Lessons - How Unconventional Marketing Built Multiple Billion-Dollar Alcohol Brands | Brett Berish - Spirits Industry Disruptor

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