Ben Salisbury How to 2X Your Wine & Spirits Companies in todays Tough Environment

📢I talk🎙️with   Ben Salisbury, President and Founder of Wine Sales Stimulator!  👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁 Watch on YouTube!

My very first guest nearly 2 years ago! I will always be so grateful! Thank you, Ben!

Ben and his team help small to mid-sized companies navigate these difficult times via new methodologies and technologies. He shares his lifelong journey starting in the restaurant industry through exponential growth at Glazers and then his supplier days as VP of National Accounts for both Ste Michelle Wine Estates and Constellation Brands. These experiences gave him the skillset to start his own company, Salisbury Creative Group and his Wine Sales Stimulator course.  

Mentors
Don Pratt Glazers, Glen Yaffa, SMWE, Lattie Wise Seagrams & then VIBE
David Colmer (TGIFridays buyer), www.NancyFlorence.com

Paradigm Shift to Develop Scalable Skills for the Future of Growth
1. Digital Lead Generation, 2. Proper Use of Email Marketing, 3. Social Selling

Books Ben Recommends
Sales
Daniel Pink's To Sell is Human
Jeff Thull Mastering the Complex Sale
Tom Stanfill unReceptive
The Complete Guide to Accelerating Sales Force Performance

Time Management
Steven Covey The 7 Daily Habits
Tim Ferris The 4 Hour WorkWeek

Marketing
Donald Miller Building a Story Brand

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 2:38 Please Subscribe to our Channels!
• 2:43 Intro
• 4:04 Where Ben is Calling in From
• 5:32 Where Ben is From
• 11:28 Sales should be a by product of a much larger relationship
• 14:02 Mentors
• 19:02 Resources
• 25:02 Pain Points
• 25:15 #1 The Big One Too Many Brands to Distributors Ratio
• 27:23 #2 Being Able to Scale
• 34:15 3 Things to Expect from a Distributor
• 37:33 Raison d'etre for Wine Sales Simulator
• 39:19 Outlook
• 41:28 Your Customer is Your Hero, not Your Brand
• 46:54 How to Contact Ben
• 48:13 Produced by Fedora J Productions

Transcript

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:18:14
Ben Salisbury
I know that it's hard to not focus on the product. You know, you just released a new, bourbon that's been in the barrel for years and you're super excited about it. And you want to talk about it. That's fine. The problem is, having a great product is no longer enough. It really just gets you to the starting line.

00:00:18:16 - 00:00:39:18
Ben Salisbury
So no matter how many awards you've won or how great the wine is or spirit is, it still just gets you to the starting line. You better have something else of value. So my wish for the industry is to balance the product focus and product knowledge with more solid business acumen. And this is about empathy, which you'll find in Daniel Pink's book To Sell.

00:00:39:18 - 00:01:23:22
Ben Salisbury
This human empathy is much more important being successful in sales than product knowledge. I have a video that says this called A Business Acumen Eats Wine Knowledge for breakfast. And I just really think that is the that's the future. You know, so that's my wish for the industry to balance, balance the knowledge and passion for the product itself with some really solid business acumen and concepts like inbound marketing and things that are scalable and leveraging technology, because people who balance that out are going to be a lot more successful, and people who don't.

00:01:24:00 - 00:01:55:12
Jessie Ott
Welcome to Thursday Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. My name is Jessica. The host of this podcast, which is all about beverage innovation. I talk with innovation pioneers from agriculture to glass. Our industry is experiencing exponential growth with an outburst of new and innovative brands and an exceedingly difficult three tiered environment. My first guest, Ben Salisbury, helps these small to mid-sized companies navigate through these difficult times via new methodologies and technologies.

00:01:55:14 - 00:02:28:00
Jessie Ott
He shares his lifelong journey through starting through within the restaurant industry, all the way through his exponential growth at Glaziers and Supplier Days, during which he was VP of National accounts of both Saint Michel wine estates and Constellation Brands. These experiences gave him the skillset to start his own company, Salisbury Creative Group, and now through his wine sales simulator course, we look at books that were and still remain game changers for his career his mentors, his wish for the wine and spirits industry ending with his outlook for 2023.

00:02:28:02 - 00:02:53:17
Jessie Ott
Ben was and will always be my favorite boss and mentor. He knows an incredible amount of information in this industry. I hope you enjoy the interview. Thank you for listening and be sure to subscribe to be notified of all new episodes. Hello everybody! My name is Jesse and welcome to Thursday, Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. My first guest, season one, episode one is my favorite person in the industry.

00:02:53:17 - 00:03:12:09
Jessie Ott
Ben Salisbury. For any of those of you out there listening that I've worked for Ben, you know why he's the best boss ever and mentor throughout your career. So I'm super, super, super pumped, Ben, that you were able to take the time out in your busy schedule to join me on my podcast, so I'm super excited. Thank you for for coming on.

00:03:12:11 - 00:03:16:07
Ben Salisbury
And I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to be your first guest.

00:03:16:09 - 00:03:24:10
Jessie Ott
Yay! So Ben and I met, gosh, ten years ago now, 15 years ago, I guess. Yeah, because you've been doing.

00:03:24:12 - 00:03:27:00
Ben Salisbury
2004 ish somewhere like that.

00:03:27:02 - 00:03:45:13
Jessie Ott
Yeah. So we've known each other a long time, and I've seen, then grow through his different career paths with constellation and then kind of go building his own business, which has been very inspiring. And we, we used to, meet when he lived in Dallas. We'd meet for breakfast every once in a while just to kind of stay in touch.

00:03:45:15 - 00:03:53:05
Jessie Ott
So it was fun to kind of see how he transitioned over into his current company now. So that's very exciting.

00:03:53:07 - 00:03:58:16
Ben Salisbury
I'm really glad we've stayed in touch all these years. It's been a real blessing to me for sure.

00:03:58:18 - 00:04:05:06
Jessie Ott
Sam. So you moved to Ohio, right? Recently in the last couple of years?

