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…
Author: Jason Kallsen
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…
Ideas (for restaurants)
Have a restaurant that wants to move more wine, or attract more of the serious wine crowd? Here are some ideas. Half price wine night – Can be a weekly event for one month, or keep it going all year long. Pick the slowest wine night of the week and do 50% off all bottles. Read More…
Nobody owes you anything
Sorry to bring you the bad news. But it’s the truth. That extra will call you ran? Looking the other way for a week while a bill was due? The extra in-store tasting you decided to do last week, when your kid’s play was being put on? There are no repayment gods that will ensure Read More…
If they don’t buy it, did I fail?
In the world of wine sales, part of the job is showing product. Learning how to present, how to tell stories, and how to close the sale are all essential tools to do the job. So what if they don’t buy? Did you fail? Of course not. The process of a good sales call is Read More…
What doesn’t work
It doesn’t work to not show up at an account for weeks. It doesn’t work to forget to tell an account they are overdue on a bill and about to get posted. It doesn’t work to not show new wines during a sales call. It doesn’t work to bad mouth your competition. It doesn’t work Read More…
Who is the hero?
Selling, all selling, is storytelling. And every good story has a hero that overcame obstacles, found the path, and achieved (or is working hard toward the goal). Every wine worth talking about has a hero. This is where commodity brands stumble and family-owned wineries have the edge. It’s hard to make a hero out of Read More…
Can you measure it?
As a wine sales rep for a good retailer, you sometimes take your personal time and devote it to the store by standing behind a barrel pouring samples for anybody who wants them. Boring stuff, usually. You might not sell very much wine, but one person connected deeply with one of your wines, and she Read More…