Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Jeremy Rivera, your unscripted small business podcast host. I'm here with Pamela Maria de la Luz and her brand, Agave Luz.
I'd love for you to introduce yourself and your brand and what makes you unique in your market.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Okay. My name is Pamela Maria de la Luz. It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. And about my, my background a little bit is just I've been in over 20 years in the industry of cells and spirits, specifically tequila. I'm from Mexico and of course I have a passion for this spirit, which is the national spirit in my country.
So I know everything about the tequila and very passionate about it. So after 20 years in the industry as a salesperson and being in direct contact with the consumer, seeing what's happening in the industry, like all these changes and big names endorsements and the labels and the brands, and a lot of big brands mass produced, cutting corners with, you know, using additives and colorants and sweetness and the drink to speed the process. That actually takes a long time.
So it got me to the point that I got disappointed and what was happening and made me create my own brand of tequila, which is Agave Loose Agave Loose Tequila. It's made with only two ingredients for the ones that don't know this process. Usually the basic ingredients for tequila, it's yeast, water, and the agave plant.
My tequila is organic, certified organic. Which means there is an agency goes and certified.
And we don't use pesticides, we don't use chemicals, and we don't use any additive in the process.
We need to pass over 70 tests to certify organic.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: And Agavelus tequila is made with only water, natural water and organic agave plants. We don't even use cheese. We do the open fermentation in our tanks in Jalisco.
It's from a Maxitan Jalisco.
And we use the number one distillery and organic section, which is 1% of the whole industry in tequila.
And Escolas Americas is a family of farmers. They've been doing organic tequila generation after generation. So as what they do for living, so it's not shortcuts.
The agave plant needs to be matured and brought seven to eight years in order to be harvest.
That's the official traditional tequila is what the distillery does. And it's something that has been lacking in other brands because the mass producer, the demand they can wait seven to eight years.
They harvest the plant earlier, like a two or three years.
So the plant is not mature enough to make the sugar naturally.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: So that's why they need in the process to add fake sweetnesses.
The additives, the flavors, vanilla, the colors, colors for the aging.
This one is my extra Napa which has been aged 12 years and an American old girls.
So to get to this color it takes years.
So a lot of these companies don't weigh that many that long, you know.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: So I think it's something that I wanted to create with my brand and offer to the consumer, the smart consumer, which actually is aware of what they want to drink, what they want to eat.
So that's the market that I'm targeting in my company.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: I like that, that market awareness, you know, trying to, you know, correct something that you're seeing going wrong in your industry.
I love seeing that as a market opportunity.
What have been some of your efforts to leverage marketing right now? I know a lot of things are changing. Some things are easier and there's new different marketing channels at the same time. There's probably never been a time where I've talked to more small business owners or marketers where there's been more options but less clarity of what works. So what's been your experience so far?
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Well, creating the project of Agave loose it took us three years.
It's not easy going the direction on organic, which is I wanted to do takes a little longer. Is this odd process that I explained previously looking for the distillery that I want, choosing the profile that I wanted offer to my consumer, making the labels, designing it and wait for the crt, which is the agency in charge in Mexico to approve every single word and every design that we do design in the bottle. Me, I'm a foreigner.
Nobody wanted to make my bottle. It was, it was a big challenge. So finally somebody did it and three years the project.
After three years we launched it last year and it's been very challenging now because here in Southern California is over 4,000 brands of tequila. Only of tequila out there.
So for us starting like from scratch, nobody knows us, nobody knows me.
So all they see in the market is the celebrities, endorsements, you know, the big boys with the big companies.
I don't want to say names, but everybody knows them and the tequila, you know, so they had the power.
So I'm not competing with them.
My plan actually is not competing with the big boys, the big names. I'm just want to do what I I intended to do before in my personal life. I've been volunteering my time. The pets for life program from Human Society, rescuing animals, doing the TNR Program for the feral cat colony in Los Angeles for I still take care of them every two weeks. And the food and ladies help with food them.
