We are often hear: “How can I stop checking out on the job halfway through my day?” Or essentially: “How can I keep myself on task and motivated through my work day?” Often times people working in winery tasting rooms begin to experience a bit of burn out and no longer look at guests as warmly as they once did.

Self-motivation takes practice. It is a skill we need to develop and practice daily. The master motivator Zig Ziglar would hear often that “Motivation just doesn’t last.” His reply was always, “Well neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily.”

How to know when you need to work on motivating yourself?

• When you look for projects and not for guests
• When you inwardly groan when people are approaching you
• When you feel you should get hazard pay for repetitive stress syndrome for having to repeat yourself over and over again
• When you focus on the negative parts of the job
• When your coworkers annoy you
• When time seems to drag
• When you can’t wait to leave work
• When instead of being charming and warm, you are short and sullen

A good leader will be on the lookout for staff burnout, and take steps to increase job satisfaction and pride in the workplace. Sometimes, leaders will miss it so we need to recognize it for ourselves. What can we personally do to stay motivated?

Here are 10 WISE Tips:

1. Step back and take time to remember how you felt the very first time you walked into your winery. Remember the sights, the views, the smells, whatever it was that triggered your senses. Remember that the guests who are walking in are experiencing just that. We need to remind ourselves how people are feeling as they walked in and if there isn’t a warm and friendly greeting, it could become overwhelming. What would your expectations be if you were a guest?
2. Sometimes you just need to take a short break. When you do, give yourself a pep talk. Remind yourself what our guests deserve. They deserve the best, and you are the person to give them the best. It is not fair to them if you are giving them your bad day, they deserve much more than that.
3. Smile. If you make yourself smile, even when you don’t feel like it, you eventually feel like it because it’s contagious with all the people around you. Get that smile on and get back to it and start engaging with the guests. Give them your best because you are so good at who you are and what you do. Make the guest feel that the best decision they made today was to come and see you.
4. Use the Platinum Rule. Most people know about the Golden Rule – to treat others the way we want to be treated. At WISE, we take this to the Platinum Rule: Treat others the way THEY want to be treated. How do they want to be treated? You’ll never know unless you ask the open-ended questions to find out their preferences and engage with them. You have amazing gifts. Share them with your guests. It’s fun and helps breaks the monotony.
5. Celebrate your successes. Think about your most successful days of selling and what made those sales successful and challenge yourself to do it again… or beat your own goal. When you can challenge yourself and have fun doing it, time flies by.
6. Take a walk. Whether on your own or taking a group of guests for an impromptu walk in the vineyards, cellar, or wherever, just change up your routine. Get some fresh air and a change of pace.
7. Create a tradition with coworkers. Give yourself something to look forward to at different points of the day or different days of the week – whether you celebrate when you reach a sales goal, have a weekly bowling league with coworker, or something else that you can look forward to, make a tradition out of it.
8. Do something creative at different points of the day. During slower times, role play with your coworkers to find new ways to sell to different types of wine buyers; work with the merchandising team to create more compelling displays… During busier times, find ways to be creative in your conversations with guests – in appropriate ways, of course.
9. Learn something during downtime. What else can you find out about the wines, vineyards, terroir, or other things about your wines and brand? What’s of interest to you – explore it and share it.
10. Remind yourself about your important role at the winery. Years of hard work to plant and cultivate the vines, worry about weather and pests, then harvest, crush, bottling, aging, have gone into creating this beautiful wine, and now it is yours to sell by cultivating great relationships with guests who want to taste it. What an honor!

The great thing about our winery tasting rooms is that we get to practice our skills daily. If we make a mistake, it’s not nuclear physics; the place isn’t going into meltdown. We can come back tomorrow and practice again. The more you practice, the easier self-motivation becomes, and soon it will be second nature to you. So practice motivating yourself. Rinse and repeat. You’ll shine.