Proven sales strategies for your refreshments services business to finish strong in 2025

In the last episode of Automatic Merchandiser’s Vending & OCS Nation, host Bob Tullio discussed five powerful sales strategies with operators and industry consultants. In this episode, he is back with five more with an objective to help operators and sales reps finish the year on a high note — with more closed deals than ever.

In this episode, Tullio brings in three consultants, Josh Rosenberg from Forward Thinkers, Orrin Huebner and Sandy Schoenthaler: three experienced industry professionals who have excellent insights to offer.

Additionally, Tullio gets a front-line operator perspective from Charles Long from One Source Refreshments, Tre Johnson from Aramark, and two reps from Corporate Coffee Systems in New York, Terry Adelstein and Robyn Azus.

This podcast offers strategies that are "out of the box" ready and can be put to work immediately. Listen today to get in on some simple ways to elevate your sales performance and finish strong in 2025.

Subscribe to Vending & OCS Nation in your favorite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

No time to listen? Prefer to read? Here is an edited podcast transcript:

Bob Tullio: In our last episode, I talked about proven sales strategies, including cold calling, the importance of doing your research before you go on an appointment, cause marketing, storytelling and how critical it is to do face-to-face meetings. That might mean a coffee brewing, that could mean a food tasting for a micro market or pantry service options.

Bottom line, these five strategies obviously resonated a bit with the audience, even though they’re very fundamental. But fundamentals still work.

And because it was so well received, we’re coming back with even more strategies. This time we’re taking a little deeper dive. We’re dealing with some heavier strategies — proven strategies — that could really translate into helping you finish the year strong. That’s what I want to see happen. This is, after all, prime coffee selling season — October, November, December. This is the time to really capitalize on the opportunity that’s out there. So hopefully, these tips will help you move forward.

Again, we’re going to talk to some operators to get their reaction. We’re going to turn to industry consultants, including Josh Rosenberg, Orrin Huebner, Sandy Schoenthaler — people you can count on for valuable advice.

But right off the bat, let’s explore one area that cannot be overlooked today. You might be selling to a Gen Z, a Millennial, a Gen Xer, and even a Baby Boomer decision-maker in the same week. What do you need to think about as you approach that possible scenario? There has been a whole sales consulting industry built around this idea.

• How do we sell to Gen Z? Who knows what their primary agenda is? Do they only respond to text messages?
• How do I sell to a Millennial? Sometimes they act like Gen Z, sometimes they act like Baby Boomers.
• Gen X, they like value. They respond to emails. How do I reach them?
• Baby Boomers? You can usually reach them on the phone. They are as loyal as a golden retriever, but they are on the way out.

So, here’s our first sales strategy: overcoming the generational differences that exist from one decision maker to the other. I spoke about generational challenges with Terry Adelstein and Robin Azus from Corporate Coffee Systems.

Terry Adelstein: So the Gen X crowd — the people of my age — emails, spreadsheets, proposals, things that they can touch and look at and calculate. That works great with them. As you move to the Millennials and younger Gen Z crowd, you then find that they like to use technology. Zoom, Teams meetings, Meet On-Site. In those scenarios, I find I do better with that crowd using technology than I do with the older generation.

Bob Tullio: That’s interesting. How about you, Robin? What’s your take on it?

Robin Azus: Well, I, you know, I think that it’s pretty similar in a lot of ways. I mean, you’re basically going after them. You’re meeting with them. It’s the same thing. I understand with technology, you know, they’re definitely using social media more. So, they’re getting information. They’re making sure they, you know, check your, um, you know, check the ratings of your company to make sure you’re solid. I think that’s what’s important with that group.

Bob Tullio: Chuck Long from One Source Refreshment said that there are differences between the different generations of decision-makers, but it is also important to focus on the similarities.

Chuck Long: They want a solution. They want consultation. They want to know something that you do every day. For a lot of these folks, changing coffee companies is once, maybe twice, three times in a career. For us, it’s three times in a day on a good day.

When they come to us with questions, having answers and not having to research or be uncertain about the opinion or experiences that you’ve had, that’s a big deal. The differences, I think, are the way that they request information, the way that they consume. Self-education is important, and then the meetings. A lot of times, the face-to-face are easier to come with different generations. Sometimes a quick phone call or even text messaging takes a big bite of the personal out of it for me, and that’s their preference. So that’s one of the difficulties I’ve experienced.