I help over 30 cats in LA personally.
I fix them, I vaccinated them, I release them to their colony and I go visit them and I whistle and they come and see me and they remember me. So I keep sending food for them.
It's something that I do from my personal, you know, it's like something that I need to do because from my heart so I love animals. What I wanted to continue doing, I create a company that wants to give back for the ones I made.
So for every bottle that we sell in Madada Luz, we are partnering and donating to the local rescues in California and in Las Vegas as well.
So that's something that wasn't planned as a strategy.
But I wanted to put together my two passions in life.
And I think he's been doing very, very well out there. The response has been very, very well.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Well I know that there's that the famous case study of like Tom's Tom shoes where you know, he gives a pair of shoes to a family in need whenever you buy a pair of his shoes.
I talked to Andy Chow of Do Good Points and you know, he coordinates between nonprofits and for profit companies to multiply like the visibility and reach by doing these type of community events. I mean as an SEO and as a marketer myself, I work with a number of my clients, offer a service to do community cleanups and organize. Hey, you know what's a park nearby?
There's a ton of digital visibility. I'll reach out to city hall, message to the local school, see if there's any churches that want to participate and co brand with your company, you know, to surface. Oh hey, we're doing this in the community and it's netted for the my partners that I've done that for so many open doors because you're taking the time to not just broadcast and stand, oh, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. Instead it's like, hey, like this, this park is trashless. Pick it up. I'm like help me help you, help me help you.
Has a lot more impact and that it's kind of interesting too if you can find, you know, you know, non profit entities to help with, to partner with.
I think there was a statistic that the marketing budget for non profits is only like 19% for the.
Sorry, 19% for, for their budget as opposed to, you know, 34, 38, 40% that you know, real company. So there's like this suffering of they have a mission, they want to get out there, but they don't end up spending nearly enough to, like, get that exposure. And then you have companies who want that exposure, but don't think, oh, hey, there's an opportunity to partner with a nonprofit that can open doors that maybe might not have been open to a company like mine before.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Yes.
What we encounter in this industry specifically is there is a big brand of vodka.
I respect it so much because the founder of that brand really helps animals, not only in America and other countries as well. Whoever meets are in the big need of, I don't know, food or something for the rescues or this big company help them.
So I respect a lot of that and admire, you know, I admire that I in. It was never intended since the beginning of Agave Loose, I use it as a marketing or strategy. Like a lot of people had told me, oh, that was a smart strategy. And like, no, I do it because part of me, of my daily life, of what I've been doing for over 15 years, you know, so I just want to keep doing it. And now I have the opportunity to bring a company that is doing it. And it's a lot of brands, a lot of companies that they come up with, oh, yeah, we donate to this.
Really?
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: The words is very easy.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: But to actually prove it and actually doing it, that's different.
Somebody asked me in another interview, like, what if another. The other brands start doing what you're doing?
That'd be amazing.
Just amazing. I mean, that'll be a dream come true in my world. You know, like if every company, big company, would actually get back to whatever charity, you know, that'd be amazing.
Imagine, our world will be way better than it is right now, and we'll be giving that to our kids in the future.
So it's amazing what you do too, because it's working with our community. And it's something that I've been witnesses in a lot of cities around Los Angeles.
I visit them, I do an in event, and I talk to people.
For people nowadays, being part of a movement or knowing the story, they want to be part of that. They want to contribute.
They want to support the product or what you do.
They want to be part of that.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a positive outgrowth. You know, there's. It's easy to look at the way that society has changed over the last 30 years and be like, oh, social media is ruining everything.
But there is something to say about a founder who has Like a specific conviction or something on their heart that they want to do. And then they, you know, through the brand, you have that power of advocacy to show, hey, you know, we're not just, you know, writing empty checks because we get tax breaks and, like, greenwashing our Clorox products.
