This week's guest is Sean Tello, who joined us for an in-person interview. Sean is currently an account manager for the tray of Me Too Wines. Sean has been involved in the hospitality industry for over a decade in the local Kitchener Waterloo and Guelph areas. We discuss how Sean got his start in the industry, working as a driver for a food service company, and working his way up to a sales rep.
We discussed the impact of Covid on his career and how he eventually became a sales rep for a wine antikila importer and how this has helped him grow his knowledge of wine and spirits. We had a terrific time having a few drinks with Sean and talking with him and we'll know you'll enjoy the interview too. Enjoy the show. Okay, welcome back to another episode of the industry podcast.
As always, it's Kippin' Dan with you. How's it going, man? Going well, going well. Oh, I still lost him?
Yeah, I still lost him. I think he's going with you. Good, good, good. Long day, long weekend of booze on and up pretty hard.
That was some sort of the battery we got up to on Friday? Yes, Friday's Friends Birthday Party and then Saturday was initially going to high-speed game, so that got out of control very quickly. I had a bypass that one, I would have been in bed by 3pm. That's good for you on the Saturday.
How's it? How's it going to get in the bars? You know, it's always a... Craft shoot.
Craft shoot, yeah. It's Friday's and Saturday's. It's all depending on that. It was not too bad.
One of the bars was good. One of the bars was bad, but what are you going to do? Yeah. It's always the same.
It's always the same. But coming into Christmas party season, so that is exciting. If you want to book a party, there is still time. I know a lot of people have been leaving this at the last minute.
We're dealing with a lot of people at all the bars right now who are just like, oh, I totally forgot to book my party. I was like, can you deal with us? Or can you accommodate us? I'm like, yeah, sure.
We'll take the business. As long as we're not already booked. The Babylon Sisters is booking fast. It's almost booked up for December.
That's the bar and I'm down Waterloo by Babylon Sisters bar. You can still potentially get in Janine at Babylon Sisters dot CA. Sugar Run is at Sugar Run bar info at Sugar Run dot CA. If you still want to book a party there.
And Argyle, where we still have a few dates open. Hello at ArgyleArms dot CA. Those are the best ways to get hold of us for Christmas parties. And if you want to push that party into January, all the better.
To be honest with you, it's the time of the year where the bars make the money and then we try and squirre it away for January and February where it's going to be fucking brutal. So yeah, hit us up. That's at Sugar Run bar at Babylon Sisters bar and at Argyle. I'll underscore.
ArgyleArms underscore 2023. You can DM us there or the email address as I mentioned previously. Put all those links in the show now. So for Christmas parties, contact this.
There's no doubt. I'll be there. If you want to support us here on the show then the best way to do that is to subscribe, rate and review the show. That helps a great deal.
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If you'd like to be guess on the show, Zac Canada's the artwork at zakah.co. He does the artwork for the Instagram page. Always a huge thank you to him and he's been checking out for all of your graphic arts needs. Yeah, Zacana.
Zacana. Zacana. Hey, got anything else you want to talk about? I got a spark to say.
He's always working like a chump all day soon. That's pretty cool. I'll just get to our guest. I'm telling you.
How are you buddy? Good man. How are you? Cheers.
Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
Cheers. Yes, I drink a lot of chance food, but yeah, Jan is the rep for Trayamichi and they rep class a Zuul. So we started off with some delicious zuul tequila, which is amazing. Now we're drinking what's the sis preseca club?
It's Sam Martino Preseca over Rosé brute. It is very delicious. Plus. Plus, so let's just start right there.
If somebody wants to get ahold of you to get some of these amazing products, and if you go to Babylon sisters in North Carolina, which you should, you will find plenty of non-spring products all the time. He's one of my favorite reps and he also happens to have amazing products. So how do they get ahold of you directly? can get a hold of me anytime.
You can just use my Instagram at Sean Thalo. S-H-A-W-N, and last name is Thalo T-E-L-O. Okay. Well, so, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show, well, several reasons.
Like I said, since I met you, you have brought so many winakers to my bar to taste with. We did a crazy tasting in Toronto. A limo trip to Toronto, they got a little out of hand. I actually had to, this is a true story.
