Unlocking Luxury Wine: Charlotte Selles on Brand Strategy, Relationships, and the Business of Wine

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Taking care of your core, whether it's portfolio or

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customers allows you to really unlock and know a

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lot. Whether it's the data or pick up. Your phone,

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sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks

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with Paul Kay. Hey,

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welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today what would

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have been beautiful Southern California, but not today. The whole front

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patio of my studio here is flooded. But to have a conversation with

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Charlotte Sell's introductions in just a minute. Hey, have a listen to Kelly E.

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Carter comes out today. It's a crazy good story about the woman in

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the locker room who now has turned an award winning journalist as well as a

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New York Times bestselling author, but now turned Napa Valley

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tourist with a company called Not Tourism,

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Napa Valley Noir. Have a check it out. But now while we're here, we're here

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to welcome Charlotte Sell. She is a luxury wine growth strategist here the founder

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and CEO of To say where she advises premium vineyards and artisan

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wineries on eccentric on concentric brand management.

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Prior to launching Tissay, she served as general manager of Robert Mongave

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and Constellation Brands and vice president of international portfolio strategy

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for Jackson Family Wines, two huge companies. She teaches at

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Sonoma State Wine Business at the Wine Business

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Institute. Actually there was somebody else that was on that, on

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that faculty that I had on the show once.

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But she speaks on the intersection of leadership, wine innovation and global

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market evolution. Those are the only subjects that we talk about as

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if that's small little pieces of our industry.

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But you said earlier it's really not what you consider one of your great achievements

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in life. No, I mean I've had absolutely amazing

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experiences and everyone has been a source

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of massive growth and

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learnings and sort of putting the pieces of the puzzle.

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But I like to say to both my husband and kid, which I think is

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not in best taste. But for my eulogy, the only achievement I

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want to be discussed is the time I spent working

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at the food bank in San Francisco during COVID Well,

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at the beginning of COVID and

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it was wasn't the type of

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experience where one finds that

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elusive purpose. It was

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draining. It was tiring. I mean we'd walk

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22,000 steps every day. Wow. My wife would be really

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happy with. Yeah, I was, I was very proud. A little more, A little more.

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There was definitely a lot of pain and

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anxiety for those waiting to, to get their bag.

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Obviously a massive food crisis. And in San Francisco

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we have a strong Chinese community

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and there was this group of elderly,

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80s, 90s Chinese lady that were coming back over and over

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and over and getting more bags. And so some would say,

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oh, we've got to punish them. Oh, we got to photograph them. And I was

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like, well, how about we try to understand. And those woman came from.

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From the great famine in China, where they've seen millions and

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millions of people dying and they made it to another country. So it's like,

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you know, we're not the food police here. We're the food bank. So

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can we be okay with, you know, not opening a restaurant

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right now? No, but that's. That's an interesting thought because. And I'm

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Armenian. We come from, you know, the genocide and the woe US

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mentality, which is, I think, in certain cases, valid. But,

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well, if you consider the background. And they're like, wow, this is food and it's

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free food. And we were, you know, we came from a famine. You can

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understand them and, you know, the outlook that they have. It's like, this is what

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a great country for one, would be part of that. Yeah. You know, I'm starting

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another podcast called Song of America, which is about these kinds of stories

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about people that come here and they have social, political, financial success,

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or just a story that's so interesting like that. But that's not what you always

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did. I mean, first of all, I'm not going to write you a eulogy today.

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No, please don't. I still have to drive back to Laguna beach, but

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please don't. Yeah, and you're going to have to, like, tell the chap GT that

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what you want to say. But you were born here.

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You're born in Paris. Yeah, I was born in Paris. My father

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was in the Bercy negotiat industry. So at

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that time, mid-70s, early-70s,

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the wines were gathered in this southern part of Paris called Bercy

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and then sold back to different outlets. And he was bored out of

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his mind. He was like the. He was a pie noire. You know, he was.

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His grandmother had seen the wind coming, so they

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were able to sell their properties. So he had this comfortable

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life, nice wife, two little kids. We have four now.

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But he was bored and he wanted to be a gentleman farmer.

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And his words. He made a critical mistake by

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buying an estate in the Beaujolais region. Wow.

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Which would never allow him to become a gentleman farmer.

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But what he did was create

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what is now the sort of mass negotian format.

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And it worked because at that time,

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the regular classy negotiations would never sell

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their wines, quote, unquote. Next to toilet paper, that is

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supermarkets. And they would never open

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shop in August either. So he was hungry. He did

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that. And in 1994,

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I had met David, who still is my husband, and I said,

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well, I'm going to San Francisco. He's driving me to the airport and says, what

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are you going to do there? I said, well, you know, I mean, if it

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doesn't work, if it works out, I'll get married, and if it doesn't, I'll come

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back to Paris. I'm 20. I don't care. 22. I took

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some guts. Yeah, but 22, you know, I know. But still

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get out of town and. Said, well, that's very stupid. So that's going to date

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me. But buy yourself a fax machine and sell our Wines in the U.S.

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how interesting. So let me go back up just a little bit. When you say

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that he. He feels like he made a mistake because he didn't become a gentleman

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farmer because he bought him Beaujolais, what does that mean? Does that mean that

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his. It didn't go the way he wanted it to go? Or Beaujolais became

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so competitively difficult to

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make it work? Well, Beaujolais was never

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meant to be a

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top of the world region. Right. Gamay

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is a bit of a weed and it has only so

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much range. And I'm saying that with caution because there are some

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extraordinary villages out there. There were some of my

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favorite wines, but overall

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was never meant to be

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a crus classe or a village. Don't tell them that. Right.

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Well, then happened the magic and

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the curse of Beaujolais, which was Beaujolais nouveau,

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which created the plantings of

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hectares and hectares where it should have been potatoes, that is in

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the plains. So it overall dragged down the

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reputation of Beaujolais. It became this quick and easy wine

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you drink once a year for fun. Otherwise most of the time it's

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crap and it's not fair. So the region went through many,

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many changes. It's part of Burgundy now. Officially, they plant

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Syrah and some cabernet I've seen. But for

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my father, very quickly, his revenue

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were really definitely not from that estate. But we had a

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conversation, Paul, a few weeks ago, and you asked me, what is luxury wine

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to you? And that estate was this luxury.

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It was expensive for what it was, what it

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could ever return. It was incredibly expensive

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in terms of self commitment.

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I mean, we would see dark clouds rolling in in

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June and we would start stop breathing because it could

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be hail, right? And if it was hail, then everything would be

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devastated. And then we stopped breathing again.

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If it was raining too much in the summer, and especially when

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harvest started, we definitely did not breathe. I don't know. I was still alive.

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But, you know,

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it was his tension, it was his challenge, it was his

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is grounding as well. And that,

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to us as a family and to me later on,

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really define what luxury is. That

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tension, that commitment to overcome. And

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obviously lots of negative stuff about wine. Plenty of people

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saying luxury wine is overrated. Nothing is worth

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that much money for a bottle of wine. And I think they're kind of missing

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the point because it really isn't about the cost.

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It really is about the tension. We. Whether it's wine

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or watches, we talked about watches. You still have a watch, right? I

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don't usually wear one, but we. Can talk about salt the same way.

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Let me back up something. We'll get to the luxury part in a second. Because

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I had. I've had the Lou Jadot

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winemaker on the show, and he used to bring with him a menu

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from the 60s from Lyon or Dijon, where

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Beaujolais in general was not at least the same price

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of Burgundy, if not more in some cases. So

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he would profess, look, it's an elegant place, it's an elegant wine.

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It can be very sophisticated. I think Cote de P wines are incredibly

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sophisticated. But was it

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the Georges Dubeuf movement for Beaujolais

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nouveau that changed that perception? Is that what you're saying? Basically,

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no. No, it was definitely not Georges Dubeuf. I think Georges Dubeuf and his family

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did a great job at trying to keep it up in terms of

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quality and real wine. I think in some ways, we

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were the culprits to try to get it as cheap as possible.

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I mean, we had. I had negotiation with my Japanese

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importers where we were negotiating. Half

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a cent. Yes, down, down, down, down all the time. So I think

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George and his family, I think Funk is still involved, were actually

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doing the best they could to maintain

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image and quality. It's just, you know,

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somehow maybe the. It's

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not the luxury side of it, but the excitement, the exciting part of the. The

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release, bringing nouveau to the world as a

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celebration of the wine and the region and

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then, you know, the harvest. Maybe that's what, you know, their purpose was.

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And maybe the commercial part became too big, too big for its own

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self. Because, you know, when. When. When we were

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kids, I moved to Paris later, afterwards. But when we were kids,

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we'd go to Villeforste town nearby or Lyon, and.

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And it was just A celebration. It was a celebration of, hey, we

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survived the June hail storms, we survived the rain during

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harvest, we made the wine, and we're pretty proud of it and we're just

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going to enjoy it. It was meant to be something simple. Perspective

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and using that to define luxury. But before we get to that, because I had

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an incredible gentleman here who came from Iran. His name was

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Zaya Unan. And I'll get into that story a little bit, but

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his idea of luxury and why it's important and

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actually not trying to topple, but trying to compete with

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LVMH at that level. So. But you come to America at

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22. This is where you met your husband. No, I had met him

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prior, which is why he met him one or two years earlier. I met him

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in 92 at Molly Malone's on Fairfax in Los Angeles.

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Yes, but that usually doesn't work when.

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And I've seen it so many times, where a woman or man

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come from a foreign country. One being foreign

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being not used to American lifestyle and the sort of the outlook

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on life that Americans have in coming to America and making it work.

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This doesn't happen all the time. Well, we landed in San Francisco,

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which is very European in many, many ways. Yeah, true.

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I traveled a lot and I think I found the perfect man. And

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I still say it, you know, I mean, we've been

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married for 29 years. Wow. Congratulations. It's just.

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It's a. Gosh, this is the congratulations part.

