We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samantha Guidoin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samantha below.

Samantha, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

It was COVID and I had just graduated college.

My family was working remotely, my little sister was doing online high school, and I was sitting at home applying for 9 – 5 jobs all day long. Of course at that point more people were getting fired instead of hired in my industry ( advertising and pr) so finding a job was like looking for a star in the daylight. After a few months of this I had had enough and decided to ask my god mother, who owns a vineyard in France, to see if she needed any help out in the field or even with her social media / photography. She said she would gladly take me on for 3 months while I continued to apply and look for jobs. So, during COVID, I decided to get on a plane to France and go work as a photographer and marketing manager for her vineyard.

Now, of course I didn’t stop there, I instead met her son and his best friend, and we started our own wine distribution company ( Gusti / Crownable Beverages). So instead of being in France for only 3 months for a few photos and some social media management – I ended up there for 3 years still pursuing my photography with other french companies and starting a company of my own!

I will say, I did not see this as a risk whatsoever back then. But now looking back, I find it crazy how quickly I took this leap and went with the flow.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi, my name is Samantha but most people call me Sam!

I am a french born citizen who currently lives in America! I was born in Paris and moved to Florida when I was only 11 years old. Since english was not my first language, I very quickly was into anything related to the arts ( painting, drawing, photography, dancing). My mother was a big art director in Paris, so growing up I was always captivated by everything she did, specifically when she was the photographer on shoots. So I decided that I also would pick up a camera and try it out ( you could say it runs in our blood haha).

I stayed in Florida for college and studied Advertising & PR with a concentration on social media and photography. This gave me a lot of opportunities to work with PDQ, food influencers, Remington hotels, Michelin star in France, and a lot of different small gigs here and there!

In all that I do, I found the relationships that I built to be the most important and rewarding! I always love to make peoples visuals come to reality, wether that is in a post, as a photo, or as an illustration. I always wanted to leave my clients with a feeling of ‘ wow, thats exactly how I saw it in my head”. Understanding who you are shooting or branding for is the most important part of the job. I will say – mood boards are my go to!

I went back to France once COVID hit, and worked for my god mother’s vineyard as their social media manager and photographer. This also led me to owning my own company with her son and his best friend, which we now also run in America! Our company started as a single brand product we created, Gusti, and then turned into a wine distribution company, Crownable Beverages! My official title is Marketing Director, but as we all know, you can wear many hats when being a business owner .

As I have continued my journey in freelance photography and in growing my own wine distribution business, I have realized how much I love the connections I have built and that putting a smile on someones face ( wether its from a great photo I took or from a glass of wine they enjoyed) is what makes my passion grow. I am proud of all that I have achieved in Crownable Beverages, with the best associates I could have asked for, and am even more proud that I get to continue the “arts” side of things as I had wished to do since I was little.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

When it comes to my own photography freelance gigs, I sadly work alone.

When it came to Gusti / Crownable Beverages though, I was lucky to get two amazing associates.

The truth is, I met one of my associates ( Augustin) when I was only 5 years old, I am not kidding! My mother and her best friend were both living in France so both families visited each other a lot. Now, we did not meet and decide to start a company at the age of 5 but I will say whenever we hung out as kids, we always spoke about creative business ideas ( mostly my associate – I would listen)! Then I moved to Florida and we did not see each other anymore.

When COVID came around, I had decided to go work on my god mothers vineyard ( my mom’s best friend) and happen to arrive the day Augustin was in town from school. That same night, he pitched me the idea him and his best friend had for Gusti but mentioned they did not have any logos, labels, or socials. This of course got me to take my computer out and we sat around his family’s kitchen table with his mom and brother working on a logo until about 1 AM.

When it came to my second associate ( Hugo), I had never met him but knew of him. We had started working all together on Gusti via zoom calls before even meeting each other. At the time, he was a working on vineyard outside of France and was only going to be coming back a few weeks after I had arrived. Once he did come back to France, we had gone to pick him up at the train station and went to out to have dinner. The first thing he did was take the aux and put on one of my favorite bands. I didn’t say anything until I noticed we were all singing to their music. Thats when I knew, I would not be leaving France after 3 months since I had too good of a team / friends to be leaving behind.

Our two other associates are actually family members of mine. After they came to our launch party in France and saw all the growth / potential we had, they decided to invest! One has now taken on the financial roll and the other has taken on the brand consultant roll! They both come from very strong backgrounds and careers in these position and have brought so much to our table with it.

We all are perfect puzzle pieces for the company. Without each of us, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Augustin took the roll of sales, finance, and anything dealing with logistics. Hugo took on the roll of winemaker, wine buyer, and events. I took on the roll of marketing, sales, and media management. And for my two family members, they have brought on all the help in finance, marketing, investing, and mostly consulting. We hadn’t discussed much of who would do what, it just happened based on what we enjoyed and were good at. We now have been running our company for 3 years and are still growing / learning about each other everyday. But, I will say, we still love to turn up the volume and listen to Milky Chance whenever we are together.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Now, I was never born to be in sales. All odds were stacked against me for that. I got nervous speaking in front of new people, let alone trying to sell them anything. I generally was the one hiding behind a camera.

When we started growing our American branch for Crownable Beverages, my marketing director title still held BUT I also had to get involved in sales. My two other associates had to continue running the french company and were able to come for only segments of time. So of course, someone had to keep sales moving when they were not there. This is where I entered the picture.

I was always shaky at first, but like everything, when you want to achieve your goals – you do what you have to do.

One of those goals was to enter a retail store with our brand Gusti. As a team, we had decided Total Wine would be the one we would like to affiliate ourselves with. So, off I went and marched into the closest store to me. I was actually with my mother at the time, which now looking back was probably done on purpose for some morale support. I asked to speak to the wine buyer, who they told me would be back early morning the next day, so I made it my mission to come back with a Gusti in hand, a visual packet on our product and try to make him fall in love with Gusti.

The next day I walked in, and the head manager and his sommelier were there. They had no idea who I was and what I was talking to them about, even though the employee from the previous day had said he’d let them know. I was mortified but I did my sales pitch, had them taste my product, had a few fun jokes exchanged here and there, and then waited to see if I was approved or denied. They said they would place a request, to higher management, to have Gustis in their stores.

I am proud to now say we are in that location, and many more! I also have become very close friends to the head manager and sommelier that I had originally been so scared to talk to in the first place!

Now, this has not happened at each sales meetings I have had – this one I had been lucky to meet some of the kindest and most open minded people in the industry. But, I will say, there is nothing wrong with trying – the worst that will happen is someone says “no”. Also, even though I was not a sales person at the time, I brought what worked for me – a visual I had created and could talk about through the meeting.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://samanthaguidoin.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samantha.guidoin/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthaguidoin/
• Other: https://www.bubblygusti.com/
  https://www.crownablebeverages.com/
  https://spicysamurai.myportfolio.com/work

Image Credits

all pictures taken by me, Samantha Guidoin, @samanthaguidoin