Welcome to Sleight of Hand
Well, this is one hell of a way to kick off a blog! Our world today looks vastly different than it did just a few short months ago. COVID-19 has permeated every pore of society, affecting us in ways we thought unimaginable. And yet, life goes on around us. For us here at Sleight of Hand, we have had to reshape our business model dramatically. As a small, family owned winery such as ours, we rely on our customers, and the personal relationships that we develop with them, to sustain and grow our business and our brand. Over half of our sales are conducted through our tasting room doors, which have effectively been shut down since the beginning of March of this year. To top it all off, restaurants (our second largest market) around the country have been devastated by this pandemic, upending the wine market and the brands that rely on the sales from restaurants to their customers, including ours. While it is true that, globally, retail sales of wines have seen an increase compared to previous years, this seems to be more of a “toilet paper” hoarding effect that has tapered off dramatically. Sales of wine in grocery stores and wine shops should stay strong, however, they in no way make up for the drop in restaurant sales. And if you have a brand that did very little retail business and focused on restaurant sales, good luck on getting your brands into grocery now. Thankfully we were already positioned to do business in most grocery chains in the PNW, as well as a few other markets.
So, what do you do when you are a small, family owned winery in today’s “new normal”? You pivot. You do what it takes to survive. At Sleight of Hand, our focus was our employees first. How do we keep everyone employed, and safe? We have 9 full time employees, 5 in Walla Walla and 4 in Seattle. Because wineries were deemed essential by the WA State leadership, our production team of Keith, Taylor, and Daniel are able to keep the winery in tip top shape. Racking, topping, etc. can still go on; albeit with some modifications to schedules to keep people spread apart. And because we are still allowed to sell wine, both to our customers directly as well as to retail and restaurants (those that are offering curbside service and delivery), we are busy trying to keep our sales team of Traci, Tim G., Heather, Ian, Tim V., and Dave busy handling orders and catching up on projects that have been getting short shrift.
We are also relying on their creative minds on finding new ways to sell wine, from virtual tastings and virtual wine dinners on social media, to reaching out to accounts and outlets that were not traditional avenues in wine sales. We are more active than ever in our newsletters and offers to our wine club customers and mailing list customers, offering discounts on the wine and shipping. We are engaging with retailers and restaurants, wine bloggers, wine reviewers, and anyone else who wants a platform for their brand and voice to participate in Instagram Live videos and FB Live videos, as well as doing Zoom virtual tastings with customers around the country. The content creation is at an all-time high for us here at SOFH. Because more than ever, we need that virtual “touch” and “voice”. For us, as well as for you.
In some ways, COVID-19 is bringing us closer to our customers than ever before. The communication channels that we employ (email, FB, IG, phone calls, etc.) have allowed us to get to know our customers better than ever before. It is still in no way a substitute for the face–to-face interaction that we get in the tasting room or at a wine event. But for now, it will have to do. So we embrace it, and we will continue to use it going forward, post- COVID-19 as well. And for everyone’s sake, let’s all hope that’s sooner than later. In the meantime, please support your local businesses. When we, as a country, do reopen our doors, we all hope that our favorite restaurants, favorite retail shops, and yes, favorite wineries, will still be with us. You can help by showing them the support when they need it most, and that is now.
We look forward to sharing lots of information on this blog going forward. Because we love our customers, and we know our customers love us. Thank you all for your never-ending support, especially during these difficult times. Trey, Jerry, and the rest of the SOFH team!
