American Express Open Forum recently launched a video series interviewing successful business owners called “Inside Successful Small Business”. As part of this series they talked with Renee Rowe, founder of The Wine Cellars. Specifically they talked with Renee about the importance of your local community when it comes to the success of your business.
Key: Small business is all about your neighborhood. It’s very important to be a part of the community and it’s a major reason The Wine Cellar is successful and still in business today.
The Wines Cellars is a neighborhood wine shop and stays very involved in the local community by doing charity events and participating with local events.
During the economic downturn they were struggling to get by and knew changes needed to be made. They realized customer’s wanted to taste the wine before they bought it. However, the building that they were in was not zoned to sell wine by the glass.
To overcome this they had to go to the town and try to change the laws. The local community rallied behind The Wine Cellars by sitting in on council meetings to help get the laws changed. It was a big challenge and a long process but by working together they managed to work around and tweak the local laws to help keep The Wine Cellars in business.
Renee knows how important the community is to her business and loves getting to know her customers. She says “Small business is your neighborhood. If your neighbors don’t shop with you, you don’t have any business.”
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You can find more video interviews like this here.
This interview was sponsored by and originally published on American Express Open Forum.
