Turning Liquid Gold into a Successful Business

D2C Salesmanship at an Olive Oil Farm

“Extra Virgin Olive Oil Is the Healthiest Fat on Earth.”

Kris Gunnars on healthline.com

Recently I encountered another excellent example of D2C salesmanship at an olive oil farm. Their approach is similar to those of wineries, though they do lack the 12–14% of “ happiness “ that wine contains.

Olive oil, however, has ridden a wave of increasing popularity in recent years, in part due to growing awareness around the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet. Some label extra virgin olive oil the liquid gold of the food world. Just add a quick drizzle of rich and healthy oil over a slice of crusty bread or bowl of ice cream…

According to Nielsen, retail sales of olive oil in the U.S. have been increasing steadily for the last several years, currently totaling about $1.2 billion.

It’s easy to pick up some olive oil at your local grocery store. But there is also a lot of rancid or adulterated olive oil on the market, meaning it’s blended with cheap, lower-grade oils, and most of us don’t even realize it.

That’s where the farm-to-table transparency of buying it directly from an olive oil farm comes in handy. But since that alone does not sell the product (since no product sells itself), here are some of my observations of their great salesmanship:

• It does start with a great product. Salesmanship, however, is required because consumers, in general, do not really know what makes the product great. The very knowledgeable staff made the difference for us. Every single person we interacted with during several visits was able to answer the questions we asked and do it in a way that allowed us to relate to the answers.
• Add passion to the knowledge. For a consumer asked to spend significantly more on seemingly the same product at the source than in a supermarket, passion helps to bridge the gap.
• In D2C, friendliness ought to be a given, though I have had my share of either outright rudeness or just a superficial layer of friendliness. Here, they made us feel genuinely welcome, whether as the single client at the time or during the busiest day of the year.
• The team also repeatedly asked and offered to bring any other flavor, revisit what we had already tasted, as well as offer more bread, more water, more spices, more kinds of vinegar, … The cost of this seemingly generous gesture pales in comparison to the benefits of the now almost certain sale.
• There was transparency. With harvest in progress and the mill right there on the farm, we could walk around and see the process for ourselves. And every person we encountered was again knowledgeable, passionate, friendly, and generous with their time.
• Like wineries, olive oil farms are always located in a beautiful part of the country; they enjoy sunshine, and the setting for the tasting makes me want to stay.
• With the tasting outside on their patio, the invite to come into the store was subtle, did not feel forced, certainly not like the museum giftshops that always seem to be in the way when looking to exit.
• The store was not overloaded; all items were thoughtfully selected and aligned well with the core product, the olive oil.
• Equally subtle was their way of inviting us to join the club (which we did). At that point, it was not about the discount; it was about continuing the relationship built and being able to share the products and the stories with friends and family back home. So, I was not surprised when I learned about their 36% conversion rate of visitors to club members.

When I travel to visit a place like an olive oil farm, I want to be sold. Being sold is a mental state where I am 100 percent convinced that a product, idea, brand, business, method, or philosophy is right for me. There still is a tremendous opportunity for many businesses to achieve higher revenues by improving their customer service and my buyer’s experience.

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Picture by the author

Originally published at https://www.vendux.org on December 8, 2021.