Ryan Gill - How to Win in Off-Premise Wine & Spirits Retail

On this episode, we’re joined by Ryan Gill, the Director of Marketing at Three Chord Bourbon, and a spirits industry veteran with deep roots in off-premise retail.

Before joining the team at Three Chord, Ryan spent over a decade running top-tier off-premise locations across the South, managing $XXM+ stores and building high-performance teams. That front-line retail experience gave him a rare lens on what really moves bottles - insights he now brings to one of the fastest-growing bourbon brands in the U.S.

Ryan unpacks how his time on the floor shaped his philosophy on brand building, distributor management, and the power of field marketing. He shares tactical advice for emerging brands trying to stand out on crowded shelves, plus his playbook for training retail staff, building local market awareness, and executing limited drops that actually drive velocity.

We also dive into Three Chord’s unique origin story, why music plays into their blending process, and how they’re scaling into 40+ states while staying connected to the whiskey community.

Episode Highlights:
🏪 What 10 years in off-premise retail taught Ryan about winning in spirits
📊 Why so many brands misunderstand the off-premise buyer
🛒 Tactical tips for activating in retail without huge budgets
🏀 How spirits distribution has become like the NBA
🥃 How Three Chord Bourbon trains retailers to become brand evangelists
🎸 From guitar riffs to mash bills: Three Chord’s musical roots
📍 Building a national brand with limited resources
🔁 Navigating the 3-tier system from the brand side
🧃 Lessons in merchandising, demos, and field marketing

Table of Contents:
00:00 – Intro & Retail Background
05:00 – Lessons from Off-Premise Retail & Frontline Sales
12:00 – Joining Three Chord & Shifting to Brand Side
18:30 – Field Marketing & Retail Training
25:00 – Limited Drops & Community Building
30:00 – Scaling Distribution with Focus
40:00 – Final Thoughts & Industry Advice

Links:
Three Chord Bourbon – https://www.threechordbourbon.com
Follow Ryan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-gill-3chord/
Follow me on LinkedIn – Adam Steinberg
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support

Transcript

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Welcome to Shelf Help today we're speaking with Ryan Gill who is the director of marketing at Three Chord Bourbon who is joining us from Memphis launched in 2017 by what I think Ryan would call a musician's musician which we'll talk we'll dive into here in a second along with a pretty long time whiskey maker Three Chord Bourbon focuses on producing spirits with a perfectly tuned taste and then prior to Three Chord Ryan spent a good chunk of his career on the the on off premise retail side of things which I think is gonna make for a pretty interesting conversation here First off for the listeners Ryan that aren't that familiar with Three Chord Bourbon maybe just give us a quick lay of the land just in terms of kind of the origin story why behind the brand some of the core products you guys offer and and some of the main places that listeners can currently get their hands on them and we'll start there yeah so three chord uh started by uh musician named Neil Gerardo he's producer songwriter guitar player basically growing up he he saw he saw spirits as a a communal thing t hat was within his family Sicilian grew up in in the Sicilian home where his granddad was making rapa in the basement and stuff like that you know it was they had their big family meals and he would he would learn to play guitar and sing as part of that and it was just kind of this big communal thing and then he got into music and bands and performing and he loved the communal part of that as well and so you know a few years ago he decided to slow down on the touring and decided to start up a new company and when he did so well let's let's dance spirits because that was always the connection to him was that that communal element and whiskey definitely has that that element you know that's one of my favorite things in working whiskey is meeting all the other people that are the big whiskey people or even people in other companies there's so much camaraderie in this in this little industry you know bottle shares of allocated things and hard to find things and you know other brands just helping each other all the time um it's it that that's what I said one of my favorite things about this this industry yeah right now 3 chord is always available online 3 chord Bourbon dot com we work with a retail partner that ships to 43 states currently so you can be found just about anywhere there and then also there's a store locator on 3 cord Bourbon dot com where you can find it in your area we do have distribution through about 40 states currently but we've got you know solid distribution in probably 25 states or so okay cool um yeah so we're pretty wide spread but you know online you can find a lot of our limited releases and things and we're gonna talk about those a little bit later yeah for sure we I think that's a great intro I know you've got a bit of a unique and what I assume to be pretty valuable background in that you spent I think more than 10 years you know running some of the the top off premise wine and spirits retailers in Tennessee before shifting over the brand side so I'm just curious in what way have you found that your pretty extensive retail background has just been pretty valuable in in running marketing for a brand selling into those same kinds of stores? yeah it's a it's honestly giving me such a a great perspective that has helped me on a daily basis I was the first guy within our company that was hired that was from the retail side and so we had people that had been long time bar people long time supplier reps distributor reps you know I worked in retail for 14 years and was running you know one or two stores for most of that time and you know I also got really into retail science and marketing and you know I always would you know on a daily basis look at my stores and say okay how could these products be marketed better how could these you know how can we encourage people to pick them up off the shelf and it really made me think what brands were doing things right what brands were doing things wrong and um be able to see okay if I were to have a brand this is what I would do you know and uh and so with 3 cord I was lucky enough to join it at the right time where