July 11, 2025 • 43 mins
Brian Deignan shares how his brewery, Validation Ale, achieved 29% growth last year through systematic innovation and strategic expansion while he, as an owner, maintained a Monday-Friday, 9-5 work schedule.
Brian explains his unique concept where beers compete for menu placement based solely on sales data, and his methodical annual process for identifying growth opportunities.
• Validation Ale's competitive model forces continuous innovation with 143 unique recipes created in three years
• Each beer category features a "validated" beer and a challenger that can replace it if sales are higher
• Brian's systematic "growth driver" process evaluates potential initiatives based on revenue potential, capital requirements, and feasibility
• Distilling spirits emerged as this year's growth initiative, generating 28% beverage revenue increase from day one
• Building consistent profitability across all days of the week took patience—nearly 2.5 years before lunches and slow days became profitable
• Staff culture focuses on training managers to "think like owners" through regular coaching and biweekly all-staff meetings
• Social media marketing works best when showcasing behind-the-scenes content with staff rather than polished promotional material
• High engagement metrics don't always translate to actual customer visits—line dancing content went viral but only two people attended
Key Takeaway: For brewery owners struggling with financial challenges, implement a systematic growth driver exercise to identify new revenue opportunities rather than remaining stagnant in a shrinking market.
Resources
- Learn more about Validation Ale
- Sign up for the FREE brewery financial training newsletter
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on the podcast, we hear from Brian Degnan from
Validation Ale.
This is part of our BrewerySpotlight series on the business
of beer, where we're going tocover real-world insights from
breweries who are making it work.
So each month, we'll shine thespotlight on one exceptional
craft brewery to explore whatmakes their business thrive.
In my conversation with Brian,we go beyond the beer to uncover
(00:20):
best practices, smart financialstrategies, creative sales
tactics and real-world lessonsthat Brian has learned.
So this is your front row seatto learn from your peers who are
building profitable, resilientbreweries and raising the bar
for the industry.
So for now, please enjoy thisconversation with Brian Degnan
from Validation Ale.
(00:46):
Shanael, welcome to the CraftBrewery Financial Training
Podcast, where we combine beerand numbers to provide you with
tips, tactics and strategies sothat you can improve financial
results in your brewery.
I'm your host, kerry Shumway, aCPA CFO for a brewery and a
former CFO for a beerdistributor.
I've spent the last 20 yearsusing finance to improve
financial results in our beerbusiness.
Now I'm helping other craftbreweries to do the same.
(01:06):
Are you ready to take yourbrewery financial results to the
next level?
Okay, let's get started.
Just a quick note, we'll beright back to the podcast.
I want to let you know about anew network for beer industry
professionals.
It's called the Beer BusinessFinance Association.
(01:26):
It's an organization offinancial pros just like you,
looking to improve financialresults, increase profitability,
connect with your peers andshare best practices.
So I'd love to tell you alittle bit more about this.
If you are interested inlearning more, please email me
kary at beerbusinessfinancecom.
That's K-A-R-Y atbeerbusinessfinancecom.
(01:50):
Or you can visitbbfassociationorg that's
bbfassociationorg.
To learn more.
Hey, brian, welcome back to thepodcast.
How are you doing today?
I'm great, I'm excited to behere.
I'm excited to have you here.
So we are going to basicallyhave you on our brewery
(02:10):
spotlight.
This is a new feature thatwe're doing, where we bring
forward some owners, managers ofbreweries that are doing some
cool things kind of share thatwith the world.
So excited to have you here.
Why don't you give folks whoaren't familiar?
We've done a podcast previouslyand I'll link that but if folks
are not familiar with you oryour brewery, tell them a bit
about that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah.
So my career, the bulk of mycareer, was in technology, in
sales and running sales teams.
At the end of it I was runningpretty large P&Ls and sales
groups across the world and itgot to the point where I wanted
to spend more time with myfamily and follow some of my
passion.
I had been a home brewer for 13years or so at that time, and
(02:50):
so we took the leap and my wifeand I spun up a brewery here in
Santa Barbara.
The concept is unique.
We're called Validation Alebecause we have two different
beers in each category lightcoffee, etc.
We have a validated beer andthen we have a challenger recipe
each category light coffee, etcetera.
We have a validated beer andthen we have a challenger recipe
that we brew.
We call it a vying beer and ifthat challenger outsells the
(03:11):
validated beer, it becomesvalidated.
We kick the validated one outand we brew a new beer to beat
ourselves.
So we're just under three years.
In two weeks we'll be threeyears old and we've done 143
unique recipes.
So we're pretty prolific.
But it is getting harder andharder to beat our validated
beers.
It's getting harder to beatourselves, but there's
(03:33):
definitely been some upsets.
So it's been a valuable and funconcept.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's such an interesting model right, Because
I think that's you know, whentap rooms kind of were coming on
the scene, that was sort of.
The idea is to validate thebeers at retail to your
customers, get feedback, refinethe recipe, Then maybe
eventually go out to market withit because you're like oh yeah,
this, this really nails it, butyou're you're just keeping it
in house, at least for now.
Is that right?
Do you do any wholesaledistribution?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
We're very, very light on distribution by by
choice.
We're in maybe a dozenrestaurants here in town, but
it's really just a marketingploy at this point.
I go through a process that wecan talk about, if you're
interested, at some point everyyear where I decide what my
growth driver will be the nextyear.
Wholesale distribution isalways on that list because you
can't ignore it.
Sale distribution is always onthat list because you can't
(04:29):
ignore it, but it's never beenanywhere near the top 10 when I
evaluated each year.
But I think the thing that'sinteresting is that I saw a lot
of breweries evolve into havingthese core beers and specialty
beers, and personally I thinkthe challenge with that is that
those core beers can get old orstale over time.
Not physically, but our tastebuds are constantly changing and
(04:49):
if you're not forcing yourselfto disrupt yourself, it can be
tough to do so, and so when westarted our brewery, we wanted
to put a concept in place thatforced us to innovate and brew
what people were drinking, somuch so that our menu board
shows live sales and which beeris winning.
(05:10):
So we can't hide from it.
We've got to do what the peoplesay.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I love that.
That's so smart, Because theysay I mean, that's the most
important thing you can do,right Is listen to your
customers.
And we know it and we say it,but we rarely do it.
But you're doing it.
I mean, you're literally basingyour menu on what people are
uploading.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, yeah, and it, it.
I think the other importantdistinction is it's what they
buy, not I'm not, I'm notrelying on somebody going in and
voting right, like it's actualdollars, and you know.
That's not to say there hasn'tbeen trepidation.
There have been some verywell-selling beers that just
barely got beat by a vying beer.
And you know the front of housestaff, the brewer, everybody's
(05:51):
very nervous about taking it off.
Everyone's going to come in andcomplain and the regulars are
going to be so pissed that it'sgone and it just doesn't happen
because literally more peoplewere buying the other one.
That's the whole point.
But it is tough to stick to itsometimes.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, it takes that discipline, but it's really like
about you know the emotiondrives a lot of decisions, which
you know we're human beings.
It's fine.
But you know, if we want tomake data driven decisions,
you're fundamentally doing that.
You're saying data is going todecide.
People vote with their dollars.
If they really wanted thatother beer, come on in and maybe
it's a challenger next time andyou can get it back on top.
So you did say growth driversand I'm definitely interested in
(06:29):
hearing that, and I'm surelisteners are too.
So maybe tell us a little bitabout your process and what
you're focused on now and maybehow you make that decision,
because if you said, hey,wholesale is not even in my top
10, I'm really curious to knowwhat is in there, and then how
you settled on what you did.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, I borrowed a lotof this from my learnings in the
executive team on techcompanies, where you know the
thing you learn in tech prettyquick is that anybody can create
the technology that you'reprobably selling, and they can
probably create it cheaper andfaster and better because
technology is better every dayand they would have a better
(07:09):
start.
And so constantly you're tryingto figure out how to run the
business better in order to stayahead, and so I borrowed that
kind of practice and disciplinefrom my career at tech.
So about October 15th, when weslow down every year, I start to
get the growth drivers out andI just have a big list of all
the things that might helpcreate growth, and throughout
(07:32):
the year I'll just throw thingsin there as I think about them.
I don't prioritize them orcategorize them or even think
about them.
If it comes up, I throw in thelist.
October 15th comes around and Ijust start going through the
list and my goal for the nexttwo weeks by the end of October
is to get as many more things onthe list as I can, and so I
(07:54):
refresh myself on everythingthat's on the list and then just
force myself to put more andmore and more on there.
Because, you know, what I'vefound is that there are often,
that there are often obviousanswers to these questions,
answers to these questions, butsometimes there's one that you
haven't thought of until you'vereally gone through the thinking
and you can't come up withanything else.
So you're trying to inventsomething and then you, you know
, sometimes come up withsomething special.
(08:15):
I've seen it in tech and I'veseen it here, and so, you know,
I go through that process fortwo weeks, I add to the list and
then I really take the end ofthe year, november and December,
trying to figure out what I'mgoing to do the next year.
And the prioritization isprobably not too.
The elements I use toprioritize are probably not too
(08:37):
unique here.
That's probably what everyone'sthinking.
I'm trying to do a real roughestimate on how much new revenue
it would bring, how muchstartup capital would be
required to execute on it andhow much time and energy it
would take from me.
And then the fourth one is justhow likely is it that I could
get it done right?
