Monday, June 4, 2012
Alcohol Sales: Why do we have a 3-tier system
Many people wondeer why we have a a 3-tier alcohol delivery/ distribution sales system .
While some people believe that there is some government/lobbyist conspiracy “keeping the little guy down”, the truth is, the government control system was born out of a need for purity – not greed.
The 3-tier system is actually a remnant of the post-prohibition era, where those who opposed repealing prohibition wanted a promise from the government that things would not return to the way that they were – they wanted a promise that the government would help control the flow of liquor to stop sin, or something like that. Hence the term “control state”.
The entire point of the system as it was devised was to drive up the cost of liquor and collect revenue for the government, controlling the flow and (in theory) reducing consumption. Over time, many control states deregulated slightly and allowed private distributors – although not all have.
Today, the 3-tier system does not necessarily help small producers (or even large producers, for that matter) – but it was never designed to. It was designed to increase the cost to the consumer so to appease the pro-prohibition crowd.
There are, however, some advantages to using a distributor over self-distribution. It isn’t solely a “take” relationship when you work with a distributor, and many distributors genuinely care about the suppliers and producers they work with. But the big breakthrough in understanding distributors is this one… They provide a service.
How many craft producers really want to spend all day running a shipping operation? Or running around to every location with their product to make sure that everything is in place?
Distributors have a service that they provide, and it is valuable. That is just one of the mindset shifts that should occur for a producer/supplier to see success in finding the right distributor for them, and creating a win-win scenario for both parties.
I strarted a WINE DISTRIBUTION BUSINES, ACTION DISTRIBUTION LLC ACTIONDISTRIBUTION.NET
It took almost half a year to get the License. Now I am awaiting the first Shipment of Product: NOVUS ORDO WINES from Argenina. The importer, Two Americas, had to wait untill Action Distribution, was Licensed so they could apply to ship to Arizona and this has also been taking some time. But soon we should be sampling the "fruits (grapes) of reward from our labor'.
NOVUS ORDO WINES are from the renowned Mendoza region which is Argentinas highly acclaimed wine growing region. They offer several varietals of award winning Malbecs and now for the first time, a brand new Chardonnay.
ACTION DISTRIBUTION LLC will distribute fine botutique wines that are low volume high quality for the descrimainating wine conesuer pallets.
We are looking to get some Italian and German products, possibly Beer and Wine and Spirits.
Keep you eyes open to learn more about our development.
I look to post wine updates and future sampling dates as well as interesting facts about wines/ adult beverages.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Help for the Long Term Unemployed
Published on 23 April, 2012 by pgbailey in business, coaching
Recently I’ve been working with a number of clients who have been unemployed for some time. I used to deal with this type of situation every once in awhile, but it now seems to be happening more and more frequently.
Curriculum Vitae
Long term unemployment can be a few weeks, months or even years. However long it is, everyone seems to suffer in the same confidence crushing way.They lay awake at night wondering how they are going to pay the bills. Feeling desperately alone and racked with guilt for letting themselves get into this position in the first place. Their confidence is at rock bottom and they begin to doubt themselves and every action they take seems futile.
The first things a client always tells me is that they are “doing all the usual stuff”, but just to get clear I ask them to list off all the things they are doing.
This tends to be their response:-
* They have updated their CV
* They have been applying for positions they see listed on job websites relevant to their experience
* Sending their CV to recruitment agents
* Updated their LinkedIn profile
* Asked friend and family if they have any jobs going
* Starting to look at alternative jobs such as bar and shop work
These are the main actions that people take. They are all exactly what they should be doing, but they don’t feel it’s getting them anywhere.
Recruitment agencies rarely ever acknowledge their CV, only on the odd occasion to say their application was rejected. None of their friends or family seem to know of any positions available, and their LinkedIn profile seems like the biggest waste of time.
It’s a horrible, horrible place to be.
I’m here to tell you that you are not alone. Help is on it’s way and if you are prepared to re-take control then grab a pen and paper and lets get started on turning this situation around.
