Vender vino

The year is 50 Before Jesus Christ. All Gaul is occupied by the Romans… All? ¡No! One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders, and life is not easy for the garrisons of Roman legionaries in the reduced camps of Babaorum, Acuarium, Laudanum, and Petibonum…

So tear all Asterix stories I read in my childhood. And why put up with the Romans? By the magic potion invented and prepared by their druid. But was this the reality? Well it was just a tale. They took the magic potion and come to herd the Romans.

But who would believe that? Nobody!!!  It is just a tale!!!

What we could see on the tales was the time of preparation of the magic potion. And the huge feasts  that stood in the village gala.

I think the magic potion did not really exist. And if there was, it was not the real cause of the success of the village gala. And not only me but the creator of the tales neither did believe it.

He did reflect this many tales later. When he wrote “The Weeds”. In this tale there is a repulsive man that wherever he goes sows discord and he nearly succeeds on making the gaul village fall down. Is this perhaps the tale that best reflects the reality of people behaviour. And is that people not only have their positive side , but also exists a dark side, with their (our) fears, and faults. We need to relate to each other, but not always relationships are easy.

I think, like Gosciny does, that the real magic potion on the gaul village was the good feeling that existed among the Gauls. And this good feeling was fostered by the wonderful and funny feasts that made it know each other thoroughly. They knew they could trust each other and how far they could complement and collaborate with each other. In such a way that the addition of 1 + 1 was not 2 but much more than 2, and if you add 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1…

On the year 50 all Gaul was occupied by the invader. Gaul was in crisis. We are not any more in the year 50 before Christ. We are on the year 2012, and we are in another crisis.

 We are in the era of crisis… and new technologies, and the opportunities arising from the crisis. And on this environment collaboration, the small teams, specialists, do know very well what they do. They lean on each other and coordinate with other specialized profesionnals  to ellaborate a more efficient, effective and brilliant work. Internet helps people complement. But these these same professionals are the first to realize that not everything is on the Internet. That the world is real and not virtual. That the real success is in the perfect balance balance between  the real and the virtual. These professionals, who may be communicating over the Internet  do to meet each other in the real world much more. Much more of course than those who are far from new technologies with very low expectations and see no reason not even to meet each other.

And that is the reason that there are events related to new technologies almost every day of the year.

And a twist in this regard is the creation of villages, as the Gaulish village of Asterix and Obelix. In there the profesionnals are working side by side and manage to reach far beyond that what they get the people who meet occasionally.

These kind of villages are called coworking places. These spaces are trying to meet the needs in 2012. That is, the need to share ideas to support each other and to do it in a low cost formula.

I would say there are two kinds of coworking spaces. Those who provide  you space and that is all the service they provide. In this case the initiative to interact more or less depends exclusively on the coworkers attitude. There are other coworking places  that promote more interactivity among coworkers through a variety of leisure and cultural activities, those trying to somehow channel the addition effect as much as possible, and that this happens from a free and natural reaction of the coworkers.

Some will say that the coworking sure is not as idylic as it is showed. And they are right. Within these areas there are people trying to get out of the crisis, and at certain times some friction arise. But there is nothing like leaving the village, and realize in few minutes that maybe it is not an idyllic situation but it seems the best option to get ahead in times of crisis.

¿How to choose the right coworking space?. There are many factors, but I would recommend it  that you take notice of the schedule of activities, whether these are often, if they are creative and original and if the degree of involvement of coworkers is high. If this happens, then you have found the ideal coworking place.

If that is what you are looking for, I wish you luck in your search. I know one that works very well.

This post in Spanish: La verdadera poción mágica consiste en colaborar. Co-working

It depends. It is a question of visibility, of getting the customer’s attention and of having a convincing message.

The message from a winery is like a drop of water on the Amazon River unless it is different than the messages from other wineries.

But our customer may fall in love with the message if:

1)      That drop of water is special, if it sets itself apart from the rest of the drops, if the observer sees our message and understands what makes us different. This can happen for several reasons: 1) We have positioned ourselves very well in a niche appreciated by the observer (Search engines) 2) We are highly rated and recommended by someone who is respected. The social network not only spreads messages, it also filters the messages we receive.

