Fable
The wine tasting stall and the banquet shopkeeper
On a street corner there was a wine-tasting stall where passersby could try a small cup for free. If they liked it, they'd buy a jug with their own money and take it home to share with friends. If the friends liked it, they'd come buy it themselves next time. Over the years, the stall never hired a single salesperson; it spread to neighboring towns on taste and word of mouth alone.
A man who brewed banquet wine looked on with envy and set up a wine-tasting stall on the street corner. After more than half a year, he hadn't sold a single jug. His wine wasn't bad; it simply didn't suit the customers on that corner. Banquet wine has to pair with a whole wedding, ceremony, or chamber-of-commerce annual meeting: you have to discuss budgets, set menus, sign contracts, arrange staffing, and agree on damage compensation. No matter how much the taster liked it, he couldn't make that call.
The banquet-wine maker later gave up the street corner and walked into chambers of commerce and restaurants with samples. He did not let guests taste and leave, but sat down and asked: how many banquets this year, how many tables each, which dishes pair with the wine, what the cost ceiling is, and who signs off in the end. After talking, he handed over a proposal, and after the discussion scheduled a second meeting. In half a year he signed five orders, enough to keep the workshop alive.
The owner of the street-corner wine-tasting stall encountered the opposite problem. A chamber of commerce approached him wanting to order three hundred pots at once, requiring discussion of discounts, contract signing, reconciliation cycles, and return and exchange processes. The stall owner had no discount system, no contract template, and no one to reconcile accounts. After two rounds of talks, both sides were exhausted, and the deal was not signed. The stall owner felt the street corner still suited him.
Later, some people in the town did two kinds of business at the same time. The street corner also sold small jugs for volume and reputation, while upstairs had budget proposals, contract templates, and reconciliation processes. When taking large orders, they invited buyers upstairs to talk. Both growth methods supported the same wine, but the entry door was different, and the customer's decision path was also different.
A merchant who drank from the street corner all the way upstairs said something very true: buying wine at the street corner only requires that I like it; buying wine upstairs requires that Procurement, Finance, and Legal all like it. One path grows by drinking with more people; the other deepens by talking with people more.
The winery's house rules later split into two sets: the corner-street rules were free tastings, pour your own, bring friends; the upstairs rules were book a time first, review the proposal first, discuss risks first. The two sets of rules could not be mixed; mixing them would make corner-street guests feel it was a hassle and upstairs guests feel it was unprofessional.
Later, both families established rules: small jars of wine were placed at the street corner for people to taste on their own, while large banquets required someone to enter the mansion to discuss table count, payment terms, and responsibilities. The wine was the same, but the path to closing a deal was different.