Chris Moore – Sailors Grave Brewing – Saving a dying timber town, one beer at a time

Transcript

Welcome to the #CriticalFewActions™ to improve your business podcast. I’m John Downes and I’m here to help you cut through the overwhelm and prioritize what matters most to improve your business. Let’s get started and discover the #CriticalFewActions™ that have the biggest impact.

Chris Moore began Sailor’s Grave with his wife Gabby back in 2016 to revitalise a rural, former logging township and make it a place that their kids might want to stay in when they grow up, rather than leave like everybody else.

Starting with a background in landscape gardening and restaurant management, this just made total sense. Chris, welcome. Thank you, John.

So Chris, what inspired you to get into brewing beer in Marlow?

At the time previous to this, both Gab and I, my wife and business partner, were landscape architects working in Sydney. We opened a restaurant and bar in Darlinghurst and ran it for four years. We had no family up there. We had one child. And wanted to get back to Gab’s family farm and the community around here.

And start a business here. Beer was an interest. We had talked about, starting a gelato factory in Bali. thank God that one didn’t eventuate, but yeah, always passionate about beer. But the priority more was the place where we were going than the product itself.

So, that beer’s turned out to be fantastic. I’m passionate about it. I think about it 24 7. It’s a creative pursuit. It’s a community pursuit. It’s a business as well, with a lot in common with a lot of other businesses, but I wouldn’t choose to switch to another business. I love beer.

And were you a passionate home brewer that decided to go upscale or just a drinker

I was a home brewer. A beer drinker, definitely. And a home brewer. There was a point when we made the transition where Gab and I said, should we do some sort of formal training or should we go on a three month, research trip to the U. S.? We chose the latter and, there’s pros and cons to both approaches.

With brewing, there’s a lot of science, but the science is easily picked up. What I gained from that research trip, just meeting brewer after brewer, was that there were certain fundamentals, of course, but everybody was doing it in a slightly different way in both the creative and business way.

And it gave me and gab the freedom to go, you know what when we get back, we can do it our way. That was much more valuable than probably going and learning one way. Of course, there was a steeper learning curve doing it that way. But in the long run, it was the correct decision.

And so what were the key things that you learned out of the U. S. trip and did you just, ring up a bunch of brewers and say, Hey, we’re coming over. We don’t know about, running a brewery. Would you mind giving us an hour and telling us everything we need to knowYeah, exactly. I just cold, cold, a bunch of people. I had no contacts at that point. Everybody was accommodating. A couple of people weren’t that friendly, but I had the Australian passport to access. It was something about being an Australian brewer and I always title my emails, Australian brewer that people just wanted to respond to.

Everybody was very giving. You know, I met tiny little breweries that had, You know, workforce equity in their businesses. I met big breweries that had just sold part of their company to large conglomerates. I met people focusing on numerous styles of beer, with different technical approaches.

People who are embedded in their community and activated small towns, which is really big in the U. S. As well as people who were concentrating on distribution and, volume growth. There was a playbook of paths to choose from which was really, really exciting.

It just gave us that freedom to choose how we wanted it to look.

So tell me, how does your business model work?

Yep. Because we’re in a small town and even though we had a goal to make, our region, which is pretty big, Gippsland is huge. We always had a goal for that to be our strongest suite, but we knew given the conservative nature of where we live and the lack of disposable income in the area that if we started as a brew pub and tried to grow outwards from here, we knew we would go broke.

We would just fall over. So our business model was always to go geographically, we went to Melbourne and Sydney straight away we started to export a bit after that. But that enabled us to really build a brand and to kind of work backwards In the market through Gippsland back to the source, which is the opposite of a lot of approaches, but it’s great.

it’s made our brand really strong and resilient. And we’ve now grown in Gippsland to the point where it’s a massive part of our market. And that’s for us. That’s a long term strength. Being remote from your market, like export or Melbourne or Sydney is great. It’s really dynamic, but there’s risks in that.

So long term having that Gippsland strength is really important to us.

And so when you got started, what sort of volumes were you doing and how much of that was going to Melbourne and Sydney?

When we started, we had a business plan, which we did before we started, which had a very neat allocation of this number of core range units to Melbourne and Sydney and this number of special releases, nothing played out like that. But like that business plan, when we started the volume was, pretty small under a hundred thousand liters a year, probably more like 50, 000 liters a year.

We’re now about 250, 000 liters a year, but we’re yeah, our difficulty now is, there’s seasonal variation in beer and our summer peak kind of determines the size of our market. Like this summer, we were running out of beer. We were disappointing customers. That’s bad. Whereas our winter we had capacity, but

it’s a problem to try and fill out that capacity with new customers or new states if you come to summer and you don’t have enough beer. We are making a move to a bigger capacity, facility. Right at the end of the peak is when we’re pushing go on market building, which is great as long as we’re up and running by next summer.

Otherwise we’ve shot ourselves in the foot, we really have to increase our market now. So that where it’s established and we’re not just sort of suddenly have this big capacity in no market and also to fill out winter, which we’ve always wanted to do, but being hamstrung, if you like, by that summer peak.

yeah.

And so what’s behind the name Sailor’s Grave?

It’s the name of a beach down where we live. The breweries in Orbost, we live in Marlow on a farm on the coast between Marlow and Cape Conran, a beautiful wilderness area down at Cape Conran is a beach called Sailor’s Grave. There are actually, some graves on the shore, but more importantly, just a very wild coast with a lot of shipwrecks. Gab’s family used to have, a kind of little shantytown of huts down there, they were all cleared out in the 80s, but Gab’s family had a place down there and had a lot of sentimental value to her, so it had to be the name.

It’s turned into a fantastic brand. What’s your why for the business? It’s about the place more than anything. We’ve been through this process and this discussion quite a few times. I actually struggled a lot with the why, because the why to me was so, broad in a lot of ways that it had so many touchstones, but it really comes down to the place and building up a place

to the point where my children will want to live here. Of course, I want our children to go away and discover the world, but a place they’d want to come back to and be enterprising. Our why is about this place, building this place. And it doesn’t have to be beer, but happen to love beer.

It’s a door opener.

Yeah. And you mentioned that when you were traveling in the States, thatsome of the brewers you came across were about activating towns and so on. Can you tell me a bit more about that and what you learned about that?

I think it really struck home. There was a lot of breweries in small locations and they’re both a social hub and an economic stimulant to the area. It really struck home when we were trying to visit quite a famous brewery called Hill Farmstead in Vermont. We thought we were lost.

It was sleeting. It was horrible weather. We were driving on country roads thinking this can’t be right. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Then the car started banking up on the side of the road and we knew we were there the number plates on the cars were from all states of the U.S., from Canada. and they were flocking to this brewery because its brand was so strong. And we were like, wow. we knew in theory that breweries could be a center point for tourism and jobs and great for small towns. But seeing that really struck home where we were coming back to is isolated, we’re five hours from Melbourne, seven hours from Sydney. But it gave us the confidence to reframe that and say we’re in the middle of that pathway.

Right. We can be a destination, not immediately, and not on our own, but in conjunction again with other businesses, other, opportunities in our region. That collaborative approach to creating jobs for the local economy, creating visitation, creating the flow on effects of that, and also creating knowledge, skills, that it would change this place. We could play a part in changing and building this place.

When you think about that brewery you visited, what do you think was the catalyst or the cornerstone for it to actually activate the town? What, really drew people in? Was it a unique flavoured beer or was it an experience? What turned that into a destination?

Because that’s quite extraordinary.

Their beer was very well regarded and known in a wide geographic, spread and along with their beer, the brand, the story of where they came from was known and that kind of package of good beer, wide reach, and good story, drew people in. Right. But I’ll tell you, they must also be offering quite an experience. Is that because it’s like a brewer’s door experience or is it a restaurant resort experience?

No, I mean it was quite primitive in a lot of ways since that was before 2016 before we started since then they’ve expanded to a much flashier big location as I guess we are trying to do as well. The location is a destination but there were people queuing to get the beer in just a pretty basic tap room. I can’t even remember if they offered food but it was unique.

It was in an isolated part of Vermont, quite beautiful, even in the sleet. I think the isolation and the distance drew people as well as the story. That’s enabled them to expand and build a beautiful style, destination now with a lot more of an offering, but they didn’t have it at the beginning.

So what’s unique about Sailor’s Grave?

We are definitely unique. We take a different creative approach to making beer. We tend to use a lot of local ingredients and strange ingredients. Like a bit of a novelty sometimes at some of the beers we make. But we always are striving to make very subtle layered

drinkable, beers, even if there is seaweed in it or sea urchins or oysters or whatever’s going, we, ties into our story. If a neighbor has a glut of apricots, well, that’ll drive us to make a beer. If there’s a seafood festival in Malakuta and they’re talking about the problem of sea temperature rise and sea urchins becoming a pest, a weed.

That’s a drive to make a beer. The motivation is not, oh, let’s come up with a wacky beer. It’s, we know these people and we know this local ingredient. How does that make a beer? So there’s always a really big story behind every beer. Our branding is unique.

We are constantly told that, even though, our labels are quite all over the place. People always tell us, you can always spot your beers in a fridge. You stand out. You don’t follow the standard graphic language that is used in beer.

And the styles we don’t follow the kind of standard approach to beer. High alcohol, lots of pops is very common. We’ve always sort of marched to the beat of our own drum and been driven by our food background. You see beer as a kind of sustenance. It’s not wine. It is more closely related to food in a lot of ways.

We treat beer like creating a good meal. It should have sustenance, be refreshing, be subtle, be layered, be interesting. Yeah, I think our creative approach and our brand approach does stand out. And it has been an advantage and a disadvantage being very remote because there is more opportunity to create story.

Because we have all these natural resources. We’re not in a city, getting a supplier to send in a certain ingredient. We’re discovering that and communicating to a really wide audience what is going on in this tiny town. You know, we only had a cellar door ourselves. We only opened one a year ago.

Before that, I think we were invited to speak at a tourism conference which was strange because we weren’t a destination, but we were an informal advocate for our region by talking all the time in our product about where we come from.

When you talk about the opportunistic, concerted innovation that you put into making your beers. Why are customers buying from you? What makes Sailor’s Grave special in that regard? Is that why people are buying from you?

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Yes, partly. I mean, it’s interesting if you look at the numbers, and I think we did it during our time together, Integrity. and purpose, they’re on the list of what makes people make a decision. People will make a lot of decisions based on price.

You know, you can’t ignore that and we have to factor that into our model but in that middle ground of price, you can’t undervalue or overvalue your product. But It feels like our particular market, our audience, and I’m not talking about bottle shops and distributors, but the end drinker really resonate with our story and honestyand the integrity of the product. Again, sometimes it’s not about the product.

It’s about people wanting to align themselves with values that they have, that they share with you. And I think that has helped us in longevity. There’s a lot of trends in beer, and I think they can be great for big spurts of activity for a new brewery, but for longevity, you need to establish your values and find people that align with those values in the market. So just picking up what we’ve talked about, it sounds like you’re constantly innovating the brews that you make. Which is not typical for most medium to large scale brewers. They have two or three lines. They push them out. You can rely on them to taste pretty much the same season in, season out, year in, year out.

And that provides a sort of a continuity of their product base. What’s your product strategy and how does that work?

This is a really interesting point and it’s changed for everyone over the last few years, the COVID period was not bad for breweries in general. It was bad for a lot of breweries that were relying on large volumes of keg sales because kegs go to venues and venues were shut, but packaged beer boomed during COVID because people were stuck at home.

yeah,

And the interest in variation, not just consistency, really boomed. There was a boom in the craft beer world in general, in limited releases, there was a phrase unlimited limiteds that has recently been talked about. A lot of people were doing the same trendy beers as certain styles of beer, which are trendy at any time.

They were doing lots of versions of that without any real innovation in their products. Everybody kind of adapted to producing lots of different things. There’s a kind of, we’re all feeling our way, I have to say, cause the patterns are all very different, even post COVID Now there’s still that interest in something different. But people are also kind of looking for reassurance and something they know. So. Yeah, it’s nuance. There’s not one single approach. It comes back to that integrity point If you’re innovating and there is a real story behind it, not just the marketing story then you’ll always find a market for that.

People want both. They want, to know what you’re doing will be something familiar but they also want something new. They want to discover something. So I remember when we were together, having, dinner at a beautiful, floating restaurant in Lakes Entrance, Sodafish. And I remember, having dinner there one night and the Sailor’s Grave that was being recommended with the entree had seaweed in it.

And then a couple of months later, it did actually have the sea urchin. So I’m glad that you brought both those up. But it’s made me sort of wonder, okay, so do you have a core range and then an innovation range or a seasonal range And how do you balance those two?

Yep. We’ve got a core range and a seasonal range and they kind of perform different functions. The seasonal range definitely keeps people interested and brings us new customers. The core rangehas always been important. We have four core range beers from a very simple draft lager to a very drinkable session IPA, quite boring, but really drinkable.

That’s important to have in your core range. The other two in the core range are interesting. A sort of mid strength lemon meringue cream sour it’s called. Lots of fresh lemon and, lactose and lemon juice again, very drinkable, but not as boring.

Lemon meringue cream. I never thought I’d hear those three relating to a beer, but yep.

And the gozer, the down she goes, is a seaweed beer. And again, it’s core range because as far as drinkability goes, it’s extremely drinkable. The seaweed only comes through as a kind of oceany character, not at all strange. So, all the core range have to be really, really drinkable.

You want to have a few of them you could happily drink quite a few in a row. The core range has been really important in the Gippsland market as well. Whereas the city markets can be quite fickle. So you’re constantly rotating. You might have a great relationship with a pub, but you’re constantly relating different special releases through a tap position. In the Gippsland market, we wanted more permanent lines in taps and that’s both for volume and sort of brand strength.

So that they’re both essential. There’s probably less margin in the core range, but with volume comes reliable profit.

And you’re selling much in keg by comparison to can.

Yeah. And again, that’s changed. Of course, during COVID, there was no kegs at all. There were breweries scrambling, trying to package their kegs that they had made, package them into, cans or bottles so I didn’t have to throw it out. And post COVID our patterns are completely different from pre COVID.

We, kept running out of kegs and having leftover package. It’s like we had to change our ratios. And we’re still feeling our way that that might change again. You know, there’s that kind of post COVID, people wanting to go out. But it’s more expensive to go out and drink than it is to buy

package products. My hunch is that will even back out again, you have to be nimble and quickly adapt the ratio. We used to do one third kegs, two thirds package. Now more than half is kegs. But that allows us to make sure we, you know, you run out quickly of any package release.

You don’t want anything sitting around. You have to be adaptable they are interesting times at the moment.

Yeah. Thinking about, kicking off in 2016 with fantastic ambitions and a really worthy goal of helping to activate a brewery. Over the last six years, what have been the major roadblocks along the way and how do you overcome them?

Organizational structure, the chaos of a small business. Not capitalizing on opportunities, I think that was a major problems. We’ve been working a lot in the last year to invest in structure.

I think we never had a problem with generating interest. We were able to build organically and afford to buy more tanks and grow new markets, but we had a problem with structure. We just weren’t organized enough. We didn’t pay attention to staff, to opportunities.

That is so important, even in a small scale. If you don’t start to build that in at a small scale you’ll hit some problems.

Do you want to give me some specific examples of the sorts of things that you stumbled on?

So in a brand sense, we were constantly releasing new beers and sometimes we’d notice that beer had been made and sold out. And we never even promoted it on social media or done a launch. We were wasting all this grand capital because we didn’t have a calendar about how to structure when you would release something, how you would release something, who you would collaborate with.

We do it all very ad hoc and, on the fly, I guess. As far as human resources, we just worked our ass off as you do at the beginning of a business things that suffered weren’t the beer, but, our organizational structure of who was doing what when. As you grow staff that has an impact, people need to feel that they are appreciated and enabled to do their best.

People want to do their best most of the time, but they need you as a business owner to enable them through. The simplest most boring things, weekly meetings, targets, reviews. We engaged a work culture consultant, about eight months ago and she has been fantastic for everything from prioritizing who does what to communication structures,

pathways for staff through the business, codes of conduct, standard operating procedures. It’s all sounds really boring, but it is so enabling to a business when you start to get those in place.

They’re so enabling. They let you plan. They let you, have the time to capitalize on opportunities. Not like have someone contact you about, some potential project and you missing the email. And I’m still missing emails.You’re not just having things slide by, you’re working so hard and creating such a certain amount of traction and not capitalizing on that’s a waste of energy, time and money.

And whilst entrepreneurs, thrive on the chaos theory for at least the first three to five years, we can’t expect employees to A, be mind readers, but B, also be happy to live in a completely unstructured environment, which is a start up anyway, unless they feel that they’re deeply connected with it

in some way, that’s beyond just an employment contract.

Especially out here where it’s hard to find people,

There’s a shortage of staff, it’s easy to attract them when they get lost. Because they’ll just go somewhere else. You’re now about to go through a significant expansion process. What does that look like and what are the roadblocks you’re coming across there?

What have been, your challenges?

It’s been going on for a few years now. We received a large government grant through regional development, Victoria, back just before the bushfires and COVID. So that’s going back, you know, it’s 2009. We got that grant and the, scheduled to build a new facility and hospitality destination.

On the farm in Marlow, where we live, has been massively delayed, we went through COVID supply chain issues, bureaucratic delays, you name it. It’s been massively delayed, it’s gone massively over budget. We have to borrow an enormous amount of money from the bank

to complete the project now. 3. 2 million, which is a lot of money for a little business. We’re not the size of business that would normally borrow that much money to be honest. But our eye is still on the final point, sometimes it seems a little bit overwhelming what we’re moving towards, but really we’re opening up opportunities for all the things we believe in, as far as employing people in the region. Growing, collaborating with people, value adding in a facility where we can brew other people’s beer. We can help other breweries get off the ground. We can brew other products. We will be able to malt grain. So we’ll be able to use local farmer’s grain in our beer, which, you know, there’s all these beautiful kind of circular economy elements to it, which we’ve been dreaming of and will be possible. It is a really difficult journey to get to that point.

So many unforeseen costs. But when it’s built, it will be amazing. Mm

We’ve only just cleared because it’s a greenfield site, it’s a paddock on a farm. We’ve just cleared our EPA requirements, so we can start building now.

But again, when you’re for anyone applying for a grant, there’s a funny thing about grants in that they often have very short windows of application. It’s a process to wean out those who aren’t ready to jump on a project in that lead up to applying for a grant, you’re ringing everyone.

You can think of saying, give me a quote for this. Give me a quote for that. Add 20 percent to try and get a budget. That’s a very rushed process. So when you finally have to put a budget together, you realize there’s a ton of stuff you haven’t seen, and wastewater was one of them.

That’s, something like 250, 000. For treating and reusing our wastewater things like cultural heritage assessment an archaeological dig on the site because we’re close to the coast to make sure there’s nothing significant there. That’s 100, 000, internal fire services, so hose reels and things like that.

150, 000. None of that was in the budget. So for anyone thinking of applying for a grant, really know what you want to do and what it’s going to cost before you get into it.

Yeah.

yeah.

And then there’s the unforeseen, which would be two and a half years of covid and a supply chain shortage across the world, let alone within Australia. An exacerbation of the labor shortage in Australia as well, or particularly in regional anywhere. Yes. I can see that definitely having a big impact on build costs and construction costs.

I’ve way exceeded the plan.

And how have your suppliers, customers, and consumers, supported you in this? Or are they even aware of it?

People are aware of it. Especially in the local community. There’s a lot of people really excited about it. I think it’s an interesting issue because a lot of people will say from a distance Oh, you’ve got a grant, and you don’t need any support. The grant was for something bigger than us, that benefits our region and grant bodies.

There’s a lot of support, but there’s a lot of people who probably don’t see that to be honest, but customers have all been great. I think it’s another piece in the story that helps talk about where we are and what we’re doing. I’ve been supportive.

Something that occasionally comes up whether it’s metropolitan or regional is the issue of both Tall Poppy Syndrome, as well as Nimby not in my backyard, what have you found with regard to the establishing of what’s now a major business in that part of the region of Gippsland and also the support that you’ve had.

Yep, that is definitely a factor out here. There’s a tall, poppy syndrome, not in my backyard syndrome, but you have to put it in perspective. Those negative voices can be pretty loud and can wear you down, but there’s also many positive voices. The way to work through it is to find the people who are positive, who want the same things as you do.

And there’s a lot of them. You can get worn down if you just listen to those negative voices, they’re not going anywhere. You’ve got to understand where it’s coming from as well. Especially in a kind of remote regional area, there’s a lack of self belief and almost a feeling that anything that will improve the place is going to fail.

People are almost trying to avoid disappointment in a lot of their ways of thinking. They’re waiting for things to fail and jumping on negative things because they want to be realistic. They want to be pragmatic country people. They don’t want to be victims.

I do understand some of those motivations or those Reasons. and it’s just all.

Somewhat Self protective.

It’s self protective.

That’s really interesting.

Yeah. And going back to that point where we knew if we started a brew pub and tried to expand outwards, the uptake would be too slow and we would have failed. Again, those attitudes do change with incremental successes that help build a positive local identity.

You’ll never convince everybody. But the tide does change as you show that your intentions are good and that you’re doing some benefit. So, be prepared to win hearts one at a time.

What’s sustained you over this journey so far?

Both Gab and I find the entrepreneurial and creative sides of business really exciting. It’s often down to people. Business is about people and connections more than anything else, I think. The people we collaborate with, the community we engage with, all those connections which kind of help build your business are exciting.

You get this feeling of, you know, we have this network of like minded people across Gippsland who think in the same way we do, are invested in their region, are nimble and opportunistic to try and create things out of nothing often, that really sustains us, those connections, those networks, and how they feed your entrepreneurial spirit. Yeah.

So tell me, Chris, if you could go back in time and advise your younger self when you were starting Sailor’s Grave, what advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now?

Be wary of applying for grants.

Yeah, that sort of stress aside, I definitely wouldn’t change anything. There’s been periods in the last 15 years where I haven’t had a business. Life is exciting when you have a business Don’t be afraid, put things into perspective. Don’t be afraid of thinking big,

So Chris, you’ve talked about, raising a significant amount of debt for a business of your size. How have you gone about that and what have you learned?

Yeah, and this is an area where I’m so uncertain, John, about the right way of doing things. debt is scary, but I guess we have always sort of followed a kind of a pig headed approach. Which is not necessarily the right approach, to running a business in that we have a very nuanced model we feel and that bringing in partners, investors,would be very difficult if we, found the right person who completely shared our vision and got the business and wanting to invest, we would get them in a flash.

But that’s easier said than done. A lot of people have access to capital and want to invest in businesses coming at it from a very different angle. They’re coming at it with an exit strategy and returns and goals in that sense, which are not always going to be aligned with what our vision is, that place centered vision, they don’t often don’t care about the place you’re from.

So I’m sure there is that person out there. And if they came along, we would definitely jump at that someone who helped us grow and believed in the same things we believed in. It would be so valuable and add so many resources to the business, but we haven’t found that person. Reluctant to look to be honest, which is stupid.

So we’ve taken a purely debt approach.It’s very easy to fund new equipment, it’s an easy path to raising money. But where we are at the moment where we need an enormous amount of money to complete a project with a big vision, that’s hard. Banks are quite nervous about that and it’s a chicken and egg thing. I think I might have discussed, we’re at the point where we don’t have any more capacity to produce beer, but really grow our market too quickly, or we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot, but that is planned into our, opening of the new place with a much larger capacity.

Communicating that vision amongst ourselves and it’s easy, but communicating that to a bank is It’s actually quite hard. I want to say,that market grown already, if you like, so that they have confidence you’ll be able to pay your debt back. But I wouldn’t be afraid.

I’m not afraid of debt. That’s that probably stupid entrepreneurial optimism. I have no doubt that we’ll be able to grow with what it pays for. But it’s not the easiest path to raising money.

And so what have you learned about, dealing with the banks in that regard then? I’ve learned that there are two sides to a bank. There are basically, if you’re cynical, you would call them salesmen, the bankers you deal with who share your vision, are excited about what you do, are sold on your story. And then, there are the people who look at risk, who ultimately are the gatekeepers to the cash and you can get a kind of a clash between the two and a lot of times, you need those people within a bank on your side because they’re going to help negotiate for you with the kind of faceless gatekeepers behind the scenes.

But really need to know your numbers and your weaknesses and your strengths and your assumptions. And you need to be able to communicate them clearly to a bank.

Fantastic. And if a CEO is looking to improve their organization from your 15 plus years of running businesses and business learning, what #CriticalFewActions™ should they start doing tomorrow if they did nothing else?

Well, there’s a few, one is the money. Take time to look at your numbers, and how they work. You can get carried away with the flow of business. Bringing money in, looking at certain elements of your, profit and loss or your balance sheet and taking time to regularly dig down into those numbers is so important.

You identify key points in your profit and loss that are vulnerable or powerful, and it helps you work out where to concentrate your efforts because you don’t have unlimited time and resources. Working out what is most valuable to your business for its cashflow, growth, everything, is really worth taking that time to regularly interrogate.

Why is that number like that? What’s driving that? Why is that thing I thought was so important to the business doesn’t actually generate that much money or but it takes a lot of time. All those little things are important because they’re all, it’ll give you a vision for how you should behave in the future.

That’s a critical action. The other is invest time in your structures, especially in the structuring of your human resources. Value them. Without them, you’re stuffed. You want people who share your vision, are in it for the long haul, and are trying to make your business succeed as much as you are.

Investing in structure around human beings, is another critical action. Taking time to look at your own happiness, is really important what are you getting out of it? What should you change or not change? I mean, without your human resources that would collapse.

So are you feeling rewarded? Is this about money? Is this about lifestyle? Work out what it is that’s driving you. And if those drives are being met. I mean, planning is a good one, that comes back to that first point. If you are focusing on the details

of structure, details of numbers. It helps you plan. It helps you realize what your urgent actions are. A good example of that, we look at our our profit and loss and we realize margin is so important. In this last year with operating costs, basically going up an enormous amount. And we did budget for that. We look at the budgeted figures for operating costs and thought they were generous. And they’ve actually, we’ve met, they’ve gone up to our generous allocation. But it puts a lot of pressure on your margins, for us, that means where we’re concentrating a lot of efforts in opening up a couple of little bars in the region.

They’re high margin businesses, and they don’t really affect our operating costs that much, freight, yes, but not in a big way and they massively give us a buffer and an increase in our below the line figures so we know we have to target that, like growing volume and, sort of your gross profit percentages is one thing, but getting some high margin stuff and how to do it, you know, it’s just through focusing on the numbers that we can see that pathway. Absolutely crucial.

So where do you want to be in the next five years, Chris?

Well we want our farm brewery to be that place that we saw in Vermont. We want to be a destination and a sort of community center as wellthat benefits people. We want to feel proud. We want to see ourselves as an essential part of a region that has is growing and hopefully has grown by then.

Fantastic. Well, with the drive determination that you’ve demonstrated over the last six years to get to where you are now with a set of products that are recognized and welcomed nationally and exported. I’ve got no doubt that that’s absolutely achievable. You two have driven and created something quite extraordinary already and have got the most amazing purpose behind it.

So I wish you very well with that. Chris, thank you so much for your time and for sharing, as openly as you have today. I really appreciate it.

No worries, John. Thanks so much for the chat.

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Transcript F Chris Moore – The Story Behind Sailor’s Grave Brewery.txt

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