It’s already the middle of August and in my neck of the woods school has started, which brings to mind autumn and starts me thinking about the coming holiday season. It’s not too early to start planning...
For those of you who write promotional pieces, newsletters, emails, event invitations, etc., coming up with topic ideas is not always easy. Even the most creative of us experience brain freeze sometimes....
Times change, people change and tastes change. What people want at one stage of their lives is not necessarily what they want at others. Are you keeping up with your regular customers? The people who have...
We are familiar with the saying by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr a 19th century French critic and journalist, which is loosely translated “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
In marketing...
I came across an interesting article by Mikita Mikado the co-founder and CEO of PandaDoc on the ways people think, and how you can get them to buy by paying attention to their actions to discern the way...
One of the things I say most often in my seminars for wineries and wine associations is, “It’s not all about the wine.” So today’s blog is a little different, in that I have noticed when I go to winery...
As many of you know my marketing sales and customer service offerings include mystery shopping for individual companies and associations. Recently I finished a large mystery shop (using multiple shopper...
I was wine tasting recently and went to several different wineries in the course of one day. The wines were good, actually very good, no complaints about the wines at all. The hard part for me was that...
I always find it interesting to hear the story of a business. Who started the business, how it was started and why, as well as what happened along the way. Often times, when I am visiting the same business,...
There are lots of things that you have to remember as a business owner, manager or employee, though the most important thing you have to remember is information about your customers. Not only information...
Last week I attended the groundbreaking for Sonoma State’s new Wine Spectator Learning Center for the Wine Business Institute. At the groundbreaking, Bill Silver, the Dean of the School of Business &...
The acronym D.T.C. (direct to consumer) is ubiquitous these days. It’s hard to read anything about marketing or business without the words D.T.C. being a big part of it.
In order to sell your product directly...
I was in Target the other day looking for something or other and decided that I also needed some sparkling water. So I slogged all the way over to the other side of the store (Are they making Target stores...
I came across an interesting article in Business Dictionary about three weeks ago that talked about the top four traits of successful entrepreneurs. As most small retailers are entrepreneurs I thought...
The past two blogs have been all about the tactics of Professor Robert Cialdini in his book The Psychology of Persuasion. The first two weeks were mostly about the What. Describing the tactics with a little...
Last week we talked about Robert Cialdini and the first two principles of influence, especially as they relate to sales. Last week we talked about Reciprocation and Consistency. This week we continue with...