My wife and I went in the limo trip up, and then we had to take a cab home because the woman who was looking after our dog, the dog escaped, and we had just gotten this dog. It was on pop up, a recipe button. So we had to take a cab home in the rush hour traffic from Toronto, it was for. Yeah, 5.30.
Yeah, about Tuesday. It was a $300. Oh my god. You can use that, actually, with the dog we found, the dog is fine.
So, but that was, that party was already getting a little bit of a call. Yeah, there's a few, you know, a few, a few, a bit of a tear. Yeah, you're having a few too many. Yeah, I'm sorry.
But it was fun. It was very fun. And, but also you wrap up some seriously amazing product. And, but one of the other reasons I wanted to have you on the show that I thought was interesting is you did not start as a rep for spirits or wine.
You started as a rep for food. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
So tell us how you got into that. So it's just a lot of determination, honestly, man. Like I, a lot of kids come out of high school, they don't know what you're doing. No.
I know idea. I went to college for heavy equipment operation. I had no idea. Did that, you know, got a job working construction?
Never operated machinery by the fire. So I don't have to do construction for five years. So what kind of heavy machine are you working on? Like escalators, bulldozers, dump trucks.
Really? But anyway, I worked construction for five years as a labor. So you just dig in holes and wait at the one for concrete and all those other things. I was doing manual labor.
I didn't get a job. The job. Oh. Anyway.
So I was sick and getting laid off every winter. Got my D's edge, driving a truck. So I'm like, I'm going to get a job with the city. That sounds like a good job.
I'm doing still removal or something. Never happened. I ended up working for a food service company, a local food service company, delivering food. Did that for five years?
And I showed some interest. I saw these reps. Well, like what do you guys do all day? It seemed like a different level of customer service.
I don't know what else was drawn to it. So. We're getting a person like I'm sure some of you were like, why am I just driving this drive. I'm just walking this drive.
An opportunity came up and I said, hey, I love a shop, I have no sales experience, but I know the business, I know the food business, I know our customers. So they had to give me a chance and I never looked back from there. So yeah, something I'm kind of interested in because I, like as you know, we've got to know each other, I don't know anything about the back of the house, even though I own a bunch of- Oh really? I don't know shit about food.
That's why I have a source on my kitchen. So I don't know how I never worked on that side. It's never been interesting to me, I like to eat food, but I just don't know that side of the business. So when you're coming to sell, to push your product on, okay, so I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this properly, but like for instance, when you come now, as an inner job as a wine and spirits rep, you have product that I want.
So I'm just like, but there's several different things I can choose from, right? When you- Yeah, that's exclusive. Yeah, it's also exclusive. You only you sell it, right?
So you come, you'll taste the product with me and I'll be like, okay, I like that. That price is something I can move, blah, blah, blah. I need to have it like a head of lettuce. It's hard man, it's a grind and it's so competitive the food world.
It's a lot of good timing. Like you go in, their current supplier just fuck them over. You know, I'm short, chicken wings, whatever I need them today, I'm like, well I can't help you today, but I'm here, give me a shot, can I do it, right? So a lot of it is that.
So you get going, you're gonna be putting in for yourself. It's the hustle, the hustle's gotta be even more, so than what you do now, because like, for now you can make it a point with me, but you wanna taste some shit. Yeah, normally people don't say no to that. It's a little easier with wine, right?
Do you wanna taste some wine? Not most of the time, but it's a bit easier. Most of your shirt, yeah. I can find the time this week to make that work, right?
Like for that, it's like you almost gotta show up at the right time, otherwise you're kind of bothering them. Yeah, it's like, I could beat your price much bigger ones. You know, I could beat your price on bacon. I could beat your, you know, it's a lot of like price.
We try to get them on price on service, but they don't know you, so you can show them service yet, so it's not super appealing to me anymore. Right, but it seems kind of very shitty. It's shady, it's what it is there. Because like, you're, like, because basically the only thing that people in that area would care about are exactly, is that price and service, right?
So, and because you can't show them your service, yeah, it's basically price. You have to drop your pants on price. And then, you know, after a few months roll by, your manager's like, well, your margin's low. You gotta raise it.
So then, you know, you're pressured into, and a lot of it is coming from up top. And the food world, it's just numbers on a spreadsheet, right? You didn't look at the customers or whatever, right? So, a lot of it is, you know, lettuce, lettuce, or whatever produce dropped this week, but no, it didn't, not your customer.
