Ep. 1044 Joe Catalano And Glenn Langberg | Get US Market Ready With Italian Wine People

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode has been brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth of twenty twenty two in Verona Italy. This year will be an exclusively in person edition. The main theme of the event will be all around wine communication. And tickets are on sale now. The first early bird discount will be available until August twenty second. For more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Thanks for tuning in to Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people on the Italian wine podcast. I'm Steve Ray, your host. And this podcast features interviews with the people actually making a difference in the Italian wine market in America, their experiences, challenges, and personal stories, and I'll be adding a practical focus to the conversation based on my thirty years in the business. So if you're interested in not just learning how, but also how else, then this pod is for you. Hi. This is Steve Ray, and welcome to this week's edition of Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people on the Italian wine podcast. I'm pleased to have as guests this week, Glenn Langberg, and Joe Catalano of Siemens beverage, gentlemen. Welcome aboard. Good morning. Thanks for having us today. We really appreciate it. One of the points I make in my intro to the show is the podcast is not just about how, but how else things can get done in the US market. And I think that's very apropos of what Siemens beverage is all about because they know how to do the how, but they also know how to solve problems. And so many times in the beverage alcohol business in the US, it's all about solving problems. So why don't I turn it over to Glenn and and why don't you give us a summary of what Siemens is all about and what roles you play. Sure. We are we are, we give people a tone integrated solution for logistics from where products are made to which to where they have sold. And that involves every step of the way from the logistics, financing, regulatory compliance, and also dealing with, threat, distributor, and import licenses having people come into US and sell throughout the US. I think currently we're dealing in twenty nine countries, and we deliver it to virtually the entire US on a regular basis. So, we we're here to solve solutions for customers. We really have no two customers that have the same needs, and we provide everything on a turnkey basis, which really leaves them up only to deal with the sales and marketing of their products the US, virtually everything else that you can think of, that would be, a service we we would we would offer on the umbrella. And what's interesting, I think, whether someone's a newbie or whether they're experienced in the industry, there's all kinds of hiccups that nobody anticipates We're always coming across new things where somebody says, no, you can't do that because you don't have this document or you haven't fulfilled that requirement or whatever it happens to be. That can be very frustrating for a lot of people, but each one of those becomes an opportunity if you look at it correctly. Yeah. One of the things too that I'd like to add is that we just don't send a rate sheet out to people. One of my complaints or comments I get from people is we like to understand what the requirements are and then fit the proposal to the requirements. What I get from a lot of people is that I just get a rate sheet, and I don't know if my needs can be addressed with this rate sheet. So we try to personalize the quoting process to understand their needs and requirements before we just throw a figure out to them. Alright. Well, let's put this into context. I think that the headline that I use with people is, you guys are a service importer. And by that, I mean, primarily focus, focused on doing the back office stuff that needs to be done. Oftentimes, I'm working and you're working with people who have never brought brands to the United States. Sometimes They're people who do have experience doing it, but each time they do it, and each entity that they're doing it with has different sets of requirements. If people can't articulate what their needs are other than I need help bringing my brand to the US, How do you guys approach that from the very beginning when someone is essentially a newbie? They don't know what questions to ask. Joe? Yeah. Well, I do go down the list because you're absolutely right. Some people don't even understand that they have to get their product, that they need a cola, and they they need to get their product through customs and then, you know, from the port to the warehouse before they can even sell it. So I do have a a laundry list of questions to ask people, especially people that have not been in the United States as of yet, and we go down the list. Do you have this? Do you have that? And I think it's, insightful for many of these people to understand that there's a lot of aspects we have to go through. And then I tell them what can you do and what do you want us to do? Some people feel I can handle the freight because, I have so and so handling all my freight in Italy okay. Well, what about US customs? I don't have anybody for that. So we go down the list of all the steps necessary from getting the product from the winery, including getting the cola, getting the labels printed, getting the glass in the cartons these days too, right from the winery. And how does it