Full Transcript – Alan Kraft & Jim Kabakow – Wild Business Growth Podcast #319

This is the full transcript for Episode #319 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Alan Kraft & Jim Kabakow – Media Horizons, Bin 113, Wine Across America. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Alan Kraft 0:00
Is your company one that you would want to buy yourself?

Max Branstetter 0:18
Cheers! Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, and you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 319 but it might as well be Episode 113 because today we have co-founders, managing partners of Bin 113 Alan Kraft and Jim cKabakow In this episode, we talk a few different things. We talk their journey, building leading and selling Media Horizons over multiple decades, just an incredible success story. We talk their new company, Bin 113 a wine marketing company doing amazing and delicious things and extra close to me and Max podcasting. We talk their brand new hot off the press podcast, Wine Across America, where Alan and Sandra from Bin 113 are interviewing and will be interviewing winemakers from all 50 states. Just an incredible podcast, brand new at the time of this recording, it is Alan and Jim. Enjoyyyyyy the showwwwwwww! Aaaalrightyyyyyy we’re here with Alan. Is it Kraft? Is that how you pronounce? No, I’m just kidding. Alan Kraft and Jim Kabakow, co-founders, managing partners of Bin 113 one of the coolest, coolest and whiniest companies you’ll you’ll ever come across, which we’ll, we’ll get to plenty of that, but also the brains behind media horizons and amazing career. There we’ll touch on all these things. Alan, now you guys are our clients at MaxPodcasting as well, so this has become really, really, really meta. But Alan, Jim, thank you so much for being so vulnerable and doing this, and you’re probably going to regret the next 40 minutes. Thank you. How you guys doing today.

Alan Kraft 2:23
Little intimidated by that last comment, yeah, thanks

Jim Kabakow 2:27
for having us on. We really do appreciate it, and we’re looking forward to chatting with you.

Max Branstetter 2:33
Back at you. The reason I said you should be scared is because the this first segment we do is all financial information, so I’m gonna, we’re gonna go one by one. We’re gonna talk your social security numbers, we’re gonna talk your credit card numbers, and then I gotta hop off actually. So no, just gonna,

Alan Kraft 2:49
I’ll make it very easy for you. My Social Security number is one, perfect, and all my credit cards have been revoked for non payment.

Max Branstetter 2:56
Awesome. What is the credit card anyway? So before we get to media horizons, we got to start off hot wine. Why? And this is going to sound accusatory, but I’ve just fascinated. Why are you guys so obsessed with wine? I

Jim Kabakow 3:13
think obsessed is a little bit strong, but we are definitely passionate about it and enthusiastic about it, because it encompasses so many different elements. It’s growing the grapes and farming. It’s the process of wine making, and then it’s the enjoyment of drinking the finished product, which has so many variables, and people are passionate about it and have their own opinions about what they like and what they don’t. It’s a living, breathing thing.

Alan Kraft 3:45
My take is most people who drink a glass of wine give zero thought whatsoever to what it took to put that wine into that glass. We’ve gotten to know a number of farmers basically have chosen their primary crop to be grapes. And it’s really interesting because, you know, I don’t think about the farmer who makes it grows the lettuce that’s in my salad at dinner any more than before we got into this, I never really gave any thought to the farmer who was growing the grapes or to the winemaker who was, you know, doing their magic to make what I was drinking so delicious. So there’s such depth to this business. I think we’re, we’re so much still in a learning process. It’s really, it’s really fun to learn new things.

Jim Kabakow 4:32
I think that world is changing. People are thinking more about Farm to Table and eating locally, but they haven’t gotten yet there to drinking locally. And one of the things we’re doing is we’re working with a lot of winemakers and wineries throughout the US, not just, you know, the big four of, you know, California, Oregon, Washington and New York State, but really throughout the country. Country, what we found is, you know, there are 12,000 wineries in the US. There are exceptions, but for the most, they spend a lot of time, energy resources, growing grapes, the same with making wine, but not so much about marketing it and selling it. And that’s really our background and what we really bring, kind of a third leg of that stool to the wineries that we’re working with.

Max Branstetter 5:27
By the way, Alan, you may not think about the farmer who grows your lettuce, but I spend a lot of time thinking about the farmer who grows your lettuce. I’m glad we flagged that there.