00:04:05:08 - 00:04:16:19
Ben Salisbury
Right on the river of Ohio and Kentucky. So I'm in Covington, Kentucky, northern, far northern Kentucky. My office building sits right on the river, and across the river is Cincinnati, Ohio.

00:04:16:21 - 00:04:20:05
Jessie Ott
Nice. I hear there's a lot of really nice restaurants there.

00:04:20:07 - 00:04:44:21
Ben Salisbury
It's it's great what Brooklyn is to Manhattan. Covington is to Cincinnati. So we're literally separated by the bridge. And it's a great area. I love living here. My wife is from here. We've been coming up here for more than 3035 years. So we during the pandemic we decided to go ahead and make a permanent move here back to her hometown where her sisters are and her mom was.

00:04:44:23 - 00:04:56:12
Ben Salisbury
So I love it. I love it here. It reminds me of where I grew up in Providence, an old industrial city. You know, parking is really hard and it's a very urban environment, but I love that.

00:04:56:14 - 00:05:00:19
Jessie Ott
Yeah. So you're used to the, the cold?

00:05:00:21 - 00:05:20:01
Ben Salisbury
Yeah. It's taking some getting used to. Especially how much less daylight there is here compared to Texas, where it's sunny all the time for 12, 14 hours a day. Here. The winters are quite dark and cloudy. Yeah, but that's okay, I don't mind. Yeah. I don't want to be part of the Texas summers anymore.

00:05:20:03 - 00:05:38:23
Jessie Ott
Yes. Texas. Texas summers are terrible. We don't want to be around him either, because I moved over to the bank and. Yeah, agreed, I definitely agreed. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Ben. Where are you from? And kind of how did you get into the industry?

00:05:39:01 - 00:05:55:22
Ben Salisbury
Yeah, I've only ever done I've only ever been in two industries, the restaurant business and then the wine and spirits business. But I grew up in Rhode Island. I grew up in the southern part of the state, on the beaches. My family bought a house right on the ocean. That's where I grew up. So I love that.

00:05:55:22 - 00:06:17:00
Ben Salisbury
I went to college in Providence. I went to Johnson or Wales. I have two degrees in Johnson Wales, Culinary Arts and Food Service Management. And, I did my culinary internship at Walt Disney World. I spent two summers on Martha's Vineyard. So in the days that I was in the restaurant business, I had some really great experiences and I got interested in wine.

00:06:17:00 - 00:06:40:19
Ben Salisbury
My last two years of college, when I was working as a waiter at the Biltmore Plaza Hotel. They had a rooftop restaurant. Galapagos. Yeah, it's not there anymore. The building's still there, but it was a very fancy French restaurant with tableside cooking and an extensive wine list. And that's when I really started learning about wine. So this would be around 1980, 81, 82.

00:06:40:21 - 00:06:59:20
Ben Salisbury
And that area. And then I moved to Houston. I worked with some people at the Biltmore who were headed to Houston. Actually, they were going back to use it to open a new restaurant there, and I went with them, and I was the front of the house manager of the maitre d. I bought the wines, I got plugged into the wine wholesale community in Houston.

00:06:59:20 - 00:07:21:14
Ben Salisbury
So this would have been 1983, spring of 1983, and that was my last job in the restaurant business, because from there I was offered the job by my favorite wine distributor to go work for them, selling to restaurants and package stores. So that was a scary transition, as all I'd ever done was work in restaurants, and I didn't know for what a career wine sales was going to suit me or not.

00:07:21:16 - 00:07:49:00
Ben Salisbury
Well, it turns out it suited me really well because I loved selling wine to restaurants and I got I love getting involved in 60 or 70 different restaurants and package stores. I really loved that job. I was there three and a half years before I was promoted and moved to Dallas. That's all. I got to Dallas. I was promoted to on premise supervisor for the same distributor, but that began my wine career and, I've I've.

00:07:49:02 - 00:07:57:13
Ben Salisbury
I was in Texas all 37 years after that. I never expected to stay in Texas. I wanted to go back to the northeast, but I just I never have done it.

00:07:57:15 - 00:08:01:08
Jessie Ott
I didn't know you were at, did an internship at Walt Disney.

00:08:01:10 - 00:08:26:17
Ben Salisbury
Yeah, that's really it was the winter of 79 and 80. And the. The ayatollah had all those American hostages. Jimmy Carter was president. It was a long time ago, but Epcot was nothing more than a scale model on a on a big table. And Walt Disney World itself had only been open for seven years. So it was a really interesting time to work there and a great experience for me.

00:08:26:19 - 00:08:47:19
Ben Salisbury
I loved working for Disney and it opened up a lot of great connections for me. It also, and I know you've had this experience. My world expanded when I moved, you know, from Rhode Island to Florida and then back to Rhode Island and then to Houston. I, I wasn't afraid to move around and try new things. And that is really a great gift.

00:08:47:19 - 00:08:49:10
Ben Salisbury
I think.

00:08:49:12 - 00:08:49:22
Jessie Ott
Yeah, for.

00:08:49:22 - 00:08:57:18
Ben Salisbury
Sure. And people can spend their whole lives in the same town where they grew up. They don't. That's kind of foreign to me. I like getting out doing your things well.

00:08:57:18 - 00:09:20:11
Jessie Ott
You're an innovator. Like the the way you explained. You like working with different types of restaurants. You could fit different types of the right wines and the right concepts. And, you know, that's kind of like expanding your different, areas of expertise and and letting people know what's out there and learning different things. That's for me. I think I've lived in, I don't know, 3 or 4 countries, 5 or 6 states.

00:09:20:11 - 00:09:32:22
Jessie Ott
I don't know if you was count, but it's fun because it's even even though each city has its own little microclimate of people and diversity. And it's really fun. Yeah, I, I'm with you on that.

00:09:32:23 - 00:09:58:05
Ben Salisbury
Well, that brings about a really important point. I think when I look back on my career, when I left the restaurant business to sell wine to restaurants, I really thought of myself as a restaurant expert, not a wine expert. I wanted to be known as a restaurant expert that happens to sell wine, like I knew everything about running a restaurant back in the house front of the house and the wine business was new to me, but that actually worked to my advantage.

