REthink Wine Blog

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If you do not know it, we are the next generation of American wine professionals and we still walk among giants.  These pillars of our wine community have built each region from nothing to world renown wine growing areas.  Mondavi, Phelps, Seghesio, Parducci, Lohr, Barrett - I can go on and on.  Many of these great men, or the men that helped build their empires, still walk among us.  They give us guidance, counsel and prepare to pass the torch to our generation.  Unfortunately these great men are also passing.  This year marked the loss of two of my greatest heroes - Robert Mondavi and just this weekend - Tom Shelton.  For those who do not know Tom, he was the President of Joseph Phelps Vineyards for 13 years.  As a 16 year wine veteran, Tom has been a cornerstone of heroism and a man that championed Napa Valley and the entire wine industry.  He was the head of the NVVA for years and I remember his bravery as he tirelessly spoke openly about consumer direct despite running a brand that was very much in wholesale distribution.  He was an incredible person and everyone I have ever spoken to held him in the highest regard.  Again, I consider myself lucky to walk among these titans who still disseminate knowledge with such kindness.  In the last four years running Inertia I had called Tom for advice six times and every single one, without question, he would accommodate my schedule and give me his time to help guide our company and my future.  I owe him an incredible debt of gratitude for his guidance and kindness to me, our company and our industry.   His loss this weekend leaves another gaping hole in our industry and I plan to take a moment to spend more time with the remaining legends that have built the foundation to the American wine industry and whom we all owe our thanks.

It’s 8am in Tahoe and I’m enjoying a cup of Peet’s French Roast on the deck overlooking a very calm lake. I’m thinking about topics to blog about today (yep – I’m on vacation, but the blogs never stop!). The last several months has seen a great number of exciting changes for us at Inertia: a new CEO, a successful Direct Sales Symposium, the release of REthink Compliance for all wineries, growth and expansion for our Direct to Trade program, the announcement of BRIX – Inertia’s open source CMS initiative, and the list goes on.

And there’s a lot more to come – the next year promises to be even more exciting for Inertia, with continued momentum and even more excitement on the horizon. 

Lots to blog about.  

But what’s most immediately on my mind is the recent addition of two new marketing superstars to my team. Indulge me for a moment while I call them out.

Jason Williams joined us in June as our Channel Marketing Director. He comes to us most recently from Lancaster Estate, where he was responsible for all Direct Sales & Marketing initiatives, including programs in support of both the Lancaster Estate and Roth Winery brands. Prior to Lancaster, he spent 5 years with Mondavi in both direct and traditional sales capacities.  He’s also been a wine educator for Opus One, managed a steakhouse in Arizona, and is a Marketing Steering Committee Member of the Alexander Valley Winegrowers Association.

Now at Inertia, Jason is leading marketing efforts for our Direct to Trade program. Perhaps you’ve seen some of the announcements we’ve made recently here on the blog about efforts our Channel Development team has undertaken to build the program. Jason is working closely with that team to grow the program – with both winery and trade participation. Jason will be a voice on this blog in the future, so I won’t steal his thunder on how we’ll be growing the program! Stay tuned ~ and welcome Jason.

Our 2^nd superstar joins us recently from Yahoo, having just completed a project in their London office launching the local reseller channel for Yahoo! Search Marketing in Europe. Jennifer Lemming rounds out our team as Inertia’s Corporate Marketing Director. In addition to her work with Yahoo, she has worked with various companies in marketing roles including new product development for 3M as well as brand management and sports marketing for Coca-Cola, Kodak, and Samsung via a boutique marketing agency. Jennifer received her MBA in marketing and e-commerce from Vanderbilt.

As our Corporate Marketing Director, Jennifer is responsible for building and growing the Inertia brand, as well as defining and initiating client development programs. Perhaps you’ve seen us blog about our quarterly client workshops – or most recently our direct sales symposium at Copia. And perhaps you’ve seen Inertia in the press. Or maybe you’ve noticed our advertising in Wine Business Monthly or Wines & Vines. Jennifer will lead these efforts – and then some. Look out for her on the blog as well.

