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- Country Smooth Bourbon Whiskey founder
- America's first female founder and CEO of bourbon whiskey started in 2015
- Was not a whiskey drinker
- Wanted to celebrate America
- Wanted to create a smooth-tasting whiskey that women could drink neat
- Her husband thought she was crazy
- She had no experience in the distilled spirits world
- Spent thousands of hours in 2015 getting this going
- Distilled and aged in Indiana
- Bottled in Nashville
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- Had a business degree with an emphasis in accounting from Fullerton from 2002.
- Her dad influenced her to learn accounting because knowing numbers is vital to running and growing a business.
- She had a natural proclivity for marketing and creativity.
- Accounting information systems was "terrible."
- But the degree paid off.
- Worked for a large CPA firm after interning with them.
- The Enron scandal happened at that time, which helped her see how fraud could happen and how to test for that.
- Had her first child in 2007, so she wanted to keep working, but not the crazy, hectic hours, so she started her own business as an outsourced controller and CFO.
- Gave her flexibility.
- Grew the practice up to 14 clients and two employees.
- Scaled her hours as the kids grew.
- Did that for 10 years.
- Did more business development for her clients.
- Entrepreneurs underestimate how much time and money it will take to break even.
- Her #1 mistake was not bringing in an industry expert early on.
- In 22 states already.
- She endured a steep learning curve.
- Her husband drank bourbon, her dad drank scotch, and she loved country music.
- She and her husband invested in the LLC.
- Five branches of the military are represented by the five stars.
- We're fortunate to be Americans.
- The formulation process took a while.
- State-by-state licensing and each state requires a different distributor.
- Dec 31, 2019, she was in five states, then COVID hit.
- She was doing in-store tastings and concerts, etc.
- Shifted to digital marketing for about six months.
- Launched the small batch in 2021 and went after Instagram influencers.
This has been my best business decision by far."
- Record sales for the last several years.
- ROI-based business.
- One metric is the manufacturing costs and percentage of marketing per bottle.
- She is driving marketing costs down.
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GUEST INFO:
- Guest Site: https://www.countrysmooth.com
- Guest Business Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countrysmoothbourbonwhiskey/
- Guest Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lcarcich/
- Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-carcich-79b0a9b7/
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