calling on marketing professionals that match your goals, style, and philosophy is a wise investment. Indeed, doing it right means you do it once. Getting it half way there with the wrong person…well, which half do you want?
May 17, 2013
It’s kind of like looking under the bed. What do you expect to find?
Work on making the monsters into dust bunnies.
May 16, 2013
This was a gem of a quote at a meeting I recently was invited to attend. The context was from an attendee telling a story from a parent perspective, addressing the off spring who we’re perhaps getting a little big for their shoes.
Do you ever forget who’s in charge? And when does that happen? Perhaps in a business interaction where you’ve forgotten the customer (while not always right) is always first. Putting someone first can make a lot of things right. Perhaps in a personal scenario when you’re so focused on making a point that you completely ignore others involved and their vantage point. And their point.
Who’s shoes?
It’s sometimes easy to get so wrapped up in what we do, think and want that we dismiss or unintentionally forego seeing the other pair of shoes: the customer. The customer can be a friend, client, family member, stranger and any other person involved in the situation.
It’s a mantra I frequently hammer: Always remember you are not your customer. It’s irrelevant if you’re a ‘consumer’ or a ‘professional.’ We’re all consumers to start with and we all have valid opinions. It’s how we deal with remembering this – or forgetting it – that matters.
So remember, look at who is in charge of the situation, who should be and then go forward from there. It’ll be a much more successful outcome when all shoes are considered.
May 15, 2013
This post goes out today with a nod to powerhouse, Loren Fogelman.
Your Four Talents:
1. Gifts – You possess these naturally, you love them and excel at them.
2. Areas of Excellence – People come to you for these skills, you can do them, yet they may bore you if done for any length of time.
3. Competencies – You’re good at these and you get bored quickly with them.
4. Incompetencies - You have no business doing these things.
Are your talents clear to you and others – or fuzzy?
I heard Loren talk about these as her guest at an NAPW meeting a few weeks back. Loren is impressive in her mastery of material, delivery, presence and projecting her energy forward.
So why am I sharing this with you today? I’d suggest you look at your 4 talents and how you exercise them, no matter who you are and what you are currently occupied with. Work, volunteer, retired and between ‘things’. Now’s a good time to either evaluate or re-examine what is it you’re using this one go round for.
I know I sometimes struggle with how to better budget my time. Balance is a myth and no one can have it all since “all” is different for every body. My talents are always up for examination; where and how I apply them equally so. In the process – and it’s perpetual – I learn more, get better at charging after things I want, letting go of things that are unproductive, and learning to be more graceful on the whole.
Sometimes it’s tougher than we’d like to get rid of a task or obligation that weighs us down. Sometimes it’s not in the cards at all. When you can play it out, it can be cathartic, truly empowering and invigorating.
The 4 Talents to me are groups of skills, characteristics, and abilities influenced by my beliefs, opinions, and thinkings.
It’s time to examine your 4 Talents. I’ll be doing my next personal review with fresh beer and nibbles close at hand. Care to join me?
May 14, 2013
Make absolutely sure that you’ve got the best website you can have. Before you Facebook, before you jump into Twitter, before you invest in the program of the local theatre/concert venue/stadium/school.
A well constructed and functional website that captures the core of what your business and organization is about is what matters most for any sort of advertising, marketing, and business tool. It’s replaced the hard copy published Yellow (and White) Pages of times past.
Please get past the “I have a neighbor/student/friend who is doing my website.” Really?! And what are you *hoping* for with that arrangement? You get what you pay for – and what you don’t pay for can bite you in a very uncomfortable physical location. Are you willing to allow this key ingredient in your success to be farmed out simply due to a relation? How about when things turn sour in the development? What then? Do you want people to hire you and buy your goods, professionally made? Then invest in the professionalism of others who specialize where you don’t.
Are your tools the right ones for communicating with your customers?
A professional is who you want. Interview a few companies that are capable, preferably based on referrals of people you trust, know and are successful. Choose one – of if none fit, then interview more till you find the fit. Yes, budgets vary greatly – I understand that. All the same, if you aren’t willing to budget for a site to begin with, what does the rest of your plan look like?
A well designed, thought out and executed website will be one of thee most important pieces to your business. Keeping in mind you may not think so. If you don’t think so, you need to get your head out of the sand and pay attention to your business as a potential customer would. I’ve actually had business owners tell me that their customers don’t really want a website; business is fine the way it is.
Wow – I feel sorry for the owner/manager. I feel even more sorry for the customers. How selfish to assume for them. Remember you are not your customer. They are the customer. And you must always look at your business and pursuits with them in mind, if you truly want to serve them.
That’s an extremely ignorant and arrogant way to think about your customers: to assume you know what they want without even asking them.
Do this instead: ask them how they want to be able to find you, learn more about you, share you forward with friends, and get the information they need about you to engage. That’s smart, big picture thinking, wise, and correct. It’s also respectful of the customers who help you buy your groceries and pay your bills.
