Cultivating Culture Virtually with Nancy Koziol, couch + cork: Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking cultivating culture virtually with Nancy Koziol from couch + cork. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Marketing Smarts Summary
• Transcript

Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business: Cultivating Culture Virtually with Nancy Koziol, couch + cork

Whether your teams have fully returned to the office or you have settled into a remote, hybrid, or decentralized work environment, cultivating culture continues to be a hot topic. Many leaders opt for in-person events to bring people together, but this may not be feasible. We wanted you to learn from an expert who excels at cultivating culture virtually, so we welcomed on Nancy Koziol, Founder & Wine Educator at couch + cork. She leads a team of internationally certified wine experts to deliver seamless, stress-free virtual wine tastings for corporate clients. And yes – you’ll hear a virtual wine tasting demo in this episode! Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• How leaders (and teams) can overcome resistance to virtual
• The benefits of virtual connection
• Which virtual experiences create trust, safety, and authentic connection
• What successful virtual experience require to succeed
• The ONE thing you should do if you visit Vermont

And as always, if you need Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• Cultivating Culture Virtually with Nancy Koziol, couch + cork
  
  • [0:00] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [1:55] Welcome to the show, Nancy Koziol!
  • [2:10] How Nancy went from labor law to wine education
  • [6:04] Launching couch + cork
  • [8:54] Why leaders need to embrace virtual events as legitimate culture-building tools
  • [12:05] The benefits of virtual connection
  • [16:07] How leaders (and teams) can overcome resistance to virtual
  • [20:22] Virtual experiences that create trust, safety, and authentic connection
  • [23:35] What successful virtual experiences require to succeed
  • [29:33] ROI (Return on Investment) and team engagement
  • [41:44] Anne and April do a live wine demo
  • [47:20] Making wine approachable
  • Quick-Fire Questions
  • [52:29] Nancy’s favorite wine region
  • [53:29] The ONE thing you should do if you visit Vermont
  • [53:54] What Nancy is reading right now: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  • [55:20] Connect with Nancy and couch + cork!
  • Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:03

Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast.  If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead  and operate in business,  you are in the right place.  In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking  to reveal a fresh perspective.  This unlocks opportunity for you, your team  and your business. Now let’s get to it.  Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast. I am Anne Candido.

 

00:32

and I am April Martini. And today we’re gonna talk about cultivating culture virtually. So whether your teams have fully returned to the office or you’ve settled into remote hybrid or decentralized work environment, cultivating culture continues to be a hot topic. Many leaders opt for in-person events to bring people together, but this may not always be feasible or actually wanted frankly.

 

00:58

If your employees are only in office a few days, you may not want to dedicate time away from the work. If fully remote, just trying to get your employees to leave their house could be a challenge. And if your employees are spread out, finding a centralized location can be difficult and costly. But that doesn’t mean you should give up on culture building because culture is imperative for creating an environment where talent wants to come, stay and do their best work. We just need to think about it through a virtual lens.

 

01:25

Yes, and as all of you know by now, I’m the organizational development part of our duo, which means all things people, which leads into culture.  And one of the trickiest things we continue to encounter is what is the right solution to get people to come to the table around this idea of culture, including both virtually and all the things that Anne said.  I was actually just with a client yesterday where they talked about how people are super efficient at their work,  but then that doesn’t leave room for much else.  And yet they have a lack of alignment on how culture shows up in their organization and how to

 

01:55

hold people accountable for it. So my push to them was to think about culture as more important than all the things they do and the need to be able to rebuild that and what that looks like. Yeah. And for those of you shaking your head, sticking, is impossible. We have a special guest is going to change your mind. And that’s Nancy Koziol, founder and wine educator of couch + cork. So Nancy, do you want to introduce yourself and give listeners a bit of your story?

 

02:22

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I love these kinds of conversations. And I especially love that we’re having it  virtually.  So  great. I’m gonna do that a lot during this discussion.  So I am  an educator at heart. I went to school to be a teacher. I taught for many years.  I left the classroom to work for a labor union doing labor and employment law. Whoa. Yeah.

 

02:51

Uh huh. That’s a pivot. It is a pivot. And now I drink for a living. So I will let people connect those dots  however they want to. And yeah, they’re right.  Um, but  at some point my job moved my husband and I away from the East coast where we’re both from.  And I loved it it was so fulfilling and I was really good at it. And I still got to teach.  I did a lot of training, but we always kind of had this vision in our heads of moving.

 

03:21

back home and for us home is Vermont. It’s where we had originally laid down our roots. So I said to him, you know, I have this English degree and I’ve always wanted to be a writer. What if I quit my very stable, very well paying, very well benefited job and become a freelance writer? And my husband is the most supportive person in my life. And he was just like, I’ll pack the bags now and put the house on the market. Like, let’s do this. Yeah. It was

 

03:47

We were very lucky. We both had great jobs  and we were in a position. We don’t have children. We were really in a position where we could do this.  And you you got one life.  We wanted more time together. And so we said, all right, we’ll do it. So I started freelancing and I kept getting all these jobs that were writing about wine, but I’m a beer girl at heart. know nothing. Well, I knew nothing about wine at the time. So

 

04:14

I was writing about wine as an investment. was writing about all these scandals in wine. I wasn’t actually writing about like from grape to glass. I was more of a wine adjacent. But at some point I said, I should know something about wine. So I took a class. I have not stopped taking classes since I’m actually at the end of my journey with wine education, which is really exciting. But in the process, I needed to taste more wine.

 

04:41

thing that we see people do with the nose in the glass and the really obnoxious tasting notes like, you know, these grapes were picked on a Tuesday by a woman with a broken heart. Like, shut up. No, they weren’t. um All of that stuff takes a lot of practice to be able to do well.  And I really struggled with it. And of course, the school that I went to was not in rural Vermont where I live. It was in New York City.

