It’s that time of year again. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and it’s time your staff aught to be calling and selling wine to your top customers. Let’s face it, your customers will be drinking wine this holiday season. When you call and give them an opportunity to buy, you make sure that it’s your wine they’re drinking. Here are four ideas to boost your sales when you call this season.

Call Your Top Customers

Start off with your top 10% or 100 customers. If one staff member is calling 10 customers a day, they’ll be done in two weeks. If they talk to 50 customers and 10 decide to buy at an average of $400 per order, that’s $4000 in sales. Those are very conservative numbers too. If your staff isn’t too keen on calling, you can always incentivize them with a percentage or even better—wine!

Offer Magnums

Magnums make great centerpieces for parties. Since your customer is bound to have company over the holidays, casually mention it at every sale. Offering them as an add-on during a call is a great way to get that extra sale. 

What Should I Say?

Defining what to say on a call is critical since that is the key that will make or break a sale. The important thing to remember is that the more the customer talks the better. Open ended questions are your friend. The more a customer talks, the more likely they are to buy. Each call should have three basic components: the open, the offer, and the close. They can be scripted, but often salespeople come across more natural when it comes from them and can be tailored to the customer. 

When a Customer Says No!

When a rep asks for the sale, customers will often say no and give a reason they can’t buy. Instead of accepting this, reps should use this as an opportunity to learn more about the customer. It is important to acknowledge the customer and then, follow up with a question. This is the hardest part to master and takes practice for reps to get it right. Check out our blog on objections for ideas to help reps handle objections the right way.

Calling your customers before the holidays isn’t just great for your wine sales, it’s great for customer service. In fact, customers will even thank you for it. Get on the phones, sell wine, and get your customer’s cellar stocked up for the holidays!