each year I've been with the company I've been there for five and a half years now I think each year my role has been different so it uh you know started off in sales just in Tennessee and then expanded to regional sales and then moved over to single barrel sales and working with a lot of whiskey clubs and things like that and then you know evolved to the marketing and brand development side which is really my passion Is there a I'm sure once you're running you know multiple stores I I imagine you may not have been in the buying room on a day to day basis but at some point you're probably that was at least a part of your job at some point at least hearing some of the you know the pitches of new brands coming in trying to get on the shelf is there a specific pitch tactic or two that you found often worked when you were on that side of the table and or your team members on that side of the table and and have you found are you guys implementing a similar strategy when you're trying to get on the shelf? yeah what's really interesting about that is it you know I think adding to my perspective was when I did start doing regional sales as well because I started to realize that the way that retailers take in products and pitches is different around the country and so you know for me you know when I joined the company the company was mostly in the north and northeast and then we expanded down south and came into Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia you know me and our Kentucky rep used to talk all the time about how the the questions we got from retailers were totally different than the questions that the retailers up north were asking interesting uh you know you I mean flavor profiles were different um preferences were different but just the pitches were different it was really interesting so for me what you know I always really I mean I I try to drill people when they came in you know when suppliers came in and uh you know I would I would give honest opinions and tell them you know look this is what you should be doing and this is what you shouldn't be doing and um you know this is what works in my store and um you know I would want to know and this is from coming from a wine background as well you know wine was a big focus for my store for a long time and with wine you can really add up the value with tangible things oh was this in oak how long was it in oak was it a new oak or used oak you know you could you could understand why the cost increased you know was it from one small Vineyard one lot was it from you know a giant area that's just a blend of a lot of stuff you could you could ask the right questions and understand what the value should be and that would help you understand is this product overpriced or is this a good value and so you know with whiskey I would do the same I would be asking you know I need to understand more about this product what's going into it what makes it worth this price to the customer and you know it was it was definitely interesting because like I said there was some questions like that that weren't necessarily being asked in the company before we expanded down south and you know Kentucky and Tennessee people really get into their Bourbon so so that was a yeah that was definitely an interesting part of it you know regions parts of the country would have that different of palettes and like and taste preferences if you think about yeah food and beverage categories it's pretty pretty consistent across you know whether you're going West Coast East Coast to a a large extent you know we were doing the so I was running the single barrel program for a long time and with the single barrel program you really could start to tell the price the the taste differences because in the south uh yeah we like our sweet tea and Coke and stuff like that and you would actually have people that chose whiskies that have sweeter finishes down here as opposed to up north it was really I mean it was it was a interesting learning experience just to see like wow like it really does make a difference you know these people do have totally different palettes based off of the culture around them yeah moving down the supply chain a bit those brands they have a successful pitch they get on the shelf what were some of the biggest mistakes that you saw brands make in terms of like how were they actually marketing themselves in store or supporting sell through and any lessons in that area that are now guiding your team's retail support playbook let's say? you know honestly I think the the biggest thing is not having follow through on anything you know there's a lot of brands that think you just get onto the shelf and you expect it to move you know whether it's I think there's a big disconnect between digital marketing and in store marketing you know there's a lot of brands that think OK I'm going to do lots of Facebook ads and I'm going to build this unique story online and this cool look cool website none of that matters if the person is just walking into a retail store and seeing your brand for the first time you know that's I feel like that gets missed so often um you know things like shelf talkers that either are eye catching or just have a score or something quick that can grab somebody's attention interesting displays that don't just blend into everything else yeah having displays that fit the store so different display options for example so I ran one store that was you know only a few thousand square feet but it was connected to a Costco this is before Costco was selling wine and spirits in that state and um you know it was tight for space so displays you know they really had to be compact display areas and um you know the net store that was running we had 10,000 square feet and we wanted it to be really nice and open and have these cool open interactive displays we wanted it to be an experience when you came to the store whether it was sights or sounds or smells um you know and so we were constantly looking for things like that and it was amazing how few brands offered anything that it would fit those things I mean it was a monthly we had these two giant displays in the front of our store right in the window front and I mean it was a monthly challenge to find a new brand to build out a large display for that area yeah um you know it should have been a great opportunity but it was basically you know only the guys with the budgets of Brown Forman and right Constellation and Diageo they were the only