April 30 2007
I’ve blogged about Joe Dressner before. Dressner, the eponymous founder of wine importer Louis/Dressner Selections, is something or an irascible sort. There’s a difference between being a cynic and calling a spade a spade in a deadpan kind of way.
Dressner walks that line, but does so in a way that engenders respect—at least based on writing alone.
Dressner is even updating his site, mercifully now RSS-compatible, on a more frequent basis.
If you’re desiring a little more Dressner-like deadpan, then I’d like to introduce you to Gerald Weisl from Weimax Wine & Spirits in Burlingame, CA
It’s amazing what you find when you Google: “Wine Trade Tasting.”
Um, yeah.
Generally speaking, I love these sorts of snarky insider kinds of things about the trade. It’s like watching the arguing couple while out to eat—thoroughly distracting, but completely interesting.
Oh, the drama.
Weisl has written something of a two-part screed exhorting trade sales people to raise their game a notch. I cut and paste both articles into a word document so I could print it out and read … the first article on “How to Be A Wine Sales Rep” is 17 pages and the other “How to Hold a Trade Wine-Tasting” is 14 pages. Pour a glass of wine …
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to determine if Weisl inspires respect or a careful scratch of the head. Either way, he doesn’t pull punches--while giving plenty of examples of trade sales rep. inanity.
Some choice excerpts from the “How to Be a Wine Sales Rep.” I’ll do a couple more from the “Trade Tasting” tomorrow.
“When you first get your sales job, you should contact the buyer. Doing this is in person is a good idea, as it will take the buyer several visits before they even remember your name and what company you are affiliated with.”
“One fellow shows up sporadically. One year he did not pay a single visit to our account during the Christmas holidays. When queried he said, “Parking is such a hassle during the holidays, so I try to stay at home!”
“Don’t visit the account and take up valuable customer parking! We often see sales reps driving up to our front door availing themselves of a vacant parking space. If you are parked there, where does a paying customer park? If the customers can’t get to the place, the store or restaurant will not need your products, will they? We are often viewed with disdain by sales reps when we ask them to be more considerate of our customers”
“Some of the distributors in California have thousands of different wines to offer. One firm’s rep arrives on a weekly basis and yet almost never has even a single bottle to show. This individual presumes I know everything in their portfolio and since I attend their annual trade tasting, what more could I possible be interested in? Even though the catalogue is printed every month or two, showing NEW items, this lady never thinks to bring bottles by the shop for “show & tell.” The same can be said for a fellow who works for a small importer … they have new arrivals highlighted ever MONTH in their price list, but it’s a rare day he even asks if we would like to have a look at anything new.”
We often see sales reps who arrive un-prepared! BE SURE YOU HAVE A CORKSCREW! BE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR SALES NOTEBOOK!! BE SURE YOU HAVE A PRICE LIST!!! BE SURE YOU HAVE SOMETHING WITH WHICH TO WRITE DOWN THE ORDER!!!
“DON’T TAKE “NO” PERSONALLY. You didn’t make the wine, did you?
“We have a reputation for being a “difficult” account. We’re not difficult, at all. We KNOW what we’re looking for. And, we’re honest about our appraisal of the wines we taste.
You can find the entire article here. It makes you glad, almost, that you don’t have to make sales calls in Burlingame, even if somewhat funny in a dramatic kind of way.
digg this | toast this! | add to del.icio.us | add to newsvine | add to furl | add to reddit |
Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This
Enter your email address for a monthly summary of posts, additional news and information available only to email subscribers. Your email is never rented, nor sold to anybody else!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Design by The Blog Studio
