October 1, 2024 • 37 mins
Merritt Olson, a Pacific Northwest wine sales veteran, (at the ripe old age of not very old) has seen it all. She began her sales career by selling wine in tasting rooms and bars in the Walla Walla area while in college. She then moved to sales management for a wide range of Pacific Northwest wineries such as Charles Smith and Owen Roe, finally finishing as the Director of Sales at Mitchell Wine Group, Oregon’s leading independent wholesaler of fine wines, before leaving to work in her family business. Meritt explains her strategies for selling wine both as a winery and as a distributor and shares some great books on management that have helped her in her career.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/traction-gino-wickman/1100073595
https://www.amazon.com/SPEED-TRUST-Thing-Changes-Everything/dp/1416549005
Questions? Comments? smallfortunepodcast@gmail.com
Sponsor: Global Wine Partners https://www.globalwinebank.com/
Music: Nate Collison
Logo Photography: John Corcoran
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:13):
Hello, everybody. Carol Collison with Global Wine Partners here.
We are going to have two episodes on wine sales.
This first one is with Merit Olson, a young woman, but has many,
many years of experience in wine sales at kind of every level,
work both for wineries, tasting rooms, as well as for distributors.
(00:33):
So she's got a lot to say publishing that one first, because we talk a little
bit about OND, October, November, December, which is coming up And it's sort
of a factor in the wine business.
There's a bit of seasonality to the business because of holiday dining and entertaining.
And then very excited that the following week or the following episode in a
(00:54):
couple of weeks will be with Bruce Nyers. And Bruce is like the OG of wine sales.
He started at Joseph Phelps when nobody knew how to sell wine.
And then he was with Kermit Lynch. And of course, he has sold his own eponymous
brand, Nyer's Vineyards, for many years.
So that'll be a great conversation too.
And this one with Merritt was very informative. I hope you enjoy.
(01:18):
Music.
Hello, Small Fortune listeners. Today, we have another visitor from the Pacific Northwest.
Merritt Olson is visiting. She was recommended by Chris Sarles,
who is, if you want to go back and listen to him, also a Pacific Northwest distributor.
(01:38):
Episode 24, in June, we published it, How to Succeed in Distribution with Chris
Sarles. He was way up the food chain at Young's Market.
And when we finished the interview, he had suggested that Merit would be a good
person to talk to as well.
So here we are. Welcome, Merit. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
You're highly respected in the industry, in the Pacific Northwest in particular.
(02:02):
I've mentioned to my business partner, Andy Steinman, that you were coming on
and he's like, oh, wow, yay.
So even though you're not in the business anymore in some regards,
you had a very long and successful career.
Well, not that long because you're not that old, but a successful career in
wine sales, both as representing wineries and then later as distributor.
(02:23):
I think I think your last job was at a Mitchell Wine Group, which is an important Oregon organization.
Distributor. So, but now you're working with your husband, which is a good place
to put your talents in your own business for sure.
But I appreciate you kind of calling back and helping those of us still in the wine industry.
Yeah, you know, it's the wine industry is still near and dear to my heart and
(02:45):
you know, it paid my bills for close to 20 years, maybe a little bit more.
So I'm still really good friends with a lot of those people still see them.
Portland and the Northwest is a really small place. And so I still see a lot
of my friends in the wine industry and And yeah, happy to kind of follow what they're still doing.
Yeah, great. And I thought to organize the conversation, maybe we could start
with sort of the lessons learned and tips and, you know, how you were successful
(03:09):
representing wineries to distributors.
And then maybe on the, you know, the back end, we can talk about the flip side,
you know, as a distributor working with wineries, you know, what successful
wineries looked like from that vantage point.
So what was your first wine company sales job?
So I came into the wine industry sort of honestly. I grew up in the Netherlands,
(03:34):
in Amsterdam, and came back to the States for college. I am American.
And I wanted to get the real American college experience.
So I went to school in Walla Walla, Washington, to a little liberal arts college called Whitman.
When I started in school, there were about, I don't know, maybe 15 wineries.
And when I graduated there were
(03:54):
over a hundred so the wine industry was really growing at that time and,
My freshman year of college, I kind of realized like, oh my gosh,
Toto, I'm not in Kansas anymore. This is not Amsterdam. This is the middle of nowhere.
The social scene was really sort of limited. And my freshman year roommate,
her uncle happened to be starting or running the first wine bar in town.
(04:16):
And so of course I lied and said that I had restaurant experience.
And in those days, you couldn't check people's backgrounds online.
And so he believed me and he hired me and I I worked at the first wine bar in Walla Walla.
And while I was there, I got to know a ton of local winemakers.
And I figured out really quickly that if I knew more about wine,
that I would be able to sell more and make more money in tips.
(04:39):
And the winemakers sort of respected my hustle.
And I ended up working for a number of them in their tasting rooms.
I worked for them during harvest.
And I ended up going to work in a tasting room, part-time for most of college
to a winery called Waterbrook, which is now owned by Precept.
When I was working there, I became friendly with the owners and they hired me
(05:02):
right out of college to do regional sales in the Northwest.
And so that's kind of how I got my start in the wine business.
So it was a little bit of baptism by fire, but I never really did anything else
prior to working with my husband except work in wine.
Yeah. Well, you've actually seen it all.
You really have an interesting perspective on all types of how you get the bottle
(05:24):
into the hands of a consumer, every aspect of it.
So, you know, as somebody who has various levels, I think you worked at breaking
the rule, moving away from the mic right there.
Owen Rowe, I see Kay Vintners, Charles Smith Wines.
And so what were your key reasons why you were so successful in selling wine today?
(05:47):
Sure. Distributors probably mostly, yeah.
Yeah. You know, I would say a little bit of it was luck.
You know, at the time when I started in the wine business, the wine industry,
particularly in the Northwest, was really exploding.
I think that, you know, California and international wines have always been
really successful and they've done a really great job of building their brands.
But when I started, Washington was really starting to gain some legitimacy in
(06:10):
the overall wine world, certainly in the United States.
And we started seeing a lot of really amazing scores. chores,
but also, you know, I will say that, you know, I'm extremely persistent.
You know, people were surprised when I kept calling back.
I also, you know, I think I talked to you about this a little bit before,
you know, one, one of my kind of core values for myself is integrity.
(06:35):
So, you know, I, if I say I'm going to do what I'm going to do,
I'm, I'm going to do that.
And I think that a lot of people in the industry, you know, they,
they have a lot of grand plans and they have a lot of ideas,
but it's really hard to follow through on some of those things.
And, you know, of course people get distracted by other things,
but I really, you know, I pride myself on the fact that when I say I'm going to do something, I do it.
(06:56):
And I think that people realized when they worked with me that they could rely on me to get the job done.
So, you know, it was really helpful that the wines I was representing were excellent
and they were well priced.
