THE REORDER 02/19/18

White Knuckling the Problems

White knuckling the problems don’t ever work as a sales rep. I have tried and I can tell you this with certainty: it makes it much worse. Below are a few problems that have stood the test of time. I have seen them over and over again, and have made endless mistakes dealing with them by force.

The Classic Problems

Inventory will never be correct. It is the Rubik’s cube that will never be completed.

The market will fluctuate. Up. Down. Up. Down. I have been through both. There is always something to see more clearly, and no matter what anyone says, neither up or down markets are easy.

That buyer you work so well with probably won’t be there forever.
The moment you think it will align and there will be an eternal thunderclap of business, they will move on. Enjoy your time.

They don’t respond to emails, so you have to find another way.

The office isn’t against you. A “back of house/front of house conflict dynamic” will be pushed forward by someone. Ignore it. Whoever wants to instigate the classic “us against them” within a company is a mediocre professional at best and will pull you away from artisan sales.

The blame game trap. There will be pressure to scapegoat all the time. Ignore this, too.

“ Whoever wants to instigate the classic "us against them" within a beverage company is a mediocre professional at best and will pull you away from artisan sales.

Answers

What are you missing? What can you see that others can’t via the work you do and the portfolio you sell?

What do you say to yourself every day that can move you forward without just white knuckling it all?

Selling wine and spirits thoughtfully is ridiculously difficult to execute well. Don’t make it harder.

THE REORDER 02/05/18

Always. Be. Opening.

Orders are rolling in and people want to see you. You have alive accounts, enough wine to sell, and new wines coming into launch. Your run is busy. You feel confident and safe. Your accounts are a train gaining momentum…until…they aren’t.

When your group of accounts seems the most solid, like a battalion of ships that could never sink, do this as a practice:

OPEN MORE ACCOUNTS.

Not just the referrals, not just the ones that roll your way by chance, I mean actively seek out new accounts.

The Lie

The stable run of accounts only exists in the land where DRC is always poured from magnum and restaurants are open forever…

Even though those around you may talk about your accounts like they are a sure thing, they actually never are. It takes a heroic amount of work to thoughtfully run a group of accounts successfully and consistently as a rep. Don’t ever sit back and think you have a gimme because it doesn’t actually exist.

Once your accounts reach a certain density and size, change is not only probable, it is inevitable. Buyers will move, restaurants will fail. What once was an account with a few glass pours will go away because of availability, or that new buyer will think the wines on the list that were working well work a little ‘too well’.
If you choose not to continually and actively develop your account base, you will reach a point where you will start to lose. This is the aging run phenomenon. The old-school salespeople will talk of days gone by when this wasn’t the case..but the market is much faster now. You have to be active.

“ Consistently opening new or underserved accounts is the only way to mitigate the volatility of the NYC market.

New Blood

Like a wine list, a run of accounts has to be managed and developed. Keeping a fresh, diversified group coming up into your run of accounts is a necessity.

The opposite is also true: having too many accounts and running around paranoid opening new ones to replace others is an even more horrible road to take… the chicken with the head cut off approach isn’t pretty at all. The total accounts have to be viewed through the lens of the portfolio–there is no one size fits all approach. But go too far with opening accounts and you will know. This is why you have to not only open but develop.

When you start to relax into your sales run, think this:

Always. Be. Opening.

THE REORDER 01/15/18

The Hard Road – An Honesty Policy

Early on selling wine I realized I had to make a choice: be honest and sell less in the near term, or be deceitful and sell more. This was not a difficult choice for me because even the smallest half truth causes me sleepless nights. So, I chose to lose early with an honesty policy and hopefully win later with trust, even though supporting myself was in question at the time.

I have never regretted that decision and would do it all over again. Even though I know some salespeople in this market routinely hide the ball and “play” with their customers for sales, I watched them and learned what not to do.

Some classic maneuvers: hiding a price, then making it look like you made the deal, lying about farming practices, or lessening availability to make the wine seem more valuable…It is a big list of half-truths and it goes on and on. The honest salesperson doesn’t play in this neighborhood.

I definitely could have taken multiple shortcuts and made the numbers look unbelievably sexy. There were opportunities to goose the whole market that I passed on, and I am certain other salespeople would say it was insane to not take them. This may be a harder road, but ultimately, it was a foundational choice and I am staying put. Anytime I get the chance to give advice, I always mention this choice first because it defines a sales career.

