How the team won back half the gap
Coastline's sales team started Q3 ahead, was on pace to finish about 1,710 cases short by mid-August, won back about half of that, and finished at 98.5% of goal. Here's the quarter month by month, told from what the accounts bought, the visits the reps logged, and what they heard in the field.
Sample data · Coastline is a demo breweryThe two-and-a-half-minute overview. The page below is the full story.
The sales say what happened. The visits say where the team spent its time. The notes usually say why. This page puts the three together.
The Q3 goal was 59,400 cases, about 16% over the same quarter last year, with active placements to grow from 1,789 to 1,970. Three priorities sat on top: chain shelves at 95% of authorized items, the core brands (Tideline, Marine Layer and Breaker) in more independent stores, and every draft handle held.
Sam Coast runs sales with two managers. Nina Castillo's Central Coast team (Hannah in Santa Barbara, Luis in San Luis Obispo, Devin in Ventura) sells through Sandcrest. Jordan Reyes's North & Valley team sells through Fogharbor Beverage on the Monterey coast, where Maya works, and through Tulefield Distributing inland, where Cody does.
Most of the quarter's trouble lived in the gaps. Between visits, a regular stops ordering or a bar rotates a handle off. Between the brewery and its distributors, a delivery comes a day late, or a store's set gets reset without the beer.
Ahead in early July, behind from late July, and back to 98.5% by the end
Cases to date as a share of the goal to date, with the goal spread across the weeks the way last year's sales fell. Visits each week underneath.
Coastline sample data · depletions and logged visits · weeks run Monday to Sunday; the first week starts July 1 and the last runs September 21 to 30
How the quarter went
A strong start, with one soft spot
July came in at 20,281 cases, 98.3% of the month's goal and 13.6% over last July. It brought 53 new placements and 17 new accounts, the most of any month. Hannah finished July at 102.2% of the month's goal and Cody at 103.2%.
The soft spot was on the coast. Maya's Monterey territory finished July at 92.5% of its goal, and Fogharbor's sales there ran -6.3% against last July. Maya's notes started saying why before the totals did.
At the August 4 review, Sam set two priorities for August: win back the regulars who had gone quiet, and fix the chain shelves in North & Valley.
The slip
August came in at 97.7% of goal, and by the middle of the month the quarter looked worse than the month did. The Spotlight on August 17 showed the team on pace for 57,690 cases, about 1,710 short. Hannah's pace had dropped from 102.5% of goal at the end of July to 96.8%, and Cody's from 103.6% to 99.4%. Maya was about 1,040 cases short.
Two priorities slipped with it. Draft handles held steady fell from 86.5% of bars to 79.5%, and chain compliance from 92.4% to 89.4%, lowest on Jordan's team at 85.5%. Fogharbor ran -8.8% against last August, and 17 of Maya's notes over the quarter came back to Fogharbor, 6 of them to a driver shortage.
The response was a short list every Monday. In the week of August 10, the reps got 93 accounts worth a stop, marked 40 done, and 27 of those accounts ordered in the days after.
The push back
September was the best month of the quarter: 99.8% of goal and 15.3% over last September. Luis came in at 108.9% of the month's goal and Cody at 107.3%, after an August at 96.2%.
Across the quarter, 35 regulars that had gone quiet ordered again after a list visit, worth 1,580 cases from August 17 on. Sam's September resets with Jordan's team lifted chain compliance to 93.0% (Jordan's team from 85.5% to 92.3%), and draft handles came back to 85.0%. Monterey didn't turn: Fogharbor ran -11.8% against last September.
The weekly lists
Each Monday, every rep got the accounts worth a stop that week. What happened to them.
7 weeks, 536 list items, 264 marked done · "handled" means someone else already took care of it
The priorities and the people
Close on all four, short on all four
Each priority from where it started, through August 16, to the end of September, against its goal. The August dip in chains and draft handles came back in September; core brands and placements grew steadily but not quite far enough.
Hollow dot = July 1 · grey = August 16 · dark = September 30 · tick = goal. Chains: authorized items shipping in the last 90 days. Core brands: carried at independent stores. Draft: bars pouring steadily. Placements: account and brand with a sale in the last 90 days.
Five quarters inside one
Luis finished at 104.8% of goal, the best of the quarter. Cody came back from a soft August to 101.9%, and Hannah finished at 100.3%. Devin ended at 94.8%, with September the best of Devin's three months. Maya's Monterey territory finished furthest off, at 90.0%. By team, Nina's finished at 100.0% and Jordan's at 96.0%.
Each rep's quarter against goal
Bar = Q3 cases, tick = goal; blue is ahead of goal and orange behind, deeper the further off. The line under each shows the pace at the end of July and on August 16.
What the reps heard
Every note the reps left this quarter. Filter by rep, month or what the note is about.
The quarter in total
The team finished at 58,523 cases, 98.5% of goal and 13.9% over last year, about 877 cases short. From the August 16 pace to the finish, it made up 833 cases. Here's where they came from.
Each row is cases from August 17 to September 30 against the August 16 pace; the rows add to the change.
What we learned, in one place
Where to hunt in Q4
Last year, these same accounts bought 39,421 cases in Q4, about 23% less than in Q3, so a lighter quarter is normal. Across the team, the open space is 24 draft handles to win back, 22 regulars still quiet, 22 chain items not shipping, and 104 independent stores missing a core brand. Pick a rep for their list.
From the same accounts, as of September 30. Impact is a typical week for that account once it's fixed.
Sample data. Coastline is CCA's demo brewery: the accounts, reps and notes are generated, and everything through August 16 matches the other Coastline demos. Sources in the demo: distributor depletions, CRM visits, rep notes and chain authorization files. A visit is often logged the day an order is placed, so this page doesn't treat a visit as the cause of a sale.