Chelsea Bellows was not going to have a career as a soccer player–by her own choice. It’s not that she wasn’t a great player. (She was.) But she followed the voice within that said it wasn’t her path and she changed directions to the world of hospitality in restaurants. That newfound area quickly led to an exploration of wine. And the rest, as they say, is history.
That leaves a lot of holes, so we should fill them in! As she was getting her business degree in college, she had this inkling that wine was in her career forecast. But where? How? Turns out that Alpha Omega Winery (AO) was just getting underway when Chelsea joined the team. The world of wine was pretty new to her, so she soaked it up like a sponge.
During her ten years with AO, the winery’s sales grew in double digits for the entire time. (This was just as the recession hit hard.) She served as National Sales Manager as well as VP Operations. She even got her MBA while working at AO. During this time the company grew from two to more than 100 employees. But having served in nearly every role in the company, she felt the urge to move on to a new adventure.
Tune in to hear Chelsea discuss the challenges of selling wine during the pandemic. Is it the perfect time to pivot, reaching out to consumers instead of waiting for them to show up in your tasting room? What about social media, is there finally a measurable ROI (return on investment) to utilizing this marketing medium? You’ll have to listen in to find out…
Chelsea Bellows established Bellows Wine Consulting to assist start up and ongoing wine brands to find, and fine tune, their vision. Her core services include assisting wine producers to create a plan of their proper placement in the market and develop the accompanying strategy and operational systems to take them there.
There was lots of deep discussion during the show about current wine news, as well as what wine bottles the hosts currently had open. (Lisa was enjoying Pope Valley Winery’s Rose of Sangiovese as well as Hill Family Estate’s Rose of Pinot Noir. Misty, of course, said she was sticking to her St. Supery seasonal Cabernet Sauvignons since it’s still winter. And Marcia was enjoying the always-fabulous Mathis Rosé de Grenache.)
The other great lesson of the show? None of us have enough bandwidth…literally! The pandemic means there are many more family members consuming the internet highway making it tough to catch everything during the show. Oh, my!
Listen in to hear how Chelsea Bellows grew her wine-based businesses over the past decade and what she sees ahead…
Podcast (ww): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:40 — 38.9MB)
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