2)      If you as a customer have a relationship with the winery in the real world, then you go looking for that differentiating factor on the social web.

Only if we get the observers attention will we be able to transmit our message. And that is not easy to achieve, due to the huge flow of information people receive on a daily basis.

To put it differently:

A winery sells more if it has done the conventional homework in the real physical world, but being active in the real world is like bravery in a soldier’s heart: It is necessary, but not sufficient.

 A winery can sell much more, if it sells a product that stands out for its quality, its quality/price ratio or other distinguishing factors that make it preferred over other wineries. Moreover, it must connect with influencers, both in the traditional and the new digital world, who do a good job at communicating and spreading the message through Social Media.

All of these principles existed before the time of the Internet, but the Internet rewards the extra quality, the differences and the connections to the influencers far more than the traditional channels do. This is even more important today where we all have created filters that only let information through if it comes from certain people. We are talking about word of mouth. The digital word of mouth is far more powerful because just pushing one botton you can spread messages virally without distorting the message in the process. (Effect copy pasteit, the original message that is copied and pasted across the social web).

A winery can sell far more if it uses Social Media, not just as a marketing and branding platform, but as a sales tool.

This image comes from: 3.bp.blogspot.com

 This post in Spanish: ¿Vende más una bodega si utiliza Social Media?

I have not written much up to this date on digital sales. I considered that there was such a broad field on the promotion and generation of image through social media and online Marketing and that my recommendation was that wineries should focus on getting known and establishing conversations with its customers, its end users.

I had noticed that some important winery bloggers used a simple email address for the people who want to get in contact for placing orders.

But lately I have diverted my focus. And the debate I want to get in is whether a pure online store is better positioned or not, if compared with a physical store that has also an online store.

Having taken one path or another is in general conditioned by where one comes from. Having the necesary resources or a physical store from the start can make the path much easier. This will make it much easier to get profitable from an online store. Your clients who have already visited your physical store and have bought already anything online once, will probably take advantage of the ease of buying online again. The store can take advantage of its existing infrastructure. Thus the investment does not have to be huge. Also, a client may need just one visit to your physical store, and may have just bought once on one online store, not even on your own store. And he may feel confident enough to buy from your online store, because he finds it more comfortable or more effective, and because he already trusts you and your payment method. It is the customer’s decision which purchase method he decides to use.

One of the main problems for the online stores is how to differenciate themselves from other online stores, and how to provide a better service in order to be competitive not only on price. If the service is provided by a physical store, allows you more easily to get such a differentiation. If you, with a mixed model (physical and on-line) suceed in giving such good service on your digital version as a specialized on-line store you may wind up in the nice situation of being more competitive than a pure on-line store.

But, on the other hand one goes to conferences like this one done by  Bernardo Hernández, Google Global Manager of New Developments made in redinnova.com.. Bernard speaks at this conference about several sectors in which digital competitors have clearly beaten traditional competitors. This has happened in travel agencies, real estate, television, news producers, sectors. He thinks that maybe the next sectors in which this is going to happen again can be banking, education, yellow pages, telephone, car rental, and so one. He sumarizes saying that is not true that Internet means the end of intermediation as it was thought in the beginning, but the beginning of the re-intermediation. To add value is the key.

And to put more intricacies on the subject, here is this conference (in Spanish), of somebody extremely convincing also in redinnova.com. In the conference Guido Grinbaum does not wish to say that there is one system better than the other. Whether you are an online or a conventional company appears in the DNA of your company. But he also says that is not easy to change from one world to the other. And that mixed companies have trouble in being competitive in both worlds.

Who will win the upper hand in the wine sales?

Just in case, I recommend you get busy working no matter on what type your company is, because what is coming  is a tougher competition. The crisis will swallow those who don’t work hard enough, and endow success on those who maintain themselves competitive. 

Video courtesy of marketingdirecto.com

This post in Spanish: ¿Tiendas de vino exclusivamente digitales o tiendas mixtas?