(08:57):
And so I'm putting togetherreally basic forecasts for each
of those things.
I'm going, you know, goingsmall, medium high and as I
narrow in on kind of the topfive, I'm trying to get a little
bit more calculated on totalcost, upfront capital to start
it.
When do I think it wouldactually launch within the year?
(09:20):
How much revenue can I make?
But these are very bigpaintbrush strokes that I'm not
spending a ton of time, uh, inexcel trying to figure out
exactly what it would be.
And every year the winner hasbecome pretty obvious and it's
always a combination of thosethings.
It's always a it's never thething that will make the most
(09:44):
money, right.
It's never the thing that willmake the most money, right.
It's never the thing that willcost no money.
It's always some combination ofthose things where you know, as
you kind of refine yourdifferent options, you come to
terms with the one that you canexecute on that will not take,
(10:04):
you know, too much capital, ormaybe it does take a ton of
capital and you have itavailable, but the one that is
right for that situation becomespretty evident.
Sometimes there's a tie andthere's two that I can't decide
between, and I'll take a coupleof weeks and try and decide, and
if I can't decide, I'll make mywife decide she typically has
an opinion at that point.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I like it.
So what did you settle on forthis year?
What's your main focus?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, so this is an interesting one and it's another
discipline point that I thinkis important that I learned from
tech.
So last year the growth driverwas a second location and the
spot that I had picked out, orthat kind of, came to me at the
(10:51):
end of October and so I kind ofsped up this process that I'm
talking about to decide if thesecond location, if it was the
right time.
And I looked at all thevariables and it felt like at
least the top three right time.
And you know, I looked at allthe variables and it it felt
like at least the top threeright, but probably the top top
item if I spent the full end ofthe year evaluating and so I
(11:12):
jumped on it, started to go downthat road, um, and at that
point the opening time was April, the estimated opening time was
April and Santa Barbara city,which I won't comment in this
podcast, is another wholeconversation.
But it wasn't easy.
Took, like every project, a lotmore time and a lot more budget
(11:33):
than I had expected.
But, most importantly,throughout the year I'm
measuring how my growth driveris doing compared to what my
assumption was.
That made me decide to moveforward with that growth driver
and you know, as the year wenton, it became more and more
evident that April was not goingto open and that, you know, it
was going to be much closer tothe October 15th, timeframe
(11:54):
where our whole city just kindof dies and we don't make any
money.
What ended up happening is thatwe opened in November, the week,
the week, the Monday afterThanksgiving is when we opened.
So we're opening, we're payingrent and opening in the worst
time of the year, right, but Iknew that we were going to open
(12:14):
near that.
Many, many months prior to that, I looked at my projections.
I wasn't going to sell anywherenear what I thought this growth
driver was going to sell for me, and so I started the process
early of next year's growthdriver, and I actually launched
that year's growth driver inDecember of the same year.
And the way I look at this isthat if I'm missing my
(12:37):
projection, the goal is not tojust get to the point where I'm
making that money.
The goal is to make up what hasbeen lost, right, and so, if I
look at it that way, I'mthinking all right, so the next
year which is this current year,2025, I've got to book enough
to cover two growth driversessentially right, and so that's
(13:01):
what I did.
I started down the process andthe growth driver for that year,
and middle of the year I'mgoing through the process I just
described and what I came towas distilling.
And so in December you know ittakes a while to get your your
sorry, it takes a while to getyour licensing for distilling go
through the ABC and the Fed,and I'd learned a lot.
(13:23):
There were a bunch of things Ididn't know and I ended up
getting my importer license toobecause I needed agave.
There was a whole bunch ofthings that happened, but I
figured it all out and westarted distilling in December.
So January comes around and nowwe are selling spirits day one
of January.
In California, if you have arestaurant, you can sell
(13:44):
everyone else's spirits as well.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So essentially, I have a full liquor license.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
in January we have the second store up and running,
and so by the middle ofFebruary, when things start to
pick up.
I'm now four or five monthsahead on my growth driver this
year, which should fill a gap ofmy miss last year.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Nice.
I love that.
So are you.
It's interesting to me too thatyou're.
It sounds like you kind of haveone primary growth driver,
which I think a lot of peopleare thinking like okay, that's
great, but what about all theother stuff?
How do you sort of maintainequal or the appropriate focus
on that new thing and still kindof maintain all the other
(14:25):
things that have to be clickingalong?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So you're right, as I thinkabout growth drivers in the way
I'm describing it's one big stepchange right.
My day-to-day job is to growall of the revenue lines that we
already have or look for waysfor operational efficiency and
reduced costs and all thosethings.
But I'm thinking about each ofthose revenue lines essentially
(14:52):
as its own little business, andI'm trying to launch a new
business every year, and so itcan get daunting.
It's hard to prioritize, I'lltell you.
Just taking this time out is ahard one to bite off on, but
really important because itmakes you step back for a minute
and, you know, over a couple ofhours and that'll be, that'll
(15:12):
be important for me.
But my to-do list is 10 mileslong.
I should have three of me, butit you know this, this type of
paces, it can be exhausting, butit's really fun and it and it
really works.
You know, and in California Isaw a report just the other day
that said in 2024, f&b growthaveraged, I think, 2% down.
(15:36):
It was negative 2%.
And we grew 29% last year andreally that was with the current
business lines.
We didn't have our growthdriver, as I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I like the way you think about it Because, as you
said, you're launching a newbusiness each year, so that kind
of keeps the innovation fresh.
And you're being verypurposeful about those revenue
drivers.
Like what's actually going tomake a difference, because these
don't sound to me likeincremental or small.
Like you said, it's a bigchange.
I mean, this is like, uh,what's the opposite of
(16:13):
incremental?
It's uh, exponential, I guessis yeah, you know what you're
we're shooting for.
So what, how do you?
I mean, I think you've laid outthe model nicely, but, um, what
like didn't make the cut, likeif you weren't going to do the
second taproom or the distillery, what were you sort of?
I know you said it comes clearand there's this process, but
maybe give us an example or twoof some things like, well, we
thought we were going to do this, but you know, this other thing
took precedent.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah.
So the second location wasthere were a couple of different
options there.
Right, we ended up opening alocation about two miles from
our current location and I cantell you kind of what led to
that.
But there were other items,other locations there that got
axed.
So Ventura is a really big townright south it's about 20
minutes away.
Huge market, four times whatSanta Barbara is.
(16:58):
That was on the list that onedidn't make it, not solely
because of this, but a big partbecause I don't want to drive
there.
Not solely because of this, buta big part because I don't want
to drive there.
I wanted something closer andyou know that will change right.
Like two, three years from now.
I may have someone on my teamthat I trust to be either down
there or driving down there andthey, you know, they may have
(17:20):
the life situation that thatmakes sense for them and it
won't make sense for all of us.
But right now that one justdoesn't didn't make sense, so I
cut that.
One Distribution, as Imentioned, is on there.
I just can't in our marketfigure out how to make the
economics work.
I have a very expensive squarefootage so I would need to find
(17:43):
somewhere else if I wanted toscale rapidly into distribution.
Obviously that's a ton ofcapital and the margins are
already near nothing and there'sa ton of pressure there, so
that one was X'd.
But I come back to it everyyear and try and run the high
level numbers and that one justdidn't work.
Another item on there is tokind of lean into much heavier
(18:06):
paid advertising, right, and sothat would be total change for
us.
We do very little paidadvertising like on Instagram
and a little bit in the paper,but really not much.
So you know, another growthdriver would be to become a
marketing company, essentiallyget really good at that.
Same thing with private events,kind of become an event place.
(18:37):
Again, we do two or three ofthose a month, but I could very
much make that a focus in a lineof business and do seven or
eight a month.
That one didn't make the cut.
I actually have an app idea, atechnology idea, that is always
on the list and just didn't makethe cut.
I've thought about taking myconcept to larger regional
breweries and kind of providinga place for them to white label
(19:03):
and test their recipes versusothers and give them the data
that I'm already collecting.
You know, I think it's aninteresting concept but didn't
didn't quite make the cut.
So you know, I think there's acombination of things that
anybody would think of if youjust ask them on the street and
they own a brewery, and there'sa combination of things that,
(19:23):
unless you force yourself tothink about this for two weeks,
you may not have come up with.
I'm not sure how many folks outthere maybe a lot of them have
an app idea, but I'm not surehow many do.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah Well, if you ever advance that app idea, keep
me posted.
That's one of the itches Iwould like to scratch for myself
and yeah, I think there's a lotof opportunity.
But that's great, that's agreat system that you have and I
really like it because it helpspeople.
You know, we can get a littlestuck in our own rut, right, and
we're like we can't see theforest from the trees and it
(19:56):
feels like we're pulling all thelevers and nothing's happening.
So I think this is a reallynice way to kind of 30,000 foot
view, really expand yourthinking on how you can reinvent
your business and relaunch anew business every year, as you
said, I like that phrasing on it.
So you know we're facing beer isfacing a lot of headwinds,
right, we got rising costs, yougot, you know, as you said.
(20:16):
You know, overall F&B is downin your market 2% and much more
in others.
So we like to hear some goodnews, maybe some wins.
So I'd like to know from you,you know, over the last 12
months, you know, as you kind oflook back and reflect, what's
what's kind of been the biggestwin for your brewery?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
The biggest win would certainly be the spirits
distilling.
