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Whiskey, Women, and Watch Me! Meet Country Smooth Lori Carcich

Author

Wes Schaeffer
February 14, 2023

Build an ROI-based business to remain profitable

Professional Sales Tips you’ll learn today on The Sales Podcast…

  • Country Smooth Bourbon Whiskey founder

  • America’s first female founder and CEO of bourbon whiskey started in 2015

  • Was not a whiskey drinker

  • Wanted to celebrate America

  • Wanted to create a smooth-tasting whiskey that women could drink neat

  • Her husband thought she was crazy

  • She had no experience in the distilled spirits world

  • Spent thousands of hours in 2015 getting this going

  • Distilled and aged in Indiana

  • Bottled in Nashville

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  • Had a business degree with an emphasis in accounting from Fullerton from 2002.

  • Her dad influenced her to learn accounting because knowing numbers is vital to running and growing a business.

  • She had a natural proclivity for marketing and creativity.

  • Accounting information systems was “terrible.”

  • But the degree paid off.

  • Worked for a large CPA firm after interning with them.

  • The Enron scandal happened at that time, which helped her see how fraud could happen and how to test for that.

  • Had her first child in 2007, so she wanted to keep working, but not the crazy, hectic hours, so she started her own business as an outsourced controller and CFO.

  • Gave her flexibility.

  • Grew the practice up to 14 clients and two employees.

  • Scaled her hours as the kids grew.

  • Did that for 10 years.

  • Did more business development for her clients.

  • Entrepreneurs underestimate how much time and money it will take to break even.

  • Her #1 mistake was not bringing in an industry expert early on.

  • In 22 states already.

  • She endured a steep learning curve.

  • Her husband drank bourbon, her dad drank scotch, and she loved country music.

  • She and her husband invested in the LLC.

  • Five branches of the military are represented by the five stars.

  • We’re fortunate to be Americans.

  • The formulation process took a while.

  • State-by-state licensing and each state requires a different distributor.

  • Dec 31, 2019, she was in five states, then COVID hit.

  • She was doing in-store tastings and concerts, etc.

  • Shifted to digital marketing for about six months.

  • Launched the small batch in 2021 and went after Instagram influencers.

This has been my best business decision by far.”

  • Record sales for the last several years.

  • ROI-based business.

  • One metric is the manufacturing costs and percentage of marketing per bottle.

  • She is driving marketing costs down.

Sales Growth Tools Mentioned In The Sales Podcast

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GUEST INFO:

  • Guest Site: https://www.countrysmooth.com

  • Guest Business Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countrysmoothbourbonwhiskey/

  • Guest Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lcarcich/

  • Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-carcich-79b0a9b7/

PODCAST INFO:

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