Building Brands in the Beverage Industry

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Drink Up. We were missing in action this past week. One, the Memorial Day holiday. For those of you that had loved ones that you lost, be thankful for their sacrifice so that we can be here on Drink Up today. But we're here with a special guest. Well, first of all, welcome Adam Smith.

Oh, thank you.

After a long holiday weekend. And then Salvatore Solano goes by Sal. Welcome, Sal.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, we tried, we tried to get on last week. That was quite a journey. So excited that we figured out The technical aspects of my computer, your computer. And, uh, we're, we're back on LinkedIn land and, uh, YouTube and Facebook. You get to see, uh, us at Drink Up. Uh, Sal, maybe just introduce yourself. I know you have an agency, a little bit of journey in the, uh, wine and spirits industry. Tell a little bit about your journey of kind of how you got where you're at today. And, uh, we'll just, uh, have a conversation. Hopefully everyone grabbed your drink and enjoy.

Absolutely. Yeah. So currently I have a company called Grapes and Grains. I have 2 business partners and obviously it's a, we're a wine and spirits consulting agency, but so we help with brand management. You know, we help with product development, business development overall for wine and spirits brands and also, you know, other beverage products that are not necessarily alcoholic, especially with the trend of no alcoholic drinks that we have, that we're looking looking at right now. But I've been in the industry for almost 30 years now. Can't believe that I'm saying that. Started on the West Coast. I used to work for Southern Glazers Wine and Spirits as an Italian wine specialist. After a couple years of that, I actually started my own national import company with a business partner. And that brought me to Las Vegas. And we created a— we actually designed, created, trademarked, and manufactured our own wine brand. And we did research based on On, you know, what was, what was the trend at the time? Pinot Grigio was the hottest, you know, white wine being, being drunk in the United States at the time. And we, we did a special packaging and, and, you know, we, we, we did really well with it. We actually built it up to 100,000 9-liter cases by the end of the second year across 40—

Working wine in California to becoming a 100,000-case brand business with your, this last business you were in.

Sorry, say that again, Sam.

So, so you started your— so you didn't really talk about where you started your journey. We were talking about earlier. So no one knows this little context on what I just said. So you started out in California, Los Angeles.

Yeah.

Moved to Miami and kind of grew up in the industry. And then you found this and you became an importer and you founded this Italian brand.

Exactly, exactly. That's exactly correct. And, and we, uh, yeah, so I was back and forth from Italy almost once a month, you know, managing the product control, but, you know, as, as a, as a small business owner, you wear a lot of hats, right? We all know that. So he did everything.

Adam and I are learning. We're learning that really quickly.

Yeah. So learned so much in those 5 years. I mean, it was, uh, I'm so grateful to have those years. I don't, I don't think you could learn what we learned in those 5 years at some of the top universities. The relationships we forged, we were working also international in Canada and, you know, we did some business in Puerto Rico, but it was quite the experience. We ended up selling the brand and that actually got me into the spirits business. So I started a company jointly back in Las Vegas called Ginger Wine and Spirits Nevada. And our biggest clients were actually Campari USA, which included brands like Campari, obviously Aperol, Sky Vodka, and a whole portfolio of brands that are within that. It's quite the portfolio. And then we also had William Grant and Sons, that portfolio.

Were you a distributor in Vegas then?

So we were actually a, uh, Much like Grapes and Grains today, we were, I don't like the word broker, but that's what it was. We were, we were basically brand representatives. We managed everything. We were the right, we were the extension of Gruppa Campari and William Grant& Sons and the other brands that we represented. We managed the distributor. We helped them with everything from A to Z, inventory management, pricing, marketing, sales, you know, events, everything as if they had their own person there, but we managed multiple brands and portfolios. Awesome.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, fast forward over the years, I've worked as a national importer, as a broker, as a distributor, you know, all over really the United States.

You guys have your import-export licensing then set up?

Yeah, we had, we had all that set up in Nevada and in California. Today we don't hold those licenses with Grapes and Grains. We really don't need them because we actually help the importers and the distributors and the distillery and the winery. We collaborate with everyone and, or, you know, with our experience and our relationships, it allows us to be able to navigate through all that without holding those licenses and actually sometimes able to maneuver easier without the restrictions of having those licenses and while still maintaining being compliant within the 3-tier system.

Got it. Got it. This is interesting. So the thinker's over there, you notice Adam, he's put his hat on now and he's trying to understand this business. I'll try to explain to him what we do, Sal. And he's like, well, I don't really understand that. So Maybe Adam, come up with some questions here. Like maybe—

It's okay. I used to have friends when I first got in this business. So what do you do all day? You just taste wine? Is that, is that all you do? Is that what you—

Yeah. So 3 things. And the third one's going to be something actually constructive to this conversation, but the first 2— Sam's right. I'm constantly wearing a hat and I, I'm sure you both know the old Stallone movie Over the Top where he's a truck driving arm wrestler, right? Yeah. And he always wears his hat like this, but then when he's ready to go do an arm wrestling match, he pulls one of these.