You know I through this processit became clear that's the one
I wanted to take on, but Ididn't really have a ton of
space or capital to assign to itand so we went very pilot on
the program and we already havea vodka and a gin that have won
(20:58):
medals.
We have a whiskey that'sfantastic and flying off the
shelves.
We had to get pretty creativeon how to age it because we
didn't want to wait two yearsbefore we sold it, so we did
some creative innovation there.
We have a white rum and a darkrum, and agave is coming.
We're still R&D on that one.
It's harder, but you know,literally day one we launched
(21:19):
cocktails.
We had 28% growth on beveragetop line.
I mean day one, and no oneknows that we do it.
Yet it's still so early.
Everyone still thinks of us asa brewery.
That it's, it's, it's going togrow to X that easily.
Uh, as folks start to learn,learn what's happening, um, so I
(21:40):
think that was the biggest.
The second one, which, you know,this was a bit of a surprise to
me, a pleasant surprise Foranyone out there that's just
starting.
Hopefully they see the samething, but it took a long time
longer than I anticipated forfolks to make this the place
they went.
I think in town you'd probablysay that we have a really good
(22:01):
brand, if not one of the bestones, but people coming kind of
repeatedly and habitually tookmuch longer than I thought.
And I can see the same trend onour second location.
It's doing well, but this isn'tlike in tech where you get a
thousand customers and all of asudden the next thousand come
(22:23):
really easy.
It takes two and a half yearsand we started to really see a
step change in every day beingprofitable not just five of the
seven days and most lunchesbeing profitable, not zero of
them.
And I think it would have beenreally easy to and a lot of
folks do this it would have beenreally easy to say, ah,
(22:45):
tuesdays and Mondays are nevergoing to be profitable, I'm not
going to open those days, orTuesdays, wednesdays or whatever
.
I'm not going to open at 1130because lunch is never going to
be profitable.
And we weren't for two and ahalf years on those days, and
now we are, and I think that wasanother really big win,
particularly in today's market,to just see that if you stick to
it, continue to provide greatproducts.
(23:06):
We say our products arebeverage, food and service and
if we provide all of thoseproducts over and over, you will
see more and more folksenjoying your place more often.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's interesting, yeah, because you think, like in
software or at least a lot ofsoftware these days it's a
recurring software as a service.
Right, it's recurring, you getthose first thousand and you'll
get some attrition insurance,but you know they're, you're
still there and you kind ofstack and stack and it's not the
same in hospitality as you'vejust described.
What did you do?
What do you think was or couldyou put your finger on anything
that, cause I think a lot of taprooms struggle with this is?
(23:39):
You know, you open, you get anice lift cause you're something
new, and maybe that lasts alittle while, and then all of a
sudden, wow, wait, everybody,they're not coming back.
What, what did you do or howdid you think about that?
Or can you put your finger onanything that was like, yeah,
that that actually helped peopleto make this the place to come?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Sadly, I think it's all the things and you know, I
think I think the look, ifyou're confident in your product
and I think you know at least alot of the places I frequent I
would say they may not betalking from the top down as
service being one of theirproducts.
We have really great service,we have really great beverages
(24:19):
and we have really great foodand we don't compromise on any
of those.
So I think if you believe inyour product, you know, know
that we'll eventually get there.
Now, of course, you've got tohave the capital to get there.
You have to be smart runningyour business and cash flow and
all of that's important.
But I think you know it's easyto lose confidence when you've
(24:44):
got an empty tap room.
You know, if you're trying toopen for lunch and it's empty,
for example, and if you justkeep at it and you keep doing
all the things, eventually it'llget there.
So we, you know we providegreat products.
We really believe in it.
We do an enormous amount onsocial, which is exhausting and
I can't stand it, but we have todo it.
We're constantly trying to findthings to fill the empty days.
(25:08):
I call it our weeklyprogramming things like bingo
and trivia and live music andall these things that take a lot
of effort.
And then you know one of yourvendors won't show up and or
they'll show up for six weeksand no one comes.
You know, like karaoke wasgreat for the first three months
and then no one showed up andyou had to pivot.
(25:29):
But we don't.
We don't give up.
We're trying to do somethingevery single day and we're
trying to be open all the timesthat that people will want to
consume food or beverages.
Uh, we just opened for brunchon Saturday and Sunday and I'll
tell you the product isfantastic but it's pretty slow
and my guess is it's going to bepretty slow through the summer
(25:51):
and winter and next summerhopefully, we'll start to make
that time of day and days of theweek more profitable.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I like how you're thinking about the days of the
week too, because I think thereis that feeling of well, monday,
tuesday, let's just not evenopen and we'll focus on the busy
times.
And you mentioned, we finallygot profitable not five days a
week, but seven.
How do you measure that?
What are you looking at andwhat are the, I guess, key
metrics, for lack of a betterword?
(26:21):
How do you evaluate?
Yes, this is profitable or not?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, so very back of the napkin math.
I mean, I have a pretty generalunderstanding based on how many
folks are going to be in thefront of us and back of us.
You know, we have a kitchen too.
So look, if we were justselling beer, personally, I
think it's pretty hard to not beprofitable every moment of
every day.
I mean, you gotta what?
Sell one and a half beers tocover, cover like an hour, it's
(26:47):
not.
I can't see that not happening.
Um, however, you know, I thinkone thing that, uh, you know we
do a bit uniquely here is we.
We build a team and train ateam in a way and hold them
accountable in a way where Idon't have to be here all the
time, and I think that'simportant.
I am here monday through friday.
I'm here nine to five, andthat's you know from.
(27:09):
Am here Monday through Friday.
I'm here nine to five, andthat's you know from here.
Outside of that, I'm drinkingand having fun, not working, but
you got to set up systems forthat.
But back to the key metrics.
In terms of profitability, it'spretty back of napkin math,
right?
I'm taking what our averagemargin is on the food and on the
beverages, I'm assuming somepercent of waste, and if it's a
(27:31):
really slow Tuesday we probablyhave a lot of food waste Not
necessarily beer waste, butfood's going to go bad and we're
going to throw it away and prepthat's done is going to have to
be redone.
So I'm looking at that kind ofwaste number for the day and
just have a general idea on whatI would need to sell in a day
to cover that and you know ifI'm we're talking degrees of
(27:55):
variance here, right.
And so if I'm looking at it andsaying, ah, you know, we may, we
may make a couple hundred buckson this day, I'm I'm calling
that not profitable, right, likeit's.
We've got to make enough moneyto make it worth me coming into
work for me to call it aprofitable day.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, makes sense.
Talk to me a little bit moreabout staff training, because
you had said earlier, like yourbeverages, food and service, and
I think that's such animportant you know, triple play
there, if you will.
And staff training is achallenge.
I mean, when we listen tobrewery owners, taproom managers
, it's like, you know, outsideof getting more people in to
(28:34):
your taproom, you know stafftraining and retention is
probably the second biggest painpoint.
So what do you?
How do you approach stafftraining, or maybe even the
culture, to get those outcomesthat you want?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, you know, I think that I think the culture
is a big part and I hate thatword just because it can be so
vague and so I'll try and giveyou some specific things that I
do.
You know, I think part of itstarts with mindset.
I set my mind to starting thebusiness this way I said I'm
going to open this breweryrestaurant.
(29:09):
Maybe I'll open more than one,and I'm going to work Monday
through Friday from 8 to 5.
That's going to be my schedule,and so you know, when you do
that, you really have toapproach everything with the
mindset of teaching someone elseto do it and act like an owner,
which is pretty, prettyimpossible to do.
(29:32):
None of them think exactly theway you do.
But if you approach it that way, I think it makes it easier to
figure out what to do.
Some of the things we do.
I mean I spend a fair amount oftime with my managers and I
don't spend a ton of time withthe frontline staff, and that's
on purpose, not because I don'tlike them.
(29:52):
I hang out with them, they'renice people.
But I do need my managers to beable to present my values and
where I want to take thebusiness and hold people
accountable the way I would,communicate the way I would.
So I spend more time with themand we talk a lot about how they
(30:13):
will have those conversationswith their staff and if somebody
messes up.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
How do you?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
have that conversation.
So I'm focusing most of mytraining energy on those
individuals kind of train, thetrainer type thing.
I don't get into a ton of theminutia on this is exactly what
you need to train them on andwhen, after they start, and that
type of thing.
I focus much more on thosecultural elements.
How do you you know, how do Iapproach problems?
(30:38):
How do you solve?
How are you creative in yourproblem solving?
Tip don't do the very firstthing you think of.
Think of three things, thosetypes of things.
And the thing I do with thestaff is every other Monday we
have a staff meeting the wholestaff.
It took a long time to getpeople to show up.
(30:59):
I had to fire people becausethey weren't showing up.
And the thing I do with thestaff is every other Monday we
have a staff meeting the wholestaff.
It took a long time to getpeople to show up.
I had to fire people becausethey weren't showing up.
It is very much a commitment,but now they love it.
The ones that don't weedthemselves out and they're not a
fit for our culture, but theones that do love it.
(31:22):
Thank me afterwards or theysend me messages and thank me
for being there and beingpresent and being open and
asking them their thoughts.
And most of the meeting is, youknow, I try and balance it.
I try and get 50% of the wordssaid by my staff, not me Really
tough to do.
I'm lucky if I get 25.
But you know, I'm trying to getthem to talk as much as as much
as I talk.
That's the whole purpose of itand I learn a lot and they
really appreciate it.
So I think that really helpswith the culture.