ones that were doing anything unique and I said I think it really just goes back to people focusing too much on everything outside of the store when it comes to marketing and not necessarily once that person walks into the store that has not heard of you you know how do you get them to look at you for the first time and pick up your bottle and building on that a little bit I'm just thinking are there any ways you might be think differently about these are three kind of broad categories but let's just say like trade promotion sampling or or limited drops anything that you maybe might think differently about just thanks to seeing firsthand how these tactics actually played out as the person on the other side yeah um you know tastings is a really interesting one because a lot of brands spend a lot of money on tastings and you know you hear the phrase liquid to lips all the time and you know I can't tell you how many times people buy a bottle because they're seeing a tasting and trying it right there on the spot but then they end up just going back to whatever they normally get the next time that they're in the store you know it's there's they need to be judged on more than just how many bottles they sell that day yeah and it needs to turn into conversions to loyal customers yeah I think that there's a bit of a disconnect with that for a lot of people just because somebody tastes your product for the first time you know taste is only part of the overall sale you know people need to actually connect with your brand in some way um especially in the whiskey category you know there's there is not as drastic of differences in the taste of whiskey from one to another as there are in you know flavored vodkas or wine you know different wine varietals or things like that it is something where you really have to make an actual connection with the people through your brand's story in general that that definitely resonates a bit a bit of a similar track like like based on that retail experience that you had when you're now analyzing performance at retail are there any metrics or signals that you pay close attention to especially ones that maybe most brand marketers don't just because you're on that other side understand what's actually important to to the retailers yeah so you know I've recognized over the last several years being on this side talking to other brands and even within our own company sometimes you know your focus is always on either cases leaving you know leaving our our warehouse or like shipments or depletions at distributor level right that stuff matters the first time but then you gotta start paying attention to the reorders the the pull through on the shelf I can't tell you how many times I see Diageo used to do a really interesting job of they knew that their products if they wanted their bump in sales each year they would just put out a new product right they would put out a new flavor of vodka new flavor of Crown something some new interesting drop that would bump their sales up for the year cause everything else you know they just got to maintain and then they drop something new and it increases yeah I think a lot of people try to do that but that's instead of just bumping up in their sales what ends up happening is their core products are dwindling because they're not getting pulled through and they try to replace it with a new product and so what ends up happening is you're constantly losing sales in you're losing sales in states and you know particular skews and you're just replacing them by opening up new accounts new states putting out new products and you're not paying attention to the fact that your product's not actually moving I I think that so many people don't even stop to realize that until it's too late you know until it gets to a point where you're like oh I've now hit as many states as I'm going to grow to now my sales are dwindling right it's it's just I've I've run out of you know I've run out of shells you know it's it's really a shell game you know yeah and uh you know I think that that's been really one of the most interesting things to see just talking about metrics people not paying close enough attention to okay on a product by product basis how many reorders are you getting yeah how often and that's what you really need to be looking at to determine the health of your brand and your products yeah yeah it seems it sounds like it's a bit of like that's saying robbing Peter to pay Paul but almost like worse than that because as you know from what I know you know it costs a lot more to keep launching a new product or new flavor cause you gotta spend all the money to kind of get attention around versus continue to push the existing products already on the shelf right yeah yeah definitely it's a it's a you know almost like a Ponzi scheme that you don't even realize that you're you know that you're the one doing it you're the head of it you don't even realize it cause you're not paying attention to what's happening below yeah totally this is a bit more of a broad question but how would you say just thinking about the this off premise retail channel landscape a bit holistically like thinking about over the past five to 10 years what are things like you know top I don't know a few two to three things that really come to mind as like the most biggest changes you've seen focusing on ones that you feel like have had the biggest impact on how they actually affect brands I think the biggest change has been on the distributor level and that's been the biggest impact on the off premise side of things and how we interact with them because distributors their jobs have changed a lot and I think that the more centralized these large or consolidated these large companies have become the more weight they pull and you know you're seeing them do things like you know Sazerac pulling out of you know the big guys and saying you know you don't give us what we want we're going to pull all of our products from you you know right or you know these guys putting putting their products solely with one distributor across you know 10 to 20 states things like that um it's made it to where the brand the those big conglomerates have more power than the distributors and they know it and uh and they're able to you know for a long time they were trying to compete with the smaller brands by saying we're just going to do what they're doing and do it better and right we're going to squeeze them out on the shelf we're going