You hold that price. Then you may, you know, it's just a slow burn on things like that to try to raise the margin. Like it's worth getting that business. Yeah, you know, you drop your pants on something in hopes that you could show a good service, good faith, you hold the price as long as possible.
And maybe you could pick up, you know, their dishwasher detergent, or their paper supply, you know, anything else, right? Just try to gain more margin. Because you're selling all that shit too. Yeah, yeah, we sell everything.
Like literally anything a kitchen could need, or a front of house, anything, and sparkling water, chicken wings, brooms, mops. Do you want to tell us what company you work for? I don't think, yeah, I don't think I want to. Okay, no worries.
But like, so, I'm just saying. The relationship didn't end amazing. Cause I actually don't know which company you work for. So, I'm just gonna throw some, like, you're talking about like a Cisco or a GFS or whatever.
Yeah, it's not one of those, but it's, yeah, you wouldn't know, I imagine. Okay, but those are the, so literally, yeah, like these people come to me and are like, we will supply everything you have. Yeah, it's that, those are the main competitions. Right.
So, the GFS. Okay. But then there are like more, like we probably have a conga friend who has, works for just a specific produce company, who like tries to do, I don't know, like, their produce is probably gonna be more expensive because they don't have margins anywhere else, where they can be a volume, right? So, it's more expensive, but they try and do it based on quality.
Right, or service. And they go, hey, it's me and my daughter. We're delivering at the club and like, so that's gonna be a really fun and hard job, like trying to books that, right? Everything, like all the reps in the industry, man, it's just a grind, and it's always a grind, right?
It's really just people trying to put food on their table, right? Like everyone's making a commission, right? All these reps are so, yeah, it's a grind, it's awesome. What's it like going to a chain restaurant and trying to get into the door of that, one of those kind of blushes?
The chains, you gotta have an email contact, you'd be incredibly lucky to run into the person who's a charge decision maker in a chain. Really, we focused on like smaller chains, like, we're talking KS, right? Yeah, like the X-Act, so I might have three or four spots. Exactly.
So for instance, like in KW, like a charcoal group, would that be like, that's a hot target? That would be enough for us, yeah. Everyone knows our busy spot. Is that, and is that, and there's a lot of them now, like they have tons of beer towns, like Del Dante is fucking Bauer, Wild Craft, et cetera, et cetera.
Is it almost too late to get into a place like that now, though, too? Like even in your current job? Oh, yeah. So wine and spirits, man, it's over in terms of new listings, unless there's a new place opening, or again, someone screwed up and they're really pissed.
Generally, man, I'm getting like, I did a few calls last week, a few restaurants in their book, are you serious? And I'm like, it's not, just come back to New Year. I'm like, you know, I respect that. That's my bad.
I should've known. Well, I'm just trying to keep busy, that's all. Sure. And also, like, and we're gonna get into this a little bit as well, but like, this is a brand new job for you.
Like, you're starting, it's the same game, in the same industry, but it's very different. It's pretty different. Yeah, and that's kind of what I was interested in talking about here, is like, because now, you, okay, well, let's just let's just back up. So you're, you did the food sales game for how long?
Three years, five years driver, three years as a rep, then code happened. Right. Lost all my business. I see you, right?
Everyone lost all their business. This was not hot. I remember I 20 grand on the truck. There was a thing, it was a Tuesday when the shutdown happened and all of it came back.
It was like, what's happening? Well, it's not just happening. Even more so for food, right? Because like, for me, like, when my business shut down and because I was towards my kitchen, I didn't have to worry so much about the food product going back.
It's like, you know, a bottle of booze or a bottle of wine last food. I'm glad I ordered this. I'm taking this shit home because we're in lockdown. It was just tap beer.
And like the really good reps, like Wellington, Greg, from Wellington, he's found the show, a big show to hit with. Oh, Greg's about, Greg's listening. Yeah, he is the man. And, but he also like, was like straight up.
He's like, look, have you guys attacked any kegs? We'll take them back. That's not right. It's just fucking amazing.
And those are the companies you remember, right? Of course, they're helping you out. They're, they're, they're not just selling you. And that's what I'm trying to do.
I'm not just selling you something. I want to be your partner. I want to be someone that you can rely on. To be honest, like that's the goal.