00:09:58:05 - 00:10:20:15
Ben Salisbury
I was a restaurant expert who happened to sell wine as opposed to a wine expert who happened to sell to restaurants, and that's made all the difference in my career. And later, when I started specializing in chain restaurants, where the level of business acumen and understanding of how a restaurant makes money and how they compete, that was far more important than the wine knowledge itself.

00:10:20:15 - 00:10:39:11
Ben Salisbury
And so, because I had that band already, I was very oriented to restaurant operations and, managing costs, you know, propping up revenue. That helped me be a better wine salesperson. Yeah. My understanding was my background made a huge difference for me.

00:10:39:13 - 00:10:47:11
Jessie Ott
Yeah, because a lot of people in the distributor probably don't necessarily come from at least that extensive of a restaurant background.

00:10:47:13 - 00:11:09:20
Ben Salisbury
You know, it's really you really have to. And I have the most, to this day, the most popular YouTube video on my YouTube channel is The Secret to Selling wine and Spirits on premise, right where I talk about it's really not about the product at all. It's about understanding restaurant operations and how your how you as a vendor to them can help them with their business.

00:11:09:22 - 00:11:27:23
Ben Salisbury
And so there's a reason that's the most popular YouTube video has been viewed like 17,000 times. And but that's it. I come at it as a restaurant expert, not as a wine salesperson. And ironically, that's how you sell a lot is not acting like a salesperson.

00:11:28:01 - 00:11:43:17
Jessie Ott
Is it? Wholesale? I'm remembering this correctly. You told me how you kind of built up you when you were first on the on premise. You would go into a restaurant and help them do inventory and help them kind of set up their bars and help really kind of be a piece of the, you know, heart and soul.

00:11:43:17 - 00:11:50:14
Jessie Ott
The actual business, like really caring and going out and really going the extra step to kind of build that relationship.

00:11:50:16 - 00:12:14:09
Ben Salisbury
Yeah, I really think it's a big key to my success and is something that I include in my training. So when I'm training wine salespeople, spirits salespeople, I focus on this idea that the sales should be a byproduct of a much larger relationship, and that relationship should be based on service, and dependability and trust. So, yeah, in the early days of selling wine to restaurants, I understood their pain points.

00:12:14:09 - 00:12:38:16
Ben Salisbury
I understood what a pain in the neck it was to take inventory every week. I understood when are the best, when's the best time to go visit with the buyer? Funny story. So this would have been 1984. Restaurants were just beginning to adopt electronic cash registers where you could program the menu into the the micros machine, and the waiters could plug in their orders.

00:12:38:20 - 00:12:58:06
Ben Salisbury
And the little chips would print in the kitchen. This was brand new stuff. Well, I was the only person around who knew how to program these, electronic cash registers. So if you give me the menu and the wine list, I'll program it into your system for you, and you'll be good to go. Wow. And so I just started doing this for all of my clients as an extra service.

00:12:58:06 - 00:13:17:08
Ben Salisbury
And in return, they would give me big chunks of their buy the glass list and the wine menu. So that was a really powerful lesson. You better have something other than good wines and product knowledge in that business relationship. You better bring something of value to the business relationship. And that's a lesson I carried into the chain restaurant world.

00:13:17:10 - 00:13:38:02
Ben Salisbury
The 12 years I spent at Saint Michel. We grew. Our team grew sales from 50,000 cases a year to 465,000 cases a year. And that's how we did it. We focused on being good business partners and paying attention to pricing and logistics, the less sexy part of the wine business. But that made all the difference in the world.

00:13:38:04 - 00:13:56:12
Ben Salisbury
I learned that it's that there's dozens of great Chardonnays, hundreds of great Chardonnays. If you go in there just talking about how good your Chardonnay is, you're not going to get very far. But if you go in and show them how you can reduce inventory, improve cash flow, improve guest satisfaction, well, now, now they're going to want to do business with you.

00:13:56:14 - 00:14:18:13
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Now you're speaking their language. Now. Yeah. Very interesting. So, do you have any mentors as you look back on all those, you know, value added services that you had or any other, and anybody that really kind of made an impact on your career or, you know, how you thought about your career.

00:14:18:15 - 00:14:44:03
Ben Salisbury
Yeah, I love this topic. Just because I've had amazing mentors and and in a way of paying it forward, I tried to be a mentor to other people. So I've been really fortunate to have amazing, incredible bosses and a few really bad bosses. You learn as much from the bad bosses as you do the good ones, but there are two bosses in particular that really helped me with my career.

00:14:44:03 - 00:15:01:11
Ben Salisbury
When I first went to work for glacier's distributors in their corporate office as their very first on chain guy, my boss was Don Prat, and Don had worked at Glacier since he got out of college. And he, you know, it was a big organization with a lot of, you know, politics. And and he helped me navigate all of that.

00:15:01:11 - 00:15:20:11
Ben Salisbury
He really helped me grow up and mature as a businessman and to how to conduct myself in a meeting, how to be quiet when I had nothing to say, just all kinds of nuances that helped me really mature as a businessman. So I love you, Don, for all the great things he taught me. He was a very disciplined, organized person.

00:15:20:11 - 00:15:46:06
Ben Salisbury
Then he taught me the value of being disciplined and organized. And then when I went to work for Saint Michel, Glenn Yaffa was my boss all 12 years. And he is there's probably no no one else has had a bigger impact on my career than working for Glenn, because. And anyone who knows him understands why. But yeah, a couple of highlights that he he stretched me, he expected me to be challenged and he expected me to take risks and make mistakes.

00:15:46:06 - 00:16:07:05
Ben Salisbury
That's how you learn. You make mistakes. He gave me a lot of trust to build and to grow and to work things out. He was just a great boss. It was the opposite of being a micromanager. He was an enabler and a teacher, and I really loved him and I wanted to be like him. And, he was so organized and he got so much done.