Alan Kraft 5:40
I mean, you’re so you’re so giving and kind man.

Max Branstetter 5:47
So let’s put a a pin, or let’s put a bin in 113 for now, a little foreshadowing for later. So let’s get to media horizons. We have to go back just a couple years for this, from the early days. And if you look at the history of your company, it’s pretty much like you guys, you’ve lived and are living the American dream, you know, like starting an agency, like doing what you love, building it, growing it, and then selling it. And then, you know, even after that, being able to pivot into another area that you love is really cool. So I want to go back to, like, the very, very early start. Where did the idea to start your own agency come from? I

Alan Kraft 6:28
worked for three other agencies, direct marketing, or in today’s parlance, direct to consumer marketing agencies, starting in the mid 70s through the 80s. You know, I had always hoped that I’d have the opportunity to start my own agency. I was very, very fortunate, because, you know, there were two gentlemen, one whose name was Ed capico and the other’s name is Lou Pepe, who were willing to take a flyer on me and put up some money and give it a shot. Early days for me, I was 30 when I started the company, I was really fortunate that that Ed Jim’s dad and I were able to convince Jim, when he graduated from from school that a glamorous career on Wall Street couldn’t hold a candle to sitting in the basement of an old house of mine in Norwalk, Connecticut. And Jim joined very, very shortly thereafter. And so he and I’ve worked together, really, since 1988 it’s an amazing run, if you will. And clearly, you know, like any other business, we had our ups and downs, but we had more ups than downs, and we were very, very happy and very, very fortunate, I think, to close on our sale in January of 2020, right before the world sort of took a left turn due to COVID. And then we stayed around for for as long as the acquirers wanted us. And, you know, we kind of left and decided that, you know, retirement was fun, but not necessarily a full time gig, and so we decided that we would get back together again and start this new company. Been 113

Max Branstetter 8:07
Jim. What was it about Alan’s basement that was or whatever else was, was appealing that actually got you to put off that other career? So

Jim Kabakow 8:16
as Alan mentioned, I started my career in finance. I was an economics major in college, and I started at DLj as an intern, and then afterwards, you know, as Alan said, so my dad, Lou, some other people were, it wasn’t a term you did that was used back then, but now you would consider them angel investors. So they were angel investors in the company. You know, it seemed like an interesting opportunity to do something entrepreneurial. If it didn’t work out, Wall Street wasn’t going anywhere. It was a good opportunity to get in on the ground floor. You know, of something at the time, some I think, important things, when you think about it, is that was really, you know, pre internet. So the marketing landscape was very different once the Internet came but you know, what we what we did over the time really didn’t change much. It was really working with blue chip clients to cost effectively generate new customers for them, and the techniques changed, but what we kind of did was still pretty much the same for our clients, as far as you know, trying to meet their goals. You know, the big thing for me changed in 2007 I guess, when Alan left the company and I became CEO, you know, that was kind of a defining moment, I think, in my career. And I stayed in that role through 2020 when we sold the company to CNG and Linden Meyer publication, you know, for a few years out, you know, and then we were able to kind of exit and pivot and find out, figure out something else that we wanted to do, staying in that direct to consumer marketing. And, you know, I think one other. Important thing is, we had talked to wineries over the years, but because they didn’t have the marketing infrastructure, their budgets tended to be small. They really never fit into kind of the right type of client for us, because at our largest we had about 50 people working for it, which is not a huge agency, but still a decent size framework. And

Max Branstetter 10:20
that’s pretty good, not too shabby. So

Alan Kraft 10:23
we really couldn’t take them on as clients. And we kind of always had it in the back of our head, like we’d really love to work with these people that we had met over the years and been introduced to, and really couldn’t. So that’s really kind of the genesis of Bin 113 and with our, you know, new overhead our homes, and, you know, definitely different cost structure for an employee. You know, we’re really able to do it and make it work for these wineries.

Max Branstetter 10:49
So you start working from home, and then you build it all the way up to working from home. So come full circle there. It’s

Jim Kabakow 10:56
interesting, Jim, this, I think the first time I ever heard that Wall Street was in the back of your mind as an escape hatch. I didn’t know that. Thought you were all in man,

Max Branstetter 11:08
when you look at the early, early days of media horizons, what do you think was key in securing your first clients and like turning it into some sort of a real business relationships

Alan Kraft 11:19
that existed prior to the start of the company were obviously low hanging fruit. So, so we started working with the Wall Street Journal early days, because they had been a client. We started working with an insurance company called National Liberty early days and the Franklin Mint early days. They were all relationships, you know, that pre existed the company. The other thing about it is, Jim and I are so damn charming.