come through the process, the supply chain, and end up at our dock so we could put it into our warehouse for them to, to produce orders so we can ship them against them? So this is great. I'm really interested in, let's call it a checklist of things. Is this something that you would share publicly, or is this something you just keep on your desk and ask questions of people, who are calling you? I generally just have it on my desk you know, sometimes I I put it in an email to them, you know, I give them some of the bullet points, but I do find that email is great and text messaging is great, but there's no substitution for a a phone call, at least the, preferably a Zoom type of call face to face because once you go down the list, it also stimulates other questions that they may have on how to do something. Well, that's great. And in fact, it's one of the reasons I wrote my book, which is what the podcast is all about, get US market ready, to, give a a real perspective, a very detailed perspective on what's required to bring a brand to market. And that's kind of the basic, how piece. And you guys have a document that you share with prospective clients. And, maybe you can describe that to me and also, mention how people can get a copy of it. So that they can get a perspective on what the what they're walking into. Sure, Steve. Basically, once I get an inquiry from a customer and we either exchange some emails or even a phone call to understand their interest. I generally supply them with an overview document, two documents. One's a teaser, one's a presentation that has a little bit more detail. That stimulates their thought process on what they may need to bring their product into the United States, as well as what services can Siemens beverage offered to them. This allows them to really think through a lot of what they need to, to do to get their product into the United States. And once it's here, what do they need to do? I think the documents are pretty much helpful to outline the necessary requirements that we can then move to a quote process based on their individual needs and requirements. Okay. So as I was mentioned earlier, there's there's the basic house stuff, which I imagine that this presentation captures, but it also highlights the how else stuff that needs to be looked at because of the uniquenesses or peculiarities of any given prospective client's needs. I often find that they're not able to articulate what those needs are. But as you talk them through it, you can identify the things that they understand, don't understand, and what needs to be explained. So here's the problem I find a lot. And, questions to you guys and how you deal with it. Oftentimes, I'll be dealing with somebody who really has very little knowledge of the US hasn't exported. And really needs a basic education on what the US market is all about. That takes a lot of time. And short of spending, two hours and giving a whole lecture, that's basically why I wrote the book. How do you handle it when somebody is like a babe in the woods, a newbie, someone who has no experience in exporting to the US market may have exported elsewhere in the EU, but, new to the US. Well, Steve, you're absolutely right. Many, many times, especially people that aren't bringing the product into the United States at this point have very little idea of all the necessary steps that they need to take. And then once they get it here and we go through all those process, which really is our core, our core competencies. What do they do once they get it here? Are they gonna be selling retailers? Who is selling the retailers? Are they gonna be selling distributors in other states? Well, how do you sell distributors in other states? Many of these don't understand that you need specific registrations in each state, and we gotta walk them through not only how you do it, but how will they end up executing a plant to sell their product? This is where it gets very, very complicated because most of them then say I don't have a plan yet. Okay. So the question I'm still asking is I understand it's complicated. I understand what you do. The challenges How do you how can you afford to spend the time to educate somebody at this point in the process and and do it without scaring them off? That's usually what happens when I start with my lectures. Well, the answer is is that some people may get scared off, but they have to have the reality of understanding what has to be done. Now in our position, we have a whole host of different referrals of different people that may be able to assist them in the selling process. In many times, I linked them up. I mean, the last thing we really want people to do is bring their product here and have it sit. Okay. Okay. We're a warehouse, but we don't want product to sit. We want product to move. So the last thing I really want somebody to do is bring a container of goods here and then third twelve months later have the same good sitting in our warehouse. We wanted to sell it, and we tried to link them up to to people that can help them. Okay. Glenn, you have a comment? Yeah. I I think, yeah, since we're offering people a value club as position. Will you offer a turnkey solution kind of take away that spirit feeling that people have coming into the marketplace? Because we do take care of all of the possible needs that Dylan would have. Literally everything. So let's let let's cut to the chase though, and let's use an example. And I'll use one that I have some familiarity