Sales Reps: Tips for Importers and Distributors on how to Retain them
Sales reps are often the only point of contact a retail customer, or on-trade operator will ever have with a wine importer and distributor. But how much care and attention are giving to their well-being?
You may have the best sourced and priced wines available and the most competitive and well thought through wine list in the country, but where would you be without the sales people to go out and sell them to your customers? Yet, the turnover of sales reps in an average wine business would suggest that more time and trouble needs to be taken to keep them as well cared for as the wines they are selling.

1. It’s all about the money, money money…
It might be obvious, but ultimately the whole purpose of being a sales person is to sell hit targets and bring in money for the business. Those who sell the most, receive more money. That’s the way the world goes round. But does it? How well are you paying your sales teams? Do you know how your payment terms compare to your competition? Do you benchmark your salaries and benefits against the competition? Do you only get round to paying an employee more once they threaten to leave? Don’t let it get to that stage. Pay them what they are worth.
2. Handcuffs behind the back
That said it is one thing having attractive and industry-leading salaries and bonuses, it is another delivering on them. The quickest way to demotivate a sales rep is to offer them the world and then put in so many hurdles in the way that bonuses end up becoming unfulfilled dreams. Very soon your sales reps will behave like they have millstones around their necks, which will only help drag your own business down with them.
3. It’s all about the leads
“Just give me some good leads,” is what the legendary Jack Lemmon pleads for in the classic Glengarry Glenn Ross, a film that tells you all you need to know about the mentality of a sales rep down on their luck. For Lemmon, it was all about persuading Kevin Spacey to give him some good leads to go and try to persuade homeowners to buy aluminum sidings for their house. For a wine sales rep, it is about giving them enough good accounts that will give them the easy sales on which they can rely on and build the confidence and foundations to go out and pin down the more elusive customers.
Continue reading this article on IBWSS UK Blog.
