Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast

David Gilmore, known as the LDS Prepper on YouTube. Posted his first video 10 years ago.

He was inspired by other YouTube prepper channels and wanted to share what he was doing and learning on his journey and preparedness.

Today his channel has over 210,000 subscribers and over 44 million video views.

Please checkout his quality videos and products at his website and YouTube channel, linked below!

Website - https://ldsprepperstore.com/

Youtube Channel – LDSPrepper

Show Notes

How LDS Prepper Got Started A Passion for Helping People Be Prepared Value of Building Rapport With Your Customers “Once You Educate Customers, Your Going To Get Sales” Knowing Where Your Customers Congregate – Online / Offline Top Seller – LDS Prepper Premium Micro-Nutrient Mix Mittleider Gardening Course Book What I Like About Having an Online Business in the Prepping Industry Continued Education and Growth for Sustainability is Needed Around The World Personal & Business Goals For The Next Year Other People's Traffic: Tips for Growing Your Online Youtube Channel / Business

Transcription David: I found that really I can ship anywhere in the world. And I do so I need to make myself available to the world.

So I started on YouTube.

And then when I make a YouTube video I also put a link on my Facebook profile because I've got 5,000 friends, okay, I've never met. But however, they feel like they know me because they've watched the videos right?

They say this all the time, I feel like I know you, I've watched 300 of your videos.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: David Gilmore, known as the LDS Prepper on YouTube. Posted his first video 10 years ago.

He was inspired by other YouTube prepper channels and wanted to share what he was doing and learning on his journey and preparedness.

Today his channel has over 192,000 subscribers and over 42 million video views.

He has become a true YouTube influencer. His passion has turned from a hobby to a seven figure a year business as an affiliate for preparedness products and producer of his own product. Today he shares his insights with us on how to start an online business with zero capital zero risk and a mobile phone.

David Gilmore, welcome to the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

David: Thank you Brian. Glad to be here.

Brian: Yeah, I really appreciate it.

How did you end up at this point?

How did the whole journey start with you, David?

David: Great question.

I'm really a visual learner. My wife reads lots of books, her nightstand is piled with books and she just goes through the books. And I get to watch a video I get it.

I gotta see physically. Instead of me googling things for answers, I go to YouTube.

I call it YouTube University. And it really helped me out and I am preparedness-minded.

I feel it's my responsibility as a father and as a husband to provide and protect. I was always looking for solutions and YouTube just seemed like a great place to do that, and I appreciate what others put up.

So I thought, well, maybe I should share some of the things that I'm doing.

First of all, had to come up with a YouTube name.

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Jim White is the creator of Fishnure, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Fishnure manufactures and markets organic fertilizer including both solid fertilizer and liquid.

Checkout more about Fishnure's quality products and daily updates, please checkout their website and active twitter account, as listed below!

Website - https://www.fishnure.com/

Twitter - @fishnure

Show Notes

Agricultural Background: Beginning of Fishnure

Finding Our First Customers

Natural vs. Chemical Fertilizer

Different Types of Products We Offer

Solid vs. Liquid Fertilizer

How COVID Impacted Our Business

Importance of Sustainability

Why Just Labeling Fertilizer As “Organic” Doesn't Mean It's Good

Fishnure's Future: Heading In The Right Direction

Jim's Business Advice to Those Starting A Business Full Transcription Jim: We had a pepper grower up in Minnesota who grew his entire crop with Fishnure. And then he set up a control between one of the biggest sellers, Miracle-Gro and Fishnure.

So we had one batch of plants that were fed Miracle-Gro the other batch was Fishnure. Miracle-Gro got two treatments during the year, Fishnure only one. Fishnure came out with 8% production.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Jim White is the creator of Fishnure, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Fishnure manufactures and markets organic fertilizer including both solid fertilizer and liquid.

Fishnure is made by composting solid fish manure is filtered to get solid manure free from unwanted materials and combined with the carbon source clay inoculants and then decomposed to form a humus compost.

Jim is a serial entrepreneur who has created numerous computer software production management businesses. He also has a significant background in statistics and agriculture.

Jim White, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Jim: Hey, thank you.

Brian: So how did you get into Fishnure, tell us that story?

Jim: Well, I created a company that monitors agricultural production. In other words, in the delta, catfish production is big and a farmer may have 100 ponds. And we developed a wireless solar power monitoring and control system that will control the environment and every pond.

So that's how Fishnure came because I was interested in some of the customers were using the connection from the fish production to growing plants, which is what aquaponics is, and that's what started it.

Brian: Oh, wow.

So how did you find your first customers?

Jim: We advertised I think it was on Craigslist. And that started then we sold a lot on our website, and then move to Amazon, which is the main seller right now.

Brian: How long ago was that, when did you first start the whole process?

Jim: It's been seven years.

Brian: Excellent.

Where are you finding most of your customers right now or via Amazon?

Jim: Right.

Brian: Great.

Do you do any other sort of outreach or marketing to bring in?

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we use Twitter. We tweet several 100 tweets a day.

The website, I write a lot of articles and publish those and email marketing the whole bit.

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Jesse Frost

Take both feet and jump right in!

It's clear Jesse Frost is well informed on gardening and things he's passionate about. But for he and his wife Hannah Crabtree to take that passion and turn it into not only a way of life but a way of making a living is truly impressive.

Join us for some fabulous insight, from getting a start in farming, to what it takes to get your book published.

Oh, and did we mention Jesse's terrific No-Till Market Garden Podcast and the quality information you can get from listening...all for free!

Check out the links below for more info on Jesse and Hannah's Rough Draft Farmstead, to No-Till Growers Podcasts and Jesse's new book published with Chelsea Green Publishing called, The Living Soil Handbook.

The Living Soil Handbook - https://www.notillgrowers.com/livingsoilhandbook/d9z5gkf1bbnhu0w5xxb3trngiqhwgo

No-Till Growers Podcasts - https://www.notillgrowers.com/home

Podcast on Youtube Also - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhu5JoRWPgEGDoUFfQHTPQ

Rough Draft Farmstead - https://roughdraftfarmstead.com/ Show Notes

From Wine to Farming: My Start in No-Till Farming with Bugtussle Farm to Starting Rough Draft Farmstead

Type of Vegetables We Grow at Rough Draft Farmstead How We Found Our First Customers Why Being Certified Organic Was A Big Move For Us Keeping No-Till Growers Podcast Accessible For All New Book: Living Soil Handbook with Chelsea Green Publishing Positive Response Since The Books Been Launched How We Started The No-Till Market Garden Podcast How To Find No-Till Growers Podcast Big Following on YouTube Why We Choose the keyword “No-Till”

What I Like Best About Farming & Podcasting Being Open to New Ideas In Farming & Media Happy Life: Importance of Family and Relationships My Advice to Farmers

Transcription Brian: How did you start your podcast?

Jesse: Originally, I started on my cell phone with a call Recorder an app that journalists will be familiar with. And my audio wasn't great.

I recorded it in our cooler for our vegetables, like our walking cooler. And also we had two young kids and it was the only place I could go to do it. And it kind of evolved from there.

You know, we're going into our fourth season this fall, each season has gotten a little better and gotten a little bit better at interviews and more comfortable.

But the beauty of podcasting, like, I think that when you're a curious person, it really fills that need for you to just dive into things.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Jesse Frost lives in central Kentucky, where he runs Rough Draft Farmstead with his wife Hannah Crabtree. Frost is also the host of the No-Till Market Garden Podcast and the author of, The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Growers Guide to Ecological Market Gardening.

Jesse frost, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Jesse: Well, thank you so much for having me, Brian. I'm excited to be here.

Brian: This is real fun. So tell us a little bit about what it is that you do?

Jesse: Well, I do a lot of different things. But my primary vocation is farming.

As you said,

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Bevin Cohen of Small House Farm

The Artisan Herbalist, by Bevin Cohen

Bevin Cohen is an author, herbalist, seed saver and owner of Small House Farm in Michigan.

Join us as we discuss topics like -

why homesteading is a life long obsession
The joy Bevin gets from sharing his knowledge with others

*Bevin's latest book The Artisan Herbalist

Grab a copy of his latest book & other fine products today – SmallHouseFarm.com

1:53 Small House Farm: We Believe in a Simple, Small, Intentional Life 2:48 What Brought Me Into Homesteading: A Life Long Obsession 4:03 From Music Festivals to the Beginning of Small House Farm 5:49 Educational Products to Help You Grow 7:09 Bevin's Latest Book: The Artisan Herbalist 8:11 From Our Seeds & Their Keepers 9:11 Story Telling & Becoming an Author 12:28 How Book Writing & Speaking Opens Doors for You & Help Others at the Same Time 15:18 Teaching at Events like Mother Earth News Fair 17:43 Gardening & The Power of Curiosity 19:26 Small House Farms Top Sellers

Herbal Wellness – Witch Hazel Seeds – Pineapple Ground Cherry's Books – The Artisan Herbalist Workshop Classes – Seed Saving

21:29 The Joy of Meeting New People at Classes and Workshop Events 23:34 New Book Coming Out in February 2021 with New Society Publishers

The Complete Guide to Seed & Nut Oils

25:45 The Secret to Success: Have Fun! 27:15 Where to Contact Bevin and pickup his latest book, The Artisan Herbalist

Transcription Bevin: I think that with everything in life as business owners or wherever we're at when we put ourselves out there, challenge ourselves to try something new.

And it's just that little bit of success can boost that confidence enough to be like, Okay, let's try that again. Let's push forward on this, let's see where we can take this thing. Even if it doesn't turn out we've tried something new, right and we've grown as a person because of that.

But nine times out of 10 it is gonna work out and that's the beauty of pushing your limits, is we can find that we're capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Bevan Cohen is an author, herbalist, seed saver, and owner of Small House Farm in Michigan. He offers workshops and lectures nationwide on the benefits of living closer to the land through seeds, herbs, and locally grown food.

Bevin is a freelance writer and videographer whose work has appeared in numerous publications including Mother Earth News, Hobby Farms, Grit magazine, and the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company catalog.

He's the author of, Saving Our Seeds, and The Artisan Herbalist.

You can learn more about Bevin's work at www.SmallHouseFarm.com

Bevin Cohen, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Bevin: Thanks so much for having me.

Brian: Great having you here.

Can you give us a little bit more about what it is that you do and how you got to this point in your life?

Bevin: Sure.

So my wife and I own a small homestead business we call Small House Farm,

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Lucinda Bailey

Lucinda Bailey, (aka, The Seed Lady) is a Master Gardener and Certified Crop Advisor specializing in the cultivation of heirloom vegetables from seed.

Join us as we talk about how “old-time pioneer skills” are quickly becoming the hot new desire for many Patriots in our changing economy.

From the value of saving seeds to teaching Mittleider gardening, Lucinda was a joy to chat with and we know you'll be blown away the wealth of information she has to share.

It's easy to see she has a passion for the work she does.

Head over to Texas Ready & pickup a Liberty Seed Bank today! - https://texasready.net/

Texas Ready - Liberty Seed Banks

1:51 Beginning of Texas Ready: Taking Back The Reins of Food Production

3:05 Why This Business Gives Me A Personal Connection to My Customers and Community

3:44 Perfecting Our Message – By Going to Gun Shows

Building Relationships by Putting on Classes at our Local Community Center Why Quail Is An Ideal Option to Raise for Practical Preparedness and Homesteading

7:21 Heirloom Seed Shortages

9:08 We've Seen a Huge Influx In People Wanting to Grow Gardens and Be Better Prepared

10:33 Ideal Customers: Family Oriented and Preparedness Minded

11:33 Top Selling Products: Liberty Seed Banks (Ammo Cans)

12:30 Lucinda's 3-Skill Sets that Revolve Around Gardening

13:38 Knowledge Is Power: Giving Confidence to Patriots

18:55 The Inside Baseball of the Seed Industry

Just How Long Do Seeds Really Last?

22:12 Quality Food Production: The Mittleider Garden Course

24:49 10 Week Hands-On Class: Teaching Family Homesteading Skills

27:07 Follow Your Dreams: Work With a Standard of Excellence and Integrity

29:10 Where to Find out More About Texas Ready (https://texasready.net/) Transcription Lucinda: I think we're moving in that direction. As a society, I think that we're going to see the importance of networking, and connection, and of helping our neighbors. I'm seeing that happen.

And that breaks down all the barriers, whatever political party, whatever, religious institution, you come from whatever color you are, we are members of the human race.

That's our first and only group that we need to be.

Intro to show: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family, you want to leave this world better off and you found it and you consider independence, a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener a homesteader, a survivalist, a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self reliance, for those living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Lucinda Bailey, aka "The Seed Lady" is a master gardener and certified crop advisor, specializing in the cultivation of heirloom vegetables from seed.

Her interest began as a teenager in Michigan, where she grew posts in her backyard to sell to neighbors. She now spends her time traveling the country attending shows and presenting seminars on the Mittleider gardening and food production.