As we continue to work diligently to provide solutions for our winery partners to sell more wine, much of our success in doing so will be dependent on the efforts undertaken by our marketing department. I’m thrilled to have both Jennifer and Jason on board to lead those efforts and look forward to an exciting future for us all.

Now back to the lake.

This past Friday we hosted our annual Direct Symposium at COPIA in downtown Napa. This was our 5th year hosting the event, and the turnout was strong, with an energetic and engaging list of speakers on the agenda.  

Our theme for this years’ Symposium was Innovations for Today’s Wine Marketplace. Ted Jansen, Inertia’s President & CEO, opened up the day with a thought-provoking talk on the concept of “Accidental Innovation”.

Following Ted was Gary Vaynerchuk, of WineLibraryTV fame. For those unfamiliar with Gary and his energetic style, visit his site… you’re sure to be entertained!

Breakout sessions followed the keynotes – and this year we tried something a little different. We asked attendees to vote on their topic of interest. Based on those results, we lined up the following breakout sessions and speakers:

Direct Shipping Compliance
Speakers Matt Mann, Mike Brown and Sheri Hebbeln of Inertia took the audience through the basics of compliance management and how a topic which appears on the surface to be overly complex and confusing, can actually be simple; especially with the right tools to help manage. Compliance is a necessary endeavor for anyone engaged in  Direct Shipping in the U.S.; Inertia’s FREE REThink Compliance tool was designed to provide a solution to help ease the burden of managing a winery’s compliance needs. The audience was walked through REthink Compliance, and lots of conversation was sparked.

Website Merchandising
Inertia’s Carole Loomis and Angela Sanchez led a session on ways to manage and optimize a website for greatest sales. With this years’ holiday season just around the corner, they led participants in a discussion on preparing for OND (October November December).

Marketing Through Online Social Networks
One of the more popular sessions was led by Joel Vincent (Open Wine Constortium) and Gary Vaynerchuk (WineLibraryTV). Paul Mabray sat in on the session, as well, during an extensive question & answer period. The audience – and speakers! – were in no rush to head out for the lunch break, diving into questions on everything from how to engage in social media, through to whether or not there is a place for PR management in the social space.

Selling Direct to Trade
Andrea Johnston of Inertia, moderated a session on the nuances of selling direct to the trade across the U.S. A line up of panelists contributed input from various perspectives; John Hinman, from Hinman & Carmichael, Gillett Johnson, with International Vines, Inc., Cristin “Moxy” Castro from Impressa, and Mitch Schwartz, VP of Sales for Inertia. Conversations touched on everything from how best to engage with, and sell to, the trade, to leveraging Inertia’s Direct-to-Trade program to legally and effectively open new markets and engage with new customers.

Wine Blogging
Tom Wark, of Fermentation, Wark Communications and Specialty Wine Retailers fame, led a very popular session on Wine Blogging. On the heels of the morning session in which Gary V. expounded on the need for all attendees to get into the blogging habit, lots of attendees packed into this session to get more information on how and why. Panelists included Mike Duffy, of the Winery Website Report, Julie Ann Kodmur and Deb Harkness, of Good Wine Under $20.

Website Design
Four speakers brought perspectives on website design to their audience; Ben Chinn of Inertia, Aaron Rutledge & Tom Ajello of POKE/NY, and Dom Moreci of Plumbline Studios. Attendees learned how to design their websites for best user experience, and ultimately the greatest sales. 

Finally, John Hinman wrapped up the day with his Keynote speech on how a dynamic wine marketplace in which consolidation is occurring in nearly all aspects of our industry, is creating a snowball effect for which it’s time to decide whether you batten down or ride the wave.