“ Most buyers are accustomed to schnookery, or blatant sales tactics, that rely on jazz hands and a big finish, not the simple subtlety of an honest salesperson.

The Conflicts

There are conflicts that arise after you make the decision to be honest with your customers. First one: every buyer says they want honesty but very rarely are they prepared for it. It isn’t their fault, actually, it is ours – the wine salespeople of America.
Most buyers are accustomed to schnookery*, or artful (many times deceitful…) sales tactics, that rely on jazz hands and a big finish, not the simple subtlety of an honest salesperson. A buyer of wine will be surprised, and possibly put off by honesty, at first. Don’t be deterred, it is natural to react this way. Stay the course.

The second one is that the delivery of honesty needs to harmonious with you and your style of communication, not used as a blunt instrument. You know what I mean. Honesty can be dropped like an anvil. I am not saying to never do this, but approach with extreme caution. Everyone is the author of their own experience, etc., but the way you communicate impacts the tone of the dialogue.

Stay true, honest, and genuine, and this road will lead you to great people and trusting relationships. Nothing but good comes from this dynamic.

*Schnook is defined as a dunce. In recent years, it has become synonymous with a wine salesperson due to poignant and sarcastic writing by the late Joe Dressner.

THE REORDER 12/18/17

o’mast – the craft of an artisan salesperson

Over a coffee a few weeks ago, a good friend and wine director gave me a gift. He asked me if I had seen a 2011 released documentary on Neopolitan tailoring called o’mast and recommended I see it as soon as possible. At the time I didn’t realize that this movie was the key to opening my eyes – the playbook of an Artisan Salesperson* on film.

That night, I watched o’mast, and I have been incredibly inspired ever since.
It is filled with older Italian tailors speaking in dialect, stunning sartorial stories and a Jazz soundtrack framed within the beauty of Naples, Italy.

For those that know me, it is not shocking that I loved this movie. But looking beyond the obvious, this movie is about the mastery of a craft. Mastery accomplished through a rigorous and thoughtful quest – and even further, the profound pursuit of what I would call the Artisan Salesperson*. This is a concept I am obsessed with.
I have never seen laid out so clearly what I believe is the absolute best way to sell wine and spirits in NYC today (what I attempt every day, and fail often in the pursuit of). These craftsmen are onto something and if you really listen, the properties of a spectacular, genuine salesperson are woven into the stories these men tell.

Artisan Sales – the starting point

Listen more, talk less
This is where to start, and I don’t mean it as literally as it reads.

Passion
There is no craft you can do without it. Without passion for some elemental aspect of wine or spirits sales, you will wither and/or burn out in a flash.

Don’t say yes all the time.
Sales without tension is boring and dismisses the elemental part of choice that has to be there in any real relationship. Look at the computerized automatic check out line… That is the left turn to meaningless. You don’t want to do that — you need to engage. And the act of saying no sometimes helps.

Imperfection is interesting
One of my heroes, Seth Godin, famously said (and wrote): Perfection is Boring.

Admittedly, I struggle with this, but you don’t have to. Accept that mistakes and imperfection are not only a given but opportunities. They are never the indication of an imminent death or absolute failure. In one of my favorite moments in the movie, one of the tailors says that you need imperfection in a jacket or it is lacking. Exactly.

“ In the craftsmen’s language, O’mast is the man in charge, the master. He is the one that really knows the craft.

Dialogue wins over any product.
If you have a good dialogue with your client, you can have a real conversation. It takes zero dialogue to sell a wine or spirit everyone wants, that requires little to no nuance. Having the real dialogue helps connect customers to things they didn’t know they wanted. It also requires genuine honesty.

Repeat
Again and again and again. “Make,” “practice” or “do” the act of sales so often that the very action requires attention to detail, but no strain. Then, and only then, can you tune your attention towards the people you seek to serve.

The Movie

I would recommend o’mast to anyone who is interested in the qualities of an Artisan Salesperson. Watch it now, there is a free link below. It is all there, you just have to notice it. And if you don’t want to go that deep, no big deal. It is still a beautiful documentary.

Link to: o’mast – the full movie

Artisan Salesperson – A salesperson that is committed to the craft of sales and places practice, service, detail, respect, and honor into every element of the work. The artisan salesperson pursues mastery, with the knowledge that mastery will not be attained.

I am defining this today acknowledging that it must evolve.