Max Branstetter 11:43
I was gonna say that, yeah, I don’t wanna spoil it clearly,

Alan Kraft 11:47
you know, brilliantly, you know, talented in marketing that, you know, people just came to us. They were flocking. If only that were, were true. It was, as Jim said, it was pre internet. It was is a period of time in which direct to consumer marketing was sort of based in direct mail and print advertising and something called Insert Media, and we knew those really well. You know, we were able to parlay some early successes into acquiring some other customers along the way and force ourselves out of the basement into hiring new people and building a staff over time. So that’s how I kind of look back on those days, some rose colored glasses, I think. But to me, the most interesting thing is, you know, we were so sort of behind the times. Technologically, you know, we had an IBM Selectric typewriter that was like third hand. It was missing a capital H, which was kind of tough when your second name of your company is horizons. We figured out a way to do it. We just muddled through and learned from our mistakes and just, you know, just kept going. The

Jim Kabakow 13:01
channel we really started out in was an area called Alternative Media, which was inserts and ride alongs and blow ins and mass media. You know, while it’s kind of a billion dollar media channel, the companies that were doing at the time were these little, family owned businesses. They weren’t looking at growth or really trying to do something, taking the agency model of analytics and creative and doing the things that some of the bigger agencies were doing in this channel. And I have to credit Alan. He it was really his vision to create a real agency in this channel that really didn’t exist. And from there, you know, we were able to expand, you know, we had a good story to tell. We were able to tell it to, you know, bigger clients, and bring on some of the more corporate clients that had some of the larger budgets. And then those relationships, you know, I think as we built some some trust there, they asked us to, you know, if they’re saying, you know, you guys are doing this alternate do you guys buy on page, print? We were basically entrepreneurial enough that if a client asked us to get into a different area for them, we went and figured out how to do it. You know, we never said, No, we don’t do that. It was more about maybe we don’t right now, but we’re going to figure out how to do it so we can add those services on to what we were doing currently.

Max Branstetter 14:24
Yeah, that’s fascinating. I think it’s a great way to grow. Is like, when you can add so many services like that. But obviously, like, it’s way easier said than done. How in the world did you educate yourselves and educate your team about All right, we’re gonna get into email marketing, we’re going to get into digital marketing. Like, you know, there’s social media in that. Like, how do you become a expert in new things? I think one of the

Jim Kabakow 14:47
things we did best was we hired good people and let them do their thing. So we hired someone who had been the former media director of gray advertising, who got us into print. And then orc vacuum cleaners became one of our largest clients, buying all of their print. We hired good people to do direct mail, eventually, analytics, creative, and that’s really how we got into digital too. We tried to buy a digital agency, we failed at that, so we built it ourselves, and we hired people from that world, let them help us in those areas and build out those skill sets and those those capabilities, that was really the approach we took and how we expanded into those other channels. And if you

Max Branstetter 15:37
were to look back at like the crazy growth and exit journey there, we’ll call it besides relationships and then having good people and just like staying out of their business, in a way. What else would you say, like was most valuable in growing the business over the years?

Jim Kabakow 15:54
Having fun, having fun, having fun. You know

Max Branstetter 16:00
I’m laughing, Jim, because the way you first said that didn’t sound that exciting. But fun is exciting. Have fun. Yeah, no, it’s good. Well,

Alan Kraft 16:11
I think we created an atmosphere for for the people that worked for us and for our clients, in which they wanted to work for us, and they wanted to be our clients. I mean, we, we were, I think maybe ahead of our time in terms of not taking ourselves too seriously. I think that we as much as obvious, we really went out of our way to spend as much time, physically, as much time as we could with our clients. Keep in mind, there were no zoom calls. Back then, there were barely cell phones. But we always believed in those sort of in person meetings, experiences or accompanied by a good meal, generally accompanied by a good bottle of wine. It was our ability to sort of make people comfortable with us to also make sure that the people who are actually doing the day to day work on their accounts were not, you know, in the background in those meetings, but they were taking the lead in those meetings because at the end of the day they they knew that Jim and I weren’t necessarily doing all the work, and you know, these other Folks were so they needed to get comfortable with them. And we did, I think, I think for many, many years, you know, host and sort of encourage a fun atmosphere with a lot of fun events and and happenings. And I think it made a big difference.

