Ep. 1288 Steve Raye Finale | Get US Market Ready With Italian Wine People

By now, you've all heard of Italian wine Unplugged two point o. The latest book published by Mamma jumbo shrimp. It's more than just another wine book. Fully updated second edition was inspired by students of the Vin Italy International Academy and painstakingly reviewed and revised by an expert panel of certified Italian wine ambassadors from across the globe. The book also includes an addition by professor Atilio Shenza. Italy's leading vine geneticist. The benchmark producers feature is a particularly important aspect of this revised edition. The selection makes it easier for our readers to get their hands on a bottle of wine that truly represents a particular grape or region to pick up a copy, just head to Amazon dot com, or visit us at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Thanks for tuning in to Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. On the Italian wine podcast. I'm Steve Ray, your host, and this podcast features interviews with the people actually making a difference in the Italian wine market in America. Their experiences, challenges, and personal stories. And I'll be adding a practical focus to the conversation based on my thirty years in the business. So if you're interested in not just learning how, but also how else, then this pod is for you. Hi, and welcome to the show. I'm your host Steve Ray of Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. After two and a half years and a hundred episodes, I decided it's time to pass the baton, and we'll talk a little bit about that later. So this is my last episode. And instead of an interview, I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about what I've learned during a podcast and also reflect on some of the accomplishments. And recognize that most of these accomplishments are directly a result of people like you listening in. So thanks for listening. So I frame my comments into answering four questions. The first one was, why did I do the podcast in the first place? Second, what did I expect to accomplish? Third, what did I hope to accomplish? And fourth, what did I learn along the way that might be valuable to you, my listeners? So let's start from the beginning. And with the first question, why do a podcast? And like so much of my life, dealing with Italian wines in the last ten years, it's a simple answer that Stevie Kim asked me to. It started out with about twenty, twenty five segments of me reading from my book, how to get US market ready. And the idea was to bank the recordings for a potential audio version of the book. We haven't issued that yet, but at least we have the content. And then came COVID. Like so many projects, it made sense to shift gears and adapt to the reality of figuring out how to do business in a world where travel and face to face meetings and conferences came to a screeching halt. I learned early on that sound quality was paramount, so I I set up my office as a recording studio. I've got sound baffling on the ceiling and walls, a professional quality microphone, headphones, other recording gear. So I got that part covered. Then in approximately August of twenty twenty, we segued to an interview format where I've been doing the series that has aired on Mondays. On the Italian wine podcast channel. And one of the things that defines the Italian wine podcast today is it's an every day of the week series. I'm pleased to have the Monday slot, but there's six other broadcasts, that happens throughout the rest of the week. And it was a unique idea at the time, and, of course, it was TVs. And, frankly, I think it's worked. My cope podcasters were an art, Mark Millen, on travel, Cynthia Chaplin, doing voices, Stevey doing interviews with Professor Shenza and also her on the road series and also Poly Hammond doing on court on Sundays. Victoria Cetje has replaced Poly with her new show the next generation interviewing the gen z age cohort of twenty ish folks in the Italian wine business, and, it's very entertaining and interesting. And starting next Monday, Juliana Colangelo will be launching her new show in this same Monday time slot that you're listening to today titled Masterclass US wine market with Juliana Colangelo, and I wish her the best of luck. And one last point, before I leave that subject is I'd like to give a shout out The Joy livingston, Cynthia Kaplan, and Leica Caparis, and all the other folks in Verona for joining me on the journey and and help making it happen. And happen. It did. One other thing I hadn't thought about initially, was the sheer reach of podcasting. And how it would grow. And let me share with you some of the stats with you, stats which today blow my mind. They did in the beginning, and they've gotten, orders of magnitude better. Actually, I gave a presentation on podcasting at the wine to wine event in November twenty twenty two. And Stevie and her team will be releasing that recording soon. But check out some of the highlights, some of the stats. And keep in mind that the numbers that we get are really only from SoundCloud, which I estimate to account for roughly about half of the quote unquote listens that we get. So I suspect that the real numbers would be double these, but these are actual numbers from SoundCloud. Early on, we were named by Feed Spot as one of the top wine podcasts in twenty twenty. And then again in twenty one, and then again in twenty twenty two. Pretty impressive track record of, continuity of, excellence. Second, the Italian wine podcast, as a whole, notched over three million listens in twenty twenty two, and as of February twenty three were up to over five million, which is amazing, especially when you consider something we started off the whole first year was probably something like twenty two thousand. This was after Monty had first started the Time Warner podcast and we've segued into the, multiple versions. And in terms of who listens or rather in terms of where they come from, I'm a little surprised, but fifty six percent of them come from the US and only eleven percent from Italy and then the rest from UK, Canada, Australia, and other countries. And and logic would suggest that, obviously, since