We were having a conversation before we started recording about an issue I'm going through right now. It's like, this is like when you burn relationships and this fucking business, man, like it's not worth it. Like it's like that's this whole, the whole business is based on these personal relationships. Like I will.
Yeah, like there's, for instance for me, I probably have 25 different wine agencies trying to sell me wine at any given time. It's insane. Yeah, and like it's like a lot of it is similar. Of course, because it has to be like, like there's certain times around the coin, I'm like, okay, wow, I really love the price you have or I really love the price you're offering this product out.
But it's also like the only thing that matters to me right now are like working with people that I like and making as long as the fucking career is working. I'm not going to get what I ordered. Yeah, three to 40. Yeah, okay, but back to you.
So we're like, so COVID happens then you're like, what the fuck, what am I going to do? Yeah, it was just crazy. And so, yeah, I was a full time commission rep. Oh, like your entire salary's on commission.
Gone. Oh, fuck. So I was on serve, eventually the company I was working for held us out a little bit, but you know, there was a lot going on. And we all got through it.
I'm not complaining. We all went through it, right? Yeah, I don't want it in the world. So it was wild.
I stuck it out for a bit longer. There's a few management changes and we did not gel. I worked with a terrible person that I hope I never get to see again. But yeah, we left on okay terms, but yeah, it did a pit stop in the bakery world.
It was on like a flower and sugar and fillings. But that was not my game. Well, it's gonna be like, have you stopped the career? You do.
I was in the living room. It was not fun for me. It's also like, I think a lot of us, especially after COVID, happen whenever your job is your job. You don't necessarily have to love it.
We just got to make money. But that's got to be hard to get passionate about selling flowers or... It was fucked man. I'm not a technical person.
I'm just kind of a trusted positive. I don't get too detailed. I don't serve things. But the baker's in general are very smart people.
They're like scientists, right? Everything is very technical. And what's the protein level and the flour and the end times? I'm like, dude, I don't know.
You want to have flour? So yeah, it was not for me. And I stuck it over two years. So that's weird.
So you're like going in there and just trying to fake it until you make it like with the math? Yeah, basically man. I mean, at work, I started as a territory manager. I got promoted to key accounts, taking care of big chains.
Law laws, Costco. But at that point, I got worse, man, because to get a listing of them, it takes a year. It's just a lot of emails and grind. It's just like, it's so not for me.
I see what I took that promotion. I was like, that was probably a mistake in terms of my time here because I'm done, man. I'm not doing this anymore. Right.
Because it's like, it must be very frustrating. I'm just like, what is the problem here? Can we just not make this work play? Honestly.
Basically, man. And then my phone rang one day. It was my friend's dad, who I never talked to very rarely. And he's like, hey, I have a buddy who owns a wine agency.
You should call him. He's looking for a rep in your area. I'm like, so do you like that? Who is this guy?
I don't know anything about wine, first of all. I'm like, why are you calling me? Let me just say this at the time. Because this is where we kind of get into how you would have it.
And then you also knew one of our regular friends, James, who's been on the show as well, who runs the internet Babylon and Harpersallian. So you guys had already threw the food again. We did this. Yeah.
Yeah. You threw it through the food. Yeah. So how we came to be is like, you, I'd probably call me a cold email me or whatever.
And I'm like, I just like, I try not to say no to any meetings because I've wasted a lot of my time in shooting meetings 100%. But then there's like the one in 10 that ends up being like, such a good, it worked out so well. That's just like, it's totally worth it to do it. Right.
If I can make it happen, I'm trying to make it happen. So especially once I was whatever, like let's say some wine, sure. But I was surprised when you showed up. And you were very honest right away.
It was like, look, I'm doing this job. I'm a wine wrap now. I was a food wrap. Yeah.
I'm just knocking on doors, man. And that was the only way, man. Like if I was pretending like I was a smelly, I would have been made to look like a fool, right? Yeah.
It's better just to be honest. You know, I know a bit. You know, these products, probably not as much as I should at this point. But let's just talk there.
Just the wine. If you like it, we can get more into detail, right? Well, that's good that you're on the front though, right? I think it's.
It's a huge difference to me because I was just like, OK, this guy doesn't know anything. And you didn't. I knew nothing. I knew nothing.