And, you know, the brands that I was representing were really cool.
And, you know, They had a lot of cachet to them, but I also think that people
(07:17):
knew that when they worked with me, they could count on me to do a good job.
And I think that that's something I'm really proud of to this day.
Accountability and integrity, for sure. Yeah, so excellence is accountability,
integrity, persistence without being... I mean, I'm in sales too,
so there's that persistence without being annoying and how you calibrate that.
(07:38):
And, you know, the sales, you know, the successful salespeople,
I think, do have that persistence.
They have the capacity to take no for an answer and then come back around again.
And so it sounds like that's part of your bag of tricks.
Yeah, you know, it's funny. I used to have a conversation with one of my old
bosses, Matt Elson, who ran Galaxy for many, many years.
(08:02):
He's still a very close friend of mine and one of my mentors.
And we always used to say that in the wine business, no just means not today.
I think that that's something that I still follow through in my life because
I'm involved in other charities and, of course, my children's school.
And yeah, so it's, you know, don't let no get you down.
Come back tomorrow, the answer might be different. When you say...
(08:26):
I do what I say I'm going to do. It kind of triggered a thought.
How do you manage that? Do you make sure when you make a promise that you've
thoroughly thought it through and have an execution strategy?
Or do you sandbag by promising something a little less than you know you can do?
I mean, what's your strategy for being able to deliver in that way?
(08:48):
Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's something that I think about a
lot because I tend to be pretty cautious by nature.
So something I really love about the wine industry is that it's a really interesting
industry compared to almost any other business in the United States.
It's heavily regulated.
I always say it's easier to buy a gun in the mail than it is to buy a case of wine.
(09:12):
There's a lot of really weird draconian rules about the wine industry.
And then there's just a lot of really sort of unusual business practices that
are not seen in any other industry.
So, you know, for me, I really like to figure out how things work.
And so I spent a lot of my career studying trends, studying sales numbers,
talking to people, learning a lot about the industry, about what my customers
(09:36):
wanted, what was popular, what was next.
And so I think that when I would make promises, it came from a really educated point of view.
I mean, I think that because it's such a complicated industry,
becoming a subject matter expert is really important in doing sales and doing it well.
And I think that there's a lot of different aspects you can look at it from.
(10:00):
You can look at it from the perspective of a supplier, which I had experience in.
You know, look at it from the perspective of a customer, which,
you know, working on the restaurant side, I was really close to the buyer and
also the customer that we were selling to.
And then, you know, looking at it from the business standpoint of,
you know, the retailers and the restaurants that we worked with. So, yeah.
(10:22):
You know, I felt like I learned a lot by getting out and talking to customers.
I learned a lot by getting out and talking to our suppliers.
And then I also just had my background of working in restaurants and working
directly with winemakers. So I think that was sort of a unique perspective.
But, you know, being curious, asking a lot of questions, and really trying to
learn about the industry was really important to me.
(10:43):
And I think that when I made promises and when I told people I was going to
do what I was going to do, they trusted me also because they knew that I knew
what I was talking about.
Right, right. So having a genuine curiosity about your profession rather than
seeing it just as a paycheck is probably part of the magic mix of being successful.
(11:05):
Yeah, yeah. I think the wine industry is a really sort of sexy industry to a lot of people.
When people visit wineries, they have a great time. It's fun.
It's beautiful. It's in nature. usually it's in
a setting where you know somebody's designed to tasting really nicely
or it's a restaurant experience and you're enjoying food
(11:25):
and wine with good company but I don't think people realize all the complexities
that go into creating those experiences all the complexities that go into how
wine actually gets to your table and I think that the people who have been the
most successful in the business understand that there's just a lot of factors at play in order to make
wine be successful. And so...
(11:48):
When people really know the business, and that means not just the laws and how
wine gets made, but also what customers are interested in, what their competition looks like,
what other wines taste like, what other competing industries are doing.
I think that's when those people really can be super successful as well. Right, right.
(12:11):
And so continuing on the questions with regard to as somebody operating a winery
and trying to sell into distributors,
how did you manage those relationships or were there some special ways that
you think you engaged with distributors that made you more successful?
(12:33):
Full? Yeah, that's a good question.
You know, there's been a huge amount of consolidation in the industry in the
last, let's say 10 years and brand managers, sales reps, managers,
they're all extremely busy and there's tons of brands in their portfolios.
And so I think the thing that I aim to do as a supplier,
(12:55):
and then the thing on the flip side that I aim to do working for a distributor
is to simplify the process as much as possible to make the relationship as easy
and seamless as possible and basically provide the TLDR version of any interaction
to the distributors that I was working with.
And that went on the flip side too when I was working as a distributor.
(13:19):
I know winery owners, most of them that I worked with in my career were small
business owners. They were wearing many hats.
They were doing things like working harvest and also managing payroll and ordering
bottles and also trying to do the sales side of things.
So I think, you know, not wasting people's time, not bogging people down by
(13:41):
having too many meetings, basically providing the information that they needed,
following up, and just making sure that I could be there to support.
And essentially, rather than coming to them with problems, coming to people
with solutions is how I operated when I was in the wine business,
for sure. Yeah, no, fantastic.
And for listeners who don't know what TLDR is, too long, didn't read,
(14:03):
right? It comes from the interwebs, I think.
But yeah, keeping it short, I have the same thing. I sell wine companies,
and we put together these marketing pieces.
And I got to tell you, I mean, we've developed our own way of approaching these
information memoranda.
(14:23):
But it's very much in keeping with what you just said, that we know that the
buyers for a wine company are like your winery clients and your distributor clients.
People, you know, the decision makers are really busy. And so we try to fashion
these things in such a way that they will get a, be able to read through quickly,
(14:45):
just determine quickly if this is something they want to spend any more time
on and not throw them, you know, at 27 pages of nonsense.
So I really feel your comment about respecting the time distributor.
And one of the things that I learned interviewing Chris,
which again, I said, I say in real time
in that interview view is like probably everybody knew this but
(15:07):
i honestly did not know that the distributor does
not views it their customers as the
end purchaser whether it's a retailer or a restaurant those are their customers
that so that this there's a supplier orientation and i think sometimes in the
winery environment some people think that the distributor is working for them
(15:29):
and it's not that's not the right dynamic.
The dynamic is very much, you are relying on a distributor, and so you need
to play nice because they have lots of choices.
Yeah. I mean, I think I personally view it as a partnership.
Chris definitely came from a much bigger distribution background.
(15:49):
And there's certainly, I would agree with his assessment,
for sure for for bigger companies but
I think when you're working with kind of like mid-size and
small boutique wineries as your main bread and butter it's definitely a partnership
we understand there are certain things that a mid-size winery or a small winery
(16:12):
they're going to need that are going to be different than you know a large publicly
publicly traded wine company Right.
