Ep. 101 | Customer-centric growth with NakedWines.com
This week Greg Banbury, co-founder of NakedWines.com joins Allison Hartsoe in the Accelerator to discuss customer-centric growth. From loyal customers to employees to award-winning products, customer-centric success is woven into the culture of NakedWines.com. Hear how this company innovates and sustains growth driven by customer lifetime value.
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Allison Hartsoe: 00:01 This is the customer equity accelerator. If you are a marketing executive who wants to deliver bottom line impact by identifying and connecting with revenue generating customers, then this is the show for you. I’m your host Allison Hartsoe, CEO of ambition data. Each week I bring you the leaders behind the customer centric revolution who share their expert advice. Are you ready to accelerate? Then let’s go. Welcome everybody. Today’s show is about sustaining customer-centric growth, and to help me discuss this topic is Greg Branbury. Greg is the VP of revenue growth at nakedwines.com, which is a company that is revolutionizing the wine industry. Greg, welcome to the show.
Greg Branbury: 00:49 Thank you Allison. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Allison Hartsoe: 00:52 Can you tell us a little bit more about nakedwines.com and what your team is up to there.
Greg Branbury: 00:57 Sure, the nakedwines.com, we are disrupting the wine industry by connecting the world’s best wine makers with everyday wine drinkers for the benefit of our winemakers, customers, staff, and investors were a pure-play online subscription retailer. We were founded in the UK in 2008, and we launched here and in Australia in 2012, we now have over half a million angels customers worldwide, and we’re producing over a thousand wines from 200 wine makers in 17 countries. And my team are responsible for driving growth here within the US market.
Allison Hartsoe: 01:30 But I want to make clear, it’s interesting that you use the term angels because this is really not just a wine club. And I think one of the things that you guys do is the special emphasis that you place on independent wine makers. Is that right?
Greg Branbury: 01:46 That’s right, yes. So we’re working directly with some of the world’s most renowned independent winemakers, and through our platform, we are directly connecting them with our customers. And there’s a funding element to all of this, which we can talk about as we go on. And that’s why we call our customers angels. Going back to the idea of angel angel funding, our customers can actually help the independent winemakers produce incredible wines in what you call a unique model that just really generates fantastic customer loyalty.
Allison Hartsoe: 02:14 Now, I imagine that with all of the wildfires in California and especially in the last couple of years and so many independent winemakers, you must have had some challenges, maybe not with the business model, but challenges with the independent winemakers struggling with the wildfires and then trying to produce wine at the same time. Is that something that you guys dealt with?
Greg Branbury: 02:36 Absolutely. Allison? Yes. I mean the wildfires, certainly, the fires in 2017 were particularly devastating for lots of people in California, but the wine industry was definitely impacted, and people lost property and vines were destroyed, and wine and tank was destroyed and how business actually based in Napa in California and we have a winery in the Sonoma Valley and Kenwood, and actually the fire literally came right up to the fence of the winery and burned down our shed but miraculously stopped short of destroying any of the wine.
Allison Hartsoe: 03:07 That was lucky.
Greg Branbury: 03:08 Very lucky. Our seller crew that worked the winery there, head winemaker, Frank Dusek, actually became a volunteer firefighter during that period to try and help control the fires as so many people did volunteer during that period. And once the fires had calmed down, we realized that actually, we were incredibly lucky. We had some wine left over, and we actually produced a wine that raised over $800,000 for the local community.
Allison Hartsoe: 03:31 Wow.
Greg Branbury: 03:32 Yeah. Most of that money coming from wonderfully engaged customer base who get straight into their pockets to buy a great wine made by our wonderful seller crew, and the money goes directly to help those impacted by the fires, and we continue to make that wine this year. You know, the fires.
Allison Hartsoe: 03:48 The fires certainly haven’t stopped, have they?
Greg Branbury: 03:50 No. Fortunately, this year weren’t as devastating as 2017, but some of our winemakers were evacuated from their homes and from the places that they’re producing wines. So it is a scary time, but fortunately this year, everyone was okay, and thanks to the power of the community, we were able to give a little bit back through the cellar crew red, the wine that we produce for that purpose.