Max Branstetter 17:36
And last thing before we we get to the the wine moments we’ve all been waiting for. What advice do you have for any founder who aspires to sell their business one day? I don’t

Jim Kabakow 17:47
think we ever really thought necessarily at the time we were going to sell it. It wasn’t until we started getting some offers from other bigger companies that we really started thinking about it and saying, huh, maybe this is something we need to, you know, get our business really in good shape. If this is something we want to do these days, what we started seeing, particularly as a lot of investment, startup capital, angel investing, you started having companies that were thinking about their exit before they even made dollar one, you know, really focus on the business, what’s going to build it, what’s going to make it grow and flourish, versus Do I have an idea that I can sell one day? Because if you do those things, those outcomes and those opportunities will happen for you. Is

Alan Kraft 18:42
your company one that you would want to buy yourself, if you were the acquirer rather than the seller? So you look at the sort of the business model, you look at, you know, in the case of any agency, who are the clients, what’s the tenure of those relationships? What’s the likelihood of the longevity future, longevity of those client relationships no different than if Jim and I were looking to acquire agencies, what we would look for in those is essentially what we wanted to be able to portray to potential acquirers. Because, you know, we were not just an idea. We were a functioning, you know, living and breathing entity that that brought value to the to the company that acquired us.

Max Branstetter 19:27
So speaking of value, let’s get to Ben 13 bin, Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry. I was doing so good pronouncing your company name right. And here we are. I i took 100 off. I took one off. Let’s get to bin 1113 no bin 113 and as you’ve hinted out and started to detail before, really, really cool company in the wine space, but also helping, like the marketing and growth of, I mean, so many amazing independent wines. COVID that are out there in the US. And I think something that I’ve learned already from, you know, working on your podcast as part of this company, Wine Across America, that we’ll get to, yeah, I think, think when most people think about wine in the US, they just think about, you know, two or three regions, but like, there’s wine in all 50 states, and amazing winemakers and vineyards. And you know you could do, I mean, you’re kind of doing this with the podcast, but you could do, like a road trip to all 50 states and experience great wine everywhere. So I think it’s really, really cool what you’re doing. But what was it? So, like you mentioned before, that you realize retirement was not as fun or not as full time yet for you guys, as it as it seemed, what was it about wine, from like an industry perspective, that you’re like this is, pardon the pun, you know, a little bit untapped from a marketing standpoint,

Alan Kraft 20:56
free samples.

Max Branstetter 20:59
Well, that that goes without saying, without sipping. I think

Alan Kraft 21:03
it’s what you said. I think, I think that there’s a, there’s a lack of knowledge among the wine drinking American public of the fact that there is very good wine being made in places other than the ones Jim listed earlier, led by California, which is by far the 800 pound gorilla in the domestic wine business. We’ve, you know, been very, very fortunate to meet some really interesting people. Their stories are amazing. You know, there’s a winery that the owner and the winemaker appear on one of the episodes of wine across America. They’re from Washington state, from Walla. Walla, Washington. It’s called airfield estates, and the most amazing story is that that the facility that they produce wine in, and the tasting room where people come to visit and sample their their product, are all part of what was hastily put up at the beginning of World War Two as a fighter pilot training facility, so therefore airfield estate, but literally, it’s the hangars that were built in 1942 in which they’re operating. And that, to me, it’s just like a fascinating story and and there’s a million of them I’ve I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the owner of a winery that is literally adjacent to a Civil War battlefield in Virginia. It’s called The Winery at Bull Run in the basement of of the winery and beneath the tasting room. He’s got a private Civil War Museum, and he’s got over 7500 artifacts in that museum, many of which he personally has picked up off the battlefield itself. I mean, it’s just that kind of a business. You know, for every every state, there’s a story for every region, there’s a story for every winery. There’s a story. We have a client in New Jersey, Jim is really close with that. Their primary crop used to be Asian inspired vegetables that they sold to a wholesaler who supplied 90% of the restaurants in Chinatown Internet, and now they’re producing, you know, wine grapes, you know, so it to me, it’s just a fascinating, fascinating business. It’s

