Project Management Training And Getting Into the Business of Selling Spirits

The art of management involves tracking several details essential to your business, and making sure that the right things happen in the right order at the right time. This is the ultimate in logistical skills, and is called project management. Project management training is one of the foundational keys to running a business, and can help nearly any business succeed. To illustrate our point, we recently talked with Marty Schlessman, of Indulgences, a local wine-and-chocolates shop.

Marty's business is located in a good shopping district with lots of foot traffic, but one that's prone to seasonal bursts, like a lot of pedestrian friendly shopping areas. To plan for his business needs, he has to keep track of shelf life of products, seasonal demands, and keep apprised of new products in the wine and chocolates luxury markets.

Marty's advice (once we assured him that we were just doing an interview) would be to start your planning before you open your business. Study the local alcohol laws in your area. The restrictions on serving alcohol versus selling it are radically different, and the laws regulating both are practically written in a foreign language. Make sure that you're zoned for alcohol sales.

Second, look into what kinds of alcohol sell in your area, and what sorts of clientele you want to attract. Marty wanted to attract an upscale client base, and so structured his shop accordingly. In his community, there were two other dedicated wine and spirits shops, but neither of them were near the Parkade, where his store is. He knew alcohol sales were permitted, because there are several bars and night clubs on the Parkade. As he wasn't selling for consumption on premises, the bars weren't really direct competition.

The next phase of his planning was deciding what to sell. Since trying to sell beer next to bars generally doesn't work well, and it didn't fit the client profile he was looking for, he focused on wines, and once the idea of wine as an indulgence crossed his mind, expanding to other luxury items (like cheeses and chocolates) was a no brainer.

In the wine trade, wines and chocolates have a shelf life; one of the places where forethought and planning is necessary is seasonal events. Most chocolate is sold in the spring, for Valentine's Day, Easter, and wedding gifts. Caviar and cheeses tend to sell in the winter months, and wines sell according to what menus they go with, with menus changing seasonally. For example, white wines go with fish, which tends to be more common with Lenten meals.

Likewise, Marty also keeps an eye on the wedding registers, and tries to make sure that his latest stock list is present at the three wedding boutiques in the area, one of them a short distance from his shop. This helps facilitate cross market sales, but also requires keeping track of when the last stock list was updated, and checking back to make sure that replacement lists are available.

All in all, even in a business as giddy as wines and chocolates, planning and forethought and project management skills pay off handsomely!

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