Why Recruitment Agents Ignore You
A lot of jobs listed on recruitment websites no longer exist, or worse, the jobs never existed in the first place! A recruitment agent cannot afford to have a client call them about a position, post it on a website and then wait for CVs to come in, he or she MUST have a stock of relevant CVs they can send to the client immediately! The only way to do that is to post similar jobs of what they expect to receive and build up a stockpile of CVs. Make sure your CV is in the pile by sending in yours when you see a “job” posted.
Finding The Hidden Job Market
Big companies don’t always use external agencies, they often have their own internal recruitment team. So jobs advertised on their own website are much more likely to be real jobs. The only trouble here is that it’s often a requirement for them to advertise this job externally and so “test the market”. Ultimately it’s often cheaper for them to promote internally that it is to get someone new.
Small companies can’t always justify the expense of using recruitment agents. So they also have to do everything themselves. But they will advertise their jobs elsewhere like in the “free papers”, most of those are now in digital format. Places like GumTree and CraigsList will have jobs advertised by the smaller companies that can’t afford a posting in a newspaper or on job sites like Monster.com or Jobserve.com.
The Hidden Secret to LinkedIn
Having a LinkedIn profile is a bit like going to a recruitment fair and then standing in the corner smiling, but never talking to anyone. It’s doubtful that anything will come from it. Like any social network, you get out of it what you put in. The loudest voice gets heard. You are more likely to get head hunted if you are known and liked. But how? LinkedIn Groups are the biggest “hidden in plain sight” secret of LinkedIn. Think of them as hundreds of forums where like minded people gather to talk about their topics of choice. Look at your LinkedIn page and you’ll see in the top right corner a search box, change the drop down to groups and type in the industry you are looking to get work in. Join those groups, some may require approval, but don’t let that put you off, it’s rare that people don’t get in. Have a look through the previous discussions and join in by posting replies, or even posting new discussions yourself. Try to avoid blatant begging for jobs. But do watch out for others actually posting jobs that are specific to that group. The more you interact on these groups the more known you become and the more likely your name will come up when the head hunters come looking. Talking in LinkedIn groups is just like working the room at a networking event. But the people there are much more likely to know of a job that might be suitable for you.
Helping Friends and Family find you work
Asking friends and family often gets disappointing results. Most of your friends and family don’t understand what it is you actually did do when you were working so will have even less chance in recognising a suitable job for you, even if it slapped them in the face. You’re better off asking them if they know of anyone that works for a specific company that you could contact to ask yourself.
Finding a Job is a Job in itself
Acknowledge the work you have done so far is worthwhile and absolutely necessary. Retrospectively complete your diary. This will help you answer that’s dreaded question your partner asks “What did you do today”. Just replying “I applied for jobs” makes you feel even more demoralised. Every 1-2 hours think about what you’ve been doing and make a note of it in your diary. Then at the end of the day you can look at it and truly see how hard you really have been working at getting a job. Knowing this will help you rebuild your confidence and also help others see that you are really trying hard to get back into work.
Dealing with the Loneliness of Unemployment
Being unemployed can be terribly lonely. All your old friends are working during the day and in the evening they go places you simply cannot afford to attend. Meetup.com is a website that is designed to organise meeting real people in real places, not just online in forums. Most of the groups are totally free of charge. These will help you get out of the house. Mix with like minded people and often cost no more than the price of a soft drink at a bar. One of my favourite groups is called Drinks And Links. It’s a great mix of all types of people looking to network and promote their own business. It might not be perfect for you, but it’s a great example of MeetUp.com group working well. Have a look at their website and do a search for other groups in your area.
Dealing with the stress of Unemployment
Dealing with the stress of unemployment is critical to your own health and wellbeing. Talking to someone about your struggles is vital, but mostly people think they need to “help” or “fix” it for you by giving you advice. This can be terribly frustrating for both sides. It can also put a massive strain on relationships. All you seem to need right now is either a “Job” or “Understanding”. Being constantly questioned and challenged often just adds more stress and pressure that you can really do without.
If you find yourself laying awake at night worrying about all sorts of things try these tips to help you calm your mind.
