Yesterday afternoon saw the Midwest Entrepreneurs welcome its first guest speaker of the semester; Susan Schuytema, Proprietor of Market Alley Wines (http://marketalleywines.com/).

Susan came to class armed with 2.5 years of experience running the cozy downtown Monmouth retail store as well as quite a stack of index cards. Both were instrumental in her highly insightful and entertaining presentation (which inspired one of the most active class discussion I have witnessed).

While the value of her entrepreneurial experience is blatantly obvious, the value of the index cards warrants explanation.

On each of the cards was information pertaining to a particular job Susan held prior to opening Market Alley Wines in June of 2011.

She worked for a time—consistent with her education at Western Ilinois University—as a journalist. She also toiled as a corn detasseler, a lifeguard, an usher at Wrigley Field, a landscaper, a freelance writer, and a salesperson for a nursing home.

Eventually, Susan began to think about what she really wanted to do. She stepped back, engaged in what she described as “soul searching,” and looked at all that she had done and tried to figure out what it was that she really liked—and did not like—in this series of positions.

One thing she had come to really like, in large part as a result of a summer visit to France, was wine.

Another thing she had really come to appreciate was extraordinarily excellent customer service. Here Susan recounted being inspired to open Market Alley Wines by several Galesburg, IL retail businesses—Calico Cat and Mimi’s—run by persons conspicuously concerned with getting to know their customers and remembering seemingly trivial details of their lives. As she said of Calico Cat: “They went out of their way to know you.”

Susan combined these two “likes”—wine and extraordinary customer service—and developed  her own high-service, customer experience-based business.

Experience is, I think, the key word here.

As Susan told the class, one can find bottles of some of the same wines she sells elsewhere for several dollars less. Actually, as she explained, due to peculiarities of Illinois liquor law, what she pays for her wine is at times more than some other large-volume sellers sell their wine for at the retail level.

Of course, Market Alley Wines sells far more than bottles of wine. Yes, one can purchase bottles of wine—and now fine whiskey—at her store. One can also sit in a comfortable couch or around a table with friends and talk and enjoy a glass of wine. There is also live music on weekends. There is atmosphere and there is, of course, outstanding customer service; provided first and foremost by Susan herself.

This is the Market Alley Wine experience… And this is why people keep coming back again and again… And why they spread all-important positive word-of-mouth to members of their social networks…

It is not because of price… Relationships with customers are seldom if ever built on price. Loyalty has little if anything to do with price. Remember that as we progress through the semester!!

Another interesting point to take away from Susan’s presentation is the fact that love of a product coupled with a desire to offer it to customers with extraordinary customer service does not alone make for a successful entrepreneurial business. This is due to the fact that these factors tell one nothing about the level of demand for the product; even is nothing like what you have in mind in the trade area.

Evidence—hard, data-based evidence—of adequate demand for the business Susan eventually developed came from her reading of a study commissioned several years ago by the City of Monmouth which she referred to as The Buxton Group Report. This report indicated, among other things, that Monmouth-area residents spend very large sums of money on wine outside of Monmouth itself. This data helped motivate Susan to make the decision to open a wine shop and lounge in Monmouth; and to develop a customer experience unrivaled in the area.

Finally, Susan Schuytema strives to make a Market Alley Wines a “destination.” By “destination,” she means a retail store in a trade area where people from within as well as well beyond the area specifically seek out and go out of their way to experience. Such a store is “the place to go to” in the area to such an extent that it literally pulls people into the area just to go to that particular store. Susan’s stated inspiration to pursue “destination status” for her entrepreneurial venture was yet another successful Galesburg business; Innkeeper’s, an entrepreneurial coffee house and roastery (http://www.innkeepers-coffee.com/).

As Susan put it, the owners of Innkeeper’s “built a destination” drawing people to the Galesburg Seminary Street business area and she wanted to do the same with her own business here in Monmouth. As she told the class, while she gets a surprising volume of business from local residents (and not just the Monmouth College faculty and students one would think), many customers travel from as far away as Macomb, the Quad Cities, and Burlington, IA to experience the wine and the atmosphere to be found at 59 Public Square in downtown Monmouth, Illinois; the street address for Market Alley Wines.

And good news: Susan announced in class that the business will soon be expanding into an adjacent building. The extra space will allow her to cater to both larger crowds for live music events and wedding receptions.

Thank you Susan for being our first guest speaker of the semester!! And best of luck with Market Alley Wines!!  

Cheers!!

Prof. Gabel