Putting the horse (FB, Twitter, other online business tools) before the cart (website) will unquestionably confuse the horse (business strategy and staff) as well as those looking for the cart (customers and suppliers).
Keep the horse happy, keep the cart where it should be and start with a website first.
May 8, 2013
At what point do you determine a favorite? And what is it that makes it your favorite?
As it relates to beer, I hope you never find a favorite beer – and that you don’t ask other people what their favorite is. Here’s why.
Once you crack the gavel down on your favorite beer, you eliminate sweet justice and opportunity to give all following beers a fair shake. You’ve told yourself that it’s the ultimate beer for you and you won’t be swayed.
How sad. Sad that you’ve cut yourself off from new flavors and an open mind that will best serve your taste buds. Sad that you’re also going to be blathering this to anyone who might listen, thereby coloring their thinking. Sad because there are literally thousands and thousands of beer across the globe that would love to be given a chance.
Keep looking – never have a favorite
More than sad, I think it’s impossible to designate a favorite beer. Really? You’ve got a ‘favorite beer?’ How did you exactly come to that conclusion – and how long have you held that ridiculous belief?
It’s both impossible and ridiculous because beer is so contextual. Plus many of them are non-pasteurized, so they will literally change over any sort of time frame.
Do you have a favorite sauce or bread or soup? Beer is a category that’s so large and ever changing, it boggles my mind to even consider thinking about what beer would be my favorite if a gun was held to my head and I was forced to choose.
Enjoying beer as well as drinking beer (two different things) will be directly impacted by many factors among them place, freshness, availability, mood, ambient temperature, company, and service vessel. To assume that the ‘favorite beer’ will be the same in every time, place and situation is terribly ignorant.
I used to hate this question when it was asked of me. Now I relish it when someone asks me “what’s your favorite beer?” I’ve long stated “the one in front of me.” My good and beer savvy friend Lisa says “the next one.” I also like “the one that’s fresh,” “the one you buy me,” “what ever you’re pouring,” and “what’s available.”
Why limit yourself to a “favorite” when time, opportunity and accessibility perpetually change. As do our taste buds and preferences as we learn and age.
Give yourself a home taste-bud advantage: make your favorite beer the one you’re enjoying right now. The same goes with each one after that, wherever you may be and what ever you may be drinking.
May 2, 2013
If you’re one of those folks who say ” I’m really not into giving out business cards,”, “I don’t need to have an email signature,” “a Facebook page isn’t what I want to do,” you need to re-examine why you’re in business.
I got this in an email this week, which inspired the post:
“I’ve never been a fan of email signatures, or titles on business cards for that matter, but perhaps there is some merit to what you say and I will certainly take a look at it.”
I had suggested this person utilize an email signature (credibility and professionalism). Your business is not about you.
Frankly we’re all selling something. And happily we’re all selling something. The adage is still around because it’s ever so true. If you’re a parent and want your child to do well, you’re selling your family and yourself and your kid at a parent teacher conference. If you’re a public servant you’re selling the idea that the municipality wants to serve the populace. If you’re a brewery you’re selling the idea that your beer is the one people should enjoy. If you’re a consumer of any goods you’re selling the idea your business and patronage is valuable.
Do you know what your customers want from you?
Indeed. We’re all selling. And I think it’s not only good to acknowledge that fact, it’s something to embrace, and constantly strive to improve.
Selling isn’t the same as being pushing, inauthentic, or slippery. It’s about sharing an idea that you can’t stand not to share. It’s about the concept of your idea bringing people a better quality of life, improving their surroundings, helping the earth, making them more healthy and in general making your good/service/product something that the consumers will indeed benefit from.
In the beer arena, selling the idea of beer is the first step. Before you get to brand, it’s about beer. All beer. Yesterday I started to initiate the idea to quash the idea of delineating and segmenting beer. We don’t need more segmentation in the world; we need more coming together. (Angelo’s right: Beer Snobbery Be Gone. In all shapes and sizes, from all directions and voices.)
Women Enjoying Beer does that everyday. The business isn’t about women – and it’s not necessarily about beer. It’s about opportunity. The inviting of those who’ve been previously uninvited, overlooked, dismissed, or devalued to the table to be part of the conversation. Like Sheryl would say, it’s about leaning in. More importantly, what we do is invite people to proactively lean in.
You’re selling something. What is it? How do you do it? And do you always keep your eye on ‘them’, your consumers and customers? What are you doing to serve them?
It’s also again precisely why WEB exists: to help you take a look inside, from the outside you don’t see. Whether you’re a consumer, a professional (who is still a consumer) or a combination of the two, you’re selling your idea, beliefs, thoughts, and ideas. Make sure you approach the sales therein with an eye on the end consumer.