In addition, Lucinda also enjoys playing the piano, tending to her livestock and working with Texas Ready test gardens.

Lucinda Bailey, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Lucinda: Oh, this is such a privilege. It's good to connect with other fellow patriots and people that are like-minded and concerned about where our country is.

Brian: Absolutely.

So why don't you let us know a little bit about what it is that you do and how you ended up here?

Lucinda: Years ago, I was in financial services and I realized all of a sudden, there was no good news coming out of the United States or Europe or anywhere else.

I thought, well, you know, there may be something to the need of preparing my family, for whatever might come?

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Shelley Whitehouse of The Smart Chicken Coop

It all started with 3 chickens on a porch, that turned into a side interest in backyard chicken keeping, that grew into a successful online business.

Shelley Whitehouse shares her story about her company, The Smart Chicken Coop as we cover various topics listed below.

Be sure to checkout The Smart Chicken Coops quality products at the link below!

The Smart Chicken Coop - https://thesmartchickencoop.com

Topics Covered

It all Started With 3 Chickens On A Porch

Craigslist & The Smart Chicken Coop's First Customers

Credibility & Trust, Help Convert to Sales

Facebook & Google Advertising Success

COVID-19 Effect on Business

Life, Caring for Animals & The Value of Homegrown Food

Increase In Demand: The Start of DIY Chicken Coop Kits

Importance of Business Acumen & Self Discipline

Challenge of Developing a Marketing Plan for Nationwide Success

The Joy of Providing Value to Others

Bad Reviews & Quick Responses

Meeting Demand, While Maintaining Our Product Level

Advice for New Business Owners

A Joy for Indian Runner Ducks

The Value of Perseverance In Business

Transcription Shelley: Just started out as a lifestyle business, do you know what I mean?

Brian: Yeah, absolutely.

Shelley: I didn't know that it was going to become so popular. And then of course with COVID, it became ridiculous.

Brian: Yeah.

Shelley: But my husband actually took three months off of work his work, because we couldn't get everything done, we were working full-time, all of us. We're working.

It was crazy. It's crazy, but really fun too, because here are these families who are stuck at home with kids pulling their hair out, and they get to build chicken coops and then get the chickens.

It's a fun business.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Shelley Whitehouse has quite a varied background. She spent many years performing as a professional orchestra flutist, raced mountain bikes for the heck of it, coached high school sports, raised three kids with her husband, then decided to go back to school to get an MBA.

After several years working as a management consultant, one of Shelley's side interests, backyard chicken keeping, morphed into a business called, The Smart Chicken Coop, that sells fancy backyard chicken coops nationwide.

Shelley, welcome to the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Shelley: Thank you for having me.

Brian: Absolutely.

So what brought you into Backyard Chickens in the first place?

Shelley: Well, this is a funny story. So as I said in the bio, I was working as a management consultant. My daughter, who was at UC Santa Cruz at the time, decided to stop out of school and move to rural Yucatan. And so she dropped three chickens on my porch en route.

And I hate birds, but what I found is that they were really fun. And people started saying, well, what's the latest with the chickens?

That turned into, why don't you do a blog, that turned into me buying chicks to sell in my backyard, to people saying, where'd you get that chicken coop?

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Julia Coffey - Co-Owner of Seeds Trust

SeedsTrust.com

Come on down and have a fun time with us as we talk with Julia Coffey from Seeds Trust about a range of topics, such as...

Helping to educate Backyard Gardeners in getting started in seed and seed saving.

Why plugging into your local community is important.

Why Seeds Trust is committed to helping to combat Disappearing Biodiversity

What you'll find in Seeds Trust Newsletter

And finally, what you've been waiting for, just what is Julia's favorite seed!

Thanks again to Julia and Seeds Trust for joining us on the show, and be sure to check them out at the links below. :)

Website - https://www.seedstrust.com/

Top Selling Product - https://www.seedstrust.com/seed-cans-buckets/bucket-of-seeds-high-altitude

Instagram (@seedstrust) - https://www.instagram.com/seedstrust/?hl=en

Facebook (@seedstrust) - https://www.facebook.com/seedstrust/ Transcription Brian: What would you say you like best about your business in your industry as a whole?

Julia: Oh man, I like best that it matters.

Not everyone has that, as far as what they do in life. And I'm really, really lucky that I believe in seeds, I believe in their power to change the world for the better.

I believe in their capacity to connect human beings.

And I find that really fulfilling, in something that I do is my livelihood.

It's a beautiful industry, and seed people are incredibly friendly and generous, and hardworking.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Julia Coffey is co-owner and Director of Operations for Seeds Trust.

Handling the daily order fulfillment, inventory management, grower relations, sourcing logistics and graphic design duties. Julia apprenticed closely with seedsman Bill McDorman to learn the seed industry ropes.

After graduating from one of Bill's first seed school programs, she moved down to Cornville, Arizona to run Seeds Trust with him, eventually purchasing the company and moving it home to Colorado in 2011.

With a decade of experience running the business, Julia is an extremely knowledgeable about growing for seed, seed storage and seed saving techniques.

She's currently completing her Colorado State University Master Gardener certification, Julia Coffey, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Julia: Great, thank you, it's great to be here.

Brian: Besides what we heard from your bio, why don't you tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do?

Julia: I started getting interested in seeds when I lived in France, when I graduated from college. And I was really impressed with some more sustainable models in everyday life over there that I didn't see as much here.

I was super interested in what kind of sustainable agriculture projects was going on in Colorado where I'm from. And when I came home, I actually ended up finding Bill McDorman giving a seed talk in Lyons, Colorado.

I went to hear him and I was so inspired, I went up to him and I was like, hi, can I come apprentice with you, and go to your seed school?

He was like, sure, sure. He's like, just ask Belle, who's is Bills wife, and Belle was like well,

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Dyan Twining - Roost & Root

RoostandRoot.com

Dyan and her husband Montie co-founded Roost & Root to help you, “Find your inner farmer.”

Join us for a fun conversation as Dyan talks about the companies journey from building their first 20 chicken coops to the amazing ride they've had serving and building relationships with customers from coast to coast.

Be sure to checkout their quality Cedar Chicken Coops and Gardening products as well!

➡️ Call Today - (877) 741-2667

➡️ https://roostandroot.com/ Transcription Dyan: Hearing from customers because I do talk to a lot of them after the sale. Like there's always like a driver who's like, "I'm gonna get chickens," and then there's other spouse a lot of times he's kind of like, "okay, not super excited about this, but whatever."

And I hear from the other spouse that's not super excited and like, had no idea I would love having chickens.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Dyan Twining co-founded Roost and Root in 2013, with her husband Montie, their passion and slogan is, "find your inner farmer."

At Roost and Root, they manufacture high quality backyard farm and garden lifestyle products that help fulfill that slogan.

She enjoys keeping chickens and gardening as well as deep sea fishing and running.

Dyan, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Dyan: Hi, thank you for having me.

Brian: Yeah, it's great having you here.

So why don't you tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do?

Dyan: So together with my husband, we run Roost and Root, like you said, we are manufacturing company based out of Dripping Springs, Texas.

So we're a little bit west of downtown Austin, and we have a manufacturing facility where we we started in 2013 manufacturing and selling chicken coops primarily chicken coops.

In 2020, we actually changed our name to Roost and Root. We used to be Urban Coop Company. But we sold our coops through the years and we kept getting a lot of customers saying, you know, "what else you guys going to build?"

They liked our products. They liked the quality, and what goes hand in hand with backyard coops, and its gardening products.

So we changed our name to Roost and Root, to kind of reflect both of our interests.

Brian: Fabulous.

So what led you into the business to begin with?

Dyan: So my husband is a builder and an entrepreneur and we moved to a piece of property in Texas, and I got some chickens, and I could never find a chicken coop that functioned like I wanted it to.

I wanted it to be easy to clean, I wanted it to be easy to take care of the chickens, give them food, give them water.

So Montie being a builder, I said, "you need to build some chicken coops."

Well, a little bit more to that.

Montie was a builder, had a commercial construction company at the time, and did a big project for a company and we are leaving to go to town for Thanksgiving.

We drive through the drive thru of this Starbucks that he had helped to build. And we were still waiting to get paid for the work that had been done.

And we're thinking this whole working for someone else is not so much fun.

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Norman "The Beard Guy" Farrar

Soap.Club

Special guest, business coach Norman “The Beard Guy” Farrar brings us a wide range of business thoughts on our latest episode.

Join us as we talk about Norman's expertise from helping businesses have success with Amazon, to starting various companies (like Soap.Club), to pivoting to upping his podcasting game in result of the changes COVID-19 has brought to all of us.

Norman was a kick to chat with, and we know you'll love this episode as well!

Norman Farrar's Website - https://normanfarrar.com/

Soap.Club - https://soap.club/

Podcasts

Lunch With Norm Podcast - https://lunchwithnorm.com/

(live on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook on Mon, Wed, Fri)

I Know This Guy...Podcast - https://iknowthisguy.com/ Transcription Brian: Welcome back to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast, today's show featuring Norman he is something quite different than what we're used to, when it comes to interviews.

Let me tell you why.

We don't focus as much on the reason why we picked him out to interview him, particularly for the show, which is his website, Soap.Club, we do hit on it, on how he came about it, and how he really thinks that it was a mistake to start that website. But he goes through all that when we get to it.

The rest of the time, he is really an expert when it comes to e commerce and especially in the area of Amazon.com. This is one of those that's very business oriented.

So no matter what type of business you have, this would be useful to you. But off the grid business owners really need to hear what Norman has to say.

That's why I included it on our podcast.

Join me at the end for a quick commentary, where we kind of go over some ideas that he produced really good episode. Stay tuned.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Entrepreneur, businessmen Norman, "The Beard Guy" Farrar stands at the forefront of the economic mega machine known as Amazon Marketplace.

As a leading expert with over 25 years of product sourcing development and branding expertise, Norm is an advisor to many and an inspiration to all throughout his career.

He's worked with big brands including Mercedes, Coke, Dell, Microsoft target, Hershey 20th Century Fox, Molsons, Cadbury, and a wide variety of emerging businesses that are celebrating sudden escalation and profitability and sales as a result of taking action on his advice and proven methods.

Norm Farrar, Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Norm: Hey, I'm very happy to be here.

Brian: Well, that's awesome. So other than what we heard from your bio, why don't you let everyone know a little bit about what you do on a day to day basis.

Norm: Oh my gosh.

So on a day to day, actually, it starts the night before, I'm one of these old guys, if you can't see me, I'm an old guy in the business, but I always like to plan my day, the night before.

I always find if I know what I'm doing, things can always change. But if I plan ahead of time, then I know and then what I've tried to do for most of my life, is do everything that's important first.

So my priority my task a gets the very first thing I do,

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Shannie McCabe - Rareseeds.com

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - Rareseeds.com

Shannie McCabe joins us to talk about what it's like to be garden educator and catalog writer for Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

See what Baker Creek has to offer today and be sure to pickup a catalog! – https://www.rareseeds.com

Also, checkout Shannie's terrific videos on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCToFIe32MeC-P8Z4Uptax_w Transcription Shannie: I was introduced to Baker Creek, and I thought wow, I love this catalog. This is the most beautiful, fascinating catalog. The stories behind these heirlooms are phenomenal.

As a market farmer I made sure to grow Baker Creek varieties because I wanted something that was like colorful and interesting to engage passers by at the farmers market.

I wanted something more interesting to stand out.

I had subscribed to the email newsletter for Baker Creek, and that's where I saw a email saying they were hiring. So I responded and I moved to the Missouri Ozarks when I was in my early 20s, to a co-garden manager.

And then I started reading the catalog and the rest is history.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Shannie McCabe studied environmental horticulture and sustainable agriculture at University of Rhode Island and has worked on farms growing organic veggies and flowers for a decade.

She has been the farm manager for Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and is currently a garden educator and catalog writer for the company.

She has traveled internationally for Baker Creek, searching for rare and unusual heirloom seeds to offer in the award winning Baker Creek catalog.

Shannie McCabe, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Shannie: Thank you for having me.

Brian: Yeah, why don't you let everyone know a little bit more about what it is that you do.

Shannie: Sure, yeah.

So basically, I teach gardening skills. I'm really really obsessed with heirloom seeds, and with gardening and market farming, and in all manner of small farming, gardening, permaculture, growing and homesteading, and then how we use those heirlooms in the kitchen and for crafts and such.

So I'm just really obsessed with heirlooms and all the different forms. I was formerly a co garden manager with a couple other people, I helped to write the seed catalog, we've got a few different writers on the catalog these days.

But I read the catalog, I helped to write content for our YouTube page.

Our YouTube channel is called, Rareseeds.

Then making Facebook videos and Instagram videos, and basically just getting out into the garden and into the kitchen with various heirloom varieties and educating about them.