Right?

And that's his like game face. Every time you mention my hat, Sam, it's all I can think about, right? That's A. B, Sal, I'm pretty sure you and I were in Vegas at the same time in the early 2010s.

Yeah, I think so. So there was a stint where I, I, I, well, for— I lived back and forth for almost 20 years between Miami and Las Vegas. There was a period small period where I had left Las Vegas. I think it was from, uh, let's see, '09 to 2012. I was in Miami, and I was actually in London. I actually, I, I did some work, uh, in London, England, actually, also during that time. I moved back to Las Vegas in 2013, um, and I, and, and again, back and forth between Miami and Las Vegas until about the end of 2018, and full-time in Miami now. Yeah. So you were there too, huh?

So I was there from '11 to '14. My dad lives out there.

Okay.

And so I went out there for a few years.

You look familiar anyway.

Yeah, right? So yeah, my, uh, my dad was out there for, well, he's still out there, but I was there for a few years just living with him, getting to know him. We didn't grow up around one another. It was super cool. And Vegas treated me well. I got nothing bad to say about that city. Um, so the, the constructive part is for anybody listening, and a lot of the folks that are listening know this already, but for anybody that's from a brand perspective, and correct me if I'm wrong. So Sal, what you do is the You know, a brand has either their own or a contracted production facility. They have a distributor, but they're trying to expand their retail footprint, right? Is that fair? Okay.

That's correct.

I always use the term crowbar when I'm describing what I do and the people I need to know. And the reason I use that term is because a lot of brand owners, and this will sound familiar, A lot of brand owners love to look at like the list of all the things that we as consultants tell them they need to do. And they say, well, I can do that and that and that and that and that. And the only things I can't do are the stuff that I need either a huge facility for or a chemistry degree. And I'm like, you think that, but you're full of shit, right? You think that just because you can talk and you can add numbers, that that means you can have just as effective as a conversation as I can or Sal can or Sam can. And the truth is you can't. Right. Not at 6 months in this business, right? Maybe at a year, 2, 5, 10, but that's, you know, there's not even really a question that comes of it, but it's just the, like, getting people to understand it, right? Like, I'm not complaining because that's why we have a job. Like, people need that service and I'm, I'm happy to provide it or to, to know you guys in the sense of what you guys provide, but just understanding that, like, yes, you can pound your head against the wall and go talk to 12 retailers and get told no every time. Or you can work with somebody that knows what they want to hear and how they like to do business and the products they want. And you can make your life a shitload easier.

So just before we started the call, Sal's like, I ended my meeting downstairs. I was getting even. And I'm like, why did you end the meeting? What's more important? Because if I would've gone to that meeting to try to sell even, I wouldn't have got the meeting. But Sal got the meeting. That's the value of Sal. And if people could wake up and say, hey man, the money you would invest in Sal is worth gold. You find us, you found Salvatore. Salvatore's gold. Hang on to him. Right? At the end of the day, I mean—

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is it all, I mean, and I don't mean all, I don't mean to paint you into a corner, but are you focused primarily on high-end wines and spirits? When you think about wanting to work with new brands in your portfolio, right? Like, who are you, who are you out there looking for?

So that's a great question. I think we do focus on more premium products. I think, I think part of what I do is also selling a lifestyle. And, and that, that includes the products that we sell. So I think we tend to cater more towards the ultra-premium. Yes. But yeah, everything from fine wine to ultra-premium cocktails. And, you know, like I said before, non-alcoholic beverages that are out there now, even, you know, that Sam just mentioned is a new product in our portfolio, which is a great product. That's where I was doing selling right before the call, just downstairs. I live in Miami in an area called Wynwood, so it's very, very urban. So I live above a restaurant, which is one of our accounts. Called Piegheri, actually. It's an Italian-Argentinian restaurant. But, but yeah, so we, we, we, we do a little bit of everything. We just, we try to find products that are complementary within the portfolio that help, you know, sell and not, you know, compete with each other, work against each other.

Is your, is your focus, does it lean particularly one way, meaning like it leans into, uh, kind of the on-premise bars and restaurants? Does it lean toward the off-premise liquor stores, gas stations, if you will, kind of thing? Or, you know, do you run the gamut? You run the whole spectrum?

Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of a little bit of everything, because it also depends on the product. Sure. Sometimes, as you know, by living in Las Vegas, Las Vegas is a, is a 70% on-premise market. So you kind of have to focus on the on-premise there to a certain degree. But here in Florida, you know, we have, we have so many different— I mean, we're really blessed here when it comes to the state of Florida in terms of a distribution outlet. I mean, as we all know, it's a huge state, but there's so many opportunities Countless opportunities, both with on-premise and off-premise chain retail, independent retailers, travel retail, which is duty-free. You know, there's opportunities with cruise ships. You know, there's, it just goes on and on.