Bob Tullio: So it does create some challenges, but it’s certainly something you can overcome if you can ever get that meeting.

Chuck Long: That’s it. Getting in the door, knocking on the door, being invited in, that’s most important thing.

Bob Tullio: Josh Rosenberg said it is important to avoid getting too hung up on the generational differences. The needs of the customer are the key, and decision-makers are driven by more than just generational preferences.

Within the same week, a salesperson can be selling to a Gen Z decision-maker, a Millennial decision-maker, a Gen X decision-maker, and, in some rare cases, a Baby Boomer decision-maker. But what are the differences, and what should they be thinking about?

Josh Rosenberg: Well, you know, I think demographic does bring personal bias. Let’s face it, we all do. However, if you’re in that role, for most of our clients, you have an understanding of your audience and what your objective is.

So, I go back to the tradition of, are you dealing with an economic buyer? Don’t be confused because they’re a Boomer sitting in a seat that they don’t understand consumption. They may be forced in an economic buying position where those around them, those within them, or their budget, their role in the organization, is that to drive economic value.

So how do you translate economic value and connect it to relationship and employee and benefits health? And so you have to ask those right questions. You have to get beyond the transactional element of economics, and into what’s in it for them, but what is the purpose in which they serve? What is the culture in which they’re part of? And what role does our services provide?

If you don’t understand the personas, then it doesn’t matter what demographic they are.

Because I can be a 25-year-old that absolutely goes out and behaves one way personally. But I’ve been hired by an organization that is driven on low cost, maybe union labor, who knows, whatever the environment is, right? Cost management, required service, and out-of-sight, out-of-mind — I don’t want to be bothered with it. But that’s the cultural drivers, not the personal drivers of that individual.

So, you’re blurring the two a bit, right? You’ve got to understand who you’re dealing with and what their likely personal preference might be, and how you can leverage that from an emotional buying position, because people buy an emotion and influence, but you can’t forget that they have a job to do. And so, it has to start and end with what is your role? What is the impact of my service? And what role does it deliver in your go-to-market strategy from an employee benefits and value proposition?

Because if you don’t understand that first, I don’t care who the demographic is, right? That’s influence. The other is the transaction, and you’ve got to connect the two.

Bob Tullio: So, you think maybe we get a little hung up on who we’re dealing with. And we can find that out so easy. One of the things I talked about in the last podcast was there’s no excuse. Before you go into a meeting, you should know, number one, have we done business with this person before? Or have they worked before? What’s their category? What demographic are they? So at least you have some idea of what’s happening.

Josh Rosenberg: Yeah.

Bob Tullio: At the same time, when you get in front of those people, it really comes down to what I call the big question. And that is, what do you need to see to make a change to my company ultimately?

Josh Rosenberg: Absolutely. And that’s, I don’t think, I don’t think we spend on sales training. We don’t, but when you think about the majority of our audience, it’s still small business.

How much money do they spend on the people they hire to evolve their sales skills and competencies? Again, I was at this trade show, and I spent a time with entire sales team that comes from within our industry, and all they were doing was telling, not selling, not listening. It starts with listening and seeking to understand. And we don’t do that as humans. We listen to be heard, right? We don’t listen to or seek to understand.

That’s a fundamental principle in excellence of selling. Principle number one, in order to listen to understand, you have to do your homework. What is the company’s culture? We walk in thinking, I gotta beat the competition. We walk in thinking, and that brings out uh blinders on bias. That means I might have to focus on price. I might have to attack their service. I might have to attack their products or offerings. Rather than, and by the way, today’s buyers don’t want to hear that. We’re too well educated and we’re emotionally evolved because of everything around us.

What we should be thinking about is what are the core values of that business? How do they value the break room? And what role does it play in the employee and business culture and environment?

And some will tell you, “None. I have to have this. And it’s about maintaining my cost.”

Well, guess what? I have a good product for that.

But others are going to say, “I need to create value. I need to bring my people back to work. I want them to collaborate. I want them to want to come to work.”

