Welcome to another edition of Fast Five - our fortnightly series where we ask Victoria’s most effective business leaders to answer five simple questions to gain an insight into the inner-workings of some of Australia’s biggest and most successful businesses.

Like so many other businesses in 2020, Four Pillars’ operations were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions, having to temporarily close their doors to the public.

Behind those closed doors, however, Four Pillars’ Co-Founders Matt Jones, Cameron Mackenzie and Stuart Gregor banded together and found opportunity in catastrophe.

Four Pillars’ Brand Director Matt Jones discusses how the gin palace overcame their obstacles and continued to produce the best product in the world.

#1: What do you attribute as the key to success at Four Pillars?

Flavour. Focus. Fun, and fanatical attention to detail.

We make the most delicious gins in the world at Four Pillars. And that’s thanks to the fact that we make gin here in Australia, the most delicious, diverse and creatively exciting place on earth.

We also focus on making gin and only gin, meaning that our innovation efforts are focused on honing and growing our gin craft, and not getting distracted by fads and whims.

We then make sure that our seriousness about the craft of making gin is matched by a serious commitment to fun and hospitality, because delicious gin should make for delicious gin drinks and good times.

And we’re fanatical about making sure that everything we do, from our storytelling to our packaging to our content to our events, is all delivered with great design, care and attention to detail.

Everything doing justice to the quality of the gin. It’s not rocket science, but I think it works.

#2: What is your business doing that is unique?

I’ve never been convinced that uniqueness is something necessary or realistic for most organisations to achieve. And writing something supposedly unique into your business plan is likely a mirage. 
 
More helpful I think is to think about ‘better’. Because the world doesn’t need another it needs a better… (you fill in the blank). 
 
So I think that Four Pillars, by making gin here in the most delicious place on earth, and by focusing relentlessly on our gin craft, makes better, more delicious, more versatile and more creative gins. And those gins in turn help people make better drinks. 
 
And I think that Four Pillars, by being obsessed with creating great, fun experiences around our gins, also does a better job of telling the stories of those gins and the drinks they gins make. In turn inspiring people to drink better (and Australian) gin.
 
Is any of that unique? Of course not… everyone is trying to make better gin and create better experiences. I just think we do the whole package a bit, well, better than most. 
 
I know talking about ‘better’ might sound boastful, and it’s not meant to. It’s just that I think it’s more helpful for businesses and organisations to figure out what they could do better than most, rather than pursue the illusory holy grail of genuine uniqueness.

#3: What advice would you give other businesses looking to expand or diversify?

Ask lots of questions.

Ask yourself why. Why do we exist? Why do we matter? Why are we valued by our customers, our people and our community? And how will expanding or diversifying help that? Or do more of that?

Do we need to diversify to expand? Or could we double down on what we’re already great at and do more of it, or do it better?

Question everything. Every assumption. Every bit of advice you receive. Every instinct.

Growth for most businesses and organisations is an ambition. But it’s not a purpose and it’s not a strategy. Make sure you have clarity on your purpose and clarity on your strategy, and then your path to growth (and/or diversification) will suddenly look a lot clearer.

#4: What was Four Pillars’ biggest achievement of 2020?

I should preface this by saying that 2020 was, to put it mildly, a tough year – especially for Victorians.

From pivoting to (briefly) making hand sanitiser to putting our people first in every plan we made, I’m proud of how we reacted to the challenges of 2020.

I’m also proud that we didn’t allow ourselves to be distracted from our day job, making and serving the world’s most delicious gin. We launched two of our most creative and delicious gins ever, Changing Seasons Gin and Olive Leaf Gin, in 2020 and launched a new brand home in Sydney: the Four Pillars Laboratory.

And I’m proud that all of that focus and deliciousness was reflected in us being named the world’s leading gin producer by the IWSC in London for the second year in a row.

#5: What do you see as your biggest challenge in 2021?

As much as we’d all like to put 2020 behind us, we’re going to be living with a changing and challenging world for quite some time. Whether that’s adapting to a world with little or no international travel, bracing ourselves for more localised COVID spikes or simply normalising face masks, QR check-ins and social distancing as part of how we navigate the world. I don’t think we can wish the difficulties of 2020 away just because the clock ticked over to 2021.

From Four Pillars’ point of view, our challenge this year is the same challenge we have every year: how we keep being the small, creative, fun, and obsessive gin makers we are at heart, while also making sure our growing family of award-winning gins reach the audiences they deserve.