But, no, we actually want to do this. And actually, you know, having social channels that show, you know, you out there picking up trash or you out there, you know, hanging out with kitty cats on the street, like, that's just as important. That's even more important for millennials and younger to see, you know, the leaders of these companies embracing something other than probably profits. And maybe it's just a societal thing of like, okay, another very successful company, and he's going by his own private island, but actually getting somebody who's like, okay, I'm building something, but I can do more, too.
I think people are hungry for that. You know, they want to be able to embrace a company and not just wait for the news press conference over what terrible thing that the CEO or founder got embroiled in.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And something that I do. I don't know what other companies are the same, but I love. I enjoy is going to an event in person, interact with the. With my direct consumer, doing the tastings, doing demos, sometimes the demos, you know, in a regular, you know, big chain store that they have my product, I'll be just there like a regular demo person and just talking to people and introducing my brand. And the feedback is very, very nice.
When they found out I'm the founder, but I'm introducing my product and talking, talking about the story and why this is. And why is the difference in this. That's a very, very nice experience.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: And I think it's a much better marketing approach than just, oh, I'm going to get Claude and put out some AI slop.
You know, just put up a dozen, you know, 100 articles on how agave, you know, ferments.
Instead, you're doing something, you know, that's genuine, that's heartfelt. I think that that. That type of marketing right now is definitely having a moment as I think we reach kind of this peak social exposure to the concept of A.I. you know, like, I teach a homeschool class for my kids at a co op, and I accidentally put on music that was for, you know, we were studying Germany, and they're like, oh, all those people are AI. This is terrible. Turn it off. They're. They're AI get us some real music. You know, we want to Hear the Oompa Boompa Band. That's a real one. Like, okay, okay. But it's funny because I, I'm in digital marketing and I'm, I'm so used to seeing all of this AI stuff.
LLM outputs and tools. I've kind of grown acclimated to it. But there is, you know, kind of a shorthand now of like, you know, are you using, you know, oh, that, that ad is AI. That label. That's obviously AI is a shorthand for.
It's junk, it's garbage, it's not good. And I think that's pushing our society back towards valuing human connection, valuing empathy and you know, good deeds, so to speak.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a few people telling me like, oh, the industry and tequila.
Otherwise it's been changing a lot. Now it's more challenging. A lot of people stop drinking. They are not drinking anymore. The new generations, I disagree with that. I think new generations are making modern decisions and why they actually want to follow what they want to eat what they want to. They're investing more and is their, their health, their body, their mind and they're drinking a smarter, they are eating smarter. I mean, they're investing their money in something that is worth it for them and they love support across.
They love be part of a movement that is something good.
That's what I've been doing.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: What's something though, that's been genuinely challenging?
Either something that you've solved or is something that you're actively working on as a small business owner.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: There have been a lot of setbacks in all these four years already.
And everything has been a little challenge since I explained before, like little things like the label, the bottle, the stalker, the design, the approval for all the paperwork in Mexico and deciding the profile.
I think now the product's out. Now we're working on the real thing, the big challenge.
It's just get to people, get to the people that actually appreciate my product.
And once I try it, I think that's the more challenging time challenging thing in my experience because most people don't know me, don't know Gava loose.
They go for other products.
That's my experience.
Once I reach out to people and they try it and they love it and the feedback is amazing.
That's a very, very satisfactory experience.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Got it.
Is your focus, you know, finding more partnerships of local stores to carry it and, and have it on shelves available for consumers or is there also like an E commerce type of part of your business where you're trying to market Online and reach people to get to your site and then you know, buy it off of your site and get shipped directly. Like what. What's your. Is that a hybrid model both or is there a specific site side you're wanting to grow?
[00:21:05] Speaker B: I what is happening in Las Vegas? I need to say this Las Vegas is a different, different market than California.
Las Vegas has been amazing for us because they are very selective on what they experience. They put in the lot of the state.
So we are with the biggest rescue in Las Vegas.
That has been our key to open so many big doors.
We are in the menu big places there.
A lot of people have to try a Gavaloos there and they go back to their states and they look for a Gavalus in their local states.
