Hello, HELLO New Wine Guides! First off, congrats on deciding to start your journey as a Traveling Vineyard Wine Guide. I’m sure you already have an awesome “wine mama/daddy” to guide you along the way. I am just here to help kick start your wine business with some tips that I’ve learned on my own journey.
Subscribe to my blog to get cool posts like this in your inbox!
Tip 1: You’re a guide first, not a salesperson.
As simple as this sounds, it’s actually a pretty important thing to remember. You’re there to help people discover new wines. You’re there to teach them cool things they didn’t know about wine. You’re there to make wine less intimidating for some people. You’re a wine guide first.
The sales will come as you build trust and a relationship with your audience.
Tip 2: Have the most fun possible!
Let’s face it, a ‘job’ of drinking and sharing wine isn’t much of a job at all; it’s fun! So have fun. Yes, you can treat it like a business and follow up with people, etc etc. But you have to let yourself have fun, otherwise you may forget why you signed up to be a wine guide in the first place.
Tip 3: don’t worry about a separate website
You’re given a website to send your customers. Don’t worry about creating a separate website unless you plan to blog (like I do) or add something more. Make it easy for your customers to get to the wine, use the website Traveling Vineyard provides.
Tip 4: Keep it simple, sunshine
Don’t worry about creating fancy graphics. Traveling Vineyard will provide awesome graphics for you to use. Don’t overthink everything. Just jump in and go for it. It’s kind of hard to make mistakes!
Tip 5: Just do your launch events already!
It’s easy to get stuck in the planning phase of things. You might feel like you aren’t ready to do your first tasting. You might be trying to plan the best, most epic event ever. Just do whatever works and go for it. Your upline will help you, too!
Tip 6: Complete the provided training
When you first sign up, TV provides some really awesome training. You learn basics of wine tasting, how to work the back office, and more. You learn everything you need to give your first tasting. You can take it a step further and watch the additional training videos. There are also really awesome printouts to save to your computer or print out.
Tip 7: word of mouth is your friend
Your wine tastings can grow like wildfire. After one host experiences your events, they can go on to tell their friends. And their friends tell their friends, and so on. That’s the beauty of having events and growing your host list with each tasting you do.
Tip 8: what works for someone else may not work for you
Have you seen another wine guide just out there smashing their wine business? Well, give it up for them! Then figure out what works for you. This wine business isn’t a one size fits all. Just have fun and experiment with how you work your business.
Tip 9: you have to put in some work
I think there is a big misconception that as soon as you sign up, you’ll be rolling in wine tastings and cash. You have to put in some effort. Whether that’s advertising, reaching out to people to host, or even just keeping up with the latest bottles released; you have to give a little.
Bonus tip: make wine guide friends!
And just because I love ya, I’ll leave this extra tip here. Reach out to fellow wine guides and see how they’re doing. Work together, even! Support each other. You aren’t alone. Enjoy being surrounded by other guides who love wine just as much as you do.
Not a wine guide yet but now dying to become one?
Ashley the Winosaur 