And so a question's coming in, Sal, our friend Jeff. Hello, Jeff. He's asking a question. What does the conversation look like in terms of pitching a new brand for someone to take on besides what the estimated numbers may look like? Do you learn each brand story? Like, what does that look like? So I guess I think he's asking Adam, or it's asking like, what's, what's a new pitch look like? Is that what he's asking?

I mean, I think so. I think it's, it's also my dogs may interrupt me. I apologize.

We all have dogs. It's all good.

Yeah. Mine are being quiet right now, but they're here too.

I think the question is, and it's, it's, I love that he's asking, 'cause it's one that comes up for me all the time is like, You know, okay, this could be such a long preface, but you know, you have 3 new brands that come to you, right? And maybe they're not new for the, for the, you know, maybe they're not brand new. Maybe they've got a little bit of market presence, but they're looking to expand, right? So they've got some sales data, they've got some history, they've got a brand story. What does your maybe like onboarding of like familiarizing yourself with those brands look like such that, you know, where is a good fit? Where's not a good fit? what the play, you know, you can anticipate some of the questions are going to get asked, maybe the due diligence part of the conversation, right?

Sure. No, it's a great question. I mean, to be fair, the way I look at it, anytime that I add something to my portfolio, you know, we get approached with brands that want representation a lot. I mean, again, thankful because there's so much business within this industry to be had. But, you know, sometimes the products aren't always a good fit for my portfolio and the different demographics or markets that I, you know, I cater to. In that process of talking with a supplier or a beverage owner, or whether it's a tequila or a fine wine or a ready-to-drink, an RTD, you know, in that process, obviously I'm getting to know the people behind it and the product itself. And I'm deciding, hey, can I go out and sell this? And where can I go out and sell it? I don't know if that answers your question, but that's the way, the way that we do it. So by the time we get, by the time we get to the account, we're already ready to go and know, know what to do and how to do it.

So, okay. So maybe I'll flip that question on its head. How much, how much, or I guess, how do you go about, you know, uh, educating yourself enough on the account you're trying to sell into? So like, you know, bars and restaurants in, I mean, you talked about it, bars and restaurants on a cruise ship, different animal than bars and restaurants in a casino.

Yeah, the channel you're going in is gonna have a different approach. If you're going to cruise ships versus an on-premise account downstairs from your place where you live versus you're gonna go to, you know, ABC Liquor, that presentation looks really different, right?

Completely different. And the processes are also different.

Yeah.

So, so yeah, I mean, it's very complex in nature because it's, it's, it's, it, you can't say it's a one-stop, it's a one-stop shop. You, it's, it's, you have to handle each and every account on an individual basis, but yeah, you, You gotta, you know, I go in and I listen a lot. Obviously I know my, I have my accounts that I know. So sometimes, most of the time, actually, before going in there, I already kind of have an idea of how it's going to go. But, but, you know, I also do a lot of listening and I kind of feel out the customer and what their needs are. And it kind of, kind of like makes me start to think what I have in my bag that is going to work for them too.

Can I ask a question on that? So I always tell people, I want to validate this because I haven't been in the wild too much lately. But so you go out and you talk to this customer. How many calls do you have to make to the customer to get them to say yes?

I love that you asked that question, Sam. That's a great question because it varies, but you know, everyone, everyone can make promises and say, I can go out and do this for you. And I can do that for you, you know? And it's not easy. Like the old saying goes, if it was that easy, everybody would do it. Right.

Yeah.

But the truth is a lot of times, you know, especially here in Florida, we're in it out of season now. So it's a little bit slower. But that doesn't mean sales can't be made, but I'll give you an example to answer your question, Sam. I had an account in Fort Lauderdale that I went in there with a different product or with a, with a product that I was trying to pitch them on. I went in there 3 times. I emailed them 3 times. I called there 3 times. I texted 3 times before they said yes.

The power of 3. So 3 is true.

3 is true. The Trinity. I don't know, whatever you want to call it. The power of 3. I do everything in 3s anyways. So I guess I believe in that too.

Yeah, it's, uh, I heard someone tell me that it's actually, um, scoot over a little bit to your left there, Sal. You keep on coming off the screen there.

Yeah, sorry.

Sorry, we go live, so I'll just tell you. And then Adam just left, so this is how we roll. Uh, it literally, I talk with people like, you know, we obviously as suppliers like, well, what have you done for me lately? We have a particular supplier who's been around for 45 days. He's like, I haven't seen much action. I'm like, yeah, you're probably not for about 90 days because we have to make those Those calls. But what I can show you is over time is that, you know, Sam went out there or Sal went out there or Debbie went out there and they made 3 calls and you can see what starts to happen. Because I know this for a fact. I learned this at Gala when I was in Los Angeles myself, is the first time I made the call, they didn't want to talk to me. The second time they kicked me out. And by the third time, they're like, okay, this guy's really serious. They gave me an opportunity.

Yeah.

Because they— so if you keep on showing up, they're like, okay, he's not going to go. Yeah, actually serious. And he's actually bringing me some, something of value. So that's why I asked the question.