 

05:06

And so I was  commuting back and forth, but I just wasn’t tasting enough. And finally, my teacher said, well, you taste with your local tasting club. And it’s just like, you sweet summer child.  There are days I don’t see another human, never mind have a wine tasting group in my town.  But I am me. And I said, well, I’ll make one. And so I started it. I threw it out on like meetup.com, last winter past.

 

05:34

I said, hey, on every other Tuesday night, come to my house and we’re going to taste wine and learn about it together. And in doing that, I realized I’m really good at teaching people about wine. My palate was also improving drastically, but I realized I was really good at it. And I said, what if I started teaching people in a way that was fun and building community and breaking down these kind of really weird barriers in wine, the snobbery of wine. And so in

 

06:04

May of 2019, I launched Couch and Cork with the idea that I would come to your house. It’s the start of a Dateline episode. I would come to your house with wine and we would sit on your couch and drink it while I talked to you about it. And you talked to me about it. And then hopefully I would go home and do it again the next day. But then the world shut down. So I did start it. Our original model was in people’s homes. And then the world shut down and I had stopped all my freelance writing.

 

06:33

and effectively was only getting income from doing these tastings.  And then I said, well, we’re about to go down to a pretty drastic change in our income because I can’t do it anymore. But like everyone else, my friends would get together on uh Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet, whatever it was,  and drink. And I think a lot of people spent the first summer of the pandemic doing that. You would just jump on a Zoom.

 

07:01

and cry and drink and talk about how much you miss each other.  And I said to myself, well, what if, what if I could do this with people so that instead of just having a hangover, you know, three mornings a week, because you drank too much on zoom, you were actually learning, connecting and drinking glass.  So it’s safer, it’s healthier, and it’s more fun.  And I tested it on my friends, I tested a bunch of different platforms we do exclusively.

 

07:27

I use Zoom now.  They’re one of our biggest clients and we absolutely love using the platform.  And I built a program where I could teach people about wine using Zoom. That is the story of how I got to sit here today. From where I always do, usually with my face on camera, we do a lot more than wine now.  We do wine, mixology, we do like paint and sips and flower arranging.  You know, I’ve really built something from just flux.

 

07:55

And I always say for me, it’s the best thing that came out of the pandemic. People made sourdough starters. People learned how to play an instrument. I built an empire.  I love it. I absolutely love it. Well,  I’m so glad to have you here. And I know April is too. mean, mine is one of our favorite conversations,  as well as one of the things that we do when we’re having conversations. We actually just did that yesterday. I think a lot of people know that me and April have three hour  a week meetings.

 

08:24

that we just used to  make sure we maintain connection and we talk about the business and we always do it over wine. So  today, unfortunately, we don’t have our wine because both me and April have meetings later and we just thought that maybe we wouldn’t be able to control ourselves and through the process.  we’re going to pretend because at the end, we’re going to do a little demo.  Nancy is going to give us a little demo about what she does. But before we get there, let’s talk a little bit about

 

08:54

this whole idea  of really being able to develop culture virtually. Because I think it’s, like I said in the interest, mean, that a lot of businesses struggle with whether, no matter their structure, their employee structure. And so  I think it starts, and it’s kind of interesting that Zoom is one of your biggest clients, because I think it actually all starts with actual, the thought behind virtual meetings itself, right? Because

 

09:20

There’s this still this this issue is virtual meetings,  leaders balk on them. They think they’re not very connected and they rather meet in person, especially if they’re doing something that is supposed to be more team building oriented.  They don’t feel like  virtual  really fosters a true connections. It’s one reason why they’re really wanting to bring people back in the office. So.

 

09:44

Nancy, I know you believe differently though. I know like through all your work, you’ve  really  seen a different side of this virtual connection. So maybe you can talk to us a little bit about that. What should leaders know about what is so positive about virtual connection? Yeah, so that’s a fantastic question. It’s a conversation I have a lot is this idea of why virtual, how virtual and how is it possible to build connection.

 

10:11

And I think there’s two things that really kind of have to be looked at. If you want to have an honest conversation about the benefit of connecting people virtually.  The first thing is  any platform that you use for a meeting, a retreat, um podcast, a memo, an email, a slide deck is unique in the way that you have to structure it and deliver it in order to make it work.

 

10:40

If  I am going to teach a class  on Malbec, it’s going to look differently if I’m doing it visually, if I’m doing it in a vineyard, if I’m doing it at a restaurant, if I’m doing it on television, if I have a slide deck, if I’m handing out materials. I think that what people forget is we have changed what meetings look like in person, team building, you know, not in person, conference calls, everybody on speakerphone.

 

11:10

We constantly adapt and change to these things to make them fit our circumstances. Zoom and Google Meet and these may be  newer to us, but they’re not anything all that different from doing it on speakerphone on a conference call or doing it with a slide deck standing in front of 500 people. So I think the first thing I tell people is this is a tool. This is one thing that you can use to

 

11:36

schedule things that need to be scheduled in a way that maximizes what you’re trying to do. I think it’s really important for people to remember that it’s kind of like the discussion around AI. If you’re trying to use it in the way you’ve used everything else, you’re going to fail. And if you’re trying to use it in a way that it’s not going to work, you’re going to fail. So the idea here is this is  another way to do things, but I do think you need an expert who can come in and do it for you.

 

12:05

I don’t think HR directors, don’t think trainers, I don’t think your legal department  or your marketing and sales department has the bandwidth and I don’t think you should add to their plates. But we serve as almost consultants who come in and say, we do this, we understand how this works. You don’t have to. I think a lot of the pushback is fear because people realize I do have to do this differently. I do have to  set it up differently, engage differently.

 

12:33

think about my lighting. mean, who’s ever thinking about their lighting when they’re hosting a meeting? So I think that’s kind of one critical thing. But the other thing I point out to people is  everyone talks about this importance of like being in the same room. We have to be in the same room. I have to be in the same room. But look at a company like Bayer, IBM, Apple. They have people  spread across the globe.