to you know I remember it was they're going to come out with new products all the time and you know make sure there's not enough room on the shelf for the little guys right yeah then it turned into well we're now doing surveys and doing applications and you have to give us this much space or buy this much stuff of this product to get this um you know that's really changed over the years and you know it's it's been interesting because now if you're not one of the big guys you really you can't depend on the distributors as much as you could a decade ago even pre covid you know it's and it's not their fault it's just they now have to prioritize you know who's paying their bills and you know who can pull out in the drop of a hat and you know really make them have to have layoffs and things like that I I spoke to one distributor that was telling me you know they had they had incentive programs for you know lots of brands and one of them was 100 bucks a placement I mean really big number and they didn't even tell their team about it because they were like it doesn't matter like I it used to be the sales people would look at the distributor sales people would look at their monthly calendar see okay what are my ins and outs how do I hit these goals now it's OK I just gotta keep my job because I have to hit the goals that are put in place by these top five companies yeah and everything else is just you know gravy but you know it I really need to only focus on these guys and yeah everybody else needs to take care of themselves and uh you know it's it's made it a lot harder for for you know other brands across uh across all spirits yeah you have to spend more money now to to have a sales team because you can't depend on the distributors as much as you could previously yeah that's really been the biggest change in the industry I think over the last decade I I'm a big sports fan and it it's I always think of the analogy of how like the NBA has turned into a a player's league you know it's all about the stars and they're able to demand trades and things like that and that's that's how the spirits industry has turned you know the stars are now in in control you know it used to be you know the distributors were in control and uh not anymore yeah that's really interesting expanding a bit and now you've got now you've been on this brand side for a bit what have you found that's really key to winning in this on premise channel versus the off premise channel you know I think a big part of it is the change um in how to look at the on premise over the last decade when I was a buyer yeah this is pre covid in particular you know one of the questions that you would ask a brand manager when they came into your store salesperson when they came into your store was where what restaurants or bars around me can I find the product in because the idea was people are going to try it first at a bar restaurant and then they're going to spill over to your store to pick up the product right yeah that's not the case anymore that's that's just not the case anymore at all and I think a lot of brands are still playing the old playbook a lot of times but that's you know I've done a bunch of surveys that show it people people don't care about that anymore that's not the first place they're trying stuff right it is so rarely the first place they're trying stuff now um you know people would rather go if they're going to a restaurant and they're going to order something they're going to you know order a cult brand or they're going to order just something from the well which they don't care what it is they're not going to then turn around and go look for it somewhere yeah you know you basically have to build your following through you know your brand outside of own premises whether it's retail whether it's reviewers you know whether it's you know I mean one of the surveys that we had done was just finding out exactly that just you know where are people learning about products for the first time yeah what's encouraging the first purchase and it was strongly weighted by um reviewers and liquor store employees and those are those are the top two by far and way at the bottom of the list was I tried it at a bar restaurant haha you know and we realized that's not where you should be putting your resources you know yeah now you look at a lot of that that barn restaurant scene and it's so price driven now is people are people have their handful of call brands and and now there's so many brands that have allocated stuff that'll be just allocated to the on premise you know top tier of people so that they have those those things and then everything else it's about price you know it's you know how do I get the the cheapest thing for our customers so that we can make the highest margins yeah you know they realize it doesn't matter if it's 4 Roses small batch or 4 Roses yellow label that's going into your cocktail yeah you know like when you're looking at a menu people don't even ask the question yeah so why would you as a bar owner why would you buy the more expensive one yeah doesn't make sense yeah um yeah that's that's been the most interesting or those have been the most interesting revelations you mentioned like the the importance of the liquor store employees in terms of impacting purchase decisions and you know I spent a lot of time in have spent a lot of time in the cannabis space and similarly they're called bud tenders at dispensaries and and that space and brands have you know realized long ago that investing a lot of time and resources in them is really important especially in the cannabis space where it's still there's a lot of lack of knowledge and so when someone walks in and ask the bartender what should I buy if your brand's the first thing comes out of their mouth like you're gonna win is that based on what you said that in terms of liquor store employees that the research you've done has a big impact do brands invest a fair amount of time and resources in those liquor store employees in terms of education or I don't know if incentives are even allowed but or is that still even though the data shows that they're important is are your brands I give them as much attention as maybe they should based on what your data shows the toughest part of that has been the post covid turnover so the data shows that's where you should be focusing your time and energy yeah but you spend time you know educating a staff and a month later it's all different staff yeah totally