“A Girl Gone Wine; Beth Eggleston,

“Mover and Shaker”

“I knew absolutely nothing about wine. It was my father’s passion. I didn’t even really like wine.” These are ironic words to hear from entrepreneur, Beth Eggleston, owner of Egghead Wines. As a child growing up in Rapid City, South Dakota’s second largest city, Beth never dreamed that one day she’d be paving the way for women in the “Good Old Boys Network” of wholesale wine distribution.

Throughout her life, Beth’s parents owned and operated a hospital supply distribution company. With Beth’s zeal for life, optimistic and friendly personality, and family business background, a successful career in medical and pharmaceutical sales was inevitable. By the time Beth was thirty-years-old, however, this was not enough. She realized she was missing something in her life. She wanted to be a mother. So, Beth adopted and became a single mother of a beautiful baby girl from Bella Russe.

It wasn’t long after Beth adopted her daughter that her father sold his medical business and retired. She fondly remembers, “My father sold his medical business, retired for about two days and then announced to my mom that they needed to clear out the office because he’d ordered a container of wine which was arriving in the next few days.” Her father was pursuing his passion; opening a wholesale import wine distribution center. During this time, Beth had lost her job and was not due to begin with a new company for three months. During this time, her father taught her about wine and she worked for him. Her salary consisted of the use of a car to go out and sell the wine and keeping any of the wine samples that were left over at the end of the day. During these three months, Beth was having the time of her life. She enjoyed interacting and getting to know new people.

Beth was working at her new job for almost three years when her father passed away. Her mother asked her if she wanted to take over her father’s business, but Beth wasn’t ready to at this point in her life. However, within the next year the climate in her job changed significantly and she no longer looked forward to getting up and going to work. The work she was doing had gone from something that was appreciated to being something that no matter how well she did, it was never quite good enough. Between those changes and having her three-and-a half –year-old daughter ask her why she was so sad, Beth realized it was time for another change. She thought to herself, “What is it I know?” What she did know was that she had had fun selling wine. So, after one month and a few phone calls later, she quit her job, found a warehouse and had her first order of wine coming. Beth’s wine distributorship business was up and running. Beth explains, “I had just turned forty, was a single mom, and I knew that if I didn’t do it then, I’d never do it. I didn’t want to be sixty-five and think back, ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda.’ I would rather have tried and failed than to have not tried at all.” This was the beginning of Egghead wines and her journey into entrepreneurship.

Armed with the knowledge she had gained from her father, coupled with a few vintner connections she made during the three months she had worked for him, Beth was on her way to living
the American Dream. In the beginning, Beth dealt only with California vintners and high-end wines. For a woman flying solo in this business, this made more sense. With this category of wines, she could earn more per case, moving a smaller volume of product. She has been fortunate to have a few really great connections in her field. These seasoned distributors took her under their wings and introduced her to others in the wine business. After some time, Beth diversified. She expanded the price range of her wines as well as the supplying regions. After a little over a year in operation and several additional wine suppliers later, Beth decided she needed to get others involved in her business. She began to bring in sales people to cover her growing clientele throughout Northern Florida. “I am your typical small business guy. My phone rings not only during the day but at night and on weekends too,” Beth explains. She has grown from being a one woman show, handling all the sales, all the deliveries and maintaining the business end of her enterprise, to a successful, thriving, wholesale wine distribution company. The foundation of Beth’s success in business is her knowledge of wine and her focus on the customer; building and maintaining strong customer loyalty. As Beth puts it, “I try to do as much as I can for my customers. I continually show my loyalty to them, hoping to gain that same loyalty from them in return.” She gives much of the credit for her business success to the people she has working with her. Beth explains, “My staff is extremely loyal, hardworking and dedicated.”

One of the main keys to Beth’s success is her perspective on what makes a small business succeed. It is her belief that small businesses need to work together to help one another. As Beth puts it, “It is not about competition. It is about helping your fellow business owners succeed by working together. If they succeed, Egghead Wines succeeds.” Beth continually puts together events such as wine tastings. She tries to incorporate as many other local, small businesses into these functions as she can to benefit as many of her fellow business owners as possible. It is her belief that helping to maintain strong small businesses is the best way to maintain strong communities, especially in these difficult economic times.

Along with her large assortment of wines, Beth also carries a wonderfully creative line of wine related tee shirts and aprons she has designed for women. She will soon be adding a line of wine bags she has created. Beth’s mother came up with the wine accessories idea while working in the wine business with her husband, Beth’s dad. She designed a tee shirt that read, “Will Work for Wine.” Although Beth’s father wouldn’t wear the tee shirt, it sparked the idea for the line of wine related accessories Beth now carries. Today, Egghead Wines’ unique, boutique wines and related accessories can be found online at Eggheadwines.com. Beth summarizes, “Egghead Wines offers wines and related accessories for women, by women.”

Beth Eggleston personifies what one woman with a passion can achieve. She is the successful business owner of a thriving company that has stereotypically been an “all male” industry. She is a loyal and upstanding business partner in her community. She is a loving and nurturing single mother. Beth is truly an Abagals “Mover and Shaker!”