Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - How Unconventional Marketing Built Multiple Billion-Dollar Alcohol Brands | Brett Berish - Spirits Industry Disruptor

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Lessons - How Unconventional Marketing Built Multiple Billion-Dollar Alcohol Brands | Brett Berish - Spirits Industry Disruptor · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, discover how to build a compelling brand that transcends trends
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  with authentic storytelling and unwavering commitment. Learn why prioritizing long-term loyalty
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  over quick exits is the key to sustainable growth. Understand how staying true to your north star
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  and iterating over time transforms mistakes into enduring success.
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  When you look at the brands you have right now, what is the strategy? What's the framework behind
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  trends?
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  Canada where you're from is our single biggest market in the world for Bumble,
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  single biggest outside of the United States, and I jokingly say until this year,
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  no one from our company has ever been there. That's so funny. So there was a gap in the market.
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  Well, to me, it's not a gap. To me, it's all with anything. If it's a great brand,
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  people will find it. You know what else? So I used to drink a whole bunch of Captain Morgan.
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  That was like my high school drink. I was like, go to drink. But there was no story behind it.
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  Nobody gave a shit. It was just like the cheap tequila wasn't really that big when I was in
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  high school university. So it was always Captain Morgan. But then the second you find something
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  else you move off of it because you don't really care. There's no affinity to that. There's
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  no story behind it. But I think in one of the videos I was watching, you were saying that
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  this is in like 30, at least when the video was pushed out, it was 35 countries,
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  and you can't even get it in more countries because you were always selling out. But actually,
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  today it's an 80 country. Oh shit. Okay. Sorry. No, no, no, no. But what's fantastic about this
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  story is, and again, it goes back to this idea that if you believe it's something it can happen,
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  we're in, we're in like 80 countries today. And there's only one market in the world. And I
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  didn't even know that's a premium run market. And that's France. We do well everywhere in the world.
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  And all these markets are not premium run markets or they're not even run markets. And we crush it.
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  It's a great brand. If your brand is great, it'll get talked about. People will find it. They'll
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  consume it. And I also believe in premium. It's like your Captain Morgan example. I think premium
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  brands can exist everywhere in the world. Cheap brands, it's difficult. When you think about
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  building out a brand, do you care if there's going to be like a wave or a cultural shift
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  towards that thing? Or do you not care? Do you just want to get a little like, are you banking on
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  run becoming the next tequila? Or do you not care? Maybe you're just thinking, I just want to be
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  a significant part of the existing market. And we're going to be premium. And we're going to be
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  talked about. We're going to have loyalty from our customers and evangelists from our car. You
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  know what I'm saying? I think you can't see the future. But look at Patron. And I always used to laugh
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  when people would say, and I get presentations, you know, I want to be the next Patron. You know,
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  I just want 1% of the category. And Patron took 30 plus years. So thing, if it happens overnight,
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  God bless, but that's not the way it's supposed to be. And I was that person who had that
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  report, that business plan that said, I'm going to get 1% or 5% of the industry and the multiples
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  are, you know, 20 times. And I'm going to sell it for X. That's where I make mistakes. That's
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  where people make mistakes. If you have a healthy brand and you're growing, you're going to get
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  there no matter what. And when you launch these, these are kind of like your kids to a degree. How do
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  you think through as an entrepreneur? Because this is very subjective. People could launch a brand
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  and they want to hold on to it forever. And they never want to exit it. Never want to sell it.
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  How do you think through that? Do I want to keep it? Do I want to sell it? Do I want to what? I
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  again, it goes back to this idea that when I was younger, when I started this, my mistake was
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  thinking about the exit before you even start. And I think that to me is my mistake. And maybe
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  it's a mistake for a lot of people out there. I don't think about that. If it happens great,
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  but I don't think, boy, now I'm ready to sell or the brand is mature enough for this is the time.
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  I don't think like that. My goal is build the brand. You keep building it. Whatever happens will
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  come, but focus on brand building. That's the key. Do you feel like when somebody's focusing on
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  the exit first, they're trying to take shortcuts or they're not paying attention. They're not built.
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  It's not real. It's not to me. I don't know. I'm that guy who I have to love and have
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  passion for what I'm doing because the exit may not ever happen. To me, it's about being in
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  that moment of loving what you're doing because exit doesn't matter. That's not the goal.