Max Branstetter 23:11
energizing and tasty, just hearing about it. How about you, Jim, from like, a fascination standpoint, I

Jim Kabakow 23:18
love the wine business. I’ve taken some, you know, I got, one of the things I did as part of this was I got educated and really learned a little bit about wine. There’s a company called wine and spirit Educational Trust that is like, you know, for sommeliers. So I took level one and level two of wsct Educational Trust, you know, still level two song with Merritt and all sorts, of course,

Max Branstetter 23:46
you just knocked Alan’s socks off.

Jim Kabakow 23:48
You know, I didn’t graduate college with honor, so I might as well say that I graduated. And also, for me, Cornell on, on American wineries, and it’s, it’s just, you know, fascinating process. What also says, I think this is a little bit of a generalization, but I’m going to go with it anyway. What we tend to find is the wineries that are owned in the US. Forget about the big holding companies that own like, you know, 100 brands like constellation. Most of the independent wineries fall into two categories. It’s usually someone who’s made a lot of money in something else, that loves wine and decides they want to own a winery. And it’s also someone like Alan mentioned our client in New Jersey, who’s a fourth generation farmer, you know, and decided 25 years ago they didn’t want to do vegetable farming anymore. They wanted to do a winery. And they’re both very interesting, very capable, smart people know the businesses inside and out, but also have a different mindset when it comes to to marketing. You know, it’s really working kind of with what their backgrounds and what their goals and objectives. Czar to bring the direct consumer side into the wine business.

Alan Kraft 25:05
So just kind of interrupt for one second and say that Jim and I are having dinner together this evening. Congratulations. We’re going to put the level two wsct with honors to attest. Because clearly whenever we have dinner together. I I haven’t seen a wine list in years. It’s, it’s,

Jim Kabakow 25:25
it’s Jim. I didn’t wear my pin, but I probably should have worn my pin. I

Max Branstetter 25:30
was gonna say you looked a little pinless.

Alan Kraft 25:34
You’re gonna rock that thing tonight. I mean, I think, is

Max Branstetter 25:36
it a full Is it a full graduation ceremony, like cap and gown, diploma?

Jim Kabakow 25:40
You know what the crazy thing is, I want to spend too much time on this. No,

Max Branstetter 25:45
we can please the rest of the time. Let’s do this. They

Jim Kabakow 25:47
still in this day and age of technology, it still takes three months to get the test results. Oh, my God. They’re based in England. They have to send the test to England, and then you find out by email and get something in the mail with your pin and your certificate. So they’re, they’re a little antiquated. I will say, though, that we are also having dinner not it’s not just us, it’s two of our former partners at media horizons that we’re dining with. So we’ve still stayed, even though we’re not all doing involved media horizons together. We’re still, we’ve still stayed close as a group,

Alan Kraft 26:21
so I double dog dare you to wear that pin to dinner tonight.

Jim Kabakow 26:27
You know it’s happening now.

Max Branstetter 26:28
Please report back on that you might need a selfie. A pin. Selfie,

Alan Kraft 26:33
yeah, there’ll be photos. Max, for sure, they’ll definitely be be photos. And for

Max Branstetter 26:37
anybody listening, the pin is about six inches by six inches. It’s massive. It’s like a It’s not bad, but it’s very cool. Badge of honor, pin of honor. But we’ve been 113 so what’s like the like looking ahead and with your early clients? What’s like the main insight or value that you want to help unlock for your clients? Before

Alan Kraft 26:59
we answer that sort of tactically. Just want to share with you a conversation that Jim and I have had numerous times over the last few months. The people that we’re dealing with, as Jim said earlier, they’re investing in the agricultural aspects of the wine business. They’re investing in the wine making process itself. They’re investing in their their wineries and their tasting rooms. They typically have not invested in their marketing at all or or known how they should go about investing in their marketing. That’s really the role that we’re filling for them. But we’ve gotten off a number of client calls and like, instantly call each other and say, I like those people so much. I so badly want to help them with what they’re doing. And I’m not going to say we didn’t feel that way about our clients at media horizons, but the difference is, we worked with a lot of very large corporations with large marketing teams who were employees of those, in some cases private in some cases, publicly traded companies. And it was different. Here you’re dealing with the owner, as Jim said, fourth generation farmer, just a, you know, really, really good people and nice people. And for me, there’s just much more of a personal stake that I feel in our ability to help them succeed. So that’s sort of my answer to your question. You know, Jim, you can probably share a little bit more of the actual tactical piece of it.