I was not obviously something. You're like, you know, like, yeah. That was rough, man. That's sweating, man.
But it was like, but you brought a shit on a wine, which is always great. I know what he minds that. And then it's like, yeah. And so I went back and played.
We started drinking it. You were just like popping bottles. And like, you just got chatting. And it was like, OK, this guy's a good dude.
Like, I can tell he doesn't really know. But like, but your product was good. And like, you were very honest about the whole thing, which I think made a huge difference, right? Like, say I was a sales at the end of the day.
Yeah. But you can run into a live. And then you and I talked about this before, too, like running into like people are just like taking it too fucking seriously. Oh my gosh.
And then that's where it must be for you. But also, like, let's talk about like going into that. He must have been so intimidated. Totally, man.
Oh my god. I was literally sweating. Like, I don't know if it was visible. But like, I was it's scary, man.
Like, I didn't know anything about like nothing. I was like, you know, grief was a grave? No, I knew that. I knew that.
No, it was nerve-wracking. And I learned a lot from doing tastings, even though it was scary, doing tastings with yourself and people in the region. And just listening to what they were saying. Oh, it's OK.
It's OK. Or oh, this is dry. Like, I don't know anything, man. But I've learned a lot.
Mm-hm. And I've actually gained a passion for it. It's cool to me. It's interesting to me.
Well, how long have you been doing that? One year. Like, yeah, a few weeks ago is one year. Quick study, man, because without having taken really any courses or anything like that, obviously, you pay attention on the fucking meetings.
Because I was saying to the other day, last time I tasted, I think, that I was just like very impressed by how much you had learned in such a short period of time from the time we tasted the first time to the last time we tasted. And I'm like, you don't have to taste what anyone's got. I appreciate that. You mean when you said that, it's a lot.
I've been working my ass off. Yeah, well, it shows. And it's good. Because I was like, I actually just kind of thought it was funny.
He's like, dude, he's got this job. He's honest about it. He's got good products. Slaying 30 bottles on a taste.
Yeah. I'm just like, good on him. And the wine's good. I'm not going to buy shitty wine.
But I could just tell you gave a fuck. And you wanted to make a personal connection. And those personal connections are what matters in this business. And then now you fucking put in the work.
And you kind of, you know your shit now. I appreciate that. I got to give credit to Trei and Michi, man. And you got to give a shout out to Vertical Wine Group.
Both of those brands, excuse me, both of those agencies. They do, a lot of winemakers come to town. Yeah. And they treat these winemakers like family.
They come in the town. They stay at the owner's house. Right. They come to the office.
We'll open all their bottles. The winemaker will talk to everyone. They're vineyards, how they make wine. And that's hard.
They're the lot, man. On top of listening to people during day things. Just listening to these winemakers. Like, it's nothing better than hearing, you know, the story come out of their mouth.
People who made the damn wine. Well, and I will say that I think that, like, even in the entire time that I've been doing this, which is a very long time, I don't think that anyone has brought as many winemakers to my bar to taste it. Yeah. Like, or?
That's interesting to me. Yeah. Not maybe surprised how few people actually doing that. So I don't say something about your agency.
I know. I feel like I stumbled just somehow into this agency that, I mean, they're great people first of all. But it's also like a really good place to work. How do you get them to give you the job?
They call me, man. Yeah. But like, yeah, like a family connection or whatever. A friend connection.
But then like when you're in there in the interview, and you're like, I don't know shit about wine, but he just honest with them? Yeah. He's like, you know, I don't need a small yay to sell wine. You need to be able to sell.
Like, period. If you could sell, you could sell. He's hired, so arms up. They can't sell.
You know, they get too detailed or whatever. They want to sell the weirdest wine that they have, which we've got some funky wines. But those are slow movers. Like, we're in the business to move volume.
Yeah. Obviously we want to move volume. And we want to sell the high-end stuff too. Yeah, yeah.
Well, you have, I mean, you're agency has a shit on a product between a vertical and a tray. Yeah. But it's also like, yeah, I'm always surprised when there's like a new one you bring mine. I'm like, how about that?
That's right. This one, yeah. But there's so much. Because you skip through it on the list.
But you have on the list. It's just words, right? But then you see the bubbles or the wine maker, right? The thing I always use when I'm like, when people are like, oh, can you come and taste?
