Elevate the Customer Experience

Speaker 2: it's not only for me just about valuing experience to our employees and showing them that it matters how they talk to our customers but it's also valuing how we engage with our vendors it's valuing how we engage with our Consultants it's having pride in your culture and the relationships that you

Speaker 3: build hi I'm bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's Dive In thank you for joining us Jessica as someone who loves a nice glass of wine and also likes to chat about all things business this is going to be a fun conversation you are the founder and CMO of Cameron Hughes wines tell us about it and what led you to create your company

Speaker 2: I'd always wanted to start something but I was a little chicken to do it on my own I had just moved from New York City to San Francisco and moved in with my boyfriend who became my husband he came from a wine background he grew up in Modesta where Gallow is based the wine group the two largest wine suppliers in the United States and had a really deep background in wine and being from the East Coast I was more into Spirits I was like give me a cocktail but he did such a really wonderful job educating me about wine and I remember one day we went out to dinner and we had this wine Bonnie June big house bread and I think it was $20 a bottle which was a lot for Us in 2001 2002 and the wine was gross it just was gross it just tasted really bad it was a real disappointment and I looked at Cam and I'm like there's got to be like an inefficiency in this business this just isn't right I'd come from the fashion industry I'd come from the beauty industry this is unacceptable in any other consumer goods industry to give you a product that's just horrible he explained the nature of the business and how the supplier produces the wine and then it goes to the distributor then it goes to the retailer it doesn't cost a lot to make wine it doesn't cost a lot to make really good wine and I'm like why aren't we doing this let's do this he sold his wine collection he's been collecting wines for a few years and we literally launched a company selling wine at the back of our Volvo but I also came with a background in marketing i' launched Donna Karen I did the relaunch of Elizabeth ardan from Red Door to really a true Cosmetics line I had a a sense and an understanding of how to package and present to customers products he was very fixated on selling to stores and I was very fixated on selling wine online and he's like what people are never gonna buy wine online like it's just

Speaker 1: never going to happen and I'm like okay but what if it does and if it does don't we want to be ready that's really how we started the business he was selling wholesale I was building out our site selling to customers online and we're doing that for a couple years and we actually had this really interesting opportunity come to our attention through Costco and one thing that we did the business model was predicated on this idea that in order to get great wine to a customer wine that would blow their socks off at a price that they felt just like heartful happy was that you need to work with suppliers who are already producing these wines which means that we are not owning Vineyards we are not owning tasting rooms we are not owning sellers we are working with wine makers who produce a little bit of extra always when they are putting together their final Blend especially at the high end because wine makers at the higher end look at wine making as an art right they do 20 recipes to get to where they feel the wine is there and what happens to the five ingredients that cost $3,000 an acre do you just throw that out what do you do with that and so that's really what we did we disintermediated in many ways we went directly to the winery owners to the wine makers to the the wine seller owners and said hey do you have some extra wine to sell to us does it matter if it's 30 gallons a th000 gallons 5,000 gallons we really love your style and so it just bloomed out of that Costco got wind of it and loved our program which was every single wine is completely unique not a wine is the same we sell a stag sleeve cab from a sick producer that was our Centennial release last year for for $25 a stag C does not sell under a hundred right now that's Baseline we have access to wines that have such pedigree and you can taste the difference you don't have to be a wine aado you can be like me who's like very much a wine Outsider but you can taste good wine oh yeah just that simple yeah from one sip one tip is really all you need and then if you want to get into the little pairing thing we can go down that road but that's how it started and that's how the business exploded and we were called The warie Parker of wine because what happened was customers were buying wine at Costco but we were limited in we were only selling in California and we also had a website that I had built that was transactional and that business just

Speaker 3: went crazy it's so smart that you had

Speaker 1: that vision and that you were both building two different sides of the business we were totally and that had to come together so nicely when wine started to be sold more online it did and in 2017 the company was acquired and sold to Vintage wine Estates and vintage wine Estates is I think like the 12th largest wine holding company in the US and they happen to be very aggressive in the direct to Consumer space now direct to consumer in the wine industry means from visiting a Tasting Room Wine club e-commerce and then your digital native Brands like Cameron Hugh wine or vanesse