 

12:59

So you’re telling me it’s vital for everybody to be together, but you’re not flying these people to one location. You can’t even always set meetings the right way because of time zones.  And so I try to  explain to people that this is just  another way to foster connection and get people talking and quote unquote in the same room, but it’s not a replacement for in-person  unless you are a.

 

13:25

fully remote business, in which case you’ve always been doing this and you know how to do it. And I actually worked for a fully remote business starting in maybe 2014. So we were doing this long before. We were never in the same place. And I think there’s plenty of examples throughout businesses of using technology in a way that it’s not replacing. I would never want to replace people’s sitting in a, you know, in a boardroom together, making a human knot.

 

13:54

or sharing like two truths and a lie. I don’t want to replace that, but I do want to help businesses connect their employees better, be it the time issue that you mentioned or the distance issue that I mentioned or anything else. Yeah, I think it’s also interesting and lots of things that I could pull on or poke on there. The first place I want to start is the conference call example, right? Because

 

14:21

This is always one of my favorites. And when we first started having to be on camera, mean, I’m perpetually, and I can tell you someone who hates to see my face on a camera. It’s distracting. I don’t feel like I show up well. I keep looking at myself, like, you know, and so it was really hard for me.  But what I would say to people is if you can learn the benefits of it. So I love the training idea, right? So when I was able to flip my brain to oh

 

14:48

Actually, one of the things I missed by using a conference call was I can’t see people. And so as an extrovert and a visual person,  I do really well  when I’m, okay, primarily sitting in the same room as someone, yes, that would be optimal. But if not, I learned that being able to see people on camera was a better benefit than those phone calls because I could visually see them. However, the point being that

 

15:17

I mean, that was something that I think I sort of realized for myself as a marketing and communications person, right?  But the idea of training people and not adding to their jobs,  I think is huge.  and I talk all the time about working in and on your business and how you can’t do it at the same time.  And I think that paralysis on camera that I talked about is true of a lot of people.

 

15:39

And there are a lot of people that just don’t like to speak in front of people in general. So there becomes layers of these things, right? And so I love the idea of coming in as someone who’s an expert that can train people on this  so that it becomes more of a tool-based, skill-based objective conversation for people because I think it is, it was emotional during the pandemic. It was emotional because it was a change. There’s already people’s feelings about having to present,  right? So there’s a lot of layers to this topic.

 

16:07

And the other piece I think I’m really happy you said is that there really is no substitute for in-person. We totally agree with that.  However,  I think and I worry that people use that as a cop out to not learn to do it this way. So I would love for you to give some perspective on that or how you em address that with people perhaps, because again, get it, feel it, didn’t wanna be on the camera either.

 

16:33

But if the option is not to be in person, you can’t just forgo it altogether. Or like you said, try to do it in the way you used to on those other channels, platforms, whatever. Yeah, that’s  all a lot to think about. And I think it’s scary and it pushes people away from the conversation.  I guess the meat of your question really being how do you talk to people about the discomfort? Well, how do you get them kind of over the hump, right? Because

 

17:03

I feel like some of the situations we end up with, and when I think about that example I used in the beginning in the intro yesterday, it was like, it’s almost like we’re doing well enough, we don’t need it, and there’s not an opportunity to be in person, so we’re just kind of not gonna do it.  You see what I mean? So then it’s like, well, no, it’s not an or.  It’s not an or. And I think one of the ways we do that is we  host all of our lead calls, all of our prospecting through Zoom.

 

17:33

So we use it  as a way to have that conversation because like you, I need, I don’t like seeing my face. My roots are out of control now that I’ve embraced growing them out. I feel those things very, very viscerally, but I have forced myself and now I just don’t even think about it anymore to do those calls over Zoom to kind of  use the platform, show people while we’re communicating. I can react in different ways while I’m listening. So even if you can’t see my face,

 

18:01

because there’s a hundred people on the screen, you’re getting feedback constantly. Am I going too fast? Am I going too slow? And so I think part of it is integrating the tool into all of our early conversations gets people more comfortable with it. And then explaining to them, you know, think about those times when you want to celebrate a win. It’s a big win for your company. We work with a global law firm and whenever they win a big case,

 

18:30

They have people working on it from all over the country. So they bring us in and we get people together and we explain to them, you know, use it for something fun the first time. Because very quickly when people associate it with something positive, they realize we can come together and have conversations and experience celebration and joy together. It doesn’t have to be,  well, we meet in person when we can, therefore we never meet online. It’s just a way to enrich.

 

18:58

the communications. Plus, you mentioned it earlier, the virtual folks don’t want to leave their houses. My husband’s been virtual since before the pandemic since 2007. And he has no desire to drive an hour to Albany every day. So if they plan a happy hour, he always has a reason not to go. I probably shouldn’t be giving away his secrets, but that’s okay. Oh, well, but you know, he’s always just like, you know, for him, too, it’s like, what I love to see people

 

19:27

Absolutely. But then it’s, have to cut my workday short. I have to drive to Albany. I’m going to drink. I have to get a hotel room. You know, we’re not irresponsible humans.  And while not everything has to do with alcohol, I feel like those are the things that are easier to introduce corporate culture to because, you know, the idea people still kind of balk at the idea of zoom for your, you know, quarterly earnings calls or whatever.

 

19:55

So kind of introducing it both as look, we do this to get to know you and so that you can see what we’re like and our personalities, but also use this as kind of a perk, as a bonus, as a fun way to celebrate and bring people together. And also it really does make your remote people happy.  And I think it’s also important to say, some people hate it. Some people are like,  oh, that is the worst. I’d rather just.

 

20:22

go to a retreat or do it ever else. But the more things you do,  I think also the more you can kind of differentiate your challenges with communication and say, okay, we know that our department over here reacts really well to getting together and doing it over Zoom. They’re able to have a more critical conversation. Whereas these people just really seem to communicate better in person with a facilitator.  One thing we do are these women’s leadership.