(31:43):
Um, and you know, I think theother one is that my managers we
have uh, there's a couple thatrun the kitchen operations who
are fantastic.
Uh, um, our brewer.
You know, all of those folkshave this same mentality.
We all jump in.
No one says that's not my job.
Uh, and that staff see that.
(32:05):
Right, I mentioned I'm not heremonday outside of those working
hours, unless I'm drinking.
Almost 100 of the time when I'mhere drinking I'm clearing
tables, right, because I'm herewhen we're busy and the staff
should see me clearing tablesand scraping food into trash
cans and all that gross stuffthat I actually hate doing.
But you know, it shows themthat we're all in this together
(32:28):
and I have no problem rolling upmy sleeves.
I won't clean toilets, but I'lldo every other job here.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
That's great, yeah, really setting the example.
Sure, you know, I think thatbeing there is so important to
write because so, while you'retraining, so I like to kind of
just to kind of recap whatyou're saying is like, how do
you train?
What's your process?
You know you're working withthe managers train the trainer
that really leverages your timeand then acting like an owner.
(32:57):
When you say act like an owner,are you instilling that in your
management team, that these aremy core principles and I want
you to embody those?
Or how do you communicate thatact like an owner approach?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, it's more through conversation about what
they're dealing with.
Right, and I try.
You know, one of the things Itry and do when I communicate
I'm not always great at this,but it's to not give them the
answer right away and tell themwhat I think, but ask them what
they think the solution is andthen ask them to consider what
(33:28):
they think my answer is going tobe.
So I'm just trying to get themto think through it and it's
it's amazing how quickly you canget to a point with somebody
that you're working with wherethey can answer that question
and say, oh well, I think weshould do this.
And then I say what do youthink I'm going to say?
And they go oh, you're probablygoing to say it this way.
(33:50):
I'm like uh-huh, so let's go dothat one.
And I've heard at least one ofmy managers using that same
technique with their team andsaying what do you think we
should do?
What do you think I'm going tosay we should do?
Right, and so you're kind ofpushing that all the way down.
(34:10):
That thought that is not justsingular how am I excuse me, how
am I going to solve thisproblem?
But thinking to yourself okay,how am I going to solve this
problem?
Wait, how would the businesswant me to solve this problem?
Yeah, and then thinking outside, of just just yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
That can be really useful too.
And I think re, uh,reinstilling that on a regular
basis during your training ishelpful too, you know, because
then people can kind of get it.
Oh yeah, I like how you saidearlier, like what are you going
to do to solve this problem?
Don't just here's a tip Don'tjust do the first thing you
think of.
Come up with three ideas,because it gives you that little
pause where you're like, ohyeah, I should consider other
(34:49):
avenues here.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yep, yep.
And you know a way to hold yourteam accountable to that is ask
them when they come to you andsay, hey, this is happening, you
know I want to solve it thisway, cause I also asked them to
come to me with solutions, notjust problems.
Um, my first question if theysay, hey, I want to solve it
this way, is going to be great,what else did you consider?
Yeah, right, and oftentimesthey haven't considered anything
(35:11):
.
But you do that over and overand they start coming to you and
saying here's what, how I'dlike to solve it.
I consider doing it this way,but I can't because of this or
whatever.
And that gives you anopportunity in many, in many
situations to remove whateverroadblock they thought existed
to solving it.
That better way, right.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Right, yeah, that's, that's good.
Hey, I want to pivot back tomarketing.
You mentioned that earlier thatyou do a crap load of socials
and you hate it, so tell usabout a marketing initiative or
some sort of campaign that'sworked.
You could still hate it, butlet's see if it actually had an
impact for you.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I'll give you two.
I'll give you one that workedreally well and one that didn't.
The one that worked really welland it's an initiative to do
more of this this year.
It's just like I said.
It's hard, uh, and this isprobably not surprising.
But the ones that that uh gotthe most engagement in the
social were the ones about ourpeople, not not necessarily the
sit down interview type thing.
(36:10):
We actually haven't done any ofthose.
I'd like to.
I think those will actuallyperform really well as well.
But just the behind the scenespeople making hamburgers, people
making beer, the things that tous might seem really mundane.
And you know, I have a I have atendency to get because of my
background.
I have a tendency to want allof our marketing to be very
(36:33):
perfect and pretty and scripted,you know, on brand, all of
these things and, and so thatkeeps me from doing some of this
, this stuff, um, but when wejust send somebody with an
iPhone back into the kitchenduring a busy day to show
somebody hustling a burger out,and then they follow them out to
the floor and see a bunch offolks in our taproom drinking,
(36:56):
those perform really well.
I don't quite know why I don'twant to watch it, but our
customers do, and I think it'sthat human element, that kind of
unpolished look, that genuinelook that they appreciate, one
that I think, on engagement, animportant thing to consider is
(37:17):
the result of that, that kind ofmark, marking, initiative or
story.
And so here's one that you know, I think I could have very
easily been fooled by and it wasnot successful.
We had an event.
I think it was a yoga event, Ibelieve.
No, you know what it was linedancing.
That's what it was.
We had a line dancing event.
(37:39):
I talked about doing my weeklyprogramming.
One of the employees suggestedline dancing.
I'm constantly asking for theirthoughts during those meetings.
I asked them to go find somebodythat does line dancing and they
did, and we set up our firstline dancing.
We did a post on social, one ortwo it was.
It is still, to this day, themost shared post that I have put
(38:00):
up this line dancing, and you'dthink, sharing that's because
everybody's going to come do it.
Like I was stressed out, weadded staff.
Like you know, we were allnervous about it.
It two people showed up.
Two people showed up.
I was like, oh my gosh, that'samazing, Amazing failure.
And so you know that one was anobvious one, because people
(38:22):
were coming in for a veryspecific event and did not even
though the metrics on socialsaid that it was a really good
story or a really good post.
Some other ones are harder, butI think, just forcing yourself
to not get too fixated on oneindividual post or engagement or
key metrics in social and askyourself the question okay, but
(38:48):
are people liking this andsharing it and following because
it's funny or because they'reactually going to come in and
drink some beer?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
It's funnier because they're actually going to come
in and drink some beer.
Yeah, that's a great point,right, where we can get lost in
wow, this is super successfulbecause we get a lot of, you
know, impressions and thatdoesn't really.
I mean, okay, maybe that helpsyour brand recognition, but if
they're not coming in the door,that's the point of marketing.
Right Is to connect a customerwith the product that you offer
and, you know, have the two cometogether.
And if it's not working, thenthe socials, you know, the other
(39:19):
stuff is just vanity statsreally.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, yeah.
And so you know the way I thinkabout it and the way we talk
about it here is that validationdoes all the things, and I do
that on social too.
We do all of the social andit's, like I said, exhausting
and I kind of hate it.
But we, we try and postmultiple times every single day
and we do posts and stories andsome of them are professional
(39:40):
looking shots and some of themare these more uh, you know kind
of less filtered shots orvideos.
We do videos, we do posts, wedo reels, we do the carousels.
We, we just try and doeverything right and during the
week we try and have eventsevery day.
We try and provide beverages foreverybody.
We have non-alcoholic stuff, wehave a cold room that you can
(40:04):
walk into and pick out thingslike meat or seltzer or cider
that we don't have.
We obviously make our own beerand seltzer and now booze, and
we have four wines on tap likewe're just we're.
You know, I think there was a,there was, was.
I wasn't, I didn't have abrewery during the boom, but my
guess is there was a time in theboom where you could focus on
just one thing and absolutelycrush it, and what I'm finding
(40:27):
is I've really got to try toappeal to everybody because my
market is shrinking.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's great advice.
So, speaking of that, if youcould give one piece of advice,
as we kind of wind down here, toother brewery owners that might
be struggling, you know, maybethey're struggling with the
bottom line, the top line orboth.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
What's one piece of advice you'd leave them with.
I'd say go through the growthdriver exercise.
I mean, the longer we're stale,the more likely it is that you
know we're going to havefinancial issues.
And you know, to be transparent, I'm not great at the cutting
cost side.
I grew up in tech sales, solike we spend a lot of money and
made a lot of money, and so Ijust naturally, I think, go more
(41:13):
to the revenue drivers versusthe cost cutting.
But you know, I think intoday's market we really have to
be reinventing ourselves asmuch as we can, because our
market's not growing on its own.
We need to make new markets forourselves.
So I'd say, go through thegrowth driver exercise.
Doesn't mean you have to starta whole new business, but you
(41:34):
know, force yourself to thinkabout all the things you can do.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Love it.
So, brian, this has beenfantastic.
Thank you so much for your time.
Why don't you close out bygiving people you know again
where you guys are located andmaybe, if there's something cool
you got coming up here in thenext couple of weeks or month or
so?
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
We're in Santa Barbara.
We have two locations.
Our headquarters is in what'scalled the Funk Zone.
It's kind of the up and comingindustrial area of Santa Barbara
.
We're right on the corner inliterally where the map points
to Funk Zone.
And we have a second locationtwo miles away in Santa Barbara
as well, kind of in theneighborhoods where we've
(42:15):
launched New York style pizza,so that's a new one for us.
We're full restaurants in bothlocations beer, wine and now at
headquarters we have spirits aswell.
In the next couple of monthsI'd say really all summer we
have something going on.
We have our three-yearanniversary party coming up on
the 19th of July.
