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…
Category: Marketing
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Show the discount
“Great Cabernet, only $13.99.” “Great Cabernet. Regularly $18.99. Sale $13.99.” Which sounds better? Always show the discount. Always.
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…
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…
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…
The 5000 piece puzzle
Lots of people love puzzles. It’s a great way to idle away time on a long weekend at the cabin, or during a family reunion. Why are some 1000 pieces? Why are some only ten inches square while others are huge? Why would someone intentionally choose an incredibly difficult 5000 piece puzzle? Easy: they want Read More…
But what kind of problem does the account have?
It’s easy to have problems with an account. Sometimes it’s the fault of the sales rep. Sometimes it’s the fault of the account. But it’s better to simply say “we have problems.” Because it really doesn’t matter who’s fault it is. A problem is a problem. The key is to ask what kind of problem there is. If Read More…
Taking a stand
All that really matters is the experience of the end consumer. Simple as that. If she pops a bottle of wine with friends, pours the glasses, and loves the experience of drinking that bottle then it really doesn’t matter who the wholesaler was or even who the retailer was. The only two connection points in Read More…
The supply and demand and end of bin irony
The moment a retailer buys wine from a wholesaler it gets marked up with their standard percentage. Then the wine takes months to trickle out. Finally, you’re down to the last six bottles. Finally. The standard reaction is to discount it, to make it less valuable. To do what you can to turn it into Read More…
I don’t care if the wine is good
Thanks for pouring me a glass. Yes, I agree that’s pretty damn good wine. But I don’t care. Because there is a ton of good wine out there. But here are some questions for you: Who made it? What do they represent? Are they taking a stand on something? Is it a region consumers are Read More…
The five percent, and the one percent
95% of all Champagne sold is produced by the largest houses and have the names we all know. 5% of all Champagne sold is Farmer Fizz, i.e. Recoultant Manipulant, stuff from the families and the little producers that ship tiny quantities their wines to the United States. For wine salespeople and marketers, the discussion usually Read More…
Why can’t you?
Why can’t you be the most successful wine sales rep in the state? The region? Why can’t you become the most successful wine retailer in your city, or your state, or even the country? The common answer, the default answer, is competition. “Too many other wholesalers / sales reps / retailers … that’s why.” But Read More…
The wine velocity sweet spot
Right now, today, we have the technology to put self-driving cars into the world that are safe and reliable. Seriously. The technology is there to have fully self-driving cars all over every city in the world. The problem is they max out at two miles per hour. Would you hop in a self-driving car that Read More…
High end chocolate
The world of high end, exclusive, limited availability, hand-made chocolate is pretty neat. Where the beans came from, the roasting, the pressing, the sweat involved in every step makes each bar simply taste better. It’s a world where knowledge multiplies the taste experience. And the folks that buy the high-end chocolate have little hesitation to Read More…
Info power (and wine wholesalers)
I type this post while sitting at a coffee shop. No surprise there. But this coffee shop (Caribou) is trying to compete with Starbucks. Part of their strategy is the new “perks club” (cute name). If I join the club I can slooooooowly build points for a free cookie or a coffee. But in exchange Read More…
The irony of competition
There is a grand irony in the wine business. First, the more wholesalers there are, the better it is for retailers and restaurants. It makes for competition, it makes for more choice, it makes for opportunity to buy wines that nobody else has, it allows for a retailer or restaurant to stand out easier. Second, Read More…
Seeing things with true clarity …
… is almost impossible. But doubly impossible when you’re starting from behind to begin with. How do you start from behind? Lack of sleep Lack of exercise Drinking too much wine and feeling the compounded impact on your brain and body Anxiety (fear of what might happen) Disorganization Poor diet Letting others usurp your time Being digitally Read More…
On luxury wine
A luxury wine (as opposed to a great but expensive wine) exists based on scarcity and social proof. It has to be scarce, because the rules of supply and demand not only keep the proposed value sky high, but actually increases the eventual cost of holding a bottle of your own. A luxury wine cannot Read More…
Being relevant
To be relevant in an industry is the simple goal for most workers and most businesses. To be a restaurant that gets mentioned in the “top 10” lists. To be a wine that retailers are asking for, not being loaded upon. To be an employee asked for an opinion on an internal matter. To be somebody Read More…
Let’s talk email
Efficiency is talked about often, and email is definitely one of the most efficient ways to communicate (in many ways too efficient, which is why it gets overused). In the spirit of efficiency some people use email well. And others do not. And it’s painful to watch (and read). Rules: Learn what BCC: is all Read More…
Tell and Show
When we are young, we have Show and Tell in elementary school. Then we grow up and become wine sales reps. And we continue our version of Show and Tell. We pop the cork, we show the wine, then we tell. Flip it around. Tell and Show. It works better that way. Tell your customer Read More…
Proven and tested vs. taking a chance
When taking wine out to show to your accounts, take a moment to think about how you’ll present the wine in the context of the rest of the marketplace. A wine that has been proven and tested can be a big brand, stacked high at all other retailers, on the top ten hot brands list, Read More…
Bird Brains: Proof that there are always haters