 

20:49

events for a corporation and they have some really deep conversations. We essentially do arts and crafts workshops, flower arranging, how to build a charcuterie board, paint and sips, so that there is a guided led conversation about something very serious, but they’re also kind of doing something with their hands. They’re bonding over that. It’s creating a sense of safety and trust so that they’re able to have more

 

21:16

Difficult conversations, more uncomfortable conversations and challenge themselves more because there’s also these breaks for something that we’re building together and we’re not in the same room.  We’re not, you you don’t have to then walk to the restroom and see this person who just shared something, you know, that maybe offended you in some way or that maybe you know you need to have a deeper conversation with them about, but not right now.  And I think that that’s  really huge is showing people that there are ways you can use this to have some.

 

21:44

pretty crucial conversations that  would not work in person. It’s a really interesting,  like new dynamic to think about because I like what you said about it being a tool. mean, interestingly enough, I was actually on a phone conference call yesterday or maybe the day before for the first time since  I was at P &G. Right. And I remember that used to be the way of the world is like you dial in your phone conference and everybody had their own line and everything like that. And that’s how you did all the meetings. I’m sitting there going,

 

22:13

this is so strange not to be able to see people. I’m talking to people, but I can’t see them.  And then there’s the technology hasn’t kept up. So then there’s a delay. And so then you’re talking over each other,  which just kind of leans me to the whole conversation about facilitation.  Cause I think that’s really what gets people hung up. So, and I think there’s a difference between professional calls on zoom or virtual or whatever your platform is.

 

22:38

or, and social because like there’s a different dynamic there. And so we’ve learned how to engage professionally because usually it’s one person talking, the rest receiving, and then everybody else can like, you know, raise their hand or they have their turn to talk. Social is a little bit more fluid, right? And so I think people are like really  hung up on how do I even facilitate something socially when usually like if you were in an in-person, you might have like a little side conversation over here or.

 

23:07

side conversation over here or  somebody’s presenting something, but you have an ability to kind of interact in different circles. You can’t really do that in Zoom because  once  one person starts talking, you can’t hear the other person. You can only hear one person at a time. So you lose a little bit of that dynamic. So maybe you can speak a little bit to the facilitation piece, which I know is a big hang up for a lot of people, especially when they think about  using a virtual platform for a social virtual connect.

 

23:35

Yeah, absolutely. Those are great questions.  It’s evolution. I think when I was when I was hearing you talk, that was the word that was appearing. It has evolved. It is weird sometimes to be on a phone call with someone and not see their face.  So when it comes to facilitation, I am a process person. I’m a systems person. I don’t do anything without like  so many notes and outlines and what if  and one thing that

 

24:02

I have learned and that I tell anybody who wants to start doing virtual events because I’m not the gatekeeper. I’m not the only person who’s doing this. The more the merrier I say. The thing I always tell them is you cannot have  one person running a virtual event. It is impossible. You basically need someone to be  admin  and checking who’s getting into the call, making sure that there’s breakout rooms. If you’re doing that.

 

24:32

All those little admin pieces. Then we have our person who is presenting and is responsible for the material and for any sort of like hand raising live questions that came up. But we have a third person always in the chat. And it’s that person’s job to kind of monitor the chat, look for questions, look for DMs. Maybe someone’s having a technical problem that they need assistance with.

 

24:58

and making sure that things are running smoothly.  also, you know, I’m doing, right now we’ve been doing a lot of graze board building, you know, how to cut cheese in a way that looks pretty. And, you know, how do you make your board look like it does on Instagram? Cause most of our boards don’t. And to do that, I have a camera set up that is over a charcuterie board so people can see what I’m doing with my hands. I’ve never gotten more manicures in my life since this started.

 

25:26

Also speaking our language, we both talk with our hands. So we’re always like, we have to have them done.  I gotta have them done. They’re not done right now, but they will be by the end of the day. It’s a really important thing. But because there are so many moving parts, if you want to facilitate a virtual meeting well, the number one thing is you have to have multiple people working. And so when I started thinking about this and testing it with people, I would always say to myself, okay, what are  all of the things I need to do?

 

25:54

I need to be in the chat. I need to meet in DMs. I need to be able to check our text messages to see if the client is saying, hey, we’re having an audio issue or this person can’t get in. ah What about the display? Who is going to highlight  camera A versus my camera? And so I really took a lot of time to think about, I don’t want this again to just be, I’m doing it this way, but I’m doing it the same way I do everything else.

 

26:20

I wanted to build something that would work specifically for virtual. And that led me to realizing you need very strong systems. You need to know the tool, but also you need multiple people. And that’s another thing we explained to corporations to say, well, we can do this. We know how to do a zoom meeting. It’s like, you know how to have a zoom meeting. Yes. Do you know how to facilitate a virtual event? And there is a huge difference between the two.

 

26:50

And I think that’s a big conversation is also showing them what we do, know, showing clips and they’re like,  Oh, I didn’t know a virtual meeting could look like that.  Um, it’s like, sir, I send you a bottle of wine. can look like anything you want it to  look like.  It’s going to be a good time, but also it’s not just about the content. It’s about our ability to deliver it in a way that is engaging and exciting and accepting. Um, and that makes people say, you know what?

 

27:18

I want to jump on a team call like this once a week. Maybe we’ll just, you know, 25 minutes and lunch and, you know, when we can use this, you know, there’s things like polls and breakout rooms and reactions.  And it’s not just Zoom. All of these virtual platforms have so many tools that people never ever explore. Well, and you said the word evolution before and the word that came to mind for me as you were talking was orchestration.

