Reminder: This is the Wine Business
We have touched on this before, but some recent encounters brought it to front of mind again, so we thought we would share some what we believe to be hard truths about the business of selling wine.
First, note that the shine is off the apple for Somms to some degree. From their peak of celebrity—upon the release of Somm: The Movie—to their post-Covid doldrums when many operators questioned the need for Somms with shortened wine lists and pared back inventories that the pandemic left in its wake. With some very notable exceptions, Michigan has not been a Somm-heavy state, so not too much damage encountered by the trade here.
What most Michigan restaurants have in place—at least those that have a purposeful wine/beverage program– is a ‘Beverage Manager’. This role is not only to choose the wines, but typically to select spirits, beer and other beverages as well. And more importantly oversee inventory levels, margins, and –God willing—train the staff on all of the above. And this is where we are sometimes left bewildered; a shockingly small number of such professionals practice their trade effectively. In the old ‘Somms are celebrities’ era a typical day would be:
- Arrive late, where a small crowd of sales reps are waiting to sample their wares with the buyer
- Tell each of these reps the type of wines they like (not the restaurants guests) and share how many cool wines they tried the week or the night before
- If time permits, check inventories and if needed (and sometimes even if not needed), place orders with the 6 or 8 or 10 distributors they buy from each week
- Tries to herd together a portion of the waitstaff for a line-up/training, taking care to confuse them with insignificant facts
- Maybe works the floor to impress the guests with their vast knowledge
A well-executed version of this model works in places with huge wine lists and several floor somms. But we don’t have many of those in Michigan.
What a good Beverage Manager should do on a typical day:
- Arrive on time and review the previous night’s/week’s business to get the business and crew ready for this week’s cycle. Restock, replenish. Check glassware.
- Meet with a small l number of sales reps; those vetted to meet the criteria of your program
- Run #s and look at sales metrics. Things measured should be total sales by category (wine, spirits, beer), margins, sales per cover, sales per server
- Do a 15 minute line-up discussing: changes to beverages, any special features, and a bit of focused training, ie discuss just Chianti or specific food & wine pairings
- Possibly interact with guests to get feedback to make sure you are meeting their needs
Unfortunately, even though many of these things are common sense for a business, one would be shocked as to how few buyers we encounter that know neither their inventory investment nor their margins. And here is the key takeaway from these observations: we will help you with this. We consider ourselves to be consultative salespeople. Selling wine & spirits is all we do. A restaurateur has hundreds of things to worry about daily; we can help lighted that load. Rather than saying ‘buy my wine, not the other guys’. Our mindset is more ‘how can we help you make your beverage program more profitable?’ Ideally, we’d be looked at like most restaurateurs look at EcoLab. Their pitch is: ‘let us take care of your dish tank’. They install it, fix it if it breaks. They make sure you don’t run out of soap or sanitizer. No one wants to deal with the dish tank, so their pitch works. Unfortunately, anyone who likes wine thinks they can put together a balanced, profitable beverage program but, alas, lots of restaurants have found out otherwise.
Remember: it’s the restaurant BUSINESS. Let us do what we do best.
We’re here to help grow your business!