Meet Eric Gutenkauf | Chief Sales Guy, Craft Brand Management, LLC

We had the good fortune of connecting with Eric Gutenkauf and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Eric, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
“The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” This quote was on the wall of my high school locker room and it has been attributed to several great coaches like Vince Lombardi and Bobby Knight.

The habit, I guess, is doing my homework and really digging into the nuts and bolts of my clients’ businesses.

I tell my clients that growing their business is a long term proposition and that we need time to lay the foundation for our success by testing and adjusting strategies and tactics and spending a lot of time in the market learning what moves the needle. It takes 3-6 months to really change the trajectory of any business, and sometimes significantly longer.

It helps that I’m an early riser, I walk our Great Dane every morning, which gives me about 45 minutes of peace and quiet to think about the various brand strategies that I’m working on.

What should our readers know about your business?
I created Craft Brand Management at the start of 2023, so I could keep doing what I love…selling local beer to your neighborhood bar. The inflation of business costs in the post-COVID economy forced most breweries to cut back or completely eliminate their sales staff and rely on their distributor to sell all the beer and keep their business alive. After ten years working for various small brewers, I knew that this was a recipe for the demise of many life’s savings-sized entrepreneurial dreams.

So I started working as a fractional salesperson for breweries, and quickly distilleries, wineries and non-alcoholic beverage companies. After my first few clients, I started getting inquiries every few weeks, so I figured that I must be filling a need in the marketplace. One major challenge that I faced was managing expectations for clients, as everyone expects instant results, even if they are only paying 15-20% of the cost of a full-time sales employee.

I learned to communicate consistently with each of my clients…both the good news and the bad. Once I started working with a client I called their company “our” business, not “your” business, so they understood that I would nurture it like my own company.

My entire business is based on the goodwill that I built up servicing customers of every size and shape across Southern California for the last 12 years. These is an incredible amount of great beer available in LA, so you need to have a lot of solid relationships to keep getting the order.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
My wife Natalie is coming on the adventure as long as my out-of-town friends because she grew up in 80s and 90s Los Angeles and knows all of the cool under-the-radar spots. DAY 1: One thing that I love about LA metro, is that we are surrounded by National Forests, so we would definitely spend some time in the mountains. I really enjoy the canyons north of the 210 freeway, so we will get rid of any jet lag by hiking Muir Peak Loop in the Angeles National Forest; don’t miss the views from Inspiration Point and be sure to explore the old railway. Then we’ll crush some pints and sausages at Link N’ Hops in Atwater Village. Day 2: I love living in Long Beach because it has so many cool neighborhoods and a great nightlife, but it’s most underrated attraction is the Port of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Book a harbor tour by boat to really feel the scale of a container ship or hit the Saturday morning fish market (2AM-7AM, get there early for the good stuff). Time to fuel up at Long Beach Beer Lab with some pizza (with their proprietary sourdough crust), pinball and pints of their housemade brews and then head to Alex’s Bar for some great live music. Hopefully we can squeeze in a nightcap at Baby Gee Bar which was one of the Best New Bars in America in 2024. Day 3: We’ve neglected breakfast all week, so we’re heading to Spoke Bicycle Cafe to start the day, before grabbing some rental bikes to explore the LA River Trail. To quench our built up thirst, we’re headed downtown to the South Park area of downtown LA for a pint with Trevor and Cristina Ward at AudioGraph Beer Company.
Now we’re downtown and hungry so I would grab Aaron Rokjer, owner/distiller at Dead of Night Distillery and head to the venerable Far Bar for cocktails using Aaron’s innovative spirits. Far Bar owner Don Tahara, the godfather of Little Tokyo is a master of hospitality and will fill us up with fusion dishes like Pozole Ramen, Sake Braised Pork Tacos and Bacon Fried Rice. DAY 4: It’s time to get our hiking boots on again with a trip to Santiago Oaks Regional Park. This is a state park in north Orange County which connects through a trail system to the Cleveland National Forest. Throughout these trail systems we come across remnants of encampments and homesteads from Southern California’s earliest settlers…rusted farm equipment or old stone dams for storing water are common. After working up an appetite, we’re headed to Orange County’s largest brewery, Bottle Logic, for the ultimate selection of craft beer (from Logic Light at 4.2% abv to 17% abv barrel-aged stouts), and some smashburgers and garlic fries from The Viking Truck. Now that we’re recharged it’s off to the The Frida Cinema in downtown Santa Ana for some flicks, they often have film festivals and special presentations of classic movies. We’ll finish off the night a few doors down with cocktails on the 2nd floor patio at Native Son.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There is a huge informal community of adult beverage sales professionals in Los Angeles. Distributor sales reps and brand ambassadors who cross paths daily and know each other first by sight and eventually by name. We’re all competing for the same market share, but we still help each other get through the slow times and adjust to new assignments. Our industry is well known for short employment tenures, so we try to get along, realizing that we will all work together in some capacity over the years.

I prefer to be in the field rather than behind a desk, and I try to be a student of the marketplace. I’m always picking up tidbits of information or technique from other reps. Never stop learning.

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Image Credits
Natalie Gutenkauf