It’s 8:23PM Sunday night as I sit here after a trip from the Hunter Valley. I have drank coffee, red wine, chocolate (including my favourite Rocky Road) and eaten into excess like you would expect a privileged male from the first world.
If you are say from Sydney and do the daily Hunter Valley trip, it’s a fun, impressive, stimulating yet arduous type of experience. You have at least 5 hours of driving (there and back) with continual hopping from location to location as you get around.
You get the real spectrum of businesses that are savvy, in the zone and very compelling – and some which are just pure tourist traps that anyone with an inch of sophistication would tune out too in no time.
One interesting point I noted was the policy on some silly wineries when it comes to tasting. Quite a few of them had “$5 Tasting Fee” in place which did not resonate at all with me (and I bet many other people). If you know me, you know I am generous and I like to spend – but equally, I don’t like to be insulted either.
For me, a winery charging a Tasting Fee is purely absurd and a Marketing mistake from my viewpoint (and many of the successful Wineries / Wine People I have worked with). The whole point of tasting is to get the right people in, get them tasting your wines, interacting with them and getting them to buy.
I know the weak counter argument for why people charge for tastings “Oh Ed, I get busses of Asians that come in and they drink and don’t buy anything” (yes, it’s usually a racist argument like that). My reaction to that is, “Well they often have lots of money”, “Learn how to sell”, “You are missing out big time” (my wife is Asian too, so it annoys me even more).
What it comes down too is that some businesses are generous and some are stingy. After visiting a few wineries and getting the “You have to pay $5 for us to sell to you” treatment, we discovered the awesome Thomas Wines. They were fantastic, I bought a Premium Bottle and this is how they worked:
– 2 x Entry Wines, free tasting.
– 4 x Premium, wines, $10 tasting if no purchase.
– The guy was awesome and he waived the $10 on the spot.
You know what? That is generous and 100% reasonable. Even if he didn’t waive the $10, I was already sold in that they were being generous and working with me. I ended up purchasing from them and I highly recommend them. They are awesome!
In my own business too it’s been the same for me. I am as generous as possible with my knowledge, information and webinars (my ‘free wine tasting’) so people fall in love with the product and buy my ‘premium wines’.
My advice? Stingy = Sucks, Generous = Awesome!
Thank you Thomas Wines. You rock. A great lesson you taught me. Visit their website here!
Apply this thinking into your own business and smile! Love your work, thanks for the read and stay awesome!
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