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That's really funny because we celebrate the number of years

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and in some ways I know people that have better relationships that are much

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shorter. Right. So in that lifespan of

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29 years, there are the great years, there's the not

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so good years, and then there's kind of the baseline.

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My son just moved out in July. Oh, wow. And I was.

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I'm very excited. How did that feel?

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Well, it was horned as the first two days. I felt betrayed and left. And

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now what am I going to do with David? And now we've just been having

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our best life ever. So there you go. Don't worry, they

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come back. I can vouch for that. Yeah.

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No, I mean, it really truly is, to me, a sticking

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point where when you say you've been together with someone for

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a long time, there's that wow. And really,

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it isn't a wow. It really is. We

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found each other. We found each other's back when we

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were both moving apart. You've been married also a long time? 30.

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It'll be 39 years, I think. So you know better than I do. Right. Well,

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17 years worth or whatever the. Difference is, I'm not going to go and

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dig. So you, you, you came. Did you have your

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dad's book in your hand as the Beaujolais

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producer or the negociant? Yep. And you were going to

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forge a career in wine because of that? Yeah. So

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I came to the US from a business standpoint with making the same

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mistake that every foreign

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wine producer makes. He's like, let's go to the USA. It's like, no,

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it's like 45, 45 or 50 different

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markets. If your brand is already established, you're

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not looking for an importer because they have already found you.

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So the, you know, Deutsch Co brand type of

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importers, they've already found you as a promising brand

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and some still will build a brand for you. But it's

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rare and at a national level it's almost impossible because

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they have other focus areas to do so. It's not that they're bad people, it's

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just that they have other core competency. But that's changed a

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little bit, right? I mean you started long enough ago to see that happen.

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Yeah. So it doesn't happen anymore. Well, so here's what I did. I was

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very lucky. I started working with Trader Joe's.

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So my parents were happy about the volume they would get.

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Also for the fun story, I had zero background in marketing and coming

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from a French family, no exposure,

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no connectivity with the concept.

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And so Trader Joe's had just opened a store in San Francisco on Masonic

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and it was a hoot. There were lines and lines of people and cars.

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And so the assumption was if a product works well there,

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then it will get rapidly expanding

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national distribution. So we had this viognier

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to Clairv and I just, I just bought a couple cases

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and then I threw it around my friends and I said, hey, you know, I'm

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excited about this wine. If you like it, go buy it, you know, have parties.

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Tell me I did like a mini CRM. Yeah, right.

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And it exploded and it was like. The number one wine V in America. When

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you, when you came here, you came from

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Wine is life. It's a lifestyle.

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America. Certainly in the 70s it was not a lifestyle. I mean not the 70s,

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but in the 90s whenever you came. Well, it would have been in the early

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90s it was more of a lifestyle than it had been prior. But still,

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I don't, I mean, sure that, that America ever catches up

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as a lifestyle of wine that, that the Europeans have But did

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that surprise you or did you think this was. No, I felt

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that Americans were curious about wine. I felt

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Napa was exploding. I felt

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it was a little bit unidimensional in terms of style. So what

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I'm saying politely, with a smile was I just thought wine

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sucked. I thought it was pretentious. I thought it was

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holier than thou type of thing and all

269
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tasted the same. I grew up from that statement. I've learned

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the intricacy. Intricacy,

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intricacies. You have the right to correct me

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or permission I should say. You know, when I, when I joined the

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Robert Mondavi Winery team, I.

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It was the missing piece of the puzzle for me because

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it really made sense that this guy, Robert Mondavi would

276
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just go out in the world and say, I'm going to, you know, show

277
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the world what we can do and my wine is going to be $30. Yeah.

278
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And it all made sense from there. How the

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Harlans, the Chappellet, all those fantastic

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names. Today we're unable to dream.

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Robert Mondavy brought in that enablement to

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dream. So then after we've all read the book, there might be some

283
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controversy, but he was a visionary

284
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and he was the first one to say I'm going to do something different

285
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and I'm making the bet on it. And look at it today.

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I love talking about how Napa in such a period

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of time made wines that are

288
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if not more coveted, at least as much

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coveted than the classified Bordeaux

290
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and Burgundy. And I think the magic trick was

291
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this direct to consumer, straight on

292
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allocation. Allocations were not new. They were already. System

293
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:38,040
was already in place. But this, this idea that those wineries

294
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would bet on not relying on distribution

295
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:45,600
or very small for some restaurants and a couple outlet,

296
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but really rely on the relationships they would build with

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their. Their, you know, in the 70s

298
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and even after the judgment of Paris, which still took

299
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many years for the industry to fill, feel like it was a

300
00:19:00,370 --> 00:19:04,090
full on industry. I mean, I think I've brought this up before on the show.

301
00:19:04,090 --> 00:19:07,170
Jim Barrett didn't retire from being an attorney until like 85.

302
00:19:08,210 --> 00:19:11,330
And that photograph there of my father in the store.

303
00:19:11,730 --> 00:19:15,090
Yeah, that's that they did. You know, the sales call for that,

304
00:19:15,410 --> 00:19:19,250
that era in the late 70s, early 80s was you loaded up

305
00:19:19,250 --> 00:19:22,450
your station wagon full of wine and you drove to Los Angeles and you stopped

306
00:19:22,450 --> 00:19:25,690
at my dad's store and you stopped at the Duke of Bourbon and Wally's and

307
00:19:25,690 --> 00:19:29,070
that was a sales call and hopefully you left with an empty. Such an interesting

308
00:19:29,070 --> 00:19:32,750
thought. That the distribution of the three tier thing was not really part of

309
00:19:33,310 --> 00:19:37,150
the mix then. So when you got to Robert Dhabi, what opened your

310
00:19:37,150 --> 00:19:40,790
eyes? Were you like, wow, he was the ambassador of

311
00:19:40,790 --> 00:19:43,790
Napa Valley. And let's just face it, that's what he did. He traveled the world.

312
00:19:43,790 --> 00:19:47,510
He spoke at my dad's store once to say, hey, we're here and

313
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we're real. So the big eye opener.

314
00:19:51,070 --> 00:19:54,830
And I don't know if she'd be open for doing this, but would

315
00:19:54,830 --> 00:19:58,470
really like you to talk to her. Her name is Genevieve

316
00:19:58,470 --> 00:19:59,070
Johnson.

317
00:20:03,310 --> 00:20:06,990
She was, I think, the first. She's going to hate me if she listens to

318
00:20:06,990 --> 00:20:10,070
this. She started to work with Robert

319
00:20:10,070 --> 00:20:13,790
Mondavi and then I think she was the first winemaker for

320
00:20:13,790 --> 00:20:17,590
Opus Wine and then went back as no longer a

321
00:20:17,590 --> 00:20:21,270
winemaker, but a director of winemaking, where you're organizing the

322
00:20:21,270 --> 00:20:24,950
teams, not just making the wine. She went back to Robert Mondavy. She

323
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still consults with the

324
00:20:28,350 --> 00:20:31,790
Winerian constellation. But she's in

325
00:20:31,790 --> 00:20:34,590
Napa. She lives in Napa. And

326
00:20:37,150 --> 00:20:40,830
what really drew me to her was her commitment to make

327
00:20:41,150 --> 00:20:44,110
vin de garde wines that age.

328
00:20:44,750 --> 00:20:48,430
And somehow conceptually, it's a little bit

329
00:20:48,430 --> 00:20:51,990
challenging when you have this opulence in the wine style, right? Because

330
00:20:52,790 --> 00:20:55,910
you're missing the structure that's going to help it age.

331
00:20:56,870 --> 00:21:00,590
And do people really care about aging? And the answer is enough of

332
00:21:00,590 --> 00:21:04,390
them do care about aging. So it doesn't need to be the entire

333
00:21:04,390 --> 00:21:07,910
country that cares about aging. There's just enough of them that

334
00:21:07,910 --> 00:21:11,190
care about this evolution. And

335
00:21:11,910 --> 00:21:15,710
she actually made her own label. She

336
00:21:15,710 --> 00:21:19,430
border lays. She

337
00:21:19,430 --> 00:21:22,150
would kill me if I didn't know that answer. We're gonna have to look it

338
00:21:22,150 --> 00:21:23,190
up. We're in big trouble already.

339
00:21:25,830 --> 00:21:28,630
Well, I mean, the idea of avant garde is going to be

340
00:21:29,430 --> 00:21:33,190
more French or at least Bordeaux esque than certainly Napa.

341
00:21:33,350 --> 00:21:37,150
Genevieve, please forgive me if you're watching this. I don't think she

342
00:21:37,150 --> 00:21:39,990
was born in Bordeaux, but she did study in Bordeaux.

343
00:21:41,510 --> 00:21:44,950
I'm gonna really get scared cold in. Well, you know, let's move on from that.

344
00:21:45,110 --> 00:21:47,790
But let's go. Let's go back to the Von de Guard things. I just. We

345
00:21:47,790 --> 00:21:51,630
were just in Yontville and the. The vintage house

346
00:21:51,630 --> 00:21:55,150
or the estate of Yonville is called now had a bottle of

347
00:21:55,150 --> 00:21:58,150
Mondavi Cab and I thought, you know, what am I gonna do with a bottle?

348
00:21:58,150 --> 00:22:01,110
Mond. We got a cellar full of wine at home. But I took. I brought

349
00:22:01,110 --> 00:22:04,790
it home anyway. I figured, why leave it in the hotel room? I was impressed

350
00:22:05,110 --> 00:22:08,860
and I, for a couple of reasons. One was it wasn't

351
00:22:08,860 --> 00:22:12,580
the overdone, opulent style that Napa has become to be known

352
00:22:12,580 --> 00:22:16,380
for. And it carried some pedigree with it already.

353
00:22:16,460 --> 00:22:20,180
And I thought, how interesting because it's a Constellation product and

354
00:22:20,180 --> 00:22:22,940
I talk about this on the show that these, you know, there aren't that many

355
00:22:22,940 --> 00:22:26,220
privately owned wineries of those days anymore.