Max Branstetter 28:31
And now Jim is wearing two pins.

Jim Kabakow 28:35
You know, look, I think it comes down to you don’t know what you don’t know a lot of his wineries are, you know, they’re doing some marketing and some social media, but they haven’t been trained in it. They don’t have really the background in it. So there’s a lot of skills expertise, and we should mention too, we do have a third partner out on the West Coast, a guy named Jeff Giordano, who also we’ve known forever, been in the marketing business, now lives out in Montecito area, grows some grapes on his on his estate out there, and has introduced us to some people. So between us, you know, we’ve got 100 years, let’s say, 100 years plus, of direct consumer marketing experience. It’s, it’s kind of hard to replicate, and it would be like me saying, Okay, now that I’ve taken a few wine courses. I can go and make wine, but I can’t do that. I don’t I don’t know what I don’t know. And I think until you do it, you don’t kind of realize those things. So I think that’s really what we’re trying to do, is simplify the process and just bring all this experience that we have an expertise in an efficient way into their businesses so they can sell more wine cost effectively, so they can generate more wine club members, get more people to the events at their locations, where, in turn, they can sell more wine too. So for us, it’s really evolution. Versus revolutionary. We’re working with what they have gradually, kind of bringing change and getting them, you know, into really a process where they can be efficient and they don’t have to spend as much time as they are spending on this, because most of the most of the clients are working with, they don’t have full time marketing people. That’s really a role that we can play.

Max Branstetter 30:23
And one of the ways, and this, just by coincidence, happens to be my favorite way that you’re marketing the business and adding some personality to the business, is with a brand new hot off the press at the time. This is released podcast called wine across America. Super, super cool podcast, one of the most fun I’ve ever had working on a podcast. You’re doing audio, you’re doing video, and you’re talking to the amazing people behind these amazing wineries, and you’re going state by state. I don’t want to reveal too much, but it’s hot off the press, but Alan, you and another one of your team, Sandra, are co hosting it, and your naturals, I have to say, I’m just totally buttering you up now, but what are you most excited to share on wine across America?

Alan Kraft 31:11
So before I answer that question, I gotta give Jim a little bit of an update, because our friend Sandra, who’s co hosting this with me, she’s about to get her level two from wsct. Jim, great, yeah, now you got to go for, you got to go for level three. You can’t.

Jim Kabakow 31:29
I’m thinking about it Well, considering she teaches a college course in wine. So glad she’s now finally end up tomorrow

Max Branstetter 31:38
by the the law of syllogism. You could also teach your college course. Then,

Alan Kraft 31:43
you know, the podcast is, is fun for us in that, like you said, you know, we’re interviewing really, really interesting people with very varied backgrounds. We’ve got, what is it, four episodes under our belts at this point. We’ve got another few in the queue for January that we’ll, we’ll put together. The fun for me is not just the fact that we get to taste the wines of each of these people, but we do so that’s kind of neat. But we get to hear them not just tell the story of their own personal wine journeys, not just tell the story of their wineries, you know, history of their of their region, of their climate, of the challenges that they face. I mean, let’s face it. The wineries are all facing some significant challenges these days, but they’re, they’re in a business that essentially is providing people with a product that they love, and I think they love doing it, so it kind of comes across. I mean, that first one we did with the guys from Virginia, you know, Sandra and I literally opened the podcast by saying, Hi, how are you? And then they talk for 45 minutes.

