Should I just make another joint business plan?
If your sales team aren’t in the pockets of UK route to market partners, then you’re fighting a bigger army than you think. Don’t judge your competitors’ appetite by the size of their internal team, but how they stimulate and engage the supply chain. Don’t get caught napping on this one.
The short answer
The best supplier-wholesaler partnerships operate as a connected sales team. They win accounts for each other, share a pipeline and become a flywheel for mutual growth. In 2026, LWC will have over 200 sales professionals in the on-trade across the country. I have seen first-hand how brands see stock move from the depot floor to the cellar at a greater pace when they invest in these relationships.
Key takeaways
- Treat wholesaler account managers as an extension of the brand’s sales team.
- Use customer, pouring and rate-of-sale data to target accounts surgically.
- Give account managers a compelling reason to recommend.
- Share opportunities through a visible pipeline.
- Celebrate and reward meaningful outcomes such as listings or introductions.
- Create new sales opportunities for the wholesaler across adjacent categories.
- The value of winning a new customer to a wholesaler than to a brand is significantly greater. Use this.
The commercial context
Many supplier to wholesaler relationships remain transactional. The supplier negotiates terms, secures distribution, drives into the market with a field team and waits for orders. The wholesaler is expected to move the product through its network. However, a lot more goes on under the hood. Wholesaler account managers decide which opportunities receive attention, which products are recommended and how commercial stories filter to the operator. They may represent thousands of products across numerous categories, often while managing demanding customer portfolios. If a supplier wants its brand to win, it must do more than make the product available. It must make the opportunity clear and commercially valuable to the people responsible for selling it.
How suppliers turn wholesalers into an extension of their sales team
Treat wholesalers as gatekeepers, not wheels
The best suppliers recognise this influence. They work to become a valuable partner to the wholesaler’s commercial team, not simply another brand requesting distribution and sales support. That starts by understanding the priorities of both the wholesaler and its account managers. A successful programme must help the wholesaler grow its business, strengthen customer relationships or improve the value of its accounts. If the proposition only benefits the supplier or is too broad, it is unlikely to receive sustained attention.
Equip account managers to sell the opportunity
Wholesaler account managers should be treated as an extension of the supplier’s sales team. They need more than a product presentation and a list of brand credentials. They need to know three key things, in order:
- What’s in it for them
- What’s in it for their customer
- Why the product is relevant
Direct incentives can help create immediate engagement, while account-level incentives can align teams around shared commercial targets. A listing may be the first objective, but activation, repeat orders and sustained rate of sale provide much stronger evidence of success. We all prefer to be on the bar for a long time, not a short one.
Start with the pouring list
The supplier should understand the market before asking the wholesaler’s sales team to act. Where access permits, this begins with a brand side compiling a prospect and assumed current pouring list. You then check this with your RTM partner. This is how you confirm where your brand is already stocked, overlapping pipeline opportunities and often, competitor insight.
This final confirmed list will often include:
- Accounts your brand is pouring in
- Volume by account
- High volume accounts in your category
This turns a broad sales drive into a more focused commercial plan.
Where can we win?
Priority accounts might include venues where:
- The wholesale account manager relationship is strongest
- A competing brand with poor commercials has a strong established rate of sale
- The category is performing but the supplier is underrepresented
- There is a brand fit and new listing activation plan
The objective is to identify the accounts where the product has the strongest right to win.
Generate demand for the wholesaler
The supplier should not place the entire burden of lead generation on the wholesaler’s account managers. Field teams and trade media can identify and engage relevant operators, sometimes you may also win business for the operator in the process. This is essential, as a new account for a composite distributor has a far greater CLV than a supplier to venue relationship.
These enquiries should be qualified and passed directly into a shared pipeline. The wholesaler receives warmer opportunities, supported by information about the operator’s interests, category and previous engagement. This creates a more efficient relationship: the supplier builds demand and commercial relevance; the wholesaler uses its customer relationships and sales capability to convert it.
Share a visible digital pipeline
Opportunities are easily lost when supplier and wholesaler teams work through disconnected spreadsheets, inboxes and conversations. A shared digital pipeline should be super simple and it’s the brand’s job to update it:
- Priority accounts
- Existing product or competitor (brand or RTM)
- Samples and meetings
- Agreed actions and ownership
This allows both parties to understand progress, identify stalled opportunities and focus resources where intervention is most valuable. It also creates accountability. However it’s important to remember that the brand will often have to do most of the lifting here. Updating the pipeline after meetings and quick catch-ups, often via WhatsApp.
