By Bill Quain
Happy Leap Year, everyone! This week’s column is being released on Feb. 29, leap day. Now, most Americans don’t go crazy on leap day, but I do! Last leap day in 2020, my wife and I were in California, celebrating with my good friend and college roommate John Williams. John is the owner of Frog’s Leap Winery, which he started in 1981.
How do you name a winery?
Before opening Frog’s Leap, John was the winemaker at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. At that time, he lived on an old farm with a couple of other guys, including the owner, Larry Turley. The farmhouse needed some work, so Larry made a deal with John and a few of the others. They could live there rent-free as long as they gave 20 hours of labor per month towards rebuilding the farmhouse.
The farmhouse had several rooms that had been sealed off for many years. When John and Larry opened one room, they found accounting books from more prosperous times. It seems the farmer was a real go-getter. Besides his crops, he held dances in the barn on Saturday nights. He also raised frogs and sold them to restaurants in San Francisco for frog’s legs entrees! Yum! By the time I arrived to work in Stag’s Leap with John in the mid-70s, the “Frog Farm” name was well entrenched in the local lore.
John and Larry decided to plant grapes on the Frog Farm and open their own winery. However, they needed a name and a unique logo for the label. They wanted something that would be memorable, and signify their past experiences. That’s when they combined the Frog Farm with Stag’s Leap and came up with Frog’s Leap. Their “Leaping Frog” label was designed by someone’s cousin. It was so good that it won several awards for graphic design.
Frogs leap, but smart people leverage.
In last week’s column, I promised to talk more about leveraging. Learning to leverage is one of the most important life lessons you’ll ever get. John and Larry taught me to leverage. You see, they took their talents, plus the things they owned, and combined them so that the final product was greater than the sum of all the things they put into it. They had a clear vision of where they wanted to land (that’s the leaping part), and they also had a clear vision of the obstacles they had to overcome (that’s the leveraging part).
To fully understand this, you have to know a little more about the wine business in the late 1970s. The Napa Valley had been producing grapes and wines for many years. However, in the ‘70s, the modern wine culture we know today was just getting started. Americans weren’t drinking as much wine as they do today, and there wasn’t a “Chef Culture” like we have now. But John and Larry spotted a trend. They saw an opportunity. To their credit, they decided to leap ahead of the trends, so they would land in a place where the demand was going. This was going to take more than just hard work. It required them to bring it all together, package it, promote it, and stand by it. That’s the leveraging part. Once they began to assemble the pieces, they just kept building their brand.
For example, in order to get distribution, John began to develop relationships with both liquor distributors and restaurateurs. He began tastings with groups of consumers – the people who would eventually buy the wine. Consumers asked the restaurateurs to carry Frog’s Leap on their menus. The chefs and sommeliers started asking their distributors to carry Frog’s Leap. This wasn’t a haphazard approach. It was designed to leverage both consumer demand and restaurateur demand. They also unlocked distributor demand. They built a brand, and that brand stayed in people’s minds.
Is 2024 your year to leverage?
In the next 366 days, how far and how high do you have to go to land squarely on your goal? How far will you leap, and what will you leverage? Before you answer those questions, ask yourself:
- What am I trying to grow, change, achieve, etc.?
- What area of my life has the highest leap and leverage mission right now? Job? Business? Relationship? Personal health?
- Which resources do I have at my disposal? Training? Desire? Talent? Commitment?
- What’s my brand? Loyal? Dependable? Well-prepared? Visionary? All of the above?
- When will I begin? Today? Tomorrow? Never?
I have a saying that I teach my students. It’s simple. If you want to change your life, you have to change your life! You see, many people want to make changes, but only a few actually do it.
Take a lesson from the Frog’s Leap story. Don’t limit yourself to what you already have. Take a look around and start uncovering all the hidden assets that you never thought to combine. I can tell you this: If you learn to leverage your leaps, you’ll be sure to jump higher and farther than you ever thought you could.
What about leap year in California?
While my wife and I will not be traveling to California this year for leap day, we will still celebrate! Our plan is to head to our favorite BYOB restaurant, Mama Mia’s in Marmora, with several bottles of Frog’s Leap wine. The food there is fantastic, and the owner (and fellow Shore Local contributor) Joe Massaglia is a wonderful host. So go out and celebrate this leap day! If you see us at Joe’s place, be sure to stop by our table.
Got a leaping or leveraging story? I’d love to hear it! Shoot me an email to bill@quain.com. As I say each week, “I’ll see ya in the papers!”
Bill is a Professor in Stockton University’s Hospitality Management Program. He is the author of 27 books, and a highly-respected speaker. Even though he is almost totally blind, Bill is a long-distance runner and runs the Ocean City Half Marathon each year. He lives in Ocean City with his wife Jeanne, and his Guide Dog Trudy. Visit www.billquain.com or email him at bill@quain.com.