I think, you know, you know, whether it's on-premise or off-premise, they also, you know, the accounts want to also know how you can support them. Right. And there's a number of ways to do that. But if we take on-premise, for example, you know, a lot of it is, you know, it's like you said, Sam, it's being there, you know, you know, maybe having a couple of drinks, a couple appetizers or whatever. You don't necessarily have to spend a fortune. I mean, obviously the more money you spend there, the better it is.

Yeah.

But you know, they want to see that you're supporting them too. You know, you know, there's a lot of people that just go in places and, hey, I got this to sell you. They, you know, restaurants and bars have people like that walking in 1,000 times a day or a week.

Well, and then the rep never shows up again, or they fly in. And I did this. I had like 20 states for Althamar Brands. I'd fly into Texas and I would go hit a bunch of accounts in Houston and they would make a bunch of promises and I would disappear. And guess what happened? Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing at all. But now how we go to market, obviously with working with a partner like you, and thank you for being a partner, is you're in the market. You have those relationships, is you're gonna actually go back in and follow up. Let me ask you another question, Adam. I know you're thinking, I know there's some questions that are brewing in your head, but, um, all right. There's a thing called a distributor in our business, right? But now we have, You know, we have your business. Are you replacing the distributor? Are you enhancing the distributor? Like what's going on in that, that relationship between you and the wholesaler and that account to actually build that brand?

That's another question that I love. So obviously distributor, you know, the, the business has, has really shifted. And so as we all know, a lot of consolidation, some, some of the bigger distributors have become bigger by con— just by, by partnering or merging with other big distributors. But in that has also caused a lot of smaller distributors to pop up. But especially with some of the bigger distributors, you know, they, they, they can't, they have such a big portfolio. They really can't get to every account. They can't, you know, and many times I hate to say it, they become a logistics company, you know? So thus the need for organizations and people like my group, my, my team and I, that because we actually go out and service the account. Which, you know, we actually go, we go and we make the sale. We take our time, we build the relationships, we go back and we support the account and we, you know, do events with them, activations, tastings in the off-premise. There's a lot, there's a lot that goes into it. It's not just walking in obviously one time and being done. But we're definitely different than the distributor, but we do a lot of what traditionally the distributor has done. In the past, especially.

It's not transactional. And look, our distributor partners, we absolutely love them. And we hopefully we add value to all the distributors that are listening to this. We, we wanna actually help move that brand through the system.

100%.

It arrives in your warehouse. Our team, meaning you, is we pull it outta that warehouse, right? So the push versus the pull, the distributor, the suppliers pushing inside your warehouse. You got, you know, you got Sal and Debbie and Adam and Frank out there. Pulling it out of the warehouse with those relationships and working with those, uh, sales folks and building those brands maybe that you don't have time to focus in on.

Right.

And you know, you know what ends up happening is a lot of times the distributor, the sales reps end up loving us because we're actually going out and selling for them, you know, and they're getting paid for that. So it's a, it's, it's an extra layer of support. That's a win-win situation for everybody.

Hey, uh, Ray. So Ray, my friend Ray has a brand called Big Ass, has the rights to it. And he had Big Ass Wine. I don't know, Ray, if you're still on. You said you're listening, but I have a question about private label. Like, do you do anything with like private label? Like, like if like, like we want to develop a brand and we said, hey, Sal, we have this product called Big Ass.

Yeah. Honestly, I've, I've done a lot with that because I told you I manufactured and always, there's always, I've always got something in the works like that. You know, there's, yeah. So there's, do a lot of research. You know, the wine and spirits industry is such a trendy industry. I relate it to fashion a lot. It's always constantly changing and therein lies the opportunity. And that's, that's That's where private labels— there's a lot of opportunities, both spirits and in wine.

Brian Schmidt, one of our partners in Wisconsin, he was on the call this afternoon. He's out of Wisconsin, similar backgrounds to us, Sal. He said, great thoughts, guys. That's how I've always attacked every brand I've reaped over the years.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's Yeah, I promise there's a question at the end of this, but again, if there's any, any, you know, brands I'm working with or new brands or whoever listening, there's a, there's a gentleman, his name's Griffin. I'll leave his, his brand name out of it for now, but his name's Griffin.

Protect the innocent.

Right. I'll protect the innocent because he's super green and he's, he's really, he's a great kid, but he is a kid. He's in his mid-late 20s and He's asking me, you know, ops, right? But he's asking me, well, okay, how do I, how do I start a relationship with somebody? And I, how do I sell it? And how do I do it? I'm like, go make friends. For the love of God, just go make friends to start.

Yeah.

And then he's like, well, well, what are they going to want me to do with this? I'm like, ask them, right? I'm like, ask them how much support they want. If they want to see you weekly, fucking be there weekly, right? If they want you to live in the parking lot, Get comfy, right? But like, make friends, be supportive of their business, right? And it's just the thing that always comes back to me is that people will, you know, we'll look at starting a new brand and be like, oh, it's completely unknown. It's this thing no one's ever heard of, but like, I can just take it in and sell it to them and it can be very transactional. And I look at that and I go, how many relationships do you manage in your personal life on a daily basis? Like, if you really listed them out, the people you talk to on a daily basis that you stay in touch with, 5, 7? I think it's not a big number for most people. Right. And you think you're going to go start a brand with that level of like capacity for relationship building? Like the math doesn't work. Right.

