Fairs? yes, please
The preparation of any fair is really important, you have to prepare well the possible contacts, organise the meetings, make a good dossier, adapting the technical specifications of the wines, adding new vintages, etc. We´ll always say hello and stay with consolidated clients, with who we´ll arrange future visits, promotion plans, and go in search of those who are present, in places where we are not represented yet, etc.
Contacts / interviews, they are a face to face between buyer and seller and this is the essence of all fair! Every time all the contact is marked by precise parameters: in a very short time you have to present the cellar, the vineyards, describe the wines, attach a dossier of reviews, while collecting as much information about person visiting you as you can, swap businesscards, and immediately when he goes, note on the businesscard or in the essential moleskine the key words, to monitor the contact few days after, sending the required information to each customer, or the info that we think we should send. These contacts, are similar to tasting notes, where the first impression is key, almost always the first impression is the key to develop a further good relationship.
The potential customers approach interested in the brand, in the wines, whether they know them or not, to gather information or just to taste the wines. Other clients or known people just stop to say hello, because they know well what we work with. We must meet everyone professionally, and we will have the wine at the right temperature, the clean glasses without any odd smell, basic information about the winery and the wines always ready to give. If you’re busy attending customers, the time goes by! but if the fair hasn’t got the rithm, the time passes slowly and soon you’ll notice a lot more tiredness caused by long hours of standing up, with more pain due to the static electricity all over your carpet over your varicose leg veins.
Your field of vision, should not stick exclusively to the person in front of you, you can expand your field of vision, because often, your see a person that you are really intersted in talking to that pass by, that when see you busy it goes away, and after sometimes that you can not longer find again. It is important to have a broad view (female), and not so concentrated as a hunter (male), because when you concentrate intensely on a piece, you tend to lose many opportunities.
Its also good to enjoy a quiet moment to chat with fellows of the stand, request information on issues, or discuss about de Barca / Madrid. You can try to exit, and meet the rest of the other stands or from other pavilions, and you will have a better idea about the fair, see who is who and who is not, see the types of stand, etc.. Many times without seeking the information usually comes to you, as normally saying hello friends and people from other wineries, if you are kind and you know how to ask the info you want people normally collaborate. We shouldn’t forget that every fair is a market, a large focus, where all kinds of information flows in all directions, you just have to catch it.
No matter the lunch time ! if you’re busy with clients you must keep on with them. When it gets a bit late, if you have been clever, you have prepared a snack, or a partner will appearing with a sandwich, in general the tendency is to avoid eating out because it takes too long and then we miss opportunities. After two hours of the lunch time, you realize the urgency to adopt a decision: or having a snack, or a sandwich or eating out what you can findt, is the time when few people wander in front of your stand and directs to you friendly eyes, lost views, of those that have been for a while drinking, so their eyes are brighter.
Normally round the halls, or on the comings and goings, you meet a winemaker friend that tells you: Lets Trust that this situation will not last long! we do not have much debt, but if we continue this way, not sure If we’ll be able of go through it, palpable concern to the owners but not that way! in exclusively commercial people, where everyone maintains deep interests including some, invisible, interest of good condotiero, which gives the character of a gladiator of wine. In these troubled times many change of Mister, but in general every professional provides a deep link with colleagues, for the many shared experiences, dinners at the end of the long days, hour in the plane, waits at airports, etc, etc. Also in the comings and goings, you come back always with new, sayinghello to other professionals that you do not see the rest of the year, pick up information, pass information, ask questions about that or that distributor, is he good? does he pay well? etc.
All Wine Fair of Food Fair has its or Trash Minutes, that are usually the hours prior to the ending of the Fair, when all the fish is sold, and ends up showing the last intense guy, friend of…. He is talking to you non stop, when all you want is to runaway as quickly as possible, and you manage so the security guard let you go through the belongings of the fair, that bucket, these wines you’ve exchanged with fellows of the stand beside, or with whom you´ve shared distributor, and you return home exhausted, but with a certain nostalgia for the exciting moments experienced.
Ricardo Guelbenzu
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