and so it's it's really you know that's why I think a lot of it has become finding ways to not only make yourself stand out on a shelf to the customers and tell your brand story through your displays and your shelf talkers and things like that you have to interest the liquor store employees now like you have to have a product that makes them yeah also be your first customer you know they they need to be the ones that are seeing they're walking by the shelves every day they should be the ones that are the first ones going oh this is new this is different I like this let me ask questions about it you know the one thing that's as far as budget and and ways to focus on that side of things is tasting bottles you know in markets where you can have open tasting bottles whether it's for the staff or the public do it spend the money you know that's that's uh because that can stay beyond just turnover you know there could be a new employee new shifts whatever it is you have a bottle back there for people to taste that's that's super helpful yeah that makes a lot of sense so we talked about about like off premises on premises a bit now that you've had some experience in both like if let's just say you decide hey I'm gonna I'm gonna launch my own spirits brand next year based on what you've Learned so far which of those channels do you think you would focus on first or would you try to focus on both of them to start I'm just kind of curious like what that what that playbook would look like go to market in terms of deciding between those two channels if if not both yeah so I mean strongly off premises off premises and and e premises yeah you know those are those are kind of the two now um you know on premises um you know it's you almost have to have people asking for you on the on premise side now the the alternative and and this is more of just a a volume play if you have all of your off premise stuff and your e premise stuff and you can come out with a low priced you know targeted product that is going to be on premises almost exclusively you know I've seen some brands doing a good job with that recently where it's you know it you don't even have it on on your website sometimes like you know it's a it's a promise it's a product that you're not promoting on social media it may not even fit in with all of your your branding elements it could be a different bottle shape it could be you know whatever it is because what you're shooting for is No. 1 volume but No. 2 having your name of your brand on a menu so like I said earlier people see on a menu four roses but they don't necessarily ask is it four roses small batch or is it four roses yellow label right you know if you can have that name on that name recognition through those drink menus and things that's helpful so yeah that's that's kind of I think that's why I'm leaning towards these days is you know start off with that and then focus your your work on the on premise or off premise and e premise yeah that strategy makes sense alright so yeah shifting gears a bit I know the the um the backstage series has been a big part of the brand especially lately for for those that don't know what even what that is give us just kind of like a quick rundown on the series yeah so backstage series so Three Chord always been about music and whiskey and putting those things together and creating this community a few years ago so my background before I got into liquor stores and and running retail and all of that I was a concert promoter for a long time so you know music has been a big passion of mine forever you know I wanted to find a way to connect it to the brand more so you know we were previously doing things like working with local musicians and local venues and you know donating to charities like blues foundations and things like that but we weren't connecting directly with you know the fans I guess is the best way to say it so we started doing these collaborations I started reaching out to people that I knew in the industry from you know way back when and uh you know we started working doing these collaborations and the benefit of 3 chord and and where it is as a company is because we've been successful uh you know we've gotten some great reviews we've gotten some some chain pickups it's made it where we've really spread into a lot of markets and we have a strong e commerce side these days yeah but we're also small enough still that we can do custom projects yeah and so you know I put together a program where we could do these custom blends and custom labels with artists um you know whether it's a one off release or something that takes off and you start doing one or two a year uh you know we can kind of run the gamut depending on the artist and what their fans are doing so we've now worked with uh I believe 17 artists and wow it ranges from you know the Allman Brothers Band and the hailstorm to you know Dinosaur junior and Lucero you know we've had punk artists metal artists rock country a little bit of everything so um you know it's it's been fun and it's also really helped in that e commerce side for us just helping to really focus on that and and get the get the product in front of people that are passionate about music cause if you're if you're going out and buying merchandise from a band you're passionate about that band you know you're you're not doing it just because yeah it's it's not just another T-shirt you know it's that band's T-shirt so yeah um you know we wanted to connect with those people that are the most passionate and so it's it's been a really fun thing and honestly it's taught us a lot about our brand and our customer that's great that sounds like it's been a win win in a lot of ways what are these collaborations with the musicians look like in terms of what they're responsible for and then you know if you're comfortable sharing it I'm just kind of curious I'm like an actual like deal structure standpoint what are these partnerships look like yeah so so what we do is we try to make it as easy as possible on the artist we try to put together kind of a turnkey program so what we do is we uh ask them you know depends on the artist how how whiskey knowledgeable they are we say look you want to uh you can either tell us what like we have a conversation you tell us what you like or don't like about different brands different whiskies and we can come up with a handful of blends and send them to you based on that conversation you pick from that or we can send you some