THE REORDER 07/14/17

Ricordo – Ten Years

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Three days ago I found myself in the Theater District because of the messy, grindy and endlessly frustrating MTA of 2017.
So, I walked over to Carmine’s on 44th street and sat down at the bar.

Not much has changed over the years. Black and white uniformed aces move fluidly through the dining room like an elite restaurant special forces unit, and the same pictures of Tony, Frank, Deano and slick-haired wise guys cover the dusty walls end to end. Even the bar feels and smells the same.

I found my favorite picture of Enrico Caruso on the wall and took him in. I always used to cut lemons in the coffee station and then purposely walk by to catch his eye. That Tenor had the world by the balls, I would think. Grande.
Sitting at the bar with my pool-sized negroni, many old friends that still work the floor came by to say hello. I think they must put something in that just wilted family meal salad because they all look the same. A crew of smiling, Scarpariello slinging, Titanic Sundae serving assassins.

Memories came flooding back.

“ We laughed and told stories about the restaurant that I can't ever bring myself to write down.

They are a family-size portion of hilarious, a heaping side of hospitality warfare and a small side of tragedy here and there. Let’s just say that if you ever meet someone who has worked at Carmine’s, they have seen things.

After I had my Veal Parm combo, I made my way through the main dining room. Just next to the service bar, I ran into my old friend Peter and gave him a hug.
I trained Peter to be a server while he was high and jittery. I did my best to shepherd him through training because I liked him and I knew he really needed the job. For years we did the sugar bowl side work together before the dreaded Wednesday Matinee where no coffee was ever hot enough and the Penne alla Vodka was always missing “Brosciutt.” Peter was always good for a raunchy story, quick puns, and some deep philosophy. We laughed together a lot.

One day I called in sick and he had to do the side work alone. The next day I found an envelope in my locker containing this poem:

Looperless Wednesday

Sugars….rejected
Me….dejected.
No one to stuff the bowls with.
Blue hairs telling their trolls to roll with
the punch, the crush….of a Looperless Wednesday.

I hadn’t thought about that poem in years and it came back to me like a thunderbolt right there at the crowded service station. I recited it back to him with a mini Hamilton flourish and we laughed like we did back in the day. I told him how much that poem meant to me. It is nice to be missed.

After I said goodbye, I walked out into Times Square and realized that 10 years ago to the day was my last shift at Carmine’s.

THE REORDER 07/03/17

Clay on the Wheel

Purchase this image at http://www.stocksy.com:/107125

Once a salesperson gets past the opening struggle that is beginning as a wine salesperson in NYC, you come upon a problem. You have built up what you do with your run, your account connection, etc. and what worked before ceases to work. What you do cannot continue in the same way. Stasis sets in.

But the fear of changing what you do and what has worked so well feels like a bone-chilling, mind-racing nightmare. That end of the world dream where everything you built goes away and all that remains is cold-calling, COD and a phone that never rings.

Here is the thing: if you don’t make some changes, the chances of losing big go up drastically. I have seen it. I have done it. I have lived it.

“ This is the moment in time where the real artistry begins -- you must use your imagination and get out of the way.

So how do you change? Ask yourself why you are doing the things you do. Why email this offer? Why make this call? What is the real point??

Allow yourself to find the core of what you do.

The work used to be to open accounts and get them going. Now you have to continue to develop your accounts while opening more, and/or letting some go.

Put the clay on the wheel and shape it. Be in the process. Don’t rush, just let it happen — allow the form of what you do to develop. And if the time where you have to topple the whole thing and start over, you will have confidence that you can restart it again.

All you have to do is throw clay on the wheel.

THE REORDER 06/13/17

Questions for the Players

RAW

Questions for the key market players today:

To the Sommelier/Wine Buyer
What do you buy that very few of your buyer colleagues agree with you on?

To the Importer/Distributor
Since everyone has good, buyable wine, what do you have that others don’t? What do you make?

To the Spirits Buyer
Are you defining the Brands of the future through your buying? What does “Craft” really mean?

To the Supplier
If you could never do a work with or a market visit again, what would you do?

“ To the Wine Buyer/Sommelier: What do you buy that very few of you buyer colleagues agree with you on?

To the Retailer
If it isn’t about the price or the brand, what is it about? Bonus: why do most email offers look the same?

To the Sales Rep
Which ideas are you bringing to the buyer that they haven’t thought of already?

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