So, you know, it's a funny relationship that distributors have because we,
you know, suppliers are both, you know, we're their customer,
but also kind of the opposite is true as well.
(16:33):
Because, you know, there are blue chip brands or there are brands that kind
of get your foot in the door to grocery stores.
There's different, you know, kind of functions of each brand that help midsize distributors run.
And so as a distributor, you have to be really aware of making sure that the
supplier is happy, whether it's the number of cases that you sell,
(16:54):
the kind of customers that you're selling to, the number of placements that you have,
the SKU mix that you have,
the number of market visits you have, the amount of face time that they get with your sales reps.
So, you know, I think there still is an onus on the distributor to treat the
supplier well because, you know, it's a two-way street, right? Yeah. Yeah.
(17:18):
Well, and in many states, the supplier has choices, but not in all, right?
So in the states where a supplier has choices, I'm sure, the distributor has
to be on their toes a little bit more.
Maybe I'll talk to somebody who's in a franchise state one of these days,
because that seems even trickier.
But now we have, very thankfully, we've segued into the, you know,
(17:40):
as the distributor, you know, what is, and you are working for sort of midsize
distributors with, you know, more of a synergistic relationship with the suppliers.
So what is a good relationship with a supplier that look like?
I mean, for you, I mean, if you have multiple choices with regard to a particular
(18:01):
type of product to put in, bring into your portfolio, what does a supplier that
you're going to want to work with look like?
So, I mean, obviously the first thing is the wine good, right?
I mean, everybody wants to make sure that the wine is good. And I think that
the best wineries are the ones who understand the competitive set, right?
(18:22):
They need to know how does their wine stack up against other wineries at similar
price points in the region and also wines that are more expensive and less expensive.
Are the wines priced right? Is there a need in the marketplace or is there kind
of a customer base for those price points?
And then really my favorite suppliers that I worked with were ones who already had existing
(18:45):
customer bases, whether it was, you know, people on their mailing list who are
asking for the wines to be in the marketplace that, you know,
so, you know, I've brought in a lot of California wines to Oregon who,
you know, they had a really robust fan base here in the state.
They just didn't have any distribution yet.
We also had a lot of wineries that we worked with who, you know,
(19:07):
they were really popular with sommeliers and they were just really easy to get into restaurants.
We had some wineries in Oregon where they were scaling up and they had really
great relationships existing with customers and they helped open doors for us as distributors.
Or we just had some suppliers that maybe had really excellent relationships
(19:29):
with larger customers that we didn't have relationships with.
Or we had partnership relationships with them where they had a great relationship
with the customer that we also had a great relationship with that we could easily
make the sale to because both of those things worked really well together.
So I think when there's a value add from the supplier side, that's when distributors
(19:50):
are happy to take brands on.
These days, I don't think it's important to have scores.
I mean, it helps, it's nice, but it doesn't really, it's not really materially effective.
Important to the sale of wines now it's
really about competitive pricing whether or
not there's a customer base and if you have existing relationships with
(20:12):
customers yeah well that's very interesting and listen up winery folks who may
be listening because what i what i hear you say is you you know the the the
customer the supplier that just wants to hand you their portfolio and walk away and wish you luck.
I mean, that's just, that's, if that was ever a thing, it's not a thing.
(20:34):
That each supplier, because it is so competitive and even it's competitive within
any distributor's portfolio, right?
So, you know, you make yourself be the, you know, whatever, $50 Napa cab or
whatever, $100 Napa cab, whatever the case may be.
You make yourself the best best supplier by being active, having,
(20:57):
you know, your own relationships,
your own network in the market that you have, you know, cultivated through all
the different ways that people in the wine business can cultivate relationships.
But you maintain those relationships so that when you decide to move into the
state and hire a distributor, whatever that might be, you are handing them,
you know, some tools to work with.
(21:17):
You're, you know, here's our customer list or here's, you know,
we're already in these key restaurants, but, you know, now take it from there, right?
That sounds like what you're saying a successful supplier looks like.
Yeah, I would agree with that. I just think people who think that they're going
(21:38):
to hand their sales numbers and just expect huge amounts of shipments,
it's just, it's not going to happen.
You know, I would view the distribution channel akin to something like direct-to-consumer
in the amount of work that it's going to take for you to make it happen.
It's just, it's hard, especially right now.
I talk to my friends who are still in distribution, and, you know,
(22:01):
wine sales are challenging across the board.
And so I think, you know, the more support they can get from suppliers,
the more successful they're going to be.
Yeah yeah no that makes a ton of sense so i thought you know there's a variety
of topics that we could continue to talk about but i i was reading this morning
(22:22):
and realizing we're about to go into ond.
October november december and that's something that folks not in the wine industry
may not be aware of but it's that,
Because of the holidays, basically, October, November, and December is like
the big sales period of time for wine companies and probably spirits as well.
(22:45):
I don't know about beer, but, you know, I had clients like 40% of sales was in OND.
And I think it's across both direct-to-consumer businesses, although I haven't
looked at it recently in that regard, but both wholesale and retail, right? Right.
Because, you know, if you're purely DTC, you're still spooling out,
(23:06):
you know, emails or telesales to get your wine club members to bring in some
more wine for the holidays.
So, I mean, it's really such a key sales period for the wine industry and we're
sailing into it right now.
And I'm just really hoping that it'll surprise on the upside this year because
I think it surprised on the downside last year.
(23:26):
So I hope expectations are exceeded. you did. So what is that like as either
a winery or as a distributor getting geared up?
And what does OND feel like when you're selling wine?
I mean, it's pretty balls to the wall. And I think that it's been a little bit
more subdued the last couple of years, at least talking to my friends in distribution.
(23:49):
But yeah, it sort of depends on what kind of brand you are.
There are some brands that sell pretty consistently throughout the year.
And they're more of the everyday brands.
But I can think about some champagne producers that I worked with where 60%
of our sales happened really in November and December.
I think that to call it OND is a bit of a misnomer because most of the sales...
(24:13):
It's kind of like a five-week period, essentially.
Wow. It's the week before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and then the couple weeks
leading up to Christmas, and then the week between Christmas and New Year's, right?
So it's like those five weeks are just absolutely insane.
The warehouses are going, you know, 20 hours a day. Sales reps are taking calls
(24:35):
at all hours of the day and night.
You know, restaurants are super busy because people are out there celebrating the holidays.
Retailers are super busy because people are buying for get-togethers and gatherings,
Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the things in between.
There's holiday parties for work and holiday parties for friends.
So yeah, it's an extremely busy time of year.
(24:56):
And we always used to say that our husbands and wives became widows and widowers during that time.
Much like people during harvest, you don't see your winemaker husbands and wives
during that same period because it's just so insanely busy.
But there's also a lot of people's fiscal years is close at the end of December.