356
00:22:26,780 --> 00:22:30,500
And how do we maintain the brand value of a wine like

357
00:22:30,500 --> 00:22:34,150
Mondavi when it's run by a major corporation? Well,

358
00:22:34,310 --> 00:22:37,830
that's a very, very big sticking point

359
00:22:37,830 --> 00:22:41,550
today. So there

360
00:22:41,550 --> 00:22:45,390
was always those dynamics and it's somehow of a classic

361
00:22:45,390 --> 00:22:49,190
large portfolio architecture where

362
00:22:49,190 --> 00:22:52,630
you have the Robert Montavy Winery that's sitting on the Tocquellon

363
00:22:52,630 --> 00:22:56,470
Estate. Then you have Robert Mondavi Private Reserve. And then you had

364
00:22:56,870 --> 00:23:00,510
Woodbridge by Mondavi. The assumption was always you

365
00:23:00,510 --> 00:23:03,950
start here in the bottom when you're young and, and then you walk your way

366
00:23:03,950 --> 00:23:07,750
up. I'm not going to spend one penny doing some

367
00:23:07,750 --> 00:23:11,150
studies on whether this works or not. But now that Woodbridge and

368
00:23:11,550 --> 00:23:14,990
Robert Mondevi Private Reserve have been sold to the wine group,

369
00:23:16,990 --> 00:23:20,750
it's a bit of a challenge, isn't it? Because say,

370
00:23:20,750 --> 00:23:24,390
Paul, you go see Constellation and you say, well, I

371
00:23:24,390 --> 00:23:28,070
want to buy the Robert Mondevy Winery. That's

372
00:23:28,070 --> 00:23:31,280
great, you put a lot of money but now you're going to have another company

373
00:23:31,360 --> 00:23:34,960
that's selling with very different positioning

374
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,840
and no, no sanctity between

375
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,440
each world. That's interesting. So, so it's, it's going to be a real

376
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,040
big challenge for whoever takes this on.

377
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:49,800
There's, for me, the more question and I'll, I'll get to answering your question a

378
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:53,520
bit earlier is what really opened my eyes working with

379
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,560
those great group of people was the Tokel on estate. And what

380
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:01,160
really opened my eyes because I'm a mountain fruit

381
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:04,720
girl. So I also snub plain fruit.

382
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,680
I was wired that way with Beaujolais. Okay, right.

383
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,040
Well, discovering eye block, which is Sauvignon Blanc, 60

384
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:16,480
year old vines, 65 year old vines that are not

385
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,120
irrigated is telling me well, okay, maybe, maybe

386
00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:23,820
vines were meant to be here. Not to mention the

387
00:24:23,820 --> 00:24:27,660
wine is fabulous. But it's really

388
00:24:27,660 --> 00:24:31,460
opened my eyes and seeing all the efforts. So I've seen

389
00:24:31,460 --> 00:24:34,420
a couple ones. Harlan is doing more and more dry farming.

390
00:24:35,380 --> 00:24:38,740
And then I was talking with Bettina Bryant from Bryant Estate

391
00:24:39,140 --> 00:24:42,100
a couple years ago and the drought was

392
00:24:42,660 --> 00:24:46,380
very bad. The lake right next to Pritchard Hill was drying

393
00:24:46,380 --> 00:24:49,420
up. So they said, well, we're Going to save the water for humans. Are you

394
00:24:49,420 --> 00:24:52,520
okay with that? And it was a massive, massive

395
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,440
moment of anxiety for Bettina and her team because

396
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,760
what's going to happen to my grapes? What's going to happen to my vines? And

397
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,600
again, mountain fruit, which means really

398
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,840
eager roots survived

399
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,800
for the most part. So again, yes, you know,

400
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:16,520
Napa is meant to have those luxury wines.

401
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:20,130
A special part. I think so. And I, it, I think it still has

402
00:25:21,250 --> 00:25:24,690
a long way to go. Not because it's

403
00:25:24,770 --> 00:25:28,610
elementary, but because it takes that long to

404
00:25:28,610 --> 00:25:32,330
understand what it's going to do. And right now we're in the sort

405
00:25:32,330 --> 00:25:35,650
of marketing turmoil. And

406
00:25:36,690 --> 00:25:39,810
it's very interesting because the other day I took a bottle of silver oak to

407
00:25:39,810 --> 00:25:43,410
a friend because they took me to the baseball game and they were so happy.

408
00:25:43,410 --> 00:25:46,610
They were just so thrilled or came as took actually one of each.

409
00:25:47,250 --> 00:25:51,050
And so I wanted to take a nice Bordeaux or something

410
00:25:51,050 --> 00:25:52,890
interesting boutique

411
00:25:54,490 --> 00:25:57,930
Napa wine. But I knew that they would recognize this and

412
00:25:57,930 --> 00:26:01,210
appreciate the fact that they feel like they're being treated to luxury at this point.

413
00:26:01,770 --> 00:26:05,530
Right. And though we know that there are interesting things to

414
00:26:05,530 --> 00:26:08,250
be had there. And I would just come, like I said, from Napa and I

415
00:26:08,250 --> 00:26:12,010
had a tasting with Chris Phelps, who

416
00:26:12,010 --> 00:26:14,650
used to be a Dominus and then makes his own wine at Vivium.

417
00:26:15,830 --> 00:26:19,670
You know, here's this fabulous mountain fruit, some of his mountain

418
00:26:19,670 --> 00:26:22,710
fruit and then he's got yon feel fruit. And I'm like, I wish I could

419
00:26:22,710 --> 00:26:25,510
take this, but it didn't carry that brand value.

420
00:26:26,230 --> 00:26:29,510
So your position now with to say

421
00:26:30,550 --> 00:26:33,670
is a consulting firm. Yeah,

422
00:26:34,950 --> 00:26:36,230
we have many labels.

423
00:26:38,470 --> 00:26:41,030
What we really are good at.

424
00:26:42,820 --> 00:26:46,500
Is. Especially for wineries that are transitioning or

425
00:26:47,220 --> 00:26:50,940
recovering. So transitioning

426
00:26:50,940 --> 00:26:54,620
from. You've mastered your craft in terms of wine

427
00:26:54,620 --> 00:26:58,460
and product, but the business part of

428
00:26:58,460 --> 00:27:01,860
the wine business is still kind of foreign to you.

429
00:27:04,420 --> 00:27:08,180
And you've probably been advised by people that are telling you you should do

430
00:27:08,180 --> 00:27:11,960
ads and you know, make sure

431
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:15,520
lots of people come through your, your tasting room door. So

432
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,320
those, those winers are still being advised that way and it's slowed

433
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,880
them down when things were good and it's pretty much

434
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,680
killing them now. Things aren't good. And the other

435
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,680
part, the other type of wineries we're really good at helping

436
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,520
is recovery and especially

437
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:36,640
recovery from over expansion

438
00:27:37,610 --> 00:27:40,810
and flirting with the bottom shelf. So

439
00:27:41,530 --> 00:27:44,650
if you're on on on the top of, of a

440
00:27:45,130 --> 00:27:48,810
very prestigious and I was talking about Pritchard Hill and

441
00:27:48,810 --> 00:27:52,530
you're still selling wines that are under 50, $50, you're doing

442
00:27:52,530 --> 00:27:56,330
the same thing then the Robert Mondevi Winery

443
00:27:56,330 --> 00:27:59,970
team did way back when of saying, well, I can sell

444
00:27:59,970 --> 00:28:03,440
more and cheaper because now my name is recognized and I've just

445
00:28:03,670 --> 00:28:07,270
halo effect. And it's going to bring people in. That's never

446
00:28:07,270 --> 00:28:11,030
really been substantiated. It's very helpful if

447
00:28:11,030 --> 00:28:14,470
you have a cash flow problem, which many very

448
00:28:14,470 --> 00:28:18,310
unfortunately have right now. But it's. How

449
00:28:18,310 --> 00:28:21,990
do I help you think that by focusing

450
00:28:22,150 --> 00:28:25,590
on your core essence and really

451
00:28:25,590 --> 00:28:29,310
nurturing the relationships you have with

452
00:28:29,310 --> 00:28:33,150
your existing customers will work? And I'm going

453
00:28:33,150 --> 00:28:36,150
to take a tangent here and tell you about the other type of clients we

454
00:28:36,150 --> 00:28:39,870
have because it's been pretty wild since the last time

455
00:28:39,870 --> 00:28:43,590
we talked, or at least early July is

456
00:28:43,590 --> 00:28:47,189
what we're really doing. And so there's a strategic. We put you back

457
00:28:47,190 --> 00:28:50,990
on track. And I'll want to go back to it because

458
00:28:50,990 --> 00:28:54,590
there's some really important things there. But from a marketing

459
00:28:54,590 --> 00:28:57,110
standpoint, what we've been really learning,

460
00:28:58,660 --> 00:29:02,460
5,000% every day, is retention marketing. And

461
00:29:02,460 --> 00:29:06,180
we're working with an AI companionship company. We're working with a SaaS company.

462
00:29:06,580 --> 00:29:09,860
Nothing to do with wine. They don't even drink, these people. Right?

463
00:29:10,180 --> 00:29:13,979
And I'm having those conversations and explaining what I do for wineries and

464
00:29:13,979 --> 00:29:17,700
I say, well, help me do it for my business. So wineries, it's a different

465
00:29:17,780 --> 00:29:21,180
cycle because we go through the releases

466
00:29:21,180 --> 00:29:24,260
cycle to potentially three a year,

467
00:29:25,340 --> 00:29:29,020
etc. For those people, we're talking about daily data,

468
00:29:29,500 --> 00:29:33,300
right? So who canceled? Paul, did you cancel your separation? How do

469
00:29:33,300 --> 00:29:36,940
we get you back? How did you use our product?