Can I come and taste with you? I'm like, yeah. And then it's always like, well, what are you interested in? I'm like, no, I don't want to hear that question.
What I want is for you to bring me some interesting shit. I love that, man. Now that I know something, I love it when people say that. Because I've tasted so many wines, even the portfolio.
I'm like, all right. I'm going to blow this person's mind. You know what I mean? And I'm also like, honestly, don't have time to go through like on the list the size of yours and be like, oh, I was super interested in the Oregon Pinot Noir for just this winery.
It's one line. I have 500 line lists. I saw that. It was so out to me.
Yeah. Exactly. You tell me what's good. Yeah.
Yeah. And then, because then I think what happens is if you bring some shit to me, then we'll start out in the conversation. And then we start talking about, and I never, like then you make a connection. Like, I never think the first taste is going to be the best one.
It's going to be the conversation starter. I'm like, OK, you kind of get what we're doing here. You brought some cool shit. And then now we start talking.
And we're like, OK, so kind of what I'm trying to do here is this. And then the next time you come, it's a little more targeted. Right? So I get to know them, get to know what they like, or what they need or what they're missing.
Or like, in my case, the worst part is everybody knows what I like. So they're spraying me all that. Anybody? Anything?
Anything? I was going to wipe my throat a snake. Yeah. I know.
And then I got to remind myself, no, the whole line list is not for you. What's the France on there, Dan? Like, you guys bringing all the different producers? It's super awesome.
Because it's smart for you guys as well. Because it's very difficult for me to be like, OK, this guy from the winery came to my bar and tasted with me. How am I not going to buy that? How am I going to buy something?
It does tend to work out. And it's not. For me, it's not about just selling new stuff. I want to show you, if it was a crappy wine producer, I wouldn't ask to come.
I mean, I have places like that. And it's not disrespect. Like, all wine has a spot on the list. But yeah, when someone comes, it's totally hard not to buy stuff.
Yeah, yeah. I can eat them personally. And generally, of course, they're trying to sell their product as well. But anyone who's making the effort to come from France or Italy or Germany or anywhere from Europe or wherever made that whole trip down, Spain, we get a lot of people like that to talk to you about their specific wine.
It's like, you've got to give them respect, right? It's crazy. Like you think about it like this guy came from Spain. He made the wine.
Now he's in Ontario, Canada. He's pouring you his wine. And he's working his ass off to try to get you to taste his wine. And maybe you'll list it.
That's how much they can. They want to sell you a case of wine, right? They want you to taste the wine. And then your customers taste the wine.
It's crazy when you think about that. This person came from halfway across the world. Just maybe fucking two people. There's my list of wine for a week.
Yeah, here's my question. So those guys, the producers, I come in. Did someone at the agency would fly in or was it a combination of agencies that might kind of get together or who have a common relationship with this guy and say, now let's all get together and get this person to show up? So in Ontario, if trade and HE reps a certain winery, no one else can, including the LCBO.
Oh, OK. So somebody else can be over here. Or an LCBO, you know, pack size. Yeah, it can't be anywhere else.
Yeah. We have it. No one else can have it. So these people, they kind of, they're planning out, right?
So they have customers in North America to agency. So they'll plan it out that way and make it all safer to weeks usually. I guess you could just like, is that on their dime or your dime? It's on their dime.
OK. I'm 90% strong. Right. Yeah.
Maybe you guys supplement something like you said. They say it's on their dime, right? Yeah, they say it's on their dime. You know, Gerard, he's a good guy.
I mean, he'll wind and dine these people at really nice spots in downtown Toronto. Like, he's a good man and I regard for sure. So what is like, like, clear strategy for, like, it's very difficult game. What you're doing, because there are, like, I just talked to you earlier about, like, how there's, you know, maybe 20, 25 people who are trying to get my business at all time.
I didn't think about that when I first started. Yeah. I was like, there's no presence in KW. There's no presence.
I'm going to dominate. I'm going to take everything. I did not know that. Yeah.
That's a lot. Yeah. So how do you make your, I guess what I'm asking in a strange way is, like, how do you make yourself stand out? How do you rep your agency in a way that, like, what do you focus on?
I'm not going to bring in the charcoal group anymore. It's too late. So you got to concentrate on small spots like mine. So is that more of a hustle?