Brian: That's fabulous. So can you tell people who may be new to the gardening scene, especially what what heirloom seeds are and how they're different from from the typical seeds?

Shannie: Sure, yeah. heirloom seeds are open pollinated varieties.

That means that they have been saved and passed down from generation to generation. They're not hybrids, they're not f1 hybrid, they have open pollination, which means their seeds can be reliably saved, year after year.

Typically,

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Christopher & Kirsten K. Shockey

The Big Book Of Cidermaking

Christopher Shockey and Kirsten K. Shockey join us again to talk about their new book, The Big Book of Cidermaking.

We also talk about an exciting new project they've taken on called, Fermentation School!

Fermentation School has online classes from top experts to help you advance your own fermentation skills.

For more on Fermentation School, The Big Book of Cidermaking and other Books and information the Shockey's have checkout the links below!

Fermentation School - https://www.fermentationschool.com/

Ferment.Works - https://ferment.works/

The Big Book of Cidermaking - https://www.storey.com/books/the-big-book-of-cidermaking/ Transcription Brian: Christopher Shockey and Kirsten K. Shockey are the authors of The Big Book of Cidermaking. And award winning Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments, Fiery Ferments and the best selling Fermented Vegetables books that came from their desires to help people eat in new ways, both for the health of themselves and the planet.

They got their start in fermenting foods 20 years ago on a 40 acre hillside smallholding, which grew into their local organic food company, when they realized their passion lay in the wish to both teach people how to ferment and push this culinary art to new flavors.

Kirsten and Christopher lead lead experience experiential workshops worldwide and online at FermentationSchool.com. Helping people to make enjoy and connect with their food through fermentation.

They can now be found at Ferment.Works. or excuse me, they can also be found at Ferment.Works. Kirsten and Christopher, welcome back to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Christopher and Kirsten: Thanks, Brian.

Brian: Why don't we just start out by kind of going over your new book, tell us tell us what led you to write this new one on cidermaking.

Christopher: Well this is the one I wanted to write from the very beginning, we bought a hand press on the farm 20 some years ago when we moved here. And so we've been making a lot of cider since that time and that's my favorite ferment by far.

So we just had to do a few 100,000 other books before we could do this one. Yeah, and it's cider season, we have cider apples on the farm. So all those reasons why.

Brian: Was this one of the original fermentation experiments that you guys went with or how did it come about?

Christopher: This is one of the ferments that we did for ourselves, we had a lot of apple trees and so we we made cider for ourselves. The Founding Fathers would let you make 200 gallons for yourself and we came darn close nearly every year.

Friends and family, I trained as a cider maker. And we were going to do cider instead of fermented vegetables and all that other stuff.

When I learned that to run a little cidery, the most important thing is you can repair equipment, used equipment, I can look at a pipe and it'll start to leak. So I'm good with grey tape and after that it falls down. So I said to Kirsten, I love drinking it, I love making it, but I'm not so sure we're going to be a good small cidery. And that's how all the other fermentation stuff started.

But in the response back from the book so far, it's been really positive.

Kirsten: Yeah, I think this one's much easier lift than the last one. Most people know what cider is. Most people are interested in fermented beverages and are willing to maybe take that on as a first ferment, where as miso or, you know, fermenting a bean or grain eating stringy natto, or growing fungus around a bean, like tempeh is just asking a little more of the American general, American population.

So yeah, it's been popular and it came out well, it was supposed to come out in June, but it came out along with Apple season, so I think we've gotten a lot of nice feedback.

The other thing is, it's a very beautiful book, it was shot here in three different times of the year, but all on our farm.

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Corwin Bell

Karen Sadenwater

Established in 2005, BackYardHive is committed to bee-centric practices that increase the survivability of colonies through their Bee Guardian Methods.

Corwin Bell and Karen Sadenwater join us to talk about their transition from starting out as computer animation to developing a deep passion for beekeeping from observing bee behavior, to help save the bee and teach others how to safely help our friendly flyers today, and in the future!

Checkout their leading innovation products like the Cozy Cover and the Cathedral Hive, while soaking up quality information at their site below!

Checkout BackYardHive Today - https://backyardhive.com/ Transcription Brian: In 1995, Corwin Bell started keeping bees due to a longtime fascination with this delicate pollinator. Along with Karen Sadenwater, Corwin founded BackyardHive.com in the spring of 2005.

They are committed to be centered practices that increase the survivability of colonies.

If the bees are cared for by applying the Bee Guardian methods that they teach, then the survival genetics and healthy behavioral traits will be preserved within the gene pool.

Backyard Hive was the first to offer backyard beekeepers, online resources, training DVDs, and information about getting started in a lifetime of top bar beekeeping. They realize the need early on and became the very first organization to make available fully assembled top bar hives on the web.

BackyardHive.com is committed to sharing knowledge and top bar hive technologies that encourage and enable backyard beekeepers to be successful and completely chemical free.

Corwin and Karen, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Corwin & Karen: Hey, Brian.

Brian: It's great having you here. Why don't you let us know a little bit about what it is that you do?

Corwin: Well, we have a business called BackYardHive. And it's about teaching natural beekeeping for people that are gonna keep bees in their backyards.

So we do classes, we do intensives, we innovate in the bee space. Have two of our own design hives we've worked on over the years, and pretty much in unnatural beekeeping is our thing without using you know, chemical treatments at all or smoke or sugar. So we really promote that. That's pretty much what BackYardHive is doing.

Karen: Yeah, we really want to teach people that method, you know, backyard beekeeping and natural beekeeping and treatment free.

Brian: Well, that's fabulous. So you started the website in 2005, right?

Corwin: Yeah.

Brian: And tell me about what led up to that, what was your life up till that point?

Corwin: Well, yeah, it's funny, because when someone says, oh, you're a beekeeper, I'm like, no, no, I'm a bee researcher more than anything. And even then it's odd that I'm doing bees.

I started off in the film industry doing TV commercials. Then I moved into doing game design for computer games. I was the first one to put out a computer game on CD ROM for Hanna Barbera called Page Master. It came out on the same weekend that Lion King did so I just crushed our game on the endcaps. But it was great game.

Then, I kept working in the game genre that we work in is called serious games.

Karen: And games for health.

Corwin: And games for health.

So they're games that aren't like driving cars and playing with little characters. So from that we did, The Journey To The Wild Divine, which was a big hit. The Dalai Lama played it and it was had finger sensors that read your bio feedback for real and that's how you played the game. But people call it "mist for mystics" is what Wired magazine actually called it.

And then, we went on from there. So now we're overlapping. Now we're doing the wild divine project. And here comes you know, I'm like, oh, these are cool. I want to do bees, and basically went online. Back then it was like the modem kind of online, right.

And I found this guy Marty Hardison who did thi...

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Charles Wiley

Corn Man Chapter 2: Corn Inc. Cometh

Charles Wiley is back with us to talk about the Chapter 2 of the Corn Man story - Corn Inc. Cometh, as well as what sparked his idea for International Corn Man Day!

Checkout Chapter 2 and all things Corn Man at the link below.

➡️ https://cornmanofficial.com/shop/ Transcription Brian: Charles Wiley has been writing music and playing drums for 25 years. He currently lives in Los Angeles and plays with various bands and artists including rock band Dark Horse, Rising Riot, award winning singer songwriter Chris Angeles, and Americana band Circa 62.

In addition to playing drums, he also writes music for television. His music has been played on Oprah, Dateline, NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Dr. Oz Show, The Young and the Restless and more.

Charles created the Corn Man project to bring awareness to how much corn is in everything we eat. Corn Man is an ongoing action adventure children's book series, and progressive rock concept album, Charles was inspired to call attention to the issue using music and humor.

Corn Man hopes to be the conversation starter and tackling the complex issues surrounding the food industry, the environmental impacts of it, and the unsustainable nature of how we eat and grow food.

Charles Wiley, welcome back.

Charles: Thank you so much Brian, and pleasure to be back. I'm really excited.

Brian: For those of you who are listening, you may remember Charles from an earlier episode and we'll link to that in the description, where we first met him met the Corn Man project, and what's that's all about.

And now we're kind of getting back together and being updated on what's happening in his world, his upcoming book, which is Corn Man Chapter Two.

So that should be out in paperback next week. At the time of when we're recording this by the time you hear it, it may already be out.

Charles: That's the hope.

Brian: Yeah. So let's go right into it.

We were talking a little bit before and you had mentioned, International Corn Man Day, just celebrated. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what that is?

Charles: Well, that was yesterday. And I had this idea, How can I bring more awareness to what the Corn Man project is about, and what it's doing at one time?

I thought, well, let's have a day, a Corn Man Day. And I liked the way Corn Man day sounds. But for some reason, International Corn Man Day, just had a more grand name.

I was like, I like that, plus two, I do have people that support the project overseas. And you and I both know, tackling our food system, the environment, it's a worldwide solution that we're looking for. It's not singular to the United States or to any other place.

So I said, let's do International Corn Man date. And my goal was two fold.

One, I wanted to help people find one small thing that they could maybe implement into their lives that would help reduce the amount of processed corn and their food. In September, I posted a suggestion a day.

And they're very simple, very basic things. But the goal was, I believe, a lot of people don't realize, since there is so much corn in the processed food for one, but it's also in the field that gets the food to the grocery store, and pesticides that get sprayed with all this stuff.

The animals being fed corn, it's such a big part of the entire food system.

My goal was let's find simple solutions, we can all implement something, go to a farmers market for the first time.

How does that impact how much corn is in your food?

Well, it shrinks how far your food has to travel to get to your front door. That in and of itself reduces how much corn is in your diet.

Everything from, I had let's do a fruit tree swap. You plant an apple tree in your backyard, your neighbor plants a pear tree over a few years. You guys have apples, you have pears, you give them out, things like that.

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Tom Watkins - Murray McMurray Hatchery

Murray McMurray Hatchery

Specializing in heritage and rare breed chickens for small backyard flocks and homesteading family's.

Join us as we talk with Tom Watkins from Murray McMurray Hatchery about life and times working in a long-time owned family company and just how does it work to have live animals shipped to customers doors!

For more about Murray McMurray Hatchery and what they have to offer, please checkout their website below!

Murray McMurray Hatchery - https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html Transcription Brian: Thomas Watkins is vice president and McMurry Hatchery.

He's been working at the hatch for eight years. No previous chicken experience but now he's something of a chicken expert. McMurray Hatchery is a family owned small business, but they just happen to hatch a lot of chicks.

They specialize in heritage and rare breed chickens for the small backyard flocks and homesteading families. Thomas Watkins, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Tom: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Brian: So why don't you tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do?

Tom: Like you said, I'm the vice president here. It sounds impressive. It really isn't.

That's part of being a small family company.

You might get a big title, but I'm still the plumber. I do a lot of building maintenance.

Number one is we have chickens.

And with that, we raise our own breeder flocks and take care of all the chickens. We hatch the eggs.

So here we have large commercial incubators and we hatch out about 150 to 200,000 chicks a week and ship them all across the United States. So primarily to small backyard flocks.

We don't really do anything commercially for that. So it's just people want chickens, you know, a couple of laying hens in the backyard or to produce their own meat or eggs.

Yeah, you kind of wear a lot of hats.

Brian: So you said you didn't have previous chicken experience.

How did you end up here? What's your life story up to this point?

Tom: I married into it, you would say. My father in law is the president of McMurray Hatchery. So McMurray Hatchery has been around for a little over 100 years now.

All right here in Webster City, Iowa. So we're in the heart of Iowa. And while the McMurray's are all gone, went through Murray McMurray and his sons John and Charles and then his grandson Murray MacMurray took over and he had two business partners.

And those two retired and it was my father in law Bud Wood and said eight years ago, I came on with really no intention of being any management plan just to kind of help around and work my way up, you'd say, oh, pretty quickly.

It's, you know, helps when your father in law is the boss, but you just kind of jump in with everybody. We're really lucky, we have a lot of great help. Because it's all hands on deck when you deal with live animals.

So we work really hard when you need to work. And then, you know, take time off later.

Brian: Yeah.

Tom: Oh, absolutely. Yeah I don't know and now, you just answered enough questions, you can be your own chicken expert.

Brian: Good deal well, and it fits into the crowd that you're playing into, because it's what they're all attempting to do, right. They they're going from quite possibly not knowing anything about chickens to raising them and so forth.

Tom: Exactly. Like I said, I'm living proof of what happens because I never knew people had chickens in their backyards. And then so we got chickens and went from a few, and then you go from having chickens and they are the gateway animal to other, you know, hobby farming. You get a goat, or you get small cow. You move to an acreage, like so.

Yeah, I've done everything exactly that any of our customers are going to do or try to do.

Brian: I imagine there's a whole lot of customers that have been with you for quite a while, having a over 100 year old company,

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Gianaclis Caldwell

Holistic Goat Care

Some people are just experts in the subjects they excel in.

Others are experts with a joy for helping others and learning from those they interact with.

