Expert Topic Laura Lodge’s 5 Tips For Hiring A Brewery Consultant

By her own admission, Laura Lodge has had a “very interesting journey in the world of craft beer.” She started working for a Colorado beer distributorship owned by her brother, where she first did the books, collected invoices, and then moved on to loading trucks and handling supplier relations. When she left the company, she wrote a book called ‘Distribution Insight for the Craft Brewer,’ “because it had become apparent to me that there was no magical reason that brewers would know what we did and how to be a good partner.”

In 2001, Lodge founded the Big Beers, Belgians, and Barleywines festival in Vail. She now owns Customized Craft Beer Programs, which helps set up craft beer programs for hospitality companies, teaches server education, and runs beer dinners. She also co-founded StartABrewery, which helps bring together industry experts and those looking to start a brewery.

Lodge has some advice to share on when the time is right to consider hiring a consultant and how to go about it.

Tip 1: When Times Are Tough, Consultants Can Help

“The single most important message right now is that in hard times, you need guidance, and it is wise beyond wise to reach out for experience in guiding your business when times are tough,” Lodge says. This may seem counterintuitive in a time when craft brewers are so concerned with spending money. “Even though it seems like you should be trimming your budget, it seems like you should be spending less, it seems like you should be pulling back from anything optional, business guidance at this time when everything is so uncertain is absolutely critical,” she suggests. “So I would move consulting or however you want to frame that second voice, that second opinion, that checking in piece, whether you’re paying for it or not paying for it, I would move that from optional to mission critical.”

Tip 2: Know What You Don’t Know

“Every small business owner has skills of their own,” Lodge notes. “The hardest part is saying, ‘I know some, but do I know as much as I need to to be able to do this as well as I could?’” As a brewery and small business owner, you’re inundated everyday with more tasks than you could possibly perform and pulled in all directions. The issue becomes bandwidth and that’s where consultants can help, according to Lodge. “How many hours do I really have to do the thing I know how to do? But how do I do that and 45 other things also?” She suggests brewery owners take stock of their circumstances and ask engage in some personal reflection. “I think there’s a couple of benchmarks,” she suggests. “One is when I’m overwhelmed. Two is when I don’t really know all the things about an area. I might know enough to muddle through, but is muddling through the best practice, the best way to maximize this opportunity for you?

Tip 3: Take Care In Who You Hire

“First of all, I would vet the person or the topic that you really are looking for assistance with,” says Lodge. Check their website, call any references of people they’ve worked with, ask around about their reputation. “There are consultants out there who really don’t know much and are going to charge you a whole lot for nothing or lead you down a wrong path. I’m not sure which is worse. Lodge also has one iron clad rule. “I would never hire anyone without sitting down with them face to face,” she says. “Even if somebody is top notch in what they do, if you don’t have a good connection in terms of communication, and just feel like the person gets what you want to do, gets your dream, understands where you’re going, where you’ve been. I would look for somebody else. I think it’s really important to have that kind of synergy in terms of understanding and believing in what you’re doing.”

Tip 4: Use Your Consultants And Vendors To Deepen Your Bench

“Consultants can really open the door to other contacts, other suppliers, other vendors, other people who are best in class based on who they’ve worked with,” Lodge notes. “One of the things we always say is use your vendors as kind of low lying consultants. If you find somebody who’s really good at what they do, find out who else they know that’s really good at what they do. And you can develop a really good vendor network that way. Your best free-ish consultant is the person that you’re doing business with for other things.”

Tip 5: Managing The Relationship

“Relationships and business right now are challenging across the board,” Lodge notes. “I believe that it takes five times more effort and communication than it used to. My best advice is to make sure the communication is open, is clear, that you follow up with action items, that you follow up with business direction that you’ve concluded from your discussions. Restate it and send it in an email so it’s written, and everybody can take a look at it and say, ‘if this is not what you meant, if this is not what you intended, let’s talk again.’ So in order to work effectively with the consultant, I think you need to really reinforce that communication, really reinforce the message and the decision making as you go and make sure that you’re both on the same page.”

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