It is Darwinian: adapt to survive. Do you know the difference between needs and expectations?

When Klaus and Matthias Singer-Fischer were teenagers, their parents told them that Klaus, the elder brother, would inherit the family vineyard at Ingelheim am Rhein, 60 kilometres west of Frankfurt.

Matthias had to find another career.

With Klaus’s whole family engaged in running it, the Singer Fischer Weingut has done well. The majority of its 2019 sales by volume were to bars, restaurants, hotels and wine shops. The remainder went to private clients who came to the Weingut for tastings booked in advance.

And then came coronavirus.

On-trade sales fell off a cliff. The three-generation Weingut faced extinction.

But wine drinkers still need to buy wine; there is no change there. What has changed for them is the way that the wine gets to them. Their expectations of how they buy wine now follow a very different, online route.

Having prudently kept a financial reserve, Klaus and his family changed their strategy overnight, targeting the money at their website, which had in place an e-commerce trading facility (https://www.singer-fischer.de).

Their on-premises wine-tasting service was withdrawn. In its place, Lena, Klaus’s daughter, began running online wine-tasting sessions on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO6_XsvP-yIbKfxFl2IXKfA), making full use of her BSc in oenological studies.

They’ve been a huge success. Wines are delivered in advance, and the sessions provide an educational, fun and different wine-tasting session for 400 or more people at a time. Sales have shot up. The next one is on 27 February and costs €23.50.

Lena and her two brothers, Jan and Max, have also launched a new brand of Sekt (sparkling wine), Tryo, which is available online.

The result:

2020 was the best year ever for Singer-Fischer Weingut. Sales by volume are up by 15% and, with far fewer discounts to the on-trade, margin is higher still.

And Matthias?

He went into marketing.

Before coronavirus, 90% of the work done by his business, Level 4 Marketing, was with car companies. However, their sales also fell off a COVID cliff and his marketing business faced extinction.

However, just as people still need to buy wine, they still need to buy cars. So, Matthias and some friends founded a new digital business. He won a valuable contract with a prominent Asian car company, assisting them to sell virtually and conduct all their marketing by digital means. His new digital business is doing extremely well and is now down to the last two for a huge global contract with a very large European car company. If he wins, it will be the biggest deal of his life.

Consumers still need cars but what has changed – massively – is their expectations regarding the way in which they will buy them.

For all businesses, it is important to understand the difference between needs and expectations. It’s Darwinian: adapt to customers’ expectations to survive.

Do you know what your customers’ new expectations are?

To find out, get in touch with us at Promising Outcomes.