Since April 2016, VineThinking has been a platform for me to share sales ideas with the beverage industry. Some years have been idea-packed, some a bit quiet, but the archive has become something I’m proud of and, based on our website traffic numbers, something that continues to be sought out by others (this was our most Read More…
Do unto others with your business reputation
Lately, I’ve been seeing the extremes of people in our industry. Maybe it’s the political season stirring the pot and making people squirrely. I don’t know what’s causing it, but many people in our industry (including wine shop owners and salespeople) fall into one of two categories. Either they are a fantastic force of positive Read More…
Aim to be the CONSISTENT PROFESSIONAL salesperson
The beverage sales world is similar to other sales jobs in many ways. You represent a product or products, connect with buyers, prospect endlessly, suffer rejection, and pick yourself back up and do it again and again. Yet, in the beverage sales industry, there has been a slide away from two key aspects of Sales Read More…
Marketing, switching, and loyalty
When a wine shop or restaurant tries to reach an audience, most do it wrong because they don’t start with the right questions. The right questions hinge on three terms. Marketing is all about presenting your story and brand to both a new and an established audience without the goal of the sale (which is selling, Read More…
Price tells a story (some customers don’t want cheaper prices)
I was recently involved with organizing some tastings over a couple of evenings for a retailer, putting together wine lists and sale pricing, plus customer handouts, etc. There were two tastings over two nights, with the same wines, for the same type of customers. As organized as I try to be with my spreadsheets, sometimes Read More…
What is your end-of-year project?
I’m writing this in mid-December, which is unlike any other time of the year in the beverage sales cycle. Retailers and restaurants are too busy for long meetings with their sales reps. Their focus, as it should be, is the customer walking through the door. (Reactive, not proactive, work.) The sales reps are busy getting Read More…
The trap of the in between
It’s easy for a wine shop or a restaurant to be average. Have average products for average people, give average service, and try to compete on price. It’s lazy, but plenty of businesses out there survive with this premise. I also think it’s easy to be genuinely exceptional. To have fantastic wines for amazing customers, Read More…
Ideas: How wine retailers can generate more revenue the last six weeks of the year
Once we get to mid-November, it’s like running the last mile of the marathon. You’re exhausted, but the adrenaline carries you forward. The group around you, the runners in front of you, and the runners behind you make for energy that pushes you towards the finish line. Nobody gives up the marathon in the last Read More…
The main hack for beverage sales rep: embrace being Professional
As a follow-up for sales training seminars that I lead, I like to ping select reps a few months down the line to see how they’re doing and if they need any advice. Lately, consistently, I’m being asked for a great ‘hack’ … as if there is one magic formula to make sales go up. Read More…
The power of unmeasurable generosity
As we become more measurable in our jobs and lives, there is more room for unmeasurable generosity. If a friend works a job with unreasonable quotas and driving trackers so their boss can oversee their every movement, be the one that gives some love and an ear over a little happy hour bump. If you Read More…
Some thoughts on leadership vs. management in wine and spirits sales
Wine and spirits distributors have salespeople. And the one “in charge” of them (quotes intentional, as you’ll read) is the sales manager. The role of the salesperson is to sell. To connect customers to the stories they tell. To service accounts with professionalism, consistency, and accuracy. A good salesperson is a storyteller, someone who is Read More…
On being a professional (or not)
A professional shows up and does the work, and if they’re good, they do it better than most in their profession along with having a good attitude. A professional eye surgeon shows up and does the work they do, even if she is having a bad day or is tired. A professional chess player practices Read More…
“Get some chalk on your boots”
I’m a big fan of “real football,” otherwise known in America as soccer. (The story of why it’s called soccer in America is quite interesting.) There’s a beautiful phrase in the sport that can easily translate into the business of selling, “Get some chalk on your boots.” It refers to the need to spread the Read More…
SOND 2022 is on … what are your plans?
