Wine rep advice
Hi all! So, I recently put notice in at my retail wine job in the hopes of landing some more sales experience. I have about 10 years in-depth tasting and retail sales experience and am currently studying for my CSW (with a credit ready to schedule my test anytime before Sept). I want to explore the other side of the table, so to speak. All my experience is on the buying/training staff side of things and I am DYING to see it from the perspective of those who get to travel, speak with vintners and literally smell the soils of the world on their skin. I have 1 year of B2B office supply sales experience from a tryst I had in the corporate world and while the independence and social aspects of that year thrilled me, the actual items I was selling (along with the slow pace) were infinitely boring. I'm ready to try a new challenge focused on something I actually love, wine.
Any advice on how I can get my name out there? My boss and I have been speaking directly with the reps we currently work with to see what's out there but they have been surprisingly unhelpful considering our great working relationships for the last 3+ years (even with competitiveness being a factor, it's like...wild). I have been checking winejobs.com, LinkedIn, and Indeed and have sent my resumé out to a few places over the last few days. Should I just blast my resumé out to the reputable places I know of? Pick a handful of favorites and write cover letters targeted at them? A combo of both? I'm not trying to represent a ton of small books and split my attention/focus unnecessarily, I've seen so many reps fail with the "more is more" philosophy. All this is to say, I've thought about it a lot but there are probably many other things I am not thinking of, your help would be much appreciated!