00:16:07:05 - 00:16:30:23
Ben Salisbury
So I learned a lot about how to be a a mature, productive businessman. And then I've had other mentors, too. There's a man named Larry Weiss who's still around. He he's in his 70s. He, he runs the vibe conference. The allows. And while I was in Las Vegas, in California. But when he first left Seagram's in the early 90s, he struck out on his own, and he really took me under his wing.

00:16:30:23 - 00:16:51:22
Ben Salisbury
He opened doors for me, taught me about the chain restaurant world and I for decades. He was an important mentor to me, and he would always meet with me whenever he came to Dallas. He lived in Manhattan. So he wasn't. I don't think I could live long enough to pay back what he poured into me. So I'm very grateful to him.

00:16:51:23 - 00:17:10:07
Ben Salisbury
And I've had other mentors. When I first started my consulting practice, David Coleman, who used to be the wine and spirits buyer for TGI Fridays, he by then he had already been his own consultant for a couple of years, and he really took me under his wing and taught me a lot about writing contracts, negotiating contracts, finding clients.

00:17:10:13 - 00:17:42:00
Ben Salisbury
He was he was great. And then lastly, I have a mentor right now. Her name is Nancy Florence. You can see her at Nancy florence.com, but she's helping me with this new dimension of entrepreneurship and running a business and acting like a CEO, working on my business, in my business, but in a more relaxed, fun way. And not just it's like the opposite of the grind anyway, meant mentors and being mentored is a big passion of mine because I've had some really, really great ones.

00:17:42:02 - 00:17:48:18
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that's great to hear. Yeah. Glenn Yaffe he's, one of a kind for sure. Yeah. He was such a great man.

00:17:48:18 - 00:18:08:03
Ben Salisbury
I learned so much. And, you know, when I first went to work for him, I was 37 years old. Thought I knew everything, you know? And when I left, I was, What is that, 54, 54 ish? No, no, 3049. I was 49 when I left. So I grew up a lot, and I learned a lot from him.

00:18:08:03 - 00:18:11:11
Ben Salisbury
So I'm I'm eternally grateful for the things he taught me.

00:18:11:12 - 00:18:14:11
Jessie Ott
Do you stay in touch with them at all? Have you heard from them?

00:18:14:13 - 00:18:27:10
Ben Salisbury
I, I've done a terrible job of keeping up with him. When he retired and I started my own business, we just kind of went and set the direction. But I definitely owe him a call. This conversation is making me want to reach out and see how he's doing.

00:18:27:12 - 00:18:50:06
Jessie Ott
Yeah. What a amazing. You know, it was an amazing experience for me to to when I first started, Saint Michelle, because they were a company at the time that had 100% communication. They had team phone calls. Glenn would email the whole company all the time about different stuff, and it just felt like a really small company, even though is a pretty decent sized company.

00:18:50:08 - 00:18:55:22
Jessie Ott
The culture there was really, really, really amazing. It was it was a great experience working at Saint Michel. Good for.

00:18:55:22 - 00:18:57:21
Ben Salisbury
Us. It was a great time to be there.

00:18:57:23 - 00:19:23:21
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Beautiful facilities. Yeah, yeah. So moving on to resources are key learning tools. Is there anything that, you know, you recommend? Resources. You've mentioned a coach of yours. Life balance. Did you make any life balance decisions during your career that kind of really catapulted you? Yeah. Any, any or anything like that that you'd like to share?

00:19:23:21 - 00:19:26:19
Jessie Ott
I know that's a big question for you. Yeah.

00:19:26:21 - 00:19:45:16
Ben Salisbury
It's a big question, but it's one of my favorites. I mean, I'm, as you know, you and I are alike in this. We love to learn. We love to innovate. We love to break the mold of convention. We both have that in common. And so I'm definitely been a lifelong learner. A couple of big themes.

00:19:45:16 - 00:20:09:08
Ben Salisbury
I guess. One is the way things get sold. I'm a big fan of Daniel Pink. He wrote a book called To Sell as Human, and when I read that book, I felt like I could have written it because it aligned with my philosophy of selling, which is, you know, it's really not about persuasion or overcoming objections or product knowledge or presentation skills.

00:20:09:08 - 00:20:39:11
Ben Salisbury
That's not real selling. And so I've been a lifelong student of what real professional selling looks like. And so Daniel Pink's book To Sell Us Human has been a big influence on me. Jeff Tools book, Mastering the Complex sale and his quote that a sale should be a byproduct of a much larger relationship. Those things have really shaped how I sell, how I train people to sell, how I look for people to hire, to sell.

00:20:39:11 - 00:21:00:05
Ben Salisbury
So being a real student of professional salesmanship has been a thing for me. And those books have helped. And my newest book is, unreceptive, which is kind of takes all of this to this next level in this world where there's a lot of noise and buyers can go get their own information, and sellers are almost superfluous to the selling process.

00:21:00:10 - 00:21:18:08
Ben Salisbury
You better have you better have some other way to bring value to the table, to open the doors and get people to be receptive. So I just really love all those things. And then another big theme for me is just, you know, time management of being effective. And so Stephen Covey's book, The Seven Habits was a life changer for me.

00:21:18:08 - 00:21:50:01
Ben Salisbury
And then Tim Ferriss is the four hour workweek was incredibly life changing, and I still go back to that a lot. In the corporate world especially, we tend to get caught up in the activity wheel, the hamster wheel of activity, and we tend to think that activity equals achievement and it does not results equal achievement. So having the discipline to avoid low value activities and to leverage the 8020 rule, these are all kind of next level mature, business person type things that I've really thrown myself into.

00:21:50:01 - 00:21:59:19
Ben Salisbury
So I'm always recommending those body of books. But there's one other one other book, and I know you've seen it on my desk, but.

00:21:59:21 - 00:22:00:08
Jessie Ott
The Complete.

00:22:00:08 - 00:22:18:05
Ben Salisbury
Guide to Accelerating Sales Force Performance. When I, midway through my career saying, Michelle, we could not get our sales to go much higher, had an amazing team, but we just couldn't get it to grow higher. I just because we're calling on too many accounts and we weren't being selective in how we spent our time and which customers were calling us.

