I think I have reached my wits end with my samples. I am SO fortunate that my Sales associates that I regularly work with give me samples so freely of so many different houses, plus the few discovery sets I have purchased on my own. Here is my problem, most samples come in the tiny 2ml decants, some come in folder cards, some come in small boxes. I used to keep them by season in different zip lock bags, but that doesn't store well. I have found that I don't reach for my samples because they aren't organized well, not visually easy to find and decide what to try. My bottles and my 10ml decants are all labeled and in a place that makes it easy to test and grab, but these samples are getting harder and harder to manage. I have made it known to my Sales associates, that moving forward whenever possible I want to get 10mls are ideal, but nothing smaller than 5, with clear labeling that doesn't rub off. That will take a while for sure to move through, What are you all doing to keep your samples organized and in a position to know what you have and grab it easily when you're ready for it? Thanks in advance for all your help and ideas.

Last week I posted about what to do about all of my samples and how to store them. My relationship with my sales associates have proved to be so beneficial. Not just because of “free stuff” but I have posted many times about why relationships matter. But for the purposes of this post it’s about the enormous amount of samples that I have accumulated from them as well as on my own. At some point you reach a point where you just “give up” for a while trying to organize and actually try them as they are spread out everywhere! Then a few months go by and you decide to try your samples again. I reached out to the brotherhood last week for storage ideas and received several that made sense. I decided to try @Craig Stevenson idea of a pen portfolio!! For less than $20 this seemed like a great thing to try. Here are some pictures loaded. I still need to potentially do some more labeling. But right now they are all in alphabetical house order. Hopefully I can now go through these in a way that doesn’t send my OCD into overdrive 🤣 This is why the brotherhood is so great!! Like @Lon Chaneyfield has been saying to us all. We NEED to engage!! Ask questions and try something. But more importantly follow up with what you’ve learned or tried. You never know it might help someone else in the process!!