Jeff O’Neill on “Only The Strong Survive”

Jeff O’Neill’s life has always revolved around great wines and ideas. In 1980, he joined the family wine business that his grandfather had initially started. With the winery in bad financial shape before his onboarding, it wasn’t long before the bank took it over. However, Jeff was able to repurchase its assets and continue operations with the help of private equity investors. In 2004, he sold the original family business and created his own with O’Neill Vintners and Distillers. As its CEO and founder, Jeff helped guide it to become one of Central California's largest vintners and distillers.Another of Jeff’s passions is vintage racecars, which started with childhood trips to TransAm races at Sonoma Raceway with his father. Jeff combined his two favorite vintages into one and created Velocity Invitational, a luxury motorsports festival that blends fine food and wine with rare racecars, hypercars and supercars. The unique and highly anticipated event is held at the same raceway where his love for racing first began.In this episode of the “Only The Strong Survive” podcast, Jeff shares his knowledge on building brands and experiential events with host Dan Kahn. It is a must-listen for anyone looking to start their own company or create an event. Click on the icon to watch the entire episode, and here are our top five takeaways:* Branding is everything, regardless of the business you are in.* Talk to your customers and not at them.* Authenticity is key to building brands.* You have to appeal to more than just core customers.* Perfection can be the enemy of innovation.Building Brands Has Completely ChangedBrand value has always been extremely important in the wine business, as consumers tend to gravitate towards wineries they know and like. However, how that brand value is built has completely changed over the years. Now, there are more customer touchpoints than ever, and each needs careful consideration.“Today, it (brand building) is in a different place than it was 30 years ago. You used to just get it (the wine) on the floor and make sure someone had to run into it with their shopping cart,” said Jeff. “Today, you have to have social media, Instagram and TikTok. So, you are really trying to touch consumers in a lot more places than you used to. But everyone has that same challenge.”Be Inclusive and not ExclusiveDrinking wine can be a needlessly complicated experience with a plethora of rules. While this might give the experience a sense of exclusivity, it doesn’t help build a larger customer base. If you want to expand your business, you have to connect with your consumers in the right way and be more inclusive than exclusive.“As an industry, I think we need to take the blame. We have made drinking wine a little too complicated for a lot of people,” said Jeff. “We have created, I think, a mess from the consumer point of view. What we want to do is to turn it all into exploration. There are really no bad decisions out there, right? Drink white wine with a steak if you want to drink white wine. But we have created all these rules…we have to change the way we talk to the consumer and make it more fun and entertaining.”Authenticity is EverythingToday, the story behind a brand is just as important as the product itself. However, that story has to be authentic to have an impact. For O’neill Vintners and Distillers, talking about its sustainability and regenerative farming efforts, which are central to its values, has been vital to helping build its brands.“Authenticity is key. Telling these great stories, why we are here and the background is the most important thing we can do today. It is critical to the success of the brands. It doesn’t matter if it is our brand or Patagonia,” said Jeff. “Authenticity and real stories matter, but I do remind everyone that the kid who wants authenticity and sustainability wants it in five minutes. I am not 100% sure you can say you love authenticity and sustainability, but, by the way, I got to have that bag of Doritos delivered by Amazon in eight minutes.”Reaching the Next RingVelocity Invitational could have been a “hardcore” motorsports event solely appealing to enthusiasts. However, that wasn’t interesting to Jeff and would have greatly limited its appeal and success. For any brand or event to be successful, it is crucial to figure out how to reach the next concentric ring beyond your core customers.“The whole idea is how to make a day out of it (Velocity Invitational) and make it really fun and entertaining. If you want to learn a ton about the cars, we have docents. But otherwise, come and enjoy the day, enjoy the food and tour the cars. See everything from 1908 to what the future looks like,” said Jeff. “It is always about how we entertain and take care of, I will call it families, but it is really wives, girlfriends and people who are kind of interested, but they are not subscribing to a motorsport magazine and reading it cover to cover.”You Will Never Win if Everything Must be 100%Perfection can sometimes stifle innovation. New ideas aren’t always fully thought out, but that is okay. For Jeff, coming up with a concept that might need some work is better than shelving it because it is not 100% complete.“They (his team) like to deliver everything to me with a perfect bow on it and 100% done. My point is, you will never win if you think you have to get everything done 100%,” said Jeff. “You get it to 98% and go, or 90% and go, because usually, if it is a great idea, it is something new and something innovative. You don’t need it to be 100%.” This is a public episode. 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