Like, is it currently, like, right now? Right now is a weird time being, like, late November, because you're not going to get any new listings because restaurants are busy with holiday parties. This is a busy season right now. It's now until, you know, January, even for late holiday bookings for yourself.
So right now, for me, it's a focus on just fulfilling orders. I don't deliver the product, but I, you know, I will an adventure. Of course, if there's a screw up, but more so right now, I'm trying to focus on private business because we could sell wine to anyone. Right.
Because I'll want to, you're dentist. You could sell wine to the huge construction company. So we have a holiday gift and guide out right now. Lots of great stuff.
So that's, that's the focus now, just because you're not going to get any new business right now. In terms of licensee. So yeah, I was just trying to to busy. So when you, like, we talked about, like earlier, and I know him very well and like, he is on the fucking agency website, nonstop, finding out who's getting a new liquor license all the time.
He can tell you this track. So you can get in there. So yeah, he always, like, he'll always nice to you. Like, who buy opening here?
Who buy opening here? Right? Right? Of course he does that.
Yeah. But yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.
So like, maybe I'm giving you a lot of the idea. But you're not going to do it. You're not going to do it anyway. So no worries.
No, no. We could partner, man. Yeah. But I'll check it for weed shops all the time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, for instance, how do you reach out to me?
You always want to own your backyard, right? Yeah. Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge. I want to dominate in this region, right?
This is where I live. I want to go out. And I want to drink the wine that I brought you, right? Yeah.
So it was all, and I still do it now. It's just a lot of driving around. I know the region, right? So I drive around.
OK. This is a good area. I'll town Waterloo. Sure.
I'll park. And I'll just grab a stack of portfolios. And I'll just walk around and literally just knock knock. Hey, Sean, I'm trading me.
You want to book a tasting. Right. And it was really that simple. Man, just kind of knocking down doors, getting told to fuck off a lot.
Getting some good responses sometimes. But yeah, it's a lot of projection. It's some positive feedback. So yeah.
I think it takes, obviously, all of our, like, my job is sales as much as your job is sales, but in a very different way. People are coming to you wanting to spend money. That's right. So ideally.
I always trust like that. But for you, you are almost like the stereotypical door to door sales, right? Yeah, I hate that term. But it is when you're trying to develop a territory, I received the territory with almost nothing.
Right. So I had to, it was literally cold calling all day. Money to Friday. And it's a lot like there's some weeks and where there's some weeks where you just, every door you knock on is like, you're an idiot.
No, you're here. Not an idiot. And you're made to feel like an idiot. It's like a little fucking idiot.
It's like a little fucking idiot. Yeah. And it goes the other way too, right? There's a lot of good weeks and you're like, fucking right.
I made the right decision. But it's like a roller coaster, right? Yeah. It takes a certain person and to just kind of forget about the bad experiences or the bad, like cold calls, right?
Yeah. Well, we have cold calling restaurants. What time do you cold calls? Do you want to call it too early, obviously?
Yeah, you want to be too early because you're called during the lunch rush, of course. Yeah. You don't want to go during the dinner rush. Yeah.
It's like a 130, 130 might be even a little early, but 130 to like four. A few places could be there, you know, 10, 30 to 11. But there's a lot of trap work that goes into it as well, right? So you just take it past the first person too, right?
Yeah. Especially when you're new. I remember even in my food days doing the first call, I was so fucking scared, man. Like, it's scary.
What do you think? Like, did you do it? Do you think you could want to introduce yourself? You'd be like, hey, man.
I got something. I remember my very first job at the university, working for the government, and having to make a cold call for someone to just get some information. I was just like running my hand, like, oh my god, what do I do? What do I do?
And that was a totally different impact. So we don't even have to wait until they get a sale. I had to ask for information. I had to ask for sale.
I asked for your money. Yeah. It's so different. You're definitely thinking about it that way.
It's crazy. Yeah. Going back to what I was saying, too, it's like hard to get to know that you've gotten to the real decision maker. Like, who is the person who actually is going to pull the trigger on buying your product?
I mean, a lot of the stakes in what early days doing that. I mean, I'm talking to the wrong person, wasting, you know, multiple meetings. We need product, probably sometimes. Yeah.
I'll bring this up to my manager. I'm like, what? Fuck. It's not a credit app.