When buyers are just starting on their wine journey (“Hey server manager! You’re now the bar manager and the wine buyer! Good luck!”) they need to learn the basics.

A sales rep in tune with this will welcome the opportunity to help them learn to taste.

Then at the next sales call you might have a buyer that knows her stuff. She has been tasting and buying for years, but is smart enough to know she is forever learning, forever a student of the vine. She is tasting to learn.

The two are very different indeed, and require two vastly different approaches.

One sales style does not fit all buyers.