Welcome to September! Start that countdown. We’re only 121 days away from the end of the year. Wholesale reps Open your calendar. Mark the evenings you want off, no questions asked. Family evening, concerts, commitments, downtime, you name it. Your job is a daytime job, and any hours you put in the evening should be Read More…
What is missing?
Late August is a unique time in the wine sales and retail game. It’s a moment for a pause, a final vacation, a little breath before September rolls in. It’s also a great time to ask what is missing and start to work to fix it before the busy season hits. For a sales rep, Read More…
Being in, or out of, alignment (who do you play ball with?)
There is more to business relationships than numbers and sales. There is often friendship (though not always). There is often judgement (spoken or otherwise). There are often pressures on each side that the other doesn’t understand (very common). But in the end, every business relationship needs some form of mutual respect. This respect can be Read More…
Which customers are at the top?
Your best customers are worth ten to a hundred times more than your average customers. Do you know who they are? How do you define best? And what are you doing for them that is different than how you treat the average customer? This is where marketing begins.
Selling wine during a recession
The word RECESSION is being bantered about far more now than in over ten years. All signs are pointing toward an economic recession on the horizon (and the truth is, it’s always on the horizon … but we can never tell where the horizon is). As always, nobody knows anything, so don’t be surprised if Read More…
Today is different than tomorrow (end of a quarter)
Today is the last day of Q1. It’s a much different day than tomorrow, the start of Q2. What do you do today vs. tomorrow as a wine sales rep, restaurant owner/manager, or retailer? Today, you work super hard. You push for the final sprint ahead of the finish line. You make that extra sales Read More…
Connection points (you never know who you just met)
Here’s a quick puzzle for you. Read carefully but don’t look ahead to the answer at the bottom. See if you can figure it out. David meets Jenny. Jenny introduces David to Mike and Tom, and Tom in turn introduces David to Samantha. Samantha also knows Mike, and through Mike and Samantha, David learns that Read More…
A work fast (not a vacation): The goal of a fresh perspective
I recently had surgery and it was awesome. Not the surgery itself, mind you. That wasn’t fun, and the recovery has taken a couple of weeks. (It was gastro-intestinal, so everything from what I consumed to the simple art of sitting up had to be addressed.) The recovery forced bed rest. But I had things Read More…
Know your history (and that things change)
The history of wine trends, facts, and fads is always good to keep in mind, mainly to recognize that some trends grow roots and stick, white others blow away with the wind. The sands shift with the tides. For those relatively new to the wine business (be it wholesale, restaurant, or retail) here are some Read More…
What are you selling? The juice in the bottle?
Ask a wine sales rep or a wine retailer what they sell and they will say they sell wine. But in terms of what you’re selling how much is actually the juice in the bottle? For a wine sales rep, you are mainly selling (in order): Yourself and your ability to convert for the customer Read More…
Your Wine Onboarding
When your organization hires a new employee, they have obviously been vetted a bit and know something about wine. But where they fall on that spectrum varies for each hire. So does your company: Sit down with them, taste through a bunch of wines, get some input from them, learn how they describe the wines Read More…
High gas prices are a wine rep’s friend
A big part of a wine sales rep’s job is driving around. Not only from account to account, but back to the warehouse again and again for the sudden will call because your customers forgot something on their order. Somehow, their problem became your problem. Oh and let’s not forget about the account you saw Read More…
Building fences as a wine sales rep
Newer sales reps are prone to be ‘yes’ people, doing whatever the store or restaurant asks to the point of crossing a line. The sales rep doesn’t intend to cross the line, they just may not know where that line is. If you build fences and tell yourself you’ll never breech them, it can keep Read More…
Selling Wine vs. Taking An Order
You sell wine when you guide the process, when you frame choices for the customer, and when you present options (paths) that lead to the company’s (and your) ultimate goals. You are an order taker when the customer is the guide, when the customer frames the choices, and when the customer presents the paths that Read More…
Selling wine is not rocket science
A wine sales job doesn’t involve rocket science. Nobody is going to die if you screw up. There really aren’t that many moving pieces. Keep it simple. Be consistent in doing what you say you’ll do. Be consistent in who you meet with, and how you run your meetings. Be consistent about your goals, both Read More…