 

27:43

I was having this conversation just the other day about events and how in general and how people don’t think through the logistics, the people they need, all the things, right? And so we’ve all been in situations where you get somewhere and you’re like, who’s managing this, right? Is all of us who have planned events and facilitated and all of those things. And so  I think on the other side of like, well, if we can’t be in person, then we’re just not gonna do it.  Not thinking through  those things that actually make or break.

 

28:12

the virtual event  is so important, plus the quote unquote production value, if you will,  of the entertainment side of it, right? So we’ve spent a good amount of time talking about socialization and using this tool for that so it’s not so dry and all of these things.  We’ve also talked about how during the pandemic we got on Zoom with our friends and had wine because that’s the way we could do it.  I think the evolution this time  is, okay, these tools have existed for…

 

28:40

I don’t know, five or six years now-ish, maybe.  All these new things have come out, the reactions. So the platform is providing the tools, but it’s up to the orchestration and the people behind that to be able to pull it off in a way where it actually feels like an event. And then to your point, I would imagine once people experience one of these, that it’s not such a hard sell from then on.

 

29:04

But getting them to imagine if they’re not people that would plan events this way in general has to be an incredibly hard pump barrier.  It is a challenge at first, but it is so much fun to watch people realize that A, they can do it more, get people together, have conversations, and B, that in our case, we handle  every single aspect of it. We do

 

29:33

everything. I think  that is what people are looking for from service providers like Couch and Cork  is, you know, we don’t want you to just do the thing that’s pretty, but make us do all the, you know, hard work. We  love doing the logistics. And I think when people realize we, all we have to do is pick a daytime topic, maybe get a speaker and your hand you a list of who’s coming and you do everything else.

 

29:59

And I think sometimes that’s lacking in a lot of events-based businesses where, you know, then you leave and you leave the hosts to clean up  or you leave the host to set up. And with us and many other people who are doing this the right way, because I’m very confident in saying we are doing this the right way, give us your date, time, topic, speakers, know, time span. It’s a very simple process. And then when I say we do.

 

30:26

all of the rest we do from training our presenters. Our presenters are trained both to do in-person and virtual. So they know  how to do this so that it’s a seamless experience. But I also have people more like me and the worker bees in the background making sure all the shipping logistics are handled.  We send really cute emails getting people excited for things because it is so different getting people excited for a virtual event.

 

30:55

then it is getting people excited for a in-person event. Because if I’m flying you to Denver, you know you can go to a show at Red Rocks, you can go for a beautiful hike, you can go check out all the breweries, you can have your partner come and  extend your trip either at the beginning or end. It is so easy to blow off a virtual event because it’s just like whatever, it’s just a Zoom.  And  we have really kind of prided ourselves on building a system so that people are

 

31:25

Maybe not just as excited as going to Denver, but they do. pique their interest. We get them kind of excited. And we also explain to these corporations, you know, we generally have about a 70 % rate of people who say they’re going to be there showing up, which is huge for virtual events. It’s pretty high. I was going to ask if you knew the metrics. That’s amazing.  It’s 20 % I think come to virtual events compared to 70 % for years. So  if you’re paying like a hundred dollars a person, let’s say, just because I don’t like to do math.

 

31:55

and only 20 people show up, but you paid for a hundred. That’s a loss. That’s a really big loss. And so we are able to make sure that people get so excited for our events that they show up.  And we again, approach that very differently than you would with an in-person. And so these things really help because you’re building in success. And again, you’re not forcing them to learn it. You’re not putting it on them. You’re not saying you have to send out these emails. It’s just.

 

32:25

Here you go. And we have some clients who say, no, we don’t want you to email our people. That’s fine. Here’s the content. Here’s the content. Here’s some images. Here’s a video you can include. They do get a page on our website and people love that, especially if it’s a tricky to pronounce wine. There’s always a little uh pronunciation video. And so it’s just finding ways to delight people leading up to it so that, okay, I’m not getting a trip to Hawaii or Denver or wherever New York City.

 

32:53

But I am doing something kind of cool and I’m curious. I think a lot of times people show up because they’re curious because they’re like, there’s no way this is going to be anything compared to an in-person. But again, we send them a box of wine. I mean, there’s always that really helps us. I mean, that would hook me. So I’d show up for that. And I think that leads to my next question, which is what our leaders.

 

33:21

getting in terms of feedback from  these sorts of events. So when we talk about culture, culture could be a very broad topic. we’ve kind of covered throughout the conversation things like announcing  or sharing new information or having a conversation about something  or  I mean,  multitude of different objectives that these virtual  events could be used for. What are leaders getting back from

 

33:51

folks that in terms of their responses or  their ROI or their KPIs that they might be measuring to see that yes, this is working in order to build culture. Are people feeling more connected to each other? Are people feeling more connected to the company? What kinds of  objectives slash KPIs  are you seeing that are making these events really a popular choice for leaders?

 

34:19

So it’s interesting. It’s similar to what we were talking about earlier. That is also an evolution. So oftentimes people say, well, we want to try this and we’ll ask them, you know, what’s your goal? And sometimes they don’t know. Sometimes they say, we just want to see what it is and how it works. But what we have found is people,  kind of push them in our early conversations to, know, is this team building? Is this  onboarding? Is this celebratory?

 

34:46

A lot of times it’s client acquisition. is especially in FinTech. This is a thing where someone will hire us and say, we’re going to invite these 20 prospects to a wine tasting  and we want you to teach them three wines and in between each wine, we’re going to talk to them  with the sales pitch coming at the end. I’m sure you can think why. uh And  the idea is, you know, let’s, let’s have a conversation. Let’s show you who we are and what we do, but let’s do it in this really unique and fun way.

 

35:16

And with those, have gotten tremendous feedback who say that while our events may not necessarily have a direct ROI financially,  one thing that I commonly hear when people email me to thank me for the event or to say like, that was great to another  is  they often get the word trust. So I ask people like, what do you hear? they say they trust us or they feel comfortable with us. So if I’m giving my  money to a wealth management firm,

 

35:46

I expect a certain kind of person to manage my money. can kind of predict what their like personality traits are. And like, dude, I’m going to sit down and have a beer with is probably not high on the list, but this show, this allows businesses that engage in things that are very kind of serious  and  linear to see them in a really different and fun way.  so it builds trust, it builds community.  That’s a big one.