Tune into this podcast and checkout some of the links below, and it won't take long to get an impression that Gianaclis is the latter.

Now, I could spend time talking about her love for Nigerian Dwarf Goats here.

Or perhaps her extensive knowledge in Cheesemaking.

Possibly even her 6 nonfiction books or her ventures into fiction writing.

Maybe you'd even like me to spill the beans on her thoughts on speaking and teaching classes?

Well I'm not going to do that, no, not at all.

But if you want to know more about the subjects we cover in this episode, please checkout the links below, because Gianaclis is someone you'll want to follow and learn from!

Checkout Gianaclis's books, future classes, consults and more at her website and Facebook page -

https://gianacliscaldwell.com/

https://www.facebook.com/gianaclis/

For more about Pholia Farm - https://pholiafarm.com/ Transcription Brian: Oregon native Gianaclis Caldwell grew up milking cows, but was lowered to the goat side where she remains a committed devotee. She was a commercial cheesemaker at the Caldwell Off Grid Dairy Pholia Farm for over 10 years.

She now milks her Nigerian dwarf goats just for pleasure. In between writing books in which he has six, speaking, and judging cheese, which she considers the most fun.

Gianaclis Caldwell, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Gianaclis: Well, thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian: Yeah, so why don't you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do on a regular basis?

Gianaclis: Oh, gosh, it sure varies from day to day. And I was just talking to my mother about people who are drawn to this kind of life really have to be nonlinear, because you just can't really schedule your day or your week sometimes with animals and farm life and that sort of thing.

So still milking the goats, you were very correct and I do it for pleasure, love having them can just working with the animals. We've been breeding the Nigerians now since 2003, and have developed a good name for the breed or as a breeder, I should say, of Nigerian dwarfs. Particularly for strong, long milking animals and with good milk production for that breed.

And that's, that's something that's hard to imagine. And we're getting older now, of course, as we all do. But it's difficult to imagine giving up but that process of working on a breed and all those those genetics and all those improvements, and of course, there's this addiction that every goat person will confess to.

I think about waiting for those babies to come every year. And goat babies are there's a good reason that they're all over YouTube and such.

They're they're so appealing, and they pretty much stay that way as adults.

So we work our local farm is mostly a pleasure farm now, we do Airbnb with a couple of farms days we have, and that keeps us busy also, but it's a great income stream for the farm supplement a lot of the feed bills and that sort of thing.

And then working on books, which you said correctly, six nonfiction books and now I'm switching to what was originally my first passion which is trying to and I say that because I want to be humble about this, I write fiction.

And then we also are caring for elderly parents and current with all of that and that's a wonderful thing to be a part of that certainly is a ongoing team team. Source of activity for us.

Brian: Absolutely.

What drew you to go after work in on a dairy?

Gianaclis: Well, it was a family dairy here growing up so wasn't a commercial dairy.

But I had been dairy cattle for each leader and just always loved cows and had that typical kind of superior complex that dairy cow people have over goats. And that our youngest daughter was six or seven at the time a...

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Jason Smith - Adventures In Homebrewing & Austin Homebrew Supply

From experiments in brewing while serving in the Army to now over 20 years in the Homebrew industry, Jason Smith joins us to talk about the joy of Homebrewing and fermentation.

Checkout Jason's fine websites to help you in your homebrewing adventures today!

Adventures In Homebrewing - https://www.homebrewing.org/

Austin Homebrew Supply - https://www.austinhomebrew.com/ Transcription Intro: Jason Smith is the owner of Adventures In Homebrewing.

It all started when he was brewing beer in 1992. While serving in the army in 97, he left the army and moved back to Detroit to pursue pharmacy school. While preparing for school, he realized the lack of competition in the homebrew market in Detroit and opened up his own shop in 1999.

Over the last 20 years, his business has evolved into both retail and online sales as well as producing their own warehouse management system. So the gap year that he took off from pharmacy school has actually been over 20 years now, but it's been quite a rollercoaster ride.

Jason Smith, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jason: Thanks for having me.

Brian: So why don't you let everyone know a little bit about what it is that you do?

Jason: My name is Jason Smith. I own Adventures In Homebrewing and Austin Homebrew Supply. We do homemade beer making, wine making, cheese making, distilling of products.

We have guests that do soap making, soda making to kind of anything that you would make at home. As far as beverage supply goes for sure.

Brian: How did you end up of all things in the home brewing industry?

Jason: It's kind of crazy. I started out in the Army. And when I started, I wanted to make wine with the guys in the Army. And they're like wine, How about beer?

Well, I suppose we could do that.

So we got involved with some beer making.

I worked in a pharmacy. We had lab equipment available to us, of course. So we started culturing a lot of our own yeast doing different things in the beer making side of it. We really didn't have what's available today.

Internet access, we couldn't just order something.

It was a lot of finding where can we get grains, where can we get hops? And then of course with the yeast we started culturing a lot of it within the labs at the hospital at the time, I did that for some time, started a small homebrew club at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, did some fun stuff with that.

And then as I left the military, I got home, I was gonna go back to school for pharmacy.

When I got home, there was a couple small shops, but nothing really, that had bar equipment and you know, the kegging equipment and just the bigger items that were available.

I just had a larger vision of what home brewing could be versus what the local shops had had. Says talking to a friend one night over beer, of course, and kind of determined that we could do a better job than what was currently available in Michigan.

So the first thing we did was kind of that ESPN mentality.

Well, we can open this in Michigan, but there's a whole world out there. Let's jump on the internet and make sure that we are getting out to everybody. We started collecting email addresses, phone numbers, names, building an email list and slowly developed a small website.

That was 20 years ago, the website is done well, from day one, we've kind of evolved.

And now I'm sure we're the largest store in Michigan, one of the larger ones in the Midwest, and there's two or three stores in the country that I think evolved to our size but it's just been a an enjoyable trip.

I love home brewing. I love you know, gourmet foods, gourmet drinks, of course, type in hand in hand. And they've been very fortunate to get in as the craft beer scene really exploded back in 99.

Most people were like, what is this craft beer?

Today, it's hard to go anywhere without recognizing either an event or something goi...

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Petra Page-Mann - Fruition Seeds

In our opinion, Petra Page-Mann is one of the top communicators in the self reliance and DIY organic gardening fields.

Join us for a terrific conversation on why personality marketing and quality education can help differentiate you from big corporate companies. As well as some heart felt thoughts on current events in America today.

Head over to Fruition Seeds for helpful tips on gardening and be sure to grab some organic seeds to start growing now! - https://www.fruitionseeds.com/ Transcription Brian: Petra Page-Mann is the co-founder and storyteller at Fruition Seeds. Growing up in her father's garden, Petra believes each seed and each of us is in the world to change the world. Her passion, curiosity, love of food and love of people led her all over the world studying seed, song and culture worth celebrating.

In 2012 she co-founded Fruition Seeds with her beloved partner Matthew, to share the seeds, knowledge and inspiration gardeners crave to amplify our individual as well as collective abundance in our short seasons.

Petra, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Petra: Why thank you, my friend. It's a joy to join you.

Brian: Awesome.

So how did you end up here? What's your life story up to this point?

Petra: I really like to eat and I've been fortunate enough to eat a lot of wonderful things and somehow it just keeps happening and so I am to share all of those seeds and all of these meals with all the people so we can all keep growing.

I grew up in my father's garden here in the Finger Lakes of Western New York. And if you'd asked a little seven year old Petra, what she loves to do, I wouldn't have told you gardening.

I also wouldn't have told you brushing my teeth. It was just something that we did.

And I took seed saving for granted as well.

Now, if you want to sow some seeds, you should save some right?

So I'll profoundly be so grateful for that gift that my father gave me my entire life. And as I, you know, became a teenager and became more aware of the world around me and really just deeply concerned by the patterns that I was seeing.

I realized that agriculture was kind of this intersection of a lot of my passions of being outside of eating but I've also like soils and justice, and all of these wonderful things and seeds are kind of the seed of it all right?

And seeds are this just epic metaphor to me of just the growth of the potential the capacity to adapt and change, and kind of that like gift of our ancestors and how we can become good ancestors.

So I spent over a decade working in kind of the organic seed world, working on farms and also for seed companies. I've worked for some of the smallest seed companies in the world, also one of the largest. And it really galvanized me to know decentralization is so important.

You know, there are oaks all over so many continents, right. But there are so many different genus species. So many subspecies and the Oaks that we have on this ridge above me, are distinctly different even within that subspecies from five miles down in down in the valley.

So we must do the same thing as humans, with our economies, with our businesses, with our hearts with how we communicate and organize.

And so our centralized, highly commodified seed system, food system, you know, it's not broken. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is exploit the marginalized people that have been so profoundly exploited for generations for millennia.

Part of what that looks like is decentralizing and really taking care of, you know, thinking locally, thinking globally. But how we started Fruition Seeds and 2012 to kind of respond to our immediate inspiration and also just necessity of creating regionally adapted seeds for short seasons and sharing them widely.

There are so many I used to when I grew up in my father's garden, I thought our season was too short for watermelons,

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Sam & Ida Friedman - Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve

It all started with a school teacher wanting to help educate students and show people online how to have healthier beauty and wellness options.

Join us as Sam Friedman takes you on a fun journey from his mother Ida's beginning, to his involvement soon after, all the way up to today as a thriving ecommerce based, natural and organic body care products company.

Be sure to checkout Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve's quality organic products today - https://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/

Transcription Brian: Sam Friedman has taken a long and interesting journey on his road to operating an organic bath and body care company. His first passion being music and theater, Sam co-founded and was artistic director of the actual reality Theater Company in Columbus and Cleveland from 1997 to 2001.

From 2001 to 2004, he took the position of technology director at the Agnon School in Beachwood, Ohio, where he taught second to eighth grade technology and media and was also the family retreat director from 2002 to 2004.

In 2004, Sam then moved to Madrid, Spain, where he worked with the Spanish government as an English language specialist to diplomatic liaisons.

In 2007, at the request of his mother, Sam moved back to the US to try and help turn the hobby and small local market business she had started into something bigger.

Today, Sam is the managing and brand director of Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve. A USDA organic brand that hand-makes over 350 bath skin and hair care products. And he helps lead the natural body care industry as educator spokesman and brand ambassador for one of the globe's finest brands of natural personal care.

Sam Friedman, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Sam: Thank you. Thank you for having me Brian.

Brian: Yeah, so that's a nice recap of your life up until this point, why don't you let us know a little bit about what you do right now.

Sam: So right now Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve is a company that makes about 350 organic certified products. We currently have a staff of 19 individuals. We're selling our products through our own website, ecommerce, and in some stores, both small mom and pops and a few larger shops in all 50 states in the US and over 120 some countries across the globe.

Mostly all small parcels, small packages, mostly direct to people's homes. Of course A few business clients that buy and resell themselves. We make every type of product under the gamut that you could imagine having to do with body care, skin care, taking sort of care of the outside of the body.

And, you know, at this point, just looking at where we've come from where we've been, it's been a really great journey from the kitchen to a really robust business.

Brian: What led your mother to go into this business?

Sam: Well, my mother's background is in science and human biology, because her first job she was a nurse, so she actually went to nursing school for several years and got medical training and then spent a decade working in local hospitals.

Then after leaving the hospitals, a lot of the reason that happened was because of her not agreeing with some of the standard pharmaceutical care that's out there and the things that are being provided for people as far as the diagnosis and the remedy for what your issue might be.

That really started spinning in her head because of my stepfather's eczema.

Eczema is a pretty annoying condition that a lot of folks have, especially here in the US. And it's dry and flaky and itchy and red. It could be in patches in certain areas in the body can start with your baby, it can start when you're older.

It's just something a lot of people deal with. And so my stepdad had some pretty bad eczema on his elbows and arms. He was going to the doctors, the dermatologists and getting the steroid creams, and they're expensive, and they're filled with questionable chemicals.

You know,

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Tigger Montague from BioStar US took sometime to sit down and talk us about the companies fine horse and dog supplements, what brought her into the industry from her time in dressage and some of the companies challenges and mindset during the COVID-19 pandemic and how to handle adverse situations.

Be sure to check her BioStar as well as her Healthy Critters Podcast linked below.

BioStar US➡️biostarus.com

Healthy Critters Podcast ➡️healthycrittersradio.com

Full Transcript Brian: Tigger Montague is the owner of BioStar, a provider of nutritional supplements for dogs and horses.

Tigger has been in the supplement industry, both human and animal for 38 years. She competed in dressage as a professional, but had to give that up when she started BioStar.

She's written two books, has a fine monthly podcast called Healthy Critters and lives on an organic farm in Virginia.

Tigger Montague, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcasts.

Tigger: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Why don't you let everyone know a little bit about how you ended up here, what's your life's story up to this point?

Tigger: How much time do you have?

(laughs)

Actually, my competition horse it was diagnosed with inflammation of the bursa. The bursa is in the foot and my vet is one of the United States Equestrian Team veterinarians. We tried every drug every modality known to man to get this horse sound, nothing worked.