00:22:18:05 - 00:22:38:15
Ben Salisbury
So that book really taught me the discipline of segmentation and understanding that not all accounts are equal. They're not all equal of or capable of the types of volume that we need. I also learned from that book how important volume is in the wine business, and that you have to understand what what's the key driver of the business and the wine business.

00:22:38:15 - 00:23:00:10
Ben Salisbury
That's volume, because you're tied to the fruit that's growing in the field. And if you don't sell, it all is highly perishable and you can't afford to get back to one pitcher. So you have to rearrange your life as a salesperson to make sure you're hitting your volume goals, because it's the most important driver of the business. But so that level of maturity, is what I got from that, from that book, along with some others.

00:23:00:12 - 00:23:22:17
Jessie Ott
I remember, when I used to work with you, and I don't remember if it was one of our sessions where we'd brainstorm, which was really fun, by the way. Or if it was just in passing or talking to your team or, or one of our trainings, the on premise training for, the territory optimization that we built is, you know, people don't think about wineries as being in a it's an agriculture, right?

00:23:22:17 - 00:23:39:04
Jessie Ott
They have they have lots of fields, lots of vines. They have a lot of people attending to the grapes and this, that and the other. There's a lot more involved. And you know, that 12 bottle, $12 bottle of wine that you're buying, you know, you don't think of, oh, it's, you know, grapes, it's agriculture. You don't really think of it that way.

00:23:39:04 - 00:23:58:03
Jessie Ott
It's a different it's a different, set up than spirits. Right. Because you typically you buy the grain, you buy it here from everywhere. You don't necessarily own the land, you don't necessarily on the vines and take care of it. So it's a really a different business model when you think about it. The cost is a lot higher in wine.

00:23:58:05 - 00:24:05:18
Jessie Ott
I mean, you can also buy grapes and, and do that too. But a lot of the bigger wine rates stayed on. They they all know it.

00:24:05:20 - 00:24:32:16
Ben Salisbury
Yes, yes. So it yes. So accurate in that it's a capital intensive business and a lot of people that are running around the wine industry, whether they're on the production side or the sales and marketing side, they tend to focus way too much on the product itself, and they don't really understand the business of wine, like the importance of, you know, not tying up too much money and inventory and the importance of moving through the inventory in a timely manner.

00:24:32:18 - 00:24:53:00
Ben Salisbury
There's a lot of business acumen that goes with the industry that is sorely lacking for a lot of people, because they're just so focused on the product itself and wine especially, like you mentioned. I mean, it's different every year because you have a different vintage. It's highly perishable and inventory is very, very costly. You cannot afford to have overlapping vintages in your inventory.

00:24:53:00 - 00:25:02:01
Ben Salisbury
So, it's not enough to just have product knowledge. You really have to understand the business of of why.

00:25:02:03 - 00:25:12:02
Jessie Ott
So what do you think are the biggest pain points that the industry is facing today from your point of view and your clients?

00:25:12:04 - 00:25:47:10
Ben Salisbury
I love this topic too. There's one really big one and that is the, proliferation of brands, which is or often gets very underestimated just how many brands are out there and how coinciding with the massive consolidation of the wholesaler network. Yeah, the bigger getting bigger and the smaller shrinking. And what what this sets up is a very unworkable situation where the days of a distributor being able to go out and build sales, distribution for a winery, those days are gone because they're just very overwhelmed with the number of brands.

00:25:47:14 - 00:26:09:00
Ben Salisbury
The ratio of brands to salespeople is completely out of control. And so if you're not adjusting yourself accordingly, you're going to experience a lot of pain. And my my consulting business is built on this. I mean, I can't stand the look out for people who are in enough pain where they're ready to to get some help, which is the, you know, the basis of a consulting business.

00:26:09:01 - 00:26:31:11
Ben Salisbury
But many people are running around as if nothing has changed. And really, things have changed a lot in the last six, seven years in terms of the number of brands available and the distributors, inability to do what they used to do. So I'm always saying a lot of what used to work no longer works or doesn't work as well, and most people are missing that reality.

00:26:31:15 - 00:26:51:03
Ben Salisbury
I would say, I don't know, 70, 80% of people and here's the evidence. When you go to one job, Xcom, and you read the description of a district sales manager or a regional vice president or a national sales manager, you'll see bullets about managing the distributor, working with the distributor, motivating the distributor, all these things that do not work any more.

00:26:51:04 - 00:27:09:02
Ben Salisbury
Every once in a while, you run into a job description where it's pretty clear the supplier understands that if it's important to them, they're going to have to do it themselves. So this is a big pain point. There's too many brands, too few distributors, and it means people need to adjust. But I see very little adjusting going on.

00:27:09:04 - 00:27:41:05
Ben Salisbury
And that's what I try to provide my team. And I would try to provide the alternative to relying too much on the distributor. So that's one big, pain point that's going on. I know. And tucked into that is this idea that, you need to be able to scale. I mean, as a business owner who's striving to work less and make more, I've really tapped into this idea of creating things that are scalable and anything requires a physical presence of a human being isn't scalable.

00:27:41:07 - 00:28:08:19
Ben Salisbury
So in-store tastings, wine dinners, work widths, meetings, face to face meetings these are just not very scalable. But our industry is very married to that way of of selling kneecap to kneecap, liquid to lips, pulling corks. There's no doubt that is the very best way to sell. It's just not very scalable. So if the pandemic taught us anything, it's that you really can sell without being physically there.

00:28:08:19 - 00:28:35:08
Ben Salisbury
But you have to know how to do it. And that's requires a lot of learning curve on the digital side. So digital lead generation, the proper use of email marketing, which goes way beyond newsletters and blasts and, you know, just the whole, idea of social selling using your social media audiences to sell and to connect with buyers and to prospect, these things are, really like just lost on a lot of people.

00:28:35:10 - 00:28:45:01
Ben Salisbury
They're still doing things the same way scheduling work lists with the distributor, scheduling face to face meetings. So those are things are good, but they just can't be scaled.

