Are we witnessing the true death of the wine salesman? Not any time soon.
I don’t know why “salesperson” is a pejorative word in America. I suppose it’s because people associate the term with slimy used car salespeople, unethical stock brokers dumping penny stocks, or multi-level marketing scammers. These exist—as bad actors exist in any profession—but the broad stroke and prejudice seems unusually lopsided in the perception of salespeople. Warner Henry once told me that the sales profession is noble. He said a free market wouldn’t exist without good salespeople. I agree.
Yet, if we look at the hype on CNBC and the WSJ these days we’d assume this is finally the true death of the salesman. The human salesperson with their sample bag and order pad will be replaced with large language model robots who will service our customers better while removing the headaches for employers and stake holders.
Nonsense. First, I am far from a luddite, but let’s just say that the hype around Artificial Intelligence maybe has a little to do with stock value and we should be as suspicious of that as we are of Hal locking us outside of the pod bay doors. AI is truly a transformational technology and will make selling and marketing more efficient while maximizing the customer experience. Will it replace the human salesperson in the customer journey? Not any time soon, and maybe never.
As marketers we can dramatically reduce operating expense through intelligent software that helps us and our teams stay organized and brings previously ultra-specialized marketing tools to any manager’s fingertips. These technological advancements in marketing should be embraced by the wine industry without fear that the critical role of human interaction is going to vanish. This truth is based on the fundamental nature of the economic product and the foundation of experience as an integral part of the product. Fine wine is not the same as a candy bar or gasoline. Consumption of fine wine is based on the desire to commune, and an important part of the journey is human interaction.
Just like Uber, AI will create efficiencies, not replace economic and physical reality. With Uber, it was and still is all about the simple physical movement of humans from one place to another without having to drive ones self, call a cab service, or ask the front desk to call a car for you. So it is with AI and the wine industry. Tight copywriting, tight accounting, huge advances in logistics, economical web design…it’s wonderful! I am going to bet, however, that the people who interact with customers (whether in trade distribution or DTC) will become more and more essential to successful fine wine businesses. SMS, for example, helped salespeople reach and be in better contact with their customers but the most successful salespeople always knew that a text was never a replacement for a face-to-face meeting. Likewise, the internet at large transformed society and made large scale DTC wine sales possible. Yet, when I talk to fellow winery executives we all agree that direct customer contact from our sales teams is more important now than ever. Until humans stop buying and consuming fine wine in a communal manner, other humans will sell it to them. It’s a noble profession.
So if you’re a wine salesperson, stop worrying about ChatGPT and go check your CRM system to see how long it’s been since you picked up the phone and called your best customer. Better yet, make sure you get physically in front of that customer as soon as possible. CRM software reminds us to do the one thing it cannot: be human. Open the pod bay doors, Dave.
I wrote this entire article without any editing from ChatGPT or any other AI language software. Someday soon I’ll be able to prove that definitively with a watermark or other authentication technology, but for the time being, you’ll just have to believe me. One human to another.