Paul Kalemkiarian

Interesting and simple view of launching a wine club. After 35 years of DTC wine and selling 17,000,000 bottles, I can tell you that in today’s digital marketing environment, it is a serious up hill battle. Branding in any industry is just short of a miracle let alone one as congested as on line wine. One must completely understand the KPI’s on digital marketing (no easy task). I do agree that AI can play a significant role in this vain but that too needs understanding.

What is usually misunderstood about sales is that it is some kind of con game or that you need to be of the used car salesman ilk to be successful. It is quite the opposite. Sales is a meeting of a customer's needs (whether implied or explicit) with the salesperson's quiver of solutions. This takes a keen understanding of the customers; meaning, ask questions. How do you apply this to self-study? Do it in your personal life..and when you practice this, you will learn to listen to understand...not to respond. Ask open-ended questions (questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no) and continue to refine your ability to build your case around the information. It is all about needs assessment and fulfillment.

Training is of the utmost importance for staff. The customers have to feel confident in the recommendations of staff and confidence must come staff knowledge. Weekly tastings and conversations of the list and food pairings not only provided knowledge to the staff, but also creates a camaraderie among staff. These meetings also stimulate story telling; who knows how that story might make its way to a purchase.

A balanced a diverse selection is a difficult task to perform. You don’t want too short a list to distract from the elegance a voluminous list has, but at the same time not overwhelm your buyer and accountant with too many suppliers. Certainly you need a few examples of each category you want to sell; each wine in a category at a different price point. Maybe you have a few more selections of popular varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and less of more obscure grapes. It is a balance between giving the client what they want and what you want to show.

It is always about the experience. The “millennials” are the generation of “me.” And now they are older and though we lost some potential wine drinkers to cannabis and non-alcohol beverages, the beer and wine lovers still want an experience and are prepared to pay. By learning the history and particulars of your beer and wine list, imparting that knowledge only adds to the experience. More and more of wine and beer sales need to be about the story.