with. We'll leave the producer's name out of it. It was not from Italy. But they came to the market, and they really needed sales services. You were able to get them through to the point where the product was, the cola was registered and all the other things were done. Now what, somebody has to sell it to a distributor. Can you talk about how you solve that problem. Right. I I call it our ecosystem. We have a large number of customers who are distributors, producers, importers, basically any name you can associate with any anyone who brings product into the United States, and we arrange for people to talk to each other. You know, there's there's lots of people out there who may consider picking up additional products If they need to get their own sales licenses in New York and New Jersey, we arranged for that. So people decide they have their own reps in the US, we can make rep we can we can help them, deal with those issues as well. So sometimes people are choosing their own reps they wanna use. Sometimes we're introducing into other parties, but we have what we call a whole host of sale solutions under one roof. And that's been hap that's basically been the, I guess the magic of our growth. We're growing at a we we are the fastest growing logistics firm in the United States and and wanting a spirit. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that customers continue to do better, and we do make every effort to try and support them. You know, there's sometimes we'll offer financing to help them if they need that for, you know, some phases of growth under the right conditions. But, you know, largely, our our business is aligned with our customers' business. The more cases they move, the better they do, the more cases we move, the better we do. So we align our interests, and we also try and teach clients how to do things like cross docking. We have a number of customers who bring things in according to how they're gonna be shipped out. Right now logistics is a very challenging issue for almost every company in the industry. And, you know, anything you can do to be more efficient to save on shipping costs to save on, trucking costs to save on labor costs, you know, throughout the supply chain is very, very important. So we do make efforts to explain to people to the extent they're able to do it. You know, how they can can get better course structures throughout the system and how they can be more efficient, having them look at, you know, what the cost would be of importing larger quantities. There's generally a lower unit cost associated with it. And, you know, we also try to assist them where they can in terms of getting other, channels for distribution. So, it's kind of all the it's it's everything under umbrella that we kind of present to them. But we also, we also do it in a very efficient manner. They don't have to go to multiple companies. They can do it all into one roof from where it's made to where it's sold. We help that process. You know, from soup to nuts, we do everything. And if they need back office, administration, and and support, if they need, outsource CFO, what's called the frac's old CFO, we can offer those services as well. So we try to make it as easy as possible. Given the fact that it is a complicated, highly regulated industry, we try to distill it down into a much simpler model for them to get their audio. So you mentioned cross docking. Can you give us a specific example of what that term means and a practical example of how you managed to help them either reduce costs or speed up delivery or whatever? The benefits might have been. Yeah. Quest stocking is when a product is shipped in the container in the way that it's going to be shipped out to the ultimate destination once it hits our dock. So in a lot of ways, if they can do proper demand planning and be in a position where it's best possible, you know, sometimes it's not a hundred percent, as much as they can, have palettes ready to go back out in the condition in which they need to be shipped to a customer in the US that saves tremendous amount of labor. You know, you could be talking, I don't know, fifteen, twenty percent reduction in cost. Just on people doing cross docking because there's the handling of individual cases unloading, loading, and being able to do that also allows them to turn their inventory over much more efficiently. And we see people who don't really carry large inventories that they basically ship in the inventory in Palocks that are ready to go back out. And they really have a they do have a reserve inventory, but certainly a lot less than it would be otherwise. And part of the process is trying to develop programs, you know, it could be volume discounts to customers. Sometimes people don't understand that a volume discount might actually be less expensive for them because they're cutting down a number of times they're shipping. And they may be able to get a customer to carry more inventory because of the special deal that they're giving. So it's a combination of negotiating with the end customer. They have in the US, dealing with how they have it packaged to be put into the container. And, you know, so that when we receive it, there's it's as little additional deconstruction and reconstruction of ballots as possible. That's a real good example of that. How else? And, finding efficiencies in the system that they may not even know are inefficiencies in the system. Would that apply to individual producers with multiple SKUs, or is that