470
00:29:36,940 --> 00:29:40,420
And there's all those signals which are great for my

471
00:29:40,420 --> 00:29:44,100
adhd, but sometimes exhausting. I wouldn't say

472
00:29:44,100 --> 00:29:47,660
adhd. Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean, a lot of us do

473
00:29:49,100 --> 00:29:51,580
on the safe side of the spectrum, of course, but

474
00:29:53,090 --> 00:29:56,690
it really is this idea of instead of wanting to

475
00:29:56,690 --> 00:30:00,130
open the floodgates of plenty of people through your

476
00:30:00,130 --> 00:30:03,930
tasting room, plenty of people coming, why don't you just take a

477
00:30:03,930 --> 00:30:07,730
second to nurture, understand and care for the

478
00:30:07,730 --> 00:30:11,330
ones that are in your world? And it's critical because

479
00:30:12,290 --> 00:30:15,810
with the exception of Galo and

480
00:30:15,810 --> 00:30:19,270
Galo really, no wineries has solid,

481
00:30:19,270 --> 00:30:23,070
solid consumer insights like Galo really does. It's

482
00:30:23,070 --> 00:30:26,750
part of their growth engine to know what people do. But it's a

483
00:30:26,750 --> 00:30:30,310
scale very, very little wineries can do. But when you

484
00:30:30,310 --> 00:30:33,590
have all this data, rich data,

485
00:30:33,750 --> 00:30:37,430
crazy rich information about the people you

486
00:30:37,430 --> 00:30:41,150
have, then you can start doing some work at a

487
00:30:41,150 --> 00:30:44,790
level that potentially Galo can't do because they're busy doing other

488
00:30:44,790 --> 00:30:48,550
things. Let me slow you down for a second. It's so exciting.

489
00:30:49,410 --> 00:30:53,130
Well, what I did, I watched all of it.

490
00:30:53,130 --> 00:30:56,570
Right. We started the why the Month Club by shaking hands at a booth, at

491
00:30:56,570 --> 00:31:00,250
a show. And this established a relationship at that moment. And so the

492
00:31:00,250 --> 00:31:03,810
retention was very high because they would remember this

493
00:31:03,810 --> 00:31:07,170
conversation and meeting at the fairs and what I told

494
00:31:07,410 --> 00:31:11,250
my father's story, whatever. And we tried to. As marketing moved

495
00:31:11,250 --> 00:31:14,970
on and we went into the mail and cataloging, we had our first website in

496
00:31:14,970 --> 00:31:18,550
1997. All this retention stuff started to make

497
00:31:18,870 --> 00:31:22,430
more sense, though. It was always around because. But there was less

498
00:31:22,430 --> 00:31:26,030
volatility without the Internet. You know, the fact that they got their

499
00:31:26,030 --> 00:31:29,470
wine every month felt good every month. And there was no

500
00:31:29,470 --> 00:31:33,230
barrage of trying to go somewhere else and other messaging and getting a

501
00:31:33,230 --> 00:31:37,070
case of wine for 60 bucks for shipping. That didn't exist. And so when you

502
00:31:37,070 --> 00:31:40,230
got. Now we got on the Internet and all of a sudden the data was

503
00:31:40,230 --> 00:31:43,350
available to you if you weren't mining it somehow,

504
00:31:44,060 --> 00:31:47,580
which is hard and expensive for most wineries. And by the way, we're

505
00:31:47,580 --> 00:31:51,420
farmers. Like your father wanted to be a gentleman farmer. He didn't want to

506
00:31:51,420 --> 00:31:55,060
learn about AI and metrics, social media

507
00:31:55,060 --> 00:31:58,700
metrics, which are, I think, worthless in most cases. Agreed.

508
00:32:00,140 --> 00:32:03,900
But that retention part of the

509
00:32:03,900 --> 00:32:07,620
business was always something we needed to continue to

510
00:32:07,620 --> 00:32:11,450
nurture. Whether it was through dinners, which I used to use all over the

511
00:32:11,450 --> 00:32:14,930
country. I would fly and do dinners and they'd show up and they'd come. They,

512
00:32:14,930 --> 00:32:18,410
they. All the people sit at the tables. They, they were strangers to each other.

513
00:32:18,410 --> 00:32:21,370
They would talk about the Wine of the Month club and it was just great

514
00:32:21,450 --> 00:32:25,170
relationship building. It's different now. How do you get

515
00:32:25,170 --> 00:32:28,810
that relationship? How do you nurture digitally

516
00:32:29,370 --> 00:32:33,170
the. The clients that you have? It's so easy. All the,

517
00:32:33,170 --> 00:32:37,010
all the. It really is easy. So hard. The hard part

518
00:32:37,010 --> 00:32:40,690
is the mindset. Because if you looking at the

519
00:32:40,690 --> 00:32:43,610
business with the mindset that it's easier,

520
00:32:44,170 --> 00:32:47,930
cheaper to find new people in. It's okay if people

521
00:32:47,930 --> 00:32:51,570
are leaving. You are

522
00:32:51,570 --> 00:32:54,490
missing out a lot. Because it's not just about retaining.

523
00:32:55,690 --> 00:32:59,530
What am I going to do so Paul doesn't go away. It really truly

524
00:32:59,530 --> 00:33:02,890
is with the data, which is very simple.

525
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:08,120
So some. Most small and medium wineries are using

526
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,840
Commerce 7. They were on wine Direct. There's a Belgium

527
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,960
guy who's called Chris who does analytics,

528
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:16,920
enolytics. So

529
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:21,320
enolytics, Enolytics. All the

530
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:25,160
tourism. Enolytics. And every single time

531
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:29,000
I talk to not the winery owner, they don't know that term,

532
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,230
but their team. There is a magic little

533
00:33:32,790 --> 00:33:36,630
setting called rfm Recency Frequency monitoring.

534
00:33:36,790 --> 00:33:40,110
Who bought recently, who, who

535
00:33:40,110 --> 00:33:43,950
buys frequently and how much money do they

536
00:33:43,950 --> 00:33:47,590
spend? And it's just in there.

537
00:33:48,150 --> 00:33:51,950
And they don't know because you know, most of the time when

538
00:33:51,950 --> 00:33:55,710
you're working in a DTC team, there are some brilliant talent there.

539
00:33:55,710 --> 00:33:58,990
Like there's, there's real talent. Like those people are

540
00:33:58,990 --> 00:34:02,510
exploding with AI because it used to be you had to go sift through all

541
00:34:05,310 --> 00:34:08,150
those reports and you had to download the report and you had to read and

542
00:34:08,150 --> 00:34:11,950
understand. Now you just. First you may

543
00:34:11,950 --> 00:34:15,590
have a platform that will do the analysis for you. That's what Stefan is

544
00:34:15,590 --> 00:34:19,430
doing. Stefan Mock. So instead of downloading the report and

545
00:34:19,430 --> 00:34:22,670
knowing what to download, you just type in the question like GPT,

546
00:34:23,450 --> 00:34:27,210
Hey, I want to do this. What do we know and what should I do?

547
00:34:29,450 --> 00:34:33,170
Is it being used? I mean, I have to tell you something. When I sold

548
00:34:33,170 --> 00:34:36,810
the company three years ago, well, coming on three years,

549
00:34:37,290 --> 00:34:40,850
we were in the middle of rewriting our site. And because I'd done this for

550
00:34:40,850 --> 00:34:44,090
35 years, because what I wrote in 1993

551
00:34:44,410 --> 00:34:47,930
in DOS was infinitely more

552
00:34:47,930 --> 00:34:51,050
sophisticated than what was on the market at the time that I went to go

553
00:34:51,050 --> 00:34:54,660
rerap my site. Commerce 7. Big, big whatever the big

554
00:34:54,660 --> 00:34:58,380
commerce, all those guys. The subscription side of this, which is

555
00:34:58,380 --> 00:35:00,980
such an important side of the DTC was

556
00:35:01,940 --> 00:35:05,580
average at best. Mine was superior. But unfortunately

557
00:35:05,580 --> 00:35:08,420
since I wrote it in dos, it didn't have a customer facing

558
00:35:08,980 --> 00:35:12,820
capabilities that you have on the Internet. So we were rewriting the features

559
00:35:12,820 --> 00:35:16,380
of what I had done for 35 years into a

560
00:35:16,380 --> 00:35:20,170
UX, but we never finished it because I sold

561
00:35:20,170 --> 00:35:24,010
it. But is it, is it pretty capable now? Are we able to mine

562
00:35:24,010 --> 00:35:27,690
this data and use Steve Stephan, you call him Stephan, I'll call him Stephen.

563
00:35:27,690 --> 00:35:31,410
Stephen. It's Stephen French style. Stephen. Stephen, yes. Apologies

564
00:35:31,410 --> 00:35:34,250
to you too, Stephen. To.

565
00:35:35,370 --> 00:35:38,890
Are, are they receptive? Are your clients receptive

566
00:35:39,210 --> 00:35:42,930
to running those reports using, you know, an English based prompt

567
00:35:42,930 --> 00:35:46,740
and, and figure out what to do with the data? So, so

568
00:35:46,740 --> 00:35:48,580
the owners we talk to

569
00:35:50,980 --> 00:35:54,820
are not in a good shape. Right. Things are not good as,

570
00:35:54,820 --> 00:35:58,340
as good as they were for those who are not losing money,

571
00:35:58,820 --> 00:36:02,580
they're not making more money. And there's this

572
00:36:02,580 --> 00:36:06,420
constant, you know, wine is dying, wine is dying buzz around

573
00:36:06,420 --> 00:36:10,220
them. So it's, it's a tough one. I mean it's to your point for the

574
00:36:10,220 --> 00:36:13,770
most part. There are farmers, I believe it, by the way. I Don't believe

575
00:36:13,770 --> 00:36:16,890
it. I mean, I know sales are down, but I don't believe.

