Fractional Consulting For The Beverage Industry

A C-Level Employee, Minus The C-Level Payroll

Think of it as adding an executive to your team: a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Sales Officer (CSO), or Chief Operating Officer (COO) who gets under the hood of your business with you and helps you drive the brand. You've heard about the traditional consultant who shows up, points fingers, recommends firing your whole staff, and leaves you with a binder and an invoice. That is not me, and it never will be. We build the strategy together, I stay for the execution, and I keep the client list small on purpose so every brand gets maximum impact and real results.

Limited: only 4 to 6 clients at a time 75+ beverage businesses helped Prices published below
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Sound Familiar?

You Don't Need Another Job Title. You Need A Partner.

Maybe you're the brand owner who is also the head of sales, the marketing department, and the person who unclogs the drain. Maybe you're the service provider whose referral pipeline dried up, the trade association sweating renewal season, the festival with soft ticket sales, or the restaurant watching covers shrink while costs climb. Sales have plateaued and the marketing feels like shouting into the void. None of that means you're failing. It means you're doing five executive jobs alone. Fractional consulting puts a second brain on the ones that make money.

Wholesale & B2B Sales

Distributor management, account targeting, pricing strategy, and the selling support that makes your brand a priority instead of an afterthought. For vendors and trade orgs, the same muscle applies to client pipelines, memberships, and sponsorships.

Taproom, Restaurant & On-Site Sales

Guest experience, upselling, events, and retention, whether you pour your own pints or run a full dining room. On-site revenue is the highest-margin money you make, so we treat it that way.

Digital Marketing

A marketing mix built around channels you own, not just the algorithm's mood. Website, email, social, and local search, all pointed at revenue, whether "revenue" means pints, plates, members, or contracts.

Data & Reporting

The numbers you should actually watch, pulled from the systems you already have, read weekly so problems get caught while they're still cheap.

Team & Rep Management

Roles, expectations, comp plans, and accountability structures for sales reps, bar staff, and service teams alike. Your people aren't the problem; the missing systems usually are.

Strategic Business Planning

Goals that cascade into weekly action, decisions made with a scorecard instead of a gut feeling, and a plan the whole team can follow. Works the same for a brewery, a vendor, a guild, or a festival.

Who signs up: craft beverage brands of every kind, from beer and cider to spirits, wine, NA, and hemp bev, plus the vendors, service providers, trade guilds, festivals, and hospitality groups that keep this industry running. Different products, same business problems.

How It Works

No Mystery, No 40-Page Proposal

1

The discovery call

30 minutes, no obligation, no pitch deck. You tell me where you're stuck, I tell you which program fits, and if I'm not the right fit for where you are right now, I'll tell you that too. Sometimes the answer is "start with the free stuff," and I'd rather say it now than bill you for it later.

2

The intake, not an interrogation

Before our first working session you fill out one smart intake form: about 15 minutes, ideally with a beverage of your choice in hand. I read every word, so I show up to call one already knowing your channels, your team, your tools, and your top three priorities. We skip the twenty-questions phase entirely.

3

Goals that mean something

We turn "sell more" into real 12-month goals with numbers attached, then decide how we'll know it's working. If you're not tracking much yet, we build that together. Winning in 12 months looks like something specific, and we write it down.

4

The actual work

Live sessions on the schedule your program sets, with your team in the room whenever it helps (no extra charge for extra chairs). Between sessions you get direct access and real deliverables, and for every hour we're live together, I spend several more working on your brand offline. Strategy and execution, not strategy and a wave goodbye.

Every consulting level also comes with a pile of my proprietary deliverables: cheat sheets, guides, templates, and tools I've built over 75+ engagements. Use them to run your business all you want. Pass them off as your own and we'll be having a very different conversation, because that's my IP. You also get analytics tools, including centralized dashboards we use to monitor what's working and what's not, with solutions attached instead of just charts.

5

Debriefs and honest accountability

Monthly reviews and quarterly ownership debriefs keep the plan honest: what moved, what stalled, what we kill, what we double down on. The clients who implement are the ones who see real movement, and my job is to make implementing as hard to avoid as possible.

