Sell like a wine salesman
If you’re anywhere around the sales, own a business, manage a team, I know you follow the latest trends out there to uplevel your sales game. The world is changing and we must grow with it.
Surely you heard it a thousand times before, from all the sales guru’s out there (especially online):
Figure out your client’s biggest needs, pain – and address that.
Solve your client’s problem – and you have a business.
Sounds right. That’s how it works. Does it?
Now imagine your favorite wine shop. You’re a wine salesman who just walked in with a bag full of bottles to taste, a suitcase with pricing sheets, shelf talkers, and brochures. You got a sales goal to hit every single month. You also have numerous new placements to make, new vintages to sell, different brands (often completely unknown) to introduce. The pressure is on.
No empty spots in a desperate need of filling with new products, nor free space waiting for new arrivals.
Your client doesn't have an obvious need or problem. He certainly doesn’t need more wine, your wine, new wine, or any wine.
Your client's pain, after all, is to sell through what he already got. Or, it might be YOU.
You're the one who demands his time, attention, who interrupts him in the middle of receiving delivery. The one asking for favors.
Yet there you are, in need to sell, sell, sell - and so is another 10 wine reps from different companies who will walk into his store the same day. And the next day, and the day after that. Every single week.
If you're one of many, you know it's not an easy sale. You become a commodity.
To succeed, and turn this around, it requires a different kind of selling game. The name of that game is 'whose wine gets the priority treatment and why'.
To win that game through all the noise, you have to approach this from a completely different angle.
You see, I realized this when I first started in the fine wine sales. If everybody is selling the same wine (better or worse - but still a commodity), then any one of us is easily disposable. It got to be "something else" you sell to set yourself apart.
I didn’t know much about the world of fine wine when I first started. I just moved to the United States then – and my self-taught English didn’t involve wine trade jargon. I didn't have much time to learn over 5 thousand SKUs we had in the beverage journal, some of which I couldn't even pronounce. Aside from normal consumption, I have never sold a bottle of wine before - but I was in sales most of my professional life.
Obviously, I couldn’t compete on the knowledge front - at least at the beginning. I lacked other salesmen's confidence, years in the business, or knowledge of the market. They had long-term relationships I just started building.
But I knew I had something else. Something that always worked for me in sales. Something they didn’t have.
I'm competitive so I did enjoy myself when some of those guys, the know-it-all types, with their patronizing smirks, helplessly watched their hard-earned placements replaced with … my wines.
And the disbelief and outrage when one of my clients put me in charge of setting up his second wine store. Yes, you heard it right – a sales rep making decisions on the buyer's behalf on the whole setup, categories, regions, what would go where (with his budget) – and which company would get those first placements in.
Such a level of trust between a buyer and a salesman doesn't happen overnight. It was a direct result of my efforts implementing what I later named the Reverse Strategy to Success.
I want you to have it too. I love sales and don't take lightly that over the years sales got such a bad image. I want you to become a sales superstar with amazing results and clients having your number on their speed dial (it does still exists, doesn't it?).
You love sales and everything about it - so why not rapidly increase your sales numbers and transform the way you do business? Once you're no longer "the one of many", you're unique. You stand out. You're the one to count on. That's the "reverse" part of the game, that's the key to success.
Once you gain trust, command, and positioning with your own clients - you're in your own category.
That's my secret sauce to sales and growth. When my back didn't tolerate dragging the wine bag around, loading my truck with cases, and driving 200-300 miles a day any longer, I was forced to move on. I love sharing the secrets of my sales strategy with those who want to master their own sales game and watch their business transform.
It's for you - business owners, sales managers, and your teams to rapidly increase your numbers with my Reverse Strategy to Success and having fun, too.
There are hundreds of wine reps out there every single day, making a living. It's a stressful, hard job - but we love it because it's in our blood and it's quite rewarding. Plus, you get to taste the best wines - what's wrong with that picture?
Let me show you how you can stand out and become a go-to guy for your clients. Or watch your competition swipe your best closers.
Tasting my favorite portfolio, with the man himself, the one and only Jorge Ordóñez
If you just got this email for the first time and not sure who I'm and why I'm taking space in your inbox - my name is Vera, a former wine rep who sold premium, fine wines B2B for almost a decade. Both on-premise, off-premise, and directly to consumers. My Reverse Strategy to Success method is a fine-tuned different approach to wine sales - based on my own successful experience in this unique, cutthroat business, and prior years in sales both in the U.S. and abroad.
Yes, the Reverse Strategy to Success is ideal for the wine business, but it also worked miracles in other industries and earned my employers and my small business clients millions of dollars in revenue.
Do you want to turn your own sales around? I have a few more spots left for a Sales Mastery CPR - an intense one-on-one call (1 hour) where we focus on your sales now, your goals, and brainstorm some strategies that may help you achieve faster.
Stay in touch so you don't miss another blog post like this!
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