He finally said to me, I think we're going to have to nerve him. And that means cutting the nerves in his foot so that he wouldn't feel it.

The problem with nerves and horses is that the nerve regenerates. So in a year or two, we'd have to go back and nerving him again. So my vet was away at a big show in Calgary, Canada. And I thought, well, you know, this horse is going to have surgery, maybe I should start thinking about preparing his body and I was working at the time as a consultant for a human health food company called Mega Foods, doing a lot of research on raw food, spending a lot of time in California.

I thought, well, you know, maybe I should just start sprouting some seeds and I had a little dehydrator and I just literally took sprouted seeds, added some papaya, made it into little cookies to hydrated them and start feeding them my horse. To make a long story short, in about three weeks I saw an improvement.

And then my vet came and he couldn't believe it.

He said, wow, if you can do something with nitric oxide, you might be onto something. I didn't really know what nitric oxide was, but it turns out it's the master circulatory molecule of the body.

There are certain foods that are very high and an amino acid called arginine.

Arginine is a precursor or a substrate for nitric oxide production.

So I started looking at foods that were high in arginine, and they always contain lysine.

I realized that in nature, those two amino acids are always together. Now some foods are high in lysine, low in arginine and others are high and arginine low in lysine. But when I sorted out the high arginine foods and made them into a cookie if you will, just to dehydrated them. And feed them to my horse, he came sound.

I went, whoa. okay, okay, there's really something to this food. And that start that started the journey.

Brian: Wow, that's incredible. So how did that know into a business for you?

Tigger: Well, my vet was so blown away by the result that he was on his way to Florida. This is I think, in November, and he was on his way to Florida for the winter to the big winter circuit in Wellington. I was making these bars and dehydrating them all winter and sending the next day air to him. And he was trying them on all sorts of different horses. I think I had made somewhere like three to 4,000 bars that winter. He came back and he said you've got to make this into a company.

Brian: Wow. So how did you find your first customers?

Tigger: As the rider, competitor,

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Looking past the amazement of people lining up for full carts of toilet paper in the month of March. The real underlining concern for most Americans was for safety for their loved ones yes, but also an all too real lack of practical preparedness.

Join us today as Joe Rieck of Emergency Essentials (BePrepared.com) shares what life has been like since sales started to climb in the month of February. From challenges the company has faced to the customer letters of gratitude Joe's received that help him and the staff know they are making a difference in tough times.

Our hopes align with Joe's that in light of these challenges, people will view preparedness as a practical and safe thing to do in the future.

Find out more at their website and be sure to pickup a QSS certified, 1-Month Food Supply - https://beprepared.com/

Full Transcript Brian: Joe Rieck is the VP of sales for Emergency Essentials. It can be found online at BePrepared.com.

He's been involved with emergency preparedness for over 14 years, and he has helped thousands of people to become better prepared. Joe Rieck, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Joe: Hey, thanks Brian for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here with you.

Brian: So why don't you let everyone know a little bit about what it is that you do?

Joe: Okay, so emergency essentials, we specialize in long-term emergency food, and this usually consists of freeze dried items as well as dehydrated items. We have a wide selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, ready made meals, MRE's, we have a wide selection of emergency gear, 72 hour backpacks, water filtration systems, anything you can kind of think that you might need an event of an emergency or disaster. We try to have you covered.

Brian: Great.

How did you personally end up here? What's your life story up to this point?

Joe: Well, you know, about 10 to 11 years ago, I was involved with a company that we started a long-term food storage company that grew. And we ended up selling that off a couple years ago.

Typically once companies get in the hands of private equity groups, the mission kind of changes a little bit.

I was lucky enough to be found with a group called Emergency Essentials. And I've been here for over two years. It's a great little company, we're a privately held, there's no private equity group that is responsible for to.

We have one owner and that's the only person that we listen to, and that we kind of take advice from. And so it's very, very simple.

We try to just be there for our customers the best that we can. So I actually love what we do here at Emergency Essentials and it's been a lot of fun over the past couple of years.

Brian: Oh, fabulous.

So what where do you find new customers at?

Joe: Well, let me just tell you right now they're coming out of the woodworks with this whole COVID-19 pandemic that we're going through. It's like, a flip was switched and everybody in the world kind of became well aware of the need to have a backup plan.

As you can imagine, with this COVID crisis that's going on just our industry, our business, I mean, we've been hit tremendously hard, you know, in a positive way, because the amount of interest that we have in our products. And so it means it's caused a little bit of hiccups from a business perspective as far as having the capacity to produce and to make the food and to get it packaged and prepared and shipped out, which caused some trouble that way as far as having a backorder list.

But as far as the knowledge and the need to educate people, the media has done a great job of showing what happens in the event of a disaster with the shelves being cleared off.

I think we all kind of went through that several months ago where we couldn't even find toilet paper, for crying out loud. These things happen and it brings your awareness to a different level of, "oh my gosh, our system is so fragile."

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Episode 31.

When it comes to your business, what are you good at, and what do you need help with? Are you ACTIVELY searching for help?

In this episode David and Beth Pruett discuss with host Brian J. Pombo all the highs and lows of building an "accidental business." When their first product became a run-away seller, they inadvertently found themselves in the growing world of eCommerce.

A load of live events, rampant customers and a hugely popular YouTube Channel later, David and Beth are looking to take their website and business to the next level.

What do they recommend for growing businesses? Listen Now!

Find out more about David, Beth and AMP-3: https://www.amp-3.net/ Checkout David & Beth's YouTube Channel: USNERDOC

Beat out your competition – EVEN if it’s Amazon.com: https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook

Full Transcript

Beth: David and I have always had the theory that we are not here to sell you something. We want to teach you something, from day one. If we don't sell anything, that's fine. If you learn a skill and can take that home with you, that is more important to us than us selling you a product.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast, I'm Brian Pombo.

What you're about to hear is part two, in a two part interview series that we're doing with David and Beth Pruett, owners of AMP-3.net and host of the YouTube channel, USNERDOC.

The first conversation went deeply into the life story and background and what drew them both into the arena of emergency preparedness and true emergency preparedness. Not just the prepper stuff that you see on TV, but really preparing for specific emergency situations.

It's very interesting. If you did not get a chance to listen to it and make sure and go back and listen to that part one first, you could get that over at offthegridbiz.com.

This is part two.

In this one, we focus much more into the details of their business and what makes it work, what they'd rather be doing better in their business, and we go into some of that, although we mainly focus on the areas that they're wanting to improve in.

But David and Beth's frankness and openness about where they're at and where they want to be was really refreshing.

Great to listen to and I hope it will help you to develop where you want to take your business to.

Now let me set the scene. This is a second interview that took place months after the first interview.

This time we did the interview from inside of their new camper trailer that they call Liberty. You get to hear a little bit of the back and forth of them referring back to Liberty.

They're talking about where we're sitting right there.

So have a listen, enjoy and I'll be back on the other end to discuss some of what I got out of the conversation.

Brian: When you first started putting kits together, what were you thinking was going to happen?

What actually happened?

David: The first thought was that we would build 10 and that would be good for a year.

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Episode 30.

What inspired you to start your business?

David and Beth Pruett are survivors. They survived a flash flood that nearly swept away their home, as well as the Loma Prieta earthquake that shook the Northern California in 1989.

Their experiences, and the panic they saw others going through, encouraged David and Beth to never be caught unprepared again. "Our mission is simple, to share what we’ve learned and help others be ready for whatever may come their way. "

Hear the amazing story that lead the Pruetts to building their emergency preparedness business. Listen Now!

Find out more about David, Beth and Amp-3: https://www.amp-3.net/ Checkout David & Beth's YouTube Channel Also: USNERDOC

Beat out your competition – EVEN if it’s Amazon.com: https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook

Full Transcript

Intro with David & Beth: So we lived four miles from the epicenter of the 1989 earthquake, so everybody calls it the San Francisco earthquake, it's the Loma Prieta earthquake.

I was at work at the time and it was a little bit after five and it literally felt like a giant was outside the building, shaking the building as hard as he could. And we'd get earthquakes in California all the time, but at the time.

When they happened you were like, Oh it's an earthquake, and it wasn't a big deal and things would shake and that was it.

This was like a major jolt from that earthquake. Again, it was about a week of no power. It was more devastating than the flood because it affected so many more people.

And you felt it at nighttime when the sun went down, suddenly there were no lights in the buildings.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: David and Beth Pruett, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcasts.

David & Beth: We are so excited to be here. Thank you Brian, for coming out to our ranch. We're excited to share our life story with you.

Brian: Yeah, no, I can't wait to hear it. We're sitting out here on the deck of their mountain view ranch, right?

Beth: Yup.

Brian: It's just a gorgeous day right now. There's a fire going on up North so you could see smoke off to the Southwest South there past a table rocks, here over in Sam's Valley (in Southern Oregon).

We're just going to jump right into it. What is it that you do?

David & Beth: Well, we do a lot of things. We have a company called Amp-3, so it's AMP-3.net and we have preparedness products and first aid.

David is an Emergency Room Physician practicing in the Pacific Northwest and we have had our business since 2011. Hard to believe time has gone by that fast.

It started kind of from a first aid kit, but we also do preparedness.

We have our ranch, which we're staying here for our two and a half weeks, totally off grid.

We have a little generator and that's about it for right now. But, we do a lot of stuff. We travel, we have an off-grid trailer and our company AMP-3 started from a YouTube video.

So made a video on how to build a first aid kit, of what I thought was a good first aid kit that I had used for a long time.

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Episode 29.

Does your business grow year after year? Can you maintain that growth? Can you imagine passing on your experiences to help other business owners?

Heidi Danos is the Owner of Dirty Knees Soap Company. When her twins were 1-years-old, she went on a search for a project that would allow her to "find herself again" and do something a little more "adult." While testing out different soap recipes she came across one that her husband loved, and so she built a company around it.

Heidi has a common sense approach to her business that is refreshing and a giving attitude that has lead her to advise other entrepreneurs and help them along in their journey.

Hear her story and her tips. Listen Now!

Find out more about Heidi and Dirty Knees Soap Company: https://www.dirtykneessoap.com/ Check out Heidi's consulting site: https://heididanos.com/ Watch their videos:

Dirty Knees Soap Co - The real story? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeLx9QvK5hY About Dirty Knees Soap Co. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgV2V_7vePU

Beat out your competition – EVEN if it’s Amazon.com: https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook

Full Transcript

Brian: How has social media benefited your business?

Heidi: Oh, it's huge. Absolutely huge. It's been a great Avenue for us to advertise. You know, you get those quippy little videos out there and they get shared, which is awesome.

I've had several comments on one of the videos. Oh my gosh, I have to buy your soap now just because of this video.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Heidi Danos has successfully grown and scaled several successful businesses, most recent being Dirty Knees Soap Company.

After several asks, she also started consulting with other small business owners and those who are looking to be. Heidi Danos, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Heidi: Hey, thanks Brian. Happy to be here.

Brian: Fabulous. So, why don't you let everyone know a little bit about what it is that you do.

Heidi: Here at Dirty Knees Soap Company, we create our soaps, body washes, lotions, beard oils, thanks to a lot of customer requests, including my bearded husband, which helps that we have a line of candles right now because people love the sense so much.

We got requests for that and that's about it. We manufacture everything in house currently and we ship both wholesale and retail all over the country.

Brian: How'd you get started in this business?

Heidi: It's kind of a funny story.

When my kids were about one, I have twins who are now at least able to take care of themselves a little bit.

But when my kids were one, I decided, Hey, I need to go find myself again and find something to do that's adult.

So I just happened across, Hey, here's how to make your own soap. And I thought, Oh, it looks like fun and kind of dangerous.

You know, you're working with lye, which is not exactly the most kid-friendly chemical in the world. I made a couple batches of soap and after it had had time to cure, gave one to my husband and I said, here,

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Episode 28.

How do you stand out in front of your customers? Have you adopted a cause that your clients can relate with?

RaeJean Wilson is the Senior Vice President of GloryBee, a family-run company since 1975. Her parents, Dick and Pat Turanski started GloryBee Foods with a dream of providing natural, healthy ingredients for the people of their town. It has grown to international fame, but they have never lost the original principles.

In our conversation, RaeJean discusses how she never saw herself in the family business, but has fallen in love with the process, the customers and the cause they have set out on to "Save the Bee."

Where is your company going to be in 45 years? Listen Now!

