In most businesses, growth is the name of the game. Whether you’re schlepping bottles, making deals, or hustling to get your name out there, it’s easy to feel the pressure to constantly do more. Bigger. Faster. Louder.
More SKUs, more markets, more products. Everyone’s chasing growth because we’ve all been told it’s what counts, how success is defined.
But what happens if you grow too much and lose sight of what makes you you?
We’ve seen more than a few good people burn out. It’s easier than one thinks to have a great thing going, and then the pace of chasing more just overtakes everything. One gets caught up in the idea of expansion, loses focus, and ends up with a product or a business that looks nothing like what one set out to build.
PM Spirits is in the business of finding and selling spirits we think are really, really good. We focus on the people, the stories, the craft behind each bottle. We’re not just here to slap labels on bottles and move them or find what’s cheapest to generate volumes. It’s about curating something special. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t always that itch to go bigger.
Expand the lineup. Jump into more categories. Scale faster.
Growth is great—don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating against it. But what I am saying is that if you’re a business that stands for something, there’s a fine line you have to be aware of. There’s a threshold where growth can start to pull you away from what makes one unique. The ethos that defined one in the first place.
How does one know when one is close to that line? No idea.
We’re not there yet, but we’re conscious of that possibility. It’s something I think about often—how do we keep growing without losing the soul of what we do? How do we get bigger without diluting what makes our products and our relationships special?
I think part of the answer is in growing thoughtfully, not just for the sake of it, but in ways that align with our core values. If the people and the products are our focus, then the growth has to respect that. We can’t let the drive to expand undermine what made us stand out in the first place.
I believe it’s about taking one’s time, being really patient, and letting our growth reflect the quality, relationships, and mission that got us this far. It might mean saying "no" to certain opportunities or moving a little slower than others in the industry. But it also means we’re building something that lasts.
Growth is important, but only if we can do it without losing our way.