Six Habits of the Best Wine Sales Reps
The best wine sales reps have routines and habits that set them apart from others. Let’s dive into six of the most essential. The best wine sales reps know the power of a positive attitude It’s sales 101 to leave your emotions and opinions at the door, but I’m constantly amazed at how often this Read More…
More is not better (focus on focus)
A wine by the glass list that is 90 items long is confounding for the customer (and impossible to train a service staff on, much less preserve the quality in the bottle). A Chardonnay section in a wine shop that has three times as many wines as the other sections is obviously trying to appeal Read More…
The Real Goals of a Wine Sales Rep
Most wine sales reps don’t do it for the money. There is surprisingly little money in the wine business. Yes, income can be stable, but you’ll never strike it rich. And wine sales reps shouldn’t do it for the fame. There’s no fame in wine sales. There’s a little bit of stardom for some sommeliers, Read More…
A super simple restaurant wine training hack
The upended labor market due to the pandemic is making for stressful times to be a restaurant owner. Trying to find qualified labor, good and communicative people to work the front of the house, is more difficult than ever. This leads to hiring people that might not have been hired before, with less knowledge and Read More…
A super simple social media plan for wine retailers
There are very few wine retailers that use social media well. Ask them why they don’t post on Facebook or Instagram regularly and the answer is often “we just don’t have time.” Of course you have time. It takes but a minute, and if there are no customers in the store why not make use Read More…
What if? (50ml edition)
Time for another edition of What if? The pandemic is changing how we have to work, which means there is an opportunity to make things better. An opportunity, only once, here and now, to rewrite the rules of ‘normal work’ in the wine business. So here’s an idea … What if it became the norm Read More…
The Post-Pandemic Wine List
What is your restaurant wine list going to look like on the other side of the pandemic? Will it be the same size? Will you work with the same vendors? Or the same number? Will you allow big brands to wiggle, seduce, push, shove, or buy their way onto the by the glass program (yet Read More…
What is your job?
Give me the one sentence answer to this questions: What is your job? “My job is to represent my brands to retailers and restaurants.” “My job is to grow my account base and increase company revenue.” “My job is to provide the ultimate in customer service.” “My job is to show what truly great hospitality Read More…
Four Months from Today
Welcome to SOND 2020. This is a final third of a year like no other. The global pandemic, the unrest in America, the upcoming election, and for those in our industry the continued upheaval of the business in general. Taxes, tariffs, the crash of restaurants, the boom of retail business. Wildfires, overproduction, competition … the Read More…
The Annual Review
Merry Christmas Eve, happy holidays, and Bestest Festivus to all! This is not the normal Vinethinking essay. It’s more important than that. This essay is about the Annual Review. The Annual Review is a process that I’ve been going through since 2009, during which I take the time to get secluded, get reflective, get analytical, Read More…
Payoff
It’s mid-November, and the sales call in this time of year changes in shape: the buyer has less time to meet with you, but orders more wine. Ironically, and seemingly counter-intuitively, you make more money for less work. But this is the moment to realize the payoff from ten months of building, planning, relationship massaging, Read More…
Measuring a sales job by dollars, or not
Sales reps usually measure by dollars. It’s an easy yardstick to use, it contributes to the quality of your life, and it’s a measurement that allows instant comparison to others in the industry. An “Annual industry salary survey” can be useful to a small degree. But it can also be clickbait. When you measure by Read More…
Problems, solutions, and the blame game in wine sales
Problems between sales reps and buyers come up naturally. Sometimes small, sometimes big. And sometimes opportunities are simply problems with a costume on. And sometimes problems are simply problems. But it’s the job of a good sales rep to always present solutions. Better yet, present two. Maybe even three. That’s part of the job. Telling Read More…
Looking into the crystal ball of wine retail
Let’s look into the future. I don’t know how far into the future. It might be two years or maybe ten. But sooner than you think. Amazon has entered the liquor retail game. Not in a small way either. Through their Whole Foods locations, they now permeate into many key urban areas. And through Amazon Read More…
What happens if …