* Ask yourself “is there anything I can do about it right now?”. If there is, get up and do it.
* If not, then write down a note of what it is you are worrying about, what you want to do about it, and when you will take that action.
By externalising your thoughts in this way and promising to take action later allows your mind to calm down and let go of the thoughts. Your mind slows down because you have ensured you won’t forget what it was worrying about.
You will get through this and eventually get a job, it might not be perfect, or it might even be your dream job! The unfortunate fact is it’s still a numbers game. But as long as you keep doing what you are doing already, and add in some of the tips listed above, hopefully you won’t have to wait too long.
I’m shortly going to be running a few live webinars online to work through these points and answer any questions you might have. If you would like to attend one of these, enter your email address below and I’ll invite you to the webinar once it’s been scheduled.
Read more: http://www.impactcm.co.uk/2012/04/long-term-unemployed/#ixzz1t5hl2cXo
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Most Interesting Man In the World
This comes from an on-line review of my friend, Carry Capparelli's new line of wines.:
Imagine you’re sitting on an airplane and you strike up a conversation with the guy in the seat next to you and he tells you this story:
He used to be a racing car driver, mostly on the European road circuit, tearing around at a couple of hundred miles an hour and living a life of beautiful and dangerous women and fabulous European wines. One day, hanging around the track, he’s shooting the breeze with his buddy George, and George mentions that, when his racing days are over, he’d maybe like to go into the liquor business.
So you’re sitting on the plane with this guy and he’s not your typical copier parts salesman, so you leave your laptop in its case and let the conversation keep going. He tells you that a few years later he retired from racing and moved home to Chicago, where he got into the PR and racing promotion business. He organized the first motorsport competition between the old Soviet Union and the U.S. and made a little dough. Then, after sports marketing got to feeling tame, he went into politics, running for office in the electoral mud of Chicago’s Democratic machine. He was touted as a replacement for Rahm Emanuel when he left his Congressional seat to be President Obama’s Chief of Staff, but ended up running instead for a Cook County Commissioner position.
It’s about here in the story when the flight attendant interrupts with the drinks cart and you order a whiskey and he orders a red wine, which he sniffs at before drinking and makes a kind of sour face as if the wine displeases him. And he goes on to explain that he’d been poking around the wine business, looking at properties in Napa and Tuscany, but couldn’t make the numbers work. A few years ago he’s down in Argentina looking around and he meets a P.R. guy from a winery and they hit it off and decide that they’d like to work together.
Vineyard in Argentina is available at a fraction of the cost of Napa or Tuscany, and it doesn’t take them long to find a likely target: 58 acres of land at the end of a road lined with wineries. And he calls his old racing buddy – who, as it happens, is a scion of the family that founded and was enriched by the distiller Brown-Foreman, but who wants to make it on his own beyond the confines of the family business. And the guy in the plane next to you says to his old racing buddy George that he’s found a good plot of land for vines and George says: say no more!
They agree to buy and plant the land, an action as reckless in its way as hurtling around the track at Watkins Glen or plunging head first into Chicago politics. They have an idea but no real plan, and when they’re closing on the property – signing papers and handing over checks – he mentions to the notary that he needs to find a winemaker. And she says: my husband is a winemaker. In fact, he’s an Italian winemaker with experience making wine in Argentina and he’s looking for a steady gig.
One thing leads to another and they go into business together, getting the vineyards planted, designing a winery and figuring out their brand. Four of them — the former racing car driver, the guy with aspirations to the liquor industry, the Argentine P.R. guy and the expatriate Italian winemaker — decide to take on the world.
You’re hearing all this, and by the time the plane lands you’re thinking: this guy is full of it, but at least he’s entertaining. His tall tale killed the flight time dead and you didn’t even have to open the Sky Mall catalogue. You’re shaking his hand goodbye and he hands you a business card and, sure enough, he’s in the wine business. His name is R. Cary Capparelli and his winery is called Novus Ordo, which is Latin for “New Order.”
He smiles a genial P.R. smile and says it was nice to meet you.
