General Manager

About Us

French Door Estate Winery is a small, family-owned business in Oliver, BC. Founded in 2019, we are located on the beautiful Black Sage Bench, South of the town of Oliver. Terroir, sustainability and passion is our philosophy all the way from soil to glass. Our 10-acre property is planted with 100% vinifera vines on beautiful, expressive soils that have resulted in rich, lush, and character driven wines.

About the Role

The General Manager at French Door leads a successful and dynamic team that works together to create rich guest experiences that showcase our estate wines. They coordinate all aspects and moving parts of the winery tasting room and are responsible for driving tasting room revenue and wine club membership to the winery. The General Manager also acts as the team leader on special events to enhance the overall guest experience. This is a hands-on leadership/selling position where a high level of skill is required for sales, customer service and balancing the delivery of a gracious experience for all guests with effective and exceptional sales techniques. The core responsibilities of the General Manager are as follows:

 Guest Services and Retail Management

•       Be an engaging front line host with the focus on the importance of first impressions

•       Ensure that consumers, trades, and any VIP guests have an exceptional and delightful experience at French Door Estate Winery

•       Supervise and successfully execute hospitality functions which can include greeting guests, provide tasting and wine education, and assist tasting room associates with customer services

•       Direct and manage the day-to-day retail sales operations, customer service and scheduling, cash reconciliation, wine inventory, staff scheduling, community outreach, and overall guest experience

•       Achieve annual revenue goals and provide periodic reporting to ownership

•       Ensure Wine Club membership sales goals are met

•       Manage day to day financial duties of the winery retail sales, including banking and communication with accounting

•       Assist in setting annual Tasting Room budget, projected sales, expenses, and participate in mid- year budget review

•       Maintain adequate inventory of wine and other merchandise

•       Monitor sales and adjust as necessary using effective sales tools.

Staff Management

•       Work closely with ownership for hiring, orientation, training, development, supervision, and performance evaluation of all Tasting Room associates

•       Responsible for managing the staff and day-to-day operations of the consumer and trade guest experience, winery retail sales and merchandising

•       Develop annual goals for each Tasting Room associate and provide performance reviews.

•       Mentor staff and provide an exemplary model of interaction with French Door guests

•       Prepare schedules to ensure proper staffing and execution of all daily staff activities

•       Manage daily opening and closing procedures, cash handling procedures, and inventory processes

Procedures

•       Print, review, and approve bi-weekly timecards at the end of each pay period

•       Train, educate and improve selling techniques to optimize the guest experience and maximize revenue

•       Maintain daily sales reporting and develop strategies for maximum efficiently in tasting room operations

•       Track and report all write-offs and promotional uses of materials

•       Report to various governing bodies on inventory, literage, taxes, etc. (BCLDB, CRA Excise, GST reporting, CFIA Importing, BCVQA)

•       Maintain all memberships with local and provincial associations

•       Apply for and maintain all permits/licenses for winery, tasting room, and surrounding area

•       Apply for and maintain all product registrations through governing bodies (BCLDB, VQA)

•       Facilitate and organize orders for all supplies needed in tasting room and production needs (in conjunction with Winemaker) including glass, corks, tin, etc.

•       Facilitate and maintain relationships with couriers, freight, customs, warehousing, and other logistics companies

DTC Marketing

•       Ensure consumers can be included in effective campaigns by developing and maintain an effective database that tracks consumer purchase history

•       Successfully build and maintain client and trade relationships that enhance the French Door brand,

e.g. lodging establishments, restaurants, visitor bureaus, chambers of commerce etc., to increase traffic to the winery and the website

•       Coordinate with BC and out of province wholesale reps on allocation, shipments, pricing and sales strategies and facilitate out of winery shipments

•       Catalogue all Wholesale orders and process weekly transactions

•       Coordinate trade, wine club, large group, and other visits to assure high-quality service experiences

•       Coordinate with local events, tradeshows, festivals, and experiences as necessary

•       Interact with discerning, high-expectation clients and graciously respond to all customer inquiries via telephone or written correspondence in a timely manner, up-selling whenever appropriate

•       Accurately process phone orders, charges, returns and special requests for all customers

•       Manage shipment calendars for both the Wine Club and process shipments from A-Z. for Wine Club, online orders, tasting room orders, and wholesale orders. This includes knowing our database first- hand, projecting inventory and attrition, arranging shipments, managing a significant number of individual customizations, processing credit cards, and anticipating any challenges along the way before they are even addressed.