(25:19):
And so people are just really pushing to get those final dollars out the door, you know,
Obviously, there's a lot of holiday travel, and so the roads are super backed
up and getting shipments from containers through various ports are also really challenging.
We have a lot of pre-sales that go out.
It's a wild time of year.
(25:41):
Yeah i that you know and it's it's
you know the podcast small fortune based on
the joke you know what does it take to make a small fortune you start with a large fortune
the point being it's a tough business for a lot of different reasons this this
the existence of the three-tier system where you know you're not in most cases
or you can't sell directly to the end user whether it's a retailer you have
(26:04):
to go through distribution if it's outside of your state so that's an aspect
of it, which we talk about quite a bit.
And I appreciate you coming and helping us and our listeners understand that.
But because there's such a chunk of sales that happen,
it creates a vulnerability that does not exist for companies that have more
(26:27):
steady sales cycles during the year.
As you think about it, some of the really nasty black swans we've encountered
have happened in September, right?
You know, we just acknowledged that 24 years or 23, I don't recall,
you know, of September 11th, right?
We had, you know, the stock market dropped 3000 points in September 08.
(26:50):
You know, that's a risk factor that exists for wine and probably spirits as well.
So were you working for distributors or wineries during any of those events?
And how'd you get through all that?
Yeah, I was working for Kay Vintners and Charles Smith Wines in 2008.
(27:11):
And the company was growing.
I was working to launch Charles Smith Wines nationally at that time.
And we were uniquely positioned because the wines from Kay Vintners had unbelievable
scores, and they were really good, and there wasn't very much like them.
And then Charles Smith Wines offered price points that were really competitive
(27:34):
in a time when everybody was sort of looking to cut their costs.
But at the same time, you know, in 2008, we were still operating on this sort
of allocation basis and, you know, offering distributors allocations of wines.
And in 2008, when the economy just tanked, people were like,
what are you talking about allocations?
(27:54):
Like, I can barely afford to pay my bills.
How am I going to take an allocation of 56 cases of $360 FOB wine.
I don't know what you're talking about.
So really what we had to do is we had to make sure that we spread our sales
through the entire year.
(28:15):
And I was actually just thinking about this when we were talking about this
because I worked with A to Z Winery before they sold A to Z.
And they did a really good job of spreading their sales and focusing their sales
throughout the year so that when we got to October, November,
and December, we really weren't behind the eight ball.
We had a plan for it, and we'd sold enough wine through the rest of the year
(28:36):
that we were not kind of backed up against a wall.
So the suppliers that I feel like do the best during O&D are the ones who are,
you know, really present and active in the marketplace earlier in the year.
And they don't kind of just wake up like after harvest and say,
oh, God, we got to sell all this wine.
Otherwise, we're screwed. You know, we need to get out in January and in February
(28:59):
and in March to really kind of push sales so that when the end of the year happens,
all the placements that we made in March are paying dividends in November, right?
All the work that we did over the summer is now being harvested in October,
November, and December.
So it's not possible really to go out and make new placements in this time of
(29:23):
year anyway. way, you know, all the work needs to be done.
It's got to kind of be front loaded a little bit so that all the pull through
happens at the back half of the year, if that makes sense.
It makes a ton of sense. And yeah, I hear what you're saying.
And those who are listening, yeah, good advice.
Don't wait till, you know, it pulls through in October and November because
sometimes stuff happens and there is going to be no pull through.
(29:47):
And for the most part, you know, You need to create the conditions yourself
for success and not lay it all on it's going to happen for us in October.
Yeah, no, fantastic advice. And what I'm hearing in your story is that you hustle.
You're organized in the way you go out into the market for whoever you're working for.
(30:13):
It's intentional. So, we haven't got to it, but when you and I did our pre-interview
a while ago, which I, you know, a lot of water in the bridge, forgot most of it.
One of the things that I recall, and it hasn't come up, and I'd love for you
to share it just because, you know, I always imagine we've got younger professionals
(30:33):
in the industry listening because old folks don't listen to podcasts.
So, it's got to be young people. And you had...
Shared with me a couple of books on management and success that had helped you
be successful or helped you kind of focus your ideas about how to be successful.
And I'd love for you to share what those are because they sounded,
(30:56):
of course, I haven't pursued reading them, but can you share some of those books
that you recommend for management success?
Oh, sure. Yeah. I have to give 100% credit to Chris Sarles for these because
the first time I met him, he's like, go read these books and then come back and talk to me.
But one of them is called The Speed of Trust. And it's exactly what I just said to you.
(31:17):
Relationships that are built on trust are the most successful and I think also the most fulfilling.
So it's a really wonderful book about how to build trusting relationships,
both in business and your personal life.
And then the next book that we talked about, and my husband and I run our business
on this concept still is a book called Traction by Gina Wickman.
(31:39):
And it is a wonderful kind of framework for how to lay out goals for your business,
the plan for monthly check-ins on them, and really how to work towards unbelievable but attainable goals.
So those two books, I would say, have impacted me probably the most in my professional life.
(32:02):
And 10 out of 10, I would recommend both of them. And shout out to Chris Sorrells
for both of those recommendations.
Wonderful. And thank you for sharing those because yeah, you seem to be walking
the talk from what I can tell. I try.
Well, Merit, thank you so much for joining today. I don't know if you had any
other last thoughts for the listeners about success or?
(32:24):
No, I guess I would just say, you know, the wine industry can be really a bit
of a struggle sometimes.
It's an industry that's so weird because we have such a long tail on getting our product to market.
But some of the best experiences of my life came from working in the wine industry.
And I think that if you can just remember that it really is full of innovative,
(32:51):
interesting, wonderful people, and you try to do your best for those people,
I think really great things will come out of it.
Well said Merit thanks very much for joining us yeah thank you for your time
Carol it's nice to be here great bye.
Music.
(33:15):
Hi, Small Fortune listeners. If you found this episode enjoyable,
we'd really love to have you as a follower.
And we're on almost all of your favorite podcast platforms.
So if you could take a moment and subscribe or follow, we'd really appreciate it.
Also, if you have any questions for Carol, please email us at smallfortunepodcast at gmail.com. Thanks.
(33:41):
Um now you've worked for and with
wineries all all these years and i
often ask at you know towards the end of the conversation about you know what
are your in in in within the different businesses you've worked for you know
what what do you advise as sort of risks to avoid or secrets of success of the
(34:03):
wine companies you've worked for and around?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think the best people I've worked for are those
that are curious and open-minded.
I think people who continually learn about the business and accept that tastes
change, people's interests change, The world changes. The industry changes.
(34:27):
Being open and curious about what's going on in the business and the world around
them and what people around them are interested in, I think is so important.
Staying humble, not assuming that you know everything because you've done it
for, I don't know, 25, 30 years or however long.
You know, being honest with yourself, with your customers, you know,
(34:53):
telling the truth, being trustworthy.