–
It’s all true. Well, not the airplane part. I didn’t meet R. Cary Capparelli on an airplane. I met him in a prearranged interview that interrupted his dinner. The airplane thing is a literary device to emphasize just how surprising meeting R. Cary Capparelli is. In a business of billionaire tech moguls who dabble in wine and cruise on autopilot through interviews, saying the same things in the same moderate, Stanford-educated tone of voice, Capparellli comes out of nowhere. He has a Chicago accent and talks about the most amazing things as if he were talking about cutting his lawn. He is charming and informative and my candidate for Most Interesting Man of 2010.
Capparelli is travelling right now to sell his wine, which is a bitch because the wine market collapsed between the purchase of the land in Argentina and the new winery’s first vintage. But that doesn’t slow him down even a little because he likes a challenge. He liked it in auto racing and he liked it in business and he liked it in politics, and now he’s a happy road warrior liking introducing a new wine brand in a lousy market.
“They’re all challenges, huge challenges,” he says. “That’s what I look for. It’s in my nature to address them.”
The challenges take two forms. First, the economic climate is not favorable in general for the launch of new wine brands.
“It’s a very very tough business,” Capparelli says. “Very cutthroat. There are a lot of wineries selling wine at cost or even at a loss. It’s hard to make headway.”
And, second, there are an almost infinite number of Malbecs flooding the market. Malbec is, Capparelli says, “the wine of 2010 and 2011. What you see is only going to grow, and it’s pretty popular right now. The market is overridden with lots of wine, but there’s a lot of bad wine.”
O.K., let’s be honest. He sounds like every other winery tout in the world when he says, “Just making wine was not the objective. Making a real wine is what we wanted, regardless of cost.”
The wine he’s making is different, surprisingly Italian in its approach: more tartly acidic and food-friendly than Argentina’s more familiar fat Malbecs.
“We are trying to make an Italian character to the wine,” says winemaker Giuseppe Franceschini. “Argentina is used to sweet flavor with lower acidity, and I come from the country of bitterness. We have coffee that is bitter. Italian chocolate is bitter. I like wine with good acidity, fresh fruit, clean, clear. Cary said that was O.K. because he likes that kind of style, so he leaves me free.”
The first vintage is 15,000 cases made from grapes grown on land that Novus Ordo has leased with an option to buy. The vines on the land Novus Ordo owns are too young to bear good fruit, so it will be a few years before those grapes end up in Novus Ordo wines.
In the meantime, Capparelli is travelling, something he says he got used to back in his racing days. He hits the road at every opportunity. Like a politician running for office, he introduces his wine to anyone who will shake his hand, or anyone who will listen to him on an airplane.
The dinner my interview interrupted was a celebration. Novus Ordo’s first vintage had been reviewed in Wine Spectator and received an 87-point rating.
“That’s not a bad start,” Capparelli says. “That was three months after it’s bottled. Now it’s in the bottle nine months, it’s a lot better.”
The second vintage, 2009, is going into the bottle soon. Capparelli will have 15,000 more cases to sell. He will do whatever it takes to do that, he says.
“This project is unique,” he says. “One day you’re selling wine and the next day you’re building a winery and then you’re writing copy for ads. But I like it because we have control. We can actually control the direction we want to be in.”
And that direction, I think, will be forward. Always, obsessively forward.
UPDATE: Just to clarify: Novus Ordu is in no way connected with Brown Foreman.
UPDATE: A couple of people have asked my opinion of the wine. I didn’t include it because I wasn’t writing a wine review. Still, I’m a blogger and I ought to have an opinion. As it happens, I do. These tasting notes are based on a bottle of 2008 Novus Ordo Malbec that I paid $19 for at a local retail store.
Crystal clear, dark garnet to the edge. Nose is clean and a little hot, with more fruit than a typical Malbec. Berries. Reminds me of the aroma of a solid Bordeaux cru bourgeois. On the palate: high acidity, medium/low tannins. Light bodied, sleek. There’s a bright attack and then something kind of darkly sour in the long finish. Sour cherry.
