About Tapped In Sales and Strategy for Beer Distributors
Tapped In Podcast for Beverage Distributors that want to empower their sales team to drive business results. Hosted by Bud Dunn, Mikey Hall, and Ross Ackermann of VXP Tech.
129: Cents Per Case vs. Objectives: How Doll Distributing Rebuilt Rep Pay
15 tap handles after a full push with money, trips, and every incentive they could find. 150 handles in 60 days once the reps were paid on objectives instead. Gus Doll, owner partner at Doll Distributing, joins Bud, Mike, and Ross to walk through how a third-generation, four-state wholesaler moved its entire sales force off cents per case without losing the room.
Gus came back to the family business in 2023 after West Point and five years with the Army Rangers, and found a comp plan built in the 1980s. Volume was down, so incentives went up, and the reps did exactly what they were paid to do, which is how a German beer ends up on tap in a Mexican restaurant. The fix was not blaming the reps. It was putting the Doll family into the pay plan for the first time: 25 to 30 percent of rep pay tied to five company-level objectives.
Getting there meant cleaning up six locations with six ways of paying people, winning a unanimous partner vote, running two test months plus an extra training month, and having one Doll where the buck stopped when reps asked how they'd get paid.
If you're thinking about changing how your team gets paid in 2027, this one is for you.
29 Sept 2026
128: Route Owners vs. Route Renters: Which Reps Do You Have? (with the LaMonica sisters)
LaMonica Beverage cut finished product loss 86% in a year and replaced a PFP program that had not changed in years. Carly LaMonica and Jessie LaMonica Fletcher, third-generation owners in Rockford, Illinois, join us to walk through how they did it.
The honest part is what happened in between. They opened the GP numbers to their sales team, the reps got competitive, and the profitability results came fast. Then Carly went out on a market visit and did not like what she saw. The execution had slipped. So the pendulum swings back, and the fix is not returning to the old objective grind, it is tying supplier priorities into the program by route with real accountability behind them.
We also get into the operations side, where LaMonica does something almost nobody else does: they code close-to-code product on the way in, so they know who sent it back and who put it back out. That led to the 50% rule, and to 43 out-of-code SKUs in one account getting a manager written up alongside the rep.
Most reps rent their route. This one is about building a team that owns it.
Tapped In Sales is the podcast for beer distributors, by beer distributors. Questions for Carly and Jessie? Hit us up at info@vxptech.com and we will pass them along.
#BeerDistribution #SalesLeadership #Profitability
22 Sept 2026
127: Does the Guy Who Sells Toilets Trust His Reps More Than You Do?
Twenty five companies sell the exact same product TJ Tribell sells, at roughly the same price, with roughly the same service. He has no exclusive territory and no supplier protection. He is also up double digits nine years running in an industry that is flat.
His secret is the thing our industry keeps arguing about. Every rep sees the margin, all the way down to the counter guy. Every rep is paid on profit. Every rep can move a price without asking permission.
TJ runs sales for Aetna Supply, a family owned top ten plumbing and HVAC wholesaler. He has worked at distributors that hid profitability and distributors that show it, and he has strong opinions about which ones grew. When we raised the objection you have all heard, that reps cannot be trusted with profit, he laughed.
In this one we get into the banana question that ends that argument, the buy two get one mistake that cost two truckloads and gained a million dollar customer, negotiating margin back out of your suppliers, and why profit is always sitting in the uncomfortable.
Ross makes the point that stings most: beer's protected structure is comfortable, and comfort is a luxury TJ does not get.
Listen, learn, and enjoy what you do.
More at vxptech.com
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Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
11 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
9 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100
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YouTube
68
Engagement
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