Yeah.

So the question that comes about that ramble, right. And I love the fodder this conversation is giving us is, is to sell like new brand, existing brand, whatever. If you had to, I'm sure there's several answers to this question, but For any, for any time you're working with a new brand, like what's their biggest aha moment with you where you tell them something and they go, oh shit, okay. Like I never considered that. Or, oh, it makes sense now. Or does that make sense?

Kinda.

I mean, I mean, I, I'm not sure what you mean by aha moment, but I mean, I mean, some, some, some of the suppliers that we deal with have more experience. There's, there's a lot of people that get into this industry that don't know the industry too. So I might get that aha moment more frequently from somebody that doesn't know the industry quite so well versus some of our other suppliers that have been in the industry and there's less haha moments like that. But a haha moment might be, I don't know, maybe a haha, you know, I didn't know that that was possible, or I didn't know that, you know, that we could get our product into this. I didn't know that that's the level of support that I needed to do to keep the business us going once we got it in to get the sell-through.

So I think, yeah, totally. To go back to the example you and Sam gave. So the reason that question came up is even going back to previous roles I had and talking with friends in the consultancy space, right? So very, very simply, we're consultants, we're trying to onboard new business, right? I will talk to friends who are also doing the same and they're doing it for the first time and they'll say, well, yeah, you know, I've been talking to a brand for a month and they haven't signed a contract yet. And I'm going, okay. Right. And they're like, well, I mean, I thought they would have signed by now. And I said, yeah, the average like turn time from whatever the word you want to close rate, close time from first conversation ever, or first phone call to Sam's point where I tried to have a conversation to like ink is dry on a contract and we're going to begin work. In my days at BevSource in a sales role, and I'm not saying I was Good, bad, or otherwise, but just on average, our sales team was about 75, 80 days. Right. Yeah.

That's, that sounds about right.

Yeah.

That sounds about right. Yeah.

That's the kind of stuff I mean, where like a lot of brands, 'cause I work with the very small, right? I tell them stuff like that and they go, you're kidding. I'm like, absolutely not. 75 to 80 days. If you're good, if you're really on your shit, 75 to 80 days. Yeah.

That's, that's about the average for us too. We get a lot of brands coming in every week to talk to us and learn a little bit more about what we do and who we are and, and the whole But we'll have a couple conversations. It's about 30 to 45 days for us in terms of how it cycles. And, uh, so I love what you said too, is like, not every brand is for us. Like you, you're, there's a certain lifestyle that you, that you're living and certain things you get to choose who you work with. So it's not like you're glamoring to take brands on there. It's not that it has to fit within your DNA because you obviously wanna help those brands. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, I think, you know, if we just took on every brand that, that, that wanted representation, we'd be doing a disservice sometimes to not only to ourselves, but to the brand. You know, how can I preface this? I don't want to sound like snobbish, but Adam, you said something about gas stations earlier. You know, I think that, look, some gas stations are nicer than others. And I carry, carry, you know, a little bit of everything. But I guess, you know, as an example, you know, we're carrying premium products that fit, like you said, Sam, and I mentioned earlier, into the lifestyle that we're selling, you know, whether it's a premium tequila, or, you know, a very high-end wine from, from Piedmont, like that would represent La Sciolca Winery, which is, which is one of the top wineries in Italy from the Piedmont region. You know, it has to, it has to fit within, you know, our lifestyle and, uh, and, and the accounts that most of all, I want to be able to know that I can go out and sell this product. I have to, I have to believe in it if I'm going to sell it to somebody else.

Right.

Yeah.

You're melting on the screen, by the way.

I guess I'm so sorry.

Move over to the right a whole bit or to the left or whatever, but I need that. You're good. Um, so the great, great answer. So I wanted, so Ray, um, he's the president and founder of Big Ass Brands. He had a statement here. He goes, We found private label initially a stigma. With time and relationships, they were more concerned with the product quality and story. We never hide our partners' transparency and trust. And he had, at some point, he was doing like 100,000 cases with big ass, like wines. Perhaps I can make an introduction, Sal, to you, to Ray, at some point to explore that, being that you've actually played. And another thing is, let's go back to like packaging. So you've, so this is Adam's world, like, you know, operations, you know, developing a thing. So do you have expertise in that too? So I'm a brand, I can come to you and say, hey, I have this idea. Do you help birth that idea or how do you do that?