My overall impression is that this is a well made wine, a more grown-up version of Argentine Malbec that is, to my taste, almost too polished. My taste in Malbecs runs to the rustic — though my wife, who’s a pretty good taster in her own rite, loved it. The winemaker is right when he describes it as being Italian in style. Put it into a blind tasting with a bunch of good quality Italian reds and I doubt anyone would suspect it was a New World wine.
Wine Spectator gave it an 87. I don’t give scores, but I’d say 87 is about right. I’d buy it again, without hesitation.
Imagine you’re sitting on an airplane and you strike up a conversation with the guy in the seat next to you and he tells you this story:
He used to be a racing car driver, mostly on the European road circuit, tearing around at a couple of hundred miles an hour and living a life of beautiful and dangerous women and fabulous European wines. One day, hanging around the track, he’s shooting the breeze with his buddy George, and George mentions that, when his racing days are over, he’d maybe like to go into the liquor business.
So you’re sitting on the plane with this guy and he’s not your typical copier parts salesman, so you leave your laptop in its case and let the conversation keep going. He tells you that a few years later he retired from racing and moved home to Chicago, where he got into the PR and racing promotion business. He organized the first motorsport competition between the old Soviet Union and the U.S. and made a little dough. Then, after sports marketing got to feeling tame, he went into politics, running for office in the electoral mud of Chicago’s Democratic machine. He was touted as a replacement for Rahm Emanuel when he left his Congressional seat to be President Obama’s Chief of Staff, but ended up running instead for a Cook County Commissioner position.
It’s about here in the story when the flight attendant interrupts with the drinks cart and you order a whiskey and he orders a red wine, which he sniffs at before drinking and makes a kind of sour face as if the wine displeases him. And he goes on to explain that he’d been poking around the wine business, looking at properties in Napa and Tuscany, but couldn’t make the numbers work. A few years ago he’s down in Argentina looking around and he meets a P.R. guy from a winery and they hit it off and decide that they’d like to work together.
Vineyard in Argentina is available at a fraction of the cost of Napa or Tuscany, and it doesn’t take them long to find a likely target: 58 acres of land at the end of a road lined with wineries. And he calls his old racing buddy – who, as it happens, is a scion of the family that founded and was enriched by the distiller Brown-Foreman, but who wants to make it on his own beyond the confines of the family business. And the guy in the plane next to you says to his old racing buddy George that he’s found a good plot of land for vines and George says: say no more!
They agree to buy and plant the land, an action as reckless in its way as hurtling around the track at Watkins Glen or plunging head first into Chicago politics. They have an idea but no real plan, and when they’re closing on the property – signing papers and handing over checks – he mentions to the notary that he needs to find a winemaker. And she says: my husband is a winemaker. In fact, he’s an Italian winemaker with experience making wine in Argentina and he’s looking for a steady gig.
One thing leads to another and they go into business together, getting the vineyards planted, designing a winery and figuring out their brand. Four of them — the former racing car driver, the guy with aspirations to the liquor industry, the Argentine P.R. guy and the expatriate Italian winemaker — decide to take on the world.
You’re hearing all this, and by the time the plane lands you’re thinking: this guy is full of it, but at least he’s entertaining. His tall tale killed the flight time dead and you didn’t even have to open the Sky Mall catalogue. You’re shaking his hand goodbye and he hands you a business card and, sure enough, he’s in the wine business. His name is R. Cary Capparelli and his winery is called Novus Ordo, which is Latin for “New Order.”
He smiles a genial P.R. smile and says it was nice to meet you.
–
It’s all true. Well, not the airplane part. I didn’t meet R. Cary Capparelli on an airplane. I met him in a prearranged interview that interrupted his dinner. The airplane thing is a literary device to emphasize just how surprising meeting R. Cary Capparelli is. In a business of billionaire tech moguls who dabble in wine and cruise on autopilot through interviews, saying the same things in the same moderate, Stanford-educated tone of voice, Capparellli comes out of nowhere. He has a Chicago accent and talks about the most amazing things as if he were talking about cutting his lawn. He is charming and informative and my candidate for Most Interesting Man of 2010.