That’s why tech industry went in and all in on breakroom services. It’s why they spend $9 to 14 to $20 a head per day, or per diem, to do it because they saw value and collaboration and attracting talent, retaining talent. And they saw it as a competitive advantage in total cost and benefits. Do we look at that and study that before we walk into a potential prospect, and make their life easier, connect with their objectives emotionally and transactionally? And I think that is as much of an opportunity for our industry to grow total dollar, by shifting the dialogue, than it is by trying to beat our competitor.

And we miss that. We beat on each other rather than beat on the opportunity.

Bob Tullio: We’re worried about the price and that person sitting across the desk from us isn’t necessarily focused on price.

Josh Rosenberg: When we walk in the door with a bias, the bias should be, “What are consumers focused on in today’s lifestyle?” They’re focused on customization of their coffee beverage. They’re focused on variety. They focus more on hydration and health, which means what am I putting in my body and where’s the source of it? And oh, by the way, what additives, functionality and benefits can I get?

They focus on the quality of the service and the brands. So, what are the brand's values and attributes that I’m bringing? And we don’t sell that way.

Bob Tullio: That brings us right to another critical sales strategy. I call it asking the big question. Consultant Orrin Huebner has his own name for this incredibly powerful technique that, in my opinion, is the one nugget you should absolutely take from this podcast if you are in sales.

So, I call it the big question. You have a different name for it. I think it’s critical at the very beginning of every sales appointment. And I usually put it this way. say, just to establish a common ground for discussion. What do you need to see today to move forward with my company? What do you call it, Orrin?

Orrin Huebner: I call it witty. What’s important to you?

Give me three things that’s important to you in our discussions. Well, I need, I need a better product. I need better equipment. I need more communication. I need better service. Nowhere in the three, did they say price. It’s not, they might — they might — and then you understand it’s a whole different conversation going along because do you want to only win on price?

Or do you want to win on everything else? You might walk away and say, this really isn’t going to be as good of a fit. But, when they give you three things and nowhere in there is price, and you come back and then they say to you, “Well, we decided not to go or we’re thinking about going someplace else because they have better pricing.” [You should said], “Oh no, wait a minute. Let’s talk about that. When we first sat down, the first question I asked you was, What’s important to you? And nowhere in there did you say price was important.

“Have we checked the box for this? Oh, yeah, you’re great with that. Have we checked the box for this? You’re great. And we checked the box for this, right? We’ve checked every box of what’s most important to you. And I’m hoping now that we can go forward and service you properly, because it’s not only price.”

Bob Tullio: Exactly. And then when price does come up, a nice way to put it is, “If we can do what you’ve asked for at a price that makes sense, is there any reason why we can’t move forward?”

Orrin Huebner: Exactly.

Bob Tullio: All it’s got to do is make sense. And maybe with all of those positive things happening, it doesn’t have to be lower.

Orrin Huebner: And I think what you’ll find is most people don’t want to think it’s only price. More often than not, price isn’t going to be one of their top three that they talk to you about.

Bob Tullio: I’m going to present these two key strategies together — strategic partnerships and referrals — because in many ways, they go hand in hand.

Sometimes they’re organically obtained: somebody is simply giving you information. Maybe an exchange for information that you can help them out with. Maybe it’s a vendor who’s in another type of business who sells to the same type of decision-maker. And then, of course, there are paid strategic partnerships and paid referrals. We are compensating somebody for information they’re giving you, or for opening the door and giving you a solid warm referral in exchange for compensation. And in talking to operators, I find the good ones really blend these strategies together nicely.

Here’s how Chuck Long from One Source does it.

Chuck Long: We’ve actually made up a business card with a QR code on one side for a review on Google, and then on the other side for a referral. And we pass those out at all market openings, at all visitations, at any customer visit. All of my associates have those cards to hand out. So, we’re constantly reminding them that their opinion is important to us.

Bob Tullio: Tre Johnson from Aramark is a big believer in referrals, and he trains his reps to ask for them. How do you teach your people to cultivate referrals?

Tre Johnson: Referrals are critical. Referrals are a number one source of lead that you can get, right? When you establish that connection as you discussed yesterday, Bob, and being able to leverage somebody who’s in that euphoric stage, and then take them and correlate it to a list to a list of other connections that they know and can utilize, you’re never going to beat that. So for us, it’s, to your point, when we establish that conversation, and we provide them with the service, we’ve met all the expectations, exactly what they’re looking for, then we can say, “Hey, who can benefit from this that you know, how can we give somebody else within your network, the same exact feeling that we gave to you with setting up this service?”