We have Oktoberfest that we'lldo the first weekend of October,
(42:39):
and then at the very beginningof August Santa Barbara has a
big celebration called FiestaOld Spanish Days.
It's the biggest day every year, so if you're anywhere near
Santa Barbara, that's a great,great day to check things out
down here.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
That's awesome.
Ryan, thanks so much for thetime.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, appreciate it, Kerry.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Thank you for listening to the Craft Brewery
Financial Training Podcast,where we combine beer and
numbers so that you can improvefinancial results in your
brewery.
For more resources, tools,guides and online courses, visit
craftbreweryfinancialtrainingcom.
And don't forget to sign up forthe world famous craft brewery
financial training newsletter.
Until next time, get out thereand improve financial results in
(43:21):
your brewery today.
Today on the podcast, we hear from Brian Degnan from
Validation Ale.
This is part of our BrewerySpotlight series on the business
of beer, where we're going tocover real-world insights from
breweries who are making it work.
So each month, we'll shine thespotlight on one exceptional
craft brewery to explore whatmakes their business thrive.
In my conversation with Brian,we go beyond the beer to uncover
(00:20):
best practices, smart financialstrategies, creative sales
tactics and real-world lessonsthat Brian has learned.
So this is your front row seatto learn from your peers who are
building profitable, resilientbreweries and raising the bar
for the industry.
So for now, please enjoy thisconversation with Brian Degnan
from Validation Ale.
(00:46):
Shanael, welcome to the CraftBrewery Financial Training
Podcast, where we combine beerand numbers to provide you with
tips, tactics and strategies sothat you can improve financial
results in your brewery.
I'm your host, kerry Shumway, aCPA CFO for a brewery and a
former CFO for a beerdistributor.
I've spent the last 20 yearsusing finance to improve
financial results in our beerbusiness.
Now I'm helping other craftbreweries to do the same.
(01:06):
Are you ready to take yourbrewery financial results to the
next level?
Okay, let's get started.
Just a quick note, we'll beright back to the podcast.
I want to let you know about anew network for beer industry
professionals.
It's called the Beer BusinessFinance Association.
(01:26):
It's an organization offinancial pros just like you,
looking to improve financialresults, increase profitability,
connect with your peers andshare best practices.
So I'd love to tell you alittle bit more about this.
If you are interested inlearning more, please email me
kary at beerbusinessfinancecom.
That's K-A-R-Y atbeerbusinessfinancecom.
(01:50):
Or you can visitbbfassociationorg that's
bbfassociationorg.
To learn more.
Hey, brian, welcome back to thepodcast.
How are you doing today?
I'm great, I'm excited to behere.
I'm excited to have you here.
So we are going to basicallyhave you on our brewery
(02:10):
spotlight.
This is a new feature thatwe're doing, where we bring
forward some owners, managers ofbreweries that are doing some
cool things kind of share thatwith the world.
So excited to have you here.
Why don't you give folks whoaren't familiar?
We've done a podcast previouslyand I'll link that but if folks
are not familiar with you oryour brewery, tell them a bit
about that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah.
So my career, the bulk of mycareer, was in technology, in
sales and running sales teams.
At the end of it I was runningpretty large P&Ls and sales
groups across the world and itgot to the point where I wanted
to spend more time with myfamily and follow some of my
passion.
I had been a home brewer for 13years or so at that time, and
(02:50):
so we took the leap and my wifeand I spun up a brewery here in
Santa Barbara.
The concept is unique.
We're called Validation Alebecause we have two different
beers in each category lightcoffee, etc.
We have a validated beer andthen we have a challenger recipe
each category light coffee, etcetera.
We have a validated beer andthen we have a challenger recipe
that we brew.
We call it a vying beer and ifthat challenger outsells the
(03:11):
validated beer, it becomesvalidated.
We kick the validated one outand we brew a new beer to beat
ourselves.
So we're just under three years.
In two weeks we'll be threeyears old and we've done 143
unique recipes.
So we're pretty prolific.
But it is getting harder andharder to beat our validated
beers.
It's getting harder to beatourselves, but there's
(03:33):
definitely been some upsets.
So it's been a valuable and funconcept.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's such an interesting model right, Because
I think that's you know, whentap rooms kind of were coming on
the scene, that was sort of.
The idea is to validate thebeers at retail to your
customers, get feedback, refinethe recipe, Then maybe
eventually go out to market withit because you're like oh yeah,
this, this really nails it, butyou're you're just keeping it
in house, at least for now.
Is that right?
Do you do any wholesaledistribution?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
We're very, very light on distribution by by
choice.
We're in maybe a dozenrestaurants here in town, but
it's really just a marketingploy at this point.
I go through a process that wecan talk about, if you're
interested, at some point everyyear where I decide what my
growth driver will be the nextyear.
Wholesale distribution isalways on that list because you
can't ignore it.
Sale distribution is always onthat list because you can't
(04:29):
ignore it, but it's never beenanywhere near the top 10 when I
evaluated each year.
But I think the thing that'sinteresting is that I saw a lot
of breweries evolve into havingthese core beers and specialty
beers, and personally I thinkthe challenge with that is that
those core beers can get old orstale over time.
Not physically, but our tastebuds are constantly changing and
(04:49):
if you're not forcing yourselfto disrupt yourself, it can be
tough to do so, and so when westarted our brewery, we wanted
to put a concept in place thatforced us to innovate and brew
what people were drinking, somuch so that our menu board
shows live sales and which beeris winning.
(05:10):
So we can't hide from it.
We've got to do what the peoplesay.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I love that.
That's so smart, Because theysay I mean, that's the most
important thing you can do,right Is listen to your
customers.
And we know it and we say it,but we rarely do it.
But you're doing it.
I mean, you're literally basingyour menu on what people are
uploading.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, yeah, and it, it.
I think the other importantdistinction is it's what they
buy, not I'm not, I'm notrelying on somebody going in and
voting right, like it's actualdollars, and you know.
That's not to say there hasn'tbeen trepidation.
There have been some verywell-selling beers that just
barely got beat by a vying beer.
And you know the front of housestaff, the brewer, everybody's
(05:51):
very nervous about taking it off.
Everyone's going to come in andcomplain and the regulars are
going to be so pissed that it'sgone and it just doesn't happen
because literally more peoplewere buying the other one.
That's the whole point.
But it is tough to stick to itsometimes.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, it takes that discipline, but it's really like
about you know the emotiondrives a lot of decisions, which
you know we're human beings.
It's fine.
But you know, if we want tomake data driven decisions,
you're fundamentally doing that.
You're saying data is going todecide.
People vote with their dollars.
If they really wanted thatother beer, come on in and maybe
it's a challenger next time andyou can get it back on top.
So you did say growth driversand I'm definitely interested in
(06:29):
hearing that, and I'm surelisteners are too.
So maybe tell us a little bitabout your process and what
you're focused on now and maybehow you make that decision,
because if you said, hey,wholesale is not even in my top
10, I'm really curious to knowwhat is in there, and then how
you settled on what you did.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, I borrowed a lotof this from my learnings in the
executive team on techcompanies, where you know the
thing you learn in tech prettyquick is that anybody can create
the technology that you'reprobably selling, and they can
probably create it cheaper andfaster and better because
technology is better every dayand they would have a better
(07:09):
start.
And so constantly you're tryingto figure out how to run the
business better in order to stayahead, and so I borrowed that
kind of practice and disciplinefrom my career at tech.
So about October 15th, when weslow down every year, I start to
get the growth drivers out andI just have a big list of all
the things that might helpcreate growth, and throughout
(07:32):
the year I'll just throw thingsin there as I think about them.
I don't prioritize them orcategorize them or even think
about them.
If it comes up, I throw in thelist.
October 15th comes around and Ijust start going through the
list and my goal for the nexttwo weeks by the end of October
is to get as many more things onthe list as I can, and so I
(07:54):
refresh myself on everythingthat's on the list and then just
force myself to put more andmore and more on there.
Because, you know, what I'vefound is that there are often,
that there are often obviousanswers to these questions,
answers to these questions, butsometimes there's one that you
haven't thought of until you'vereally gone through the thinking
and you can't come up withanything else.
So you're trying to inventsomething and then you, you know
, sometimes come up withsomething special.
(08:15):
I've seen it in tech and I'veseen it here, and so, you know,
I go through that process fortwo weeks, I add to the list and
then I really take the end ofthe year, november and December,
trying to figure out what I'mgoing to do the next year.
And the prioritization isprobably not too.
The elements I use toprioritize are probably not too
(08:37):
unique here.
That's probably what everyone'sthinking.
I'm trying to do a real roughestimate on how much new revenue
it would bring, how muchstartup capital would be
required to execute on it andhow much time and energy it
would take from me.
And then the fourth one is justhow likely is it that I could
get it done right?
(08:57):
And so I'm putting togetherreally basic forecasts for each
of those things.
I'm going, you know, goingsmall, medium high and as I
narrow in on kind of the topfive, I'm trying to get a little
bit more calculated on totalcost, upfront capital to start
it.
When do I think it wouldactually launch within the year?
(09:20):
How much revenue can I make?
But these are very bigpaintbrush strokes that I'm not
spending a ton of time, uh, inexcel trying to figure out
exactly what it would be.
And every year the winner hasbecome pretty obvious and it's
always a combination of thosethings.
It's always a it's never thething that will make the most
(09:44):
money, right.
It's never the thing that willmake the most money, right.
It's never the thing that willcost no money.