Max Branstetter 32:48
See, is it being a host so easy. It’s

Alan Kraft 32:50
amazing. So even even you seemingly can do it,

Max Branstetter 32:55
even, well, I only have my level one certification, but one day I’ll be able

Alan Kraft 33:01
to see we have absolutely no idea how the podcast will be received by listeners. You know, we’re going to promote it pretty aggressively, and the wineries themselves are going to promote it because I think they’re excited about having appeared on these episodes. And we’ll see. You know, is this something that is going to, you know, threaten Hoda copy for for listenership. You know, long term, probably not, but if we can get get some listeners and viewers and and people who enjoy it and leave positive reviews and, and it’s a it’s sort of a nice, nice add on to our business, and it also gives our clients an opportunity to evangelize their businesses and tell listeners where they can purchase their products. So it’s a positive from that perspective as well. Yeah,

Max Branstetter 33:49
I’ll just say that if you look like on YouTube and check out the first few episodes, I think you’ll see pretty quickly like this is pretty different than a typical podcast interview. Like in that first episode, you mentioned Alan, it was so fun going through it and putting it together, because it’s not, you know, like the typical interview, like we’re doing now, just like remotely, and everybody’s kind of seated in their home. You were talking to the people behind these wineries, like at the vineyards, and they even might be like walking around and showing you different, you know, showing you like the casks and the grapes and like they’re, you know, like a balcony with a beautiful view of the vineyards, things like that. And so it’s super, officially engaging as well, so super excited that it’s, it’s great in both audio and video form. Before I, well, I already have talked more than you and Sandra talked on that first episode, but before I talk even more too much, let’s wrap up with some rapid fire Q A. You ready for it?

Alan Kraft 34:53
We are, yeah, I’m hoping that somewhere in this Q A, I get to tell my favorite Jim wine story. Yeah.

Jim Kabakow 35:00
I’m a little, I’m a little, I’m a little scared. Now you’re gonna remember

Alan Kraft 35:03
this one very clearly. All right, let’s

Max Branstetter 35:06
get wild. What is your second favorite now, alright, Alan, what is your favorite wine story of Jim so

Alan Kraft 35:13
So Jim and I were at a conference in San Francisco many years ago, and and we chose to spend an extra night in San Francisco, a city that we’ve always loved, when the rest of our team, employees and clients went home, and we decided we’d go out for a very nice dinner at a lovely Steakhouse in the Union Square area of San Francisco. And we walked in and, you know, we had a cocktail at the board, and we sat down, and Jim, you know, asked the waiter to bring the wine list. And he got the wine list, and the wine list was a book about, yay, thick, and I’m watching him go through it, interested in the expression on his face is turning increasingly sour with every page that’s turned and I said to him, like, what’s going on? You know, you don’t you don’t seem too happy. He goes, this is the most ridiculous wine list I’ve ever seen. And if I remember correctly, and Jim, this has got to be 15 or 20 years ago. I don’t think there was a bottle of wine on the list below 150 or $200 which back then was like a high price. And and he literally he goes, I can’t take another minute of this. He kind of slams the book shot, and the sommelier comes over and and they got into it pretty good. Jim sort of stood his ground that the markups and on some of those wines were were extraordinarily unfair, and we ended up getting a wonderful bottle of wine. I can’t remember what it was offhand, but we didn’t pay anywhere close to the price that was listed in the in the wine list itself. So kudos to you, Jim. You saved us a few bucks back then. But it was, it was when I knew that Jim knew 1000 times more about wine than I ever did or would. But that’s my favorite gym wine story. The

Jim Kabakow 36:59
better memory I have at that restaurant was when with our client from Oric, and Phil Sims and Armin contain were in the same restaurant a few tables away, right? And we saw them, and we were dying to talk to them, and we were not going over. And she walked right over and brought Phil and Armin over to our table and chatted with them, and they were the nicest guys, and they were there to call, I guess, Monday Night Football game while we were there.

Alan Kraft 37:28
That’s right, I forgot about that in your Mormon Ormond lives a couple blocks from here. He lives in yeah, see him. See him out all the time. Let’s go

Jim Kabakow 37:37
Maxwell. Let’s hear your rapid fire.

Max Branstetter 37:39
That was it. Speaking of sports, Jim, I saw you play baseball at Tufts, yeah. What position were you?

Jim Kabakow 37:46
I was a shortstop all through growing up from like eight to 18 through high school, so really think of mine then, but I didn’t have the range or the arm to play shortstop in college, so I moved to the outfield. And

Max Branstetter 38:00
how would you characterize the difference between the competition level, playing in high school versus playing in college?