in terms of consolidated containers or both? Are you enjoying this podcast? There's so much more high quality wine content available for mama jumbo shrimp. Check out our new wine study maps. Our books on Italian wine including Italian wine unplugged, the jumbo shrimp guide to Italian wine, Sanjay, Lambrusco, and other stories, and much much more. On our website, mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Now back to the show. I'll give you a exam it's really both. I'll give you a recent example that we have a client that basically pre sold their inventory. It was coming from a handful of wineries, although they did have a consolidator that the wineries would ship it to the consolidator in Italy, and and put it together. What they were doing was I'm just gonna give you a hypothetical example where they may have had ten ten destinations in the United States. With twelve hundred cases, a full container. What they were doing is bringing the container in here, then giving us orders, we would unload it, we would stack the orders, then ship them out. What What I told them might be since this is all pre sold is to have the winery and the consolidator put the orders together on that side of the ocean and have what I call a license plate on there giving the exam, the, the, the purchase order number, the destination customer. So what we don't have to do then is break down those cases putting them on a separate pal to ship them out. They actually come in all pre ordered right to the destination of the customer, we basically take them, put them in a slot location in the staging area, waiting for a trucker to pick them up to take to that distributor. That, that saved them money because we gave them what what we call a cloth stock program, which doesn't doesn't that enables us not to individually break down and pick orders. They're picked on the other side. And, they come in self contained, sealed with license plates on, where they're going, we just sort them, and then we call the truckers to pick them up and take them to their final destination. Brilliant. And I think, the the real added value there, a lot of people, when I I ask and the first question I ask is tell me about your tell me about your your brand, your product, and what you're doing, and they, always start off, although I make a really great, whatever, Bruno, or whatever it happens to be. But this is an example where the value add has absolutely nothing to do with the product itself or the individual skews. Necessarily. It's a better service to the person to whom you're selling it to. You're selling it through Siemens and potentially to and then through to a distributor. It makes it easy for them. Well, that's what they want out of life. They don't wanna have to deal with another importer who doesn't understand how to find efficiencies in the system. And I imagine in this day and age with the challenges of shipping and finding containers and glass, and all the rest of this, these become really, really compelling advantages, value add advantages, then nobody even thinks about knows about, much less promotes. And and in addition, you talk talk about, efficiency speed to get that on a truck is is significantly enhanced because there's no, technically, receiving by the case breaking down, re picking, putting it on another pallet. We could literally have a truck almost the same day come and pick up those orders because the handling is so much less. And it saves them a lot of money. It does put more work on the other side of the ocean. However, those guys are only too glad to get more business, and do the work. That's my experience so far. Okay. That's great. Let's talk about another experience I had, mentioned earlier about somebody coming to the US and they had specific needs in terms of how they were going to sell in the US. So there's one example I'm familiar with where you had a a customer, a supplier in Europe who was exporting to the US, but they had specific needs in terms of sales help and also employment issues. Can you talk about how you define the problem they had and then how they solve it? Right. So I think in that case, we had a substantial, a a substantial wine, vineyard that, had a large business outside the US. They were relatively new to the US. And when they came, they needed really a complete infrastructure for being able so within the market, including hiring their own salespeople to support the business, even though they're gonna work with distributors as well. They needed people to support the overall business. So in that particular case, we set up a variety of things. One was we helped set up a structure for those people to be supported within the US market dealt with all the issues that you would typically deal with with regard to, payroll benefits, etcetera. We also dealt with the issue of giving them an outsource CFO solution that keeps cracking receivables, deal with inventory, updates, and also dealing with expense approval methods because we really were there. Back office on a turnkey basis within the US. So we coordinated all those things with them. And that's what I mean. It it's it's it's on an individual basis if they need to have their own sales people, if they have outside contractors, there's a variety of different things that they could be utilizing to be being able to penetrate the US market. But in order to do that, you obviously need, boots on the ground to be able to accomplish you know, all of the, goals that they had set out. So we we stood