00:28:45:03 - 00:28:46:02
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that makes sense.

00:28:46:02 - 00:29:02:12
Ben Salisbury
We are at a at a crossroads in our industry. We are there is going to be a separation of people who embrace the digital ways of selling the scalable things that you can do and those that are stuck in the past wondering why their sales aren't aren't growing.

00:29:02:14 - 00:29:23:00
Jessie Ott
Do you see anything on the digital side that, looks promising to help scale or any kind of, you know, I know there's a lot of different technology. I feel I feel as if almost the restaurants, I don't know so much about the retail, but the restaurants, there's a lot of different options, and it seems a little fragmented.

00:29:23:02 - 00:29:39:12
Jessie Ott
You know, in terms of, like, the digital side of maybe point of sale networks or, inventory, blah, blah, blah. Is there anything that you're seeing, like out there or maybe just non restaurant associated that might be maybe a tool to help?

00:29:39:14 - 00:30:05:05
Ben Salisbury
So yeah I really it's a great question. I really think that, prioritizing modern email marketing can be quite transformative for sellers of wine and spirits. When you say email marketing to most people in the wine industry, they're thinking newsletters. Yeah, or some kind of blast where you're sending out a piece of communication to your entire list. No, neither of those things are modern email marketing.

00:30:05:07 - 00:30:24:14
Ben Salisbury
So imagine you're a small to mid-sized winery, and you have at your disposal an email list of trade buyers, sommeliers, wine buyers both on and off premise. You have several thousand of those people that you can communicate directly with. Announce a new score. Announce a new release. Let people know when you're coming to the end of a vintage that's been highly praised.

00:30:24:14 - 00:30:49:18
Ben Salisbury
And, you know, you might want to grab a six pack before it's all gone. Being able to speak directly to trade buyers through moderate email marketing is incredibly powerful. And then when you combine that with segmentation and automation, where somebody comes to your website and they see an email signup form and they see there's a box they can check that says, I'm a member of the trade, and you automatically get put into their trade only automated nurture sequence.

00:30:49:20 - 00:31:12:04
Ben Salisbury
These are incredibly powerful tools that are 100% scalable and very low cost. So this is just one example of what it looks like to transition to a modern way of selling leveraging technology, a an understanding of what modern email marketing really is. It's not newsletters should last and then be how to implement it and turn those subscribers into into customers.

00:31:12:06 - 00:31:45:18
Ben Salisbury
So that is really an important thing. And something that goes along with this is understand the customer journey and a sales funnel. We really don't have a lot of this in our industry. We think at every restaurant out there who doesn't have our wine is a good candidate for us. So. So we must go there and present in our wine mart way to sell by practicing inbound marketing, where you're putting out messages and and content that draws people to you and you get them to organically sign up for your email list and then use extra email marketing to nurture those relationships.

00:31:45:20 - 00:32:11:18
Ben Salisbury
This is so much, more, more effective. So respecting the customer journey. For example, if you see, a Facebook post or an ad or a post on Instagram that has a buy now button or a shop now button, this is kind of foolish because you don't yet have the trust and rapport with that client. You can't sell to a cold audience, so you really have to understand the customer journey, understand how to nurture it.

00:32:11:20 - 00:32:19:10
Ben Salisbury
And the beautiful thing is, when you do, these are all very, very scalable. So what we're talking about here is a whole new learning.

00:32:19:10 - 00:32:20:09
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

00:32:20:11 - 00:32:46:16
Ben Salisbury
For the average seller of wines and spirits at the peak of the pandemic lockdown, I created a lead magnet called The Complete Guide to Selling Remotely. How do you sell wine and spirits remotely from your desk? And it was still is the most popular lead magnet that I ever created. Hundreds of people wanted to get their hands on that, and I grew my email list significantly.

00:32:46:16 - 00:33:11:22
Ben Salisbury
It really helped my consulting business because now I have an audience of self qualified people who might be interested in my in my services. So this is this idea of inbound marketing based on content creation, backed up with automated email marketing. It's a game changer. So the average person out there with a territory like let's say your territory is the state of Texas and you're in charge of selling wine or spirits in Texas.

00:33:11:22 - 00:33:28:13
Ben Salisbury
That's a lot of ground to cover. You ought to be employing some of these more digital, modern ways of selling because it could transform your business, and you won't be so worn out at the end of the week, running around, confusing activity with achievement.

00:33:28:15 - 00:34:05:10
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that's really awesome. Do you see with I like this trade marketing, idea of bringing people to the winery website as a trade that is really, really smart. Do you see the distributors as a way of helping kind of get them to that, to kind of be, kind of help facilitate some of those relationships? Or is that sort of not something that, I mean, they they're so busy that I'm sure that it's not something that's on their mind, but I'm just wondering how how do you at scale, like how to facilitate getting those people on those websites?

00:34:05:10 - 00:34:31:05
Ben Salisbury
Because this is the this is important topic to, well, and I get sometimes I get a little blowback for saying this, but I'm going to keep repeating it because it's true. There's really only three things you can expect from a distributor. If you have expectations outside of those three things, you're going to be really disappointed. Number one is have them hold, products in their warehouse, you know, inventory of your products in their warehouse.

00:34:31:06 - 00:34:50:07
Ben Salisbury
Number two is to deliver it to the accounts that you and your team have sold. You can't have an expectation that they're going to go on sale. The distribution. And the third thing is to potentially match your team's selling efforts. So expecting a distributor to help you grow your trade on the email is not going to happen. Expect a distributor go building a distribution.

00:34:50:07 - 00:35:24:18
Ben Salisbury
Not going to happen. So the the antidote is to reach out to these trade buyers directly using social media and using SEO on your website. So if you know who you're targeting and you get the messaging right, you can draw those people to you. You can always tell one of my clients, because when you get to their website, there's a pop up email that allows you to say that you are a trade buyer when you join the email list and you automatically have subscribe to their trade on the email list, and you automatically get a nurture sequence of emails that just give value.

