Lately, I’ve been seeing the extremes of people in our industry. Maybe it’s the political season stirring the pot and making people squirrely. I don’t know what’s causing it, but many people in our industry (including wine shop owners and salespeople) fall into one of two categories. Either they are a fantastic force of positive Read More…
Category: Retail
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…
The trap of the in between
It’s easy for a wine shop or a restaurant to be average. Have average products for average people, give average service, and try to compete on price. It’s lazy, but plenty of businesses out there survive with this premise. I also think it’s easy to be genuinely exceptional. To have fantastic wines for amazing customers, 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…
SOND 2022 is on … what are your plans?
Welcome to September! Start that countdown. We’re only 121 days away from the end of the year. Wholesale reps Open your calendar. Mark the evenings you want off, no questions asked. Family evening, concerts, commitments, downtime, you name it. Your job is a daytime job, and any hours you put in the evening should be 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…
Today is different than tomorrow (end of a quarter)
Today is the last day of Q1. It’s a much different day than tomorrow, the start of Q2. What do you do today vs. tomorrow as a wine sales rep, restaurant owner/manager, or retailer? Today, you work super hard. You push for the final sprint ahead of the finish line. You make that extra sales Read More…
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…
What are you selling? The juice in the bottle?
Ask a wine sales rep or a wine retailer what they sell and they will say they sell wine. But in terms of what you’re selling how much is actually the juice in the bottle? For a wine sales rep, you are mainly selling (in order): Yourself and your ability to convert for the customer Read More…
Your Wine Onboarding
When your organization hires a new employee, they have obviously been vetted a bit and know something about wine. But where they fall on that spectrum varies for each hire. So does your company: Sit down with them, taste through a bunch of wines, get some input from them, learn how they describe the wines Read More…
Selling Wine vs. Taking An Order
You sell wine when you guide the process, when you frame choices for the customer, and when you present options (paths) that lead to the company’s (and your) ultimate goals. You are an order taker when the customer is the guide, when the customer frames the choices, and when the customer presents the paths that Read More…
More is not better (focus on focus)
A wine by the glass list that is 90 items long is confounding for the customer (and impossible to train a service staff on, much less preserve the quality in the bottle). A Chardonnay section in a wine shop that has three times as many wines as the other sections is obviously trying to appeal Read More…
A super simple social media plan for wine retailers
There are very few wine retailers that use social media well. Ask them why they don’t post on Facebook or Instagram regularly and the answer is often “we just don’t have time.” Of course you have time. It takes but a minute, and if there are no customers in the store why not make use 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…