Great sales people are an essential part of nearly any business. Without a solid team that loves talking about your wine and sharing their own experiences, you’ll be hard pressed to get customers excited about your winery. These individuals serve as the face of your winery and they’re the first people your customers come into contact with. Over the last few years, wineries have struggled to find great salespeople and tasting room staff. Whatever your personal staffing needs, here are a few key things to look for or cultivate in new hires as you work to keep your tasting room staffed and sales people on the phones.Continue Reading..
Category: Training
Oct
Whether it’s over the phone or in the tasting room, the better your staff is at relating to your customers, the more wine they’re going to sell. This holiday selling season, make it a priority and you’re sure to see your staff not only selling more wine, but giving your customers a better experience as a whole. And there’s one sure-fire way to make it happen too.Continue Reading..
Nov
In the tasting room, building rapport with customer is often much less challenging. The dynamic that body language and a handshake add help customers build that connection with you that makes them feel comfortable and more eager to buy. On the phone however, salespeople don’t have this luxury. However, selling over the phone does have one major element of human communication that is absolutely vital and arguably the most important. That is the voice.
Sep
A common pitfall of salespeople is to feel the need to convince a customer to buy a product. We’ve all been on the receiving end of this. Even if they do eventually convince you to buy the product, feeling used and taken advantage of is typically the end result. Sales, and more specifically, wine sales shouldn’t be like this. Whether your staff is selling in the tasting room or over the phone, they should understand that their #1 job is to listen to your customers and understand their interests. When your salespeople learn to ask questions and listen to your customers, they will be able to tailor offers to them and become more successful sellers. Here are three strategies that are essential to help close a sale.
Aug
Getting your staff trained to call your customers can be a great opportunity for you to sell more wine. But often wineries see calling as a bad thing. After all, everyone hates telemarketers don’t they? The reality is that wine is different. Your customers love to get a call from your winery because it lets them escape their day to day life and allows them to imagine their good times in wine country. Here are several huge benefits of getting your staff prepared to sell over the phone:
May
When we extend the invitation to purchase wine to our telephone customer, many times we hear an objection, or a reason the person can’t (or won’t) buy. Perhaps customers feel it isn’t polite to just say no to the calling person, or maybe—they really are still thinking about purchasing.Continue Reading..
Mar
“It is more powerful to be able to ask great questions than it is to have all the answers in the book.”
During my sales training sessions, I will say this at least twice and more often than not—repeat it three or four times. Perhaps it may seem counter-intuitive, but if your customer is talking more and you are talking less, you are on the right track to sell wine.