I think that's something Chris and I, Chris Sarles and I talk about a lot.
When people trust you, you know, pretty much anything can happen if you really
put together a plan. And then also, like you said, being intentional about what you're doing.
Asking your customers what they need. Asking your salespeople what they need.
(35:16):
Treating people with respect, with dignity. Doing what you say you're going to do.
I mean, those are all the hallmarks of the best people in the business, I think.
Yes, absolutely. I completely agree. My profession as well. I really value those
people who have all those characteristics.
Music.
(00:13):
Hello, everybody. Carol Collison with Global Wine Partners here.
We are going to have two episodes on wine sales.
This first one is with Merit Olson, a young woman, but has many,
many years of experience in wine sales at kind of every level,
work both for wineries, tasting rooms, as well as for distributors.
(00:33):
So she's got a lot to say publishing that one first, because we talk a little
bit about OND, October, November, December, which is coming up And it's sort
of a factor in the wine business.
There's a bit of seasonality to the business because of holiday dining and entertaining.
And then very excited that the following week or the following episode in a
(00:54):
couple of weeks will be with Bruce Nyers. And Bruce is like the OG of wine sales.
He started at Joseph Phelps when nobody knew how to sell wine.
And then he was with Kermit Lynch. And of course, he has sold his own eponymous
brand, Nyer's Vineyards, for many years.
So that'll be a great conversation too.
And this one with Merritt was very informative. I hope you enjoy.
(01:18):
Music.
Hello, Small Fortune listeners. Today, we have another visitor from the Pacific Northwest.
Merritt Olson is visiting. She was recommended by Chris Sarles,
who is, if you want to go back and listen to him, also a Pacific Northwest distributor.
(01:38):
Episode 24, in June, we published it, How to Succeed in Distribution with Chris
Sarles. He was way up the food chain at Young's Market.
And when we finished the interview, he had suggested that Merit would be a good
person to talk to as well.
So here we are. Welcome, Merit. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
You're highly respected in the industry, in the Pacific Northwest in particular.
(02:02):
I've mentioned to my business partner, Andy Steinman, that you were coming on
and he's like, oh, wow, yay.
So even though you're not in the business anymore in some regards,
you had a very long and successful career.
Well, not that long because you're not that old, but a successful career in
wine sales, both as representing wineries and then later as distributor.
(02:23):
I think I think your last job was at a Mitchell Wine Group, which is an important Oregon organization.
Distributor. So, but now you're working with your husband, which is a good place
to put your talents in your own business for sure.
But I appreciate you kind of calling back and helping those of us still in the wine industry.
Yeah, you know, it's the wine industry is still near and dear to my heart and
(02:45):
you know, it paid my bills for close to 20 years, maybe a little bit more.
So I'm still really good friends with a lot of those people still see them.
Portland and the Northwest is a really small place. And so I still see a lot
of my friends in the wine industry and And yeah, happy to kind of follow what they're still doing.
Yeah, great. And I thought to organize the conversation, maybe we could start
with sort of the lessons learned and tips and, you know, how you were successful
(03:09):
representing wineries to distributors.
And then maybe on the, you know, the back end, we can talk about the flip side,
you know, as a distributor working with wineries, you know, what successful
wineries looked like from that vantage point.
So what was your first wine company sales job?
So I came into the wine industry sort of honestly. I grew up in the Netherlands,
(03:34):
in Amsterdam, and came back to the States for college. I am American.
And I wanted to get the real American college experience.
So I went to school in Walla Walla, Washington, to a little liberal arts college called Whitman.
When I started in school, there were about, I don't know, maybe 15 wineries.
And when I graduated there were
(03:54):
over a hundred so the wine industry was really growing at that time and,
My freshman year of college, I kind of realized like, oh my gosh,
Toto, I'm not in Kansas anymore. This is not Amsterdam. This is the middle of nowhere.
The social scene was really sort of limited. And my freshman year roommate,
her uncle happened to be starting or running the first wine bar in town.
(04:16):
And so of course I lied and said that I had restaurant experience.
And in those days, you couldn't check people's backgrounds online.
And so he believed me and he hired me and I I worked at the first wine bar in Walla Walla.
And while I was there, I got to know a ton of local winemakers.
And I figured out really quickly that if I knew more about wine,
that I would be able to sell more and make more money in tips.
(04:39):
And the winemakers sort of respected my hustle.
And I ended up working for a number of them in their tasting rooms.
I worked for them during harvest.
And I ended up going to work in a tasting room, part-time for most of college
to a winery called Waterbrook, which is now owned by Precept.
When I was working there, I became friendly with the owners and they hired me
(05:02):
right out of college to do regional sales in the Northwest.
And so that's kind of how I got my start in the wine business.
So it was a little bit of baptism by fire, but I never really did anything else
prior to working with my husband except work in wine.
Yeah. Well, you've actually seen it all.
You really have an interesting perspective on all types of how you get the bottle
(05:24):
into the hands of a consumer, every aspect of it.
So, you know, as somebody who has various levels, I think you worked at breaking
the rule, moving away from the mic right there.
Owen Rowe, I see Kay Vintners, Charles Smith Wines.
And so what were your key reasons why you were so successful in selling wine today?
(05:47):
Sure. Distributors probably mostly, yeah.
Yeah. You know, I would say a little bit of it was luck.
You know, at the time when I started in the wine business, the wine industry,
particularly in the Northwest, was really exploding.
I think that, you know, California and international wines have always been
really successful and they've done a really great job of building their brands.
But when I started, Washington was really starting to gain some legitimacy in
(06:10):
the overall wine world, certainly in the United States.
And we started seeing a lot of really amazing scores. chores,
but also, you know, I will say that, you know, I'm extremely persistent.
You know, people were surprised when I kept calling back.
I also, you know, I think I talked to you about this a little bit before,
you know, one, one of my kind of core values for myself is integrity.
(06:35):
So, you know, I, if I say I'm going to do what I'm going to do,
I'm, I'm going to do that.
And I think that a lot of people in the industry, you know, they,
they have a lot of grand plans and they have a lot of ideas,
but it's really hard to follow through on some of those things.
And, you know, of course people get distracted by other things,
but I really, you know, I pride myself on the fact that when I say I'm going to do something, I do it.
(06:56):
And I think that people realized when they worked with me that they could rely on me to get the job done.
So, you know, it was really helpful that the wines I was representing were excellent
and they were well priced.
And, you know, the brands that I was representing were really cool.
And, you know, They had a lot of cachet to them, but I also think that people
(07:17):
knew that when they worked with me, they could count on me to do a good job.
And I think that that's something I'm really proud of to this day.
Accountability and integrity, for sure. Yeah, so excellence is accountability,
integrity, persistence without being... I mean, I'm in sales too,
so there's that persistence without being annoying and how you calibrate that.
(07:38):
And, you know, the sales, you know, the successful salespeople,
I think, do have that persistence.