576
00:36:17,450 --> 00:36:21,290
So I listened to your interview with Zaya. Yeah. Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah,

577
00:36:21,290 --> 00:36:24,890
I did, yes. You said it was fantastic.

578
00:36:25,210 --> 00:36:28,810
He discovered wine. I mean, he may have

579
00:36:28,810 --> 00:36:31,610
known wine exists, but he discovered

580
00:36:33,370 --> 00:36:36,730
his Tata moment was this business dinner with his

581
00:36:38,100 --> 00:36:41,860
G. Was it G? Yes. It

582
00:36:41,860 --> 00:36:45,580
was Petrus. So that moment can happen very differently

583
00:36:45,580 --> 00:36:48,980
for different people. So the fact that someone buys

584
00:36:48,980 --> 00:36:52,580
Woodbridge today is not a guarantee that they will

585
00:36:52,900 --> 00:36:56,740
become a luxury wine connoisseur, meaning interested and

586
00:36:56,740 --> 00:36:59,940
wealthy enough to go that path. So

587
00:37:00,500 --> 00:37:04,180
it's going to be all those different moments and life is peppered with it.

588
00:37:04,540 --> 00:37:08,140
It's celebrations, right? It, it's, it's, it's.

589
00:37:08,140 --> 00:37:11,180
It's new. New business ventures. It's.

590
00:37:11,660 --> 00:37:15,220
It's new people in your life that, that are fascinated by it.

591
00:37:15,220 --> 00:37:18,860
It's a. You're a real estate agent and you're going up your ladder and

592
00:37:18,860 --> 00:37:22,500
then you discover this property with this massive seller and it does

593
00:37:22,500 --> 00:37:25,020
something to you or it does nothing. Are you trying to say you're going to

594
00:37:25,020 --> 00:37:28,860
be harder drugs if you start with Woodbridge

595
00:37:28,940 --> 00:37:32,640
and you might get the harder drugs like Dominus or Petrus or something

596
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,960
like that. Who knows, right? Like, everybody's path is going to be different.

597
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:40,040
And, and, and so the so what for a winery

598
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:43,640
owner is what do I do? Do I continue

599
00:37:43,720 --> 00:37:46,840
doing what I'm doing and I'm not having much success,

600
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,240
or do I do things differently? And there's a

601
00:37:51,240 --> 00:37:55,000
couple markers. That's why I wanted to go back. So most

602
00:37:55,240 --> 00:37:58,460
winery owners, as some sort of C suite,

603
00:37:58,930 --> 00:38:02,610
fractional or full time,

604
00:38:03,570 --> 00:38:07,370
and it's usually someone. I

605
00:38:07,370 --> 00:38:11,130
want to make a parenthesis here. You know why I really wanted to meet

606
00:38:11,130 --> 00:38:14,690
you, Paul, is that on your show you have an

607
00:38:14,690 --> 00:38:18,530
insane amount of women you bring up here. And I've been in this industry

608
00:38:18,610 --> 00:38:20,690
for about 30 years officially,

609
00:38:22,850 --> 00:38:26,690
and still leadership is mostly men. So when we think about my target,

610
00:38:26,690 --> 00:38:29,980
it's mostly men. And I close the parenthesis to say thank you,

611
00:38:30,540 --> 00:38:33,580
because what you're doing is very important in

612
00:38:34,060 --> 00:38:37,900
continuing pushing the ball.

613
00:38:37,980 --> 00:38:41,820
Had Jessica Kogan, who's a huge flag waiver for women

614
00:38:41,820 --> 00:38:43,980
in the wine trade. Tracy Mason.

615
00:38:46,060 --> 00:38:49,500
You know, this winery owner thing just

616
00:38:49,500 --> 00:38:53,180
triggered a thought. I went to an Armenian tasting Sunday,

617
00:38:54,710 --> 00:38:58,390
and there's this wonderful couple who've been on the show and they make wine

618
00:38:58,390 --> 00:39:02,110
in Paso and they have a little tasting room and they. And I

619
00:39:02,110 --> 00:39:03,430
started thinking, that person

620
00:39:05,590 --> 00:39:09,350
needs to do what you're talking about. They need to Embrace the technologies

621
00:39:09,350 --> 00:39:13,070
in order to compete and to understand. But at the same

622
00:39:13,070 --> 00:39:16,910
time, they didn't get into the industry and they didn't start making wine and

623
00:39:16,910 --> 00:39:20,550
passive robles because they were looking to build this magnanimous

624
00:39:20,550 --> 00:39:24,030
business. They just wanted to fall in love with the, with the lifestyle.

625
00:39:24,350 --> 00:39:27,910
And is there's this. Is that a conflict you run into with this

626
00:39:27,910 --> 00:39:31,710
between the person who now realizes we've got to make, you know,

627
00:39:31,710 --> 00:39:35,230
we're not making any money at this. It's hard to make money at this. And

628
00:39:35,230 --> 00:39:38,670
so what do we have to do? Is there resistance to learning this?

629
00:39:39,470 --> 00:39:43,110
I just wanted to make wine. It's a

630
00:39:43,110 --> 00:39:46,910
balance between fear and how you will

631
00:39:46,910 --> 00:39:50,550
be managing that fear. So when you're coming to this

632
00:39:50,550 --> 00:39:54,150
industry potentially wealthy and say, I want to do

633
00:39:54,150 --> 00:39:57,550
wine, okay, more than potentially, but

634
00:39:57,550 --> 00:40:01,310
wealthy, and you're able to buy this land and you're learning how

635
00:40:01,310 --> 00:40:05,110
to develop this land, right? The vineyard doesn't plop itself. There's

636
00:40:05,350 --> 00:40:09,150
millions of critical decisions to be made. And then you

637
00:40:09,150 --> 00:40:12,950
get to the making the wine. One of my previous clients in

638
00:40:12,950 --> 00:40:16,430
Santa Barbara, fascinated by

639
00:40:16,430 --> 00:40:20,030
wine. Part of the Confreres

640
00:40:21,070 --> 00:40:23,950
Chevalier de Chevalier,

641
00:40:25,630 --> 00:40:29,230
and then just wanted to see how Pinot and Chardonnay would thrive

642
00:40:30,030 --> 00:40:33,550
in a Santa Rita hills or bottom of the Santa Rita hills.

643
00:40:33,950 --> 00:40:36,270
And so he's fascinated by the development,

644
00:40:37,870 --> 00:40:41,310
never wanted to make wine, was selling his grapes to a winery,

645
00:40:41,860 --> 00:40:45,300
but the winery went bankrupt. So now he's back with his 16

646
00:40:45,380 --> 00:40:49,100
barrels of wine and he's gotta like reluctantly be

647
00:40:49,100 --> 00:40:52,820
part of the winemaking process. He works

648
00:40:52,820 --> 00:40:56,100
with the Sandy people, Sashimorman

649
00:40:56,660 --> 00:41:00,460
and company. And when I first met him, he

650
00:41:00,460 --> 00:41:04,020
said, like, it feels to me like the part I still haven't gotten is

651
00:41:04,260 --> 00:41:08,020
the business of wine. Not the wine business, the business of wine.

652
00:41:08,020 --> 00:41:11,860
Business of wine. And this is very tricky because you'll have some people

653
00:41:11,860 --> 00:41:15,260
in good faith who will tell you, well, you've got to sell to

654
00:41:15,260 --> 00:41:18,700
wholesale, but you do have to have some dtc. But if they're not

655
00:41:18,940 --> 00:41:22,780
from a DTC background, they might not wire you for the best.

656
00:41:23,260 --> 00:41:27,020
And if they don't really have strategic marketing experience

657
00:41:27,180 --> 00:41:30,900
and tools, they might not wire you for going

658
00:41:30,900 --> 00:41:34,740
where you want to go, but you still don't know as an owner. So you

659
00:41:34,740 --> 00:41:38,500
have to have trust and faith and it might not

660
00:41:38,500 --> 00:41:42,260
work right. It's just like building a house. In some ways.

661
00:41:42,900 --> 00:41:46,300
You have an idea of what a nice house looks like. You've never built a

662
00:41:46,300 --> 00:41:48,420
house. You're going to take a leap of faith

663
00:41:50,820 --> 00:41:54,660
in hiring a builder and some good things. Some bad

664
00:41:54,660 --> 00:41:58,260
things may happen a few times. So the hard part is really

665
00:41:58,340 --> 00:42:02,020
right now because cash flow is

666
00:42:02,020 --> 00:42:05,640
not as flowing as it was. Some debts are being

667
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:09,240
called and there's this negative outlook.

668
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:13,000
So now is the time to really go back to your database.

669
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:17,760
Hire people that know how to do it. The tools are there, the data

670
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,600
is here. The tools to analyze the data.

671
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,120
When we I launched a new word

672
00:42:25,720 --> 00:42:29,480
to pseudonyze. Sounds kinky, but it is

673
00:42:29,990 --> 00:42:31,750
to into sodomize.

674
00:42:33,510 --> 00:42:37,350
Pseudonize. Pseudoize. Never heard of it. Okay,

675
00:42:37,350 --> 00:42:41,110
so bear with me. So I get

676
00:42:41,110 --> 00:42:44,790
all this report, right And I don't have time and I don't really

677
00:42:44,790 --> 00:42:47,990
want to spend a whole day on Excel like trying to balance that. So what

678
00:42:47,990 --> 00:42:51,830
I do is I pseudonize meaning that I change your

679
00:42:52,870 --> 00:42:56,630
your subscribers names with ABC 123

680
00:42:57,260 --> 00:43:01,060
keys. That's a pseudonym. I'm going to have

681
00:43:01,060 --> 00:43:04,820
to practice that word before I make pseudonymized like pseudo. P S

682
00:43:04,820 --> 00:43:08,620
E U D. Oh pseudony. Thank you. You know, I'm going to stay away

683
00:43:08,620 --> 00:43:11,660
from that word because it's making a lot of people nervous.

