Disruptor

When I was in my twenties, I wrote my very first business plan. It was for a restaurant concept that I still haven't done, but still dream about. (I know, I know!) Included in this plan, was a 3 bbl brewery.  At the time, I was making beer in a 5-gallon bucket in my house. Infected beer mostly because although the New Brewer's Handbook taught me a lot, I seemed to miss the part about how important cleaning and sanitization were to the process. 

I was working as a GM at Bridget Foy's South Street Grill at the time, and one day, our Rolling Rock salesman told me that there was a new craft brewery opening up in Brewerytown. A section of Philadelphia that was historic for beer-making and where beer was first introduced to America in the 19th Century. I was intrigued, and although as a GM, I was working 6 days a week, I eagerly volunteered to work at the new brewery when it opened on my day off just to learn how to make beer like a pro.

Like its cousin bread, beer wakes up early. Up and dressed in overalls and pigtails by 5 a.m. on my only day off, I went in to sweep floors and run for lunch just to be around the process,  preparing myself to open a restaurant I had not even found funding for. 

The head brewer saw my passion and let me start brewing on the big system almost immediately. 

This was hard work- a man's work. There were very few women brewers in America then, yet here I was, running brew days in the 40 bbl brewhouse, huffing 50 lb bags of grain up the steps of the grist mill and even kegging beer manually with a rubber sledgehammer dressed in a yellow rain suit that only kept a few parts of me dry that did not include my face or my ears or nose or my socks. 

This was in the mid-90s. The beer revolution was just starting. If you think making beer is hard, try convincing a restaurant and bar owner to put a $100 keg of craft beer on one of their prized tap handles. It was nearly impossible. Replace our Miller Lite with a beer style called IPA that has kitschy, punny names that tickled the brains of only beer geeks and Star Wars fans. Make less profit? Forget it. 

I didn't forget it. We pushed. We went bar to bar, putting pressure on bar owners to come into the light, jump on the trend, and take a chance. I went to beer festivals to pour beer and schmooze festivalgoers. I encouraged them to demand that their local bar carry our products. I was a bit of a novelty. A chick brewer??? I got more marriage offers than people agreeing to talk to their tavern-owning friends.

At one point, we had a few smaller breweries going. One at the sports arena, one downtown, and I was making almost all of the beer at the big brewery. I happened to go to an Irish festival on my day off and was surprised to see on the beer truck, Coors Light, Bud, and two of our brands as well.  I sat in my lawn chair watching almost every person at the festival in line for our beers. No one was drinking the popular brands. And I knew that I had personally brewed every single drop of beer that the hundreds of attendees were drinking that day. 

I mention all of this because in talking to someone today who commented that what I am doing with Zero Proof Go is going to be hard. I'm trying to change minds and change American culture. Let's just say, I am not scared of hard work. I am used to being a disruptor. It's kind of my thing.

#zeroproofgo

Automated workflows are like self-driving cars. Great idea, but no one is driving.

OK, y'all. I understand that maybe sales isn't your first love. I also get that you may not even be a sales leader, but have decided that in the absence of one, you decide you need to do SOMETHING so you sign up your company for some elaborate automated tech stack so you can set it and forget it. The problem is, you forgot it or you will forget it and are about to burn through all those QR-coded business cards you just ordered.

Think of all the automated pipeline management workflow stuff like self-driving cars. Looks great on paper, but the world isn't ready for them yet so there is a lot of crashing and burning going on, and not for nothing, those cars, and that technology are pretty expensive to implement, even if the tech itself is cheap.

Image by macrovector on Freepik

Don't get me wrong, you should be using this technology!! But a sales leader should be the one driving the thing. Someone who has taken time to understand your sales process, or implement one if you don't have one, who has an understanding of who your customers are and what you are trying to achieve, who has worked with your sales team and knows how to coach them on how to use leverage the technology to achieve their own goals. A licensed driver. A sales specialist.

The good news is that so many of your competitors are doing the same thing, you still have time to differentiate by ensuring that the workflows are right for all of the stakeholders and with a good strategic plan in place.