Absolutely. I think, you know, I mean, I really enjoy that part of the business actually, but yeah, I've, I've, I have a lot of experience in not only designing the package, let's call it a wine packaging, for example. You know, first you, first you gotta design a package that you think you can sell, you know, or that you, that's gonna stand out, right? But then you also have to worry about, is able, is it, is it, is like, for example, is this bottle type going to fit on the bottling line? Is it going to be, are they gonna be able to run the bottling line at a speed that makes sense for business? There's so many, there's so many things that go into that. And then your trademarking also, trademarks are a big part of brands and sometimes the bottle shape and design, sometimes even patents. I've, I've had to, I have patents, I've registered trademarks, you know, all over, all over the world, including, you know, including the United States and Europe, you know. Wow. Fortunately, I'm, I'm an Italian national, so I, I was able to, I'm able to trademark things through Europe through the Hague Convention in a much, let's just say less red tape. But yeah, there's, there's a lot that goes into that, you know, and then making sure that, you know, the quality control as well, you know, that's, that's earlier, I think in the call I said at one point I used to go to Italy once, once a month because I really had to stay on top of the quality control as well.

Yeah, that's interesting.

So I'm curious, cause I've had brand owners tell me this in the past and I'm wondering if maybe you've got a story or two here, how often Do you see it happen where maybe, maybe you will, you take on a new product, be it a wine or spirit, and you take it to an account and they say, hey, we love this. We love the liquid. We love the story. We hate the packaging, or it's not eye-catching enough. Or it's what, like, how do you help brands or do you maybe, right? Maybe it's just giving them that feedback, but I guess, how do you navigate that conversation with brands of like, Hey, we could really do something with this. You kind of need to up your game a little bit in this regard.

Well, that does come up from time to time. I think what more often comes up, oh, you should do this, or you should do that to the packaging. And the thing is, is being, having the experience in manufacturing, and even when I'm representing other people's brands that I don't personally own, if we had to change everything for every request, you know, we'd be constantly changing. The packaging, you know, on a weekly basis. So that's, that, that comes up unfortunately, you know, on an individual basis, you always, you listen to them and you figure out, you know, how sometimes I think, I feel like that's also an excuse for, uh, or it's kind of a segue for them to say no too.

Okay, sure.

It does come up. It does come up.

Interesting. Now Jeff, uh, has that from BrandArctica, um, says you already have the established relationships and built that trust. And we're kind of lag behind, by the way. So that makes sense not to serve every retailer. Staying in your lane is a good thing. Yeah. It's interesting. So, so with the last kind of 10 minutes, um, I just want to, you know, you've been on this journey. So you started in the business as a fine wine specialist, you said?

An Italian wine specialist. Yes.

Wine specialist. You speak several languages. Um, and somehow you've developed several businesses, which is remarkable. I always ask the question of every— I consider you a founder. So welcome to founder land. Matter of fact, if my friend Josh Wan ever catches one of these, he's a busy man, but, uh, you know, you know, I've talked about Josh, but he has a thing called Founderland, by the way. So maybe I'll just like pre-invite you there. I'm like, he's like, what are you doing? That's my Founderland, not yours. But anyway, I'm asking, we ask every founder this. What is the difference between success and failure? And bring yourself in the center of the camera. You keep on going to the—

Yeah. Sorry about that. Uh, well, I mean, success, look, there's, there's, we fail all the time.

Yeah.

I mean, we fail every day in, in, in some aspect, you know, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but there's always something that we fail at. I think where the success comes is learning from those mistakes or failures so that we don't make the same mistake over and over. But I think the success comes from pure passion and consistency. You know, deliver on your promises. Say, do what you say you're going to do. You know, it sounds so easy, but a lot of people out there don't do these things. You know, You know, a lot of people overpromise and underdeliver. I like to do it the other way around, but success comes from, you know, just never giving up and, you know, and being genuine and nice to the people you have relationships with.

You know, I love that. Obviously, Adam, I've been on a bit of a journey. Some days I wake up and I don't know what to expect on the day. Matter of fact, I did a post today about Rolling out of bed, grabbing my phone. And once you start looking at the phone, all of a sudden, like 5 hours later, you're like, hey, I haven't changed my socks out yet and I'm responding or whatever. So it's like, it's good to just keep on going. And that's a great— you talk about like the learning you've done.

Yeah.

What are the— on your journey, what are the kind of the 3 things that you've learned From your journey that you wouldn't want to repeat? And then what are the 3 things that you want to continue to do?

Let's see. Let me continue. Let me start with the ones that I want to continue to do. Like, I like building, I like building relationships. You know, you said earlier about, you know, first go and be friends. I think that, I think that's key, especially when you're starting a new relationship. Build a relationship, then try to sell them. You know, I mean, sometimes we don't always have the luxury of all of that time, but that concept should always be first in mind, I think. Yeah. So I think that has been a model for success. Also organization. Organization is a big part of it. When you, when you start to manage a lot of different relationships, which you also mentioned earlier, Adam, you know, I think you said personally, some people have 5 relationships and what I do, I lost count.

I don't, I don't know how many it is.

