Since everyone seems to be putting together a list of New Year Resolutions, we at Senor Sangria felt inclined to follow suit. Now keep in mind we’ve never put together a list like this in the past for the business or our “personal” life. So it will be interesting to see what happens at the end of 2011 when we review the list.

Feel free to leave a comment if you think there is something we need to add…

Here goes!

• Increase online communication… Using FaceBook, Twitter and other outlets to share what’s going on with our company
• Listen to our customers… Find out what our customers are saying about our product
• Make our sangria available by the gallon… A few folks have suggested we add this as a resolution
• Bring our white sangria to market… This is something we’ve been teasing everyone about for the past 6 months
• Own the NJ sangria market… Basically when people think about bottled sangria in NJ we what them to think of our name
• Create more videos… Yup… that means you’ll see me more often… I don’t know if that’s a good thing…
• Create Senor Sangria Swag (t-shirts, hats, etc…) for people to buy online
• Double the number of locations in New Jersey that carry Senor Sangria

Ok… I think that’s all for now… We are giving ourselves till the end of January to come up with more items or adjust the existing list…

Every business during November and December receives letters and holiday cards from their vendors wishing them a great holiday season and a Happy and Healthy New Year. This year we had a company who is currently not a vendor of ours reach out and send us a card that stood out. Inside their very fancy card (which I forgot to take a picture of) was an ornament.

Below is a picture of the ornament (it’s the yellow one hanging on the tree). I thought this was a fantastic way for them to send their love to us. I can’t tell you the number of folks that I’ve shown the ornament to and I’ve shared the name of the company with.

If you are ever looking to have any sort of “Point of Purchase Display” build or desgined… the folks at Metailine Products (www.MetalineProducts.com) are the way to go!

One of the cool parts about being an employer is meeting folks that balance various priorities in their lives.  One of our sales reps, Jared Wohl, is a great example.  He’s part sales rep, part musician.  He and college buddy Joe Bonasorte put together N.O.O.E in the Fall of 2008 after a few informal jam sessions “felt right”.  The two quickly embarked on adding bassist Justin Rudolph.  After drummer Kyle Gagliardi was brought on, they set out on the road and have been performing ever since with appearances at The Stone Pony, Sullivan Hall, and The Battle of the Bands at Starland ballroom.

Another cool employer perk is when these lives intersect.  It just so happens that Jared also manages some of our promotions as well.  During one of these events, he ran into radio station advertising executive Lindsay Klein.  First off, she really liked our Sangria…so much in fact that she wanted Jared to have his boss – me –contact her to talk about a promo (sweet).  Secondly (in no order of importance) she also took a listen to N.O.O.E.; and, in reading her blog Home Grown Spotlight, she’s already a fan!

Best of luck to Jared and N.O.O.E!  Check out their MySpace page to learn more and hear what the buzz is about!

It’s a good feeling when you get approached with a business opportunity.  It definitely makes you feel like you’ve been doing something right; building a reputation almost.  That’s exactly what happened for us here at Senor Sangria a few months ago when Casas Patronales approached us with the idea of selling their wine (5 wines to be exact) along side Senor Sangria.  What’s sweet is we didn’t have to worry about the quality of the wines…we had total confidence in their product.  Why?

Casas Patronales  just happens to be the same company that produces the Chilean Merlot used to make our Classic Red.  Apparently, they have taken notice to our success selling Classic Red; and, now they are hoping we can continue our “streak” with their line of wines.  Up to this point we’ve had only ourselves to answer to when it comes to sales and success.  This changes the model a bit, but we’re confident in the relationships we’ve built and the sales crew we’ve assembled.  Many thanks to the folks at Casas Patronales for the opportunity!

FREE MONEY!

This past weekend Senor Sangria was invited to serve thirsty guests at a fashion show that took place at a hair salon in the area.  We were extremely appreciative that the organizers gave us the opportunity to attend.  We gathered a ton of positive feedback throughout the show; and, when we left every bottle we arrived with was dry. 

FREE MONEY!

Even as October continues to erase memories of this summer’s scorching heat, we continue to see an extended interest in Classic Red.  So, we of course are riding this wave as long as it lasts, and we’ll be offering a few more tastings this month. 

FREE MONEY!