Questions?

Shoot me a chat on my contact form or book a time calendly.com/hransome

4th Place for the Win

When I was in high school, I was in an organization called DECA. For those of you who are not familiar with DECA, it stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America, and we jokingly referred to it back then as the Young Capitalists Club. If you were a member of this organization, you would know that we competed, regionally, statewide, and nationally, in categories we signed up for at the beginning of the school year. Although I started in Hotel and Lodging as a sophomore, I wound up moving over to Apparel and Accessories since I left my front desk job at Red Roof Inn and went to work where all teenagers wanted to work in the 80s - the mall.

I placed high enough in the DECA regionals to go on to the state competition in New Jersey. At this level, there were three rounds you competed in one day. Later on in the same evening, we gathered to see who among us would place in the third, second, and first-place spots in each of those rounds respectively, however, the overall winners would advance to the state round, which was to be held in New Orleans that year, would not be announced until the next evening at the Grand Awards ceremony.

Believing I did pretty well in each round, I was prepared to find myself on stage, gracing the Olympic-style podium on one of the three graduated steps, but I had to keep reminding myself that there were a lot of DECA students there who were looking to compete and win at the Great Gorge Conference Center formerly known as the Playboy Resort and Hotel that year.

Our class was seated in the auditorium all together in the center and 4th row of seating. We all sighed and groaned together as each category and round was called and Cinnaminson High School was not represented. When Apparel and Accessories category was called, my name was also not one called so I could head to the stage and possibly make it to New Orleans where the legal drinking age was still 18 and I was going to have that birthday and be eligible to imbibe on that trip.

Oh well. No Hurricane cocktails for me!

The following night, after a long day of meetings, all of us students got dolled up to go back to the auditorium for the Final Awards Ceremony. I had this great little black dress to wear and I was excited to look all grown up since I was going to be turning 18 soon. Despite my area of focus in the arts of clothing and accessories, the highest shoes I had ever worn up to that point was a Reebok High-top sneaker, but tonight I was going to wear high heels. Look at me!

"Wait, don't look at me. I can barely walk in these things!"

I struggled to make my way on 6" heels out of the hotel room, down the hall, onto the elevator, and into the auditorium, without falling and when I finally made it to my seat I breathed a huge sigh of relief and settled in to barely pay attention to the ceremony. The teacher and chaperone only had to yell at us to pay attention a half dozen times because we were all bored and ready to go back to the hotel rooms and be silly.

When my category came up I did lean in a bit. I wanted to see who the lucky person was who was heading to New Orleans instead of me. I watched as the third-place winner walked down the aisle, onto the stage, and onto the Olympic-type platform on the third-place step. Then the second place winner to the second place step. Then...

"First place in Apparel and Accessories...

Heather Ransome of Cinnaminson High School."

Oh no.

I have to walk up that stage in these heels.

And CLIMB up on the First Place part of the podium thingy!

Let me tell you that when you aren't great at wearing high heels to even walk, and you add the fact that your legs are shaking from nerves, and you have to climb up on a box that is about 3' tall, half your size, in front of hundreds of your teenage peers, it is what nightmares are made of.

I made it though I made it on stage, I made it onto the box, I made it to first place in New Jersey and I made it to New Orleans! But how????

They handed me a trophy and put a medal around my neck. I got off the podium and returned to my seat, still completely in shock. I found out later that I had placed 4th in every round of the three rounds, leading me to win the overall competition.

That has stayed with me my whole life. I don't mean the recurring nightmares I have had about this story which is why I can still recount this story as if it happened yesterday. I mean the fact that I didn't shine in any one area. I wasn't a stand-out in one part, but because I was good in all the parts, I won. And I use that idea to live my life. I do the best that I can in all areas of my life and don't neglect one area to win in another area. It is a balance of energy, talent, and time - not leaving any category unattended to achieve greatness in just one, therefore I can win overall.

Oh, and the other thing I learned that day is that I can surprise myself and arrive at my goals via an alternate route! Maybe a little unsure-footed and a bit wobbly but it doesn't matter. I made it there!

4th place