“How to Get U.S. Market-Ready” is my new book that provides practical solutions for export wine and spirit brands looking to enter the American market. The goal of the book is to help new-to-the-U.S. producers avoid making the same mistakes others have made before them, again, for the first time.
The book will be officially published and initially available in pdf form on Nov. 26 concurrent with my presentation at Wine2Wine in Verona. Click here to register for pre-orders.
Readers looking for a successful strategy for approaching the U.S. market should be prepared to let go of preconceived ideas and be open to new ways of thinking. While the American market is known to be challenging, the thesis of this book is that producers need to apply creative thinking, smart data-driven decisions tempered with flexibility to be successful.
Based on my decades of experience in the business you’ll find answers to many of the questions that export producers face:
- What is the best market for me to start with? (Probably not what was your first choice.)
- How do I price my product and what are “normal” margins within the Three-Tier system? (How come everybody else seems to be making more on product than I am?)
- How do I find the right importer? (At least 10 different options, 6 of which you probably never heard of.)
- How can I get a distributor to pay attention to my brand when it represents a small piece of their portfolio? (Competition is fierce, so you must stand out, but how?)
The book contains proprietary tools that I’ve developed to help exporters understand the American market and make the best decisions. These are presented in the text and also will be accessible as excel spreadsheets on the book’s website. Two of the most useful include one on price structure and one on picking the right markets.
Another notable section of the book focuses on changes in the government regulations. The U.S. wine and spirits market is controlled by a crazy mix of archaic regulations. There are several examples of creative, non-traditional solutions that capitalize on the insider knowledge which the author shares.
“How to Get U.S. Market-Ready” is packed with information readers can put to use immediately. It is broken into small sections making it easy to read and digest. And it’s peppered with the author’s hard-won wisdom, compelling anecdotes and passionate advice making it an interesting and fun read.
