GOOD CHAT WITH STONE & WOOD

It’s still early days for Good Chat, our monthly networking event for people who hate networking, but the bar has already been set pretty high when it comes to guest speakers.

This month we were lucky to pull one of the co-founders of Stone & Wood, Jamie Cook, out of retirement and gently grill him about the power of a good plan and knowing when to ditch it.

Everyone’s heard of Stone & Wood, but a little-known fact about the award-winning brewery is that their original business plan was quite a bit different to the one that led to their incredible success.

As the brains behind the brand, Jamie was the guy who came up with the original strategy and he’s also made some big calls about when to change course, including switching their hero product and changing the product name, just after it’d started taking off.

A self-made man, who’s gone from fridge mechanic to director of the largest privately-owned brewery in Australia (via GM for premium beer at Fosters) we wanted to understand Jamie’s process and how much of his decision making comes from confidence, experience and just plain old gut-feel.

Here’s three take-aways from a candid conversation, full of hard-earned wisdom…

“Successfully being able to wear a lot of different hats in a business comes from being a curious person. If you’re interested in how things work, you’ll end up being able to do them yourself.”

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“My dad told me to get a trade when I left school, because that way I’d never be out of work, so I became a fridge mechanic. But in doing that I learnt a lot of things, like problem solving through vertical and lateral thinking. Skills I still use today.”

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“Looking back over my time with Stone & Wood, one thing I’ve learnt is to back myself more. When we were starting out, I had the other two guys to encourage me, but along the way I’ve learnt to have more confidence in myself. That’s pretty important.”

A huge thanks to Jamie for his time and knowledge and Stone & Wood for the good beer.

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