… you present ten Pinot Noirs to an account, they don’t find joy in any of them, then a competitor presents just one and that makes it on the list? … you own 95% of a wine list at a local restaurant, but the company that has the other 5% suddenly starts spending a lot Read More…
Your internal narrative
We tell ourselves stories. Stories of failure. Stories of hesitancy. Stories of contrast and scorekeeping. The tough part about our internal narrative is that it’s the driver of our actions. Our hesitation to make another call to an unopened account because of the look you got the last time you were there. Or the phone Read More…
Six minutes
You just pulled into the parking lot of your next sales call. You’re about to bounce out of the car and rush right in. Hold on! Before going in, stop and breathe. For one minute, sit in your car, radio off, and think. What is the goal of the sales call? Do I have all Read More…
The easiest way to sell anything
There is one surefire way to sell anything. This works across all industries, across all cultures, and during all economic situations. You give it away for free. Not just your product. But your time. And your energy. And your ideas. Free is a dangerous downhill slide, and once you have put no value onto something, Read More…
Are you secretly trying to fail?
If you fail in selling wine and spirits to a particular account, and you get kicked out or have the account taken off your roster, you are off the hook. Some sales reps, consciously or unconsciously, secretly try to fail in an account for this very reason. Why? Because going through the truth and the Read More…
Customer management is not …
… telling your customers how it’s going to be. That’s not customer management. Customer management is done on the backside and in the shadows, not in front of your restaurant and retail buyers. It’s the coordination of deliveries. It’s the replacing of samples. It’s making sure their bills are paid and confusion is quickly resolved. Read More…
Choose carefully
Think about this: if you see an account for a good sales meeting 30 times a year, and you show them four wines at each meeting, you show them 120 wines in a year. And if you have 2000 wines in your portfolio, it will take you 16.7 years to show all of them, without Read More…
Calm waters and making waves
Swimming in the calm waters is easy. It’s fun. It’s what everyone wants to do. Swimming in the waves is harder, it’s challenging. It’s demanding. It’s not what everyone seeks out. It takes a special type of person to seek out the waves. And then there are the wave creators. The ones that make the Read More…
Say thanks, now
We are on the cusp of the holiday seasons. Within the next ten weeks the stores will be packed with Halloween displays, followed closely by Christmas chaos. Our homes transform from bats and ghouls, to turkeys and leaves, to trees and lights. As we enter the holiday season, cards arrive in the mail and we Read More…
You don’t need to have the answer
… you just need to know how to help your customers find the answer. Those are two very different things.
Free is never free
Freebies abound in the liquor industry. Look at the umbrellas on the patios, the credit card embossed checkout books, the logos on the beer mugs. And behind the scenes, free cases are delivered to retailers. Free menu printing, or covering the costs for someone else to do it, is a regular offer for restaurants. And Read More…
Speak three months ahead
This isn’t a sales trick, hack, or tool. It’s just a good habit for a wine sales rep to get into. Talk three months ahead. Not all the time, but at least once during every sales call with a customer. In September: “Let’s start mapping out December’s features for the holiday season.” In November: “I’m Read More…
A simple question to ask
“Is what I’m doing today improving my life?” Be it personal (physical health, mental health, personal finances, relationships), or work (solving problems, having control over your day, saying yes when you need to and saying no when necessary), this is the simple question to ask. Have you written down what you plan to do today? Read More…
Wine Inventory as Wine Marketing
Inventory is one of the most mis-understood aspects of the wine world. A wholesaler that commits ten percent of their annual revenue to a single purchase of five thousand cases of Hungarian Viognier is going to run into an inventory problem. A restaurant owner who has a wine buyer that overbuys on Barolo and ties Read More…
Problems
Every organization, wholesaler, winery, and sales rep has problems. They may be small, they may be hidden, but there is a 100% chance they exist. How are the problems recognized? By you? By others? Through analysis of data? By a gut instinct? And if problems abound, how does the company approach them, identify them, and Read More…
A challenge: more questions
I’ve run into a few wine sales reps lately that only tell, they never ask. They tell me about the winemaker. They tell me about the steel tanks. They tell me about the vineyard. They tell me about the barrels. They tell me the scores. At no point do they ask anything. “What’s the best Read More…
“What can I do to help?”