many of the the, chosen in English, it would appeal to an English speaking audience, and that's what that is. I expected Italy to be a bit higher, but, glenn percent is about the data show. And my podcast alone, average is about two thousand listens on SoundCloud in the week that it airs. Not bad. But it gets better because over time, the number of listens quadruples to over eight thousand and continues to grow because of the evergreen nature of the content. So if you do the math, then that totals some eighty thousand listens to my podcast. Italian wine podcast brought to you by mama jumbo shrimp. And I I've asked the question. I haven't gotten the answer, but are these people and why are they listening? And so if you have that answer, I'd like I'd like to hear it. I do hear little bits and pieces anecdotally, but, it would be nice to hear from listeners. And we'll we'll talk about that in a little bit. The second question is a little bit harder to remember clearly. And that was what did I expect to accomplish. So I'll fess up and say I really didn't go through the kind of planning rigor I usually use or usually required of my clients and students. I figured I'd make it up as I went along, and and that was really my first mistake. It was a mistake because I had to learn a lot about podcasting, and I was doing that learning in public and effectively on air. Probably not the the best decision. So as I progressed, I recognized I had a lot of really valuable information to share with people in the wine and spirits industry. The book, of course, was a was a good start, but it really only scratched the surface of the variety and complexity of opportunities and challenges for selling international wines in the United States. So instead of me doing, a solo effectively a lecture, I thought I'd have a more interesting show if I could get people with great industry street cred to share their stories, how they learn to do the things they do, and most importantly, How did they learn to create solutions to the problems that they were facing that at the time had no answers? So these were a lot of case histories. Many of you have heard me say that my goal is to help people not make the same mistakes others have made before them again for the first time. And, yes, that's an awkward sentence, but it absolutely captures the reality. It just amazes me that people seem to make the same mistakes and often in the same order when trying to launch brands in the US. And so my day job is consulting with them to look for alternative solutions. As I stated in my intro of this show, instead of focusing how, let's be creative and figure out how else and what is right for this particular brand in this particular situation. And so the show began, I reached out to my friends in the industry to start with. And then when I ran out of friends, I started adding people whose stories I thought you all would find interesting and stimulating. And collectively, I've interviewed people from all parts of the industry and frankly all over the world, importers, distributors, retailers, on premise folks, Oreca, consortium, wine writers, bloggers, brand ambassadors. And the third question I asked was, was step beyond what I expected to accomplish. And I asked what did I hope to accomplish? And that's a bit trickier because it touches on much greater complexity than just content or facts or opinions or getting people to tell me their stories. What I really wanted to do, what I really wanted to do was to inspire people. I personally had been inspired by Kathy Hoja, who has gone to great success with her company analytics. And she turned me on to the joys of doing lectures at the University of Belonia Business School, and I've been doing them for about seven, eight years, I think. And then I followed up on that with an annual lecture that I give at Cornell, which is my alma mater. And here's a fun fact, you might not know the origin of the term alma mater. It literally comes from alma mater studiorum, which, of course, is Latin and translates as nurturing mother of studies that the University of Bologna adopted as their motto. And is reflected in the school's role as responsible for the education of young students. And if you ever get a chance to go to Bologna, I'd absolutely recommend that you visit the school itself or the the the main undergraduate facility, which is in downtown Bologna, And the business school is way up on the hill on a former, Catholic bishops, palazzo, which is a pretty amazing place as well. And that story about alma mater reminds me of a a related funny story. I I was once speaking with a colleague who attended Cambridge University, and he mentioned it was one of the oldest universities in the world founded in twelve o nine, I believe. My response was, well, I lectra at the actual actual oldest university in the western world, qualify that. University of Malonia, which dates back to ten eighty eight. Well, I guess you had to be there to find it funny. I thought it was funny at the time, and we both laughed. So back to the subject at hand, My wife, who's a teacher, had taught me that if just one or maybe even two students in any given class, get it, the spark, the motivation of an idea or a new way of thinking, then you've been successful. As a teacher. And one of the joys I get from my lectures at, Bologna and Cornell is having a continuing relationship with the students who got it. So back to what we were talking about. The the hoped for accomplishments, as I said, call it a goal was to inspire people through podcasting as I seem to have done through those lectures. And I can't tell you how much I feel like a rock star. I I know that's pushing it, but it's all I do. When I'm in Italy, I've been Italy or wine to wine or any of the conferences I I've been to and trips to Kianti and Prosecco and Sichilia and all over, Italy. And also, all the different lectures and sponsors and so forth that I've given in US and all over the world. So when people come up to me and say things like, I feel like I know you. I hear your voice every week or You have a really interesting way of asking questions, or even better, it made me think. And that's what I get the real joy out of. I