Allison Hartsoe: 04:10 For the people listening to this show, is there a way that they can easily access this sell crew, American red so that if they wanted to participate in these efforts or you know, I know I have friends at the holidays who love wine and would love to be part of this effort, especially in California. Is there a way they can easily access this particular wine?
Greg Branbury: 04:30 Definitely. We’ll set up a special link for your listeners on nakedwines.com forward slash CEA for customer equity accelerator. So yes, you will be able to read more about Frank and his team at the winery and the wine that they’ve put together. And like I said, 100% of the proceeds will go to the fire relief efforts.
Allison Hartsoe: 04:46 So I love this sense of community that you project through the platform. I think it’s really unique and yet at the same time I see a lot of companies who seem to be not just talking about sustaining customer center growth, let’s say they kind of give it lip service and they play this game that they get a ton of venture capital and maybe steered by the board, maybe steered by other investors. They try to acquire as many customers as possible. They call that customer-centric, and then they shoot to have a big wall street exit. Is that customer-centric growth?
Greg Branbury: 05:20 Well, the tricky thing is that the only customers you’re ever going to make any money from other ones that stick around. So we do that by delivering on our proposition of delivering delicious wines by directly connecting winemakers and wine drinkers. And I think we’ve all seen what can happen if you go too far and spend money like water without deploying capital in a responsible way. We work being the most recent example of that. And so our team has a complete obsession about making things better for our customers and our winemakers. Really with that focus on loyalty and customer lifetime value. When we started the business, it was simple. And that wine made by a real person and not why made in a factory will taste better. And we also knew that winemakers will more like artists and given creative freedom and funding so that they can focus on their products.
Greg Branbury: 06:10 They would make world-class wines without the state price tag. And we know that there’s not a bottle of wine in the world that costs more than $20 to make. And so if you’re ever paying more than $40 for wine that you’re drinking at home, not in a restaurant, obviously, but you’re paying for things that you simply cannot taste. And for your everyday wine drinkers like me and you, you know, sharing wine with friends and family, you certainly don’t need to be spending crazy money on the wine you’re drinking at home to get a good bottle. And so once we knew how to access these incredible wines from these huge and talented winemakers, the next question was, okay, well, how will we fund them? And some bright spots in the team suggested, well, why don’t we ask our customers? And that’s what we do.
Greg Branbury: 06:49 So our customers, which we already touched on, we call them angels. Um, they prepay us. They put money into the nakedwines.com accounts so that we can commission the best winemakers in the world to make wines exclusively for them. And when the wine is ready, the customers who helped us, they get exclusive access to those wines. That’s sort of a wholesale price. And so we’re really driving consumer customer loyalty through a great product. And essentially, what we’ve done is create a virtuous circle where the winemaker is liberated to focus on making a great product. And because the wine tastes great, the customers stick around, and because they stick around, we’re actually able to invest more in winemakers and more in growth.
Allison Hartsoe: 07:26 You know, this reminds me of the old artists and musicians in Europe where they had a patron, and the patron would support the artists. And essentially just modernize that model. But in addition, I don’t think it’s just about the great product. I think there’s an emotional sale that’s happening when the angels prepay into the account. So you’re not like a lot of companies will discount for loyalty and they’ll put everything on sale and call that loyalty. In your case, you’re actually using community and emotion to drive that virtuous circle. Is that right?
Greg Branbury: 08:00 That’s right. And when we first started thinking about the business, as I said at the start, we knew we were only ever going to make money and remember that to the point at some point is to make some money from the customers that stick around. And so for us, loyalty is a feeling. It’s not a program. Right. And so how were we going to generate that feeling from our customers? And we felt it when we were speaking to the winemakers. They’re incredibly passionate people. And you know the originally, I believe the term angel investor came from Broadway in New York. People were writing plays and shows that would never have seen the light of day if it weren’t for people getting involved and putting up the cash to make these shows possible. And that’s exactly the kind of emotional connection we’ve now got from connecting our everyday wine, drinking customers, getting them nice and close to the very passionate artists who make just the most incredibly delicious wines.
