Dena Roché is a wine consultant and founder of Vin Roché, a private wine services business based in Phoenix, Arizona.
A late-stage career change can be challenging, so Roché says it's important to combine something you're passionate about with your existing skills and expertise.For the last 10 years, I was living a dream life, paid to go on vacation and write about it for magazines and online publications. Through a lot of networking and pitching ideas, I built up my reputation and portfolio as a freelance travel writer.
Moving from travel journalist to a private wine educator might seem like a stretch, but there are a lot of similarities.I've found that while people want to learn a bit about wine, what they really want is to have an interesting experience, and that lies in weaving a good story about the wine, where it's from, and who made it. It's almost like telling a story verbally instead of writing it down.
I officially opened for business in July. My clients initially come through word of mouth, and were on the wine sales side. But I'm now implementing a public relations strategy and social media ads to help get the word out to grow the tastings and private events from one event a month to a target of eight within the next six months. While COVID-19 has made aspects of the business slow to start, one thing that made this business viable was that there are multiple lines of revenue.