 

36:14

for us is kind of building community. And on the work side, it’s all about culture. And one thing that I’ve noticed is companies that I’ve worked with, they invite me to a conference or to an event.  I see how teams engage with each other. And there have been times where someone has like made a joke and I’m like, oh, that’s one of my wine jokes.  But it’s like become almost part of their lexicon  that they’ll like use little phrases.

 

36:41

The other thing  is because I was a teacher and I’m never not going to be a teacher. I always encourage people if they’re doing team building or onboarding,  but especially around team building and  even more so with teams that are maybe a little bit not getting along to do a pre-survey, a post-survey and then survey a few weeks later. So kind of very simple, you know, how are you feeling about your team? What’s the trust level? What’s your morale?

 

37:07

If you were to say what kind of the biggest block is right now, what would it be? But then to follow up and say, okay, so thinking about your  responses the last time, has that changed? And we have gotten feedback from people that there is this, you know, a wine tasting with couch and cork is not going to fix what’s happening at Astronomer. We’re not coming in and rescuing I was  wondering if that was going to come up today.  had to, right? mean, like everything right now in the zeitgeist.

 

37:37

We’re not going to fix your HR issues. We’re not going to fix morale after a massive layoff. My husband’s company is regularly laying off massive amounts of staff. And if I come in with a bottle of wine, that’s not going to fix it. But what it does do is if you are on top of kind of seeing where there’s little ripples, maybe somebody leaves unexpectedly. Maybe somebody gets disciplined and it’s just things aren’t quite right.

 

38:05

sometimes offering something  fun  and packaging critical conversations and the work that has to be done that, you know, it’s kind of like that idea of pushing the dirt up when you plant something, you know, the first step is just, it’s messy, it’s ugly. But if you can package that in a way that makes people feel comfortable, that shows their leadership in a really kind of fun social lights, you really can help people build trust and community. And I think for me, that’s

 

38:35

Often the surprising thing when I ask people, what did you get out of this? Because I know as a business owner, I’m always looking at ROI, but ROI is it’s a lot more than dollars. Dollars help. And if we can help somebody get two more clients, let’s say they usually get, you know, five clients a year out of doing cold calling and we can help them get an extra two, three, four. They view that as as good because there’s also the word of mouthpiece and that works for both of us.

 

39:05

I will get a call from a company I’ve never heard of who says, I spoke to so-and-so at this wealth management company. They said, we have to hire you for events. I’m like, oh, that’s great. But also every single person who gets invited to our event by, you know, Amazon or Google or DoorDash or whoever we’re tasting with that they’re doing like a hospitality event for their clients.  That’s 50 new businesses that have been exposed to us and generating leads for us. So that’s this very like symbiotic.

 

39:33

kind of relationship where because we are so focused on the benefits that we bring and the kind of, you know how people talk about soft skills?  Oh yeah. This is like soft ROI. It’s like everybody’s benefiting. Everybody’s learning something. Everybody’s exciting people. And then, you know, we have like regular hype men in different companies who go to other companies and then we get a phone call from, you know, someone and they’re like, oh, so and so came over here from Amazon.

 

40:02

and said we need to use you.  And I think that that really  shows that they’re getting something out of this. They’re getting something out of.

 

40:13

trusting somebody to send their clients alcohol and bring them  on to a virtual call for an hour while drinking  and having conversations and not having it go off the rails. And that to me is, know,  they love it.  I love it. But also that’s what brings them back is we can do this. We can do this thing that builds trust and community. But also it doesn’t get weird. It did get weird once, but it usually doesn’t get weird.

 

40:45

Oh my Everybody’s like, tell the story, tell the story. huh. Damn, man. No, we just, we had a night where we had someone who clearly drank the wine before the event started and maybe had had few other drinks. And I think invited a date and they were very into each other and forgot to turn the camera off. Oh. So.

 

41:15

It was like being in high school when you’re like out with friends and you’re watching like the two people make out of pizza parlor and it’s just like, well, there’s that. It was something. And I think that’s what maybe some leaders fear when it comes to this type of thing, especially when it has to do with wine and drinking. But I think like the education piece brings another level to it. So

 

41:44

I know we’re asking you to do this a little cold, but maybe you could just do like a couple minute demonstration of kind of how you talk about the wine, like how these like little segments could be pieced in with a bigger program. Just give us a little flavor of like how you do it so people can kind of get a little bit of that insight. We’re going to put 10. We’ve got two lids of wine. You’ve got a Malbec from France.

 

42:12

and you have a Malbec from Argentina.  Oh, I like those. We like how this is starting. like how this is starting. Dang it. Now I really want my wine.  I know. I know. This is the problem with talking to me is I make everybody want to drink no matter what time of day it is.  Well, my last name was Martini, so I guess I kind of do the same, I  mean, yeah.  So you have these two wines. It’s a very popular wine.

 

42:38

Malbec is one of the most ordered red wines. It’s very approachable. It’s very fruity. It’s not sweet, but it’s not super tannic. It’s a nice red wine. And a lot of people don’t realize that it does not actually come from Argentina. It’s native to France. And people are often surprised to hear that because even though they don’t know that they know this, wines from Argentina and other places that are warm have a very distinctive

 

43:08

hallmark and wines that are from France and places that are cool have a completely different hallmark. And so this is that concept that people kind of get scared off from wine of and it’s terroir. This idea that where the grapes are grown affects what’s in your glass. So if I have a Malbec from France  and a Malbec from Argentina, I’m going to picture the earth like a ball with a belt around it, which is the equator.