And it's a bit of work to manage all that, but you need to stay organized and you got to remember to show love, not just to, you know, to show love to everybody, your clients, your your customers and make sure that everybody, you know, you can't just disappear and go off the grid all the time. You know, you need to be around. And let's see, what else could I say? I think, you know, going, just always being innovative and always trying to make sure you're, you know, you've got, you know, you got your finger on the pulse of what's going on, particularly like, you know, we mentioned the streets earlier. A lot of people, you know, go up and become founders and CEOs and owners, and they kind of lose touch of what's going on in the street. But that's really, it's really important to stay close to that, to really understand what's going on in the market. Because again, everything's changing very quickly.

I talked to a friend of mine, Mark Bird. He was on the call today, actually. Mark actually runs North America for like the chief sales officer for a company called Retail Cities. And Mark's out of Virginia. Mark was vice president of Anheuser-Busch, big titles, the whole bit. And Mark came to me and he said, hey man, like, I'd like to like do some things with you. Like, I mean, well, like what? Like you wanna like make some introduction? He goes, no, I wanna go out and like, like go call on accounts. I'm like, are you serious? He goes, yeah, I wanna, I have a couple brands. And he goes, I wanna get out in the market. And Mark, if you listen to this, it's like, get like in touch, you know, with like what's really happening. And so he's coming on board as a rep in Virginia, Sal. Like he's got, which is amazing. Like, like, like if you're a founder or an owner, never be too big to go out in the market and go talk to the customer because that's the lifeblood. So many people lose touch. I love what you said. That is like the most important, most powerful message. Play that message over and over again.

Well, and, and as a founder or, or, you know, people that know your journey and some of the things, they, wow, do they really appreciate when you go there. You know, and it's a whole level of respect that they give you because a lot of people don't or are too. What's the word? Too big to to do that.

You know, yeah. And if you're if you're too big to do that, you probably shouldn't be in our this business because I think it's a relationship business at the end of the day. If you're not willing to I go go on the wild and go talk to people. You know, this is a people business.

One hundred percent.

And if you think that they're going to just bring in a hundred cases or five cases, this the transactional relationship isn't going to take you.

very far.

You need to bring value to it.

You know, I have, I have, you know, customers that I've done business with over the years, you know, that, that I had an open relationship with them. They didn't taste the product. They'd say, you know, Sal, how much of it do you need me to bring in? And, you know, and they would do that for me, but you also have to be very careful not to, you can't abuse that relationship either. The last thing you want to do is sell, sell, sell them something that's going to sit on their shelf and collect dust. For the next 6 months or not show them any support.

I learned that valuable lesson. I was with Gallo and remember the brand called Tots? Yeah. Champagne. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

They had introduced Tots. I was a rep. Thank God I got promoted, by the way, because I actually sold every one of my accounts like 50 cases on the front end. And that Tots just like sat there and it sat there and it sat there. I felt so bad, but I was so aggressive. They're like, Sam, you gotta go sell an end cap in every one of your accounts. So guess what I did? I went and sold an end cap in every one of my accounts, built it, put the point of sale on, and then guess what? The consumer didn't buy it. It, you know, unfortunately, I believe Gallo did the right thing and took care of the cases eventually to get them, get them moved out. All right. So in closing, I'll let, I'm gonna maybe ask some of the final questions and conclude, and then you can conclude and I'll wrap up.

Me on the spot, man.

It's all like, this is how we roll, man. This is live rock and roll, man.

Come on.

Get ready.

Final questions.

And Marius, Marius, where's he? He's like sleeping. He should have like popped in on this podcast. You can let him know, look, hey man, if you're in America, come on aboard. We have a Frenchman in the house.

There's a, yes, there's a French distillery owner staying with me because he's looking to produce in the States and he's meeting with a distillery here in Minnesota.

Yeah. You have to meet him. I'll introduce you to him.

So you will.

Yeah. That'd be great. I've dealt, I've dealt with French wineries over the years for a long time.

Yeah. It's here. I gotta actually have another bottle of it, Sam. It's beautiful. The bottles are beautiful.

Wow.

That, that is beautiful.

This is right up Sal's neighborhood, by the way. Yeah. I mean, this, we can—

It's a delicious gin.

Yeah.

What can I say? Okay. I'll make it an easy one with the last few minutes we have. For us, for us common folk, what's the best bottle of wine that we should— Italian wine. We'll keep it, we'll keep it, you know, right in your wheelhouse, right? Your upbringing. But gimme like a good Italian wine that we're not going to have known, but that we should go try.

I know Sal doesn't want to have me over. I'm like, hey, where's the martini and Ross?

So it's a challenging question, but I'll answer your question. You know, the Italian wines, there's so many great, not because I'm Italian, but there's just so many amazing bottles of wine. I'll tell you, one of my favorite style of wines is called Amarone from the Veneto region, which is a ripasso style. And I won't go into the details because it's too long of how it's made. But one of my favorite producers and one of the most very well-known, one of the most well-known would be Dal Forno Romano. It's a very expensive bottle of wine. Depending on the bottle, you're going to be paying around, you know, $1,000 or more per bottle. But that's really a special experience.