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  The only reason I can say this, Scott, is I tell this story to people. I've lost everything in
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  this world and I've gained everything by being in this business. There was a moment where I did
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  have investors and they wanted to wind up the company and I remember speaking to my mom,
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  we were bringing a board meeting that day and I remember speaking to my mom, who was my hero,
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  and I was telling her about it and she says, Brad, I'll sell my all my rings for you. I said,
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  no, I'll figure this out. But I remember telling her, I was sending them Worcester and Broom Street
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  and Soho outside because I didn't want that fake apartment, which was my office and a couple
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  of employees up there. I remember telling her, I love what I'm doing and if I could just survive,
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  make it up money to live this way and keep doing what I'm doing, I'm happy. And I needed that
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  moment because then it's not about the money. It's just I'm happy. I got to love what I'm doing
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  and let things come as they go. I love that. I wish more. I wish more entrepreneurs would hear that
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  message because I think that this is a great exercise. I don't think people actually even realize
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  how much money they actually need to survive and the things that they think are out of their
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  reach or they would only ever get if they were worth pick a number. It could be 10, 50, 100
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  million, whatever it is, whatever your number is, the things that you actually want in your life
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  are actually not that expensive. And I think the most people screw that. The trips, the work life
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  balance that you want to have a private chef, you don't have to have a hundred million dollars
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  to do that stuff. I remember I was speaking to you at a Citibank conference about disruptive brands
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  and I was the next person to go on and the person who was up there before me had started a
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  company called Casper, the Bedcom. The mattress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess at that time Casper was one
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  of those unicorns and he was saying it was crazy. He was saying how they're in whatever seven
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  continents they've got 2,000 or 10,000 employees, they're global business within a year and they've
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  raised X billions of dollars. And I remember going up afterwards and saying, listen, if you think
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  I'm going to tell that story, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to raise money like
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  that. God bless them. I only know how to do what I've done. So there's different paths to get there.
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  But I don't know how to do the other one. I only know how I've gotten to where I am.
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  Yeah, but then the question is like, are you happy? Sure. Oh, 100%. So that's really all
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  than that 100%. Are you happy with your 100%? Listen, when I say, are you happy? It's not saying that
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  this has not been highly successful to have the reach that you've had. You've had you've sold brands
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  before and throughout it has been ups and downs. But ultimately, you knew your north star.
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  But it's true. And it's you're hitting on which I try to tell my team all the time, success is
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  relative. So this is already successful. This is doing more than I ever could have imagined
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  or anybody else could ever imagine. So I have to be happy with it. It's still small in relative
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  terms compared to other things out there. But I got to be happy with it. This beacon we just launched
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  is in 60 countries. I love the I love the plague mask on the. Oh, yeah. That's good. But that's
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  like it's all relative to what you what your own expectations are. So I don't want to just like
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  kids, you can't force them. I can't force my son to be better at soccer. You know, he is what he is.
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  So you got to be happy with how far they've come. And that's how I look at it. I think that when
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  I think that successful entrepreneurship, if you know your north star, you know what would make you
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  happy. And then you can stay in the game long enough. I think that's like the secret. I think a
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  lot of people, they have these unrealistic expectations. And then the work doesn't align with those
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  expectations. And then they don't want to stay in the game long enough. And then they and then they
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  get nothing out of it. But if you can stay in the game long enough, I thought about this a lot.
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  Like if you're building any business, if you do it for 10 years, there's a really good chance that
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  you are going to be financially quite well off. If you're not an idiot, you've learned from
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  your mistakes, you iterate. Maybe you pivot a little bit. It's not going to be the same year 10
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  as it was day one. But I don't think you're going to be hurting. I don't know anyone who hurts
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  when they do one thing for 10 years, 100%. And if anything, and that's what I've learned. So if you
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  ask me, Brett, do you still have new ideas? I always have ideas, but I don't want to do anything
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  else because I've learned that this is what I know best. And this is where I've made the most
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  mistakes. And I've learned the most. So why would I do anything else? It's literally starting over.
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  So if you, if you stick to something for a long time, you're going to have success.
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  You know, there's no matter what I mean, 20 plus 20 and that and still going and still growing.
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  Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so
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  you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.