podcast – Page 8 – Sales for Nerds

Episode 5: June Rodil on wine, customer experience, delegation, and more

June started her career in restaurants as a waitress, paying her way through college on the way to a law career that never ended up happening. Instead, she learned a ton about wine, became beverage director for some of the top restaurants in Austin, became one of 147 Master Sommeliers in the world, and opened her own restaurant.

In this episode, June discusses how to pick wine as a beginner, how she became as Master Sommelier, and how she opened her own restaurant.

Plus,

Secrets for great customer service
How to delegate as a control freak
Why spreadsheets are still important
How to set up your product offerings to maximize customer happiness and minimize your stress.

The wine: 2012 Rosie Shuster Sankt Laurent (the ‘k’ is silent). $24. I didn’t know Austrian wine could taste this good. A little sweet, but not overly so. Lots of flavors. (Listen to June give the real description.)

Where you can find June: June’s Restaurant, Twitter (here’s one of those pictures with an interesting mixture of drinks)

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

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Episode 4: Joe Williamson

Guest: Joe Williamson, Partner at Alloy Partners, talks about:

how to price new products (brilliant stuff), including how pricing too low makes your prospects look bad
having an internal locus of control vs an external locus of control
what he learned from teaching at The Princeton Review
why he wouldn’t turn to sales books for sales advice (and the surprising persona of the best sales person)

Here’s the link to Episode 4 with Joe Williamson.

The wine: Joe doesn’t drink, but he helps me run an experiment on aerating the wine. Listen to get the results. (Hint, you may want to pick up one of the items in the show notes.)

Chateau Recougne 2012 Bordeaux. Pretty rich, definitely benefits from aeration, then mellows out nicely. Yum.

Venturi Essential Wine Aerator

How to Talk to Practically Anybody about Practically Anything, by Barbara Walters

Where you can find Joe: Alloy Partners, LinkedIn.

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

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Episode 3: Adam Boyd

Guest: Adam Boyd, Partner at Market Sense, a Sandler sales training firm (don’t hold it against him the way I did) and co-author of Succeed: The Sandler Way.

Adam talks about the importance of process (and why that gives engineers an advantage), why you shouldn’t talk too much (which I screw up in the interview, giving you a good example of what not to do), how to uncover a solution rather than prescribing it, and more.
Here’s the link to Episode 3 with Adam.

The wine: Aegerter Pinot Noir for Burgundy (the year is 2012). Nice French Pinot, not as fruity as what you might be used to if you drink a lot of California Pinot.

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg

Where you can find Adam: @adamboyd24, LinkedIn.

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

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Episodes 1&2: Jason Cohen

Guest: Jason Cohen, founder, WPEngine, blogger at A Smart Bear (if you don’t read this, you need to, as soon as you finish listening to the podcast).

Jason talks about how you can use your technical background and lack of “sales skills” to your advantage, why so many small companies screw up in sales and double down on their weaknesses while ignoring their strengths, and more.

We had such a good time that I’ve cut the interview into 2 episodes (we might have had a third if we hadn’t run out of wine).

Here are the links to Episode 1 and Episode 2.

federico-paternina-gran-reserva-rioja-2006 The wine: Federico Paternina Gran Reserva 2006 (per Jason’s request of a Spanish red). Quite a nice Rioja, if you ask me (or Jason), not that either of us are experts.

Where you can find Jason: @ASmartBear, WPEngine.com.

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

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