Find out more about GloryBee: https://www.glorybee.com/

Beat out your competition – EVEN if it’s Amazon.com: https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook Full Transcript RaeJean: Another fun dream of mine was have a healthy event we have a save to be five k, this will be the six year we've been fortunate enough to raise over $10,000 the last couple years at that event because we get people to sponsor the race and then every penny of your race fee goes to save the bees. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: RaeJean Wilson is the daughter of GloryBee founders Dick and Pat Turanski. RaeJean has served in the family business in several capacities over the last 25 plus years following college, her focus was on sales and building GloryBees customer base. She also spent 10 years as GloryBees HR manager. In 2015, RaeJean stepped into the position of senior executive vice president where she now co-leads the company with her brother Alan Turanski, overseeing sales, marketing, human resources, safety, sustainability and community outreach. RaeJean Wilson, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. RaeJean: Thank you. Thanks for having me today. Brian: Absolutely. Now, why don't you let us all know a little bit about what you do? RaeJean: Well, like my bio said, I'm the Senior Executive Vice President at GloryBee and I spend a lot of my day sitting in an office in meeting solving problems helping people solve their problems so that we can take care of our customers. Specifically, I'm involved in our community programs where we give back causes vice president of marketing as well and vice president of sales, working on our branding, our new products, our marketing plan, we're in the middle of a brand refresh right now. On the human resource side, I connect that with our safety and sustainability that has a lot to do with our people development and the programs that connect to that that are tied to our values and keeping our employees safe. And making sure they work they do has the best environmental impact possible or the least environmental impact possible. Brian: Great. So have you always seen yourself in the in the family business? RaeJean: Well, actually, no. I never really ever thought I would work in the family business. But after college, I wasn't really able to pursue the exact career I had hoped for. Because I realized it would create the need to go back to school didn't want to do that at the time and so I ended up coming here w...

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Episode 27.

Are your customers part of a community? Do you actively educate your customer base to make them more informed consumers?

Joe Stout is the President of Mt. Capra Products, a family-owned, sustainably-managed goat dairy located in Centralia, WA. After receiving a Masters of Science in Clinical Human Nutrition and a Bachelors of Science degree in Human Nutrition and Food Science from Washington State University, Joe found himself in a position to take the lead of the family business.

In our conversation, we discuss how (even as an infant), Joe has had a unique perspective regarding the nutritional qualities of goat milk products. We also delve into how such a simple commodity like goats milk, can spin-off into many different consumer realms and business opportunities.

Are you seeing all the customer groups for your core product or service? Are you creating systems in your business so that it doesn't require YOU to make it function?

Joe's story will stretch your thinking and inspire you. You may even walk away with a new belief in how you can truly effect people with your business.

Not only that, the end has a surprise testimonial by Brian's wife Kate Pombo regarding their son Lucas and Mt. Capra's Goat Milk Formula ingredients.

Listen Now!

Find out more about Joe Stout and Mt. Capra: https://mtcapra.com/

Beat out your competition - EVEN if it's Amazon.com: https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook Full Transcript Brian: Let's say a year from now, we brought you back on the show and just kind of looked over the past 12 months and look back on that. What would have happened from now till then for you to feel happy with the progress concerning your business? Joe: Understanding the customers needs, maybe even before they understand what their need is, and having the information that they're going to request available to them and even automatically given to them before they even request it. Really, really good for customer service because the customer then is like wow, yeah, how they know I needed that that's exactly what I needed? Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: All right, with us today is Joe Stout president of Mt. Capra. Joe received a Masters of Science and clinical human nutrition from the University of Bridgeport and Bachelors of Science in Human Nutrition and Food Science from Washington State University. Along with running the farm, he is engaged in graduate studies of sustainable food systems at Green Mountain College and is certified in permaculture design. Joe and his wonderful bride, Elizabeth had been married for 11 years and have been blessed with seven beautiful children. Joe, welcome to the show. Joe: Brian, thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here and congrats to you on the new addition to your family. Brian: Oh, thanks. Thank you very much. Yeah, we just...I was telling Joe, we were going to be meeting sooner but what ended up happening is we ended up with an arrival of our third child in my family. So that was that was cool. Joe: Super exciting. Yeah, you get any sleep? Brian: Just barely, lol! Joe: Just barely yeah,

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Episode 26.

What has been the ideas that have catapulted your business? Have you found them yet? Were they where you expected them to be?

Justin Lair is a United States Marine Corps Veteran who has created "one of the best Natural Fire Starters on the market ." John DeSpain, who met Justin while working in real estate, partnered with Justin and is helping expand the brand through trade shows, additional retailers and new products.

In our conversation we go over the obstacles, the wins and the future for Justin and John. Their journey is very unique, but the principles they discuss are helpful to any growing entrepreneur.

Listen Now!

Find out more about Justin, John and Fiber Light Fire Starter: https://fiberlightfs.com/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Justin: I knew that I wanted to start looking at big box retail. This was my first not my first business, but my first product, right? So I had to learn a lot about how retail works. And I found out very quickly that buyers for big box retails, they don't return phone calls, and they don't return emails ever. So I was determined to figure out how do I get ahold of these people? And I found out that they spend most their time and attention at trade shows. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Justin Lair is a Marine Corps veteran and entrepreneur moved from Southern California to Oregon four years ago. Once in Oregon, he started, Fiber Light Firestarters. Two years after the start of Fiber Light, Justin met John DeSpain and brought him on as a business partner. John, who moved to Oregon from the Bay Area at a young age, is a brilliant young entrepreneur heavily involved in the real estate business. Justin Lair and John DeSpain, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Justin & John: Thank you. Thank you. Brian: So besides what we heard in your bio, tell us a little more about who you are what you do. Justin: Well, I'll start my name's Justin, appreciate you having us on the podcast. It's pretty exciting for us. Been a serial entrepreneur my whole life. I started my first business when I was 15. That business inadvertently got shut down just because I went to the Marine Corps and my best friend who was my best partner at the time he went off to college and we so we shut the business down. I spent my time in the Marine Corps and then came back home, which is my home is considered Southern California. Got married, we moved down to Orange County, me and my wife. We have two kids. Started a couple other businesses during that time of my life. All my previous businesses were service based businesses. The last business I had down there was a wood floor company, sold that company and ended up moving up here to Oregon. And then the fiber Light started once I got up here, yeah, that's pretty much where we're at now. John: I'm john, move to Klamath Falls, Oregon from the Bay Area when I was in the fifth grade, graduated from Klamath Falls, at Henley and had great role models growing up. My father, my mom, just taking me down the right path.

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Episode 25.

This is "Part 2." Be sure to listen to "Part 1" here: http://offthegridbiz.com/rick-elara-bowman-backyard-green-films-part-1

Do you use events (topic-based and trade shows) to grow your business and interact with customers? Is it worth the expense and time?

Rick Bowman is audio and video producer. Elara Bowman is a project manager and accountant. Together they have teamed up to travel country to record and promulgate the stories of incredible people and a monumental dilemma that everyone.

Here we continue the conversation we began on the last episode and dive deep into attending events and long-term goals.

Listen Now!

Find out more about Rick, Elara and Backyard Green Films: https://backyardgreenfilms.com/ Watch their videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnQm6NOFcMrvJQrv09Xzt6w

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Rick: First off, having the film out there is to me the biggest thing. Elara: Yes, my big thing too. Rick: Because I feel like that will open up our audience a little bit more towards maybe wanting to listen to our podcast as well going and maybe becoming more interested in heritage breeds and seeing some of our clips of interviews that we've put up on our YouTube channel. Hopefully what I'm thinking with the film is that it'll be able to venture off and be able to make another film that continues the story of heritage breeds and of farmers. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Looking back on just what you've done up until now going to events like the Mother Earth News Fair, like the Heirloom Expo, would you recommend other people plug into the same type of events? Elara: I think it's very individual depending on the type of business they have. And here's one of the problems that has occurred. I mean is anybody in business knows we are going through a fundamental shift in not only the way we do business, how we do business, how we finance, how we market, there's a huge shift. And I would say businesses have to be really really agile in order to adapt quickly. Because a lot of storefronts are going out of business because you know, people don't come in the door anymore. You just order it online. You know, you might have strategic partnerships between similar businesses are completely different businesses and you really have to stay up on that in order to be able to compete with people that can. In a way, our experience has been very similar to the animals you have to adapt to survive, you have to and you won't make it if you don't. But the ones that do have might have quite a bit to offer. So we think that businesses now have to look at your model, look at at your market and then maybe it may or may not pencil on the momentary basis, but on the long run, it might bring more to you. So you might be a business that's a essential oil company. Do I need to go into a fair to show my product? I would almost say you do because it's a scent oriented thing. And you will get people that need to do that experiential moment and smell and or maybe touch fabric product.

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Episode 24.

How do you define happiness? Is it a dollar amount? Is your "cause" bigger than your "bottom line?

Rick and Elara Bowman have diverse backgrounds, but have uncovered a common passion for telling stories through modern media. Filmmaking, podcasting and social media have allowed them to explore issues and topics that engage them personally. They interview people "who love farming, science, ranching, getting their hands dirty – or are just plain interesting."

They have been traveling the country in their teardrop trailer, while grabbing footage, researching and now editing their upcoming film, "The Holstein Dilemma: Heritage Breeds and the Need for Biodiversity. "

What does it take to create a documentary from scratch, self-fund it on a budget, (while still keeping your day-job) AND cover an incredible worldwide puzzle that very few people even know exists?

Listen Now!

This is "Part 1." When done listening to this, check out "Part 2" here: http://offthegridbiz.com/rick-elara-bowman-backyard-green-films-part-2

Find out more about Rick, Elara and Backyard Green Films: https://backyardgreenfilms.com/ Watch their videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnQm6NOFcMrvJQrv09Xzt6w

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcripts Elara: Life is a trade off. Do you work more for the things that make you happy? Or do you take a little less and be happy just through the things that you are not buying but your producing? Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: An experienced and innovative filmmaker, Backyard Green Films owner and Director Producer Rick Bowman has cataloged over 25 years of broadcast commercial and corporate video experience. Rick combines skillful expertise and artistic vision to create top quality projects for clients, and has learned by experience that each project requires a special approach and solution to meet its goals. Backyard Green Films received an indie fest award in 2012 for their documentary Hillsville 1912, A shooting in the court. As well as winning Best Documentary award at the minefield Film Festival in Los Angeles for their film, Banjos, Bluegrass and Squirrel Barker's. Currently, they're in post production on their latest film The Holstein Dilemma, heritage breeds and the need for biodiversity. A farmer at heart, Elara lives on a mini farm with her husband Rick in an Urban Oasis located in the middle of San Diego where she tends to 8 chickens, to worm bins and fruit trees galore. She transferred this passion and life experience to backyard green films, where she is helping to produce innovative films and media for future generations. Armed with a BS in business from University of Redlands, and an impressive resume and voiceover production, project management and accounting. Elara brings a wealth of knowledge to the production team. In her role as executive producer, she could be found diving deep into the data stream rabbit hole at late and early hours researching endless questions, new topics and new people to interview in her role as the host of the agri-Culture podc...

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Episode 23.

Who is Corn Man? Is he a music album, a children's book or a way to expose where our food comes from?

Charles Wiley is a lifelong musician who was caught off guard by one of the best-kept-secrets in the world of nutrition today: the amount of corn byproducts that are artificially added to EVERYTHING.

Hear host Brian J. Pombo and Charles discuss how his art form has been inspired by his mission to inform. How can you use the Corn Man to stand-out in your crowded market? LISTEN NOW!

Find out more about Charles Wiley and Corn Man: https://charleswiley.net/cornman/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Charles: Dovetailing back when we talked about before, I was like, how do I separate myself in this market of a million musicians, a million bands a million this and it kind of all kind of came together coalesced and here we are.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: Charles Wiley he has been writing music and playing drums for 25 years, he currently lives in Los Angeles and plays with various bands and artists, including rock band Dark Horse Rising, Riot award winning singer songwriter Chris Angeles and Americana Band Circus 62.

In addition to playing drums, he also writes music for television.

His music has been played on Oprah, Dateline NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Dr. Oz Show, The Young and the Restless and more Charles created the corner Man project to bring awareness to how much corn is in everything we eat.

Corn man is an ongoing action adventure children's book series and progressive rock concept album. Charles was inspired to call attention to the issue using music and humor.

Corn man hopes to be the conversation starter and tackling the complex issues surrounding the food industry, the environmental impacts of it and the unsustainable nature of how we eat and grow food. Charles Wiley, welcome to the off the grid biz podcast.

Charles: Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Brian: So besides what we heard in your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are or what you do.

Charles: Okay, well basically, as a bio said, I've been drumming for over 25 years and for the last six to seven years, I've been a full time musician, make my living playing drums in various bands, some of the bands you mentioned, doing session, work with other bands, writing some music for TV, and then also I guess, the Corn Man project is kind of dovetailed its way into that.

And between those three things, that's kind of how I kind of break up my time.

In between projects, I had this desire to start creating my own music, writing my own music, and from there kind of morphed into my own solo stuff. And then the core main project kind of started coming about because of that, so

Brian: Fabulous.

So how did you end up at this point in your life?

What's your life story?

Charles: Well, long story very short.

My background in music is very common to musician.

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Episode 22.