Speaker 3: or our custom label brand Windsor Vineyards so their direct to Consumer business when they acquired us it was like about 30 million and last year it

Speaker 1: was at 120 million and you are the chief growth and experience officer yes so tell us about your role within benu

Speaker 3: States I think you're going to get a kick out of this because you are a person who is curious and is also open to change open to seeing things a little bit differently because that is the journey we are all on I was a trained marketer and ADV vintage when they brought me in they asked me to be their Chief marketing officer and I said no I want to be your Chief digital officer so I did that for a couple years for them to help everybody understand who worked in direct consumer that technology is part of your life part of your engagement and interaction with customers whether you're on the floor or you're in wine club or eCommerce technology should be enabling Tighter and more meaningful relationships and so that all did great and during covid we were able to Pivot really nicely with all the software we put into the tasting rooms Etc from years before after that I said you know what I'm not really a chief digital officer in the truest of definitions and I've outgrown this role and I'm not really a chief marketing officer because I don't own the brand marketing programs that you have for your Brands the estate Brands like BR con and beona and cundi those brands have brand managers that live in wholesale so I said really my job is to actually help the business in the direct Hospitality side to to Envision growth and growth comes through many different channels that could be facilitated digitally but also physically the physical to the digital but most importantly it is the experience that matters most in anything that we do as a business at all and they're like what does that mean this is what it means when you talk about your company you have a person at the sea level who's focused on customer experience and is accountable for customer experience because you can have great marketing programs and have people come buy stuff but if their experience sucks it's over and so I remember everybody was laughing at me at the title and I'm just like oh I don't care and now we're seeing a lot of companies bring on the experience title because it

Speaker 1: matters and wine is such an experience

Speaker 3: totally and wine can make an experience more memorable or less memorable you come together with friends for dinner or go to a concert or a show and it's all an experience it truly is so why not focus on making that the best for customers because when it is the best the customers are going to come back so I would say there's the hour facing I always say to everyone the reason your lights are on is because you have customers never forget that those lights don't stay on without the customers and I remember also saying in the description I have the most amazing boss she's a Powerhouse when I was writing this position description to her I said

Speaker 1: it's not only for me just about valuing experience to our employees and showing them that it matters how they talk to our customers but it's also valuing how we engage with our vendors it's valuing how we engage with our Consultants it's having pride in your culture and the relationships that you build and when you have that within a business it translates to the outside world it does if you just have somebody from the top saying this is what matters and these are the kinds of programs that we're going to put in place that helps growth the wine industry is a bit archaic it's been around for a long time and my boss who you have to meet I want you to meet her You' love her her name is Terry weedy she was on the 50 over 50 Forbes list this year she's amazing and she's the kind of person who values culture but she's also a marketer and she's a salesperson and she's like this is so goofy but let's do this let's run with this and to be surrounded by people like that it's very important magic happens

Speaker 3: when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what do you do to make sure that you find and

Speaker 1: live your joy each day it starts with saying hello to my girls and of course kissing my mind my Corgi my crazy Corgi but really what it is is that I I love the work I do I genuinely especially as I'm transitioning more into a coaching role within an organization I find so much joy and interest in that because I have a Natural Curiosity about people and to understand what makes them tick and help them achieve their goal and so I wouldn't have said that like in my 30s or 40s and especially now that I work mostly virtual I go to the office sometimes I find that my job really is

Speaker 3: to share wisdom thank you for joining us today tell us how and where we can find

Speaker 1: you sure so you can find me on First on LinkedIn if you ever want to connect with me Jessica kogan you can find my company see H wi Cameron wi chwine.com or you can check out the larger company that owns Cameron wine vintage win estates.com

Speaker 3: thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave okay