The shotgun and the arrow

Two different wine sales reps, from two different companies, with two different ways of presenting wines and ideas to the same restaurant buyer looking for a new Cotes du Rhone by the glass. Sales rep 1: “Thanks for the time today. So I brought five Cotes du Rhone at a range of prices. All are Read More…

The simple way to do an annual review

With 99% certainty here is what every one of your retail and restaurant customers does NOT know. They don’t know how much wine they bought from you this past year (dollars and cases). They don’t know how much wine they bought from you the year before that (dollars and cases). They don’t know the percentage difference Read More…

What are you going to do next year?

This is an important question to ask, because next year is next week. Annual reviews of accounts, territories, personal strengths, personal weaknesses, planned development, goals, outlooks, and ideas are wonderful ways to take a longer view of your wine sales business. It’s also a great way to fall into the sticky mud of too many Read More…

Manage energy, not time

The month of December is a strange one for the wine sales rep. Sales are up. Customers are buying more than other months. But due to the efficiency of the sales and the busy-ness that everybody is experiencing, there is little room for the idle conversation and no room for the product pitch. More sales Read More…

Constant, consistent, and always evolving change

Nothing stays the same for long. Restaurants open and close. Often with little or no warning. Distributors merge and portfolios shift. Always with no hint that it’s coming. Retailers have ups and downs, successes and failures, great days and horrible weeks, sometimes for no apparent reason. Every wine on every wine list in the world changes Read More…

The irony of December

We are in the final stretch of the wine sales year, the last two weeks of December. Christmas music is playing. Your restaurants have gift card promotions galore going on (and I assume you’re buying one, right? You’re going to eat there anyway, might as well write of the purchase on this year’s expenses while Read More…

Who pulled you up in 2017?

Who singlehandedly made the difference for you this past year? Was it a particular customer? Or a particular buyer? Maybe it was somebody outside of the industry that gave you particularly good advice. Or a winery rep who climbed into your car and made for the perfect day, full of sales, insight, and education? Was Read More…

You can’t have it all

You know you can’t have it all. You can’t sell every single wine in your portfolio to every account in your territory. You can’t sell a retailer all of their wine selections, leaving out all competition. You can’t magically open all the doors at all the restaurants and have them buy only from you. So why Read More…

Selling Champagne

There are a few fundamental differences between selling Champagne (and I’m only talking about real deal Champagne here) and other wine categories. Consumers tend to buy it one bottle at a time. And thus, without another glass next to it for comparison and assuming it’s served quite cold, it’s hard to make a call on Read More…