If you try to appease everybody all the time you eventually spend an inordinate amount of time appeasing the lowest of the low. In the wine business, there are legendary thugs and bullies that own liquor stores around the country or buy wine for such shops. They harass, they intimidate, they threaten, they position themselves for Read More…
Rosé showers bring May flowers
The rush is on. Containers are landing at a furious pace, and dry pink wine is being stacked high at wine shops coast to coast. Rosé features on wine lists become coveted spots, and it’s a boxing match between reps to get those placements. When most wholesalers put together their rosé offerings into a sell Read More…
Simplifying networking
“Connection points” and “synergy” are terms often bantered about when it comes to networking. Heck, there are easily 12 other overused buzzwords I could list here. There are whole books, blogs, video series, and courses based on the Art of Networking. At its core networking sounds so easy: The idea that you can help them and they Read More…
Investment: Out of the (TV) box thinking
This is going to be a strange one but stick with me on this… I just got a new TV and it came with Roku, one of the many cable-cutting options out there. You scroll through the available services, some free and some not, and add them to your options. I added the CW Network (for free!) Read More…
The myth of the overnight wine success
What is this wine and where did it come from?? It’s suddenly everywhere! Who is that sales rep that is mopping up business all over town? Nobody knows anything about her! Overnight successes are found in all industries, including ours. Some brands, from previously unknown wineries and tiny weird distributors, shoot into a city like Read More…
The customer is always right …
The customer is always right, until they are not. Then you need to distance yourself from them. Burning bridges is a historically bad idea, so don’t do it. But if you have a customer who is simply wrong (in how they do business, how they treat you, how they pay their bills, what they ask for Read More…
What’s your one great talent?
We all have one. The one talent that we can say with confidence “I’m better at that than most.” When I was selling wine for a local fine wine wholesaler, I learned over time what my great talent was: dealing with problem customers. If somebody was pissed of, if they kicked out their previous sales rep, Read More…
A simple formula
Here’s the simple formula for success: Exceed expectations. Again and again and again and again and again. There. Done. Simple as that. (Moral of the story: you don’t have to complicate things to achieve success in business.)
Spring Training
It’s March, and all the baseball teams are in sunny locations getting ready for opening day, happening in about a month. Spring Training is the time to loosen up the joints, play some casual games, let the coach get a feel for the team, let the team get a feel for each other, all the Read More…
It comes down to telling a story
What makes this wine different from others? What makes this wine similar to others? Why was this winery started? What struggles led to winery success? When did they face failure? Was there one hero in the winery that saved the day? When did all of this happen? How many acts are in this winery’s play? How Read More…
The number one complaint (you can do better than that)
Let’s start with the truth: retailers and restauranteurs have it tough. They work in a small box, and live a life of interruption. Vendors, customers, sales people, employees with complaints or issues constantly pulling at them. Trying to structure a day for creative thinking, personal development, or with the goal of flow can be difficult Read More…
The Playbook: Losing a brand
Every wine wholesaler needs a series of playbooks. These are plans and protocols that you pull out when the inevitable happens. When you lose a sales rep, when you hire a new sales rep, when you bring on a new brand, and of course when you lose an important brand. Here’s a quick outline for Read More…
Sometimes, there is no answer
“How can we sell more expensive wine to more retailers?” “How do we break into the hot new restaurant?” “How can I make my sales reps more efficient and responsive?” “How can we get more market share in this increasingly tight and competitive wine scene?” There is no answer to these questions. If there were 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…
Natural Wines, Something Different, and Group Categorization
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the ‘natural wines’ movement lately (highly recommended is Isabelle Legeron’s new book). Not so much about how they taste or if they are good. I’m more interested in the marketing of the wines and the creation of the category. Those of you that have been in the business Read More…
The Wine Spectator Top 100 – what it really means (and how to sell it)
You could hear the collective cheer coming from the west coast when Wine Spectator’s “Wine of the Year” was recently announced. Not only did a Merlot take back the title, but Duckhorn Wine Company and all of their distributors had huge reason to celebrate. Congrats to all! The Wine Spectator Top 100 pulls weight, and Read More…
Why Black Friday works
It works because everybody is involved. Black Friday would be an uneventful day indeed if only a few stores participated. But the collective mass builds the excitement, which leads more to join the mass (both retailers and consumers) making it a self-fulfiling prophecy. So what might happen if wine retailers got together for Local Wine Read More…
The flavor of history
As I type this, I’m putting the final touches on a wine class I’ll be teaching tonight called “The Founding Families of Oregon Pinot Noir.” Doing the research and outlining the class has brought up a bit of a philosophical question: in wine, does history really matter? This might sound like a dumb question because Read More…
What you can’t measure
Loyalty. Smiles. Thank yous. Dedication. Focus. Positivity. Resilience. Creativity. Innovation. Attitude. Ideas. Friendships. Relationships. Partnerships. Be careful about trying to measure everything. Much of the most important stuff is impossible to quantify. If you ignore something simply because you can’t measure it, then you’ll lose it all.