It's always some combination ofthose things where you know, as
you kind of refine yourdifferent options, you come to
terms with the one that you canexecute on that will not take,
(10:04):
you know, too much capital, ormaybe it does take a ton of
capital and you have itavailable, but the one that is
right for that situation becomespretty evident.
Sometimes there's a tie andthere's two that I can't decide
between, and I'll take a coupleof weeks and try and decide, and
if I can't decide, I'll make mywife decide she typically has
an opinion at that point.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I like it.
So what did you settle on forthis year?
What's your main focus?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, so this is an interesting one and it's another
discipline point that I thinkis important that I learned from
tech.
So last year the growth driverwas a second location and the
spot that I had picked out, orthat kind of, came to me at the
(10:51):
end of October and so I kind ofsped up this process that I'm
talking about to decide if thesecond location, if it was the
right time.
And I looked at all thevariables and it felt like at
least the top three right time.
And you know, I looked at allthe variables and it it felt
like at least the top threeright, but probably the top top
item if I spent the full end ofthe year evaluating and so I
(11:12):
jumped on it, started to go downthat road, um, and at that
point the opening time was April, the estimated opening time was
April and Santa Barbara city,which I won't comment in this
podcast, is another wholeconversation.
But it wasn't easy.
Took, like every project, a lotmore time and a lot more budget
(11:33):
than I had expected.
But, most importantly,throughout the year I'm
measuring how my growth driveris doing compared to what my
assumption was.
That made me decide to moveforward with that growth driver
and you know, as the year wenton, it became more and more
evident that April was not goingto open and that, you know, it
was going to be much closer tothe October 15th, timeframe
(11:54):
where our whole city just kindof dies and we don't make any
money.
What ended up happening is thatwe opened in November, the week,
the week, the Monday afterThanksgiving is when we opened.
So we're opening, we're payingrent and opening in the worst
time of the year, right, but Iknew that we were going to open
(12:14):
near that.
Many, many months prior to that, I looked at my projections.
I wasn't going to sell anywherenear what I thought this growth
driver was going to sell for me, and so I started the process
early of next year's growthdriver, and I actually launched
that year's growth driver inDecember of the same year.
And the way I look at this isthat if I'm missing my
(12:37):
projection, the goal is not tojust get to the point where I'm
making that money.
The goal is to make up what hasbeen lost, right, and so, if I
look at it that way, I'mthinking all right, so the next
year which is this current year,2025, I've got to book enough
to cover two growth driversessentially right, and so that's
(13:01):
what I did.
I started down the process andthe growth driver for that year,
and middle of the year I'mgoing through the process I just
described and what I came towas distilling.
And so in December you know ittakes a while to get your your
sorry, it takes a while to getyour licensing for distilling go
through the ABC and the Fed,and I'd learned a lot.
(13:23):
There were a bunch of things Ididn't know and I ended up
getting my importer license toobecause I needed agave.
There was a whole bunch ofthings that happened, but I
figured it all out and westarted distilling in December.
So January comes around and nowwe are selling spirits day one
of January.
In California, if you have arestaurant, you can sell
(13:44):
everyone else's spirits as well.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So essentially, I have a full liquor license.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
in January we have the second store up and running,
and so by the middle ofFebruary, when things start to
pick up.
I'm now four or five monthsahead on my growth driver this
year, which should fill a gap ofmy miss last year.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Nice.
I love that.
So are you.
It's interesting to me too thatyou're.
It sounds like you kind of haveone primary growth driver,
which I think a lot of peopleare thinking like okay, that's
great, but what about all theother stuff?
How do you sort of maintainequal or the appropriate focus
on that new thing and still kindof maintain all the other
(14:25):
things that have to be clickingalong?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So you're right, as I thinkabout growth drivers in the way
I'm describing it's one big stepchange right.
My day-to-day job is to growall of the revenue lines that we
already have or look for waysfor operational efficiency and
reduced costs and all thosethings.
But I'm thinking about each ofthose revenue lines essentially
(14:52):
as its own little business, andI'm trying to launch a new
business every year, and so itcan get daunting.
It's hard to prioritize, I'lltell you.
Just taking this time out is ahard one to bite off on, but
really important because itmakes you step back for a minute
and, you know, over a couple ofhours and that'll be, that'll
(15:12):
be important for me.
But my to-do list is 10 mileslong.
I should have three of me, butit you know this, this type of
paces, it can be exhausting, butit's really fun and it and it
really works.
You know, and in California Isaw a report just the other day
that said in 2024, f&b growthaveraged, I think, 2% down.
(15:36):
It was negative 2%.
And we grew 29% last year andreally that was with the current
business lines.
We didn't have our growthdriver, as I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I like the way you think about it Because, as you
said, you're launching a newbusiness each year, so that kind
of keeps the innovation fresh.
And you're being verypurposeful about those revenue
drivers.
Like what's actually going tomake a difference, because these
don't sound to me likeincremental or small.
Like you said, it's a bigchange.
I mean, this is like, uh,what's the opposite of
(16:13):
incremental?
It's uh, exponential, I guessis yeah, you know what you're
we're shooting for.
So what, how do you?
I mean, I think you've laid outthe model nicely, but, um, what
like didn't make the cut, likeif you weren't going to do the
second taproom or the distillery, what were you sort of?
I know you said it comes clearand there's this process, but
maybe give us an example or twoof some things like, well, we
thought we were going to do this, but you know, this other thing
took precedent.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah.
So the second location wasthere were a couple of different
options there.
Right, we ended up opening alocation about two miles from
our current location and I cantell you kind of what led to
that.
But there were other items,other locations there that got
axed.
So Ventura is a really big townright south it's about 20
minutes away.
Huge market, four times whatSanta Barbara is.
(16:58):
That was on the list that onedidn't make it, not solely
because of this, but a big partbecause I don't want to drive
there.
Not solely because of this, buta big part because I don't want
to drive there.
I wanted something closer andyou know that will change right.
Like two, three years from now.
I may have someone on my teamthat I trust to be either down
there or driving down there andthey, you know, they may have
(17:20):
the life situation that thatmakes sense for them and it
won't make sense for all of us.
But right now that one justdoesn't didn't make sense, so I
cut that.
One Distribution, as Imentioned, is on there.
I just can't in our marketfigure out how to make the
economics work.
I have a very expensive squarefootage so I would need to find
(17:43):
somewhere else if I wanted toscale rapidly into distribution.
Obviously that's a ton ofcapital and the margins are
already near nothing and there'sa ton of pressure there, so
that one was X'd.
But I come back to it everyyear and try and run the high
level numbers and that one justdidn't work.
Another item on there is tokind of lean into much heavier
(18:06):
paid advertising, right, and sothat would be total change for
us.
We do very little paidadvertising like on Instagram
and a little bit in the paper,but really not much.
So you know, another growthdriver would be to become a
marketing company, essentiallyget really good at that.
Same thing with private events,kind of become an event place.
(18:37):
Again, we do two or three ofthose a month, but I could very
much make that a focus in a lineof business and do seven or
eight a month.
That one didn't make the cut.
I actually have an app idea, atechnology idea, that is always
on the list and just didn't makethe cut.
I've thought about taking myconcept to larger regional
breweries and kind of providinga place for them to white label
(19:03):
and test their recipes versusothers and give them the data
that I'm already collecting.
You know, I think it's aninteresting concept but didn't
didn't quite make the cut.
So you know, I think there's acombination of things that
anybody would think of if youjust ask them on the street and
they own a brewery, and there'sa combination of things that,
(19:23):
unless you force yourself tothink about this for two weeks,
you may not have come up with.
I'm not sure how many folks outthere maybe a lot of them have
an app idea, but I'm not surehow many do.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah Well, if you ever advance that app idea, keep
me posted.
That's one of the itches Iwould like to scratch for myself
and yeah, I think there's a lotof opportunity.
But that's great, that's agreat system that you have and I
really like it because it helpspeople.
You know, we can get a littlestuck in our own rut, right, and
we're like we can't see theforest from the trees and it
(19:56):
feels like we're pulling all thelevers and nothing's happening.
So I think this is a reallynice way to kind of 30,000 foot
view, really expand yourthinking on how you can reinvent
your business and relaunch anew business every year, as you
said, I like that phrasing on it.
So you know we're facing beer isfacing a lot of headwinds,
right, we got rising costs, yougot, you know, as you said.
(20:16):
You know, overall F&B is downin your market 2% and much more
in others.
So we like to hear some goodnews, maybe some wins.
So I'd like to know from you,you know, over the last 12
months, you know, as you kind oflook back and reflect, what's
what's kind of been the biggestwin for your brewery?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
The biggest win would certainly be the spirits
distilling.
You know I through this processit became clear that's the one
I wanted to take on, but Ididn't really have a ton of
space or capital to assign to itand so we went very pilot on
the program and we already havea vodka and a gin that have won
(20:58):
medals.
We have a whiskey that'sfantastic and flying off the
shelves.
We had to get pretty creativeon how to age it because we
didn't want to wait two yearsbefore we sold it, so we did
some creative innovation there.
We have a white rum and a darkrum, and agave is coming.
We're still R&D on that one.
It's harder, but you know,literally day one we launched
(21:19):
cocktails.
We had 28% growth on beveragetop line.
I mean day one, and no oneknows that we do it.
Yet it's still so early.
Everyone still thinks of us asa brewery.
That it's, it's, it's going togrow to X that easily.
