In 2002, I graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Management Minor. My first job out of college was as a body care and supplement buyer for Whole Foods in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Then found myself working at a small veterinary office in dual roles as an assistant and the office manager. At the time, I had a second job working at a hotel in the catering department. While working these two jobs, I realized that I wanted to own a store front, where natural body care and supplements would be sold. I then realized how much money was required to start a store front.
One of my family members was in the beverage business and mentioned that there was a need for a sampling company and offered the idea. It was also going to cost considerably less to start up a sampling company then it would to start a store front. I mulled this idea over in my head for a bit and decided to start it up and see what happened.
The first few months, I was working with only one distributor and conducting samplings at local liquor stores all on my own. I was stumbling through learning about the beverage business and the products included. I soon learned that there are three different worlds within the beverage business: beer, wine and spirits. Beer interested me the most and I went forward learning about the beer world and everything in it.
After the first year, I was pleasently surprised that Heskett Promotions, LLC was still up and running. In the second year, I decided to bring a handful of independent contractors on to help me conduct the samplings. I was writing my monthly schedule on notebook paper, and learning how to start managing my own contractors. I also developed a relationship and was conducting samplings for the Summit Brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota the Schell Brewery in New Ulm Minnesota, and the Diageo Company as well. Toward the end of my second year, I had created a Procedure Manual and had started training sessions for all the new contractors.
The third year, I started working with multiple distributors, and hired more and more contractors to join my team. By the end of the third year, most of my extra time was spent running Heskett Promotions, LLC after working my full-time and part-time jobs.
Premier is now in its eighth year of operation and going strong. Each year of business, Heskett Promotions, LLC has doubled the amount of samplings as well as profit. As of 2010, Heskett Promotions, LLC now does Off-Premise samplings for two of the Twin Cities biggest specialty distributors. Heskett Promotions, LLC still continues to have an incredibly low amount of turnover for independent contractors.
Heskett Promotions, LLC is still run only by me. I love this business.
