Guy Brookshier

Toledo Sales Professional

Any good sales professional will tell you that the key to success is being able to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Being able to see things from their perspective makes it easier to understand the sort of demands and challenges the account is facing and figure how you can help them succeed. For Guy Brookshier, this is no problem since he wore those shoes for nearly 10 years.

For the better part of the 1990s, Guy worked as a grocery manager for a large, national grocery chain experiencing firsthand the challenges and keys to success for a grocery store. He also worked with a variety of different distributors and learned some of the best practices for the industry. When he decided that it was time for a career change, then, a distributor was the logical choice and he decided to go with one of his favorites.

Since joining Heidelberg’s Toledo beer division in 2002, Guy has consistently been one of the division’s best performing sales professionals. He attributes his continued success to relationship building.

“You’ve got to balance short-term gains and long-term relationships,” Guy said. “When I was a grocery manager, a sales rep from another distributor came in and kept hounding me to put this big display on the floor. I wasn’t really sold on the product but he just kept pestering me. Eventually I relented and we put the product out there and it just sat there forever. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly receptive to that distributor from then on. ”

Guy says he always keeps that experience in mind when he’s talking with the managers on his route. First and foremost, he knows he has to provide his accounts with product that’s going to sell and sell quickly.