When delivered with honesty and empathy, is there a more powerful statement a person could possibly make? There are situations in life when simply offering help is not only the right thing to do but the only thing you can do. When you see someone who is injured. When you happen upon a person in Read More…
What do your wineries want?
What do wineries that you represent really want? “We want to be placed in the right accounts.” “We want to be a category leader.” “We want to grow our direct to consumer business.” “We want less competition in your book.” “We want your sales reps to take more samples out.” “We want your sales reps Read More…
When it’s not working
When you know the uphill battle is not getting easier. When you know the problem account has no solutions and will never become better. When you know that stack of Hungarian Pinot Noir was a bad sell or a bad buy. When you know the organization you are working with or for is getting more Read More…
Long term goals without plans are called dreams
I’m in the starting period of a new big project, one that we’ve been mapping out for the last six months. I hoped to be fully up and running by now, but I actually find myself still on the starting blocks. Six months ago I went into the work without clear plans. Rather than goals, Read More…
Tug of War
Watching a tug of war match is great fun. Two individuals or teams, if evenly matched, give it their all. Sweat, power, energy, and eventually a winner. But think about this: tug of war only works if both sides are trying hard. If one side didn’t pull, then what’s the point? If the other didn’t Read More…
A challenge for today
I have a challenge for you. It has to be done by the end of the day. You’re responsible for it yourself, and only yourself. No bosses or managers to report to. No spouse or significant other to check in with when complete. Ready? Here you go: today’s challenge is to develop a challenge for Read More…
When things go wrong
In the relationship between a wholesaler and a retailer or restaurant, things will go wrong. It’s just a matter of time. A forgotten invoice. A screwed up delivery. A change of vintage from the 95 point wine everyone wants to the new vintage, which is only 85 points. Or something bigger. A shift in the Read More…
Tools vs. Skills part two (appearance and smoking)
In yesterday’s post I wrote the following: The most common myth: it’s someone’s physical attractiveness that makes them successful in sales. (The proof? I succeeded big time in sales.) How people look and/or handle themselves is a tool, not a skill. It is a tool to be conscious of for sure, but it’s not the Read More…
Tools vs. Skills
The writer Neil Gaiman was on the Tim Ferris podcast. In the show, Tim asked Neil about his writing process and how he physically went about writing his wonderful books. It’s a common question for authors, photographers, painters, and musicians. Why kind of guitar does she use? What type of camera does Annie Leibovitz prefer? Read More…
Nothing is impossible
This was the great lesson of Apollo 11. Yes it may take 400,000 people. Yes it may take over $25 billion dollars. But the great lesson of late July 1969 is that we are allowed to think bigger than we ever thought possible. And this great lesson can pare down to each of us and Read More…
Is Wine an Experience Good?
In economics, an experience good is a product that can only be evaluated after experiencing it. The other two categories are a search good, where an item is fully evaluated prior to purchase (think clothing), and credence claims which are difficult to impossible to evaluate or measure accurately even after consumption or purchase (think legal Read More…
Is it really that bad?