had hoped for that. And, I truly believe I've accomplished that. So that brings me to the last question. What did I learn along the way? And I'll start with the practical learnings, which which might be of interest to those of you considering doing podcasting going forward, and and I guess the people who listen to them. Preparation pays dividends. I mean, that's true of life, not just podcasting. It always does. It always will. Always did. I never do an interview call. I always do my homework before. In this case, pretty much all one hundred of them, I would do a pre interview. From which I would develop an outline. And I found that that helps create an interview that has kind of a narrative arc of beginning, a middle and an end, and tells a story, which is really what conversation is all about. Second, and probably the most important one is A good editor can make the episode. So a shout out to Joy Livingston, on Stevie's staff in Verona for staying with me this whole time and doing a hundred of mine and and about six hundred of or eight hundred of everybody else's. Back to the list of, learnings. People react better to humor than hubris. And, what that's really resulted in is me changing the way I speak. Those of you who have heard me speak in public or on webinars, can get the sense that I'm from New York. So I'm a bit aggressive and speak probably too rapidly to people where English is not their first language. So in podcasting, sound quality really matters because while they're really just listening, listeners are intuiting imagery to go along with what they're hearing in olden days. We spoke of radio that work. It being the theater of the mind. And I think that's very applicable to podcasting. It was also a great way to share lessons learned from my consulting gigs. And, frankly, to expand my visibility as a consultant. At the end of the day, I make money by getting people to pay me to help guide them into the US market. And this podcast has been a very effective Biz dev tool for doing that. And I say that in contrast to the idea of a podcast making money. I think what a lot of people are finding that the podcast itself may not be a money maker unless you're like Rhiana or one of those people who has like a gazillion listeners, but instead it's it's a tool on which to establish visibility and credibility on which you can commercialize. Moving on to more general learnings. Early on, I I changed the intro to focus on the concept that what I was talking about wasn't just how the premise was that most of the people listening already knew a lot about how. But about how else. And that's because in a market like the US, which, while it may be the largest in the world, is also the most competitive and arguably one of its most restrictive, as well as most complicated with fifty two different regulatory entities. And in a market like that, a frontal assault is not a good strategy. Doing it the way others have done it is not a good strategy. The best strategy is, to find intriguing alternate and different ways of doing it. How else? I found that it's really important to speak with a human voice that brands must share the concerns of their communities. And in this particular case, I'm doing the verbalization for them. So as I tell a lot of my clients Our goal is really very simple, is to get other people to tell our story in their words, to their friends. So that's what social media is all about and a referral to say, hey, you should listen to this guy on the podcast. I think is one of the things that that has really grown it. And in a podcast, things like authenticity, passion, personality, all have to be communicated by the speaker's voice and intonation. And then adding insight, humor, pathos, and inquisitiveness, all balanced with respect for the guests, and the audience helps make the pod even more valuable. And I would add on to that that values and humility and straight talk and a genuine point of view. Take a position. These are the hallmarks of a good podcast and, frankly, of a good presentation or lecture. If you want people to talk about you or your brand, tell them something. They'll find interesting and provocative and something that's worth sharing. And when I say provocative, I mean, it stimulates someone who's listening to take some sort of action, make them do something, make it easy for them to do something. Because awareness without action is merely potential. And potential is a wonderful thing, but the last time I checked, the banks don't take deposits of potential. They only take deposits of cash. And I'll end the list of learnings with one remaining question for you. May I ask, in a world where marketing and communications is all about conversations, why is podcasting so powerful when it's really just one way communication with very little actual engagement. That's a question that continues to puzzle me. I've done all the research on podcasting. I've seen it all, and nobody's really answered it effectively. And if you have thoughts on that, really like to hear from you. So reach out to me at steve at bevology inc dot com. That's steve at b e v o l o g y I n c dot com. So there you have it. I wanna thank all of you for listening. Individually and collectively, both here now and to any of the podcasts in the series that may be as they say asynchronous from when they were aired. And thanks for the feedback, the goodwill, and yes, criticism. As many of you who know me know, I'm a firm believer in the theory that good enough isn't, and I'll still be working on my podcasting skills long after I've stopped doing podcasting. And last, thanks to Stevy and the whole team in verona. This isn't goodbye. It's truly arrivederci Verona. I'll see you soon. I I, unfortunately, I won't be making it to the Italy in twenty twenty three. I hope to be there for wine to wine in November this year, and I will be back in Italy. I'm sure for another Vin Italy or another trip to the, gracious support of ITa and other entities and consortiums. So for now, it's goodbye and tune in to Juliana next week. Thanks for listening. Thanks again for listening. This is Steve Ray with Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people on the Italian wine podcast.