A Business Lesson – From Wine Tasting?!

Wine, it's what's for dinner...

Before I begin this week’s blog, I want to let everyone know about some recent developments.  I was honored last Monday to have my blog, What We Did For Fun Before The Computer, from June 27, 2011 featured on the front page of WordPress.com in the Freshly Pressed section.   WordPress is the company that hosts my blog and about 400,000  others. This is how WordPress describes this feature:  

“Each weekday, we hand-pick and promote approximately ten new blog posts to the Freshly Pressed section of the WordPress.com homepage. These posts represent how WordPress.com can be used to entertain, enlighten or inspire.

Why should you care about being featured? Well, let’s put it this way: Getting promoted to Freshly Pressed is a major traffic win because WordPress.com receives a high volume of page views. And, we have a feed set up so people can subscribe to Freshly Pressed. Why do we do all this? It’s our way of saying we like you. We really like you.”

I want to thank WordPress, all the readers and fellow bloggers who commented on, liked and subscribed to my blog as a result of the exposure. I had hundreds of comments and will be unable to reply to them but do appreciate all of you taking the time to make a comment.  It was a very pleasant surprise.

Since I now have a larger audience that are new to this blog let me briefly tell you that this blog alternates between a business and non-business topic for most of the year but in the summer months I generally post non-business topics.  Today is a business related topic.  Next week I will be discussing the Toy Hall of Fame and that should be fun.

Yes, this week I am going to offer a lesson for our businesses that we can learn from wine tasting.  Let me begin by saying that as I write this I have not been tasting wine. 

For the purposes of today’s discussion I will abbreviate the process of how to taste wine.

1.  Look and look again.  What color is it, is it clear or cloudy?  If it is a white wine is it pale brown or clear as water?  Is there sediment evident?  This gives you an expectation of what to expect when you taste.
2.  Smell and smell again.  What aromas can you detect by swirling it in the glass?  Is it like berries if so what kind blueberry or cherry or perhaps jammy stewed plums.  Does it have a citrus aroma or is it like flowers?  Can you detect a hint of oak?
3.  Taste and taste again.  Hooray we are finally tasting!  Sip it and roll it around in your mouth and notice the alcohol content, acidity, tannins and sugar content.  Taste more deeply and see how it develops.  Does it change from an apple taste to pear to peaches?  Are there other earthy flavors such as minerals, leather, tar or other surprising elements?
4. The finish.  In a way this can be described as the aftertaste.  Does it linger and if so how long?  What impression does it leave after the wine is gone? By breathing out through your nose can you detect other things in the wine?

Now, let’s relate this process to our businesses and how we are viewed by our customers and potential customers. 

1. Look and look again.  What is your website, business cards, advertising and physical appearance of your building, vehicles and employees like?  Is it up to date or out dated? Is your office or outside of your building tidy and neat?  Is the grass cut or landscaping neat?  Does it need a paint job or renovation?  What signal are you sending if your vehicles are dirty and have trash on the dash-board and on the floors?  Do your employees dress appropriately?  Do they scare your customers?  Remember, you only have one chance at a first impression.
2. Smell and smell again.  This is your pre-sale process.  How are your prices, credit policies and interactions with your sales people and other employees?  The customer has not yet made the commitment yet at this point don’t lose the sale here.  Do you have monitoring activities to see how well you are doing at getting the prospect from here to a customer?  Do you have a process in place to weed out prospects from “suspects”?  It is important that you not waste time in the sales process chasing a dead-end.  Get a yes or no as soon as you can.  Eliminate “maybe” by changing them into a yes or no.
3. Taste and taste again.  This is the point where the sale has been made.   They looked and smelled and decided to jump in.  How are things going throughout the sale?  Is it easy to do business with you?  Do you have an E-commerce site, do you accept credit cards, are your business hours adequate?  What are your return policies if applicable.  Do you need a return policy or satisfaction guarantee?
4. The finish.  This is the post-sale phase.  Did you deliver on your promises?  How well are you executing?  Is your product or service as good as YOU want it to be?  Is the customer happy?  Do you make sure you are keeping them happy with follow-up feedback?  It is usually many times easier keeping a customer than getting a new one.  What is the lasting impression you leave with your customer?

Have a great week, I think I am going to uncork some wine and do some more blog “research”.