The beverage alcohol industry has, with fits and starts, frequently tried to establish solid training and education standards for its sales and service employees, but after ten or more years of industry consolidation, many supplier-based programs have disappeared. On-premise chains do what they can, as do large chain retailers, but the resulting level of competency is uneven at best, and many people on the front lines of beverage alcohol service are often mostly in the dark. Trying to fill that knowledge gap is the multi-state Glazer's Distributors, which has expanded its in-house Beverage Academy into Glazer's Beverage University and made it available to its retail partners. This e-learning website offers a curriculum of courses on product knowledge for wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverage products. The goal, says Glazer's, is to provide customers with an on-going, comprehensive resource for educational materials on adult beverage products and industry best practices. We spoke to Bill Saul, Glazer's vp, training and development for strategic accounts, who heads up the program.

Question #1
Adams Beverage Group (ABG): There are many different types of training programs available today - how will the Glazer's Beverage University be different?

Bill Saul: Glazer’s Beverage University provides highly informative yet appropriately condensed content that will meet our customer's business needs. It meets learning objectives that will build more confidence in the participant's ability to discuss product categories and then promote individual brands and strategies. Participant's can be "up to speed" in a minimal amount of time. Other programs can be time intensive and have scheduling constraints. Our GBU format allows our customer's 24x7 access and provides content relevant to their business objectives. We can also provide feedback on participant site use and content comprehension as often as required.

Question #2
ABG: How much of GBU is based on your corporate education and training program, Glazer's Beverage Academy?

Saul: Our Glazer’s Beverage Academy, in place for almost seven years, has served to set the standard in terms of the depth of wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverage information we require our salespeople have to properly service their accounts. These programs are more extensive in that they are instructor led in a classroom training format and include product tasting and proctored testing at the conclusion of each course. The length of each course depends on the category involved, but ranges from four hours on malt beverages to approximately thirty-six hours on the version devoted to wine. That amount of time commitment doesn’t translate to internet-based learning. What we’ve tried to do in initial curriculum development is highlight the basics of product knowledge by segment that we want the learner to grasp.
To compare it to a college level experience, this is level “101”. The goal is to provide the learner with a highly informative experience, presented in as interactive a manner as possible. As more of our customers choose to include the University in their training initiatives, and as we begin to use it to augment internal training efforts, we will dovetail the tasting and more extensive testing elements to this internet-based approach. We also firmly believe that computer based training will become increasingly more important in the years to come, and intend to build upon the curriculum base already established. Curriculum expansion is already underway.

Question #3
ABG: What are the key components of Glazer's Beverage University?

Saul: Three are three major courses currently available. Our course on wine, entitled “From Vines to Wines”, contains three units, while “Simply Spirits” is covered in two units. “Brewing Basics”, our malt beverage training course, is all-inclusive and addressed in a single unit. Each course unit is designed to be completed in approximately seventy-five minutes. The learning experience is enhanced by offering the user access to video, audio, and terminology glossaries. All courses are narrated, with the choice left to the learner. The site is intuitive in that it allows the learner to leave the program at any stage and return to the point of departure.

Question #4
ABG: Will these courses be equally useful for on- and off-premise employees?

Saul: This program is all about helping our customers and suppliers build volume in the adult beverage category. It covers all segments and beverage types, and can equally support all trade channels. It can assist the clerk in a retail account, as well as a server or bartender, in guiding customer buying decisions. As curriculum is expanded, the impact to higher levels of sales and management within the on and off-premise segments will substantially increase.

Question #5
ABG: I see that Glazer's is even offering a series of mastery tests as well as diplomas - how intensive are the tests and what will it take to graduate with a diploma?

Saul: Comprehension of key concepts is monitored through a series of Mastery Tests and, because the University is housed in a Learning Management System, we are able to provide feedback on progress being made by participants to both our external customers, as well as our internal management team. The questions are either True/False or Multiple Choice; no fill-in-the-blanks or essay questions. The learner is told right away if they’ve answered a question correctly, and at the end of each Mastery Test, they are given their score. If they don't do as well as they’d like, they can review the unit and take the quiz again. Most of the tests range from 20 to 25 questions and all are based totally on the information covered in the main section of the course. Information contained in the Glossaries is not considered in question development. Our goal with the University is to keep it simple and not put the learner in a stressful situation. We want them to have fun while they’re learning. And once they’ve successfully completed a course, they receive a diploma from the University that acknowledges their efforts.

Question #6
ABG: Product education is very important, but what about sales training?

Saul : Sales training has always played a key role in our success; it’s what drives all of our businesses forward. Over the years, we’ve developed a wealth of channel specific training programs for both our employees as well as external customers. At some point, as curriculum is expanded, we hope to address these areas from an eLearning perspective.

Question #7
ABG: Who can enroll in GBU, and what sort of commitment must they make?

Saul: Glazer’s Beverage University is currently available to external customers in our core marketing areas: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. Curriculum must be completed within forty-five days of enrollment.

To learn more about Glazer's Beverage University, contact Bill Saul at 972-392-8229, or at bsaul@glazers.com.