They have the capacity to take no for an answer and then come back around again.
And so it sounds like that's part of your bag of tricks.
Yeah, you know, it's funny. I used to have a conversation with one of my old
bosses, Matt Elson, who ran Galaxy for many, many years.
(08:02):
He's still a very close friend of mine and one of my mentors.
And we always used to say that in the wine business, no just means not today.
I think that that's something that I still follow through in my life because
I'm involved in other charities and, of course, my children's school.
And yeah, so it's, you know, don't let no get you down.
Come back tomorrow, the answer might be different. When you say...
(08:26):
I do what I say I'm going to do. It kind of triggered a thought.
How do you manage that? Do you make sure when you make a promise that you've
thoroughly thought it through and have an execution strategy?
Or do you sandbag by promising something a little less than you know you can do?
I mean, what's your strategy for being able to deliver in that way?
(08:48):
Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's something that I think about a
lot because I tend to be pretty cautious by nature.
So something I really love about the wine industry is that it's a really interesting
industry compared to almost any other business in the United States.
It's heavily regulated.
I always say it's easier to buy a gun in the mail than it is to buy a case of wine.
(09:12):
There's a lot of really weird draconian rules about the wine industry.
And then there's just a lot of really sort of unusual business practices that
are not seen in any other industry.
So, you know, for me, I really like to figure out how things work.
And so I spent a lot of my career studying trends, studying sales numbers,
talking to people, learning a lot about the industry, about what my customers
(09:36):
wanted, what was popular, what was next.
And so I think that when I would make promises, it came from a really educated point of view.
I mean, I think that because it's such a complicated industry,
becoming a subject matter expert is really important in doing sales and doing it well.
And I think that there's a lot of different aspects you can look at it from.
(10:00):
You can look at it from the perspective of a supplier, which I had experience in.
You know, look at it from the perspective of a customer, which,
you know, working on the restaurant side, I was really close to the buyer and
also the customer that we were selling to.
And then, you know, looking at it from the business standpoint of,
you know, the retailers and the restaurants that we worked with. So, yeah.
(10:22):
You know, I felt like I learned a lot by getting out and talking to customers.
I learned a lot by getting out and talking to our suppliers.
And then I also just had my background of working in restaurants and working
directly with winemakers. So I think that was sort of a unique perspective.
But, you know, being curious, asking a lot of questions, and really trying to
learn about the industry was really important to me.
(10:43):
And I think that when I made promises and when I told people I was going to
do what I was going to do, they trusted me also because they knew that I knew
what I was talking about.
Right, right. So having a genuine curiosity about your profession rather than
seeing it just as a paycheck is probably part of the magic mix of being successful.
(11:05):
Yeah, yeah. I think the wine industry is a really sort of sexy industry to a lot of people.
When people visit wineries, they have a great time. It's fun.
It's beautiful. It's in nature. usually it's in
a setting where you know somebody's designed to tasting really nicely
or it's a restaurant experience and you're enjoying food
(11:25):
and wine with good company but I don't think people realize all the complexities
that go into creating those experiences all the complexities that go into how
wine actually gets to your table and I think that the people who have been the
most successful in the business understand that there's just a lot of factors at play in order to make
wine be successful. And so...
(11:48):
When people really know the business, and that means not just the laws and how
wine gets made, but also what customers are interested in, what their competition looks like,
what other wines taste like, what other competing industries are doing.
I think that's when those people really can be super successful as well. Right, right.
(12:11):
And so continuing on the questions with regard to as somebody operating a winery
and trying to sell into distributors,
how did you manage those relationships or were there some special ways that
you think you engaged with distributors that made you more successful?
(12:33):
Full? Yeah, that's a good question.
You know, there's been a huge amount of consolidation in the industry in the
last, let's say 10 years and brand managers, sales reps, managers,
they're all extremely busy and there's tons of brands in their portfolios.
And so I think the thing that I aim to do as a supplier,
(12:55):
and then the thing on the flip side that I aim to do working for a distributor
is to simplify the process as much as possible to make the relationship as easy
and seamless as possible and basically provide the TLDR version of any interaction
to the distributors that I was working with.
And that went on the flip side too when I was working as a distributor.
(13:19):
I know winery owners, most of them that I worked with in my career were small
business owners. They were wearing many hats.
They were doing things like working harvest and also managing payroll and ordering
bottles and also trying to do the sales side of things.
So I think, you know, not wasting people's time, not bogging people down by
(13:41):
having too many meetings, basically providing the information that they needed,
following up, and just making sure that I could be there to support.
And essentially, rather than coming to them with problems, coming to people
with solutions is how I operated when I was in the wine business,
for sure. Yeah, no, fantastic.
And for listeners who don't know what TLDR is, too long, didn't read,
(14:03):
right? It comes from the interwebs, I think.
But yeah, keeping it short, I have the same thing. I sell wine companies,
and we put together these marketing pieces.
And I got to tell you, I mean, we've developed our own way of approaching these
information memoranda.
(14:23):
But it's very much in keeping with what you just said, that we know that the
buyers for a wine company are like your winery clients and your distributor clients.
People, you know, the decision makers are really busy. And so we try to fashion
these things in such a way that they will get a, be able to read through quickly,
(14:45):
just determine quickly if this is something they want to spend any more time
on and not throw them, you know, at 27 pages of nonsense.
So I really feel your comment about respecting the time distributor.
And one of the things that I learned interviewing Chris,
which again, I said, I say in real time
in that interview view is like probably everybody knew this but
(15:07):
i honestly did not know that the distributor does
not views it their customers as the
end purchaser whether it's a retailer or a restaurant those are their customers
that so that this there's a supplier orientation and i think sometimes in the
winery environment some people think that the distributor is working for them
(15:29):
and it's not that's not the right dynamic.
The dynamic is very much, you are relying on a distributor, and so you need
to play nice because they have lots of choices.
Yeah. I mean, I think I personally view it as a partnership.
Chris definitely came from a much bigger distribution background.
(15:49):
And there's certainly, I would agree with his assessment,
for sure for for bigger companies but
I think when you're working with kind of like mid-size and
small boutique wineries as your main bread and butter it's definitely a partnership
we understand there are certain things that a mid-size winery or a small winery
(16:12):
they're going to need that are going to be different than you know a large publicly
publicly traded wine company Right.
So, you know, it's a funny relationship that distributors have because we,
you know, suppliers are both, you know, we're their customer,
but also kind of the opposite is true as well.
(16:33):
Because, you know, there are blue chip brands or there are brands that kind
of get your foot in the door to grocery stores.
There's different, you know, kind of functions of each brand that help midsize distributors run.
And so as a distributor, you have to be really aware of making sure that the
supplier is happy, whether it's the number of cases that you sell,
(16:54):
the kind of customers that you're selling to, the number of placements that you have,
the SKU mix that you have,
the number of market visits you have, the amount of face time that they get with your sales reps.
