About to start but how to sell?

[Marksb89]

Ok so I'm just about ready to start my first business. Supplying branded/personalized wine/champagne to Venues (particularly hotels), Events and Businesses and perhaps once I've got things up and running the general public. I have my suppliers and legal and everything sorted to start bar my website which I'm still working on (I can began without out for now so thats ok)


I started another thread the other day about approaches to sell b2b, it was a general open question but I want to ask it again specifically to myself.

So here we go, I'm ready to start but what is the best way to approach customers? email? call? drop in? and what is the best way to go about selling? I'm just not entirely sure how to do it without sounding like a door to door salesman?

Should I bring in samples? and show hem a selection of designs?

I know selling is the most basic part of business, and I do know how to do it once I get going, I just want to make sure I'm going for the right approach from day one.


Thanks!
Mark

 

[Merchant UK]

Hi Mark its not whats on the labels but whats in the bottle that matters.

Currently most resturants/hotels have a cheap "House Wine" which they offer to their customers as opposed to the more professional well known expensive types.

Now with a customised label you need to explain "why would a company buy a dearer bottle with a custom label" if companies wanted to they could re label a bottle of their existing house wine themselves, I guess the reasons they don't is because it looks cheap and tacky, and that they may look like passing off some cheap plonk under the label of the business.

perhaps your market may be not hotels and resturants but corporate clients who could give away promtional gifts like your wine, I think that would make more sense.

Gerry

 

[Montaigne]

Weddings, stag and hen do's maybe? Branded wine from the happy couple could look quite cool.

 

[Marksb89]

Weddings, stag and hen do's maybe? Branded wine from the happy couple could look quite cool.

Yeah that's why I'm wanting to go through venues to try and get right to the customers and when I say events I include like wedding organizers.

 

[Kensington2010]

I don't know how expensive it is to do for you but could you personalize bottles to take with you? Like personal to the guy who owns a wedding venue, or personalized to the venue itself? Or witty, salesy and personal!

Not done much selling but seeing it from the other side, buying, I would usually ignore sales type e mails because it all just seems like spam, if you phone someone and its not the right time you may get short shrift and that can make it harder the next time, 6 missed calls off the guy trying to sell that wine...

I would call in, with samples. And obviously try and think about and observe what would be a suitable time to wander in. same again as the phone, the first time is easiest.

Good luck it sounds good. Like previous said sounds amazing promo product for business. Would be quite a nice touch when you picked up your new car.

"congratulations charleen brown on your shiny new mini from bla motors"

 

[cgwpublishing]

I have to say, it sounds like you're selling sticky labels but you want the margin on the wine.

I would say that if you want to go that route, you need to take a bottle with a label for the customer that you're meeting and leave it with them. It doesn't have to have wine in it, but it needs to show them exactly what they would be getting.

And yes, the big question is, why would I do that instead of sticking my own labels on?

I'm guessing that companies and weddings simply don't buy enough wine to make any money on the labels themselves.

At a wedding, above a certain "social level", the guests don't pour their own wine anyway, and therefore don't see the labels.

I agree that hotels only care about margin. Maybe you might sell to some smaller hotels with egocentric owners, but it won't take them long to figure out that they can print the labels themselves and make another £3 per bottle by going to the cash & carry in France.

As for personalising an individual bottle, I would imagine that is going to be impossible to scale, other than if you give the customer the labels to print themselves...

Personally I think you're stuck right in the middle of the volume/margin dilemma. If the customer can buy the volume, they're buying wine where the label matters. If a customer is buying any old house wine, the volume is too low for you to make any money on, and there is absolutely nothing to protect your business from such margin conscious customers printing their own labels.

As a sales approach, I would advise that you don't dive straight in with sales. Instead, carefully select a cross section of potential target clients and ask for their help in creating the product. If they see some value and help you to develop it, they win. If they say there's no point, because they could just print the labels themselves if their client required, then don't both trying to sell it, move onto your next idea.

Years ago my Dad used to make his own wine and he hand wrote his labels. My sister bought him some printed labels one year for Christmas, Chateau Dad or something like that. But you could get something similar at Vistaprint, or photo stickers from Asda now. Look at Moonpig for a mass personalisation business model - I don't think you could scale it to wine, although it might be something that Moonpig start doing - send presents along with cards.

Bottom line: If people care about wine, they care about the label that is already on it. If they don't care about wine, they care only about the price. You're stuck in between those two.

Christopher

 

[patientlady]

Hi Mark its not whats on the labels but whats in the bottle that matters.

Currently most resturants/hotels have a cheap "House Wine" which they offer to their customers as opposed to the more professional well known expensive types.

