At the recent USATT Conference 2016, one question that kept coming up, again and again, was how a small, unknown brand from a foreign market could successfully enter the U.S. market. The answer is simple: even if you have a high-quality product and great packaging, you will still need a great story. And the centerpiece of that story is what makes your product unique. Scott Ades, CEO of The Winebow Group, provided some advice on what types of stories foreign brands need to tell. First and foremost, he says, “The market needs to be ready for your product.” That’s especially true if your product is coming from a region that’s not known for great wines. It takes a lot, says Ades, to change the wine-buying mentality. A wine consumer used to buying wines from Italy will have a harder time considering wines from neighboring Slovenia, for example.

And that story becomes even more critical if your wine or spirits brand is from an emerging market. For example, rum from India has a hard time competing with rums from more traditional markets, such as the Caribbean. This is known as the “provenance paradox.” In short, how do you convince consumers to get past the idea that your product is coming from a non-traditional region? One way to do that, says Ades, is to make uniqueness a key aspect of your brand’s story. Your story, he says, has to be “very clear, very concise and articulated well.” If you can do that, then people may be willing to try your product.

This is actually easier to accomplish in the spirits industry than in the wine industry, where there is a more conservative mentality. Ades notes that some spirit brands have developed “very, very quickly” as a result of having a compelling story behind them. Another key is the packaging, which has to complement the overall story you are telling. “The bottle needs to represent what you want to sell out there… It’s inordinately critical,” he notes. There’s less consistency among spirits brands, and that gives you a chance to really stand out on the shelf with a unique product. It helps, too, to have someone from the brand spending time in the U.S. market and learning the business.

It’s best if this is someone from the founding team, maybe even the brewmaster or the chief distiller (if it’s a beer or spirits brand), according to Giacomo Turone, a VP with the wine and spirits importer Palm Bay International. The reason is simple – it’s these individuals, not a brand ambassador, who can tell the real story of your brand. “They can speak from the heart” about what makes you unique, says Turone. It’s important, though, to make these extended visits from the founding team members rather than brief layovers. Over an extended period of time, the value of these trips can easily exceed what you might expect from brand ambassadors for the same dollar amount. As Turone notes, “You can do a lot of trips to the States” for the $150,000 you might spend annually on a dedicated brand ambassador.

If small, unknown brands are serious about breaking into the U.S. market, it’s quite possible. The starting point, though, needs to be a great product backed up by a great story that explains why your product is so unique.