Then you have a brand
Two scenarios. A company assembles 100 carefully chosen wine consumers. They enter a room and taste and rank five whites and five reds. Then they leave. The statisticians come in. They analyze the numbers. They discover the one white and one red the crowd liked the most. They speculate why. The scientists come in and Read More…
Words matter
If you are a wine retailer, the words that you attach to products matter. These are the words your staff says when suggesting wines (you are training them on what to say about certain wines, right?). These are the words that are on your hand written shelftalkers that show your endorsement of a product (which you Read More…
How empires topple
Every major wine market in the United States has one dominant distributor and one dominant retailer (or a chain of stores). Sometimes it’s not actually obvious who the dominant players are, but just a little bit of research will easily unlock the secret of who sells the most wine. These are the empires. And just Read More…
When to talk price, and when to not
In a presentation to consumers, there is a simple formula for when to talk price. For more expensive/premium wine ($40 and over retail), talk about price at the forefront of the presentation. For less expensive wine ($20 and under retail), talk about price at the end of the presentation. The logic is simple, but incredibly important. Read More…
New thoughts on “value”
I just read an article at Harvard Business Review called Business Marketing: Understanding What Customers Value. Here’s a quote from the article (which you can read here if you’re not doing anything else for the next half hour): Values and Prices are the value and price of the supplier’s market offering, and Valuea and Pricea are Read More…
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…
Selling Wine vs. Making Impact
Ask most wine sales reps, owners of wine bars, and owners of wine shops what they do and many will answer “I sell wine.” Selling wine is being an order taker. Selling wine is about making tall stacks and grabbing the end cap. Selling wine is about following benign metrics such as “POD” (points of Read More…
Putting wine statements in context
The purpose of an in-store tasting at a wine retailer is not to show a ton of choices to the consumer. The purpose of joining a wine club is not the convenience of having four wines delivered every quarter and automatically charged to your credit card. The purpose of using good stemware in your restaurant is Read More…
The slow build to the big payoff
It’s February, so here’s a little challenge for everybody: What wine or wines can you place in a shop, or on a list, in front of customers right now, which you might hope to sell two bottles a week? Maybe three on a good week. Not a big seller. Nothing that will set the spreadsheet on fire. 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…
The Reactive Rut
I had a great conversation last night with a local wine retailer. Her shop is small, based on convenience for the neighborhood, and with more and more competition moving in she’s having a hard time standing out and growing her business. The backbone of her business is reacting to the needs of her customers on 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…
High end audio stores (and how they relate to wine)
I love high end audio. I like the older components. I like the texture of a vinyl record, and I love my older speakers. The sound is better, the richness is more complete, and when I take the time to sit down and listen to a favorite album I tend to put other things away and Read More…
It’s about the people, not the wine
A wine wholesaler that has an abundance of supply (an incredible portfolio, amazing brands, and a warehouse full of inventory) does not get a free pass into every account they want to be in. And conversely, a wine wholesaler that has a lack of supply (a few wines in the portfolio, obscure never-before-heard-of brands, and a garage Read More…
The goal of inducing curiosity (via a Coravin)
It’s one of the most effective but overlooked sales techniques. It’s the key to success for many legendary brands, but can easily be replicated into our industries. It’s curiosity. One of my wine consulting contracts is for a successful privately held restaurant group. Three locations, over $1 million in wine sales. They specialize in burgers (really Read More…
The power of loss over the power of gain (Loss Aversion)
If you’re traveling and looking for a place to eat, where do you turn for advice? Many of us whip out the phone and look at Yelp. And when we look at Yelp, and as scroll through the reviews, what jumps out? It’s not the four and five star reviews, because there are so many Read More…
In-store wine tasting success
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there will be many hours for sales reps and retailers standing behind a table pouring wine for consumers. The in-store tasting is a powerful tool if used right, but a waste of time if used wrong. Here are some ideas. Less is more: keep in mind the paradox of choice. Offer 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…
Monday challenge: The Supermoon Effect
Every Monday I throw out a challenge to readers. Something to push you into an uncomfortable spot, to make you see things in a new light or direction, with the goal of growth. This week’s challenge: The Supermoon Effect. Last night more people than ever before paused what they were doing, walked outside, and watched Read More…
