What’s really important can’t be measured

Sales figures. Growth rates. Return on investment. All of these are interesting, all are relevant, but they are not the whole picture. A disengaged, frustrated, unenergized, unmotivated, unloved employee can easily, at the same time, be a top sales person with double digit growth year to date and one who brings you a large return on Read More…

Insides and Outsides

My wife and I attended a large public wine and food event last night. The type where fancy people donate good money to the cause, and the best restaurants in the state have their tents set up. It was beautiful and wonderful, and almost a perfect night. For reasons I don’t need to go into here, Read More…

Monday challenge: The bottom of your list

This week’s Monday challenge is aimed at wholesale sales reps. One week from today it’s August. That means we’re in the deep part of summer when beer sales are the focus for most retailers, and major wine list changes are low on the priority list for most restaurants. So what to do this week? Aim Read More…

Do you really want the main stage?

Here’s a fabulous story from Moby’s new autobiography Porcelain, talking about playing Lalapalooza in 1995. Lalapalooza in those days ran two stages, with the primary and bigger acts on Stage One and a handful of relative unknowns on Stage Two. Moby was booked for the second stage, which “had made me feel like a techno Read More…

Who is your real competition?

For restaurants, is it any other place that serves food for money? Or is it places that serve food similar to yours and charge the same or less? Or more? For retailers, is it any other store that sells alcoholic beverages? Or is it other stores of similar size and reach and impact? Or is Read More…

Missing the Free Throw

A basketball player steps up to the line. This is no ordinary basketball player. He’s a professional, paid millions of dollars to put the ball through the hoop. There is no defense. Nobody attacking them. It’s a free throw. And how often will they miss? On average in the NBA, over the last two decades, they Read More…

First thing: Tell people about the wine

Time and time again I’m amazed how effective the most basic “system” in wine sales truly is. Tell people what you’re going to pour for them. Pour it for them. Tell people what you poured for them. It’s a simple derivative of a common pattern in communications, but it’s surprising how often it’s not done. Read More…

Constructive Criticism

Young, new, and fresh art students who have not gone through the process of constructive criticism often have something approximating a nervous breakdown when entering it for the first time. Opening yourself up makes you vulnerable, and hearing people critique something personal is too much for many. The young students often focus on the criticism Read More…

Welcome to the last half of July

We are entering the deepest part of summer: the six week stretch ahead of SOND (September, October, November, and December … which is traditionally when half of the total wine sales happen in the United States). That means two things: Time to start planning. Get out the calendar. Halloween, the presidential election, Thanksgiving, holiday shopping, Read More…

24 Months: What can you do?

Organizational wonks that develop massively complicated systems to track goals, priorities, and information seem to have something in common: they focus on the here and now (what has to be done today and tomorrow), the end of year goals (the annual review, fiscal year, etc.), and then, strangely, they shoot off to lifetime goals or Read More…

Bookstores vs. Wine Shops

Similarities: Both have wide selections. Great variety. Both have door-opener, easy point of entry products. Both have higher end, more intellectual, more speciality products. Both have large national retailers that come into a city and seem to crush the competition and put them out of business. Then that gigantic company is suddenly on the ropes Read More…

Hard Decisions and Work Creep

A hard decision involves loss: by deciding to do one thing, something else falls. If a manager or owner is simply asking people to do more, produce more, sell more, leave no stone unturned, take on more responsibility, slice their time into smaller bits, organize even more data, track relationships with even more people, drive Read More…

Why do you buy from ME?

Sometimes the best questions are the easiest to ask. If you’re a wine wholesale rep, during this beer-fueled summer season take the time to dig a bit into your account’s motivations. Ask your customer: “Why do you buy from ME?” By asking this question you’ll break some ice, learn about your wine buyers in a Read More…

All Corners of the Wine Business

Note: before going into the post, I just want to say a huge Thank You to those that are spreading the word about VineThinking. Subscriptions to the email updates are going through the roof, including many big names in the wine business and wine journalism fields. Please keep spreading the word if you’re finding value Read More…

Needs and Wants

There are things your customers need to know. There are other things they want to know. And there is a fundamental difference. NEEDS For a restaurant, your customer needs to know when you’re open and closed. They need to know how to get there, and if there is any construction in the way. They need to know Read More…

Measuring Sticks and Managers

Managers are good at managing people, which is very different from leading people. “Management” is a term that goes back to the early part of the industrial revolution when factories and assembly lines proved incredibly profitable if the system was managed correctly. The measuring stick for the factory production of that time was not the Read More…

Wine Motivations

Wine buyers (retailer and restaurants) purchase wine for a kaleidoscope of reasons. There’s a deal It tastes great It’s popular nationally It’s not popular nationally It has limited availability The label is awesome They are doing you a favor Their boss told them to. They’ve liked it in the past They’ve never heard of it Then Read More…

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Every once in a while a site comes along that provides so much pure information and advice that you simply can’t ignore it. One such site for me is Barking Up the Wrong Tree, run by Eric Barker. Join Eric’s newsletter list and absorb his findings into your job. All of his findings are based on Read More…

Surprise the people you see the most

We are all stuck in a rut, because the rut is predictable and comfortable. Same type of clothes everyday. Same shoes. Same attitude. Same jokes (or at least themes of jokes … that one person always tells bad jokes, another only off-color jokes, another long-format jokes). For wholesale reps and winery reps, there is comfort Read More…

Happy July 4th, and a Marketing Plan

Happy July 4th to everybody. America’s holiday. Fireworks, grilling, and good times for all. So let’s make use of it. Lesson Part 1: If you need photography for your blog, Facebook posts, tweets, etc. you have an amazing and legal archive at your fingertips within the Flickr Creative Commons. Here’s what you do: Go to Read More…

The risk of being comfortable

Your business is going well. Not great, but humming along. You do the same thing every week, the same good customers show up, they buy the same types of wines. Life is good and predictable and comfortable. Watch out. There is always somebody around the corner. A new wine shop getting some press. The hot Read More…

A July 2016 wine challenge

Think of your network in your wine world. Think of the people that are either relatively new to it, or so constantly enthused about wine that they still have that buzz of excitement whenever you pour something for them. The people that know enough to know they love it but don’t know enough to get Read More…

The weakest wine

Yesterday I wrote about choices, and about being the person to stand up and be remarkable and make a fuss when things aren’t quite right. There was some chatter on the social channels afterwards about the post, and I want to riff a bit about one line in particular, coming from my examples of situations: Read More…