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Boosting your wine sales By Jorge Eduardo Castillo You hear it in business meetings across the country: "The economy is terrible, nobody's buying. We need to increase sales!" Easier said than done, right? My experience over the last few months in speaking with restaurant managers was that they want to improve their wine program in order to increase sales. Promotions such as half-price bottles have worked somewhat, but they need to sell 2-3 times as many bottles to make up for the steep discount, and that rarely happens. So my solution to them is always the same- teach your employees everything you can about wine. While catchy "sales" tactics and promotions can help to move wine, the best sales strategy is to be knowledgeable enough to confidently discuss the nuances of wine and how it can enhance guests’ dining experiences. Allow me to illustrate exactly what I'm talking about: Who would you be more likely to buy a bottle of wine from? Server #1's spiel: "Would you like to take a look at the wine list?" Server #2's spiel: "I just want to draw your attention to the wine list. We have some wonderful Oregon Pinot Noirs that would compliment the dinner choices you’ve made (or the chef’s current menu offerings), as well as several wines from South America that represent great value. If you would like me to make some suggestions, I am happy to offer descriptions." So if we agree that wine training is the best way to directly increase wine sales, now we need to explore the best way to that implement training. For those of you that have not read my previous articles, I am a wine trainer for restaurants, wine bars, hotels, and any other company that wants to teach its employees how to understand, discuss, sell and serve wine. While I do a lot of in-person training in my free time, the majority of my efforts are put into the online training modules offered by Vino 101, an online beverage education firm. Whenever I'm discussing online wine training with somone unfamiliar with the concept, the inevitable comment I hear goes something like this: "How can you really learn about wine through a computer?" The intuitive answer is that you can't – wine needs to be looked at, touched, smelled and tasted in order to get its true essence. But my argument is that in order to fully appreciate exactly what is in the bottle, one needs a greater understanding of the intricacies of factors such as the grape, the region, the vintage, the producer, the aging, etc. For this reason, I always recommend an online training course as a compliment to educational wine tastings. For each of Vino 101's clients, we do a follow-up two months after training has taken place to see the results they have found. Here are some of the responses:
I have found that all of our testimonials basically say the same thing- they have seen a significant increase in wine sales after the implementation of online training. Those that haven’t often site lack of follow-up, an unstructured training schedule and an unfocused wine list. Increasing wine sales isn't magically going to happen with some kind of gimmick. It begins with a staff that can confidently discuss wine with guests and make the enjoyment of wine an experience, rather than just having something to drink. In order to do this you will need to create a culture in which your employees are encouraged to discuss, taste and learn new things about wine every day. Once this happens, you will naturally see more bottles down on tables and increased check averages. February 2009 Jorge Eduardo Castillo is a representative of Vino 101, which provides on-line server wine training. Visit www.vino101.com for more details. |
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