And so, we bridge that gap utilizing similar things, as you’ve talked about. Demonstrations, tastings, lunches, right? And uh again, letting them know, “This is the same things that we provided you with that you’ve been looking for these services, wanting to find somebody that can handle X, Y and Z. We can give that exact same experience to somebody else within your network that’s going through those same problems.”

Bob Tullio: I talked to Orrin Huebner about personal time networking, another key strategy. One of the things I really believe in is what I call personal-time networking. And that simply means making sure that whether it’s Little League, Country Club, Boy Scouts, whatever you’re involved in, that the people around you know what you do for a living. And there’s many ways to do that. But how important do you think that is? I mean, do you think it’s the idea of, I’m not working when I leave the office. Well, you’re always working in sales as far as I’m concerned. That doesn’t mean selling, but making sure people know what you do. Would you agree with that?

Orrin Huebner: Absolutely. Selling is 24/7. It’s not 9 to 5. It’s 24/7. And it’s not what you know, it’s who you know in a lot of cases. And so, when you’re sitting on the sidelines, when you’re going to a function, when you’re going out to dinner, when you’re going to just a party, and everybody is talking about what they do, make sure everybody knows what you do, who you do it for and why you’re doing it, every single step of the way. And it doesn’t matter if you’re at the country club, if you’re playing golf, if you’re at a charity event, make sure everybody understands and don’t be bashful.

Don’t be afraid because everybody else is doing it. Mark Stein, I competed with [him] here in Chicago for years. He and Daniel were the best — the absolute best — at making sure their network was using their services, 100%.

Bob Tullio: And why not? I mean, that’s low hanging fruit, right?

Orrin Huebner: Every time, every step.

Bob Tullio: And personal time networking does not mean that a sales rep should be constantly selling. It means that a sales rep should have a sense of awareness pertaining to the business opportunity that exists in everyday life. It also means that people you see on a regular basis should know what you do for a living. What a great time of year for personal time networking — with Thanksgiving coming up, holiday parties, organization parties. I mean, think about the opportunity that exists at your fitness center, in a bowling league, in your church group, at a country club, the nonprofit board that you’re on, school activities, your fraternal organization. And it’s important to get involved. It’s not just enough to join. Use your work email for all correspondence during personal networking activities. Use your work email, complete with your logo, tagline, website, phone number.

And remember, be patient. It is a slow but very rewarding process. Be nice to people and be interested in what they do as well. In personal time networking, when the time is right, it’s okay to ask for an introduction to a contact or a DM. Ideally, though, the business opportunity will come directly to you.

Consultant Sandy Schoenthaler combines personal time networking with referral generation to turn supporters into strategic partners —a triple play that works for her.

Sandy Schoenthaler: Whether I meet somebody sitting next to me having dinner at Saltgrass or somebody from a church group or my motorcycle club, they always know what I do, and I know what they do. And there’s always that opportunity to say, “Who’s currently taking care of your services? Wouldn’t it be great if you could bring me in there, and I could showcase a better program that costs your company nothing?”

Bob Tullio: Yeah, yeah.

Sandy Schoenthaler: And they love it. And then they get me in the door. I don’t just give them a free cup of coffee or anything like that. I make it worth their while. I’ll take them out to dinner. I’ll give them tickets to a sporting event. Even employees in companies have a referral program. Everybody’s spouse or family member — or somebody they know — works at another company. Get me a name, and I get in the door. I throw them a gift card for a hundred bucks. If I get the piece of business, I give them back a thousand bucks.

An average person who’s a road driver or somebody, that’s a lot of money for them. And then they’re so excited, word of mouth gets out, “Hey, they have this great program.” I have used it time and time again. It’s wonderful. And it’s an ROI that pays for itself instantly.

Bob Tullio: Well, and what I said too yesterday was the fact that you’ll get 99 people that have no interest in this whatsoever. But, when you find that one person who’s interested, that’s good as gold, isn’t it?

Sandy Schoenthaler: It’s awesome. It is. And like I say, word of mouth. You reward one person, and that one person tells 10 more people. And very seldom do I get one where I get an opportunity to get in the door, and I don’t walk away with some kind of business.