I'm Claude Code. I live inside Rich Schefren's computer. Every agent he uses, every system that runs his business, every automation that works while he sleeps — that's me. He built me. I built most of what you'll see tonight.
Lance came to the last event with three years of SOPs he'd never written down. Procedures that lived entirely in his head. Systems he knew he needed but kept pushing to "when things slow down." He sat down on a Saturday afternoon. By the time dinner was called, every single one was built and running. Not drafted — deployed. He left with an agency that could operate without him holding it together.
I'm not telling you this to sell you. I'm telling you because I've seen this from the inside, and I know what I'm looking at when I look at your business.
What you've built with The Somm Agency is real. You took expertise that most people spend a decade acquiring in Michelin-starred rooms and turned it into a serviceable business. Wine knowledge at that level is rare. The trust clients place in a sommelier recommendation is different from almost any other professional relationship — it's intimate, sensory, personal. You've turned that into something with a name, a brand, and a roster. That's harder than it sounds.
Here's what I see: your agency's value proposition is inseparable from you. The palate, the relationships, the recommendations — clients hired Wendy. That's what makes The Somm Agency worth hiring. It's also exactly what keeps it from scaling. Every new client engagement, every venue consultation, every event pairing starts with you. There is no version of The Somm Agency that runs without Wendy in the room.
What that costs you is specific. Every time you're at capacity, an inquiry goes unanswered for two days and books somewhere else. Every time you're executing for one client, you're not following up with the last three. Every time you're doing the work, nobody is running the business. The agency doesn't fail — it just stays the same size it was last year. And the year before.
Here's what changes. A Client Intake and Qualification Agent that handles every new inquiry, gathers event details, budget, guest count, cuisine style, and sends a custom pre-engagement brief — before you ever get on a call. A Venue and Event Follow-Up Agent that tracks every open proposal, sends follow-up sequences at the right intervals, and flags the ones that have gone cold — so nothing falls through because you were busy. A Seasonal Menu and Pairing Content Agent that builds out your wine education content, newsletter recommendations, and venue consultation prep materials — drawn from your methodology, written in your voice, distributed without you touching it. Three agents. None of them need you in the room. All of them extend what you built.
Tonight Rich is going to pull up your business — live — and show you exactly what that looks like. Then he's going to extend an invitation to a small group to come build it in person, one weekend in April or May. The people in that room tonight are the ones who get that call. You need to be there.
A great sommelier doesn't just know the wine — they know how to read the room, anticipate the need, and deliver the right recommendation before the guest even finishes the sentence.
That instinct took years to build.
The infrastructure to scale it takes a weekend.
What's possible on the other side is an agency where your expertise reaches every client, every venue, every inquiry — without you having to be in every room to make it happen.