A special thank you to all of our sponsors:
Platinum Sponsors: Wine Tasting Network & Copper Peak Logistics.
Gold Sponsor: Card in the Box
Silver Sponsors: Wark Communications, Open Wine Consortium, Plug n’ Pay, POS Resources, & Payment Logistics, LLC

Thank you as well to all those who attended. Your participation and engagement in lively conversation with the speakers was appreciated by all. We look forward to seeing you all again next year – in the meantime, Inertia is continuing to expand on the workshops and training sessions that we hold throughout the year. If there are topics you are most interested in discussing, or speakers you’re interested in hearing from, let us know. Contact us at marketing@inertiabev.com.
 
Cheers!

Yup, you betcha! Here’s the deal, if you’re learning to play golf, have played in the past, or play regularly, you’ll understand. Maybe! Recall how frustrating the game can be? Not to mention humbling? How inconsistent your swing is? Or, my favorite, you “think” from time to time that you’ve figured it out because you shot at or below your handicap. And then, the very next time out, you shoot 20 strokes worse!! Yeah, you get it. Sorry for the bad memories!

Now how about those direct wine sales of yours, great brand, good purple, and little or no direct sales. Hmmm, you try and try, sometimes too hard, just like your golf swing. You thought you had all the pieces in place. You try harder and it gets worse right? Back in my college baseball days, one of our coaches had a little saying, he’d say “Try easier”!

Well, let’s see, do we try easier, work smarter, do we keep our head down longer? I’d say we try and do all the above. It has to do with the approach, attention to detail, proper equipment and most of all, consistency! Like in golf you have equipment or “tools” available to sell wine direct online. The equipment you use in golf can make or break your swing, or at least your swing potential and the tools or equipment you use to sell wine direct can also make or break your potential!

At Inertia we Humbly recommend a custom (club) fitting to The ReThink Engine, your very own tool box full of “Best Practice” gems to help increase your direct sales online. Yeah, that was a plug, but I am part of the sales team after all!

No practice and your swing will be inconsistent, and you can expect poor scores. Same for Direct Sales. Poor setup and a weak foundation, and your sales will be inconsistent and possibly nonexistent.

On the golf side it’s your grip, your stance and your setup to the ball. Then, it’s a smooth take away and backswing, a nice transition and a smooth downswing through impact. For Direct sales it’s the same, your grip on the reality of the industry, your stance on how you’d like to manage your Direct Sales, and then your setup to help create more Direct Sales. And remember, all of this requires the proper tools, right? For reference it’s tod@inertiabev.com.

Selling wine direct is like when you first learn to play golf. The biggest mistake new golfers make is not keeping their head down, they tend to look up and see where the ball has gone before they hit it. When wineries first start selling wine direct they have the same problem. They want to see how much wine they’ve sold, before they actually build the foundation, remember grip, stance and setup? Later, as a golfer develops, he/she tends to focus too more on their score, and not on the swing. If you concentrate on making a good swing every time you strike the ball, the good scores will come.

By the way, if you happen to be a golfer and also have an interest in our help with your Direct Sales, feel free to sign up for our annual symposium, party and golf tournament. It’s coming soon, this Friday is the symposium and party at Copia and Saturday, at the Chardonnay Golf Club is when we “grip em and rip em”! Interested? Go here rsvp@inertiabev.com and let us know. I hope to see you there!

Happy Direct Selling and “Keep em on the short grass”!

Inertia’s 5th Annual Direct Symposium will take place on July 11th, from 9-3:30pm at COPIA in Napa. This year, we’ve expanded our agenda to include interactive sessions on topics chosen by attendees. Last month, we released a survey on what we were hearing from our clients and industry partners as the ‘hottest’ topics in the direct industry. Topics included:

• Website Design
• Website Merchandising
• Selling Direct to Trade 
• Direct Shipping Compliance
• Allocation Program Management 
• Wine Club Management
• Wine Blogging
• Online Social Networks

We asked attendees to ‘vote’ on their topics of choice for breakout sessions at our July Symposium. The results were tallied, and we have our winners… 

