2 strategies to find new revenue streams

Nick Wendowski bought Stone's Beer & Beverage Market right before Covid hit. Hard enough, but get this: he'd never been in the industry before.

The man had to figure out a ton of crap on the fly, including a total shift in business model when he went all-in on delivery. And he's found success.

Throughout, he's displayed a knack for figuring out new revenue streams. So we picked his brain about exactly that, and two strategies came out of the woodwork:

1. Think about the systems and assets you've already got.

Extrapolate from there—are there any things you've got that you could repurpose for other customers?

Example: Nick distributes for a local ice cream maker. He didn't wake up one morning and think "man, I love Rocky Road. I want to get involved in the ice cream industry." Instead, he considered one thing he already had—a delivery fleet with refrigerated trucks—and realized it was an obvious match.

2. ID places in your business where you're getting some interest or "pull," and you're not necessarily proactively trying to grow.

Where are you getting revenue where you're not trying too hard? What could happen if you did start trying?

Example: Nick is a distribution partner for local universities. Again, he didn't proactively go after this segment. But when one reached out he thought "you know what, there are other universities, and they probably need beer too." And thus a small but meaningful university-servicing business opened up to him.

Check out the interview clip for more from Nick:

Why?

Because TV Menus:

• Automatically update in seconds
• Always look professional
• Are easy for guests to read
• Help guests order faster
• Aren't as expensive or difficult to setup as you might think (more on that below)

Put simply, TV Menus can save you/your team time and make it easy for customers to order.

Of course, they aren't right for everyone—if you've got a quaint, cozy Belgian beer bar you don't want to jam a TV Menu above the bar.

But if you already have a few TVs, it might be worth trying, just to see if they resonate with your customers. In the right situation TV Menus can lead to a meaningful increase in beer sales.

How can I do it?

You could do this manually. How you'd implement it depends on what works for your team, but it could look like this:

• Get a smart TV (i.e. one w/ an internet browser).
• Design a slideshow on Google Slides to serve as your menu. Make sure you tune the settings to rotate screens correctly, etc.
• Use your smart TV's browser to access the Google Slides file.
• Make sure all members of the team know how to edit the file.
• Anytime your beer selection changes, visit the file to delete the beer that's gone and add new beers.

It certainly takes some time and training, but doing it manually like this could be worth it if that's your only option.

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