684
00:43:13,100 --> 00:43:16,620
But so and I use Julius AI or likely, you know, similar

685
00:43:17,100 --> 00:43:20,900
GPT rappers we call them. And then you know exactly who

686
00:43:20,900 --> 00:43:24,300
to go talk to. Right. So when your members

687
00:43:24,300 --> 00:43:28,100
cancel, I

688
00:43:28,100 --> 00:43:31,820
picked up two clients who had more cancels than sign ins

689
00:43:32,300 --> 00:43:35,740
and the cancels were on the higher tiers of their

690
00:43:35,740 --> 00:43:39,540
membership. And then signing comes at the bottom tier. So you

691
00:43:39,540 --> 00:43:43,260
know where the business is going when that's happening. Of course, like it's just a

692
00:43:43,260 --> 00:43:47,020
matter of calculating how long the Runway will be. When we were.

693
00:43:47,020 --> 00:43:50,590
Let me interrupt. So when we were growing and I

694
00:43:50,670 --> 00:43:54,350
when we started the club, there was one club, one price. Then we added

695
00:43:54,350 --> 00:43:57,190
a premium club which is called the Limited Series. And this is many, many, many

696
00:43:57,190 --> 00:44:00,950
years ago. And then we then as the marketplace became more variable and there was

697
00:44:00,950 --> 00:44:04,789
more flexibility with what you signed up for. With

698
00:44:04,789 --> 00:44:08,270
my competitors, we started adding either Bordeaux Club and Napa Series Club.

699
00:44:08,350 --> 00:44:12,190
But always, always, always the, the, the

700
00:44:12,190 --> 00:44:15,860
Value club was the biggest. So no matter what

701
00:44:16,020 --> 00:44:19,700
I offered and hoped for instance that they

702
00:44:19,700 --> 00:44:23,420
had the Woodbridge mentality when they joined the Classic series as we

703
00:44:23,420 --> 00:44:27,180
called it. And they would grow to, you know, the Mondavi Reserve or

704
00:44:27,180 --> 00:44:30,979
the Limited Series or one of those types of clubs. But I want to go

705
00:44:30,979 --> 00:44:34,260
back to something for a second. Kevin o' Leary was on this show

706
00:44:35,460 --> 00:44:39,140
and it was because he and I had a couple conversations about

707
00:44:39,140 --> 00:44:42,950
doing business together. Now he has family Lear Estates. It was

708
00:44:42,950 --> 00:44:45,750
Pat Ronet was making it up at Vintage wine estates. I don't know where it's

709
00:44:45,750 --> 00:44:49,510
made now. And his final advice to me,

710
00:44:49,510 --> 00:44:52,830
which I had this without having to go on the TV show, got advice from

711
00:44:52,830 --> 00:44:56,470
him. That's pretty good. Now, at this point, he. They had seen my numbers,

712
00:44:56,470 --> 00:45:00,110
they'd seen where I was selling, who I was selling to, and the kinds of

713
00:45:00,110 --> 00:45:03,870
things I was selling. It didn't fit the model, didn't fit what they were looking

714
00:45:03,870 --> 00:45:07,190
for to. To supplement the brands that they had.

715
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,840
But he said, you know, you really ought to be focusing on your current client

716
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,680
base. You really ought to be laser sharp

717
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,960
and offering them the clubbiness, as my dad used to call it back in the

718
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,760
day of what you're doing and build that brand around

719
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:26,320
it, because leading to what you're talking about,

720
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,080
there's so many directions right now.

721
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,280
Somebody could come to one of your clients, say, you should have a can. You

722
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,880
should have a non elk. You should have a low, low elk Prosecco.

723
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:43,720
You should have sparkling. You should have 375s

724
00:45:43,720 --> 00:45:46,600
and 187s and 250s. I mean, all these

725
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,680
decisions could completely waylay you. And each

726
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,960
one of those decisions requires a firm commitment

727
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:58,360
to develop that. Yep. And do you. Are they

728
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:02,120
faced with those kinds of decisions? When you come to them all the time, There's.

729
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:07,080
There's always a shiny new object. And if it's presented to you, if

730
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,760
you don't have built that confidence with the business

731
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:14,320
of wine, then you'll say, all right, that kind of makes sense. I'm not

732
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:15,960
stupid. Let's go do it.

733
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,960
Taking care of your core, whether it's portfolio or

734
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:25,640
customers, allows you to really unlock and know a

735
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:29,000
lot, whether it's the data or pick up your phone.

736
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,760
Another person I would love to talk to is the Seyon family.

737
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,200
Pierre and Monique probably are just traveling somewhere.

738
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:42,240
They created Verite with Jess Jackson in

739
00:46:42,240 --> 00:46:46,000
1998. Well, 98 was the first vintage. What was the brand?

740
00:46:46,240 --> 00:46:49,880
Verite. Oh, yeah, I know it. It's magnificent.

741
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:53,520
It really is magnificent. And when you come to San Francisco, you have time.

742
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,710
We'll go together. But,

743
00:46:58,790 --> 00:47:02,230
you know, they had three or four people in the

744
00:47:02,230 --> 00:47:06,030
DTC team. There's $700 wine. It was not

745
00:47:06,030 --> 00:47:09,710
a DTC team. And, you know, there

746
00:47:09,710 --> 00:47:13,390
were not hundreds of appointments. It was by appointment only,

747
00:47:13,390 --> 00:47:16,950
of course. But those people, when they

748
00:47:16,950 --> 00:47:20,710
weren't hosting and taking care of. You want

749
00:47:20,710 --> 00:47:24,550
a phone? Hey, Paul, you know, you usually buy some of this

750
00:47:24,550 --> 00:47:27,470
one at this time of the year. What's going on? Hey, Paul, you know, you

751
00:47:27,470 --> 00:47:30,430
told Me, you were building a new seller. How's the building going?

752
00:47:31,790 --> 00:47:35,270
And they built that relationship, that scary, scary,

753
00:47:35,270 --> 00:47:38,830
scary word relationship with these people. So.

754
00:47:39,310 --> 00:47:42,990
Well, I have 2,000 members. I can't call them all. No,

755
00:47:42,990 --> 00:47:46,630
but if you're using the data, you should know the 10 people you should be

756
00:47:46,630 --> 00:47:50,210
calling and you're going to learn from the 10 people you've been talking to or,

757
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,760
or your team has been talking to and you should know what's happening. And then

758
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,440
you'll move it to 20 and 30 and 40. Some

759
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,080
people like me, I'll probably never take your call because I'm busy. And I'm like,

760
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,000
yeah, I love you. I'm still buying you, so you don't need to know more.

761
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,599
But it's this sort of

762
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,040
removal from that, that end

763
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:13,760
consumer, like that target that, you know, like. No, there are people like

764
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,160
you, you and me. If you have high end wines,

765
00:48:17,690 --> 00:48:21,330
they're buying in, into your product. Of course it's the

766
00:48:21,330 --> 00:48:24,770
style of wine, van de garde or classic versus

767
00:48:24,770 --> 00:48:28,330
modern. But also love your story. There's a grit,

768
00:48:29,690 --> 00:48:32,810
there's a tension in your story that makes it interesting.

769
00:48:34,330 --> 00:48:37,930
So stay in touch. Just don't show up when you need to sell something.

770
00:48:38,890 --> 00:48:42,690
I'm speaking for luxury wineries, of course. Well,

771
00:48:42,690 --> 00:48:45,750
that's, that's branding and that's a tough,

772
00:48:46,470 --> 00:48:49,390
it takes. Well, I, I, you know, we're almost out of time actually, if you

773
00:48:49,390 --> 00:48:52,910
believe this. No, no, we're staying until like noon, until the

774
00:48:52,910 --> 00:48:55,750
storm's over. No, but, but so, so for example,

775
00:48:57,830 --> 00:49:01,630
we don't work together anymore. But I had said, you know,

776
00:49:01,630 --> 00:49:04,950
your, your concierge or your private client manager

777
00:49:05,750 --> 00:49:09,390
is, is gonna know what Paul likes and Paul's gonna be looking

778
00:49:09,390 --> 00:49:12,950
for a Von Romane. So your concierge is actually going to call

779
00:49:12,950 --> 00:49:16,390
KNL or Wally's and find that Von Romane,

780
00:49:16,550 --> 00:49:19,830
the owner was furious at me. Like, are you implying

781
00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:24,230
that we should source other wines for them? I'm like, yes.

782
00:49:24,230 --> 00:49:27,510
Not the vineyard next door, but yes. If you're

783
00:49:27,910 --> 00:49:30,470
here for Paul and his wine journey,

784
00:49:31,430 --> 00:49:35,150
Paul will stay with you forever. Yeah. And that's it. That's the end of

785
00:49:35,150 --> 00:49:37,430
the story. So it's an interesting

786
00:49:38,230 --> 00:49:41,190
dynamic in what we're facing today.

787
00:49:41,910 --> 00:49:45,710
My most comments and most of my people that I discuss is you have

788
00:49:45,710 --> 00:49:49,110
to stay the course and you have to pick a strategy that,

789
00:49:49,590 --> 00:49:53,030
that's worked and is working and do not get

790
00:49:53,030 --> 00:49:56,390
distracted because this will, this stuff will pass.

791
00:49:56,950 --> 00:50:00,750
And that brand value, you can't give up the position

792
00:50:00,750 --> 00:50:04,470
of your brand value otherwise. You lose everything. Be

793
00:50:04,470 --> 00:50:08,070
focused. If you're in the in, in in the luxury

794
00:50:08,070 --> 00:50:11,510
segment, whether you're recovering or you're aspiring,

795
00:50:12,660 --> 00:50:15,940
it's going to be bound to be a relationship marketing anyways.