00:35:24:18 - 00:35:43:05
Ben Salisbury
Give value. This is another piece you can't you can't always be selling all the time. You should be giving giving value. So it is powerful. But it's a very, very big paradigm shift. And long answer to your question about whether or not distributors can help facilitate this. They cannot. They're just way too way too busy.

00:35:43:07 - 00:36:11:04
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Stretched really thin. Yeah. Especially as are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You know, one of the shifts that I've seen, you know, I had, I had lunch with Jane Dangler and in Dallas before Christmas and, What they're what we built, you know, with the territory optimization, countless and whatnot is they've shifted their roles, and now they actually have people within the distributor working just for Saint Michel.

00:36:11:04 - 00:36:32:06
Jessie Ott
I think she said she had like around 11 people. So that's a big shift that, you know, ten years ago was a thing I know for I thought it was more on the, executive level a little bit higher up level, but it sounds like it's shifted all the way down. Throughout the entire kind of organization, do you have you seen a lot of that?

00:36:32:08 - 00:36:36:14
Ben Salisbury
Well, there's some place you're going to see that is for the really big suppliers.

00:36:36:16 - 00:36:38:01
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

00:36:38:02 - 00:36:59:10
Ben Salisbury
The vast majority of suppliers do not have that. They're totally on their own. And all they can really expect is the logistics, the delivery. So but once you get to that place and then you can begin the work of building your own distribution, which starts with leveraging 8020. You can't be everywhere. So you better be really selective about where you do focus your your energy.

00:36:59:10 - 00:37:28:09
Ben Salisbury
And with tools like CRM, you can do a little research to identify the richest targets, put them in CRM, begin collecting information about the cast of characters in each account. You can log your all of your activities and this really helps you be more effective selling at scale, but also just converting a lot more prospects to buyers. So that's the technology solution there to understanding how to use CRM, which is still very much underutilized in the wine spirits business.

00:37:28:11 - 00:37:37:09
Ben Salisbury
It's and it's just it'll take time for people to, to understand you.

00:37:37:11 - 00:37:54:12
Jessie Ott
So would you say that's kind of part of the solves of some of the issues that are, happening out there? And we've kind of talked about a lot of the pain points. So the trade marketing and different things like that, you feel like are some of the ways we can kind of shift the paradigm, so to speak.

00:37:54:12 - 00:38:01:05
Jessie Ott
Is there anything else that you're you're working on or thinking about. So I kind of hope that.

00:38:01:06 - 00:38:20:14
Ben Salisbury
You know, I think the first step is getting people to acknowledge that what they're doing is not as effective as it used to be, but they don't typically know what else to do. So we try to be the person who helps them see open their eyes to these new ways of doing things. So we have a our new membership program called Wine Sales Stimulator.

00:38:20:16 - 00:38:41:00
Ben Salisbury
Our members, this is what they get our members sign up because they're like, okay, I'm ready to learn the new modern, tech driven ways of selling. And so when once we have them to that point, we can begin to train them. So there's a big learning curve and there's a lot of training. You have to learn how to use social media to be a social seller.

00:38:41:00 - 00:39:03:16
Ben Salisbury
You need to learn how to use modern email marketing. You need to understand inbound marketing and content creation. And these these things are very foreign and very new for a lot of people in the wine industry. So what is driving people to want to do it, though, is not being happy with their current sales or being frustrated with their distributor.

00:39:03:16 - 00:39:21:13
Ben Salisbury
So it only took us nine years, but I feel like we're well positioned to to take those unhappy people and show them how to get happy by employing these new and modern ways of doing things. So that's pretty exciting and very gratifying.

00:39:21:17 - 00:39:42:09
Jessie Ott
Yeah, definitely. So what is your outlook for the industry in 2023? I know there's you know, there's been a lot of talk back into words. Are we in a recession or are we going to see that happening. You know, there's a survey out every day about what what what's happening. And certainly there's always a risk. But where do you where do you see the industry?

00:39:42:09 - 00:39:44:13
Jessie Ott
Is it staying healthy?

00:39:44:15 - 00:40:03:07
Ben Salisbury
I yeah I love this question. Yeah. Well I think that, the growth that the wine industry has enjoyed in the past few decades, that's going to slow dramatically. Of course, you already already see that. And at the same time, there's a lot more competition than there used to be. So. So if you want to win, you've got to really up your game.

00:40:03:07 - 00:40:23:06
Ben Salisbury
And a lot of that involves technology. So you have to be open to new ideas, open to new ways of thinking. You got to go back to school on a number of fronts to learn how to do this. But it's like a lot of things there's for those who are willing to learn and grow and adapt. They're going to be just fine.

00:40:23:06 - 00:40:48:23
Ben Salisbury
They'll be picking up market share. Right. And that those that are working out of an old playbook, like relying too much on the distributor or relying on face to face selling, they're going to continue to fall behind and get left behind. So it really is about the mindset of regardless of what the economy is like or the industry is like, if you want to double or triple your sales in 2023, totally can do that.

00:40:49:01 - 00:41:11:23
Ben Salisbury
But it's going to require some new, some new thinking and some new skills. And so to me, that's really exciting is to be part of the group of small group of people who's helping the midsize to small producers learn to box above their weight class by leveraging technology and go generate their own demand and not have to rely on other people to do that.

00:41:12:01 - 00:41:41:22
Ben Salisbury
I think that's really important. And so this feeds into other big trends that I see, content marketing as moving from outbound, marketing to inbound understanding SEO. And now we have I to that's shown up in a really big way with ChatGPT and people are people's awareness and understanding of how you can draw these trade buyers and consumers to you if you understand how to give them what they want.

00:41:42:00 - 00:42:10:21
Ben Salisbury
This, content marketing and on this topic, I left out this, this other book. I highly recommend any wine or spirits brand there hasn't read Building a Story brand to get this book by Donald Miller, because it's quite a game changer, but it's not enough to have a website anymore. Signing up to have a sales team and and brochures and all the collateral that you need to sell your messaging needs to be to cut through the clutter of this intense competition you're missing.