Hands-on work behind the scenes of a food and beverage business
The Programs

Three Ways In, Priced In The Open

No demo required, no discovery-call ambush, no "contact us for pricing" games. Every engagement is customized to your brand on the discovery call; the structure below is the starting point.

Weekly Momentum

Full-Time Strategic Coaching

$3,000/month · 6-month minimum
  • Weekly 60-minute coaching sessions (virtual)
  • Customized goals built for your brand
  • Unlimited deliverables
  • Monthly management reviews and quarterly ownership debriefs
  • Direct Slack or Google Chat access between sessions
  • Extensive behind-the-scenes analysis and strategy work
Best for brands ready to move fast on multiple fronts at once.
Steady Progress

Part-Time Strategic Coaching

$2,000/month · 3-month minimum
  • Two 60-minute sessions per month
  • The same customized goal-setting process
  • Actionable deliverables
  • Between-session support
Roughly half the time and cost of Full-Time. Best for brands working one or two priorities with a team that can run between check-ins.
In The Trenches

Fractional C-Suite

$4,000/month · 6-month minimum

I don't just teach you how to guide your team strategically. I'm in the trenches with you: an embedded executive partner who joins the meetings, works the plans, and owns outcomes alongside you.

Scope is built around your business on the discovery call. Best for brands that need an executive seat filled, not just advised.
Not ready for a program? Hourly consulting is $150/hour with no package required, or bank 4 hours with a Consulting Punch Card for $500 and save yourself $100. A lot of my program clients started exactly there.

Minimum commitments exist because real change doesn't happen in 30 days, and I'd rather turn you away than sell you a month of theater. The published price is the real price; I don't haggle, because that would mean my first number wasn't honest.

Three Things To Know Before You Sign

I'm working even when you're not looking

The beauty of this process: I'm on your brand between our calls, running analysis, building deliverables, and working the plan behind the scenes. You're getting an expert working on your business even when you're not.

You have to do your part

This is not a one-sided relationship. Consulting clients are required to execute and be proactive between sessions. I can teach you all the things, but if you're not going to do them, you will not see results, and no consultant on earth can change that math.

Tell your team I'm coming

Nothing says "everyone is getting fired" like an owner who brings in a business consultant without telling the staff they reached out for extra help. Don't do that to me, and don't do it to them; it sets everyone up for failure. I'm in the business of success, not HR cleanup. If you need that, hire an HR consultant.

From The People Paying For It

What Consulting Clients Say

Julie is the best thing that has happened to our brewery business. She is so experienced and talented and provides our team with sales ideas and planning that has moved the needle for us and been important to our success. I would recommend her to any brewery. If she would move here I would hire her in a heartbeat. She is amazing.
Vance Thompson
Fernson Brewing Company
Julie Rhodes (Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions) has been instrumental in helping our brewery come out of the pandemic. We've had our best outside sales totals, to-date (2020), in seven years and it's due in large part to Julie's coaching. Externally, we've built our following with Julie's mentorship in social media marketing. Internally, we've utilized her guidance to build a much needed platform for systems throughout all facets of our business. I highly recommend Julie for businesses in need of education and structure with regards to sales, social media marketing, and leadership/management!
Seth DePooter
FH Beerworks / NEAT Whiskey House
We have just recently started working with Julie and we are very impressed with her knowledge and ability to make her expertise teachable! She is professional, personable, and wants to help our business succeed. Hiring her as a consultant is absolutely worth the investment.
Elizabeth Andreini
Red Engine Brewing Company
Don't just take my word for it, and don't just take theirs either. Before any consulting engagement, I connect you directly with current or past clients so you can hear straight from them how I work, the results we got together, and what the partnership could look like for you. Real references, real phone calls, no cherry-picked screenshots.
Fair Questions

Before You Book The Call

Which program is right for me?
That's exactly what the discovery call is for, and I'll give you a straight answer even if it costs me revenue. The rough guide: Full-Time when you want weekly momentum across several fronts, Part-Time when you're working one or two priorities, C-Suite when you need an executive seat filled rather than advised, and the Punch Card when you're not sure about any of it yet.