components and actually sit with you and do a blending session and so it's a it's been fun just seeing how different artists want to interact with that process and then we've got a graphic designer that's great that he came from designing concert posters that's how I found this guy did some amazing concert posters and said you know well our brand is all about music and we want to connect with those people let's bring in somebody that does does this for a living so yeah we brought him in and he's he's actually become our our graphic designer for everything we've done since um you know it's it's been fun the the artist does they help with the whiskey and then we you know they give us some uh artwork to play with whether it's a a piece of merch or an album cover something that they want our our designer to use and then we'll put that together uh the deal structure is you know it's typically a split okay um just a a profit share basically so it is it is not something that you know and I tell people this up front like this isn't anybody anything that anybody's gonna get rich off of yeah um you know this is not something that these artists are doing it just for the money you know we're not doing it for the money we and this is how we keep our these collaborations inexpensive as well um you know a lot of times you see collaborations or licensing deals that they're not the products are not worth the price reason for that you typically take your price and then you add on the royalty fee that's what a lot of people do so what we do though we look at that that money that's going to the artist we look at that as our marketing budget um you know we say if if this product is a 50 dollar product and it has Hailstorm's name on it it's because it's a 50 dollar product like it's you know it it that's that's how it should be and that's that's you know we want people to taste it like this was worth what I paid for it not this is not just a product that I paid for Hailstorm's name on it so I think that you know the artists that we work with they appreciate that they they get what we're trying to accomplish they get that we are passionate about about their fans and the music industry as a whole and you know that's why they worked with us you know we're not for this this type of deal structure isn't for everyone you know we're we're not out there throwing out you know half a million dollars to go get you know some arena artist or something like that we are doing this because we just want to connect with fans that are really passionate and uh it's been interesting even seeing that seeing how passionate some face fan bases are versus others um it's we learn very quickly it is not about how many Spotify plays per month you have or how many Facebook followers you have it is how many people are coming to your shows and spending money and how many people are you know actively engaging with you all the time how many how many fans do you have to have their you know have your logo tattooed on them yeah those are those are the types of fans and types of artists what's been in terms of like operational standpoint what's been the hardest or like most complicated part about this project from like a yeah operational logistical standpoint whether it's the artist collaborations or SKU specific packaging and label work or you know producing all the supporting content assets and any like process tweaks you've made along the way to make it easier there's a few things I think one is finding a template for the label being able you know we started off and it kind of evolved and was we're making tweets and changes as we went with each artist then we realized okay let's if we can create a template uh then you don't have to it's just a lot easier in general yeah and then you know it's already such a pain dealing with the TTB they're so inconsistent with everything and I can't begin to tell you how inconsistent they are on uh on on labels and so if we're submitting you know 10 new labels with different artists we get totally different responses on different things being able to templatize that process has really helped and then on the distribution side so we started off with okay we're going to offer these products across the country but these are small production these are one off things like timing wise it was we were spending so much time getting them registered and getting them set up in the distributor system and all that kind of stuff to then do a a one off product that you're going to sell a handful of cases uh huh it didn't make much sense and so what we've done now is we pitch yeah we start off things through DTC and give it a couple months with that and see what's really doing well and then we we have the data of when where those sales are coming from and um we can then go to those markets and say okay yeah this band has a strong following in these four markets yeah we're going to then take the product into distribution into retail in those markets yeah that's been a much much cleaner way of doing it and yeah and and then the bands can grow their number of markets as they have a second release and third release and things like that but there's infinite possibility with that starting off it's definitely you know focusing um just just for the sake of everyone's time yeah you touch on the packaging and label templates and what not a little bit on a bit of a similar track I think when we when we talked a few weeks ago you mentioned you guys have been working on on a rebrand as as I don't think you guys have launched it yet as much as you're comfortable talking about what's been the out of the thought process or our main goal behind what why you guys decided to do a rebrand in the first place let's say yeah two things one was you know I mentioned the backstage series and how we Learned a lot about the company uh through the backstage series we started to realize who our customer was and and who we wanted it to be and um we realized that our current packaging didn't appeal to those people you know that we wanted something that was more music centric and really told who we were through our label through our bottle if you look at our current design it doesn't do that so much and honestly you know what we've talked about a lot internally is we spent the first few years of the brand kind of doing what we needed to do doing what you have to do to fit in in the whiskey category sure when we came out you know when the brand was created eight years ago at the very