00:42:10:21 - 00:42:32:04
Ben Salisbury
Messaging needs to be on point, which is focused on the customer as the hero of the story. So if your customers are restaurants, how do we make the restaurant buyer the hero of the story? Not your brand, and you're the role you play in the story as a brand owner or a brand seller is you're merely a guide that helps the customer get what they want.

00:42:32:06 - 00:42:58:05
Ben Salisbury
But this is an exciting trend, too. And you see it, really getting traction in a lot of areas because Donald Miller wrote that book not just for the wine industry, but for all industries, but the savvy people who are in the wine business, who are picking it up and implementing it, are seeing the power of it. When you get yourself out of the hero seat and you put the customer in it and you start serving them at, your sales are going to are going to really grow.

00:42:58:05 - 00:43:12:03
Ben Salisbury
So this shows up on your website, shows up in your social media feeds, shows up in your email marketing, and that book shows you exactly how to do it. So I love that big trend customer as the hero, not the brand or the product.

00:43:12:05 - 00:43:33:02
Jessie Ott
Yeah. That's powerful. That's very interesting. You know, sometimes that's kind of hard when you're trying to create, you know, this passionate product project that you have or brand or whatever. It's kind of hard to flip the switch and really realize that, yeah, the hero is definitely the person that you want to enjoy it as much as you've made it and created it.

00:43:33:04 - 00:43:38:00
Jessie Ott
And so it's kind of a mindset shift. So it's definitely really interesting.

00:43:38:02 - 00:44:07:22
Ben Salisbury
Yeah, it's very subtle but powerful. Yeah. I met with someone yesterday who wanted me to look at their website to see if they couldn't incorporate some of this, you know, how do we make how do you take my current brand, my current website and put this nuance in there where the customer is the hero? Well, it's like when you first visit the website, what you want to see are people just like your ideal customer, enjoying themselves at your winery or enjoying your wines at home with their friends and family.

00:44:07:22 - 00:44:29:00
Ben Salisbury
They want to see themselves in the story. Same thing with social media. So it's doesn't really cost a lot to make the switch to put in the customer hero, but it's incredibly powerful when you do it. And the more examples we can show people of what that looks like in the wine business, the easier it is for people to adapt so well.

00:44:29:04 - 00:44:50:07
Ben Salisbury
We could have a whole conversation about web modern website design for wineries because they're very, very lacking. They really don't understand the purpose of a website and how to, how to turn it into a, you know, wine selling machine or spirit selling machine. So it's exciting. It's an exciting frontier to go help people make those shifts.

00:44:50:09 - 00:45:20:01
Jessie Ott
Yeah, definitely. You know, this this podcast is all about beverage innovation brand. And I think you hit the basically every point, on how to innovate your brand and how to get into the next, you know, 2023 and beyond. So I really appreciate, you know, all your insight and, all your key learnings and, and, and what you can bring to the, to the audience is there is there anything else that, we haven't said that you want to say that I didn't ask or anything, just maybe just.

00:45:20:01 - 00:45:38:15
Ben Salisbury
One thing and then just. Yeah, this is kind of like my wish for the wine Oscars business. I know that is true. I know that it's hard to not focus on the product. You know, you just released a new, bourbon that's been in the barrel for years, and you're super excited about it, and you want to talk about it.

00:45:38:17 - 00:46:04:01
Ben Salisbury
That's fine. The problem is, having a great product is no longer enough. It really just gets you to the starting line. So no matter how many awards you've won or how great the wine is or spirit is, it still just gets you to the starting line. You better have something else. Value. So my wish for the industry is to balance the product focus and product knowledge with more solid business acumen.

00:46:04:03 - 00:46:41:13
Ben Salisbury
And this is about empathy networking, which you'll find in Daniel Pink's book To Sell this human empathy is much more important being successful in sales than product knowledge. I have a video that says, this is called a Business Acumen Eats Wine Knowledge for breakfast. And I just really think that is the that's the future, you know? So that's my wish for the industry to balance, balance the knowledge and passion for the product itself with some really solid business acumen and concepts like inbound marketing and things that are scalable and leveraging technology.

00:46:41:15 - 00:46:46:10
Ben Salisbury
Because people who balance that out are going to be a lot more successful. And people who don't. You?

00:46:46:12 - 00:46:58:08
Jessie Ott
Yeah, definitely a great. Well, then this has been really fun. I, we'll have to do this at least once a year. Keep in touch and see how you're done. That was awesome. Thank you so.

00:46:58:10 - 00:47:01:20
Ben Salisbury
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it too.

00:47:01:22 - 00:47:09:01
Jessie Ott
So where can they reach you? If someone wanted to, you know, check out your service or get in touch.

00:47:09:02 - 00:47:30:01
Ben Salisbury
To reach me is my new website, wine sales stimulator.com. That's the best way to reach me. I have access to tons of free content, more than 70 articles, 80 videos, a lot of great free content, which is how I like to market my business. But why until simulator.com is the best way. I'm also very active on LinkedIn, so follow me on LinkedIn.

00:47:30:01 - 00:47:44:18
Ben Salisbury
Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find there that I'm in there all the time, so I return emails and I return direct messages. So that would be the best way to reach me.

00:47:44:20 - 00:47:56:16
Jessie Ott
Okay, perfect. Yeah, LinkedIn is a pretty great resource. Information. Content. I know you you definitely are really good at sharing articles, information as well.

00:47:56:18 - 00:47:59:08
Ben Salisbury
Yeah I am, yeah, I enjoy it.

00:47:59:10 - 00:48:10:18
Jessie Ott
Well, best of luck to you Ben in 2023. Thank you again for being, you know, season one episode one. I wouldn't have asked, I wouldn't have I couldn't have asked anybody else in the world to do it. So thank you so much.

00:48:10:18 - 00:48:17:00
Ben Salisbury
I'm I'm very honored and I had a great time. So good luck to you and your new podcast. I have certainly be a big fan.

00:48:17:02 - 00:48:25:07
Jessie Ott
Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Okay. Bye. Produced by Fedora Jay Productions.