We were lucky to catch up with Ben Potts Gui Jaroschy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ben Potts, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

Gui: Our goal at Unfiltered is to make experience better in the hospitality industry. That goes for our clients, their employees, and their guests. As hospitality veterans we’ve seen the toll that caring for others can take on each of us. By taking the time to address things that can cause the most trouble (lack of tools, lack of education, lack of consistency) we hope to move the hospitality industry in a more sustainable and healthy direction.

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

Ben: I came into the hospitality industry through an unexpected route. I got my MBA and was working in investment banking. I found that it didn’t fill my cup. I loved being in a bar atmosphere and decided to leave finance and take a job as a barback at Purdy Lounge, a decision that shocked many—particularly my parents. In a relatively short time I was bartending and pursuing education at every level I could get it, culminating in the BAR 5 Day program in NYC. That led to me lead trainings for the entire bar group that I was working for. Down the road I opened Beaker & Gray as a partner and bar director and later the Sylvester.

This experience led to opportunities to train and consult, which was fun for me. Gui and I work well together because we complement each others’ strengths. We founded Unfiltered in summer of 2020 when my bars were closed. We knew there was a big need not just for better cocktails, but better education, better systems to make sure our clients benefitted well into the future, and better connections between suppliers, venues and consumers. When working with out clients, we ask ourselves “how can we do it better? How can we create a formula for our clients to not only achieve great results now, but use our tools as a launch pad to future growth?” Our three main services are Beverage + Bar Consulting, Event Mixology and Beverage Brand Marketing support. For each of these services we apply the Unfiltered Method: Process + People + Product + Performance, which is a formula to help increase Profitablity. By applying this formula, we hope that once our work is done our clients can maintain and continue to grow their business.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Ben: Consulting is a relationships based business. When we looked into SEO we found that terms like “Cocktail Consulting, Beverage Consultant, etc” had something like 200 unique searches per month in the US. That’s absolutely nothing. We’ve taken a decidedly old school approach and it’s worked for us so far. Reaching out to our contacts list, reaching out to sales people who touch accounts on a daily basis, and outreach on linked-in have been critical. In addition to that we’re proud to say a lot of our business has come from client referrals. Almost without exception every client we’ve worked with has either re-signed for services or recommended us to others looking for the services we provide.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Gui: My career has been defined by forks in the road or taking steps backward to move forward. I took my first management job at a busy hotel because I was out of college and had been bartending a few years with a great lifestyle but no real plan. It was an intense job. My boss quit at the beginning of busy season and they didn’t hire another manager for 8 months because I was gutting it out and they felt like they could get through without it. The issue for me after 18 months wasn’t that the job was my entire life, it was that when I traced the path of where I was headed I saw the F&B director and what they were doing on a daily basis and it looked more like a worse case scenario than a reward at the time. I decided I wanted to work on the spirit brand marketing side of things and felt the only way to get noticed for a role like that was back behind the bar. I left the job and bartended for a year when I was offered a job at the Broken Shaker which was opening in a few months. Bartending there gave me an incredible platform. I went on to be the bars director for Shaker as it expanded to 4 locations nationwide. It was an incredible ride and I was blessed by the prior management experience to be (somewhat) ready for what it turned into. Leaving there gave me the opportunity to take a role as global beverage director for a lifestyle hotel group. Effectively, taking a step back allowed me to skip ahead 3 or 4 steps and miss the ones I didn’t want. All those experiences positioned me for what I’m doing now.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.unfilteredhospo.com
• Instagram: @unfilteredhospo
• Facebook: Unfiltered Hospitality
• Linkedin: Unfiltered Hospitality