Who is your tribe? Is there a “community” of people already out there that would love what you do? Could you create one by scratch?

Chris Mcclellan (better known as “Uncle Mud”) has a special skill in finding and bringing together easy-going, like-minded individuals to create spectacular structures out of mud and junk lying around. Though he started out a business owner of a computer company, a life threatening situation made him rethink what his priorities were. Now, he travels the world, and has the world travel to visit him to learn his techniques in natural building.

What would it be like to design your life around an ideal lifestyle versus around an income number? Listen Now!

Find more about Uncle Mud: http://www.unclemud.com/ Support him here: https://www.patreon.com/unclemudLike and Follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unclemud/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Uncle Mud: One of the things about having a midlife crisis and I would say a heart attack is a midlife crisis. If you survive it is that we were able to like reassess what we wanted to do, and start planning for a better outcome for our Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Uncle Mud aka Chris McLellan raises free range organic children in the wilds of suburbia, in Ohio, building houses and pizza ovens and wood stoves with mud and junk is his way of sharing the can do spirit he writes teaches workshops and hosts a mud pit and DIY building demonstrations at fairs across the US. The rocket mass heaters and his double wide dropped his heating bill from nearly $1,000 per month for propane to less than $75 per year. Your results may vary but this guy is happy. Follow him on patreon.com/UncleMud or facebook.com/UncleMud. Uncle Mud, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Uncle Mud: Thank you very much. Brian: Well then besides just what we heard in your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Uncle Mud: I like to play in the mud. Found a great job where I get to be a kid and go like to summer camp. And do an artist residency program were we get kids like as young as seven, an impact driver and have them help us build a tree house or have them help us. Make a pizza oven that they have a pizza party for their parents. And later, they come to visit, we get all muddy and then go jump in the lake and then do it again, it's great fun. But it also kind of illustrates the divide between what a person can do and what we feel like we're encouraged to do, we're kind of encouraged to leave things to the experts and go buy something rather than make it and that just doesn't sit well with a lot of the kids that I work with. And doesn't sit well with me. So we just have on build our sense of ourselves. Brian: Sure. That's great. How did you get to here? What's your life story up to this point? Uncle Mud: So when I was kid in high school and broke my leg. And I like to build forts in the woods and, and electric little electric cars and things like that. And my dad bought me a copy of Lloyd Kahn's book Shelter.

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Episode 021.

How do you gauge success? Are you positive regarding your future? Are you persistent?

Scott Smith invented the "Earth 2 Earth Compost Pail" while still working full time in construction. He is now trying to spread the word of how important composting is, and how simple the process is using kitchen scraps and small garden trimmings.

Though new to business, Scott's passion and drive will inspire you. Listen Now!

Go to Scott's website for more - https://www.earth2earthcompostpail.com/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Scott: Met some very nice people had a great time. Did it really help my business? Time will tell. If you're a business, you need to get out there and meet your customers. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Scott Smith has been in the commercial construction industry for over 40 years building quality projects that have provided his customers years of trouble free use. That same pride and workmanship is exactly what's led him to inventing the Earth 2 Earth Compost Pail, hoping he can help every homeowner to compost and do their part to help the environment. Scott Smith welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Scott: Thank you. Brian: Hey, besides what we heard in your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Scott: I'm a construction Superintendent by trade I've been in construction business all my life. Was raised to where you do a job right? Try to the best job you can, you know, get up early, go to work every day, try to earn your paycheck. And you take pride in what you do. Kind of how I live my life by you know, I mean, and if something's not done, right, tear it apart. You fix it. No, you make it right. You know what I mean, because if it don't work, what good is it? So that's kind of the idea behind Earth 2 Earth compost pail. I spent a couple years making them redesign them. So they work right so they're easy to use. So the handles are right, so it does what it's supposed to do. Trying to provide the average homeowner a product that is easy to use, affordable, and it does exactly what it's designed to do, you know help you compost all your organic organic kitchen scraps. Every person can do their part to try to help do a little bit to help the environment. Brian: Awesome. So what actually led you to building the compost pail? Scott: It started from a phone call. A friend of mine is a truck driver. He drives over the road he called me one day he's on top of mountain, up in Montana. And he's stuck in a blizzard. He can't get down the mountain. He had to go to bathroom. So he goes back to back from his trailer to go to bathroom and a moose started chasing him. So moose started chasing him. So he's running downhill and so he's trying to get away from the moose. He gets back to his truck, and he calls me up and he says he says man, you're not gonna believe me. I'm going to pass him and went back to my trailer and a moose started chasing me. You mean tell me you got $300,000 track trailer and you don't have a bathroom and your tractor traile...

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Episode 020.

Have you used live events to promote your business, your book or your speaking career?

Podcast Host Brian J. Pombo and Producer Sean E. Douglas attended the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon from Saturday, August 3rd to Sunday, August 4th 2019. Located at the Linn County Fairgrounds, Brian and Sean give their reactions, thoughts and tips for attending and profiting off of shows and expositions like the Mother Earth News Fair. Listen now!

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Brian: How many people do you think actually put their email address down off of that crowd from what you could tell Sean. Sean: If we're playing the game. So if you understand the 80/20 principle. 80 percent of the crowd was signing up for it, which pretty much blew me away, every single time I saw that. From my observation, I was definitely making note of that. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Alright, welcome back to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Today's episode is going to be quite a bit different because what we're doing instead of interviewing somebody from the outside, I have producer Sean E. Douglas with me. He also joined me in Albany, Oregon for the Mother Earth News Fair. And we're going to talk about our experiences there. First, we're going to go off of why we went. What made this one standout in our mind of something that we wanted to highlight on the show, and go to when it happened this year. And really, that comes back to an episode with Brad James from BeePods.com. He's the one that mentioned Mother Earth News Fair off of the podcast, we had a small conversation with him about how he got involved with them and was giving a speech at one of the other events. So that led us to look a little further into Mother Earth News Fair. We were very familiar with the magazine. And as we were looking into it, we noticed a number of speakers that had all the media capabilities. They had been on podcasts before many of them had, many of them had written books. And it was something that was interesting to us that we wanted to explore via the podcast. So in leading up to the actual fair itself, we decided to start emailing and calling some of these people and seeing if they'd be willing to be interviewed on the show. Sure enough, they did. As you may have heard up until now, and if you haven't, go back and listen, we had 11 episodes with a different interview on each episode, all from different backgrounds, some of them writers, some not. We produced them over a very short period of time in order to hit that deadline of the show itself. The last one that you may have heard with from Jereme Zimmerman was taken at the show itself. So you got to hear us on location and it was interesting, what were your expectations going into it Sean. Sean: Well, thankfully as Janice Cox was so nice to print out the whole schedule there and the different speakers and times for you when she met up with you to do your recording. We were able to hit the ground running on understanding the different speakers, especially people that we'd had on the show.

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Episode 019.

Are you willing to break the barriers of your "comfort zone?" Is your natural personality holding you back? Were you made for employment or entrepreneurship?

Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Kentucky with his wife, Jenna, and daughters, Sadie and Maisie. In 2015 his book Make Mead Like A Viking was published, and became an unexpected hit! He followed that up with Brew Beer Like A Yeti in 2018.

Our conversation with Jereme goes into his life as a freelance writer and how it has lead him (inadvertently) to publishing books, and giving public speeches about homebrewing and the history surrounding it. His story is interesting and inspiring - Listen Now!

Find out more about Jereme: http://www.jereme-zimmerman.com/ Buy & Read his books: http://www.jereme-zimmerman.com/products-1?category=Books Follow him on social media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeremeZimmYeti/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremeZimm Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremezimm/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Jereme: I almost think I'm just kind of made to do this kind of thing. Same as when I was homeschooling I could I get up in the morning, my dad taught high school English, you'd get up really early, I get up with him do my work, I'd be done by 11 o'clock. Sometimes, the rest of the day I'd be playing in the woods, doing chores and stuff. And then when my school friends came home, they'd been set in school and I'm like, ready to go. So it's the idea of just being able to get up. And even though it can be daunting, sometimes at least I know, okay, well, here's a list of what needs to get done. I'll get as much done as I can and often do my chores now. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Berea, Kentucky. He has been published in various magazines and websites and travels globally to speak on topics such as fermentation, natural and holistic homebrewing, modern homesteading and sustainable living. He is an avid fermenter and researches extensively into traditional fermentation practices in order to revive lost food arts, and to educate people on how to preserve food using traditional natural and healing ingredients and techniques. His first book Make Mead Like a Viking was published in 2015. His second book, Brew Beer Like a Yeti, was published in September 2018. Okay, Jereme Zimmerman. Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Jereme: Thanks for having me. Brian: Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, and what you do? Jereme: Well, you've already said my name. So we got that far. I grew up on a goat farm in Kentucky, homeschooled all the way up through high school, didn't go to high school. And my family was very self sufficient, can then preserved and hunted and fished and dad made his own wine from, you know, stuff he found in the woods and grew and that kind of thing. That was my background. And I chose to become an English major and actually use my English major for ...

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Episode 018.

How close in proximity do you get to your customer base? What would you do if the world economy went bust? Are you connected with a local customer base, and can you survive independently?

Michael Foley is a farmer, local food activist, and writer. He is the author of Farming for the Long Haul: Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness. He takes a historic look at farming, (with a global perspective) and discusses what he considers "good economics" especially regarding small farming.

Are you a homesteader? Do you take it seriously, or is it just a fun hobby? Michael may give you a new perspective of what it means to be self-sustaining.

Are you doing what you love in your business? Do you feel guilty for how EASY it is for you? I think you'll relate with Michael's story regarding writing and teaching. Listen now!

Find out more about Michael: https://www.anothermadfarmer.org/ Find out more about Green Uprising Farms: https://greenuprisingfresh.wordpress.com/ Find out more about the School of Adaptive Agriculture: https://www.school-of-adaptive-agriculture.org/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Michael: That's something that I've emphasized. I work with a lot of young farmers both through the school and through farmers market and through something we created called, the Farmers Guild, that direct sales are really what you've got to do at least as part of your market, if your going to make it. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Michael Foley is a farmer, local food activist and writer. Formerly a political scientist, he now runs Green Uprising Farms in Willets, California with his wife and oldest daughter. He is also a co founder of the School of Adaptive Agriculture, a farmer training program and Willits. He is the author of Farming For the Long Haul - Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness. Michael, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Michael: Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. Brian: Yeah. Besides what we read out on your bio, what else can you tell us about yourself and let people know a little bit about who you are and what you do. Michael: I actually just stepped down as manager of the Willets Farmers Market, which I did for nine years. And that put me in touch with lots of local produce vendors and a few, a few meat producers and I to know the sort of alternative agricultural community. That doesn't mean bunch of hippies and liberals by any means, though. There are some people in this community who think of the farmers market that that way. But in fact, a lot of the people producing out there are second, third generation residents of this place and old school in a lot of respects, they just understand the worth of direct sales. That's something that I've emphasized. I work with a lot of young farmers, both through the school and through farmers market and through something we created called Farmers Guild. And that's something that I emphasize with them that direct sales are really what you've got to do, at least as part of your market.

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Episode 017.

How good is your customer service? Do you send REAL people to represent you at events and on podcasts?

Chris White has helped customers with their irrigation needs across the United States as a Sales Representative with DripWorks. Drip irrigation can be a tricky business, and with lots of young people who are first-time gardeners, as well seasoned professionals looking to save water, Chris travels to shows like the Mother Earth News Fair to teach and help people overcome the mystic behind their product. With the economics and ecology behind water conservation, making every drop count matters now more than ever.

How do you educate your customers? How easy do you make for brand new customers to test out and use your products?

Chris represents his company well, and his perspective of the irrigation business is quite interesting. Listen now!

Find out more about DripWorks: https://www.dripworks.com/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Brain: We've got business owners and executives who listen to the show. Do you think that it would be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this, in the same way that DripWorks has been doing? Chris: Yeah, they're running 15,000 to 20,000 people to these shows, if people are paying to come to that show, which is important because they want to come and they want to learn, and they want to see what's out there. And that's one of the nice things about doing the show. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid. Brian: Chris White has worked for DripWorks for five years, helping customers from all across the United States with their irrigation needs. He's worked with Master Gardener groups, local school farms, colleges and community and commercial farms, educating them on the importance of conserving water by using drip irrigation. DripWorks has been in business for almost 30 years and works hard to educate customers and communities on the importance of saving water through irrigation. Chris White, welcome to the off the grid biz podcast. Chris: Thanks for having me today, Brian. Brian: Yeah, happy to have you here. So besides what we heard about your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for your course. Chris: Well, I work as the outside sales representative. You know, our main goal here at DripWorks is educating the public and our customers on the importance of knowing how to use our product either properly so last for years to come, but also educate him on important to saving water, conserving water and getting basic water where it needs to go. And as to the plants or trees, or vegetation that they're growing. There's a lot of people this time of year busy with kids and family and sports and instead of spend time weeding and hand watering. We want them to be able to enjoy their family time and know that they got you're gonna have a good healthy gardener flower garden and not wastewater. Brian: How did you end up here? How'd you end up working with DripWork? What was your story up until here? Chris: I've always worked in the public sector,

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Episode 016.