Well, I'm coming down. Do you have an extra room down to Miami so I can enjoy that wine with you? So just get ready. Like, who's this Sam Anderson? Like, I'm, I'm, I'm Sal's guest. I just came down for the wine.

Sam, if you're paying, I'll be like, we'll take 2 bottles of California wine. Yeah.

Let's, uh, let's build, you know what, if you get that even rolling, I might just do that. So let's just pop this on. All right.

I don't know.

There you go.

Thank you. And it'd be, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, I'll echo what you guys said. I mean, I think for, for a founder or just for anybody, anybody involved in a brand, I mean, even for me as the ops guy. You know, my version of that story of, of staying close to where your consumers are is, you know, building your operations so that the person in the warehouse who stacks your product looks at your logo and thinks, this is gonna be easy because these guys make it easy for me. Like, how do you structure your brand operationally so that that is the thought as opposed to the dock worker sees your brand coming off the truck and goes, oh shit, this is gonna be a nightmare. It's not gonna be labeled right. It's gonna be improperly packaged. Constantly thinking of that person's perspective. I think, I mean, it's one of the most important things you can do. Yeah.

I mean, for me, the proof is in the pudding with that, right? I mean, you know, we take on a brand and, you know, and, you know, 90 days, 60 days into it, we should be starting to see, we should start seeing some results, right? So, you know, that kind of, that kind of speaks for itself, you know, and then, and then, you know, with, with the customer base, with the accounts, whether on-premise or off-premise, you know, again, it's just going back and showing that support, you know, and, and being their friend, you know, sometimes, sometimes it's going into an account and whoever Whoever the buyer is or the owner or the restaurant manager who you're dealing with, sometimes they just had a bad day and they need somebody to vent with too.

Yeah. I love that.

I met many a buyer that had a bad day that kicked me out of their account. But, you know, the best story I had is I used to go on this Vons and I don't know where it was in Los Angeles, somewhere, maybe Pasadena, but the guy kicked me out like 5 times. But by the time I got promoted and left there, I was having lunch with him. You know, because I didn't shy away. I came back. He's just having a bad day. Maybe, you know, the delivery was wrong or the employees didn't show up. Something inevitably happens. So he had to take it out on someone. I'm not saying it was okay, but you gotta be resilient. So, um, Sal, how do people get in contact with you? How do they, like, if they want your services, how do they, how do they connect with you? Yeah.

So they, so I have a social media page. It's Grapes and Grains that we have. So you can, you can, you can DM us on there, but we also have on there, that's probably the best place to start. We have, uh, you can, You can, you can reach us by email, by phone, but yeah, Grapes and Grains LLC. We're based out of Miami.

You want to type it in the thing here? Just type on the little chat or actually I'll type it in actually. Hold on a second. Let's see.

So Grapes, G Grapes and Grains LLC.

I'm gonna put on the screen. Tell me if this, if I got this right.

Actually, actually the website is different. It's, it's a different address.

Okay.

But they can go to the Instagram where it'll have everything on there. That's probably the easiest way. Okay.

Got it. Okay. Yeah. I want to, so when we, we actually will have a video version of this too, Sal, and we'll put your information on there so people can actually find you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah. And inevitably what'll happen is Adam is already making connections for you live to try to figure out, we're part of, we're part of a thing called Apex 360 Group as well, Sal. Sure. But I'm getting double-talked there, Adam. I think you have the thing on. There you go.

Oh, there you go.

But anyway, with that, any closing thoughts, Sal, for the group that you want to leave anybody with?

Well, this is my first podcast, so thank you guys. I've actually really enjoyed talking about it. Thank you for letting me share my story. Hopefully we can do this again sometime. I really enjoyed it.

Well, so you're— so now that you've been on the podcast, you're an alumni and alumni can come back anytime. Well, we love, we love pop-ins. We love people to come in the chat. You can definitely, if we want to pick, like do a wine night, you know, and do like a tasting with some wines, I'd love you to maybe take us through. That would be really cool.

Absolutely. You know, it would be great to even maybe do it in an account where we're actually making a sales call or doing a staff training or something like that.

Yeah, we could go, you could go live there, send us the wine too. We could do it with you with the training. I would love to do that. So actually that would be a great, let's pick a date. Um, to do that. Um, I think walking our audience, like, how does it really work in the wild? Like, what is, like, what is it like? And Adam, I've talked, Adam, I've talked about this going out in the wild and, and doing things like that versus just sitting in our office doing that. So we'll, that's one of the questions we asked some people. Can we, you know, should we go out in the wild and do some things? But thank you so much for joining us today, Adam.

My pleasure.

As always, I'm glad we got back on. We figured this out.

Yes.

Uh, wish everybody a happy hump day and, uh, and, uh, we'll be back, I think tomorrow actually with Peter Lososky with Relatable. And then we'll be back on Saturday. So we've got a busy week ahead of us, Adam.

We do indeed.

All right. Well, thanks everybody.

Thanks, Adam.

Thanks guys. Take care.