Making riesling? Making rum? Five things drinks producers can still control for growth
The best operators I've met this year aren't waiting for the market to turn.
A few weeks ago I sat in a room in Melbourne and watched Ashley Ratcliff win Viticulturist of the Year at the Halliday Wine Companion Awards.
He grows in the Riverland, a region plenty of people in this industry have quietly written off. He couldn't change the climate and he couldn't change anyone's opinion so he changed what he planted, and put Mediterranean varieties in the ground because they suit the place he farms.
He didn't argue with the conditions. He backed his own judgement about the part that was his to decide, and this month the whole industry stood up for him.
A few days later I was on a stage in front of a room of distillers at the Spirits Victoria Association conference, and I came away genuinely hopeful.
Not because the market is kind. It isn't. We all know people are drinking less and you've read a hundred accounts of why, so you won't get another one from me.
I came away hopeful because almost everything I saw holding good producers back is within reach, and most of it doesn't cost a cent.
Here are five of them.
1. Ask for the email address
This is the easiest win I found all fortnight, and it's free.
You've heard it from me many times before, but it's too important to stop saying. Asking for an email address is not spam.
Think about what it took to get that person to your door. The advertising, the listing, the road signage, the wages of whoever is standing behind the bench. All of it, so one human being would drive out and stand in front of you.
That's already paid for. The ask is free.
And you cannot spam someone who has given you permission. There's an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every marketing email you'll ever send, and it works beautifully. If they'd rather not hear from you they'll say so, and you'll have a cleaner list for it. It's self-selection, and it really doesn't have to be a big deal.
Your door does three things for you. It earns hospitality revenue (thank goodness for instant cash!), it builds belief in your brand in a way a retailer never can, and it captures customers.
Only that third one compounds. The money over the counter is spent and gone, and belief is real but you can't forecast it. Data capture is the one where today's visitor is still paying you in eighteen months.
I shared a figure from the stage that's worth repeating. A well-known Australian boutique producer told me, anonymously, that around half of all their direct sales were coming through email. Half. From a channel that costs almost nothing to build.
Start the conversation while you're pouring, not at the till. You want to know whether that customer is already in your system before they reach it, and good customer service makes that easy.
Give your team the actual words, or the tool, like a QR code. Most people skip the ask because they're not sure how to say it, not because they don't want to.
Tie it to something worth having. First access, an event, the release that isn't out yet. Refrain from discounting if you can.
Watch your busiest days. I keep finding cellar doors where sign-ups are better on the quiet ones, because when it gets busy the ask is the first thing to go. That's a quick fix and it's worth real money.
2. Build the club anyway
A few producers asked me whether consumption has fallen too far for a club to stack up. I understand the question, but I think it mixes up two things.
Overall consumption is down. What hasn't gone anywhere is the enthusiast, and the wine-interested consumer discovering at home. The person who is genuinely interested, who reads about what they're drinking, who wants to know what you're making next. They're still there!
And look at what you're asking of them. Most clubs run biannually or quarterly. Only two to four deliveries a year. Nobody is being asked to drink quickly, or more than they'd like to.
Build it on access rather than variety. A wine club can run on range because it has the SKUs. Most spirits producers don't, and if variety is the promise you'll eventually run out.
Access never runs out. The single barrel, the experiment, the thing that isn't released yet, you.
Do the freight numbers before you design the club, not after. Freight can kill an otherwise good model.
The answer depends entirely on what you make. Wine brands are often better off sending two dozen twice a year than smaller parcels more often, and spirits producers might do better with pouches or slim bottles rather than a full 750ml.
Whichever you are, a pickup party or collection from the door beats shipping every time. No freight at all, and they're standing in front of you again, which is the whole point.
3. Stop discounting and start recognising
Here's something I got wrong for years. I built clubs and loyalty programmes where the headline benefit was a member discount. It felt generous and it was easy to sell in.
Then one afternoon I sat across from a member who was cancelling. She'd been given several hundred dollars off retail across the year and had completely forgotten she was even on a member rate. That wasn't why she was leaving. She was leaving because there hadn't been anything extra in her box.
Several hundred dollars in savings, and what she noticed was the absence of a small gift.
I've thought about that conversation ever since, and honestly it's good news. A discount feels like a benefit exactly once, on the day someone signs up. After that it stops being a benefit and quietly becomes the price. Recognition doesn't wear off like that, because she can't get it anywhere else. And recognition is almost always the cheaper of the two.
4. Cut the bottom third
Ten or fifteen hours a week for marketing is typical for the the little producers I meet, and there is far more available in those hours than most people think.
The quickest way to find it is to stop doing the things that aren't returning. I keep seeing one-off promotions and activations that swallow days to organise and return a few hundred dollars, sitting alongside the database work that would have compounded all year.
For a small team, fewer things done properly wins every time.
List everything you did last year and what it actually returned.
Cut the bottom third. This year, not next year.
Put those hours into the things that compound, which is nearly always the database and the door.
5. Train the person pouring
This is the one I'd spend a Saturday on, because the return is immediate.
The best host I've watched did two things at once and made it look like one thing.
The hospitality was genuinely lovely. A smile, real attention, a bit of charisma, and the experience shifted to suit whoever was standing in front of her rather than running the same script at everyone.
Then she followed through on the sales part, which is the reason the role exists. The email address, the transaction, a friendly note a few days later.
None of it felt like being sold to. It felt like the beginning of a relationship.
That's the answer to the awkwardness in point one. The ask only feels forward when it's bolted onto the end, after the hospitality has finished and the mood has changed. Done properly it isn't a separate step. It's the last part of looking after someone.
Write down what your best host does, then teach it. Don't hope the others pick it up by osmosis.
Give your team the words, so the ask sits inside the conversation rather than after it.
Make the follow-up read like a person wrote it, not a receipt.
A few questions for your next growth meeting
The most valuable thing I do as a consultant isn't providing answers. It's asking better questions.
How many people came through our door last month, and how many did we capture in any form?
Does our sign-up rate hold up on our busiest days?
What are we giving members that they can't simply buy cheaper?
What did we do last year that we should stop doing?
What does our best host do that the others don't, and have we written it down?
Of everything worrying us right now, how much is genuinely ours to decide?
One last thing
I know how hard it is to stay positive when everything you read is about how bad it is. The coverage is relentless and a fair bit of the industry has turned on itself.
But I sat in a room in Melbourne this month and watched a grower from a region everyone had written off take out the biggest viticulture award in the country, for backing his own judgement about what would work where he lives.
There's plenty going on that none of us control.
But you own your database.
You own what happens at your door.
You own what you charge, and what you stop doing.
And you own whether you ask.
None of that costs capital. It costs confidence, and confidence is the one thing we can give each other for free. So back yourself this week, and lift up the people around you while you're at it.
I hope some of this is useful, and please do get in touch if you'd like to talk it through.
Cheers to your growth!
Holly