The wine industry has been rather publicly outspoken about its headwinds over the last 18-24 months. What appears to be one of the net issues is the industry’s lack of commercial success.

Aging along with the wine industry’s consumer base appears to be its salesforce. The majority of wine industry sales executives are in their 40s and 50s. From wine focused MBA programs to the universities, to the Community College circuit, I have found little in the way of sales training resources in the curriculum focus.

It has been proven time immemorial that we succeed at what we are focused on and committed to. We are entering a market cycle where the only way for individual companies to buck the market trends is to find transcendent sales people that can outsell the curve.

There are certainly great sales training programs inside of American corporate wine entities, E&J Gallo likely being the gold standard. The wholesaler training program seems to be as much about sink versus swim at the lower level and programmatic order taking at the upper levels.

Sales is often mis-represented as being a “talent”. In fact, sales skills can be built through toolbox development. Sales competency is based on the building of a consistent regime, product knowledge, market knowledge, and the skills necessary to develop a redeemable professional network. Consistency and repetition arethe lifeblood that creates the “magic”.

During this season of wine industry conferences, we’ll be talking to industry members about what we might do collectively to enhance and develop a younger salesforce that can help us shift our sales metrics as this decade advances.