Your Stage Setting

I’m finishing a little e book on the business operating system, of which I am passionate. In the section about the Oyster, which has five components to build the vibe in your business. The fifth part is called, The Stage Setting and I think is the most important, so I thought I would dive into it a bit here.

If I were to run into you at the GABF and congratulated you on the medal you were wearing around your neck while you “pretended” to be interested in my beer that didn’t win a medal. Oh sure, you are just showing off. I would probably ask about your brewery. Could you tell me what kind of brewery you have in a sentence or two?

If you can’t then you haven’t put enough thought into your stage setting. It’s time to do that.

Why do I say stage setting? I think of a business that deals with customers as putting on a play. You set the stage, you train the actors and hope it all pleases your audience. In the business system I go through how to train your actors, but in the Oyster you set the stage.

Even if you have a very simple tasting room brewery, let’s say you call it Joe’s Beer Factory. Well what does that say to you? What pictures come in mind with this name? First, Joe is a very simple, almost blue collar name. Factory of course is blue collar as well, so now I am thinking of a very blue collar brewery: A celebration of blue collar. OK, I can work with this. If that is where I am heading, how would I set the stage? I would decorate with factory metal pieces and gears, levers (tap handles), doors with rivets, how about a time clock looking device with punch cards that mug club members could “punch in” when they show up for a beer. Their paycheck could be a free pint or tee shirt. Fun.

The artwork could be depression era Union posters. The music could reflect good working class roots, whether Bruce Springsteen, or Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. For uniforms, of course work-shirts or overalls for the brew staff. Your swag would also follow suit too.

When I asked about your brewery, you would say, “It’s called Joe’s Beer Factory. It’s a brewery that celebrates the person who works with their hands.” Got it.

Once you have identified your stage setting, you can start riffing off of that idea, and come up with all sorts of other ideas that add to the theme.

I had some students who were flyers and that was the theme of their brewery. We talked about an old aluminum airplane wing for a bar top. The tasting room would have a feel of the quonset huts from WW2 in the Battle of Britain, and the beer cans would be aluminum with rivets on them, like a fuselage of an airplane.

You don’t have to go to this extreme. Your brewery can just be about really good beer. Still, there is a stage setting to this as well. If you really only care about the quality of your beer, then your artwork should reflect the educational aspect of teaching your customers WHY your beer is exceptional. You would want your lab gear to be visible to the customers to show that you care about quality, even on a microscopic level. You would also make a big deal out of every single award you won, no matter how small. You would also host home-brew meetings and go out and do free teachings at home-brew clubs as well.

There is no limit to setting the stage. I can’t think of a single national brand in any business that doesn’t have a stage setting, whether they call it this or not. They have thought a lot about how they want to portray themselves to the public. Why? Because it works.

Take this opportunity to think about the brewery you have or the one you are planning and see if you can say what it is about in 2 sentences. If you can, let you imagination fly on how to build around that.