Rejection is tough. Hearing NO is difficult for everyone, across all industries and cultures. And too many times hearing NO can wear down the best of us. But why did they say no? If they said no for a specific reason, that is okay. “We have twenty Malbecs right now, we really don’t need another Read More…
Faults vs. Problems
I used to say, rather sarcastically, that there is no such thing as a wine emergency. The idea being that far too many sales reps run around like chickens without heads solving emergencies that don’t qualify as emergencies. And in the big scope of world problems and social issues, a restaurant running out of a Read More…
Dangerous multipliers
Say you have 25 accounts in your territory, and you’re pulling in $50,000 a year. Makes sense to think, therefore, that if you doubled it to 50 accounts you’d make $100,000 a year. So why not ramp up to 100 accounts and make $200,000 a year? Using the easy multiplying math, you only need 500 Read More…
A very special case: having the whole wine list
To own the entire wine list at a restaurant, wether it’s a coffee café that happens to pour a couple of house wines at night, or the hot new restaurant with the hot new chef that is packed every evening, is a very particular situation that deserves a different playbook. A few thoughts: You’re a Read More…
Articles. Clippings. Proof of concept.
Just sell wines that people want to buy. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But if you have to spend precious selling time rolling the ball uphill to reach the peak of simply convincing someone to think about maybe buying, then you’ve wasted energy and resources. Oh, you’ve never heard of Zweigelt? Well, let’s spend Read More…
Little nudges vs. big changes
A baseball manager walking to the pitcher’s mound for a little conversation is looking for a little nudge. Don’t try so hard, try harder, focus more, stop focusing so much, you can do this, don’t forget what the plan is. A baseball manager walking to the mound to substitute out a pitcher is making a Read More…
More is, unfortunately, free
I’ll bring you more samples. I’ll pour more wine in your store. I’ll put up more shelf talkers. I’ll train your staff more than last year. I’ll spend more time in your account. When you offer more, you’re doing it because you don’t see the costs in dollars and cents. You’re not being billed for Read More…
You’ve made the choice
If you’re a wine retailer, you’ve made the choice to not have Memorial Day or Labor Day off. You made the choice to work weekends. You’ve made the choice to be in one spot, waiting for customers to come to you. You made the choice to know that every New Year’s Eve, the day before Read More…
A Wine Retailer’s Two Question (digital) Checklist
If you’re a wine retailer today there are two key questions you have to ask: How do potential customers find me? How do I convey to them who we are and what we stand for? Everything grows from those two questions. How do potential customers find you? Is your Google Business page up to date? Read More…
Strategy solves problems
There are three types of problems for wine sales rep: short term, mid-term, and long term. Short term is tomorrow, the day after that, and the next selling week. It’s the immediacy of having to react. Having to run a will call. Having to correct an error on an invoice. Having to scramble for appointments Read More…
Wine prices and pillows
Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I bought a new pillow. A fancy one. It came in cool packaging, well designed and unlike other pillows on the market. Being who I am, I also looked online at reviews to help nudge me toward what I wanted to do (buy the pillow). Enough glowing reviews led me Read More…
The Velocity Question
As a wine sales rep, having a retailer say “I’ll take 31 cases of that wine” is rare. 31 cases, at 12 bottles per case, is 372 bottles. That means the retailer has to sell a bottle every day, seven days a week, for a bit over a year in order to move through the Read More…
Wine and Bagless Vacuum Cleaners
Bagless vaccum cleaners don’t perform their job as well as the old-school cleaner with a bag that you toss out when full. This has been proven time and time again and is the advice you hear if you go to a good vacuum cleaner repair shop and ask. But for most people that buy bagless vacuum Read More…
Show the discount
“Great Cabernet, only $13.99.” “Great Cabernet. Regularly $18.99. Sale $13.99.” Which sounds better? Always show the discount. Always.
