Feeling too corporate

One of the interesting questions that came out of speaking with my wine business house mate was why are you in the wine business? When discussing his marketing strategy he talked about how they use facebook and instagram pushing social content and event-based advertising. Whilst he has some time to collect data and running a/b tests, they are often too short of time to analyse them. 

However, outside of the inherent challenges of marketing a small wine business the challenge he has with his co-founders is around authenticity.  As a MBA student and former consultant he is always thinking about how he can optimise the performance of the business. Including wanting to be advertising on instagram and creating google search ads. Which as a fellow MBA - made total sense to me. The challenge he is facing is that he often gets push-back from his co-founders that it's too corporate feeling. It feels like he is running a business and they are following a passion. Which made me think...can you do both? 

When interviewing Nile Zacherele from David Arthur Vineyards he also had strong opinions on people getting into the business for the wrong reasons. His perspective was that too many people run wine businesses as vanity projects and not businesses - hence the high volume of small wineries, many of which are struggling. 

As they look to grow I think small wineries need to stop and think about who they are, and how they want to be perceived. How will they manage authenticity whilst meeting business objectives. As wine sales continue to decline understanding why you are in business and how you are going to differentiate yourself is going to be key for survival. The challenge will be balancing staying true to your brand and who you are, whilst taking the right corporate actions to be successful and defend against increasing competition in an consistently challenging market.