ready to understand exactly what it is they had, which is nothing. They were relatively new in the US. I think there was a very small press but it was really not of any significance. And what was the plan to roll it out, and what sort of supporting you? We basically were in a position to provide them all the support that was needed to provide for that complete back office solution, including their sales solution, which was having their own individual salespeople with, appropriate payroll processing benefits, you know, as well in the US. So once again, there's an example of a value add that has very little to do with the product itself, but the structure of the support in US market. In this case, it's a solution without them having to pay a hundred percent of all the functions that they need for a full time person, they can buy call them fractional shares of those services, without having to, you know, hire ten people to do the job of two and a half. And I think that's the value proposition. Basically, we can deliver the same thing that if they had to set up a, their own independent operation in the US were off always offering that solution unless that when someone could do it themselves. So that's I think there's always that value proposition from our skin, but we we feel we can always lose something and advice for us to make it work themselves. Okay. So when you had defined yourself earlier, you used the words logistics company. And many other entities that are providing similar services call themselves service importers. Can you either define or describe how you view the difference between those two, R? I can describe how I perceive our business to be set up, which maybe answers the question. We look we have a distributor license we have a public warehouse license. We have an importer license. And I would say generally we're agnostic to whether or not those licenses are used. If someone has their own license, we'd like to let them use that. If they needed to use our license, they can use our license, And there's a variety of fee structures along the way to utilize all those different, licenses. Sometimes if they have their own, they don't need to use ours. If they need to use ours, we have to process the transaction differently. So as we go ahead and kinda go through that process, we're basically trying to, give them a total solution whether they have their own license, whether they need a distributor, and we try to provide all of the logistics solutions to go through every possible combination of things that they would need to do. So like I said, and this goes back to the original comment when you give them a question, you know, point of understanding that is to understand what they have. In some cases, it could be nothing. In some cases, it could be any of those that sometimes you put in a quarter, but they need to use the distributor license. Or public warehouse license. Sometimes people have a distributor license, and they may need us for label approvals. Some people want us to handle their containers. Some people don't. You know, so you go through all those different combinations. I would tell you My opinion is, generally, if people use us for all the services, they're gonna save themselves money. Yeah. I can't account for what every person does, but I can tell you, like, I'm fairly confident that our term key solution is the best service, offering in South Africa, you know, from that perspective. So you mentioned the the questionnaire, those, two introductory pieces of information. Joe, if people wanted to get copies of those sent to them. How would they reach out to you? The best way to reach out for me is either a phone call to our office or my email address. Why don't you give us both? The off the office number would be area code nine seven three four two four zero six hundred. Ask for Joe Catalano or email me at j catalano. That's j c a t a l a n o. At Siemensimports dot com. S e a m a n s I m p o r t s dot com. Great. But let's move the conversation, over to, another thing that's really on everybody's mind as an call it an alternative, sales strategy, and that's e commerce. E commerce is a hot topic topic in the US these days, and along with its other names such as DTC, retailer, to consumer, etcetera. Traditionally, DTC is the way in America we refer to domestic wineries selling and shipping direct to consumers. And essentially, this is the only way that I'm aware to legally bypass legally bypass the traditional three tier system their domestic wineries are grandfathered being able to sell direct to consumers with a lot of limitations, but it's specifically not an option for export brands of wines or spirits for that matter. So Tell us about your e commerce services and how they fit people who are looking for alternative solutions. Sure. We have set up some arrangements. As you know, Siemens is a distributor as well as a public warehouse. And from a compliance point of view, we can do certain things and we can't do certain things. However, we've set up, relationships with other entities that if a customer wanted to set up a direct to consumer program, There's different avenues we can present them, but we can put them in touch, for example. We can put them in touch with a local retailer that we do a lot of business with that has online presence that does ship out. Wine to various states, and what what we could do is set up a program where we import the wine into our warehouse. We sell it to the district to the retailer that