Greg Branbury: 08:51 And that’s not a typical retail relationship. And think obviously these days people like to know where their product is coming from and they like to know that it’s an authentic product. They like to know that nobody is losing out in the process that its sustainable model at play. And ultimately, what we’ve ended up with at nakedwines.com is an incredibly vibrant community, and like any good community, they help each other out when times are tough, they grow together and improve as time goes by. And the output for us as a business is incredibly loyal customers.
Allison Hartsoe: 09:22 And this reminds me of something that Gary from Nixon said a couple of weeks ago on one of our shows. They talked about the community being already present, and the site just gave them a place to express their sense of community and the things that they love. And it almost seems like this is the same sort of situation where people are already, this tribe already exists, and you’ve tapped into it. Is that right?
Greg Branbury: 09:49 Absolutely. And the other thing that we all know is that we hate being sold to, right? And the benefit of having an engaged community is such that there are multiple points of contact that I’m not a direct selling environment. So, for example, our winemakers love together. The feedback of our customers and I mentioned half a million angels worldwide. We have over 18 million writings on the wines that these winemakers are producing. And so that direct connection there and that free-flowing communication, the winemakers love it because in the old retail world, they only ever got to speak to maybe one or two people on the wine buying team and now they get to speak to half a million customers. And so that constant flow of communication where it’s not a discount or a sales message or a low stock or whatever the sales message may be, it’s a completely different tone of communication. And where the winemaker is asking for inputs, or we’re asking which winemaker do you think we should fund? And so really by the time the wine turns up in our warehouse is ready for to be sold. The people that are invested emotionally connected to the winemakers in the way that they are the product, it is a completely different sales process.
Allison Hartsoe: 11:00 Yeah. It’s almost like they’re saying we’re with you. We want to see you succeed, and that’s reflected in the actions that the winemakers take. That’s a great way to bridge the community. Cause I was going to ask you, how do you know that the loyalty is there? Because CLV, for example, will give you a lot of transactive information, but it won’t give you that sense of community, and it seems like if I’m right, you might be coupling the two together. You see the transactional stream, but you also see the qualitative information coming back from the comments. Is that a fair assumption?
Greg Branbury: 11:34 It is, yeah. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of things that go into the way that we look at customer lifetime value. And a number of those things are to do with engagement and engagement outside of purchasing. And if you have a business that has multiple touchpoints with your customer, then you really need to understand all of those factors that go into customer lifetime modeling because you will quite quickly see that an engaged customer will buy more in the long run anyway. And so if you really focus on the customer experience and as I said, we tend to obsess about what the experience is like for our customers, not just from a physical wine product perspective, but also technology, customer service, that all of those different things that go into producing our customer lifetime value. That really is key to having a truly customer-centric business.
Allison Hartsoe: 12:22 So are there some examples that you can share about the decisions with the formula or with the company and cultural aspect that go along the path of sustaining customer-centric growth?
Greg Branbury: 12:35 Definitely. I think that having a test and learn culture is critical so that you can grow your investment in new customers aggressively. But without having to bet the ranch. I think I’ve already mentioned, we love to make things better for our customers. And the way we do that is by extensively testing across all aspects of the customer life cycle. And sure some will impact the very, very top of the funnel so that we can grow faster, but others will improve that long tail of customer lifetime value, which actually means that you can afford to spend more to acquire that same customer. Um, but both the improvements at the top of the funnel and the improvements to customer lifetime value, both the driving growth. And I think that for us, a shift to quality over quantity, that is a big point to make.
Allison Hartsoe: 13:21 Oh my God, I love that you said that. I just cannot tell you how many businesses have not figured that out yet. So please, this is great.
Greg Branbury: 13:30 I mean, actually, if you ever want to make any money, you need to have a disciplined approach to investing in growth. And for us, we have a target, and I have a minimum four times payback over the customer’s lifetime. And where that payback, when that target is met, we will invest aggressively and where it isn’t, we will free up capital for investment elsewhere. So what that might actually translate into are fewer but better customers. And those better customers will stick around for longer, and you will make more money from them. So you actually end up opening more opportunities for growth because those valuable customers mean that your allowable cost to acquire more goes up as well. And we have one rule internally with optimization, and this is a cultural point, and it’s, we don’t debate, we prototype. And so essentially there is no such thing as a bad idea. As long as you can build proof of concept, make it measurable, we’ll put it in front of our customers, and we will let data lead the discussion. And not a committee of people sitting around a meeting table saying, I think this will work. I think this will work. You have to let data be the guide.
