We recently connected with Miguel Rivas and have shared our conversation below.
Miguel , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?
Learning the power and value of cultivating relationships.
When I started my project a decade ago, I always knew the approach I wanted to take when it came to tell the stories of the people I was going to be working with, in order to do that, I needed to have a relationship with them and to do do that well you need time, there is no other way around that.
Before I started my project in 2013, I worked at a World Music Label in New York City, the year was 2005. My official tittle was Web Marketing Manager, I was in charge of the Press, Publicity and Events for the Latin American market. Basically I was the liaison between the artists and the label, I would coordinate all the interviews, prepare the press releases, sent all the publicity kit packages to all the media, among other things.
I immediately learned that in order to do my job effectively and have an impact I needed to create a more personal relationship with all these people, one that went beyond of just sending an email and request things. I started paying attention to their needs, what I could do to make their job easier and more effective, listen to their suggestions based on their expertise and knowledge. The result was a very fluid working relationship, a partnership that would translate into a very organic work flow.
The results after a little over a year of these established relationships was an increase in record sales of over 50% in most of the markets. I had the trust of all the media outlets and distributors of our label in most of the countries and closer relationship between the artists and the media.
When I started my project I wanted to bring all of that knowledge and experience and started cultivating the relationships since day one, a lot of these relationships have evolved into personal friendships that go beyond just work.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a New York City based photographer. I was born in the United States and grew up in Venezuela, I moved back to the US in 1995. As far as I can remember, I have been moving around a lot, different cities and countries. That has given me a different perspective on cultures, people and sparked a curiosity to enjoy traveling and learning about my surroundings.
My background in photography comes from my passion for live music shows, I got bitten by the art of capturing moments bug when I was working for the world music label Putumayo World Music many moons ago. A few years later I became a parent and I transitioned into being a stay-at-home dad full time for my two daughters for the next six years. While I was doing the parenting job I knew I needed to do something on the side to stay creative and not go crazy at home with the girls all day. I combined three things that I am passionate about, photography, traveling and beer. That is how The BeerTrekker project started. A photographic and storytelling journey about the beer culture and the people behind them.
It all started in 2002 when I first moved to NYC, one of my younger brothers was working as a barkeep at a French brasserie and he had been telling me all these stories about these Belgian beers made by monks in monasteries in Belgium that he had at the bar. I had never heard of such a thing so on my first visit I tried one and it was love at first sip. After that, I became determined to try as many Belgian beers as I could in order to educate my palate and learn about the traditions and styles. Fast forward 10 years and in the summer of 2013 I was on my way to Belgium to visit these Trappist monasteries where these beers were made. I packed my backpack, my camera, rented a car for a week and visited all six of the Trappist monasteries that are in Belgium. (there are 13 in the world total, 11 of which are currently recognized under the Trappist seal).
If I needed to describe what I do, I would say that I am a visual storyteller, I capture moments and I tell stories through my images. I assist my client with telling their stories in a way that is engaging and can connect them with their audience more organically and truthfully. I am very proud of all the work I have done in the last decade, I was able to carve myself a niche in an industry that I am passionate about and what started as hobby I turned it into a job and has given me the opportunity to see the world, meet extraordinaire people while sharing beers and stories.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My story is pretty straight forward, when I first visited Belgium in 2013, for the first few days while I was traveling the country I was posting most of those pictures in my personal Instagram account, after a few days I started receiving comments and messages from friends and/or family members asking me if I was OK, they were concerned of all the beer pictures I was posting and they wanted to make sure I was doing ok. Most of the comments were “is everything OK?” “what’s up with all these beer pictures?” “do you have an alcohol problem now?” I think that last one was the breaking point. I decided that I didn’t want to give anyone an explanation of anything so I created the “TheBeerTrekker” account, it was implicit in the name what was going to be the content and so my project began.
After that I started gaining followers very steadily and very organically and after a few years it started to really take off, through word of mouth and people tagging me or recommending me to friends things started to change. I believe the tuning point was during the pandemic, in 2020 since I couldn’t travel as the rest of the world I decided to use all of the connections I had cultivated over the 7 years I had been doing my project and started doing Instagram Lives, I did that for 2 month straight, every day/night (time zone depending) with a different brewer or industry person from around the world. Those conversations lasted a minimum of 90 minutes and I went as long as 5 hours one time. It was an incredible experience and it was amazing to see this small community that was formed around my conversations with friends, people were loving to get to know on a more personal level all these industry people, learn about their stories, struggles, it was an amazing feeling.
Probably the most satisfying and humbling comment I got during this time was one of the listeners who said “he is the Anthony Bourdain of beer”. I’ll take that compliment any day of the week as I was a huge fan of him and he has been a big influence in my project.
If I needed to give any advice on how to build a lasting audience would be this, always be honest, real, don’t follow the trends, they are transitory and they go away. Being transparent and finding your voice will go a long way and people can (most of the time) see through the bullshit.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I would say is my ability to follow through. When I started my project a decade ago, there was almost nobody doing what I do in the brewing industry. There were a lot of aficionados taking pictures with their phones, some very good, there were even some using cameras, but mostly of the same things, the pictures started to get very repetitive very fast. Very few, if any where focusing on telling the stories of the people behind making the beers. I decided to focus on that from very early and after some years I was alone on my journey.
Through telling stories and cultivating relationships I created a name for myself that followed with the respect of the community. I have been very true to my motto “Every Beer Has A Story. Every Story Has A Beer”. It became my phrase since day one.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thebeertrekker.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebeertrekker/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebeertrekker
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebeertrekker/
- Twitter: thebeertrekker
- Other: https://bio.site/thebeertrekker
Image Credits
portrait picture of me credit to Inirida Gomez-Castro