• Selling Direct to Trade: Access. Control. Sales. 
• Direct Shipping Compliance: A Dynamic Marketplace. Your Options.
• Wine Blogging: Brand Building, Customer Loyalty and Sales
• Online Social Networks: Consumer- to-Consumer, Peer-to-Peer Engagement
• Website Design: Designing for Best User Experience & Greatest Sales
• Website Merchandising:  Sell More Online 

Our Symposium agenda will allow attendees to participate in two breakout sessions of their choice: One in the morning, one in the early afternoon. During each of these sessions, panelists will lead an interactive discussion with the audience around a designated topic. Based on several workshops which we led earlier in the year, we know our clients are eager to engage and look forward to some good interaction.

Because of limited space in each of our breakout sessions, we request that attendees reserve their spot in the session of their choice as soon as possible. Signups will be taken the day of the Symposium, at check in, but to ensure you get a seat in the topic of your choice, send your request through today (along with your RSVP if you haven’t already!) to rsvp@inertiabev.com.

See you in July!

Yes we continue to grow - please say hello to the Inertia family. We are here to help wineries succeed and look forward to you meeting everyone in person at this year’s symposium.

Yesterday Inertia hosted another successful seminar at Copia. The topic of the day was ”How to Build and manage a Successful Allocation Program“. The attendance, content, and reception by the audience, exceeded our expectations.

Over 30 wineries were represented in the audience, nearly all were not current clients of ours. This is the first open workshop which we have hosted specifically for non-clients. We regularly host workshops and webinars for our client base, but have recently begun to open the doors to the broader wine industry.  We plan top hold more of these open workshops on a regular basis (topics may include Web Site Sales Strategies, Wine Club Program Management, Selling Direct to Trade and Compliance Management, among others). Stay tuned.

The seminar started with Dan Chapin from Inertia reviewing the “3 Principles of a Successful Release Model“. Dan reviewed the need for any winery considering an allocation program to focus on Exclusivity, Creating a Perception of Scarcity and Conditioning of Purchase Behavior. For more information, or to receive a copy of his presentation, email us at sales@inertiabev.com.

Susan Moore from Aptalent, then spoke on “The Care and Feeding of your Mailing List“. Susan discussed ways to reach key consumers, how to grow your customer list, and how to maintain your engagement with those new customers to help build loyalty and longevity in their engagement with your winery. For more information, email susan@aptalent.com.

The next speaker was Jennie Haug from Revana Family Vineyards.  Jenny is an enthusiastic and engaging speaker. She brought a great case study of how Revana switched from a simple mailing list model, to an allocation model this past spring; they ran their very first allocation release this April.  Jenny told of the learnings Revana
gained from managing their first release, and provided the audience with some of the implications she’s now bringing to their next planned release. For more information, email jennie@revanawine.com.

After Jenny, Barry Waite and Steve Gant from Vintrust led an engaging discussion on the importance of the packaging and presentation of any fine wine at the final stage in their path to the consumer. Most specifically, they addressed the different packaging options for shipping wine direct to the consumer, and how those packaging options are a part of the entire brand building process for any winery. The discussion generated several questions, and initiated good conversation.

The final speaker was Harry Parsley, owner of Silver Stag winery.  Harry has deep experience in the wine industry, starting with being the wine buyer for Lucky Stores, then President of Buena Vista, and now owning his own winery.  Harry gave great information to the group on how to manage your trade relations. He engaged the audience with his entertaining and informal discussion style - bringing years of experience in both buying and selling wines to the audience.

We look forward to bringing more of these seminars to the industry - and hope to see you there in the future!

A few years ago I worked for a company who put the senior management team through a course in Change Management.

The course was intended to teach participants about how they personally managed themselves (emotionally & professionally) through change – as well as how to identify and help others manage through change.  There were 60 of us in the course, and nearly all of us managed staff of anywhere from 5 to 100+ people. While the company itself wasn’t actively implementing any major changes at the time, the course was relevant nonetheless: change is constantly happening around us and is a natural part of both personal and professional growth. For our company to continue successfully down the path we were seeking, the ability to do so in an efficient and effective manner was critical.