796
00:50:16,500 --> 00:50:20,260
Don't be afraid of those conversations. And if anyone

797
00:50:20,260 --> 00:50:22,940
comes to you and say we're going to bring plenty of people to the tasting

798
00:50:22,940 --> 00:50:26,660
room, stay away, stay away. Because the retention

799
00:50:26,660 --> 00:50:29,980
I'm marketing. I'm going to go back and finish this with my father. It was

800
00:50:29,980 --> 00:50:33,780
a beautiful house in the countryside. It was old house. It was cold in

801
00:50:33,780 --> 00:50:37,540
the wintertime and I always wanted to turn on the heat. And my father

802
00:50:37,540 --> 00:50:41,190
would forces to make sure that one, all the windows were

803
00:50:41,190 --> 00:50:44,950
closed and two, put a sweater before we turned it on. We

804
00:50:44,950 --> 00:50:48,670
weren't poor, but a was very adamant at that. And so back

805
00:50:48,670 --> 00:50:52,270
to retention marketing. The whole idea is

806
00:50:52,270 --> 00:50:56,110
before you go turn on the heat. I spend money on advertising

807
00:50:56,110 --> 00:50:59,830
or bringing new people in. Make sure the windows are

808
00:50:59,830 --> 00:51:03,110
closed. You know why people are leaving and you have done

809
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:07,040
the right amount of work to make sure they didn't. That's a great analogy. And

810
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:10,960
also you. The sweater you put on a sweater is the upselling

811
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:14,760
which was what you were trying to do. Where if Paul, you buy five

812
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,240
wines. Here's an another, you know, block or

813
00:51:18,240 --> 00:51:22,080
vineyard designate we have that really might be interested in. I'm coming

814
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,440
in your town. Maybe we should try it with a few of your friends. So,

815
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:28,960
you know, that's, that's what's interesting to me

816
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:34,080
is those lessons are the same lessons that I would have

817
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,920
learned in 1972 with my father when I was working the shop or

818
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,560
when I took over the company in 1988. It's the same business. Business

819
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:45,079
doesn't change. The relationship of business doesn't change. The

820
00:51:45,079 --> 00:51:48,840
requirement for a relationship in business doesn't change. And when it does

821
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:52,640
change, the trouble we ran into when the Internet started was the

822
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,800
Groupon culture showed up. And so they're just looking for the bargain.

823
00:51:56,550 --> 00:52:00,190
And then the barrage of information that people are getting on their phones

824
00:52:00,190 --> 00:52:03,910
and on the Internet in general, you know, created a loyalty

825
00:52:03,910 --> 00:52:07,390
problem. And that comes from not

826
00:52:07,390 --> 00:52:11,070
developing and practicing your brand and doing the things

827
00:52:11,070 --> 00:52:14,230
you're talking about, putting the sweater on and making sure those things happen. And that's

828
00:52:14,230 --> 00:52:17,830
what we. That's when we started doing more events

829
00:52:17,830 --> 00:52:21,670
here at the office and things where people when they got that

830
00:52:21,670 --> 00:52:25,470
box of wine, they had a memory of something. Right.

831
00:52:25,550 --> 00:52:29,350
And that's because in the business lesson is

832
00:52:29,350 --> 00:52:33,070
it is always infinitely more expensive to find a new

833
00:52:33,070 --> 00:52:36,750
customer than it is to satisfy the old one. And I think that

834
00:52:36,750 --> 00:52:40,509
gets lost with some generations. They don't, they want to learn it themselves

835
00:52:40,509 --> 00:52:43,990
or they have to learn it themselves. The hard way is that's never going to

836
00:52:43,990 --> 00:52:47,630
change. And particularly in today's market, acquisition costs through social

837
00:52:47,630 --> 00:52:50,850
and all the rest of it. It's a nightmare to get loyalty

838
00:52:51,170 --> 00:52:55,010
little things. Paul canceled a subscription on this exited

839
00:52:55,170 --> 00:52:58,930
interview. He said that's too much wine. So do you just look at

840
00:52:58,930 --> 00:53:02,610
it like, ah, well, sorry Paul, let's go find Mary. Yeah, right. And that's really

841
00:53:02,610 --> 00:53:06,450
expensive and difficult and difficult. Or do we just pick up

842
00:53:06,450 --> 00:53:09,850
the phone and say, hey Paul, can we work out a different way? I mean

843
00:53:09,850 --> 00:53:13,570
I understand you drink less wine and, and, and how can we work with

844
00:53:13,570 --> 00:53:17,420
you? And maybe Paul will say, you know what, I just got sick, I'm

845
00:53:17,420 --> 00:53:21,260
not drinking wine anymore. So you just, you know, send a nice note. And

846
00:53:21,260 --> 00:53:24,780
we, we started every other month and once a quarter because of that. And I

847
00:53:24,780 --> 00:53:26,980
just triggered a thought. When we sold the company,

848
00:53:28,500 --> 00:53:31,780
the people we sold were the core

849
00:53:31,860 --> 00:53:35,660
believers in the Wine of the Month club. It wasn't as big as it had

850
00:53:35,660 --> 00:53:39,340
been in 2007, but what people that were there when

851
00:53:39,340 --> 00:53:42,100
I, when I sold the list and sold that next shipment

852
00:53:43,150 --> 00:53:46,910
were the people that were die hard Wine of the Month club devotees

853
00:53:48,110 --> 00:53:51,950
and that had value to somebody because they weren't going to

854
00:53:51,950 --> 00:53:54,990
walk soon. There are lots of reasons why people cancel,

855
00:53:55,870 --> 00:53:59,110
least of which what you want is the quality of the wine. It has to

856
00:53:59,110 --> 00:54:02,670
be not the good reason for them to cancel, not a reason you would

857
00:54:02,990 --> 00:54:06,590
want them to cancel. But there's all kinds of other reasons.

858
00:54:07,230 --> 00:54:10,790
But it triggered my thought that those were the people that, that

859
00:54:10,790 --> 00:54:14,590
believed in us. And that's what you have to build. That's what you have

860
00:54:14,590 --> 00:54:18,150
to build. You just have to again, especially you know,

861
00:54:18,950 --> 00:54:21,590
recovering or aspiring to

862
00:54:22,870 --> 00:54:26,509
luxury positioning. Find your tribe, find

863
00:54:26,509 --> 00:54:30,230
your right luxury consumers.

864
00:54:30,310 --> 00:54:34,070
So some want flashy wineries. We've talked about this a little bit earlier.

865
00:54:34,710 --> 00:54:38,410
Some are looking for an archetype,

866
00:54:38,410 --> 00:54:42,250
an embodiment. I relate to Paul. We're both

867
00:54:42,490 --> 00:54:46,290
mavericks and have build our things. And then others are

868
00:54:46,290 --> 00:54:49,610
going to be more intellectual, some are going to be explorers. So find them

869
00:54:50,010 --> 00:54:53,850
again. This is amazing day to be a marketer

870
00:54:53,850 --> 00:54:57,490
because you can find this in a way you probably couldn't even four or five

871
00:54:57,490 --> 00:55:01,330
years ago without. You had to hire a team

872
00:55:01,330 --> 00:55:05,080
or an agency. So yes, it's a really hard time.

873
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:11,120
Most owners we've worked with are coming

874
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:14,760
from a good place. It's just that they weren't growing as

875
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,360
fast as the others because they didn't really have the right business

876
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,920
of wine in place. And so now, right now it's

877
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:25,560
painful because the trends have shifted.

878
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,420
So it's not because young people are not drinking Woodbridge

879
00:55:29,420 --> 00:55:33,180
that a luxury winery is affected, but there

880
00:55:33,180 --> 00:55:36,580
is an overall. You say

881
00:55:36,580 --> 00:55:39,620
headwind, right? Headwind that

882
00:55:40,660 --> 00:55:44,260
requires you to be a little bit more

883
00:55:44,340 --> 00:55:48,100
focused on what you and your team are doing. I think most of the

884
00:55:48,100 --> 00:55:51,780
people I've talked to in the DTC world are dying

885
00:55:51,780 --> 00:55:55,070
to experiment and, and take off.

886
00:55:55,550 --> 00:55:58,910
They have that same ownership mentality.

887
00:55:59,150 --> 00:56:02,590
So see where the disconnects are and that's how we help them is

888
00:56:02,910 --> 00:56:06,750
like, hey, you have a magician here. It's just that you're taking

889
00:56:06,750 --> 00:56:10,510
his wand about, so you're gonna need, you know, give him the tool back

890
00:56:10,830 --> 00:56:14,030
to do it. So it's exciting time. It's exciting time, you know,

891
00:56:14,430 --> 00:56:17,790
wrapping this up. One of the things that Stephen and I talked about and I've.

892
00:56:17,950 --> 00:56:21,800
I took it away from him and used it

893
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:25,640
to inspire myself and motivate myself to, to play with AI and do things.

894
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,360
And I just got done writing a program that

895
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:33,400
I have a database of all the wines I've tasted that were in the

896
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:37,040
studio back. There's like 60,000 wines in there when I taste them on

897
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:40,880
site. But I never had a way of putting those in the database when

898
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:43,960
I was at a tasting, which I go to them regularly like today.

899
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:48,340
And so I got on one of the code generating AI

900
00:56:48,340 --> 00:56:52,020
sites and it took me a couple hours for the massage, the data. And now

901
00:56:52,020 --> 00:56:55,420
I can go to today this board notation, bring my phone up and put inventory.

902
00:56:55,420 --> 00:56:58,540
And it just, it walks me through the screens the way I wanted it. That

903
00:56:58,540 --> 00:57:02,260
would have cost me 30 grand five years ago.

904
00:57:02,260 --> 00:57:05,700
Yes. Or, or half a half, half a year of development.

905
00:57:05,940 --> 00:57:09,100
I wanted to learn it and we talking to people on the phone and I

906
00:57:09,100 --> 00:57:12,460
sat in front of the computer and wrote the thing on my own. And it

907
00:57:12,460 --> 00:57:16,200
was. I paid 20 bucks a month for the AI service. It's

908
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:19,760
unbelievable. So how do you aspire people to do that? Okay,

909
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,440
so I mean we live and breathe AI. We

910
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:27,080
work with an AI companionship company. So if we didn't.

