Business, Culture, Podcast, Society

The Drink Is Your Lucky Charm

About the Episode

Do you have a favorite, yummy liquor that you claim is the best? Listen to Rick share some of his favorite scotches and what he considers an every day drink and why he finds such importance of sharing a drink with his clients.

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the episode here

What’s shakin’, welcome back to ALL IN. Today’s very special because I actually have a glass of Scotch sitting right here, that I’m drinking while I’m recording this. I’m a Scotch lover and today my choice because of St. Patrick’s Day, I know it’s Irish scotch, whatever, but it is Balvenie 17 Doublewood.

And this is how, oh my gosh, I haven’t had this one a long time. I’m usually a Macallan guy and I love that a good everyday one is like a Macallan 12 For me, right? But of course, you know, you get into the rare cask which is delicious, 18 is liquid gold. It’s the gold standard of scotch. And then a new one, if you haven’t tried it yet, is Macallan Estate. It’s been around now for maybe about a year and a half, so it’s newer. But this is all from Macallan’s brand new estate from all barley that they grew on that estate, rather than from, from getting it from other farms and fields and everything around them and what’s really cool, if you can find this, I’ve gotten like six bottles so far, if you can find this, there’s actually a piece of slate on the box that it comes in on the case that it comes in from the rock that is around the hills of the estate, it’s actually kind of like a collector’s item. It’s really cool. But today I’m drinking Balvenie 17 as it’s St. Patrick’s Day.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! And I’m going to tell you a story today. Maybe like two stories, and I might get into how I started liking Scotch in the first place. But there’s a client of mine that is one of my very first clients actually that still to this day, the biggest client that ReachOut has, and they’ve got like 700 people during the season and just amazing, amazing individuals, and they like people.

So, years ago, when all this stuff started. St. Patrick’s Day was like this big celebration for them, and they started inviting me along, so the whole office would shut down, like at noon on St. Patrick’s Day, and the whole entire office would just go to the bar, and then have an awesome time with each other. And there were two of them that I was a part of that I just showed up. And there were so many amazing people that I was able to meet there, too. I’m talking like other vendors of theirs.

There was just so much knowledge that I gained over drinks with these individuals. I’m talking about insurance, I’m talking about cellular providers, because 700 people, it’s like a field service company, they had 700 phones. So of course, you know, they invited their rep from Sprint back when Sprint was a thing or AT&T or Verizon because they would switch carriers a lot just to get the best deals. I mean, that’s you can save a lot of money when you get the best deal on 700 phones, right?

So they invited me along to this thing I tell you, this is something that I think that we’ve lost a little bit over the past couple years. And I’m not going to go on a pandemic thing right now as far as what we lost. But I’m going to encourage you today to get back out there and do this. Because things are opened up now things are doing really, really well. bars have been I mean, at least around me bars have been open for like ever, right? And just except for the initial part when they were kind of closed down.

But zoom just doesn’t do it these days and we’ve had, you know, like, quote, unquote, parties even within ReachOut within our company, to where we’ve shared drinks, you know, like cheers, the webcam and all that stuff. But the energy that people can have in person is just so irreplaceable. So incredibly irreplaceable. And that’s why my client would do this. And they just wanted to have a good time just to get to know people personally. And out of this is where I got invited to their son’s birthday parties, graduation parties, all of these crazy awesome things. And it really kind of set the tone for me and started really getting me into just this whole world of networking and the importance of a face to face conversation.

Even more so the importance of a comfortable, casual conversation. Because you can get business done, but you can also make some of the best friends of your life by doing this. I’ve seen all these things, you know, like zoom dates and everything over the past couple of years but how long does that last? Right? You can do zoom kisses and everything else, but that still doesn’t replace the real thing. It’s the same thing with business and just getting together with people in business, especially over a drink.

Of course, you know, like Easter’s a little while away and everything too. But if you think about it, this dates back to biblical times to where people would get together, and they would gather around dinner and they would drink wine. And all of you Christians that are out there, you know what I love you. And I used to get told something when I was a kid that oh, it’s not real wine, I don’t know where to start or whatever. But it was real life. Okay, if Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding, as his very first recorded miracle, and then after that, they came back and said, “Why did you save the best wine for the last wine?” Because in those days, the weddings, they would always put the best wine up front. It’s actually a pretty smart idea, all the best wine up front, in the wedding and then as people got trashed throughout the wedding, they would save the cheap stuff at the end when they’re just like pounding down stuff and couldn’t really taste it much anymore. Okay, so there’s this thing that has been since the dawn of ages, is what I’m talking about today, is getting together with friends for a drink and especially when it comes to St. Patrick’s Day, you know, today, I’ve got scotch, but there have been St. Patrick’s days to where I’ve just shifted over to Irish Whiskey a little bit, it’s not exactly blasphemy for a person that loves scotch. And second, I am mostly Irish, so I’m just going to do what I want. And I just love Scotch too.

So when you’re in person, this was a huge important thing for me to learn. When my clients would invite me to these places, and I talk with business owners a lot, they kind of have this separation between themselves and their clients and themselves and their vendors. And that’s something that I want to encourage you to try to get over and get out of your own way with this. Because the more that you can network, and the more that you can get to know people personally, is how you’ll be able to help them achieve what they want in their lives and then actually, the money starts coming back to you. All of this happens over a drink, over a drink, over a beer, over a whiskey over a glass of wine over food, if you want to include that too, which depending on how much you’re going to drink, you might want to actually have a little bit of food that start inviting people back out again, because they’re going to appreciate it and this is a great time because you might not have ever done it before. Right? And it might have been a little awkward to be like after a time period of never really knowing when your clients, never really knowing one of your vendors and said “Hey, why don’t we just go out or something like that?” Trying to force it. But you’ve got like the world’s best excuse right now, coming out of a pandemic, to just start that again and be like, “You know what? I’m sick of zoom.”

This is the perfect way to start this conversation. When you’re talking with a client. I’m sick of zoom. How about we go out this coming week and we just have a drink? Is that cool? I got some cool stuff I want to show you. I just want to get to know you even better, even if you’ve known him a while. I know I’ve known you for a long time, but I just want to catch up. We’ve been stuck on Zoom for so long. Now’s a good time to actually head back out again and let’s just go have a drink. Because there is something about that and I will encourage everybody if you’re not an alcohol drinker, that’s fine, but you can still do this but there is something about sharing a drink together, breaking bread together, that brings people together.

Episode References:

Balvenie 17 doublewood