With few exceptions, the American wine industry is not known for innovative marketing. . Sales and training in the wine industry (WISE) has been trying to change the industry’s outlook since 2008, when it became the wine industry’s first direct-to-consumer (DtC) sales and marketing training and certification program. Since then, WISE has expanded into other coaching services.
With a global team of ten experts in their respective wine fields, WISE offers a 20-course curriculum and certification in programs like Wine Mastery Bootcamp, Tasting Room Professional, Wine Club Management, Finance Demystification, and Public Speaking Mastery. The company offers wine industry research and analysis training, a mystery shopping program to provide data to wineries, and personalized winery staff training. Customized training covers areas such as executive coaching, change management, brand auditing and even employee compensation policy.
Photography by Bob McClenahan
Napa-based co-founder and CEO Lesley Berglund wanted to celebrate WISE’s tenth anniversary by creating a leadership forum called WISE cabinet. Berglund says, “When we began offering courses in 2008, DtC was in its infancy and is today the primary driver of success for many wineries… WISE Cabinet is a network of invitation-only leadership forums designed to combining professional peer learning and support with the best of WISE leadership development programs.
To celebrate this anniversary, the company launched WISE Cabinet on Wednesday September 19 with a post of wine sales advice on its four social media pages: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter And Instagram. Fans who liked or commented with additional comments or ideas were entered into a drawing. Each week for ten weeks thereafter, a new sales tip would be posted and a winner randomly selected for that week to receive a $100 forum course credit, for a total giveaway of $1,000. The program is in its third week; its winners will be announced in the final week, on Thursday, November 22.
WISE trainers deliver their comprehensive program to wine industry professionals from the North and Central Coast of California, Oregon, Washington, New York, New Zealand, Canada and beyond. But the categories and courses offered by WISE Cabinet are only for owners, directors and managers of vineyards in Northern California (other wine regions will be included in the program later). Relevant content from formal higher education is part of the WISE offering through a collaboration with Harvard Business School.
Wine industry peers meet six times a year for four hours per cabinet meeting. Led by a certified WISE moderator, each forum meets at its own chosen location and on its own meeting dates. The categories are: Executive Leadership Forum (owners, CEOs, senior managers – priced at $2,500 per year); DtC Masters Forum (leaders in charge of DtC in a winery – priced at $2,500 per year); and DtC Leaders Forum (DtC managers in the tasting room, online and for events – priced at $1,500 per year).
These programs seem like a good idea and I wish they had existed when I entered the wine business a thousand years ago…
