You all loved last month’s catch up with your Brand Reps so much that we just had to profile another ten this month – and please do get in touch if you’d like to feature in the next one because we just might make it a hat trick.
Here’s the third of our next ten.
Simon Hamilton
UK Northern Distribution Account Manager
Simon left his native Ireland bound for Glasgow to study international business in 2012 and it was his dissertation on beer that first sparked his interest in the drinks industry.
“Writing about beer made the course a lot more fun and I never looked back because it was from there that I knew what I wanted to do.”
He worked for West Brewery during his final year of studying and then moved to London and worked for what was Miller Brands at the time, then BrewDog for a few years. A move to Sydney Australia followed where he worked for a craft brewery called Modus Operandi for two years and looked after two whole states so he’s used to large territories.
Then moved back to Edinburgh in summer of 2019 and got married and started working for Beavertown.
“It’s been growing at a rate of knots. I look after everything north of Sheffield and Northern Ireland. Distributors and key accounts. On-trade, off-trade, wholesale and online. It’s been a challenge but we are in process of hiring more people.”
What are the skills you need to be a good rep – can you be an introvert and do it for example?
“You can’t do this job without passion. Lots of people don’t listen enough and you must listen to customers want so you could be more introverted and make a sucesss of it, yes, but do have to be face of brand and personality, so you do have to be slightly outgoing.”
Beavertown is also big on sustainability. “We were the first brewery in UK to do beers in Aluminium cans, about nine years ago to be exact. Travelling less is better for environment too, of course.
“I was travelling for about 60% of the time before the pandemic. But as things begin opening up again, there will be more in-person visits to accounts, but I think that we can’t help but embrace doing more business online too in a kind of hybrid work blend.”
Simon and his wife, who’s from Edinburgh, have a newborn baby who is keeping them both very busy. He also likes gigs and mountain biking.