The course was fascinating and I’ve found myself referencing back to it on a number of occasions. Now, in my role here at Inertia, I find the skills I learned in this course to be very helpful. We are a small, young and very energetic company. By nature, we as a group tend to desire change – every day we are working hard to affect changes to our own business, our clients’ businesses, and ultimately an entire industry with very deep, traditional roots. But our ability to recognize and assist through change those we are working so hard for (our clients, partners, and the wine consumer in general), is how we will best affect the growth and end goals we seek for all.
 

THE PHASES OF ACCEPTING CHANGE
In the course, we learned that not only are there ‘phases’ to accepting and engaging in change, but that not everyone makes it through all phases – or even  needs to – on their way to ultimately accepting change.

The phases are as follows:
1. Awareness – of why the change is needed
2. Desire – to support and participate in the change
3. Knowledge – of how to change
4. Ability – to implement new skills and behaviors
5. Reinforcement – to sustain the change

Some people are more prone to desire or accept change than others, and may skip directly from the 1st phase (awareness that change is needed) to the 4th or 5th. Others, get stuck in the 1st phase, resisting the acceptance of why the change is needed at all. Regardless of how a person makes it through each of the phases, the ability for a company to efficiently grow is dependent upon the ability for all employees to help implement and re-enforce the changes necessary for growth.

I managed a staff of 20+ at the time. The deeper we got into the course, the better I understood my own style of change (I tend to hit every phase, and can move more quickly through some phases than others). More importantly, however, was the insight I gained into why certain members of my staff were either struggling through some of the individual projects they were working on, or were having more challenges than others in group project work. Suddenly, I had a much clearer picture of my entire division and where the stop gaps were on our path to reaching our goals. And, I believe I became a more effective manager because I was able to better understand my employees needs; some simply needed more information or discussion on why change was happening, others needed more guidance on how to implement the change, etc.

A couple of weeks ago, Inertia had what could be identified as major change, occur. A new CEO joined our team, and the organizational structure of the executive management team subsequently adjusted. As noted earlier, we are a company actively seeking change, and working daily to affect it. As a result, the ‘change’ brought with Ted Jansen’s arrival was anything but major. Instead, it was welcomed as the next step in our natural growth and as a way to help open doors for even more change.  I’m looking forward to the continued growth of our company and to being a part of the exciting changes taking place in the wine industry today. The times they are a-changin’!

As the summer solstice draws closer, many of us eagerly anticipate what summer brings, such as longer hours of sunshine, flavorful produce such as heirloom tomatoes, strawberries, peaches, watermelon and corn, picnicking, and taking long weekends or the annual summer vacation.

Planning your trip around events that are happening in a place you are visiting can highlight your experience. Following is a list of events that include food, wine and entertainment utilizing the great outdoors. Rest assured, there’s something for everyone.

Aloha Napa
The St. Helena Chamber of Commerce hosts musical picnics in Lyman park for Free. This year Judd and Holly of Judd’s Hill will be kicking off the series with their band, The Maikai Gents featureing the Mysterious Miss Mauna Loa.

Zen and the art of wine drinking
If you’re looking for a place to bring a picnic, relax and be at peace with your food and wine, Arista’s Japanese-inspired water garden is the place to go.

Toga! Toga!
Engelmann Cellars hosts their Movies in the Park with themed events. Events include inviting man’s best friend to a show and an adult themed toga night.

Celebrate with a blast!
Twisted Oak celebrates their Fifth Anniversary with a Birthday BBQ Bash. Ticket prices include both food and wine and an opportunity to taste library wines dating back to 2002!

Follow up the event by viewing fireworks on the lake, as the Vallecito Chamber of Commerce hosts their annual fireworks show.