So the companies there or the stories there, they are reaching out to us like a. Hey, some customers are asking for this product for your product.
So I think that's been a lot of good marketing for us being in Las Vegas and then in the key places there and also my website, we have the bottles for sale. You can order it from any state in the USA and we ship it and deliver it through door something. What we do.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Are you doing all of your marketing in house with the team or are you partnered with an agency? What. What type of.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: No, we're doing it all in our team and social media and influencers. Specifically influencers that we look as influencers that have a pet
[00:22:44] Speaker A: that makes sense.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: We want to put together in in people's eyes. But I got to lose is giving back to the most unique and they've been people that reaching out to us like hey, I'll make a video for you, you know, for free.
Just send me. We have a doggy toy and it's beautiful.
My bottle and a doggy toy and squeaky.
We send that, we send that doggy shirt and they made the video and we are trying to do that also on social media without paying for that because people reach out to us for the just want to be part of that.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: That's fun.
I know a lot of people who put a a high bar on starting their own business and in their mind it's a impossible thing. Oh, I need, you know, millions of dollars of capital to pull off my dream or you know, I knew a guy who he had like a 44 layer plan that he had to get through to be able to launch a small business.
My own personal perspective on that is that the Runway has never been shorter and that more doors have never been more open. But what's your advice about somebody who has an idea for them to get, get it to market and to get it available?
[00:24:20] Speaker B: One thing that I, I can say by experience with Agaveloos is we are not here for the Gavalus, just for the business. We are here to actually.
It's a brand with a mission, with a purpose.
So what's my advice? We don't want to do things right now, we want to do things right.
So everything takes time.
There was one brand, one company, they spent over $50 million to be everywhere.
Money's gone and they sell on the shelves.
So spending a lot of money to speed the process, like to make people who like you, it's going to be something that is not going to last.
And I've seen it with a lot of brands over the 20 years and experience on sales.
The good brands are still here, that still maintains the status and gets to the people and stay loyal.
It took a long time, it took a few years.
It's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen, not even in the first two years.
You need to be in a constant effort to be out there exposing your product and talking to people and getting into a lot of events and social media.
If you don't want to spend alone
[00:26:12] Speaker A: and a lot of money, yeah, yeah, you can, it's, you can buy publicity, but as soon as your money's gone, so is your publicity. You know, if that's the fuel for it, if that's the fuel for it, you gotta keep chucking those dollar bills in the fire. So you know, at a certain point, you know, you're, you're running on, on just dollars for, for eyeballs. And if you don't have anything deeper, any authenticity, then that can, I can be, I can feel on its own.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: People forget very easy.
The trend stuff is just fast. People change. Oh, what's next? What's next?
Something that is meaningful, something that has roots.
People don't forget.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Because remember, I absolutely love that. Thank you for coming and stopping by.
My last question for you is, I'm sure you do a lot of these different interviews, have a lot of conversations. What's a question that nobody's asked or that you wish people would ask about you or your business that you think people should know?
[00:27:31] Speaker B: I try to tell them everything that I know, everything that I have. In my experience, it's more about know what they don't ask. It's more about just reminding those entrepreneurs that they are starting building a business, studying a business, thinking that you're going to be a millionaire and then next few months and the next year and then sell it for more money.
That's like getting married, thinking about divorce if it doesn't work.
So I see that is as an example.
I created Gavaluz out of passion, out of I wanted to bring back authenticity that I remember 20 years ago, the traditional tequila that I remember.
That's why I started my passion. Why can I say to other people is did you build something?
Has to be something that you are doing it with love, but you are doing it for money.
Not gonna last. It's not gonna work too long when you do it with love, with passion, something that is not work every day, it's just something that makes you happy every day that's going to last, that's going to be successful.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: You said it perfectly.
Thank you so much for stopping by. This episode will be up on Unscripted Small Business.com with links to her site. So if you do want to check out her brand, see what her mission is and support her, as well as have probably a tasty beverage, that information will be up on unscripted Small business. Com. Thanks for stopping by.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you.