Perceived value through having options
I’m writing this from a large, nice, off the beaten path privately owned hotel in Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a good, clean, practical building with very nice people working the front desk. A large free parking lot. Gentle hum of I-90 out the windows. Hot water is hot, cold water is cold, coffee is good, and free Read More…
What Apple (via Samsung) can teach a wine sales rep
Phones are blowing up. Samsung designed a faulty product that is reeking havoc in their company, and more importantly it’s denting their reputation. You can’t have phones blow up. Not good. Then people don’t want to buy your product. The cheap and easy advertisement that Apple could then put out to promote the iPhone7? “Our Read More…
Say it often, say it over and over, then say it again
We’re seeing accumulative negative marketing in the current political season. Because of social media, the more something get said, and the more people hear it, the more it becomes ingrained in the messaging, the more it’s repeated, and the more it’s paid attention to. Sadly, many of the things being bantered about are lies and Read More…
The most overlooked wine placement
As a wine wholesale rep, are you using the cold box correctly? Pre-chilled wine is big business. With fewer and fewer people buying wine in bulk and rather grabbing multiple single bottles during the week, the cold box placement is gold. Every single sales call must address this, and a cold box placement can easily Read More…
Adding value when something costs nothing
Taking pictures used to be expensive. First you had to decide what kind of film to use. Black and white, color negative, or color positive. A 24 shot roll would cost you $4-10, a 36 shot roll between $6 and $13. Then you had to take the pictures. No clue how they eventually would look. Read More…
What are you selling? A product or a brand?
If you are selling a product, you need to lead with the attributes of that product. The varieties in the bottle, the alcohol content, the main competition on the shelf or on the wine list. It’s mano a mano, one wine against the others. But if you are selling a brand, it’s a totally different Read More…
Cheap is not an attribute
“We are the cheapest in town!” But at what cost? Being cheapest does not mean you are not delivering value (they are different things), and you are inviting comparisons to others. Being cheapest means your only measuring stick to determine if you’re doing the right thing is controlled by your competition. The moment somebody is cheaper Read More…
Simple ideas for better restaurant wine service
It seems every restaurant’s wine service can be easily improved. With so much attention being paid to craft cocktails today, let’s take some of that energy and attention to detail and apply it to the wine program. Here’s a smattering of ideas that any restaurant or wine bar can use: Have all wines by the Read More…
Connect your wine to something bigger and greater
Of course you think the wine you’re selling tastes better than the competition. And guess what? That doesn’t really matter. Playing the game of “mine is better than that” is a fool’s game because the rules can change constantly (via personal opinions). Would you throw money on the table in Vegas if the rules constantly changed based Read More…
Are you selling a commodity? Probably not.
Commodities are products that are driven first by price. Charles Shaw, i.e. Two Buck Chuck, is a commodity. Barefoot, YellowTail, Franzia box wines, Beringer White Zin, and many other wines such as those are commodities as well. Yes, they have brand recognition, but the driving force of the sale of those wines is first and Read More…
Getting comfortable
In the world of selling wine it’s easy to get comfortable. VERY comfortable. The restaurant that buys most or all of their wines from you doesn’t need to focused on very much. Just kept happy. The big brands that are popular with the public don’t need to be popped for in store tastings. Just merchandised. Read More…
The one thing most wine wholesalers suck at doing
Wine wholesalers are in a constant pickle. In the end it’s all about inventory control, which is directly connected to cash flow, which by definition is directly connected to sales, which can’t happen unless the ordering of product from wineries around the world happens months ahead of actually needing the wine. It’s exhausting just to Read More…
Fewer choices make for greater sales
Sheena Lyenar’s 2009 book The Art of Choosing is a must read for anybody in the wine business. Her research focuses on the intersection of science and emotion when it comes to decision making. The “Jam Study” is a key part of her research. During this experiment, tables were set up at a busy premium 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…
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…
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…
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…
Organization and Helping (which will increase your sales)
This is geared toward wholesaler wine reps out there, but everybody can and should use a variation of it. Take your sales territory list out. Split it into two parts: restaurants and retailers. Take each out those and carve them into three sets: highly important/big buyers, medium importance/up and comers, and lesser importance/those that are going 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…
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…