A wine sales rep’s life, even with lunches, dinners, samples, winemakers, and travel all involved, can be isolating and lonely.

When isolated feelings of “me against the competition” and “us vs. them” creep into the sales mindset, you may find yourself running from account to account to account, pulling bottles out of the bag, presenting everything to all, then measuring success at the end of the day by how many placements you made.

Don’t fall for it. You’re not selling wine. You are selling yourself. First and always.

Measure success by connections, by conversations, by building great communication. Measure success in terms of network growth.

This is much harder to do than saying “five new points of distribution today! Whoo hooo!” In fact, in some ways it’s not quantifiable.

But in the end it’s what really matters. The sales and placements will come naturally as the connections and conversations grow.

Don’t put the cart before the (wine sales) horse.