WTN Blog

WTN Services Wine Club Learnings from Krakow…10 lessons learnt

A few weeks ago a member of the WTN Team participated in the International Wine Club Associations conference in Krakow Poland. One of the presentations came from Direct Wines one of the largest direct to consumer sellers of wines in the world. Wine direct to homes in the UK and the US is the business of Direct Wines’ enterprises. The firm now ships more than 30 million bottles of wine a year through three business units, Laithwaites (formerly Bordeaux Direct) and the Sunday Times and the Wall Street Journal wine club.

Both operations sell wine online. Founder Tony Laithwaite first entered the wine business by importing French wines and selling them from a rented railway arch in 1969. When the Sunday Times in 1973 published an exposé on some of the dirty tricks of the British wine trade, Laithwaite wrote to distance himself from the bad press. The letter drew 2,000 reader responses and prompted the newspaper to establish a wine club with Laithwaite’s help.

They did a very basic presentation but the simple presentation speaks volumes to how they are driving success…

Don’t try to do everything yourself - (Often there are much better people out there skilled at doing things)
When you find someone good, don’t forget that they are good. Don’t start to think that you could do it better yourself. (Fulfillment Services were referenced here and as to why they outsource this function.)
Don’t think that an ERP system will solve everything (Spoke heavily to process and not thinking systems solve the world)
Don’t cut the quality of wine (Speaks for itself)
Don’t get distracted by business development opportunities off-strategy (Focus on what you do well no matter what)
Don’t waste time and money buying competitors -You can acquire the expertise without acquiring the company
Don’t forget to hire new blood (New employees bring new ideas and fresh energy even more so in downturns)
Don’t allow your costs to grow in line with your sales ( Manage costs and not just sales)
Don’t lose track of the developing external marketplace-Just because you got big a different way shouldn’t mean you can’t adapt or change as the business environment evolves those big retailers of yesterday are not so big today when they did not evolve.
Don’t forget the first nine