Uh, as folks start to learn,learn what's happening, um, so I
(21:40):
think that was the biggest.
The second one, which, you know,this was a bit of a surprise to
me, a pleasant surprise Foranyone out there that's just
starting.
Hopefully they see the samething, but it took a long time
longer than I anticipated forfolks to make this the place
they went.
I think in town you'd probablysay that we have a really good
(22:01):
brand, if not one of the bestones, but people coming kind of
repeatedly and habitually tookmuch longer than I thought.
And I can see the same trend onour second location.
It's doing well, but this isn'tlike in tech where you get a
thousand customers and all of asudden the next thousand come
(22:23):
really easy.
It takes two and a half yearsand we started to really see a
step change in every day beingprofitable not just five of the
seven days and most lunchesbeing profitable, not zero of
them.
And I think it would have beenreally easy to and a lot of
folks do this it would have beenreally easy to say, ah,
(22:45):
tuesdays and Mondays are nevergoing to be profitable, I'm not
going to open those days, orTuesdays, wednesdays or whatever
.
I'm not going to open at 1130because lunch is never going to
be profitable.
And we weren't for two and ahalf years on those days, and
now we are, and I think that wasanother really big win,
particularly in today's market,to just see that if you stick to
it, continue to provide greatproducts.
(23:06):
We say our products arebeverage, food and service and
if we provide all of thoseproducts over and over, you will
see more and more folksenjoying your place more often.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's interesting, yeah, because you think, like in
software or at least a lot ofsoftware these days it's a
recurring software as a service.
Right, it's recurring, you getthose first thousand and you'll
get some attrition insurance,but you know they're, you're
still there and you kind ofstack and stack and it's not the
same in hospitality as you'vejust described.
What did you do?
What do you think was or couldyou put your finger on anything
that, cause I think a lot of taprooms struggle with this is?
(23:39):
You know, you open, you get anice lift cause you're something
new, and maybe that lasts alittle while, and then all of a
sudden, wow, wait, everybody,they're not coming back.
What, what did you do or howdid you think about that?
Or can you put your finger onanything that was like, yeah,
that that actually helped peopleto make this the place to come?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Sadly, I think it's all the things and you know, I
think I think the look, ifyou're confident in your product
and I think you know at least alot of the places I frequent I
would say they may not betalking from the top down as
service being one of theirproducts.
We have really great service,we have really great beverages
(24:19):
and we have really great foodand we don't compromise on any
of those.
So I think if you believe inyour product, you know, know
that we'll eventually get there.
Now, of course, you've got tohave the capital to get there.
You have to be smart runningyour business and cash flow and
all of that's important.
But I think you know it's easyto lose confidence when you've
(24:44):
got an empty tap room.
You know, if you're trying toopen for lunch and it's empty,
for example, and if you justkeep at it and you keep doing
all the things, eventually it'llget there.
So we, you know we providegreat products.
We really believe in it.
We do an enormous amount onsocial, which is exhausting and
I can't stand it, but we have todo it.
We're constantly trying to findthings to fill the empty days.
(25:08):
I call it our weeklyprogramming things like bingo
and trivia and live music andall these things that take a lot
of effort.
And then you know one of yourvendors won't show up and or
they'll show up for six weeksand no one comes.
You know, like karaoke wasgreat for the first three months
and then no one showed up andyou had to pivot.
(25:29):
But we don't.
We don't give up.
We're trying to do somethingevery single day and we're
trying to be open all the timesthat that people will want to
consume food or beverages.
Uh, we just opened for brunchon Saturday and Sunday and I'll
tell you the product isfantastic but it's pretty slow
and my guess is it's going to bepretty slow through the summer
(25:51):
and winter and next summerhopefully, we'll start to make
that time of day and days of theweek more profitable.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I like how you're thinking about the days of the
week too, because I think thereis that feeling of well, monday,
tuesday, let's just not evenopen and we'll focus on the busy
times.
And you mentioned, we finallygot profitable not five days a
week, but seven.
How do you measure that?
What are you looking at andwhat are the, I guess, key
metrics, for lack of a betterword?
(26:21):
How do you evaluate?
Yes, this is profitable or not?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, so very back of the napkin math.
I mean, I have a pretty generalunderstanding based on how many
folks are going to be in thefront of us and back of us.
You know, we have a kitchen too.
So look, if we were justselling beer, personally, I
think it's pretty hard to not beprofitable every moment of
every day.
I mean, you gotta what?
Sell one and a half beers tocover, cover like an hour, it's
(26:47):
not.
I can't see that not happening.
Um, however, you know, I thinkone thing that, uh, you know we
do a bit uniquely here is we.
We build a team and train ateam in a way and hold them
accountable in a way where Idon't have to be here all the
time, and I think that'simportant.
I am here monday through friday.
I'm here nine to five, andthat's you know from.
(27:09):
Am here Monday through Friday.
I'm here nine to five, andthat's you know from here.
Outside of that, I'm drinkingand having fun, not working, but
you got to set up systems forthat.
But back to the key metrics.
In terms of profitability, it'spretty back of napkin math,
right?
I'm taking what our averagemargin is on the food and on the
beverages, I'm assuming somepercent of waste, and if it's a
(27:31):
really slow Tuesday we probablyhave a lot of food waste Not
necessarily beer waste, butfood's going to go bad and we're
going to throw it away and prepthat's done is going to have to
be redone.
So I'm looking at that kind ofwaste number for the day and
just have a general idea on whatI would need to sell in a day
to cover that and you know ifI'm we're talking degrees of
(27:55):
variance here, right.
And so if I'm looking at it andsaying, ah, you know, we may, we
may make a couple hundred buckson this day, I'm I'm calling
that not profitable, right, likeit's.
We've got to make enough moneyto make it worth me coming into
work for me to call it aprofitable day.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, makes sense.
Talk to me a little bit moreabout staff training, because
you had said earlier, like yourbeverages, food and service, and
I think that's such animportant you know, triple play
there, if you will.
And staff training is achallenge.
I mean, when we listen tobrewery owners, taproom managers
, it's like, you know, outsideof getting more people in to
(28:34):
your taproom, you know stafftraining and retention is
probably the second biggest painpoint.
So what do you?
How do you approach stafftraining, or maybe even the
culture, to get those outcomesthat you want?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, you know, I think that I think the culture
is a big part and I hate thatword just because it can be so
vague and so I'll try and giveyou some specific things that I
do.
You know, I think part of itstarts with mindset.
I set my mind to starting thebusiness this way I said I'm
going to open this breweryrestaurant.
(29:09):
Maybe I'll open more than one,and I'm going to work Monday
through Friday from 8 to 5.
That's going to be my schedule,and so you know, when you do
that, you really have toapproach everything with the
mindset of teaching someone elseto do it and act like an owner,
which is pretty, prettyimpossible to do.
(29:32):
None of them think exactly theway you do.
But if you approach it that way, I think it makes it easier to
figure out what to do.
Some of the things we do.
I mean I spend a fair amount oftime with my managers and I
don't spend a ton of time withthe frontline staff, and that's
on purpose, not because I don'tlike them.
(29:52):
I hang out with them, they'renice people.
But I do need my managers to beable to present my values and
where I want to take thebusiness and hold people
accountable the way I would,communicate the way I would.
So I spend more time with themand we talk a lot about how they
(30:13):
will have those conversationswith their staff and if somebody
messes up.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
How do you?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
have that conversation.
So I'm focusing most of mytraining energy on those
individuals kind of train, thetrainer type thing.
I don't get into a ton of theminutia on this is exactly what
you need to train them on andwhen, after they start, and that
type of thing.
I focus much more on thosecultural elements.
How do you you know, how do Iapproach problems?
(30:38):
How do you solve?
How are you creative in yourproblem solving?
Tip don't do the very firstthing you think of.
Think of three things, thosetypes of things.
And the thing I do with thestaff is every other Monday we
have a staff meeting the wholestaff.
It took a long time to getpeople to show up.
(30:59):
I had to fire people becausethey weren't showing up.
And the thing I do with thestaff is every other Monday we
have a staff meeting the wholestaff.
It took a long time to getpeople to show up.
I had to fire people becausethey weren't showing up.
It is very much a commitment,but now they love it.
The ones that don't weedthemselves out and they're not a
fit for our culture, but theones that do love it.
(31:22):
Thank me afterwards or theysend me messages and thank me
for being there and beingpresent and being open and
asking them their thoughts.
And most of the meeting is, youknow, I try and balance it.
I try and get 50% of the wordssaid by my staff, not me Really
tough to do.
I'm lucky if I get 25.
But you know, I'm trying to getthem to talk as much as as much
as I talk.
That's the whole purpose of itand I learn a lot and they
really appreciate it.
So I think that really helpswith the culture.
(31:43):
Um, and you know, I think theother one is that my managers we
have uh, there's a couple thatrun the kitchen operations who
are fantastic.
Uh, um, our brewer.
You know, all of those folkshave this same mentality.
We all jump in.
No one says that's not my job.
Uh, and that staff see that.
(32:05):
Right, I mentioned I'm not heremonday outside of those working
hours, unless I'm drinking.
Almost 100 of the time when I'mhere drinking I'm clearing
tables, right, because I'm herewhen we're busy and the staff
should see me clearing tablesand scraping food into trash
cans and all that gross stuffthat I actually hate doing.
But you know, it shows themthat we're all in this together
(32:28):
and I have no problem rolling upmy sleeves.