Allison Hartsoe: 14:32 Oh, that’s fantastic. And yet I’ve seen so many people who say, Oh well we do testing, we have the red button or the blue button. But that’s really not the internal culture of testing, which is what you just explained is yeah, we’re going to take our disagreements and prototype them and see what wins and let the customers decide, which is kind of how you began in the beginning. Right? Where do you get the funding from? Let’s ask our customers.
Greg Branbury: 14:56 That’s exactly right. And you know, we’ve had some crazy ideas tabled in the past that I think if they were to have been debated, they would have never seen the light of day. But we prototype those tests, we put them in front of customers and absolutely let the data be.
Allison Hartsoe: 15:09 Are there any crazy ideas you want to share?
Greg Branbury: 15:11 Yeah, so we very recently launched market pricing on our wines. So this was a test to prove the value of the product to our angels because the wines are being exclusively commissioned for our customers. It was important to us that the pricing on the wines is authentic. And so what we actually tested was if we show our customers a similar wine in the marketplace and actually linked to that product on a competitor’s website and show the price of that product, do we see a win to customer lifetime value? And that seems like a crazy test, right? Why on earth would we link to the competitors’ website, but the test one and now on every single one of our wines, you will see a benchmark price, which we call the market price, where the wine has been blind taste that again, these other wines that are available in the market and you can see exactly how much they cost. And so the result is customers see the authenticity in the product, and the value proposition resonates even further. So yeah, that was a crazy one when it was first tabled, but it’s one that now is a really important part of our customer proposition.
Allison Hartsoe: 16:12 Wow. Does that translate across cultures? Like I know in the US culture, we have this embedded idea that it has to cost more in order for it to taste good.
Greg Branbury: 16:22 Yeah, no, look, I mean, I think there’s definitely some learning that we can share with our customers. Certainly, around exactly how much it costs to make a bottle of wine. And you would be amazed at a typical $20 bottle of wine, how much money is actually going on the juice versus things that you can actually taste. And so we flip that around by saying we work open book with our winemakers and when they need the funds to pay the grower for the fruit, we know all the component parts that make up that cost of the bottle. And if you are one of our angels and you’re able to help us fund that wine, make that wine possible, then you effectively pay a price that is very much close to the component parts of that wine, whatever it comes out that that’s what you pay.
Greg Branbury: 17:03 And we will benchmark tastes that wine against similar wines in the market as I’ve said. And it may be that wine would retail for 70 $75 if it, you know, a Napa cab Cabernet. It’s not unusual for wines to retail at that kind of price. And yet Matt parish, who is King of Cabernet and napper is a Napa cab sell for our angels for under 25 bucks, and Matt Phil makes a fantastic, you know, it’s not that Matt is losing out in that situation, it’s that we’ve just cut out all of the costs that you cannot taste, and you really can’t get a phenomenal wine for under 25 bucks. And that is something that our angels and certainly our existing customers in the US have tapped into and something that they’re really enjoying and finding valuable. And that’s why they stick around.
Allison Hartsoe: 17:42 Yeah, I see a lot of personality coming from the winemakers, and then you bundle it with the price and the community. It’s a great model. I was just looking at the front of the, of the website and it has this rebel temper Neo rocket, like a redhead. And I was like, Oh, that’s just perfect. And so first you get engaged with the attitude and the personality of the wine and then second there’s the price, and you’re like, wow, that’s a great price. So I can see how there’s this kind of one, two punch of drawing people in and then hopefully nurturing them on the back end as we’ve been talking about. Now since I’m not currently a customer, tell me a little bit more about what the process is that you use to bring people along. I have this great initial experience. How do I become not just a onetime angel but maybe more of a longterm dedicated person?
