DR caught up with Jo Wehring (pictured right), the former UK market manager for Wines of South Africa, to find out more about her new role as director of Wine Works Studio. She highlights three things that helped her move from an employed role to become a business owner

1) Have faith in your knowledge and find your confidence
As someone who has always enjoyed the relative security of being employed, the idea of starting a new business was mildly daunting, to say the least. When Claudia Pritchard and I were made redundant, after working together for 19 years, our first thought was, “we can work for ourselves”.

What started out as a gung-ho, hell-yeah, pipe dream quickly became a serious discussion about whether that idea was realistic. Did we know enough? Could we make it work? Would we secure enough business? There is always a degree of self doubt when you’re setting out on your own, but if you can find your confidence then it’s a leap of faith worth making.

We wrote a list of all the aspects of our careers that would be transferable to running our business: our expertise in the UK wine industry, our contacts, our creative process – we realised that we knew how to run a business, we just needed to apply that knowledge to build our company. We established that we knew a lot about the wine market in the UK and that experience would be extremely useful, and very sellable. We told people what we were thinking of doing and listened to the feedback.

2) Identify your support crew

Claudia and I were fortunate to already have a long-established working relationship, so we didn’t need to develop that. We did have a chat about what our aims were for Wine Works Studio and how committed we were to it. Being made redundant was a blessing in some ways – it provides an enormous kick up the arse to do something different. It is also a bit like getting to witness your own memorial service.

It’s often said that the wine trade is a people business and launching Wine Works Studio has reinforced that notion for me. There have been so many offers of help, advice and positive reinforcement. People
have given their time generously to offer support.

Networking is vital in our industry, where people buy from people they trust. We spent time gathering testimonials from our contacts to demonstrate our skills and cement our reputation. Whether it’s customers, supporters or other business owners, the connections we make are just as important as the business itself.

3) Learn as you go

You can wait forever to get started and there’s never a time you will feel completely ready. Experience is the best way to learn, so get stuck in. You can start with a simple version of what you aim to deliver and progress on the job, the business plan can develop as you and your customers set out together.
Wine is actually a fast-paced industry, not that it tends to be regarded as such, so adaptability is essential. Things rarely go exactly as planned, success isn’t about having the perfect plan – it’s about being willing to change, evolve and keep moving.