Go wild in the country.

(From Off Licence News)

At the recent SITT events, the OLN forum highlighted the importance of customer tastings to promot e business. In fact, tastings are the single best way of increasing footfall and will usually provide an increase in sales too. From experience, I know the lure of a free glass of something will certainly get people through the door . At the very least, you'll have an opportunity to speak to some of your customers, reassess some of the stock yourself (always an interesting moment), and communicate some of the passion you have for your chosen speciality (because as we know, the money alone is never enough). Although it can be terrifying having to say something beyond "hello ... card in there please ... thanks, goodbye", you'll eventually warm to it, and perhaps even enjoy it after a while.

We've been doing some tasting s recently - not on the premises, but out in the wilds of the pubs, restaurants and boardrooms of the north of England. Using the word "wilds" to describe these is a little misleading. They are usually fairly polite events and, in fact, the hardest thing is getting people to loosen up and enjoy themselves a bit, although on one occasion, everyone loosened up a bit to much and I lost control of an event that culminated in several pints of Thomas Hardy Ale being chugged (yes, they actually went "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!"). And all this in a genteel legal practice in central London. It's always the quiet ones you have to watch.

But back to the recent tasting events. These aren' really the sort of events that generate sales for the business (although the mail order service always gets a plug), but ...