You can’t, in good conscience
As a wine wholesaler, you can’t, in good conscience, be a supporter of both the boutique hand-selling wine shop and the mega national retailer. You can’t, in good conscience, sell a wine that goes against the core of all of your personal values and the needs of your accounts simply to make a quota or Read More…
Strengths, and your personal superpowers
Peter Parker can shoot webs and swing from building to building. Aquaman can swim underwater like a dolphin. Bruce Wayne builds great gadgets and tools to help get his job done (plus he drives a pretty awesome car). And what do you do? We all have superpowers. The strengths that set us apart from others. Read More…
A Sales Rep’s Choices
A wine sales rep is in a marvelous and privileged position. You get to choose. Today, are you building a brand or building the market? Tomorrow, are you finding the unknown (wine or customer), or are you learning the known even better? Next week, are you showcasing the new or reinforcing the established? What are Read More…
The irreplaceable placement
Many restaurants have one or two. Every retailer has six to twelve. They are the wines they cannot swap out, cannot consider getting rid of, and cannot possibly imagine life without. They are the wines that customers would riot over losing access to. The wines that sell as regularly as a heartbeat. They are the Read More…
Rethinking Points of Distribution
The acronym is PODs, and if you work in a larger wholesaler or for a big winery, you hear this term often. If you work for a small wholesaler you may not hear it at all. PODs represent placements, and for every wine in every market with every distributor there is a certain number of Read More…
Invent your own week
This is for wine retailers and restaurants. It’s an easy way to drive some traffic and get some attention from the local wine community. It’s repeatable and scalable. And it’s a way to train and focus your staff at the same time. And it’s a way to have fun while selling more wine. And yet Read More…
By the numbers: larger public wine tastings
If you are a wine retailer, wine group, or wine organization that puts together the occasional wine tasting for the public, here are some ideas to keep in mind for a successful event. This essay is focused on the small to the mid-sized event, for attendance in the 80 to 800 person range. Large convention Read More…
What is the modern wine wholesaler?
It’s never been this hard for wine sales reps. It used to be that you could sell on quality because there was a lot of crap wines being pushed into the market. Train your customers what good wine was all about, then they would buy what you were selling. Then we entered the era of Read More…
Wine for customers, or customers for wine?
Which direction are you going? Are you finding a wine for your customers, or are you finding customers for your wine? This is one of the big questions, for it shows the intention of the business and at the same time dictates how a sales call should and will proceed. If you are a wholesaler, Read More…
Reinvention
Don’t try reinventing the wheel. The wheel is perfect. And it works great. And any change in the shape of a wheel makes it work less well. There are aspects of your job that are a wheel. Leave them alone. But for all the other parts … maybe a little reinvention is needed. Your intro Read More…
Wine Pros: Attitude
Wine sales amateurs bring their life and emotions into the sales call. The crappy night of sleep. The bills that are piling up. The internal issues at their company. The mud being thrown on the street about competitors (and about them). The dinner they had last night. The fact that sales are down. Wine professionals don’t Read More…
More is not the answer
Don’t fall into the trap that more is better. More accounts means more time pressure to see them all and do a good job. More products to sell in your portfolio means more pressure to sell the whole range, which is difficult because there are only so many minutes in a sales call. Calling on Read More…
Reporting to your Grand Plan
It’s easy to be guilted into saying yes. As a salesperson, being liked by your customers is part of the job. So you go out of your way. You do favors. You bring lunch to the store. You say yes to an in-store tasting on Memorial Day weekend. You say yes to another in-store tasting Read More…
Services, products, scalibility, and your job
A wine sales rep is in a special job with some particular leverage advantages. Service-based businesses trade time for money. A hairstylist cannot make money unless he cuts your hair. A therapist cannot bill the insurance company unless she has a client and an appointment with them. A tree trimmer need to trim a tree Read More…
The best things about wine sales
You get to talk about beautiful places. You get to talk about a delicious and historically important beverage. You get to talk about legendary families and fresh new upstarts. There is always something new. There is competition at all levels and price points (imagine the boredom if there was truly no competition). You get to Read More…
Tell me a (curated) story
Who made the wine? Where did it come from? What does it taste like? What makes it different from the others? These are common questions that get addressed in a sales presentation about a wine. They are what buyers expect to hear, so much so that a sales rep often blindly rattles off the list Read More…
Setting the right goals
It isn’t good to say “I’ll sell more wine.” Goals without structure, steps, and accountability are fantasies. And the problem with fantasies is that it’s too easy to walk away from them when it’s obvious you’re not going to achieve them. Setting the right goals in the right way is one of the most powerful Read More…