Tobacco Business

[ 32 ] TOBACCO BUSINESS [ JANUARY / FEBRUARY | 22 ] papers, filter tubes and accessories for the roll-your-own or make- your-own smoker. When McKenna came on board in 2015, Sutliff Tobacco Company was in the process of expanding its wholesale and fulfillment business. It handled both of these business needs for Villiger Cigars before the company moved its business to Miami, Florida. These strategic partnerships opened up entirely new business opportunities for Sutliff Tobacco Company that helped it expand its focus far outside of its pipe tobacco origins. It also helped the company to become a highly valued partner to many retailers. “At Sutliff, we sell to distributors, brick-and-mortar and to online retailers,” says McKenna. “We don’t have any minimums. You can literally order eight ounces of tobacco from us or a pound, and we’ll send it to you. We have a very unique and personal relationship with our brick-and-mortars, and I think that’s where we’re seeing success. Brigham’s pipes and accessories, for example, are really growing with that personal relationship we have with brick- and-mortars.” Relationship building is part of Sutliff Tobacco Company’s core competencies that McKenna and his predecessor both saw great value in. Sutliff Tobacco Company wanted to take its industry relationships to another level when it decided to expand its premium cigar distribution. One of the trends McKenna has followed has been the changing makeup of its retail partners. In the past, most tobacconists just carried pipes and pipe tobacco. Things have definitely changed. Today, a tobacconist can be or mean many things: a cigar lounge owner, a brick-and-mortar store, an online retailer or even a store with a very small pipe tobacco selection. When analyzing its customer base, it was determined that offering some premium cigar products was a natural fit for many of the retailers the company was doing business with. Finding the right brands to represent was a process itself. One of Sutliff Tobacco Company’s pipe tobacco brokers, Mike Perales, had friends that owned boutique cigar companies. He brought them into Sutliff’s offices to make an introduction and explained that these companies had not had the best results with distributors in the past. Some of the issues they experienced included inventory problems, delay of payments and issues with timely shipping. These problems are not uncommon for small companies that are focusing on growth and performance, McKenna realized. These were problems that he also determined Sutliff could help solve. The first brand Sutliff Tobacco Company brought on was Regius Cigars, followed by Patina Cigars. “First and foremost, we believed in these brand owners,” McKenna says. “They were excited about their product, they were energetic, but they were facing hurdles as basically a single- person operation. They were dealing with their cigar, box and band manufacturing, billing, collections, payment processing, importing, order fulfillment, and federal and state excise taxes, and they were also trying to sell on their own or through a brokers network. It was just nothing but pain for them. I said, ‘Let us do all the non-sexy, You’re not going to remember everything you said and everything you did, but what you will know is if you did it with integrity or not. — Jeremy McKenna “ ”