Greg Branbury: 18:32 Sure. So like I said, we test extensively through the customer lifetime cycle, and that means the important part is onboarding you in the right way, and the benefit of having longterm profitable customers is that you can spend money to recruit those customers. And so we will put a very good offer in front of you for your first time with us because we want you to try the product and the benefit to you as a customer. You know that we’re going to put our best foot forward in that case because we were not going to make any money from you unless you come back, so we’re prepared to lose money on that first order because we want you to experience not just how good these winemakers are, but also the customer service. We have a phenomenal delivery network, home delivery network across the United States delivering usually within two days to most of the major cities across the US, and from there, it’s an experiential thing.
Greg Branbury: 19:21 You download our mobile app that you can scan the label to rate the wine, see a video of the winemaker, and all of this stuff starts to make clear that you are part of something that’s more than just a retail experience. It is something that you can become as involved in or, if not, as you wish. Some people sit on the sidelines and don’t rate their wines and still get a fantastic experience because they enjoy the products. But others, you know that they’re on the website daily chatting with other angels and hearing what’s going on with directly from the winemakers when they’re in the winery or in the vineyard. And it’s just a wonderful community as I said.
Allison Hartsoe: 19:53 And did you see the mobile app become a way to drastically increase the engagement of the community? I don’t know if you always had that, but it seems like it might’ve been something that you added as you went.
Greg Branbury: 20:03 Yeah, I know, I mean back in 2008 when we launched, it was this idea of crowdfunding and the social network was still fairly new, but nowadays obviously it’s the norm. And so yes, we built a mobile app initially for our customers to be able to make those small interactions that we want to do immediately. Like read about the wine, watch a little video of the winemaker, feedback on the quality of the wine. And we built all of those into the mobile app. And then we built an app just for those 200 people, those winemakers, so our winemakers have a mobile app as well that they can use to post content directly to their customers. And when you’re stuck behind a desk in an office in the city, of course, you want to be transported to the beautiful countryside and seeing exactly where your money is going to. And so when you do sit down that evening to open your bottle of Matt Parrish cab, you feel like that connection to him is real. So yeah, technology has been a big part of cultivating lifetime value from our customers, but we do it in a very customer-focused way. How can we make the experience better for the customer? And technology has definitely helped us do that.
Allison Hartsoe: 21:03 You say a phrase like we look for ways to make the technology better for the customer, but I think what’s really happening underneath, especially when you talk about testing and CLV is you’re not treating all customers as one bucket. There is a lot of heterogeneity in the base as you understand different segments of customers, different ways that they are interacting with you. And it strikes me that through the mobile app, especially, you’re able to understand individuals and their quality of engagement and relate that back to the purchase streams. Whereas a website that didn’t have a mobile app, they’d kind of have to rely on people logging in or some other kind of cookie methodology to pull people together and understand that. So I think this is actually a very strong piece to get your CLV vision together and see what’s driving it. Is that fair?
Greg Branbury: 21:53 Yeah. Look, and I think whatever tool it is, whether it’s a mobile app or you have stores, and you’re collecting data that way. I mean, this is all about understanding your customers and gathering as much information on their behavior that you can to understand the different segments to try and drive the behaviors that you know lead to a better experience for your customers. And so if that be, we know who has the mobile app, we know who doesn’t, let’s try rather than sending this person an email to buy this week, let’s send them an email to get them to download the app and forego and short term sales for long term loyalty is something that we constantly think about when we’re communicating with our customers and looking at the way we segment the base.
Allison Hartsoe: 22:34 That makes a lot of sense. No. We’ve always had this discussion internally about behavior versus demographics, and my opinion has largely been that you can have identical demographics but radically different behavior, and it’s the behavior that’s really predictive. Is that what you found as you relate it to customer lifetime value? That the behavior is really the driver of CLV?
Greg Branbury: 22:58 There’s definitely some demographic data that will go into the modeling, but absolutely the big drivers are, we look for behavioral changes, and we will group people together who looked like they’re behaving in the same way as opposed to just defining them as objects that don’t move like your location. It’s very much about how you’re interacting about the actions that you’re taking as opposed to the information that you tell us about yourself in terms of where you are or how old you are. So you’ve got to look at all of this behavioral data. If you’ve got it, and if you don’t have it, then you need to find a way to get it because it really is the key because you can then try and change behavior if you’re tracking it.