beginning I mean I can tell you from the retail side of things when I was in retail back then everyone was just chasing the legacy brands you know everyone was at that time was still trying to say okay these are the brands that are successful how do we go take market share from them and it wasn't about creating your own avenue and your own fan base and it was it was just focused on that I mean everyone was just trying to fit into the Bourbon market yeah stand out from it so now over the last few years that's changed you know now there's so much competition and so many different brands and people are much more willing to go out of their way to try new stuff in the whiskey industry than they were eight years ago yeah you know it was a lot I mean I always say it it it's kind of followed like the craft beer timeline you know where I saw it back when that boom was happening where people went from always buying the same beer to I'm trying a new beer every time I'm coming in the Bourbon category became that way people are looking to try new stuff and so you didn't have to fit the mold anymore and so we've been kind of discussing it for a while and then the success of the backstage series over the last two years kind of confirmed it for us yeah yeah we we said it's it's like our brand is having the same journey as a person which is you do what you need to do to fit in and then at some point you realize you know what I can just be myself yeah sure and I want to do what what's passionate to me and so myself and are Michael Danula he's our uh chief commercial officer right now and then Ari Susman our whiskey maker the three of us kind of form this little coalition where we've kind of been putting out what would make a brand that we would enjoy the three of us are all passionate about music but we have totally different taste and styles and so it was coming up with something that fits all of us that we could all get behind and something that was kind of more universal yeah and um you know we're just we're so passionate about it now and the ideas are just flowing it's it's crazy I mean every single day we are sending each other messages ideas like this is what about this what about this like we gotta do these kinds of buttons and giveaways these kinds of shirts this would be really cool yeah you know it's I had I had somebody that uh told me a a great analogy recently they said you know it's like when you know when you're going out with a group of friends and one of them's not there yet and you're trying to decide on where to eat and somebody goes well let's go to this Italian place and you go no you know my friend you know so and so he doesn't like that kind of food you know you know them so well that you know what their preference is right so it's the same with a brand like if you create a brand that you know it so inherently well that you can then start making choices that fit with that it's it's enlightening it's you know I like I said it's really been an amazing journey to just see how easy the ideas flow now as opposed to before because we were trying so hard to fit into a box that it was never meant for us you know and so now we're we've broken out of that and in July we'll be debuting it to the world and yeah I can't wait because it's been such a fun time honestly just building this entire brand universe around it so you have that three team that was kind of the behind the strategy from an actual execution standpoint like doing the actual design pieces and well so it's whatever kind of brand you know repositioning work that was done was that done with that internal designer or did you guys go with an external agency that you felt could have more firepower to kind of holistic capabilities on that front so we ended up working with so that designer that did concert posters that I talked about earlier yeah he's with an agency and so we just brought in his agency that he's with and said you know look this is what we're going for and um it was just it was funny though because the three of us we understood what we were going for so much that it was very specific what we were looking for and and it became us just saying okay we want this yeah yeah we wanted to be very much like this you know take this and bring it to life and they they did a great job with it yeah you know and and now they've been so involved in everything that they now understand the brand in a way that they can now create graphics for us quickly that's fit our our new aesthetic overall and that's been nice too just having somebody else that's you know it's so tough with an outside agency sometimes to have them understand like your brand vision and honestly the vibe the culture you know that's yeah so tough you can try to put it into words on a on a brand guide but you know somebody's just gotta get it and they gotta be around you enough to understand it and be in that culture and you know this guy having you know he's I he used to go to concerts back when I was promoting concerts 20 years ago and he's still going to concerts and he you know he does these concert posters and he he's in the same scene you know he he gets the the whole feel to it which uh I think makes a lot a lot of this a lot easier yeah and then right now we we're we're bringing out some bringing in some outside help for things like setting up the new look for social media just trying to get trying to get that tone and that cadence of when to post what to post uh huh before we were just throwing stuff against the wall you know it was uh alright we like music we like whiskey anytime we see something cool we're just gonna post it yeah it was there was no specific rhyme or reason behind anything and so just helping us to get more organized with with that we did a little social media blanking of the word evaluation but we just topped ourselves to other brands and we were posting like four times as much as the other brands and it was just cause we were just throwing stuff out there constantly right and uh you know we weren't getting as good engagement and it was because it was just all over the place yeah so we're we're bringing in somebody to help with that for for a few months um and then right now bringing in somebody to help with just getting the initial POS and giveaways and you know that kind of stuff getting all that stuff ordered you know there's so many vendors you have to deal with and it's uh it's a lot you know I one big thing and this is why you know this relaunch and we're calling it