Written by Happy New Year-Feliz Ano Nuevo!
I’ve been thinking quite a bit the past few days about what I want to continue talking about as business at Uncorked Ventures changes forever in the next few days. Given the new year I considered writing about some of my goals for the new year whether those are business related (wine club members, export time tables) or interpersonal (blogging more often, continuing to be open about our business) or even personal.
I realized after watching Julie and Julia with my wife that one of the reasons people are interested in blogs is because they give you some insight into a person’s life. I don’t ever want this space to become a corporate blog that sounds like a series of press releases or marketing pieces. Frankly, when I see those types of blogs I don’t go back and read them ever again. A generation ago being able to interact in this type of medium was unheard of, but why not embrace it completely?
So, in short order some of my resolutions for the new year:
-To blog each work day, even if it is 5 sentences long.
-To interact with my readers more, what are you interested in hearing about this business?
-To continue building lasting friendships.
-To appreciate all that my wife does each and every day.
-To Export a container of wine at some point in 2010.
-To build a wine club list of the most satisfied members in the industry.
Ok, so what are we doing today? Fun stuff actually, we’re working to set up our affiliate program. Excuse the marketing talk for a while but an affiliate program is basically a way for a web based company to gain a sales force that you pay only based on sales (commission basically).
In this case, if you find an Uncorked Ventures wine club or wine gift that you like by coming through a different site, like the Wine Club Directory we pay that website owner a commission.
It’s a simple set up and frankly we’re excited to get started. Given our ability to purchase wine directly from wineries, instead of going through a distributor like most, if not all of, our competitors we can offer affiliates a generous commission without sacrificing quality to our customers.