Now with a customised label you need to explain "why would a company buy a dearer bottle with a custom label" if companies wanted to they could re label a bottle of their existing house wine themselves, I guess the reasons they don't is because it looks cheap and tacky, and that they may look like passing off some cheap plonk under the label of the business.

perhaps your market may be not hotels and resturants but corporate clients who could give away promtional gifts like your wine, I think that would make more sense.

Gerry

Absolutely spot on

 

[MrsPWN]

I would think wedding fayres would be a good way to go

 

[Marksb89]

Just to be clear when I said hotels I wasn't meaning like the restaurant. I was thinking more towards hospitality and events for example weddings and other sorts of functions and conferences. So that rather than have their own branding on the bottles they offer the product and I can personalize them.

And I've been able to bring down my costs to the point where although I am slightly more expensive than House wine they could potentially make more on mine because they would also be charging a premium. If that makes sense.

 

[davezzr]

Ok so I'm just about ready to start my first business. Supplying branded/personalized wine/champagne to Venues (particularly hotels), Events and Businesses and perhaps once I've got things up and running the general public. I have my suppliers and legal and everything sorted to start bar my website which I'm still working on (I can began without out for now so thats ok)


I started another thread the other day about approaches to sell b2b, it was a general open question but I want to ask it again specifically to myself.

So here we go, I'm ready to start but what is the best way to approach customers? email? call? drop in? and what is the best way to go about selling? I'm just not entirely sure how to do it without sounding like a door to door salesman?

Should I bring in samples? and show hem a selection of designs?

I know selling is the most basic part of business, and I do know how to do it once I get going, I just want to make sure I'm going for the right approach from day one.


Thanks!
Mark

blimmy! surely that would be the very very first question you would have asked yourself even before you did the product research.....simply,who would be your customers and how would you get to them..whats my usp...how competative can i be,
not ...i have a product,i know what it costs,i think i can sell it for,now how do i sell it?
but what do i know

 

[patientlady]

Just to be clear when I said hotels I wasn't meaning like the restaurant. I was thinking more towards hospitality and events for example weddings and other sorts of functions and conferences. So that rather than have their own branding on the bottles they offer the product and I can personalize them.

And I've been able to bring down my costs to the point where although I am slightly more expensive than House wine they could potentially make more on mine because they would also be charging a premium. If that makes sense.

Hi Marksb89
Not sure that I do understand? The hotel is going to brand the wine and say Jack & Jills wedding is this what you mean? Just getting my head round this, to try and help...

 

[Marksb89]

blimmy! surely that would be the very very first question you would have asked yourself even before you did the product research.....simply,who would be your customers and how would you get to them..whats my usp...how competative can i be,
not ...i have a product,i know what it costs,i think i can sell it for,now how do i sell it?
but what do i know

I know who my customers are, I know how competitive I can be and I know my USP =S I didn't ask any of that in my question.

If you got any of that from my original post I suggest you read it again.

The question was what is the best way to approach businesses to sell to.

 

[Marksb89]

Hi Marksb89
Not sure that I do understand? The hotel is going to brand the wine and say Jack & Jills wedding is this what you mean? Just getting my head round this, to try and help...

Yes basically. I'll supply them with the wine branded/personalized. which I can sell to them fairly competitively and they would charge their customers slightly more than non personalized house wine.

So although they would be paying the same/slightly more for the branded stuff they would also be able to sell it on for more and make themselves more money

 

[davezzr]

I know who my customers are, I know how competitive I can be and I know my USP =S I didn't ask any of that in my question.

If you got any of that from my original post I suggest you read it again.

The question was what is the best way to approach businesses to sell to.

my point exactly surly they can personalise a label and put it on their own house wine? jack and gills wedding wine!! and i agree with a previous post of ' its not the bottle its whats in it'

 

[OnlineMenusCornwall]

I know who my customers are, I know how competitive I can be and I know my USP =S I didn't ask any of that in my question.

If you got any of that from my original post I suggest you read it again.

The question was what is the best way to approach businesses to sell to.

Have you asked the question... Is there a market for this? Have you actually asked the people you consider your customers whether they would buy it?

I'm guessing you probably haven't because if you had, you would know the answer to the question you're asking now. I think you might have made a few assumptions during your business plan and we're just trying to bring it back there, so you can move forward.

 

[patientlady]

Ok Marksb89
I don't want to blow your idea out of the water, but your target market will not work.
I have been selling wine to the trade for quite a few years now and any decent hotel will not touch this concept. They will have there own wine merchant/wholesaler that they rely on for quality and delivery. Any hotels at this moment in time will pay no more than £4.00 to £4.50 for house wine. The idea of re-labelling an unknown wine is a no no.

I can remember two enquiries over these years both of which have been from companys wishing to offer there customers a Christmas personalised gift. We do not entertain this type of enquiry as dealing with the public is generally torture!

Cold call in person with your product and see how you get on. Good luck p/l