retailer gets orders through his portal and then sends it to the ultimate customer. Being very, very, brief over here because there's a lot of details to that. But the point that I'm trying to make is that we can set programs up for people that want to try a DTC program. That's one way that we're working with it. And we work with various people, even to link them up with some wine clubs that they could be on a wine club portal. So that's what I particularly like about this. Everybody, comes to me and they're looking for an e commerce solution, but, I'd like to say you're looking for some e commerce solutions plural because, any given one model may be useful to you for certain some of the SKUs or some of the brands, but maybe not the others. Right? If you distribute direct from, say, a California line or winery to New Jersey. Okay. You ship it. What if the customer wants to return it? How how easy how expensive is it to return it? There's a lot of different components than if you say you were to distribute it locally, through a DTC process that may, you know, be more customer friendly. So there's, you know, and there may be quest involved with recurring customer. If it's saying customer got a product that was damaged or a product that wasn't, you know, the label was incorrect. Some customer picked up on some issue with regard to the shipment. Sometimes those things become, you know, much more difficult than if they're distributed locally. I think the other thing too is is that when you're looking at DTC, obviously liquor is handled spirits will handle differently than wines. And I think you need a very complex network in order to comply with regulatory issues that are out there. So that's what we deal with. We deal with how to get it there, how to get it there legally, sometimes it involves multiple partners, to do that because, yeah, you know, each state has different regulations, and you're always trying to work within those in order to to to get people to product and get it to them quickly. You know, the it's not just gaining to them. It's gaining to them in a reasonable period of time. And then the other issue is it's the product going to the US or is it coming in international? Two different processes completely because you have to transport it into the US. And what's the most efficient way to get it out into marketplace? So to me, those are all different issues depending upon But those are all different circumstances that would require a completely different solution. What I like about this, and it fits into the how and the how else, a lot of people talk about DTC as solution. They're looking for a pro a d t well, a direct to consumer solution. In this particular case, this is a direct to consumer facilitator to help cherry pick and figure out what are the right tools and processes for any given brand to use, whether it's a pure e commerce play, whether it's through an individual retailer, whether it's through a third party facilitator such as drizzly or some of the others. That you don't have to lock yourself into just one of those. And I think that's important, because DTC, as we know, is becoming more and more important. The numbers I saw was, before the pandemic, we were about four percent. Online ordering of the Bev Alcohol TBA, total beverage, alcohol category. It's moved up to eight to twelve percent in two thousand twenty one, and twelve to fourteen percent will probably end up in twenty twenty two. And it's expected to go to twenty percent in twenty three. So it's a channel that has to be acknowledged and looked at, for all brands, and there's some real strategic reasons why finding a DTC solution that's customized to your individual brand is kind of mission critical. So I really like that. Steve, I would also say that part of the issue is it's not just DTC. It's DCC where the customer is satisfied. You know, customers have a high degree of demand in terms of what it is. And we have some customers who deal with returns, and that's a logistics issue as well. How do you handle the returns? And, you know, some people don't. They just ship and they say whatever happens happens. There could be customer seabridge as a result of the fact that the customer does say, you know, they get a product that is less than what they they desired and they want to return it. They may opt to go somewhere else next year. Yeah. Good distance. So, you know, I I don't think DTC is just about selling. It's about the entire customer experience. And we do have people who handle all aspects of the DTC process. We do have people who have returning policies and logistics connected to that. If the logistics is long and expensive, that's not gonna be helpful. You know, I I I that is something that will actually probably drive a customer somewhere else. I think people are more interested right now in DTC sales than they are in the customer experience with ETCLs. And I think that's part of the thought process that people have put in. I I think you're absolutely right there. It's kind of like we we all expect everybody to meet the standards of Amazon or Walmart, whoever, major players are. And we have all these restrictions and challenges in the wine and spirits industry that consumers basically don't care about. They just wanna get their product and they don't view the difference of getting a a bottle of wine or a case of wine delivered. Than, a pair of shoes or some books. Just wanted for one other thing about DTC that I find, that many of the people that want