Allison Hartsoe: 23:36 Yeah, I love that answer because it’s so closely related to who we are as people, not just a transaction and not just find age and zip code and other demographic information. I think that color, what we do is so critical. I wish I had one wish for 2020 it would be that Google would really solve their search data so we could get better behavioral information. So not related to that you talk about quality of customer over quantity and there’s been some pressure in some companies, particularly smaller companies where investors will come in, and they’ll say, well, you know it’s great that you’ve tapped into this particular tribe, but we really want you to prove that you’re not a niche and that you can play in all these other spaces. And yet a counter-argument I’ve heard to that is that when a brand stays close to its niche to its customers, that they can actually go deeper within that group instead of spreading out laterally. Is there a balance between going deep and going wide, or is there some way that customer lifetime value and being customer-centric can guide you in that decision?
Greg Branbury: 24:48 Yeah, I think the guiding principles always got to be if you ever want to make money from your customers, then you need to understand customer lifetime value and you should be focusing on retaining those customers for as long as possible. And certainly, for us, understanding customer lifetime value and everything that goes into it is our guiding principle. And we were never going to go on a land grab of customers if they weren’t going to, like I said, deliver that lifetime value because otherwise, we would have been poor custodians of the capital that we had to allocate on behalf of our investors. So my answer would be no, we want to grow in a sustainable way. And I’m sure that there are obviously going to be companies out there with different objectives, but for us, it was about building a sustainable business. I said at the start we wanted to revolutionize the wine industry, and you can’t do that if you are here today, gone tomorrow. And we want to be making longterm commitments to our winemakers so that their livelihoods are changed, and the impact ripples through the growing community that the fruit growers and the surrounding communities because of it. I mean, that’s really where meaningful change comes from. And so for us, it was always about the long game. But I understand that there will be other businesses with other objectives. You just need to decide which one you’re in. And if you’re in the lifetime value game, then it’s all about making things better for your customers.
Allison Hartsoe: 26:01 And it sounds like if you’re going deep into a space that there’s still a lot of space for innovation.
Greg Branbury: 26:07 Oh, absolutely. Like I said, despite being six, seven years old in the US market now, we’re constantly challenging ourselves to come up with new ways of looking at things that the pricing model that I described earlier is just one of those ways. And so now innovation should never stop. If you stand still, eventually someone’s going to catch you. So you must, and like I said, we focus on that continuous improvement cycle, which is where the test and learn comes in. And if someone’s got an idea on how to do it better, we will never reject it. And we’ll see what the data tells us. But no innovation, it has to be a key part of your culture to keep that energy on improving the customer experience.
Allison Hartsoe: 26:43 Always thinking about them. So let’s say I’m convinced, and you know I love the way your business is operating and how it is truly customer-centric. What should I do if I want to get my company to be more truly sustainably customer-centric? What should I do first?
Greg Branbury: 27:00 Well, I think you need to have a good look at the customer lifetime and try and work out all of the drivers of customer lifetime value, which is obviously a data exercise. And by far, the biggest driver in customer lifetime value would be retention. So what can you do to improve the customer experience? So they do stick around for longer. And is that investing in product quality? Is it investing in your people internally, your team, and your culture? Is it customer service, is it technology? And then I think, you know, have a culture of transparency. As business leaders, we know that transparency is a critical part of team culture, but it also extends to your customers and your suppliers. Transparency builds trust and, therefore, loyalty. So a good example of that, as I said, is the transparent market pricing that we launched. And the one step further on that pricing is that if our customers seem to disagree with the pricing based on their ratings, then we actually dropped the price on the wine. So we actually have customer powered pricing on our high end as well.
Allison Hartsoe: 28:00 Is that right?
Greg Branbury: 28:01 Absolutely, yes. So the wine doesn’t stack up every six months. We review the price, and we’ll drop the prices over the customers agree it’s, it’s at the right spot. And all of that came about because of our test and load culture. So I guess the final point would be no idea is a bad idea. If you can prototype it and get it in front of customers, don’t sit around the table for hours debating it. You’ll only kill what could potentially be a game-changing idea and then let the data guide you.
