Sandra Beals


About Sandra Beals

Sandra Beals, founder of DTC Wine Workshops and the DTC Consultant Network, is a subject matter specialist and public speaker on the topics of direct to consumer wine sales and consumer engagement strategies.

Get to the 2nd Direct Wine Sale with these Top Three Tools

[February 29, 2024 – Sandra Beals] How do high-performing winery teams across the nation, increase visitation, grow consumer contact lists and build brand loyalists year after year? At DTC Wine Workshops, we teach every member of the direct to consumer team to focus on the second sale and beyond to […]


Direct Wine Sales Specialists – 2024 Web Trainings

[January 24, 2024 – Sandra Beals] A group of Direct Wine Sales Specialists with the DTC Consultant Network have teamed up to provide live web training sessions in 2024. Winery owners, stakeholders, managers, and frontline staff will obtain much needed skills to remain relevant and grow consumer contact lists. Winery […]


2023 Direct Wine Sales Key Learnings & 2024 Training Tools

[December 27, 2023 – Sandra Beals] Our clients have much to celebrate as we wind down a year focused on strengthening and building in the direct wine space. I am pleased to share these 2023 Direct Wine Sales Key Learnings. We worked together to build “Wine Consumer Journey Maps” in […]


DTCWW Good to Great Series #8 – Rethink Winery Events

[November 29, 2023 – Sandra Beals] As our clients prepare for 2024 visitation, now is the time to rethink the WHY behind winery events. Today, most wine brands don’t have the luxury of hosting the same event five years in a row as loyalists want to be intrigued and inspired […]


Winery Talent Retention in the New Normal

[February 10, 2022] Sandra Hess, founder of DTC Wine Workshops spoke at the Wine Industry Leadership Conference yesterday. This online program was sponsored by Wine Business Network and panelists included Joel A. Miller, Owner & Principal / Chateau HR Consulting; and Karen Alary, Managing Partner / The Personnel Perspective. Stace […]


The Top DTC Wine Sales Tools of 2021

[Sandra Hess – December 30, 2021] ✓ Updated Communication Tools to Better Connect with Wine Brand Loyalists On December 9th, Constant Contact published a report detailing the average email open rates by industry type. The Retail/Direct Selling category shows an average open rate of 18.7% with a click-through rate of […]


How WELCOMING is your DTC Wine Brand?

As we prepare our Thanksgiving tables for time with family and friends, we also have an opportunity to thank long-term loyalists and top consumers. When we analyze key data points for a variety of winery clients across the nation, we identify key measures of success as well as areas for […]


Top 5 Tools for Developing Effective DTC Wine Compensation Plans

[Sandra Hess – October 12, 2021 – DTC Wine Sales Blog] Tool #1 – Start at the Top The January 2020 Pandemic taught us a lot about being nimble and adjusting. During this time of pandemic recovery, most wine regions throughout the US have suffered from staff shortages. We have […]


Ready to Offer Winery Concierge Services? Key Questions to Consider…

[Sandra Hess – August 19, 2021 – San Francisco, CA] With about 65% of US wineries falling into the “small (up to 5000 cases produce annually)” and “very small (up to 2500 cases produced annually)” categories, wine enthusiasts want more intimacy with brands they reinvest with. Over the past four […]


Developing All-Star Hospitality Teams

[Sandra Hess – July 27, 2021 – San Francisco, CA] As the US wine industry continues to recover from the 2020 pandemic, most of our clients are struggling to find qualified talent for both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house-positions. We have spent quite a bit of time updating job descriptions and training […]


Three Pillars of DTC Wine Sales Success

[June 8, 2021 – Santa Rosa, CA] On May 26th, Sandra Hess, Consumer Engagement Specialist and founder of DTC Wine Workshops, moderated an insightful discussion, for Wine Industry Network at the virtual Wine Industry Symposium. She brought together Efrain Barragan – Director of Digital Marketing, Cliff Family Winery St Helena, […]


Tasting Room Tip Lines – YEA or NAY?

[May 7, 2021 – Sandra Hess, DTC Wine Workshops Expert Editorial] Greetings wine industry friends! I have been asked to develop an article best approaches to developing tasting room tip policies. This question has come up quite often during the past five years as we have helped winery teams across […]


DTC Wine Sales Health Check – 3 FREE TIPS

March 24, 2021 – This spring, we encourage our clients and direct-to-consumer teams to carve out some time to conduct a DTC Wine Sales Health Check. Now, is the time to analyze performance across all direct sales channels, reward for success and, course-correct where needed. Many hospitality teams have learned […]


DTC Wine Leadership Forum Launches Spring 2021

Winery Leaders and Trend Setters Across the Nation Join this Private Group for a Monthly Problem-Solving Session in the Virtual Space [February 3, 2021 – Northern California] Members of the DTC Consultant Network, a division of DTC Wine Workshops, have been serving winery teams in almost every major wine region […]