to do DTC omit and don't realize it. But you can get on a portal whether there's they drive sales through their website or they drive from the website to another portal of a wine club, or they use a retailer grown portal. They can get on a portal relatively easy. What they're missing is that unless they develop, I'll call it a social media program, some somewhere to drive the the their customer to their website, to their product, they're gonna fail because there's just a million different people on the websites that are trying to sell a Motorola or Bernelo or Cabernet. But how do you, meaning the person, the company? How do you drive people to your product? Your Bernelo? And they sort of lead that piece out. And I find that's where the biggest point of failure is. Interesting. I also think social media has gotten a lot more, complicated with with privacy issues. That's that's the other element of it is, you know, what is the right approach know, there's there's a whole host of things that I think people have to do to have a successful DTC process. And I don't think it's just being able to ship to a customer. It's, you know, how you develop the customers when you grow the base. You know, how do you keep things satisfied? You know, you know it was well with a lot, and you mentioned Amazon. There's a lot of retailers that take free returns. You know, what is your return policy? You know, and, you know, have you deal with situation to our customers are not completely satisfied. We, you know, we've seen it in the best companies occasionally have something happen, you know, where, you know, that there's some element of something that requires a return. And sometimes, and the other element too is sometimes with a, shipping services, which people don't realize you have to take particular care in how you ship things because a lot of things get broken. When people pack them themselves and they don't follow the right, protocols, you know, there's all those issues that happen along the way. And, it's just you have to think through the entire process. It's not just telling them custom. Right? I hear DTC, but, you know, and and I know it's gonna be a growing market. But the issue is to retain customers is not to sell the customers to retain it. Really good point. You can always get that first sale. It's the follow-up sale. It's the that this most difficult. And that's true of the the whole business. Everybody, you know, we we talk about, you know, what's the metric? The metric that matters is not just shipments. It's repeat orders at retail. That's really a measure of the health of the brand. One point I wanna make about, we've been using DTC, and we probably shouldn't, because I write a lot about this. And we should be talking about e commerce as being a the larger entity within which DTC fits traditionally I'd alluded to this earlier. DTC is what the words that we used to describe domestic to consumer, which is allowed. But e commerce really is, the the wider, label to apply for all these things because There's so many different variations on the theme because we're so highly regulated. Okay. I like to end my interviews by asking, what's the big takeaway? Somebody's been listening to this patiently for half an hour or so. What's the one thing they can take away from this that we've talked about and put to use immediately dead silence? Joe, go ahead. The big taper right here Tell us what you want to do, and we will tell you if you're in the right direction and where you have to be. We'll do that via communication, phone conversation, we can fit what you need to do into our business model. But I would say it's an absolute requirement on your checklist is is to talk to Siemens because we we're we're gonna give you a lot of information, and there's gonna be exchange of ideas, a collection of data based on your needs that's gonna allow us to give you a lot of information. It's gonna help you figure out what what it is you need to do. So, you know, we we give you guidance. Yeah. And I think that's a really important thing because you'd be capitalizing on the mistakes others have made and the learnings that have, been gained from that. So as I like to say, so you don't make the same mistakes others have made before you again for the first time. So my guests this week were Glenn Langberg and Joe Catalano of Siemens beverage, in New Jersey to contact them, real quickly. It's j catalano at Siemensimports dot com. And, Joe, why don't you give us your phone number one more time? Nine seven three four two four zero six hundred. So thanks for listening. I thought this is, you know, we've only scratched the surface of a whole bunch of subjects. And I think that's the point here that there's so much about coming to the US market that we make it sound like it's impossible. The reality is you can, and there's ways of doing it, and there's other ways of doing it. And so explore all that to figure out what is the right way for your particular situation. This is Steve Ray that's saying thank you for listening to get US market ready with Italian wine people. We hope you enjoy today's episode brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth twenty twenty two in verona Italy. Remember, the first early bird discount on tickets will be available until August twenty second. For more information, please visit us at y to y dot net. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we're committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian wine podcast dot com.