 

43:37

And right around the equator, don’t generally grow wine because there’s  not winter. So the vines don’t get a chance to like chill out and be dormant, which is really important. If you’re if you’ve ever grown food, there has to be time when the when your plants can rest. So if I have my uh French Melba, it is growing  north of the equator and it is barely far north of the equator.

 

44:05

So those grapes are growing on the vine and they’re never gonna get as ripe as something growing in Argentina, which is a little bit closer to the equator, even though it’s south, has high altitude, but really good sunlight. So the grapes  in  Argentina, which are actually genetically related to the grapes in France, we all use the same vine stack, they’re not even identical twins, they’re clones of each other, but they’re.

 

44:31

gonna go through a really different life cycle because when I harvest my grapes in France,  they’re gonna have more acid and less sugar. But my grapes in Argentina are gonna have more sugar and less acid. Basically, they’re more ripe. So people say to me, right, but it’s the same wine, it’s still Malbec. It’s like, except  when you have a wine and you take the grape juice and ferment it, if it has more sugar, Argentina,

 

45:01

There’s more for the yeast to eat and turn into alcohol. So a wine from a warm climate is always going to have more alcohol than the same wine from a cold climate. This is why I call cold climate wines my good day wines. I just want to a nice glass of wine. great day. Not a great day? Give me that southern, like close to the equator.

 

45:25

it’s going to be much higher in alcohol just because of the amount of sugar has to pick. Both are completely dry. There’s probably less than, I don’t know, four grams of residual sugar. If we want to get into the academic side of it, we don’t. But both are completely dry, but you will have a completely different experience on your palate. One is richer and higher in alcohol and a little bit more jammy, I think is a really good word. That’s one of the few tasting words people use that I actually really like.

 

45:52

Whereas the one in France is going to make your mouth water a little more. It’s going to be a little lighter on your palate. It’s going to pair better with cheese. And that’s the other thing, cold climate wines, cheese wines. So if we were doing this in person, and I know this stuff is, I find it utterly fascinating. It is extremely fascinating. cool. Yeah. And we always tell people, the reason I’m teaching you this is not so you can be like, oh, I know this was grown 55 degrees from the equator. The reason I tell you this is if you’re sitting there going, oh.

 

46:21

I really like those kind of  rich mouth coating jammy wines. You now know from today going forward when you’re in the wine shop or looking at a wine list, just look for wines from a warm climate and you’re more likely to like it. Whereas if you like kind of a crispy mouthwatering like bitters with a  Grand Smith Apple wine, you’re going to look for cooler climates. And so we’ll have wine side by side. We do a whole tasting. It’s just warm climate versus cool climate wines. And then we taste through them and people are just like,

 

46:51

Whoa, like I didn’t realize I could tell, oh, you can tell the difference. And it’s logical if you like slow it down and think about it. It’s like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Under ripe versus ripe. So that’s an example. That’s number five of our 10 things everybody should know about wine. And that’s the one that people are like, I will get emails from people that say I went to the wine shop.  had a terrible day and I bought myself a warm climate wine. I’m just like, good for you. You got it.

 

47:20

That’s it. You’re an expert. uh You said something earlier I meant to touch on, but the fact that I think you’re also doing something with the industry in total, which is turning it on its head. There’s no pretension in this, right? So I mean, I worked as a bartender, which you can imagine the jokes with the last name Martini, and one of them was a higher end steakhouse. And it was like, we would do these wine tastings before shift, which  I still cannot reconcile in my mind why that was what we did. Because working in restaurants, it’s awful.

 

47:49

And we love you, we want you to enjoy your shifts.  Yeah, I guess that’s true.  I was a wine director for a very short time and I was like, really? And then I worked like three shifts and was like, I get it now. get it. Yeah.  But the things that they teach you there, right? And I’ve been to like Bordeaux and been on a wine tour, which you know, you can imagine. But they kind of make you feel stupid, right? Like, and so you feel intimidated by the situation.

 

48:16

And then the other piece I was gonna say is, you our podcast, we’ve always been about teaching people things that they can go and do something with immediately. And so I think the approachability and the ability to make something almost a misnomer and make it approachable to people when it wasn’t before is huge. And then I think going to what you said about trust and relationship, I think people are like,  oh, well,  that was fun.  And I wasn’t intimidated.

 

48:42

And look at them doing something different and oh, they actually considered me as the person on the receiving end, right? So we could go, I mean, I could talk for 45 more minutes about this, which we’re not gonna do. But I just think there is something so amazing about having that example and being able to be like, anyone with a brain can be like, oh, get it. Totally makes sense versus like, know, can you taste that hint of persimmon or what, you know, like, don’t Like I don’t even know what a persimmon tastes like. I know what it looks like.

 

49:12

You know, I’m glad you mentioned that and thank you to me. The greatest thing about this job has always been when I took my first wine class, I would leave crying because I was just like, I am not cut out for this. People are so  cutthroat and mean and snobby.  we actually, Haya, who was my original partner, she has moved on from Couch and Corp, but we are still like the, got her dream job in the theater.

 

49:40

she left, when we were developing all of this stuff, we had a character and we call him Phil. And it’s kind of that person who makes you not want to touch wine  because they’re always like,  grapes, you know, obviously had a bricks level of, know, whatever. How do you, how do know that? also, so what? Yeah. I would rather someone sit with me for an hour doing our 10 things. Everybody knows about wine, making fun of people like Phil.