our volume 2 just playing off the music theme you know this this whole volume 2 you know we could have tried to start it you know launch it months ago but uh we really really want to come out of the gate with everything lined up like we want to come out of the gate with you know I I keep saying this is our second chance at a first impression you know this is you know we want to to go out there the first time that we're going into stores and say alright these are different display levels that we have these are our shelf talkers these are our boxes which is another thing that we didn't talk about but um you know boxes that's that should be eye catching for retailers um you know if you have a really cool box uh it can make people want to stack it up because it just looks good in their store yeah you know I I wanna have those things right out of the gate I wanna have an ad campaign I wanna have uh takeaways for consumers when they're doing when they're at a tasting you know yeah um I wanna have the website built the social media you know the website the online ads I want that whole collectively to be this one vision and aesthetic yeah um so that's that's what we're doing right now just trying to get all of that built out yeah I'm excited for everybody to kind of step into our our new brand universe yeah it's awesome it's super exciting I mean it sounds like you guys had a very clear vision in terms of you know why you wanted to go through this rebrand process seemed like others may not be as clear so I'm just curious if I was running a marketing for a spirits brand told you I'm considering a packaging refresh like what questions might you asked me that would help me just even confirm is this right strategy should we even been doing a rebrand in the first place? yeah so so a few things so one would be earlier that that metric we talked about being able to see the actual health of your brand and is it connecting with people um you know look at that No. 2 figuring out once you decide that you're doing one you know I think that you should try to decide who are you what are you passionate about and then who are your customer and you know making that connection uh No. 3 you know I think this is where a lot of people yeah they they get worried sometimes you get you get so caught up on I don't wanna lose my old customers so I'm not going to make this change yep well if you had enough old customers you wouldn't be making a change in the first place yeah like um you know that's that's the reason you're making the change you know right so you know that's you gotta be willing to to take that chance and learn all the things that you've or take all the things you've Learned about the industry you know about all the things that have changed since you first created that label and put them to use you know it yeah there's there's no point in just making a tiny tweak that isn't going to be noticeable if you're gonna do it do it right yeah you know if we were looking at it originally and we were like well we're if we're already gonna have to go through the whole process of submitting new labels to TTB and registering it with all the distributors and all the states why would we not just say let's make new products let's you know like part of this has been you know it's not actually going to be even our same product mix it's a new product mix you know we've we've got very little carryover from the previous products um because we said okay what's new you know what's changed what are the what are the new consumer trends like why are we we don't have to be stuck to what we did you know seven eight years ago we can yeah we can do new things yeah totally so yeah so that's that's been that's a problem those those have been the big things I think to to learn about yourself and learn about your consumer and just get everything ready and go for it you know I think yeah if you're passionate about it you know people always people used to always say authenticity and it became such a cheesy word and but I gotta say I I think I understand it so much more now with having gone through this process and I think that it will come through with the product and yeah with our story and with the results totally yeah I agree last question for you Ryan any brands or just kind of trends in the spirit space that you're kind of tracking or you're kind of particularly excited about anything that jumps out at all yeah I think I think people are trying to get away from being chasing after the legacy brands finally and I think you're seeing stuff that's where people are you know they're realizing you can you can be kind of a a lifestyle brand you know you you yeah you know there's one brand that I've I've I've enjoyed watching what they've been doing is a Filmland spirits you know they've they've taken this like B movie poster SCI fi thing and put it on bottles and you know it's it's just creating this whole story around the brand that's different you know it's it's attracting people that like whiskey and like that world yeah you know building everything around it going all in towards that not just the whiskey world and yeah that's been really interesting you know and then even seeing some of these like whiskey influencers and podcasters and things like that seeing them start their own brands now because they're able to do these little one off things you know it's it's it's tough to scale um and I've seen them find that out you know and but they're finding the right ways and just doing these little drops here and there and um you know it's it's been really fun to watch then learn about the industry and grow and and turn into real brands and I mean there's a few of them now that's it's it's been really cool to see yeah Ryan this has been awesome really appreciate the time I think I think you guys shared some rather really good valuable insights that people are gonna really get a lot of value out of where can people follow along where's the best place to follow along with you and and then also where's the best place to to follow along with a Three Chord as well yeah so uh Three Chord Bourbon dot com socials at Three Chord Bourbon easy to find Facebook Instagram those are the the places where we're at the most um uh for me Three Chord Ryan on uh Instagram and then Ryan Gill on LinkedIn Perfect awesome Ryan appreciate it this has been great um as far as 3 chord one thing I wanted to dive into first I never really thought about that like the different we're definitely uh yeah