Capparelli is travelling right now to sell his wine, which is a bitch because the wine market collapsed between the purchase of the land in Argentina and the new winery’s first vintage. But that doesn’t slow him down even a little because he likes a challenge. He liked it in auto racing and he liked it in business and he liked it in politics, and now he’s a happy road warrior liking introducing a new wine brand in a lousy market.
“They’re all challenges, huge challenges,” he says. “That’s what I look for. It’s in my nature to address them.”
The challenges take two forms. First, the economic climate is not favorable in general for the launch of new wine brands.
“It’s a very very tough business,” Capparelli says. “Very cutthroat. There are a lot of wineries selling wine at cost or even at a loss. It’s hard to make headway.”
And, second, there are an almost infinite number of Malbecs flooding the market. Malbec is, Capparelli says, “the wine of 2010 and 2011. What you see is only going to grow, and it’s pretty popular right now. The market is overridden with lots of wine, but there’s a lot of bad wine.”
O.K., let’s be honest. He sounds like every other winery tout in the world when he says, “Just making wine was not the objective. Making a real wine is what we wanted, regardless of cost.”
The wine he’s making is different, surprisingly Italian in its approach: more tartly acidic and food-friendly than Argentina’s more familiar fat Malbecs.
“We are trying to make an Italian character to the wine,” says winemaker Giuseppe Franceschini. “Argentina is used to sweet flavor with lower acidity, and I come from the country of bitterness. We have coffee that is bitter. Italian chocolate is bitter. I like wine with good acidity, fresh fruit, clean, clear. Cary said that was O.K. because he likes that kind of style, so he leaves me free.”
The first vintage is 15,000 cases made from grapes grown on land that Novus Ordo has leased with an option to buy. The vines on the land Novus Ordo owns are too young to bear good fruit, so it will be a few years before those grapes end up in Novus Ordo wines.
In the meantime, Capparelli is travelling, something he says he got used to back in his racing days. He hits the road at every opportunity. Like a politician running for office, he introduces his wine to anyone who will shake his hand, or anyone who will listen to him on an airplane.
The dinner my interview interrupted was a celebration. Novus Ordo’s first vintage had been reviewed in Wine Spectator and received an 87-point rating.
“That’s not a bad start,” Capparelli says. “That was three months after it’s bottled. Now it’s in the bottle nine months, it’s a lot better.”
The second vintage, 2009, is going into the bottle soon. Capparelli will have 15,000 more cases to sell. He will do whatever it takes to do that, he says.
“This project is unique,” he says. “One day you’re selling wine and the next day you’re building a winery and then you’re writing copy for ads. But I like it because we have control. We can actually control the direction we want to be in.”
And that direction, I think, will be forward. Always, obsessively forward.
UPDATE: Just to clarify: Novus Ordu is in no way connected with Brown Foreman.
UPDATE: A couple of people have asked my opinion of the wine. I didn’t include it because I wasn’t writing a wine review. Still, I’m a blogger and I ought to have an opinion. As it happens, I do. These tasting notes are based on a bottle of 2008 Novus Ordo Malbec that I paid $19 for at a local retail store.
Crystal clear, dark garnet to the edge. Nose is clean and a little hot, with more fruit than a typical Malbec. Berries. Reminds me of the aroma of a solid Bordeaux cru bourgeois. On the palate: high acidity, medium/low tannins. Light bodied, sleek. There’s a bright attack and then something kind of darkly sour in the long finish. Sour cherry.
My overall impression is that this is a well made wine, a more grown-up version of Argentine Malbec that is, to my taste, almost too polished. My taste in Malbecs runs to the rustic — though my wife, who’s a pretty good taster in her own rite, loved it. The winemaker is right when he describes it as being Italian in style. Put it into a blind tasting with a bunch of good quality Italian reds and I doubt anyone would suspect it was a New World wine.
Wine Spectator gave it an 87. I don’t give scores, but I’d say 87 is about right. I’d buy it again, without hesitation.
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