Allison Hartsoe: 28:25 And am I right in thinking that your ideas can come from anywhere in the organization? It’s not like there’s one team that sits in a room.
Greg Branbury: 28:33 Oh, absolutely. Yes. Some of the best ideas have come from the guys in our call center or even winemakers. We encourage that innovation to come from all facets of the business. And yeah, like I said, no idea is a bad idea. And that culture of everybody’s opinion counts as long as you’re accountable to your idea. So we don’t just have a free for all. That you have to have a, you have to be able to state your objective and then obviously let the data prove or disprove that objective. But as long as you can do that and you know, if you don’t know how to do that, we have someone in the business that will help you frame up what the objective and what the measurable might be. But no, absolutely ideas can come from any part of the organization. I think we have a Google form that allows people from any part of the businesses submit their ideas and that they get reviewed on a regular basis. So no, it’s very much part of the culture that make it alliance.com that everyone can submit an idea. And like I said, some of the craziest wackiest ideas have ended up being the best.
Allison Hartsoe: 29:23 Isn’t that amazing? And I love how it’s so simple. It’s a Google form. That’s perfect. If people want to reach you, Greg, what’s the best way for them to get in touch.
Greg Branbury: 29:31 So that you can log onto nakedwines.com forward slash CEA and we’re going to have a discount code there, $100 off your first order so you can come along and try some of the wines. There’ll be details of that. There’ll be some details of the fire relief wine and if people want to get in touch with me to ask me anything. It’s Greg@nakedwines.com.
Allison Hartsoe: 29:50 greg@nakedwines.com wonderful. Well, Greg, I think the way that your company is operating is really tight model for the 21st-century corporation where you’ve broken down the walls or between a corporation and the customer, and you’ve allowed the customers to lead the business but not lead it in a Willy nilly fashion. You’re basically the arbiter of the information coming back and the arbiter of the community and so just really kudos to your team and all the people@nakedwines.com who have contributed to this modern thinking in this process. It is not simple to do, and it is something that I think you’ve done a great job just following your instincts, really following your heart to create a wonderful platform for bringing these audiences together. So thank you for being in business, and thank you for giving us this discount where we can go and support this community. I’m definitely going to do that over the Christmas holidays.
Greg Branbury: 30:52 Thank you, Allison. That’s very kind, and you touched on it there, but really we do have a phenomenal team of people across the UK, Australia and the US and we’ve talked a little bit about the team culture, but you know, many, many great ideas have failed with a poorly put together team. And so we’re very fortunate to have a wonderful group of people who are all behind our purpose of connecting winemakers to wine drinkers. And that extends fortunately for us through our team to our winemakers and also to our staff who I believe everyone feels like they’re a part of the naked wines.com story. So thank you very much for your kind words, and thank you for having me on your show today.
Allison Hartsoe: 31:26 Absolutely, Greg. As always, links to everything we discussed today are at ambitiondata.com/podcast and don’t forget about the link over to naked wines.com/cea where you can get that discount code as well as find the seller crew, American red wine, which will support the winemakers in Napa Valley and particularly for fire relief. So all great things. Greg, thank you for joining us today. The conversation has been such a pleasure.
Greg Branbury: 31:53 Thank you, Allison. Really lovely to talk to you too.
Allison Hartsoe: 31:56 Remember when you use your data effectively, you can build customer equity. It’s not magic, it’s just a very specific journey that you can follow to get results. Thank you for joining today’s show. This is your host, Allison Hartsoe and I have two gifts for you. First, I’ve written a guide for the customer centric CMO, which contains some of the best ideas from this podcast and you can receive it right now. Simply text, ambitiondata, one word, to three one nine nine six (31996) and after you get that white paper, you’ll have the option for the second gift, which is to receive the signal. Once a month. I put together a list of three to five things I’ve seen that represent customer equity signal, not noise, and believe me, there’s a lot of noise out there. Things I include could be smart tools I’ve run across, articles I’ve shared, cool statistics or people and companies I think are making amazing progress as they build customer equity. I hope you enjoy the CMO guide and the signal. See you next week on the customer equity accelerator.