This week’s Monday Challenge is quick and simple. Question one: did you read the first Monday Challenge of this year? If not, here you go. Question two: did you read and respond to these two questions on that list: What is one clear personal goal (quantifiable) that you want to achieve in 2017? And … Read More…
Category: Brands
Give them what they want and they’ll get what they expect
It’s supposed to make so much sense: just give the customers what they want. Of course it’s not that simple. Let’s break down what all customers seem to want, what all customers do want, and what all customers really want. A few no-brainers that customers say they always want: Lower prices … the number one answer Read More…
Company culture and long term employees
The idea of culture building gets bantered about far too much in many corporations, and ironically the ones that talk about it the most are often the ones that have a cultural problem on their hands. Culture is built through actions, not mission statements (see the 9 worst of all time), and thus by definition it starts with Read More…
Large and known vs. Small and unknown
Large wineries have brand presence, resources, marketing departments, sales forces, trend reporting and analysis, marketing materials, and larger overall goals. Small wineries lack brand presence, lack resources, often have no marketing department, maybe a sales force of one (and often the owner/winemaker), no trend reporting or analysis, no marketing materials, and smaller overall goals. When Read More…
Find the customers that embrace the New and Unknown
If you do what you did yesterday, you’re doing okay, right? If you buy the brands you have found and like, and they do their job, you’re okay, right? Most people are satisfied with most things, and this applies to wine. Most people buy what they know and are comfortable with. Most people want things Read More…
We are all salespeople
Servers at restaurants are salespeople. Hosts who answer phones and take reservations and greet customers and say goodnight to them are salespeople. Bartenders are salespeople. Retailers that put wine the hands of a customer and earn their trust are salespeople. The ones that ring up the order at a wine shop are salespeople. The delivery crew at Read More…
That’s a wrap!
Good day everybody, and welcome to the last work day of 2016! Thank you for joining the VineThinking community. So far 184 blog posts composed of over 62,000 words since I started this in April, and a readership that has grown by leaps and bounds as the months have gone by. Thank you to all who Read More…
So what ya doing today?
What are you doing at 10am? At 12:30pm? At 3pm? If you took up yesterday’s Monday Challenge, then you know. You know exactly what you’re doing and where you’ll be. Not only every half hour of today and tomorrow, but also Thursday and Friday. And because you filled out the chart and thought ahead about Read More…
Private conversations
The amount of information that people are inclined to share with you privately rises in direct proportion to how well you handle the information others have given you. To put it in a much simpler way, if you lead any sentences with “I shouldn’t tell you this, but …” then you’re doing the wrong thing. Read More…
The problem with choices …
… is that most people second guess their decision. When faced with a huge number of choices in front of them, most people will fret and fuss and debate and contemplate until the frustration leads to simply grabbing something that they hope will work and going for it. It’s the video store syndrome. Remember those Read More…
Wine Industry Baggage and Assumptions
When you walk into a new account as a sales rep, one that doesn’t know you at all personally but might have opinions about who you work for, what kind of assumptions could that customer make? Perhaps more importantly, what kind of assumptions do YOU make about what they are thinking? And in that instance, Read More…
Monday Challenge: Have you fallen off the track?
Every Monday I send out a Monday Challenge. This week: stay on target, set your goals, and recognize when you are off the track (while making a plan to get back on track and on target). One example of being off the track? Sending a “Monday Challenge” on Tuesday morning, like I’m doing now. Goal setting and Read More…
Wine sales is not a zero sum game
The idea that if one wine is bought, then another can’t be. That there is only so much space. This is the thinking of the old guard. There is a new dynamic in play, and the best wine sales reps in the nation are doing it. That of the giver and connector. If you can Read More…
Monday Challenge: Share your contract
This week’s challenge is super easy, if you completed last week’s (Write your own contract). The goal last week was self-accountability. To list the primary goals you need to achieve between now and the end of the year, and the steps necessary to achieve those goals. Then you were to put it into a contract, and Read More…
It’s the singer, not the song (as long as the wine is good)
Fictional scenario, but play along: Two sales reps. Two different wholesalers. One buyer. Both reps bring in the same wine. Not the same label, but the same juice in the bottle. What’s going to happen? The buyer will buy one wine and not the other. It’s the “why?” of this equation that needs to be examined Read More…