Wine telesales firm uncorks growth

SANTA ROSA – A startup wine telemarketing company is tripling the size of its offices and adding salespeople to fill a need from high-end North Coast producers to further develop direct-to-consumer sales amid sluggishness in other sales channels in recent months.

Provino Premium Wines is set to relocate April 27 from 703 Second St. in downtown Santa Rosa to part of the former Countrywide Home Loans call center in the Summit State Bank building at 500 Bicentennial Way. The new space in the north of the city will accommodate 25 people.

Since launching in April 2008 and selling the first case a month later, Jeff Stevenson, 45, and Richard Brucker, 54, have grown Provino from six contract salespeople to 12 full-time and three on contract. According to them, they’ve sold $1 million in wine. That includes bottles purchased from 80 producers and as well as half a dozen of the initial client vintners that have hired Provino to act as sales agents in approaching the producers’ club members as well as the company’s connections with other wine lovers.

“If the economy were not as bad as it is, we would not have had this opportunity, because traditional sales channels are full,” Mr. Stevenson said. “This particular channel gives more margin to the winery than the traditional three-tier system.”

“We become a salesforce multiplier,” said Mr. Brucker, vice president of sales and marketing as well as a seasoned wine telemarketer.

Shocks to the financial system connected to the current economic recession also have made it a tough time to raise capital for expansion, according to the founders. Mr. Stevenson, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and Mr. Brucker funded the first year of business themselves, making it last via bootstrap methods such as free software from Microsoft’s BizSpark program, $100 computers purchased from eBay and an $8,000 Dell computer server picked up for $750.

They tried getting a U.S. Small Business Administration Patriot Express low-rate loan for entrepreneurial veterans, but had trouble finding a willing lender after the stock market meltdown last fall. Then in late 2008, Exchange Bank of Santa Rosa offered an unsecured six-figure line of credit. In February the bank increased the loan.

The bank also has introduced some of its winery customers to Provino. The company has deepened its connections over the past year with its logistics and order-fulfillment provider, Windsor-based Pack n’ Ship Direct, a joint venture between Sonoma County Vintners Cooperative and Adler Fels Winery owner Adams Wine Group.

“They approached us with the idea of optimizing current wine club sales for wineries as well as buying and selling wines for multiple wineries,” said Truman Reynolds, vice president of Adams and general manager of the fulfillment company. “We’ve seen quite a few people walk through the door saying they wanted to do that. I was skeptical, but Provino has achieved a lot and has a lot of traction.”

Mr. Reynolds joined Provino’s board of directors in early April.

Part of the attraction for Provino is the emphasis on full-case orders, which make up 98 percent of sales volume, according to Mr. Stevenson. Rather than ship a few bottles at a time, as has been common with club shipments historically, Provino compiles many orders until there is enough for a 12-bottle case, but that required inventory problem-solving with Pack n’ Ship to warehouse the orders until shipment.

Wineries that have brought on Provino as a sales agent start the company off with both active and inactive club members. Contact with those members, as well as the company’s proprietary network of “referrals,” can provide a vintner with in-depth information on consumer preferences and bolster bonds with the brand, according to Mr. Brucker.

Paul Schwartz of NAI BT Commercial brokered Provino’s first and new leases.

For more information, call 877-993-4141 or visit www.provinowines.com.