Jim Kabakow 38:06
You know, I just looked at this for football, there are, like, 15,000 high schools that have teams and 700 colleges, so only about 5% go on at any level. And I mean, the d1 guys are just, you know, off the charts, but it’s, you know, everyone you play against, every pitcher you pitch against, was probably the ace on their team. I think what was, was also a bigger challenge was the size of the fields in college or pro level. I knew I was in trouble at the college level when I hit a ball basically as far as I could, which would have been out of my high school field by a long shot, and it was flagged down on the warning track, and I’m like, oh, boy, I’m in trouble. But was a lot of fun. Had a lot of

Max Branstetter 38:52
fun. That was like me, except when I hit it as far as I could, it was like, Oh, it got to the back of the infield.

Alan Kraft 38:59
Can I can I add that Jim was consistently the most valuable player on our media horizon softball team? I was gonna guess that at shortstop, he got his legs back.

Max Branstetter 39:08
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, you can. You can dominate in the in those company, softball leagues like that, and also on sports Alan. So I’ve heard this fun fact when you spoke with our mutual friend, Mark Freeman, who on his shout out the marketing playbook, who actually introduced us in the first place. You’ve been to nine Super Bowls, which is at least nine more than I’ve been to which one of those was like the craziest game to see in person?

Alan Kraft 39:34
Oh gosh, for me, for me, the first one was was the craziest, because it was a new experience to me, I’ll say this much, I’ve been to three in New Orleans. To me, New Orleans should be the permanent home of the Super Bowl. It’s the only city in which you can walk to the stadium from every hotel, restaurant and bar. So it’s just a great place. And it’s a city that’s really meant to or built for. For being able to handle big groups, big crowds like that. Has some great memories, some great football. I think the first one was, was New England and Green Bay. And somewhere in this house is still a cheese hat that I wore because I’m not a big fan of New England, so I was rooting for Green Bay that day. But that was an amazing ride, getting to see all those games in person. I was also at the at the game in New Orleans with the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, and we were like, what did we just see? That

Max Branstetter 40:34
kind of a crazy Well, I still remember, I, I mean, like, I was pretty young when that happened, but I still remember that, at least back then. They kept replaying it over and over again on the news like on censored. They still joined, oh, my God, all right. And then last, last one, what is your outside the US? Real quick, both of you, if you could be dropped and spend a long weekend in any wine region in the world. What would it be me?

Jim Kabakow 41:01
I actually just had the opportunity. I spent three days in Burgundy, you know, Burgundy’s birthplace of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. You know, we spent a couple nights in kind of the capital of Burgundy area, which is this little city of bone, this medieval city. And it was just, it was fabulous just seeing these, you know, century old, iconic vineyards, and just tasting premier crew and ground crew wines from Burgundy was just as a wine person, that was really kind of kind of Mecca for me. So

Alan Kraft 41:32
for me, it’s anywhere in Italy. We just, we just got back from a couple of weeks in Emilia Romana, which is a region with the largest city is bologna. But in the Veneto, which is where Venice is located, they’ve got, that’s where they make a Maroni wines, which have become my favorite Italian Jim, no, please for tonight’s wine list, a Maroni would be high on my on my wish list. Second to that, anywhere in Italy would be the area around Jerez in Spain, which is the sherry capital of the world. And it’s not because I love sherry. Well that much is just one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever been in in my life. And I would love to, I’d love to get back there at some point.

Max Branstetter 42:11
Awesome. Well, Dream places. Thank you guys so much. This has been an absolute blast, and so over the moon. Excited to partner. Love Wine Across America. Listeners, viewers, make sure to check it out on your favorite podcast platform. You can also check out Bin113.com, and then for both you is LinkedIn the best place, probably, to connect online, yep. Last thing, final thoughts. Literally, it could be a one line, a haiku, whatever you want, either one of you shout it out. What’s just kind of words to live by to send us home here. Love what you do, and kudos to Alan and Jim for always loving what they’re doing and doing what they’re loving. Thank you so much Alan and Jim for coming on the podcast sharing your Wild stories and Wild stories, and thank you Wild Listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to the Wild Business Growth podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and check out the video versions on YouTube. You can subscribe on YouTube @MaxBranstetter You can also find us on Goodpods, where we are the #1 all time creativity podcast. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is where podcasting meets entrepreneurship meets puns worse or on par as what you’ve heard in this episode, and you can sign up for that at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter until next time or until next wine. Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!