911
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:31,080
It's a tool. I've dug up

912
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:34,920
some comments about Excel that wasn't

913
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:38,720
reliable and was going to make us really dumb because we wouldn't know how

914
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:42,050
to do calculations. I actually did hear that stuff in

915
00:57:42,050 --> 00:57:45,490
elementary school about calculators. It's a tool,

916
00:57:45,810 --> 00:57:49,330
right? The one thing that Is different with this tool is

917
00:57:49,570 --> 00:57:53,250
probably most powerful that we as a society

918
00:57:53,250 --> 00:57:56,130
have had in our hands. So

919
00:57:56,610 --> 00:58:00,450
critical thinking, why Prove me wrong, prove

920
00:58:00,450 --> 00:58:03,570
me right. What are your sources? So from the

921
00:58:04,130 --> 00:58:07,570
sort of mind mapping gathering, be

922
00:58:07,570 --> 00:58:11,400
critical. I have a friend whose kids are entering

923
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:14,920
college and I say, you know, that's a good time to study philosophy. Yeah.

924
00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:18,840
And I'll remember to send you this link. There's actually this woman who has

925
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:22,640
studied philosophy who does some groundwork. So for

926
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:26,280
that part, just keep critical thinking.

927
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:30,680
And then for the agent part, you can build anything

928
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:34,520
in anything. Like you use an ocean, you use

929
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,780
now the GPT agents. So it's all

930
00:58:38,780 --> 00:58:42,620
about thinking about the workflows in your business. What are the

931
00:58:42,620 --> 00:58:46,420
things that are done more than two, three times and how can you

932
00:58:46,420 --> 00:58:50,260
improve it? So it really isn't about replacing humans. There is

933
00:58:50,260 --> 00:58:53,940
going to be a shift. It's happening, but it's more about

934
00:58:53,940 --> 00:58:57,500
rethinking our business. If

935
00:58:57,980 --> 00:59:00,700
someone has to download a report,

936
00:59:02,140 --> 00:59:05,790
study the report and then have another action,

937
00:59:06,030 --> 00:59:09,830
1, 2, 3. And that happens many times. You got a

938
00:59:09,830 --> 00:59:13,630
workflow that's just dying to be taken care of. That's such good advice.

939
00:59:14,510 --> 00:59:17,990
And it's hard to think outside of your own box. But if you can look

940
00:59:17,990 --> 00:59:21,750
at your daily routine, just go look, where can I play with it?

941
00:59:21,750 --> 00:59:25,150
And then you have to play with it. This morning I sent an email out.

942
00:59:25,230 --> 00:59:28,670
I work with this group of guys we put on a car show every year

943
00:59:28,910 --> 00:59:32,210
and last year these guys are very good.

944
00:59:32,450 --> 00:59:35,370
They a piece of paper you send the form to fill out the form, they

945
00:59:35,370 --> 00:59:38,970
have to fax it back, they have to scan it. And so I'm using that

946
00:59:38,970 --> 00:59:42,810
same rabbi to write car

947
00:59:42,810 --> 00:59:46,450
entrant form online. And you just give them a QR code and they can fill

948
00:59:46,450 --> 00:59:48,570
in the form and then you don't. And then you can run the reports. You

949
00:59:48,570 --> 00:59:51,650
don't have to worry about anything. And I was thinking about it two days ago

950
00:59:51,890 --> 00:59:55,610
and I thought why aren't we using this? But you have to think

951
00:59:55,610 --> 00:59:59,410
about it. You have to think through where your workflow is and

952
00:59:59,410 --> 01:00:03,210
where you know in using all the tools and they're not all available the ones

953
01:00:03,210 --> 01:00:06,850
that you're going to want but you could possibly find something that

954
01:00:06,850 --> 01:00:10,650
will take two steps away instead of all four. Totally. I

955
01:00:10,650 --> 01:00:14,170
mean I, I'm just on boarding a new client. So he gives me his proforma

956
01:00:14,170 --> 01:00:17,930
five, five to 10 to 20 years pro forma and production

957
01:00:17,930 --> 01:00:21,650
plan. And a year ago I would

958
01:00:21,650 --> 01:00:25,360
have first of all checked all the, the, the

959
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:29,080
formulas usually There are some mistakes. And

960
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:32,440
then I would have. Then I would have built some

961
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:36,200
CAGRs. Usually five years. Like, wait a minute, you want to produce, you

962
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:40,040
know, 30% CAGR. And I could see the disconnect, but it would take

963
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,360
me some time. Yes. Now I just upload it

964
01:00:44,240 --> 01:00:48,040
and like. Yeah, yeah. I would have got. So it's a fraction

965
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:51,750
of the time again, you know, stay critical. So I

966
01:00:51,750 --> 01:00:55,030
use two or three LLMs. I've wired

967
01:00:55,030 --> 01:00:58,030
Claude, you know, Claude to be contrarian,

968
01:00:58,750 --> 01:01:02,510
which is really annoying. The first thing you do in the morning. Prove

969
01:01:02,510 --> 01:01:05,790
me right, Charlotte. That's funny. Oh, wait a minute. I only had one coffee. All

970
01:01:05,790 --> 01:01:09,470
right, well, just so the listeners know, she's talking about Cloud, which is the

971
01:01:09,470 --> 01:01:13,150
AI thing. And it's a deep dive AI and you're

972
01:01:13,150 --> 01:01:16,750
adjusting the bias of it by telling you you're going to be a contrarian.

973
01:01:17,150 --> 01:01:20,140
One more thought. I keep coming with these thoughts, but I have to get to

974
01:01:20,140 --> 01:01:23,940
this tasting. But Tim Hanai, the Master of Wine, who will

975
01:01:23,940 --> 01:01:27,060
tell you that he's dyslexic, a recovering

976
01:01:27,060 --> 01:01:30,740
alcoholic and a severe adhd. And

977
01:01:30,740 --> 01:01:34,460
he credits his success in that. He

978
01:01:34,460 --> 01:01:38,260
went to a seminar that

979
01:01:38,260 --> 01:01:41,900
was to be on writing. Like

980
01:01:41,900 --> 01:01:45,560
English writing. Like English writing. But, you know, and he was

981
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:49,040
late. It was a week late. He totally screwed up. And it was a

982
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:52,320
critical thinking class. And so he took this

983
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:56,000
seminar. He goes, it changed my life. Yeah. Because

984
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,800
the reason I'm sitting here talking to you with the Master of Wine, even though

985
01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:02,600
I was the greatest failure that North America ever had in the first time around

986
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:06,920
was I took that class. A critical thinking is

987
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:10,890
completely underrated. I mean, we. We developed it as we go. I mean, I. I

988
01:02:10,890 --> 01:02:13,410
thought philosophy classes were an absolute bore. Yeah.

989
01:02:16,050 --> 01:02:19,610
Well, I'm sure I passed, but now I'm fascinated by it

990
01:02:19,610 --> 01:02:22,850
because you start questioning not everything,

991
01:02:24,130 --> 01:02:27,810
but you question everything differently. Yes. And

992
01:02:28,050 --> 01:02:31,650
sometimes there's no answer. And you got to be good with that, too. But

993
01:02:32,770 --> 01:02:35,970
when we had a conversation. Why is Paul asking me this question?

994
01:02:36,660 --> 01:02:38,980
Right. And the more you practice it, the more.

995
01:02:40,180 --> 01:02:44,020
So this is definitely what to do. There's this guy called Ryan Holiday. I'll give

996
01:02:44,020 --> 01:02:47,580
you the link to. He had a massive

997
01:02:47,580 --> 01:02:50,820
failure. He was one of the rising stars of American

998
01:02:50,980 --> 01:02:53,620
Aperol, which is an LA story. Right.

999
01:02:55,620 --> 01:02:59,220
And probably burnt out and spent his whole life

1000
01:02:59,220 --> 01:03:03,070
studying the rest of this format of yours, studying philosophy

1001
01:03:03,070 --> 01:03:05,310
and making it more digestible.

1002
01:03:07,230 --> 01:03:10,750
It was my favorite class. And it's really interesting that you would bring that

1003
01:03:11,150 --> 01:03:14,910
to the table for the wine trade, which is

1004
01:03:14,910 --> 01:03:18,630
really taking a step back from the business of wine and

1005
01:03:18,630 --> 01:03:22,470
applying some humanity to it and everything. Those

1006
01:03:22,470 --> 01:03:25,710
thinking, those processes are so important and the only way we're going to get past

1007
01:03:26,670 --> 01:03:29,550
some of these things that are happening. But it's such a pleasure to have you

1008
01:03:29,550 --> 01:03:32,540
here. Sorry for the day. And then you lost your key.

1009
01:03:33,740 --> 01:03:37,540
You found your keys. But it is. It is a safe bet when

1010
01:03:37,540 --> 01:03:40,460
they close the door and it honks at you that, you know, the keys around.

1011
01:03:41,500 --> 01:03:45,340
My car is a 2011, so it does not do anything. Oh,

1012
01:03:45,340 --> 01:03:48,540
it doesn't do that. It just drives another one. This is fantastic.

1013
01:03:49,100 --> 01:03:51,900
Thank you again for being here. Thank you so much, Paul. We'll do it again

1014
01:03:51,900 --> 01:03:55,740
for sure. Yeah. Up and down, but this time. Yeah. And. And we'll.

1015
01:03:55,900 --> 01:03:59,740
We'll go see Pierre and Monique and Elaine, their daughter, because she's the

1016
01:03:59,740 --> 01:04:03,290
one that makes the wine now. But what a story. Look forward to that.

1017
01:04:03,290 --> 01:04:05,210
Yeah. Cheers. Thank you.