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.

Managers have a lot on their plate. As a manager, you have to outline clear, attainable goals. You have to delegate responsibilities and juggle schedules. And you have to motivate. That is not “it” in a nutshell; but, those are a few critical traits I have found a manager needs to lead effectively. There are thousands of books out there on how to lead, but usually the best way to figure out the tricks of the trade is while on the job (which has its ups and downs) and by learning from others.

With that note, I never shy away from an opportunity to share what I have learned. Just recently I was contacted by a motivated and inquisitive branch manager from Investors Savings Bank named Gail. Gail is involved with a company sponsored school program, and one of their projects was to interview local business owners for a report. She had learned about Senor Sangria – and me – through a retailer.

I went from top to bottom, from concept to product trials to distribution. It was quite the trip down memory lane, reaching back to 2006 when this all started. My main goal was to motivate her to look outside the box, find new ways to motivate her team and take them to the next level. I have a decent amount of experience in the corporate world, and I know how hard it can be to generate excitement within a workgroup; but that is precisely what it takes to drive teams to excel and exceed expectations (the real test for a manager). Best of luck, Gail!

“The Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”  That was Ronald Reagan’s view on taxes.  I guess it makes sense; but, you can’t really understand the concept until it hits you in the coffers.

First off, the good news…Senor Sangria continues to grow.  BUT…when that happens in NJ you pay wholesale beverage taxes.  You see…going into June, Senor Sangria was paying a small amount of beverage taxes.  After sales from June and July were totaled, we calculated that revenues had increased considerably.  In the state of NJ, I guess this meant that we had kept the business moving.   For our efforts, we were rewarded by paying a lot more in beverage taxes!

Here’s hoping we keep moving in the right direction (and therefore paying taxes, I guess).  Cheers!

Every time we are at the winery for a production run there is such a great sense of energy that all you can do is just enjoy yourself and have fun.  Our 1.5 L run in July was no exception.  After all the Classic Red has been bottled and boxed, the next step is to add Senor Sangria labels to a large quantity of very white boxes.  The next step is very necessary; otherwise, you will be playing a guessing game trying to figure out what’s inside.   Now, in your average, run-of-the-mill massive production process, this is managed by a multi-million dollar highly intelligent robotic supercomputer that carefully calculates to the nearest 1000^th of an inch where the label should be placed on each box (at rate that would make your head spin).  Here at Senor Sangria, we regret to say that our robot is broken and the warranty expired.  So these days, this is a manual process and is completed by some of our phenomenal team members at the winery.  As you can see by the photo below, we really like to have fun during this process and for the first time ever we would like to introduce our new mascot for Senor Sangria.