Have we gotten your attention yet – FREE MONEY! – and peaked your interest?  At the fashion show event we passed out brochures offering an overview of Senor Sangria.  In that brochure we also introduced a Senor Sangria $100 Gift Card Giveaway where we will be picking one lucky Senor Sangria fan to receive a $100 Gift Card.

There’s no catch (seriously).  All you have to do is follow the link and register for a chance to win FREE MONEY!

Cheers!

“Mawage.  Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.  Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam. And wuv, tru wuv…..”

Mawage, tru wuv…and 9 cases of Senor Sangria, baby!  At least that is what’s bringing together a bride, her groom, and their guests in South Orange, NJ this month.  We recently received an email from a gentleman reaching out and asking if he could place a bulk order of Classic Red to use as wedding favors.  We mulled over his request for approximately one tenth of a second.  After our careful sub-second analysis, we embraced this groom-to-be’s genious idea (or was he simply relaying the bride-to-be’s genious idea?…we’ll never know…) and passed along the information to one of our retailers.  What a great sales pitch!  For a delicious, refreshing, and fun change of pace consider Classic Red for your wedding or special event! 

Cheers!

Usually, as we get into the last month of summer, we can let our inventory kind of carry us into the “off-season”.  This year was not the case.  In August, we noticed that inventory was starting to get a little low for both 750 mL and 1.5 L bottles.  Low, as in we might actually sell out with demand still out there.  We had to make a decision.

Do we risk selling out with folks still thirsty?  Do we push through two production runs?  Do nothing and we carry the risk of angering customers and missing out on additional sales.  Restock and reload and we carry the risk that demand drops off and we end up carrying a substantial amount of inventory through the winter.  What to do?  If you analyze the situation enough, you come up with reasonable arguments for both.

We went with our gut.  Two production runs later and we refreshed the supplies of both the 750s and the 1.5s.  If growth is a driving force, we could not miss out on an opportunity to possibly push Classic Red beyond the bounds of the summer months.

Cheers!

Well, it was time again for the Brotherhood Winery’s Annual Wine and Sangria Pig Roast Festival.  Last year, it rained pretty hard for a good portion of the morning and into early afternoon, eventually opening up in the afternoon to some overall decent weather.  This year, however, Mother Nature flipped her script and offered a near-perfect day.

Also different from last year was the make-up of 2010’s crowd.  The folks who came out to Washingtonville this year were on average a little older than 2009’s attendees…very rock and blues if you will.  They were, as they say, good people!  We had a great time enjoying our dual-purpose agenda…promoting Senor Sangria, mingling and socializing.

At the end of the day, confidence in the quality of your product is key to surviving in this business.  We take the feedback we receive during events like this very seriously.  We were again psyched to see folks loving our product. 

Many thanks to the Brotherhood Winery for allowing s to participate in this year’s Roast!

I recently wrote that as the 2010 season comes to a close, we’re starting to shift our focus.  We’re working on our strategies for Sangria Season 2011.  Strategies to blanket all of New Jersey.  Strategies on how to crack into the New York market.  Strategies on how to strategize our 2011 approach.  All this work doesn’t leave much time to appreciate what we’ve accomplished, something I like to do as the summer season transitions.

Enter Sean Allocca of HudsonReporter.com.  I recently met with him at his Hoboken apartment.  He had reached out to me wanting to do an interview for a piece, and the result is this superbly written article detailing the Senor Sangria story.  If you have the time, please take a look!  Sean does an excellent job blending history with perspective.  I can’t thank him enough!

Cheers, Sean!

Can you feel it? More importantly, can you believe it? You can feel a crispness in the air. You question whether you should bring a jacket. Heck…just last week a friend of mine discovered that his pool went from 79 degrees to 70. And that was overnight. Yep, there’s no escaping it. Summer 2010 is at an end. Maybe we will get a few heat flashes here and there; but, schools are open, the rain is cold, and it’s getting darker earlier every day.

Having already accepted the fact that our sales remain mostly seasonal, we no longer drown ourselves in sorrow and sangria (…well, maybe a little bit of sangria). We’re already setting goals and expectations for 2011. We need to develop a strategy to get into and tap the NY market. We need to continue our push to get into every corner of New Jersey (even after this year’s continued expansion, there are still quite a few towns that are not on our map). We need to continue our grassroots marketing efforts.

At some point we’ll look back and appreciate our accomplishments for this year. Not yet. To reuse a quote from a past blog, the road to success is lined with many parking spaces. We’re keeping it in gear here at Senor Sangria.