What's the difference between Full-Time and Part-Time?
Full-Time is weekly sessions, unlimited deliverables, monthly management reviews, quarterly ownership debriefs, and direct access between sessions. For every hour we're live together, I spend several more working on your brand offline. Part-Time is two sessions a month with the same goal-setting process and between-session support, at roughly half the time and cost.

Why the minimum commitments?
Because real change doesn't happen in 30 days, and pretending otherwise would be selling you theater. Three to six months is what it takes to set goals, build the systems, and see the numbers move. The published monthly rates already assume that commitment, which is also why I don't discount for longer terms: the long-term deal is the price.

Can my team join the sessions?
Please do. Sessions work best when the people who'll actually implement are in the room, and there's no extra charge for extra chairs. The only thing I ask is that somebody owns the follow-through when the call ends.

Are you going to tell me to fire everyone?
No. I'm not here to clean house. Turnover is expensive, and most of the time the problem is missing systems and training, not bad people. My job is to make the team you already have more effective. If there's a genuine structural problem, I'll tell you privately and straight.

Do you guarantee results?
No, and be suspicious of any consultant who does. I don't control your pricing, your production schedule, or your distributor's priorities. What I guarantee is the work: analysis you can trust, strategy built on 20+ years of doing the job, and deliverables on time. From 75+ engagements I can tell you this much: the clients who implement are the ones who see real movement.

Do you only work with breweries?
Breweries are the biggest slice, but the roster covers cider, wine, spirits, NA, and hemp beverage, plus vendors, service providers, trade guilds, festivals, and hospitality groups. Business is business and sales is sales. Same game, different ballparks.

Do you offer refunds?
No. This is a commitment, and your success depends on your openness to learning and your willingness to execute. I can't do everything for you, but I can teach you how to work smarter, not harder. You know the whole teach-you-to-fish thing instead of handing you a fish? That's the deal here, and it's why the results stick after I'm gone.

Can I talk to your current or past clients?
Yes, and you should. I connect every potential consulting client with a couple of my current or past clients before we sign anything, so you can hear how I work and what results look like straight from the people who paid for it.

My situation is unique, though.
No, it's not, and I don't say that to be mean. Sales is sales, marketing is marketing, and profits are profits, no matter what industry you're in, where you're located, or how unusual your situation feels from the inside. I guarantee somebody else has already lived your exact problem, and you need to learn what they had to learn. That's also why I pull a lot of strategic moves from other industries: the best answer to your beverage problem sometimes comes from a grocery store or a sandwich shop.

Do we have to stick to one thing, like marketing?
No. That's the point of a consulting package: we stay nimble. When priorities shift mid-engagement, or you need a mixed bag of sales, marketing, distribution, and planning help, we adjust the plan instead of pretending the original scope still fits. The goals stay fixed; the tactics flex.

Do I need to be comfortable with technology and software?
Yes, you do, because it's part of growing a business. I can't teach you Excel or how to use ChatGPT; you need to be ready to work the way modern businesses function. And please don't tell me your Facebook page is your website, because I will send you to my online learning library first before consulting with you full-time.

What if I want the data side handled too?
That's what Proof is for: your whole business in one live dashboard with my monthly written read on what the numbers mean. Plenty of consulting clients run both, and plenty of Proof clients graduate into consulting. Ask on the discovery call and I'll tell you which order makes sense for you.

I keep 4 to 6 seats. When they're full, they're full.

The discovery call costs nothing but 30 minutes, and you'll leave it knowing exactly which program fits, what it costs, and whether we should work together at all. Straight answers, even when the answer is "not yet."

Book A Discovery Call

Want to test the waters first? Grab a Punch Card or join The Bottleneck and get to know me for free.

Not Ready For Consulting Yet?

No worries, a lot of folks are just not ready for this yet, and that’s fine. Go back to my Work With Me page and start with my Barrel 2 Business Collective or a Liquid Insight Audit or a Consulting Punch Card to dip your toes in the water. You can always upgrade later (most people do).

Go Back to Work With Me
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This Is Not Your Hobby - The Podcast

No recycled MBA jargon. No sugarcoating. Just the real, messy, unfiltered problems that keep craft beverage & food operators up at night, plus practical strategies you can actually use. Sales. Marketing. Distribution. Profitability. Honest guests. Sarcasm included.

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