So, you know, I think there still is an onus on the distributor to treat the
supplier well because, you know, it's a two-way street, right? Yeah. Yeah.
(17:18):
Well, and in many states, the supplier has choices, but not in all, right?
So in the states where a supplier has choices, I'm sure, the distributor has
to be on their toes a little bit more.
Maybe I'll talk to somebody who's in a franchise state one of these days,
because that seems even trickier.
But now we have, very thankfully, we've segued into the, you know,
(17:40):
as the distributor, you know, what is, and you are working for sort of midsize
distributors with, you know, more of a synergistic relationship with the suppliers.
So what is a good relationship with a supplier that look like?
I mean, for you, I mean, if you have multiple choices with regard to a particular
(18:01):
type of product to put in, bring into your portfolio, what does a supplier that
you're going to want to work with look like?
So, I mean, obviously the first thing is the wine good, right?
I mean, everybody wants to make sure that the wine is good. And I think that
the best wineries are the ones who understand the competitive set, right?
(18:22):
They need to know how does their wine stack up against other wineries at similar
price points in the region and also wines that are more expensive and less expensive.
Are the wines priced right? Is there a need in the marketplace or is there kind
of a customer base for those price points?
And then really my favorite suppliers that I worked with were ones who already had existing
(18:45):
customer bases, whether it was, you know, people on their mailing list who are
asking for the wines to be in the marketplace that, you know,
so, you know, I've brought in a lot of California wines to Oregon who,
you know, they had a really robust fan base here in the state.
They just didn't have any distribution yet.
We also had a lot of wineries that we worked with who, you know,
(19:07):
they were really popular with sommeliers and they were just really easy to get into restaurants.
We had some wineries in Oregon where they were scaling up and they had really
great relationships existing with customers and they helped open doors for us as distributors.
Or we just had some suppliers that maybe had really excellent relationships
(19:29):
with larger customers that we didn't have relationships with.
Or we had partnership relationships with them where they had a great relationship
with the customer that we also had a great relationship with that we could easily
make the sale to because both of those things worked really well together.
So I think when there's a value add from the supplier side, that's when distributors
(19:50):
are happy to take brands on.
These days, I don't think it's important to have scores.
I mean, it helps, it's nice, but it doesn't really, it's not really materially effective.
Important to the sale of wines now it's
really about competitive pricing whether or
not there's a customer base and if you have existing relationships with
(20:12):
customers yeah well that's very interesting and listen up winery folks who may
be listening because what i what i hear you say is you you know the the the
customer the supplier that just wants to hand you their portfolio and walk away and wish you luck.
I mean, that's just, that's, if that was ever a thing, it's not a thing.
(20:34):
That each supplier, because it is so competitive and even it's competitive within
any distributor's portfolio, right?
So, you know, you make yourself be the, you know, whatever, $50 Napa cab or
whatever, $100 Napa cab, whatever the case may be.
You make yourself the best best supplier by being active, having,
(20:57):
you know, your own relationships,
your own network in the market that you have, you know, cultivated through all
the different ways that people in the wine business can cultivate relationships.
But you maintain those relationships so that when you decide to move into the
state and hire a distributor, whatever that might be, you are handing them,
you know, some tools to work with.
(21:17):
You're, you know, here's our customer list or here's, you know,
we're already in these key restaurants, but, you know, now take it from there, right?
That sounds like what you're saying a successful supplier looks like.
Yeah, I would agree with that. I just think people who think that they're going
(21:38):
to hand their sales numbers and just expect huge amounts of shipments,
it's just, it's not going to happen.
You know, I would view the distribution channel akin to something like direct-to-consumer
in the amount of work that it's going to take for you to make it happen.
It's just, it's hard, especially right now.
I talk to my friends who are still in distribution, and, you know,
(22:01):
wine sales are challenging across the board.
And so I think, you know, the more support they can get from suppliers,
the more successful they're going to be.
Yeah yeah no that makes a ton of sense so i thought you know there's a variety
of topics that we could continue to talk about but i i was reading this morning
(22:22):
and realizing we're about to go into ond.
October november december and that's something that folks not in the wine industry
may not be aware of but it's that,
Because of the holidays, basically, October, November, and December is like
the big sales period of time for wine companies and probably spirits as well.
(22:45):
I don't know about beer, but, you know, I had clients like 40% of sales was in OND.
And I think it's across both direct-to-consumer businesses, although I haven't
looked at it recently in that regard, but both wholesale and retail, right? Right.
Because, you know, if you're purely DTC, you're still spooling out,
(23:06):
you know, emails or telesales to get your wine club members to bring in some
more wine for the holidays.
So, I mean, it's really such a key sales period for the wine industry and we're
sailing into it right now.
And I'm just really hoping that it'll surprise on the upside this year because
I think it surprised on the downside last year.
(23:26):
So I hope expectations are exceeded. you did. So what is that like as either
a winery or as a distributor getting geared up?
And what does OND feel like when you're selling wine?
I mean, it's pretty balls to the wall. And I think that it's been a little bit
more subdued the last couple of years, at least talking to my friends in distribution.
(23:49):
But yeah, it sort of depends on what kind of brand you are.
There are some brands that sell pretty consistently throughout the year.
And they're more of the everyday brands.
But I can think about some champagne producers that I worked with where 60%
of our sales happened really in November and December.
I think that to call it OND is a bit of a misnomer because most of the sales...
(24:13):
It's kind of like a five-week period, essentially.
Wow. It's the week before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and then the couple weeks
leading up to Christmas, and then the week between Christmas and New Year's, right?
So it's like those five weeks are just absolutely insane.
The warehouses are going, you know, 20 hours a day. Sales reps are taking calls
(24:35):
at all hours of the day and night.
You know, restaurants are super busy because people are out there celebrating the holidays.
Retailers are super busy because people are buying for get-togethers and gatherings,
Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the things in between.
There's holiday parties for work and holiday parties for friends.
So yeah, it's an extremely busy time of year.
(24:56):
And we always used to say that our husbands and wives became widows and widowers during that time.
Much like people during harvest, you don't see your winemaker husbands and wives
during that same period because it's just so insanely busy.
But there's also a lot of people's fiscal years is close at the end of December.
(25:19):
And so people are just really pushing to get those final dollars out the door, you know,
Obviously, there's a lot of holiday travel, and so the roads are super backed
up and getting shipments from containers through various ports are also really challenging.
We have a lot of pre-sales that go out.
It's a wild time of year.
(25:41):
Yeah i that you know and it's it's
you know the podcast small fortune based on
the joke you know what does it take to make a small fortune you start with a large fortune
the point being it's a tough business for a lot of different reasons this this
the existence of the three-tier system where you know you're not in most cases
or you can't sell directly to the end user whether it's a retailer you have
(26:04):
to go through distribution if it's outside of your state so that's an aspect
of it, which we talk about quite a bit.