I won't clean toilets, but I'lldo every other job here.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
That's great, yeah, really setting the example.
Sure, you know, I think thatbeing there is so important to
write because so, while you'retraining, so I like to kind of
just to kind of recap whatyou're saying is like, how do
you train?
What's your process?
You know you're working withthe managers train the trainer
that really leverages your timeand then acting like an owner.
(32:57):
When you say act like an owner,are you instilling that in your
management team, that these aremy core principles and I want
you to embody those?
Or how do you communicate thatact like an owner approach?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, it's more through conversation about what
they're dealing with.
Right, and I try.
You know, one of the things Itry and do when I communicate
I'm not always great at this,but it's to not give them the
answer right away and tell themwhat I think, but ask them what
they think the solution is andthen ask them to consider what
(33:28):
they think my answer is going tobe.
So I'm just trying to get themto think through it and it's
it's amazing how quickly you canget to a point with somebody
that you're working with wherethey can answer that question
and say, oh well, I think weshould do this.
And then I say what do youthink I'm going to say?
And they go oh, you're probablygoing to say it this way.
(33:50):
I'm like uh-huh, so let's go dothat one.
And I've heard at least one ofmy managers using that same
technique with their team andsaying what do you think we
should do?
What do you think I'm going tosay we should do?
Right, and so you're kind ofpushing that all the way down.
(34:10):
That thought that is not justsingular how am I excuse me, how
am I going to solve thisproblem?
But thinking to yourself okay,how am I going to solve this
problem?
Wait, how would the businesswant me to solve this problem?
Yeah, and then thinking outside, of just just yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
That can be really useful too.
And I think re, uh,reinstilling that on a regular
basis during your training ishelpful too, you know, because
then people can kind of get it.
Oh yeah, I like how you saidearlier, like what are you going
to do to solve this problem?
Don't just here's a tip Don'tjust do the first thing you
think of.
Come up with three ideas,because it gives you that little
pause where you're like, ohyeah, I should consider other
(34:49):
avenues here.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yep, yep.
And you know a way to hold yourteam accountable to that is ask
them when they come to you andsay, hey, this is happening, you
know I want to solve it thisway, cause I also asked them to
come to me with solutions, notjust problems.
Um, my first question if theysay, hey, I want to solve it
this way, is going to be great,what else did you consider?
Yeah, right, and oftentimesthey haven't considered anything
(35:11):
.
But you do that over and overand they start coming to you and
saying here's what, how I'dlike to solve it.
I consider doing it this way,but I can't because of this or
whatever.
And that gives you anopportunity in many, in many
situations to remove whateverroadblock they thought existed
to solving it.
That better way, right.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Right, yeah, that's, that's good.
Hey, I want to pivot back tomarketing.
You mentioned that earlier thatyou do a crap load of socials
and you hate it, so tell usabout a marketing initiative or
some sort of campaign that'sworked.
You could still hate it, butlet's see if it actually had an
impact for you.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I'll give you two.
I'll give you one that workedreally well and one that didn't.
The one that worked really welland it's an initiative to do
more of this this year.
It's just like I said.
It's hard, uh, and this isprobably not surprising.
But the ones that that uh gotthe most engagement in the
social were the ones about ourpeople, not not necessarily the
sit down interview type thing.
(36:10):
We actually haven't done any ofthose.
I'd like to.
I think those will actuallyperform really well as well.
But just the behind the scenespeople making hamburgers, people
making beer, the things that tous might seem really mundane.
And you know, I have a I have atendency to get because of my
background.
I have a tendency to want allof our marketing to be very
(36:33):
perfect and pretty and scripted,you know, on brand, all of
these things and, and so thatkeeps me from doing some of this
, this stuff, um, but when wejust send somebody with an
iPhone back into the kitchenduring a busy day to show
somebody hustling a burger out,and then they follow them out to
the floor and see a bunch offolks in our taproom drinking,
(36:56):
those perform really well.
I don't quite know why I don'twant to watch it, but our
customers do, and I think it'sthat human element, that kind of
unpolished look, that genuinelook that they appreciate, one
that I think, on engagement, animportant thing to consider is
(37:17):
the result of that, that kind ofmark, marking, initiative or
story.
And so here's one that you know, I think I could have very
easily been fooled by and it wasnot successful.
We had an event.
I think it was a yoga event, Ibelieve.
No, you know what it was linedancing.
That's what it was.
We had a line dancing event.
(37:39):
I talked about doing my weeklyprogramming.
One of the employees suggestedline dancing.
I'm constantly asking for theirthoughts during those meetings.
I asked them to go find somebodythat does line dancing and they
did, and we set up our firstline dancing.
We did a post on social, one ortwo it was.
It is still, to this day, themost shared post that I have put
(38:00):
up this line dancing, and you'dthink, sharing that's because
everybody's going to come do it.
Like I was stressed out, weadded staff.
Like you know, we were allnervous about it.
It two people showed up.
Two people showed up.
I was like, oh my gosh, that'samazing, Amazing failure.
And so you know that one was anobvious one, because people
(38:22):
were coming in for a veryspecific event and did not even
though the metrics on socialsaid that it was a really good
story or a really good post.
Some other ones are harder, butI think, just forcing yourself
to not get too fixated on oneindividual post or engagement or
key metrics in social and askyourself the question okay, but
(38:48):
are people liking this andsharing it and following because
it's funny or because they'reactually going to come in and
drink some beer?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
It's funnier because they're actually going to come
in and drink some beer.
Yeah, that's a great point,right, where we can get lost in
wow, this is super successfulbecause we get a lot of, you
know, impressions and thatdoesn't really.
I mean, okay, maybe that helpsyour brand recognition, but if
they're not coming in the door,that's the point of marketing.
Right Is to connect a customerwith the product that you offer
and, you know, have the two cometogether.
And if it's not working, thenthe socials, you know, the other
(39:19):
stuff is just vanity statsreally.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, yeah.
And so you know the way I thinkabout it and the way we talk
about it here is that validationdoes all the things, and I do
that on social too.
We do all of the social andit's, like I said, exhausting
and I kind of hate it.
But we, we try and postmultiple times every single day
and we do posts and stories andsome of them are professional
(39:40):
looking shots and some of themare these more uh, you know kind
of less filtered shots orvideos.
We do videos, we do posts, wedo reels, we do the carousels.
We, we just try and doeverything right and during the
week we try and have eventsevery day.
We try and provide beverages foreverybody.
We have non-alcoholic stuff, wehave a cold room that you can
(40:04):
walk into and pick out thingslike meat or seltzer or cider
that we don't have.
We obviously make our own beerand seltzer and now booze, and
we have four wines on tap likewe're just we're.
You know, I think there was a,there was, was.
I wasn't, I didn't have abrewery during the boom, but my
guess is there was a time in theboom where you could focus on
just one thing and absolutelycrush it, and what I'm finding
(40:27):
is I've really got to try toappeal to everybody because my
market is shrinking.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's great advice.
So, speaking of that, if youcould give one piece of advice,
as we kind of wind down here, toother brewery owners that might
be struggling, you know, maybethey're struggling with the
bottom line, the top line orboth.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
What's one piece of advice you'd leave them with.
I'd say go through the growthdriver exercise.
I mean, the longer we're stale,the more likely it is that you
know we're going to havefinancial issues.
And you know, to be transparent, I'm not great at the cutting
cost side.
I grew up in tech sales, solike we spend a lot of money and
made a lot of money, and so Ijust naturally, I think, go more
(41:13):
to the revenue drivers versusthe cost cutting.
But you know, I think intoday's market we really have to
be reinventing ourselves asmuch as we can, because our
market's not growing on its own.
We need to make new markets forourselves.
So I'd say, go through thegrowth driver exercise.
Doesn't mean you have to starta whole new business, but you
(41:34):
know, force yourself to thinkabout all the things you can do.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Love it.
So, brian, this has beenfantastic.
Thank you so much for your time.
Why don't you close out bygiving people you know again
where you guys are located andmaybe, if there's something cool
you got coming up here in thenext couple of weeks or month or
so?
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
We're in Santa Barbara.
We have two locations.
Our headquarters is in what'scalled the Funk Zone.
It's kind of the up and comingindustrial area of Santa Barbara
.
We're right on the corner inliterally where the map points
to Funk Zone.
And we have a second locationtwo miles away in Santa Barbara
as well, kind of in theneighborhoods where we've
(42:15):
launched New York style pizza,so that's a new one for us.
We're full restaurants in bothlocations beer, wine and now at
headquarters we have spirits aswell.
In the next couple of monthsI'd say really all summer we
have something going on.
We have our three-yearanniversary party coming up on
the 19th of July.
We have Oktoberfest that we'lldo the first weekend of October,
(42:39):
and then at the very beginningof August Santa Barbara has a
big celebration called FiestaOld Spanish Days.
It's the biggest day every year, so if you're anywhere near
Santa Barbara, that's a great,great day to check things out
down here.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
That's awesome.
Ryan, thanks so much for thetime.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, appreciate it, Kerry.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Thank you for listening to the Craft Brewery
Financial Training Podcast,where we combine beer and
numbers so that you can improvefinancial results in your
brewery.
For more resources, tools,guides and online courses, visit
craftbreweryfinancialtrainingcom.
And don't forget to sign up forthe world famous craft brewery
financial training newsletter.
Until next time, get out thereand improve financial results in
(43:21):
your brewery today.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.