 

50:08

And not making fun of someone for knowing a lot. I know a lot about wine. I know a lot about wine. You would never know when I’m around people drinking wine. If they’re serving barefoot, I’m not turning up my nose. I’m drinking it with them. And I think the thing I love about Couch and Cork is it took something that is so not inclusive and so expensive and so kind of elevated for

 

50:34

really arbitrary reasons. And we said to people, we want you to enjoy it better. You don’t have to understand it fully. You don’t have to know all the  weird science about it. You don’t have to understand all the weird terms that come up with wine. We just want you to be able to go into a wine shop and feel a little bit more confident than you did the last time. Because once you give people that little bit of confidence, you may say,  oh, I understand that. It’s amazing the way that they will go out and like adventure and try more. I get

 

51:04

know, emails and like Instagram DMs all the time where someone’s like, oh, I, I’m obsessed with orange wine. It’s like, yeah. know, orange one.  I really have a thing about orange wine. And you know, a lot of people will say, oh I, know, I just hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I’m like, I get it. Not for everyone. And there are a couple of pairings I’ve shared with people and said, this is, you know, try this. And I’ve had people come back and say, you know, you were right about everything else. And so I got a bottle and I got the triple crumb. And, you know, I loved it.

 

51:33

And so if we can just make people a little bit more adventurous, a little bit more  willing to expand their palates and just feel a little bit better walking into a wine shop, I’m all for it. But, you I rarely tell people I’m a wine expert if I’m in a shop or a restaurant, you know, I will rarely say it. I do get handed the wine list by my friends if we’re out to dinner. But also, you know, I’ve never corrected a sommelier, but I know when I was working as one.

 

52:01

I couldn’t believe the people, you know, the way consumers will come to a table and think that because they order a thousand dollar bottle of wine, you know, they’re an expert and I listened to them talking to their table about it and like, no, none of that is true. Because that to me turns people off from something that really should bring people together. Wine is all about conversation and music and art and literature and community. It should not make people want to run away screaming.

 

52:29

I love it. Trust and community. feel like those are the threads throughout all of this. it’s been a really, really fantastic conversation. Nancy, thank you for taking us through this journey. Before we let you go and  you tell everybody where they can find you, because I’m sure  everybody is very interested. Are you open to some rapid fires?  Absolutely.  All right. So this one, this first one might be feel a little obvious, but your favorite wine region?  Limo.

 

52:58

L-I-M-O-U-X. It is in  France on the Mediterranean coast, kind of near  Perpignan.  And it’s a very small  family oriented region that makes incredible warm climate sparkling wines. So it’s like the opposite of Champagne. And the people are amazing. The views are amazing. Wonderful.  Oh, we’ll have to add that to our list, April.

 

53:25

So since you’re from Vermont, and that might be in the area that maybe not everybody or a state that not everybody’s familiar with, if somebody were to go to Vermont, what’s one thing that they should definitely do there? So we have these national forests roads. They’re in a lot of states. They have a little brown sign. They’re usually dirt roads. If you pass one, I don’t care where you’re going. I don’t care what time your dinner reservation is. I don’t care what time you want to check into your hotel. If you pass a national forest road,

 

53:54

You must  turn down it. You will never not  see something beautiful be treated to a gorgeous view. If you are in Vermont and pass the National Forest Road, you must turn down it. love it. I love it. All right. And so the last one, what are you reading or watching right now that maybe it doesn’t have something to do with wine? I’m reading. I’m about halfway through a book,  a novel called Long Island Compromise that is fantastic.

 

54:24

It’s based on a true story and the premise is basically a dad in like the late 70s, early  80s is kidnapped. He does get returned. I’m not giving away any spoilers, but the book follows the family for the like a generation and showing how because the family decided this is just something we’re never going to speak about how it affects each of the children and the wife and the husband. It is. Fantastic I.

 

54:52

have probably been reading more than I should be the last few days.  And  we just watched the Amy Bradley is missing documentary on Netflix. My husband and I are big into true crime. And we just finished that one last night.  anytime we’ve walked past each other today, we’re like,  what about,  why did they, you know, like it’s one of those documentaries.  Gotcha. Love it. Well, thanks for sharing that with us and tell everybody, all of our listeners where they can find you.

 

55:20

The best place to find us is our website  www.couchandcork.com spelled exactly as it said.  Don’t look for us on social media because we’re just terrible about it. It’s not really where our people are and as much as we want to be good at it,  we’re not.  I am on LinkedIn though. I’m very active on LinkedIn. I love talking to people on LinkedIn.  So you can find me there under my name  and our website. um And so we do something.

 

55:49

for people that taste with us.  And I would love to offer that to the two of you  and your listeners. Usually you have to taste with us to do this, but because you let me play with Malbec today, we actually have a helpline.  So you can text us your wine questions. If you’re in the wine shop and you’re like, I know I’m making pulled pork and mac and cheese for dinner. What the heck wine goes with that? You just text us and one of our experts will get back to you.

 

56:17

Um, and so that number is 802-440-0437. It’s also just our business phone number. Um, you can find it on the website, but people can text us like wine questions, pairing questions. I opened the bottle and it tastes weird. What do I do? I’m having a really hard time getting a cork out or I forgot a cork screw. What do I do? And we’ll get you the answer. Oh yeah. We’ve had that problem. Haven’t we April? Where’s the wine key? Where’s the wine key? Don’t tell me we forgot the wine key.

 

56:47

Have you ever used a blowtorch? No, no, but my husband worked at a steakhouse and they swore that that was that actually worked. So it’s good to hear. I’ve made people do it where they keep the wine, but it destroys the wine. You just keep the neck right at the bottom of the cork. It’s great and it makes you look really bad ass. If you could find a blowtorch, if I can’t find a wine key, I’m probably not finding a blowtorch, but I mean, I live in rural Vermont, so I guess yeah, it is really about your environment. Finding a blowtorch wasn’t hard.

 

57:16

But my family needed to.  Ironically, well, there you go. Draw the conclusions again.  Connect the dots however you wish.  I love it. Well, thank you, Nancy. This has been fabulous. Thank you so much for being with us today. Yeah, thank you so much. And in April, both this was just a blast. I loved being here with you. Thank you.  And for all of our listeners, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put into practice, even if that’s just going to get a glass of mull back from either a hot or a cold region.

 

57:45

And remember, Strategic Counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further?  Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com.  We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business  and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform!