Business Blasphemy

EP89: Daring to Stand Out By Creating Your Own Niche with Renee Ventrice

• Sarah Khan • Season 3 • Episode 89

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Renee Ventrice is on a bold mission to shake up the business landscape, pairing her entrepreneurial instincts with an unexpected passion for wine. Join us as Renee recounts her journey from a teenage lip-syncing artist to a savvy entrepreneur who seamlessly blends business strategy with wine expertise. Her creative approach challenges conventional norms and invites us to explore how unexpected connections can create unique niches in the business world.

Wine is not just a beverage—it's an experience, a connector, a passion. Renee shares how curiosity and small steps can lead to transformative experiences. From sensory memories evoked by wine tastings to the craft of wine networking, this episode is a celebration of following one's instincts and embracing passions. Renee also gives us a glimpse into her innovative wine tours and education models, inspiring listeners to trust their gut and explore their unique paths with courage and creativity.

Guest Bio:

Renee Ventrice is a Pairing Professional: by day, she pairs businesses with clients and collaborators. By night, she pairs wine with life and local cuisine. A self-proclaimed "unemployable entrepreneur", Renee has a knack for reaching beyond the low hanging fruit so her clients showcase their badassery in front of a curated audience. She is also a certified wine educator who goes beyond the glass to experience wine, not just drink it!

Connect with Renee:

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello blasphemers, welcome back. I'm actually I've been looking forward to this for the last couple of weeks because I have today, renee Ventris with me.

Speaker 1:

Now Renee and I met for the first time in person at the mastermind the un-mastermind, I should say that I attended in I think it was July of this year in Orlando. It doesn't happen often that I meet somebody and I'm like, immediately this person is like my sister from another mister, but that happened with Renee and we are both a hashtag team, crybaby, right. So we just everything just kind of. It felt so wonderful to be in her energy and I was really excited when she was like I want to be on your podcast. I'm like, yes, please.

Speaker 1:

So let me introduce her very quickly before we move on, because this is going to be a delightfully different conversation, I have a feeling. So Renee is a pairing professional. By day she pairs businesses with clients and collaborators, and by night she pairs wine with local cuisine. She's an unemployable entrepreneur I love that with a knack for reaching beyond the low-hanging fruit, so her clients showcase their badassery in front of a curated audience. She's also a certified wine educator and she goes beyond the glass to experience the wine, not just drink it. Welcome, my friend.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much, Sarah. That was a great intro. You should follow me everywhere. I wouldn't make you carry an umbrella, like whoever that dude is carrying Diddy's bag. You would actually like to walk quite beside me and you could be my bodyguard. You could breathe fire on people who piss me off.

Speaker 1:

So I think there's a side gig for you in that I should rent out my time as like hype woman for hire right Just everywhere I go. So I've always I used to joke that what I wanted to do was like, when I got enough money, was I want enough money to have doves fly every time I enter a room and maybe I could just be like the proverbial dove for people Like I will come and be like behold, renee is about to enter into the space.

Speaker 2:

Hear ye, hear, ye, I can see that. That's funny. It's funny you say that about doves because I'm a massive Frasier fanatic. I watch all 10 seasons every year and I just finished watching the one where he's trying to take over running Daphne's wedding. Oh yes, and he talks about having doves released over the wedding, and the only thing I could think of was what a stupid idea. Those birds are going to shit all over everybody in the audience. But if we did have doves releasing whenever you walked into a room, you would train them to like target bad energy and just shit on bad people that are in whatever room you walked into. They'd be like your disqualifiers.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a great idea and I mean maybe there's a business in there, for I mean, hey, entrepreneurs can come up with anything, right. So this is a fantastic segue, though, because you have just the most unique perspectives and ideas on things, and when I met you, I remember thinking wait a minute, what does she does wine, wait a second. But as I got to know what you did, I'm like this is fucking brilliant.

Speaker 1:

So tell me a little bit about your villain origin story, because it's like how did you come to entrepreneurship and why wine?

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay. Well, so the entrepreneurship thing, it wasn't anything that I had to come to because it's always been in me. I didn't even think about it until recently that, as early as you know, 16 years old, when I used to love going to this nightclub, this dance club, I had a massive crush on a guy named Bernie. It was a Jewish last name. Let's just say Moskowitz, because nobody can prove me wrong. So I had a big crush on this dude, bernie, because he looked like Prince on the cover of the not under the cheering moon, the album with Kiss on it, where it's black and white. So he looked like Prince in that phase of his royal purpleness. So I had a massive crush on him.

Speaker 2:

And there were these 18 and up bars that I could borrow my sister's ID to get into. And one of them was saying wow, you know, he dances so much like Prince. So I was like, oh yeah, I could be his cat, right. And so then somehow that got back to him that I'd said that about being his cat, and he's like do you really want to be my cat? And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. And he's like well, I'm dancing at this bar. You know, I need someone to be cat during Alphabet Street, and so, like it was like a karaoke type of a performance thing, and so I got paid twenty five dollars to lip sync, you know, alphabet Street as cat and all this kind of stuff, and it was like it was like I took it up to that next level for him. Like, well, you know, instead of us just doing this, what if we like dress, like let's coordinate how we're dressing and then put this little show on? It's $25, which was really good money back in 1986.

Speaker 1:

It was. You could fill your entire car with gas for $25 and have money left over for chips.

Speaker 2:

That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. And so when I was trying to look back at the very first time that I felt, you know that whole entrepreneurial thing. That story kind of comes to mind. So I've definitely worked my way out of being employable and into entrepreneurship, because everywhere I went and actually had a job, one of my superpowers was finding what was wrong, right, what was missing to make me able to do my job better, where that could fit. And then I would tell my boss I'm like, hey, this is what we're not doing, this is what needs to be done to make my job better, this is how we're being wasteful without it. So you know, and I'll do it. You just pay me more and I'll make it happen.

Speaker 2:

What always ended up happening was they would love the idea hire someone cheaper than me to do what I said needed to be done and then ask me to train that new person and stay where the fuck I was. And so I just kept on saying no, thank you, and I would just peace right out. I was like, yeah, I was like Don, I got to leave. He's like what'd they do now? And I'm like, well, what happened was? He's like, yeah, fuck them, they don't deserve you Right. So my husband has always been, you know, a little bit, a little bit uh like worried about you know me, because I think so differently. He's very, you know, type a. You know you get a job, you work the job, you retire from the job, you take your retirement pension and you, you know, sit in a chair watching Archie Bunker reruns until you die. So that's how. So entrepreneurship, just it's just always been inside of me and it took a few different experiences of working for others and getting completely boned I mean like railed, like a hooker at Mardi Gras just completely fucked over again and again before I finally ended up just working for myself.

Speaker 2:

And the final straw was a company that I had worked for. I built the division of their company into being worth over $2 million from zero, and so it made the company franchisable, and so I started. I helped to take them through franchising and there was equity that was supposed to be coming my way that they decided not to follow up on and became a very, very toxic environment. And at that point I was going to go look for another job. But everybody was like, well, renee, what about your side gig? Why don't you do your tour company full-time. And I'm like, well, I, what about your side gig? Why don't you do your tour company full-time? And I'm like, well, I got a whole lot of money to make up. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make that kind of money. And my husband he had said, look, you know, we can go a few months, we can go like six months with you, you know, giving this a try for the tour company. If it works, then it's great, and if not, you know, five minutes in start looking for another gig. And I was like, all right. So that was in October of 2019. November of 2019, I almost doubled our revenue and December of 2019, my husband's like, oh, this is your new job, let's just go ahead and call it that. You belong running your own company and we're betting on you, babe, let's go.

Speaker 2:

So that's how entrepreneurship came about for me Started running my own company, doing it really really well, figuring out systems. Business development is just inside of me. I was even just talking to my coach well, our coach Chanel yesterday about how sometimes these ideas that come to me that end up working so well either for me and or my clients I don't know where they come from. I don't know why I know some of these things. I didn't go to college. I tried to clep an entire associate's degree and outside of one math class and one science class I did, and so I never I never even finished that, even though I had GI bill money, since I'm a Navy vet. So, yeah, so I'm just not really much of a conformist. I've started to really accept the fact that I'm not ever going to think like other people, that I'm not ever going to think like other people, I'm not ever going to be satisfied doing things their way, and so I just gotta put on my break shit, my shit kickers and kick some shit, you know.

Speaker 1:

You like. Honestly, this is like you have the absolute ethos of a thought leader right, not-conformist, and all of that, but being able to see things differently. And it's interesting like talking about the degrees because, like as someone who grew up in a family where it was like degrees are the pathway to success. You have to get your degree before you do anything that you enjoy, because you need a fallback position and blah, blah, blah. When I became an entrepreneur, I got every certification in the book.

Speaker 1:

I would love to hear your perspective, because one of the things you shared with me when we were talking about coming on the show let me find it, because it was so brilliant the way you said it you can be a black woman in wine and outtaste the masters in wine without jumping through every traditional certifying hoop. Now, I know you were talking specifically about wine, but there's so much more to that just in your own story an expert in something, because I think that's something that holds a lot of people back, and one of the things I'm constantly bitching about with everybody, because I've been down this road, is stop seeking the certifications and just do the fucking thing.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, I think there is value for certain people in college. There are certain people really thrive if the kind of industry that they want to be in does require that higher learning or you know those credentials, I get it for them.

Speaker 1:

Like I want my doctor to have a certification, please yeah.

Speaker 2:

I would. I don't even care if it's, you know, university of Las Vegas, you know whatever, I don't care where it's from. You know, finish something that you started, get all of those things right. There are definitely degreed professions out there that are extremely important, but you know, we live in Loudoun County, virginia, just outside of Washington DC, and the expectation isn't you know, are you going to go to college? It's, which college are you going to? They don't ask what is it you're going to study? What is it you want to be to? They don't ask what is it you're going to study? What is it you want to be? What is it you want to do? It's well, what school are you going to?

Speaker 2:

And my husband and I neither one of us have degrees, but we both have the life experience, the military experience, all these other things that really make us so well-rounded and sought after once people find out about us. But our son, he grew up here and so we kind of could tell that college really wasn't going to be necessarily his thing, at least right away. So we're like dude, you know? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? He's like I just want to get out of here. I just want to go and have the college experience. So it was more about independence and freedom than it was education which his grades tended to prove than it was education which his grades tended to prove. He never got an academic probation right, but I'm sure he was skirting the line.

Speaker 2:

But what he told us in his junior year when he wanted to switch majors was I am not my best self here. He's like I don't know what it is. I keep trying. I keep telling myself, when I wake up, I'm going to go do X, y, z, and instead I just keep doing these things that just don't know what it is. I keep trying. I keep telling myself, when I wake up, I'm going to go do X, y, z, and instead I just keep doing these things that just don't. They're not what I really want to do, but it's kind of what's going on. And he just wasn't like striking out on his own and doing his own thing and he was starting to realize it, but he didn't want to let us down and we're like the only thing that would let us down would be if you did not have the self-awareness to switch this major to something that actually matters to you now Right, and to see the writing on the wall that this is not, this is not where you want to be.

Speaker 2:

Now, that said, he is still finishing that degree. He is bound to determine he's like I'm not going to get this far. He's like I don't know, got maybe two classes left to finish his bachelor's, but he's like I'm not going to come this far and not get it done. He's like it's not about you guys anymore, it's about me. And so what seeing the college experience in my son's eyes taught me is that you have to know yourself. You have to really start to recognize that trying to force that square peg in that round hole it's pointless and it doesn't matter. And so the fact that I was thinking, god, maybe I should go back and get my degree and so I'm looking up okay, I can do this oceanography course and then I can take it a math tutor and finish this math course just to get an associate's book Does that really mean anything? And I was like, yeah, what it means is you're a fucking idiot because you'll be wasting all this time and all this money when you are already a fully formed expert at being Renee. So when you know, you know and you have to stop fighting it once once, you once you do know it that that piece of paper for so many people is like the thing they stand on. Oh, yes, I went to hall, you know again, I'm watching Frazier over and over again. But what shows like that really prove is that it's a flex for a lot of people that don't even work in the field, that they spent $100,000 going into debt to have.

Speaker 2:

You know what I'm talking about. I do, yeah, so, yeah. So I mean, I don't disapprove of college, I disapprove of forcing yourself into college if it's really not what you want.

Speaker 2:

So many of my friends now have gotten hit with their younger kids and they're putting their kids into the community college, at least for their general studies. If the kid says, look, I really want to go, all right, we will pay for you to do this until you are 20 years old and have a clear picture of what you want to be, and then, if that is really a great fit, now we got your higher learning. But let's not waste your time, let's not waste your money or our money, whatever it is, especially if it's you're only doing it for the wrong reasons because everybody else is doing it. Look, I throw no shit at anybody who puts the time, money and effort into getting a degree, but if you did all that and then you still, you know, just work at a drive through because you're still finding yourself, maybe you should have done that shit when you were 19, instead of trying to pretend you were ready for a degree.

Speaker 1:

When you're 28. And like I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, right. But I think like the generations have really changed, right, the generation like when we were growing up it was it was all about go to school, get a job, get your gold, watch and retire. And it's so interesting now, like looking back at my own journey, because I was a professional student, like I got three fucking university degrees. What did you get your degree from, sarah, oh gosh.

Speaker 1:

So I got my English lit degree. I did psychology it was a double major English psychology. I did my teaching degree and then I did my master's of science in project management, which was like a work required thing. So I've got these degrees. I did teach for a little while but it was like years, like probably 10 or 12 years, before I found a teaching job. Like it was expected of me, right. And when you fall into that mentality, it's it's this idea of well, if I can't find a job, then I don't have enough credentials, like I need to be more credentialed to become more you know, and and that kind of kept me on this path of even as an entrepreneur, like I did a account before, before July, before we went on Mastermind and I have 20 certifications outside of my degrees 20.

Speaker 1:

None like very few of them are actually related to anything. I just thought well, if I have this, I'll be more employable. If I have this.

Speaker 2:

I'll be more and honestly, all these letters back here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's not enough letters to replace what actual experience will teach you in a lot of, particularly in entrepreneurship, even in the corporate space right, it's learning on the job and it's being able to. Corporate space right, it's learning on the job and it's being able to. I think what I'm learning thinking outside of the proverbial box, which sounds so freaking cliche, but it's true. And I think that when you're caught up in that traditional pathway, there's very little space to think outside the box. You're not really encouraged to do it or allowed to do it, and if you do it, you're considered a rebel, a maverick, a troublemaker and you feel like you have to earn your way out of that box versus you don't even belong in it to begin with.

Speaker 2:

Right, there's no box.

Speaker 1:

The box is, it's a, it's a construct, right, and I think even in entrepreneurship, you see so many people coming into it from, like, corporate spaces and traditional workspaces and they immediately go to something that other people are already doing, right, so they're still following a path. Yeah, and what I love about you is you've taken your love of wine and business and your creativity and you've created an entire niche, almost of your own, which is very unique. So tell me a little bit about, like, what you do and how you kind of came to discover that this was the thing.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I forgot that you had asked about wine. It's just another one of those things you know. The niche kind of found me again. I'm starting to recognize that. You know that karma and the universe and all the energies around me put these blessings and these opportunities in front of me or really help to reveal what I'm supposed to be doing and who I really am. And sometimes I ignore it because it seems either too obvious or too impossible. Right, I'm always operating in these extremes in my life. Like what do you mean? Become an expert? Wine experts are old white dudes with a lot of money in their pinkies out, you know, they're Frazier. Right, I was like no, that's not me, I just like wine. But there's no way that I'm, you know, an expert at any of this. I found out that I was. I had a palette, a talent for wine that you, you don't study, you can't. You can't get it out of a box. It's not on a piece of paper. Here's how. So we went to. Well, maybe I should have my very first experience knowing that wine was a living, breathing thing.

Speaker 2:

It was 1998. We were going to our anniversary dinner just after we had had our son, and we go to this seafood restaurant in Pensacola, florida, called the Fish House. I don't even know if it still exists, but my husband, we were both in the Navy, so that actually means we had no money. So that's what this means. When you say, yeah, we were both enlisted in the Navy, yeah, that means we made about you know, forty thousand dollars a year or something. I take it back. I was actually already out of the Navy, he was still in.

Speaker 2:

So we go and we go to this restaurant, we order our sushi and then he says to the waiter you know, oh, just bring us whatever you know wine you think will pair best with what we just ordered, cause we didn't know anything about wine yet. It's probably one of our first times really drinking it outside of being at a party picking up a red solo cup and being like, oh, this needs, this needs some Sprite, right? So, um, so we get. You know, he brings over this bottle of wine and he pours in or shows the label. So now we're feeling so fancy. This is my first time even having an experience of somebody pouring wine at a restaurant. I was 27 or 20. It just turned 28 when this happened. So he pours the wine.

Speaker 2:

We were eating our sushi and we taste the wine. We take another bite of the food and we taste the wine. And then we both looked at each other like did your wine taste different? And I was like, yeah, maybe it's bad, but what the fuck? What is that? What's going on? And we're both like it tastes nothing like it tasted before. So the waiter I don't know if he saw our faces like dogs, you know like heard a whistle, like you know. And he comes over and he's like hey, what's up? And we're like, yeah, the wine taste different after the food. And so he explained, basically, you know the science behind why that happens. And we were like that's so cool. Beer doesn't change when you take a sip, you know. So we were just like so now we're starting to try different types of wine, scraping together a few bucks to buy a $6 bottle, $8 bottle, whatever it was, you know.

Speaker 2:

Every now and then Fast forward to we get out of the military and we and my husband goes to a conference in San Francisco and he's like you know, wine country is right here. What if you come for a couple of days before my conference and we go to wine country, we can go with my boss and his wife, blah, blah, blah. And so we do that and we go to a winery and I'm swirling, I'm sniffing, and I take a sip, and the guy I was like this is going to sound weird, but when I drink this wine it brings back a memory of when I was like eight years old and my friends tried to teach me how to ride a bike and they put me at the top of the hill on our street and they said okay, renee, just put your feet on the pedals, and we let go of the bike. You just put on your feet as fast as you can and you'll stay upright. There's no way you can fall.

Speaker 2:

I was like okay, I'm eight, I'm stupid, I believe you Right. So they put me at the top of the hill, they push the bike and they're just, they're at the top of the hill, yelling, pedal, pedal, pedal. So I'm pedaling, pedaling, and now I'm I'm as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how to stop right, no one told me how to stop this fucking bike. And so I'm like getting closer and closer to the end of the hill and I'm like, well, I guess I'll just run into this car. I don't know if I actually thought that, but that's what happened. So I drove the bike into a car and I hit the ground and I'm screaming because it's you know, obviously I'm falling off this bike and it's summer.

Speaker 2:

And I hit the ground and I'm screaming because it's, you know, obviously I'm falling off this bike and it's summer, and I hit the ground and my mouth is open and I get all this tar and I get these like rocks that are kicked up by me into my mouth and I was like, and I was like that's what I taste in this wine.

Speaker 2:

I mean, there's also some peaches and maybe these little apricots, but there's definitely these hot rocks and like tar. And the dude just stares at me and then he opens his drawer and pulls out the tasting notes, and the tasting notes talk about how it is like hot slate and like minerality and these, you know, these things that are basically hot rocks in the tasting notes. He's like that's so weird that that, that you said that. So the guy next to me, you know, he's like can you come write the tasting notes for my bar, you know? And so it just kind of I started to realize everybody didn't taste these non-food things and wine, nor did everybody instantly like flash into some sort of a memory or like get transported to a place, and so that's what the niche is. That niche that I created. I pair wine with life and local cuisine and the incredible experiences beyond the bottle.

Speaker 1:

So it's really a visceral kind of experience, right it's all the things it includes.

Speaker 2:

You know the olfactory part of it because I'm smelling the wine. I don't just sniff it up with my nose, I actually breathe it deep in. You know the olfactory part of it because I'm smelling the wine. I don't just sniff it up with my nose, I actually breathe it deep in. You know, I was telling people on a virtual tasting I just did two nights ago. When you breathe in, you don't want to just breathe up here, you really want to breathe like use your whole body. You know, like with belly breathing I'm sure you know about that when you breathe all the way through, you get other sensations, and so doing that actually helps you to taste the wine before you even taste it, like you taste it through your nose, through smelling it. You know how your nose and throat are all so connected. You know. Well, wine is no different.

Speaker 2:

So I start doing this more and more, and the more wine I taste, the more I'm starting to realize there's more to this. You know, there's nothing like leaving a glass of wine on your bed night, on your nightstand overnight, because you fall asleep before you get a chance to drink it and you wake up the next day and you're like, technically I was just aerating it overnight. That bad boy up and you take another sip. You know I won't do that in the morning again. That's too much acid in the very first thing. But it changes. I mean, the air gives it other layers, it reveals other things and I guess on some level I know that I could go really deep and say I relate to being like a bottle of wine because blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I really do feel that way sometimes. But the bottom line was I wanted to get paid to get fucked up and eat great food for nothing.

Speaker 1:

I love the honesty.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic, in all seriousness. It was a very, very natural fit for me. I developed not just a taste for it but a love for that process. How did it go from becoming a grape to becoming wine, instead of a grape becoming grape juice? You know why? Is it just not fermented juice? That could just taste, you know, the same way, whatever. And so the more I learned about how different it was, it actually kind of helped me to embrace the fact that I think differently, instead of always fighting it and trying to fit into the box, fit into the cubicle, you know, do the things that I was supposed to be doing while I was in the military when I got out. You know all of that.

Speaker 1:

But I think this is a really great example of following what you know to be a natural talent, versus jumping onto a bandwagon or something that other people are doing that looks exciting or successful right, however, you want to define success but like you really took something that was a natural gift and natural talent and you went all in on it and like you've built something that's really unique and just super frigging interesting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you. I'm actually in the middle of putting together the book because I do. I pair well, I pair wine with life. In a way that means that I get people to think about not only where the wine transports them to, but what in this wine also has the characteristics of a person. So, for example, I was talking to this woman, I don't remember where. Oh, it was at a. It was at an event. It was at just a regular event and there was all this unfamiliar wine event. It was just a regular event and there was all this unfamiliar wine.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes I don't know what kind of vert you are when you go to a big party and instead of being in a corner as an introvert, like not talking to anybody, you know because you don't know them and you just your energy is being drained from you Not being that social butterfly extrovert that wants to go and talk to every single person in the room and get to know folks. And you know all that butterfly extrovert that wants to go and talk to every single person in the room and get to know folks and all that. I decided to make myself the wine person. Everybody thought it was my house because I was over there. I said you know what, erica? Go entertain everyone. I'm going to open wine and I'm going to see what people want to drink and I'm not going to let them pour this really good one in a red solo cup with Sprite. They can do that with this shit over here, right? So I just made that my job, and I don't know what that kind of word is. Maybe we need to make up a word for it but I was so, so happy to be in that position, because people are now being drawn to me. Why? Because I'm pouring the wine. They're telling me what they usually drink and so I'm picking out a wine for them and let's say this is why you might like this one. Take a splash first. If you like it, I'll pour you more, but I'm not going to pour you a whole glass just to see you pour it down the drain. We've got limited quantities here. People, you know.

Speaker 2:

So, as they're coming over and they're and they're figuring that out and they're like oh, you know so, is this your house? No, no, no. I was like but I'm, you know, this wine is really good, I love it. I was like yeah, you know, I pair a wine with life and experiences. You know I do wine events. If you're a wine lover, here's my QR code. Scan that and you can see what my wine events are. Right, I had that the whole time. I had my phone sitting open on the QR code. If somebody was interesting to me, I'd be like you should totally come to my events Scan right there. So now I am still networking. I'm not having these uncomfortable small talk conversations. What?

Speaker 1:

do, you do.

Speaker 2:

I'm going right into what it is that I'm interested in, what I'm doing, and I give them a quick and dirty, you know, on me while I'm pouring, but I really turn it back around to say, well, how does wine fit into your life, you know? And she's like, every time I open a bottle, you know, I put it in a glass and blah, blah, like it's. It's a good, jokey thing. Their shoulders are already down, and so getting them to talk about themselves, to figure out if there's somebody that I want to bring into, whether it's my personal world or my professional world, it just opens doors.

Speaker 2:

I had four emails the next day after this party from people who were like it was so great to meet you and I would really love to learn more about your wine. I just joined your VIP club and I'm like, yeah, you know, come to the event on October 9th. You know, happens to be my birthday and I'm doing a, you know, a big wine event that day. So so, yeah, so I've just I create my own space. I can't even be the verts that are, that are defined. I'm like you're a wine avert, I am a wine avert, right, exactly Well, and I.

Speaker 1:

What I, what I absolutely love about this and what I I'm hoping listeners are taking away from this, is we're in the business space. Marketing and networking and connection has to be this weird forced thing that has to follow certain rules and, like you know, you're going to have a coffee chat and you're going to say this is what I do and how can I support you. And it doesn't have to be that way because everybody's expecting a pitch. But when you are in your element and leaning into your gift and being able to just kind of, you know, go with the flow, and there's this innate confidence, I think and you demonstrate it so beautifully this innate confidence that comes from knowing I'm the shit at this, like this is my gig and you know what. I'm not even going to try and like make a sale. I'm doing the genuine connection piece. I'm interested in you, I'm interested in sharing my gift with you and I'm interested in sharing my gift with you and the connections and the sales just come so naturally from that.

Speaker 2:

It has been so cool. I connect, and it even goes beyond that. So you know, I'm also a community connection strategist. If I have to have a title so people can understand it, you know that's what the parent professional comes in. So what I do by day is connect people with their ideal clients, collaborators, you know, champions in the community.

Speaker 2:

And so when I was at the event and I met two people who were in the nonprofit space and so I was like, oh, I'm familiar with your nonprofit. I was like, who does your website? You know, sometimes I have a hard time kind of navigating it. Yeah, I know we need to really get a new one, but it's just something we haven't really gotten into. And I say, well, I know we need to really get a new one, but it's just something we haven't really gotten into. And I say, well, I know someone who makes the most badass websites, not just because they're functional, but she actually understands how to really make your brand like pop and shine, so that you're the one that they choose to get that money for all these charities. I mean, there's a thousand breast cancer charities in this town alone. How do they pick yours? It's a brand that stands out and makes them connect to it. If you want more information, I can. You know we can talk and I can introduce you to her right. Oh my God, yes, please. So sending Lisa you know Lisa Noble, one of our Savvy sisters Shout out to Lisa Noble and yeah, and sending these leads to her after.

Speaker 2:

I make sure that you know it's a nonprofit. That you know is like registered. They are, you know, getting, you know, donations. They are serious about what they're doing. They're not just trying to do it just because and they have no money they want everything for free 99, because we're a charity, like, okay, cry me a river. There are a million charities out there. I volunteer for them. So I know there is overhead for money. Otherwise, what's happened with that? That other 25% that is on charity navigator that you are not using for the actual leads is for the needs to make the charity. Make the other 75% Right. So I know that there's overhead for these. So, yeah, so it's also an opportunity for me to connect other people.

Speaker 2:

I'm sitting there pouring wine for this lady who says that she does, you know, permanent jewelry and I was like, oh, one of my clients. You know I do these pop-ups for her and we've been looking for someone to come in and do something like that. How long does it take to get one of those bracelets? Oh gosh, it can take as little as four minutes if the person sits still. You know, I'm like you are perfect for this. Hey, lisa, come meet this lady. She owns a business where she does pop-ups. She does things at pop-ups. Y'all talk. See you later, right? You know, here's your wine, we'll have a conversation.

Speaker 2:

So, like now I'm just sitting here and I'm just connecting people, networking through the wine, getting them through their glasses, especially if they're drinking like, opposite wines. I'm like she's Pinot Noir, she's a Chardonnay, you guys should get along great, hit it right, and so it's funny. And so now I've made this intro that is so low key and around the glass of wine, it just works. So yeah, so I am definitely leaning more into what I naturally do and actually using it in a way. I mean not just to look, not just to increase income, because, like, at the end of the day, I'm going to work, I'm going to do it for the money, but do something that I really enjoy for it.

Speaker 2:

It's it's, it's really it's making it so that I'm attracting the right people through that wine, even the non-drinkers. I'm attracting because guess what else is next to me? The ginger ale, the water, the sparkling. Attracting because guess what else is next to me? The ginger ale, the water, the sparkling. And I was like here's a hot tip Take this wine glass, put your sparkling water in it and let's put a dollop of club soda in it now. Or a dollop of cranberry juice in it Now. Everybody's going to think you're drinking some kind of wine. You can make up some kind of good story about your alcohol-free mocktail, so yeah, so getting them to feel comfortable. Like everybody here drinks wine and I have a wine allergy. So everybody always asks like, oh, aren't you going to have a glass of wine when I've got this water bottle? Okay, put your water in a fucking wine glass. You know, tell people it's what it is. Wine is just before Jesus touched it. There you go, there's a joke.

Speaker 1:

I have one final question for you, um, one small piece of advice that you would give to somebody who is starting to kind of really explore their niche and trying to figure out, you know, how they can make themselves stand out.

Speaker 2:

I think my best piece of advice would be relax. When I knew I was onto something with wine and we started the winery tour company within a year of getting that, you know, starting the business, I saw another empty hole right. That was the wine education piece within the transportation to the wineries. That's what we did. But the other winery, other wine tours we had weren't like giving like some of that education or making it fun or even pairing the people, the right people, with the right winery. So when I saw that hole, I was like how do I fill that hole?

Speaker 2:

I tried to just kind of come up with it off the cuff very quickly and the first couple of times that I was trying to do this, without really any like intention or thought, except for the little kernel of an idea, totally fucked it up, totally bombed at doing it, stumbled over my words, you know looked kind of like like I was making it up as I went because I was right and so it didn't come off great and I'm like all right, I know that I've got this, but I'm not doing this right. So I had to slow down and take a step back and see what the real fit was, not what, not what looked like the right fit that I yeah, I can do that. I can do that, right. So when I slowed down, I got the certification, I looked into what it was that really worked for me. Like what it was that felt good to me, instead of trying to suppress. This tastes like hot rocks in my mouth when I fall off a bike when I'm eight and trying to say these grapes came from the terroir and the mountains of the Andes and were stomped on by baby virgin goats, you know, like, whatever, like, instead of trying to speak their language, I learned their language. So now I can be bilingual, right, yeah, but I spoke my own language and I created my own.

Speaker 2:

So I would say that when you do get that gut feeling, you got to listen to it, but you also don't want to set yourself up to fail by not like really putting a plan, a basic plan, around it. And again, my type A's and they say, when I say that word plan, I try not to use it that much, but they're like okay, well, I got to do these things, I got to get all these credentials, I got to know all these different people. I have to have this entire thing perfectly wrapped up in a bow before I can start it. No, when I say plan, what I mean is take what you naturally love and feel and give in that space and then grow it from there, not from where everybody thinks it's supposed to come from.

Speaker 2:

So pairing wine with life and giving it personalities and jobs and locations, and all of that when I do it for people, just off the cuff, they're just shocked. They're like, oh my God, how did you even do that? That doesn't make any sense. And I'm like, yeah, it does. I mean because of these characteristics in you. And so people love it. And then they book me to do private events and it just continues to grow. So, yeah, you know, you got to nurture. Got to nurture your garden, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

This has been so fun. Can you tell everybody where they can find you?

Speaker 2:

It's pretty easy Renee Ventris dot com. I decided to make my name my brand, that way I wouldn't misspell it as often and also anybody. It's easy to get. I have my name on all my swag and things like that, so people will be able to go there. I've got a YouTube channel under that name and there you can find more about all the events I do and the latest virtual tasting I just did with the creator of QuickBooks. This dude was so low key, funny. When I watched back the tasting I was like, oh my God, how did I miss that joke? This dude's a riot, you know. So yeah, so you can find me on Facebook, instagram, linkedin and YouTube Renee Ventris official or reneventriscom, and that's also my website.

Speaker 1:

And we'll have all those links in the show notes. Renee, thank you so much for being here. This has been an absolute hoot. Thank show notes. Renee, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2:

This has been an absolute hoot. Thank you so much, Sarah. I'm so glad you asked me to come and be your dragon. I wanted to sit like with my halo behind me, but the lighting was really making me uncomfortable.

Speaker 2:

This has been so much fun. I appreciate you and I appreciate that you are. That Blasphemers is great because, yes, it used to be blasphemous to talk about. You know wine, if anything that wasn't French wine or colonized. You know menus with it. You know pairing a French wine with some jerk chicken. That's blasphemy and I'm all here for it.

Speaker 1:

And we are all here for it Because, like I say every single week, you can have success without the BS, as long as you're willing to listen to that inner blasphemous voice. We will talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast. And don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.