Create value beyond your own category
The best partnerships are reciprocal. When supplier teams are visiting venues, reviewing data or speaking to operators, they should remain alert to opportunities that could benefit the wholesaler’s wider portfolio. This could include a new account opening, an unmet category need or an opportunity for another product represented by the wholesale partner. Introducing these opportunities demonstrates that the supplier is invested in the wholesaler’s growth, not solely its own brand target. It also makes the relationship more valuable to individual account managers. The supplier becomes a source of market intelligence and new business, rather than another demand on their time.
Drive demand upstream
The strongest programmes create operator-level demand that flows upstream through the wholesale partner. This is more valuable than treating distribution as the final outcome. A product can be available across a wholesale network without being actively recommended, listed by operators or reordered. Sustainable growth occurs when suppliers use a shared pipeline to incentivise and activate key pouring accounts. A new customer account should be visited and activated within 10 working days. If something goes wrong during install or first delivery, the RTM team will blame the brand. Get ahead of the conversation and make sure you have contact with the account.
Evidence and example
In practice, this model begins by combining the wholesaler’s customer knowledge with the supplier brand’s ability to support with marketing (in the widest of senses). The best examples of brands that do a great job of this are often described as delivering ‘overnight success’ in the on-trade. This simply isn’t the case. They’ve been tactical and won battles all over the country whilst their competitors got caught napping on old patchy CGA reads.
Our view
Too many suppliers ask wholesalers to sell harder without making their brands easier to sell. Account managers do not need more generic presentations, product claims or people saying ‘trial’ or ‘liquid on lips’ a thousand times. They need commercially relevant opportunities, clear reasons to act and evidence that the product can create value for their accounts. The supplier’s responsibility is to generate demand, intelligence and momentum. The wholesaler’s role is to provide customer access, market knowledge and conversion. When those capabilities are connected, both parties become more effective. Wholesalers are not simply the wheels that transport a brand to market. They are often the gatekeepers to the accounts, relationships and commercial intelligence that determine whether it succeeds.
What should supplier teams do?
- Pick up the phone.
- Beat the street.
- Form an initial relationship.
- Agree the shared commercial objectives.
- Obtain and analyse the relevant customer and pouring data.
- Identify competitor products and benchmark their rate of sale.
- Create a prioritised list of accounts where the brand has a right to win.
- Build a concise commercial story for wholesaler account managers.
- Introduce direct and account-level incentives tied to meaningful outcomes.
- Generate qualified operator demand through targeted digital and trade media.
- Share leads and actions through a jointly visible digital pipeline.
- Support conversion with sampling, activation and sales tools.
- Feed field intelligence and adjacent-category opportunities back to the wholesaler.
- Use the results to refine and scale the model.
The bottom line
The best supplier-wholesaler partnerships operate as one sales team. They combine supplier demand generation with wholesaler customer access, then use shared intelligence to focus on the accounts most likely to convert and grow. The winning supplier is not the one that asks the wholesaler to do the most. It is the one that creates the strongest opportunities and makes its brand easier, more valuable and more rewarding to sell.
Related questions
Why are wholesaler account managers so important to drinks suppliers?
They hold established operator relationships and influence which products are recommended, sampled and listed. Their confidence in the opportunity can determine whether a distributed product gains genuine traction.
What information should suppliers request from wholesalers?
Where commercially and legally appropriate, suppliers should seek customer profiles, existing pouring information, order history, competitor performance and rate-of-sale data. Access may be behind a pay-wall or you may just get it for nothing.
Should suppliers incentivise wholesaler account managers?
Yes, when permitted and appropriately governed. Incentives should reward meaningful commercial outcomes such as qualified listings, activation, repeat orders or sustained growth, not indiscriminate product pushing. Check-in with HQ to make sure you follow the right route.
How can trade media support wholesale sales teams?
Targeted trade media can reach relevant operators, communicate the commercial proposition and generate expressions of interest. Qualified opportunities can then be directed to the appropriate account manager for conversion.
What should a shared supplier-wholesaler pipeline include?
It should be as simple as possible, however both parties should be able to see where opportunities are progressing or stalling.
Sources & methodology
This article is informed by GAZER’s experience developing account-based marketing, sales-enablement and measurement programmes across drinks suppliers, wholesalers and on-trade operators. The approach connects customer and pouring data, targeted communications, field intelligence, pipeline management, activation compliance and sales performance. Specific customer information and commercially sensitive results remain confidential.
