BBC #9: 2/11/13

Presentation and Presenter: Armiger Imports, Zach Armiger

After a few months off, we held our first Baltimore Business Club meeting of the year in early February.  The discussion featured another start-up wine business, although one with a much different model and road than A & M Imports (BBC #8).  Zach Armiger started Armiger Imports in the Spring of 2012 as a side project during downtime at his job.  In the discussion, Zach talked about his experiences after college, going from teacher, to personal trainer, to medical sales rep, before landing at his current endeavor as an entrepreneur in the wine distribution business.

In Zach’s first year out of Salisbury University, he taught physical education at a local high school.  His initial frustration with the career centered on the fact that he couldn’t increase his income by working harder or being a better teacher.  The county and people above him dictated his earning potential in the short and long term.  To earn extra money, he started training people on the side at the Merritt, drawing on his educational background and experiences as a college football player.  He quickly discovered he could earn more money training people, and left the education world after one year to pursue training people full time.  He spent a few years at the Merritt and did well, but decided he didn’t want to be in the business over the long term.  Through one of his clients, he began working as a medical sales representative, providing doctors with medical supplies for surgeries.  The job was appealing for a while, but he was constantly on call and the job often gave Zach a lot of downtime between surgeries.  It was at this point that he dabbled in the idea of starting his own business.

Although he was not much of a wine drinker, Zach did like one particular brand that he picked up from a local store occasionally.  One day he discovered the store no longer carried the wine.  Rather than letting this event get lost in his own personal history, Zach investigated why, doing so much as to reach out to the winery that produced the wine.   It turned out that the distributor that sold the brand in MD stopped carrying it.

In early 2012, Zach began researching during his time between surgeries how he could get a few bottles of the wine, which led him into the world of wine distribution.  He met a contact through his research that was importing a Spanish wine for distribution in the North East, and the opportunity came up for Zach to handle distribution of the wine in Maryland.  Deciding he was interested in taking on this side project, Zach went through the process of getting his import and distribution license.  Although not the easiest process, with the help of his New York contact, he was able to get his license on the side during the Spring.

Ready to take the plunge, Zach acquired some warehouse space and ordered his first shipment of wine, all while continuing his work in medical sales.  One benefit to distributing wine in MD is that only one distributor can carry and sell a particular brand of wine at a time.  So Zach didn’t face the challenge of getting liquor stores to switch who they bought this wine from, but he did have to convince his prospective clients that his brand would sell.  Without any experience selling wine, Zach began using his personal network of contacts and cold calling stores with the hope of setting up a meeting with the store manager to taste his wine and hopefully place their first order.

In July 2012, Zach made his first sale to a liquor store in Northern Baltimore County and began to build some sales momentum.  He started hosting tastings at different liquor stores in order to build awareness about his wines with consumers.  To advertise the tastings, he utilized word of mouth and built a facebook page to let people know when and where the tastings would occur.

Over the summer and into the early fall, the combination of cold calling, utilizing his network and hosting various tastings proved successful.  He grew his business up to 20 customers.  Each customer offered the opportunity for regular reoccurring revenue as they sold more and more wine.  At this point, Zach felt comfortable enough with what he had built, a good customer base that was bringing in more money than he was sending out given his low overhead, that he left his job in medical supply sales to work on the business full time.

Since that point, Zach has brought on several more brands of wine into his “portfolio” that only he can sell within the state.  Along with bringing on more customers, he emphasized the importance of growing his product offering and plans to continue to bring on new and unique brands over the next year.  Although he is still not a wine aficionado, one of Zach’s best customers serves as his unofficial taster, making sure anything Armiger Imports thinks about bringing on meets certain quality standards.

Additionally, he brought on his first contract employee to help with his tastings and manage his current accounts.  This allows Zach to spend more of his time going after new business.

The progress made over the last 6 months has been pretty remarkable.  Even though less than $5k has been put into the business and there was not a strong background in the industry, Zach was able to build a strong foundation in a relatively short period of time and is on his way to growing Armiger Imports into a well run and profitable business.

Below are the wines that Zach currently carries.  The top shelf has his original Spanish wine and the bottom shelf shows his new American wines he recently began carrying.  Next time you’re in the Wine Market on Fort Ave, be sure to pick up a bottle.