And I appreciate you coming and helping us and our listeners understand that.
But because there's such a chunk of sales that happen,
it creates a vulnerability that does not exist for companies that have more
(26:27):
steady sales cycles during the year.
As you think about it, some of the really nasty black swans we've encountered
have happened in September, right?
You know, we just acknowledged that 24 years or 23, I don't recall,
you know, of September 11th, right?
We had, you know, the stock market dropped 3000 points in September 08.
(26:50):
You know, that's a risk factor that exists for wine and probably spirits as well.
So were you working for distributors or wineries during any of those events?
And how'd you get through all that?
Yeah, I was working for Kay Vintners and Charles Smith Wines in 2008.
(27:11):
And the company was growing.
I was working to launch Charles Smith Wines nationally at that time.
And we were uniquely positioned because the wines from Kay Vintners had unbelievable
scores, and they were really good, and there wasn't very much like them.
And then Charles Smith Wines offered price points that were really competitive
(27:34):
in a time when everybody was sort of looking to cut their costs.
But at the same time, you know, in 2008, we were still operating on this sort
of allocation basis and, you know, offering distributors allocations of wines.
And in 2008, when the economy just tanked, people were like,
what are you talking about allocations?
(27:54):
Like, I can barely afford to pay my bills.
How am I going to take an allocation of 56 cases of $360 FOB wine.
I don't know what you're talking about.
So really what we had to do is we had to make sure that we spread our sales
through the entire year.
(28:15):
And I was actually just thinking about this when we were talking about this
because I worked with A to Z Winery before they sold A to Z.
And they did a really good job of spreading their sales and focusing their sales
throughout the year so that when we got to October, November,
and December, we really weren't behind the eight ball.
We had a plan for it, and we'd sold enough wine through the rest of the year
(28:36):
that we were not kind of backed up against a wall.
So the suppliers that I feel like do the best during O&D are the ones who are,
you know, really present and active in the marketplace earlier in the year.
And they don't kind of just wake up like after harvest and say,
oh, God, we got to sell all this wine.
Otherwise, we're screwed. You know, we need to get out in January and in February
(28:59):
and in March to really kind of push sales so that when the end of the year happens,
all the placements that we made in March are paying dividends in November, right?
All the work that we did over the summer is now being harvested in October,
November, and December.
So it's not possible really to go out and make new placements in this time of
(29:23):
year anyway. way, you know, all the work needs to be done.
It's got to kind of be front loaded a little bit so that all the pull through
happens at the back half of the year, if that makes sense.
It makes a ton of sense. And yeah, I hear what you're saying.
And those who are listening, yeah, good advice.
Don't wait till, you know, it pulls through in October and November because
sometimes stuff happens and there is going to be no pull through.
(29:47):
And for the most part, you know, You need to create the conditions yourself
for success and not lay it all on it's going to happen for us in October.
Yeah, no, fantastic advice. And what I'm hearing in your story is that you hustle.
You're organized in the way you go out into the market for whoever you're working for.
(30:13):
It's intentional. So, we haven't got to it, but when you and I did our pre-interview
a while ago, which I, you know, a lot of water in the bridge, forgot most of it.
One of the things that I recall, and it hasn't come up, and I'd love for you
to share it just because, you know, I always imagine we've got younger professionals
(30:33):
in the industry listening because old folks don't listen to podcasts.
So, it's got to be young people. And you had...
Shared with me a couple of books on management and success that had helped you
be successful or helped you kind of focus your ideas about how to be successful.
And I'd love for you to share what those are because they sounded,
(30:56):
of course, I haven't pursued reading them, but can you share some of those books
that you recommend for management success?
Oh, sure. Yeah. I have to give 100% credit to Chris Sarles for these because
the first time I met him, he's like, go read these books and then come back and talk to me.
But one of them is called The Speed of Trust. And it's exactly what I just said to you.
(31:17):
Relationships that are built on trust are the most successful and I think also the most fulfilling.
So it's a really wonderful book about how to build trusting relationships,
both in business and your personal life.
And then the next book that we talked about, and my husband and I run our business
on this concept still is a book called Traction by Gina Wickman.
(31:39):
And it is a wonderful kind of framework for how to lay out goals for your business,
the plan for monthly check-ins on them, and really how to work towards unbelievable but attainable goals.
So those two books, I would say, have impacted me probably the most in my professional life.
(32:02):
And 10 out of 10, I would recommend both of them. And shout out to Chris Sorrells
for both of those recommendations.
Wonderful. And thank you for sharing those because yeah, you seem to be walking
the talk from what I can tell. I try.
Well, Merit, thank you so much for joining today. I don't know if you had any
other last thoughts for the listeners about success or?
(32:24):
No, I guess I would just say, you know, the wine industry can be really a bit
of a struggle sometimes.
It's an industry that's so weird because we have such a long tail on getting our product to market.
But some of the best experiences of my life came from working in the wine industry.
And I think that if you can just remember that it really is full of innovative,
(32:51):
interesting, wonderful people, and you try to do your best for those people,
I think really great things will come out of it.
Well said Merit thanks very much for joining us yeah thank you for your time
Carol it's nice to be here great bye.
Music.
(33:15):
Hi, Small Fortune listeners. If you found this episode enjoyable,
we'd really love to have you as a follower.
And we're on almost all of your favorite podcast platforms.
So if you could take a moment and subscribe or follow, we'd really appreciate it.
Also, if you have any questions for Carol, please email us at smallfortunepodcast at gmail.com. Thanks.
(33:41):
Um now you've worked for and with
wineries all all these years and i
often ask at you know towards the end of the conversation about you know what
are your in in in within the different businesses you've worked for you know
what what do you advise as sort of risks to avoid or secrets of success of the
(34:03):
wine companies you've worked for and around?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think the best people I've worked for are those
that are curious and open-minded.
I think people who continually learn about the business and accept that tastes
change, people's interests change, The world changes. The industry changes.
(34:27):
Being open and curious about what's going on in the business and the world around
them and what people around them are interested in, I think is so important.
Staying humble, not assuming that you know everything because you've done it
for, I don't know, 25, 30 years or however long.
You know, being honest with yourself, with your customers, you know,
(34:53):
telling the truth, being trustworthy.
I think that's something Chris and I, Chris Sarles and I talk about a lot.
When people trust you, you know, pretty much anything can happen if you really
put together a plan. And then also, like you said, being intentional about what you're doing.
Asking your customers what they need. Asking your salespeople what they need.
(35:16):
Treating people with respect, with dignity. Doing what you say you're going to do.
I mean, those are all the hallmarks of the best people in the business, I think.
Yes, absolutely. I completely agree. My profession as well. I really value those
people who have all those characteristics.
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