Are you selling physical products? Can you scale fast if necessary? Have you considered adding information, education and/or entertainment to your product line?

Kirsten and Christopher Shockey had a farmer's market-based fermented edibles business (think sauerkraut) that was so popular and grew so fast that Whole Foods Market put in a massive order for their chain of stores! While many would think that was the beginning of a huge product empire, it actually forced them to rethink what they really wanted out of their business.

Years later, they have transitioned to an information-based business, that provides entertaining books, courses and live-training all regard how to make fermented foods of all shapes, sizes, smells and colors.

They have authored 3 great books:

Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting 64 Vegetables & Herbs in Krauts, Kimchis, Brined Pickles, Chutneys, Relishes & Pastes Fiery Ferments: 70 Stimulating Recipes for Hot Sauces, Spicy Chutneys, Kimchis with Kick, and Other Blazing Fermented Condiments Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments: A Step-by-Step Guide to Fermenting Grains and Beans for Umami and Health

Listen as we discuss their tragedies and triumphs in business, and presenting at shows like the Mother Earth News Fair.

While, in certain spots, this episode is difficult to hear, we've provided a full transcript below. Listen & read now!

Find out more about the Shockeys: http://ferment.works/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:

You're listening to the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast. I'm Brian Pombo. I'm going to set the scene for you a little bit with this next interview. You see this all started when I was set to meet one-on-one with Kirsten and Christopher Shockey. This is kind of different because up until this point, I had not done any live interviews with anybody for this podcast. Everything had been done either by phone - we also do it by zoom, which is a digital communication similar to Skype and so being one-on-one, I thought I had all my equipment working properly.

Sadly, I was wrong. After finishing up, I realized that my microphone was not fully plugged in to my recording device. What we ended up with was subpar audio. The conversation I had with the Shockey's was so interesting, was so revealing, that I found it necessary to get as much out of this audio as possible.

What we ended up with is - there are some parts of the audio you may not be able to fully understand what the person's saying. So here's what I did to help resolve the problem: We attempted to get the audio to sound as best as we could and I've added in transcription where you can actually read what everybody is saying. If you would rather read it, go check out the description or go to offthegridbiz.com, and right in the post, you can read every word that is spoken in the podcast. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy this great conversation that I had with the Shockeys.

Brian: Kirsten. Christopher, welcome to the Off the Grid Biz Podcast.

Shockey's: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Brian: So why don't you just let everyone know a little bit about who you are and what your roles are at Ferment Works.

Kirsten Shockey: Yeah, so I'm Kirsten Shockey and what we're doing now is teaching people to Ferment and most of that is through writing books, and then that takes us all over the place teaching classes. The fun part is fermentation is becoming more and more well known as such an important food for our gut-health and so people are curious. People want to feel better. And, yeah, that's where we come into picture.

Christopher Shockey: The previous incarnation of the business we made products, we are an organic food company and we would take organic produce in the valley here and turn it into f...

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Episode 015.

Do you take FULL advantage of events? Do you challenge yourself to meet new people and focus on new opportunities?

Janice Cox is a leading DIY natural beauty and skin-care expert from Medford, Oregon. She is the author of several books including Natural Beauty from the Garden, Natural Beauty for All Seasons, and Natural Beauty at Home.

She’s a member of the International Herb Association, the United States Lavender Growers Association, and the Herb Society of America.

Janice brings an bright energy into everything she says and does. Her enthusiasm is contagious. Listen now!

Find out more about Janice Cox: http://www.janicecox.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Janice: I think I said this to the fair director, the world would kind of be a better place if everybody acted like they do it Mother Earth News Fairs because you have all walks, all backgrounds. There's urban people, there's, you know, country people, but everybody gets together because they really do want to learn and share and grow ideas. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Janice Cox is an author and leading DIY natural beauty and skincare expert. She is a wife, mother and grandmother and loves creating her own bath and body products. She's also a freelance magazine writer and beauty editor for Herb Quarterly Magazine. Janice is a member of the International Herb Association, the United States lavender Growers Association, and the herb Society of America. She will be speaking at the remaining Mother Earth News Fairs for 2019 in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. Janice, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Janice: Thank you for having me. This is fun. Brian: Sure thing once you let everyone know besides what's in your bio, just tell us a little bit about who you are what you do? Janice: Well, I am kind of a DIY beauty. I've just always had a passion I grew up my dad was a farmer. My mom was a home mech major. So I kind of grew up in a DIY environment anyway. And I've just always had a passion for body care products. Now growing up, we lived out in the country, so I couldn't run and buy things. So we had to craft things. And I had to use what was on hand when I first started out, people really liked my recipes. Because you could save a lot of money, which you still can. Today, I've noticed that my message is kind of shifted, where it's people are really concerned with the products and the ingredients that they're using on their body. And so knowing what goes into even the commercial products that you're buying, because there's a lot of great products out there helps with your overall wellness. I mean, I've seen people change their health, you know, just in the ingredients they choose. So that's kind of a little bit of where I've come from, I started out just making this stuff for fun, then I was saving money. And now I'm really looking at it as a whole wellness part of your health regimen. Brian: Excellent. So how did you end up here? What's your life story to this point, what brought you to this field?

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Episode 014.

Have you sold out to your profession? Is your passion contagious? Do you hire people who are great at what they do, but also LOVE doing it?

Jessicka Nebesni is a Marketing Strategist for Mountain Rose Herbs in Eugene, Oregon. She manages a lot of the content than is produced through MRH's blog, and even writes some of the articles herself.

She is a humble homesteader and herbal tinkerer who loves all things wild and natural! Jessicka loves to preserve food, make herbal preparations, garden, and spend time in the great outdoors.

It's clear that Jessicka is enthusiastic about the natural health/sustainability lifestyle. Find out what drives her and what she'll be presenting in Albany, Oregon at the Mother Earth News Fair.

"People want to see the face behind the brand. They want to have a personal experience. They want to have a conversation. They want to have advice from someone who knows." Listen now!

Find out more about Mountain Rose Herbs: http://www.mountainroseherbs.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Jessicka: I originally grew up in New Jersey, where I had a really rich cultural experience but not a lot of exposure to natural food, or any kind of homesteader kind of lifestyle. And I was really yearning to get back to the land and learn to be more self sufficient. So I did what any other 21 year olds would do. I quit my job. So got my things and packed up my car with my St. Bernard and my cat and whatever else with it, which wasn't much after them, and I headed to Northern California. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Jessicka Nebesni is the marketing strategist for Mountain Rose Herbs. She describes herself as a humble homesteader, who loves all things wild and natural. She loves to preserve food, make herbal preparations, garden and spend time in the great outdoors. Jessicka writes many blogs for Mountain Rose Herbs, featuring her experience with herbalism, natural food prep and body care recipes. She also helps to facilitate the partnership program and Mountain Rose Herbs and gains inspiration from all the amazing homemade goods made in their own homestead using herbs and spices. Jessicka, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Jessicka: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. Brian: Yeah, sure, let us know a little bit beyond the bio. Let us know a little bit about who you are and what you do for Mountian Rose Herbs. Jessicka: So I am one of the marketing strategist here at Mountain Rose Herbs. As you mentioned, I primarily work with bloggers who create DIY content, using our ingredients. And I also help with some of the PR relationships and I write some blogs as well, which is my favorite part. I love to write. That's most of my day to day with Mountain Rose Herbs. Brian: Great. How did you end up here? Jessicka: So I originally grew up in New Jersey, where I had a really rich cultural experience, but not a lot of exposure to natural food, or any kind of homesteader kind of lifestyle. And I was really yearning to get back to the land and learn to be more self suffic...

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Episode 013.

How do you handle adversity? Are you always worried that the worst-case scenario will occur? Can a bad health diagnosis ever lead to something good?

Leah Webb is the creator of DeepRootedWellness.com and the author of The Grain-Free, Sugar-Free, Dairy-Free Family Cookbook: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Cooking with Whole Foods on a Restrictive Diet.

When Leah's son Owen showed signs of food allergies and asthma, and then her daughter June was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease primarily affecting the lungs and pancreas, something major had to be done. Leah has always been passionate about health, but this lead her down an entirely new field of nutrition that completely changed her personal and professional life.

“I no longer accept feeling powerless and defeated. I no longer accept the doctor’s word as the final say. I no longer accept that disease has to be terrible.”

What if a slight change of perspective could change your health forever? Find out why Leah calls this situation a "gift from the darkness." Listen now!

Find out more about Leah Webb: http://www.deeprootedwellness.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Leah: This was an opportunity that fell in my lap. And I talked about that a little bit in the book. I call it a gift from the darkness, because we did end up with some tough circumstances. It's the idea that when you open the door to allow the light to come in that there can be gifts that you get from these dark circumstances. And I truly believe that this book was one of such opportunities for me. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Leah Webb mph obtained her health coach certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. After earning a bachelor in Science degree in environmental biology from Appalachian State University and a Master of Public Health degree in environmental health sciences from Georgia Southern University. She's worked in nutrition and gardening education since 2009, with a focus on engaging children and healthy eating habits, experiential learning and discovery, Leah started and runs the deep rooted wellness blog on which she posts stories and tips regarding nutrition, gardening and healthy families. She lives in the mountains of North Carolina with her husband TC and her two children Owen and June. Owen has a life threatening anaphylaxis allergy to wheat and June has cystic fibrosis a genetic disease severely impacted in the lungs and pancreas. Leah is the author of the grain free, sugar free dairy free family cookbook a comprehensive guide for families interested in learning to cook more meals from scratch in a manageable way. Her commitment to a restrictive nutrient dense diet has played an important role in their children's integrative care. When not at work, you'll find Leah in her garden tending to her chickens, volunteering in children's schools or engaging in a variety of forms of exercise that feel nourishing. Leah web Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Leah: Thanks, Brian.

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Episode 012.

What do you want out of life? Distilled down to its simplest form, what would your ideal lifestyle TRULY be?

Gary Collins has lived a wild and unique life. He's worked in military intelligence, in the U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He has taught at the University College level, consulted and trained college level athletes, and been interviewed for his expertise on various subjects by CBS Sports, Coast to Coast AM, The RT Network, and FOX News to name a few.

He now lives off-the-grid part of the year in a remote area of northeast Washington State, and the other part of year exploring in his travel trailer with his trusty black lab Barney.

Gary is the writer of the best selling Living Off The Grid and The Simple Life book series. His books blow the lid off of conventional life and wellness expectations.

“Today we’re bombarded by too much stress, not enough time for personal fulfillment, and failing to take care of our health… there has to be a better way!”

How can you run your business while living the most fulfilling life possible? Listen now!

Find out more about Gary Collins: https://www.thesimplelifenow.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Gary: What I'm teaching is not the norm, challenging. It's challenging in the sense that it's more that you have to look inside yourself and go, okay, am I happy? The statistics say that Americans are not happy. They're not living the life they want to live. I was one of those people. And I finally said enough of this. I'm tired of it. I'm going to do something about it. And I did what I did. It isn't it perfect for everyone. I just tell you my story. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman. We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid. Brian: Gary Collins has a very interesting and unique background and includes military intelligence special agent for the US State Department Diplomatic Security Service, US Department of Health and Human Services, and US Food and Drug Administration. Collins's background and expert knowledge brings a much needed perspective to today's areas of simple living, health, nutrition, entrepreneurship, self help and be more self reliant. He holds an AAS degree in exercise science, BS in criminal justice and MS in forensic science. Gary was raised in the high desert at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in a rural part of California. He now lives off the grid part of the year in a remote area of Northeast Washington state and the other part of the year exploring in his travel trailer with his trusty black lab Barney. He enjoyed and considers himself lucky to have grown up in a very small town experiencing fishing, hunting and anything outdoors from a very young age. He's been involved in organized sports, nutrition and fitness for almost four decades. He's also an active follower and teacher of what he calls life simplification. He often says today we're bombarded by too much stress, not enough time for personal fulfillment and failing to take ca...

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Episode 011.

Do you truly love what you do as a business? Is your passion so clear to others that it's undeniable?

Andy Brennan is truly passionate about his craft and trade. Andy is the founder and owner of Aaron Burr Cider and author of Uncultivated: Wild Apples, Real Cider, and the Complicated Art of Making a Living.

A life-long artist, Andy did not set out to be a wild apple cidermaker (though always intrigued by the fruit), a writer nor a speaker. His publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, were able to seduce him to attend and speak at the Mother Earth News Fair being held in Albany, Oregon. Due to his interest in visiting Oregon, (he admits a desire to interview some Pacific coast trees) he unknowingly was set on a direct course to be interviewed by Brian J. Pombo for the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

How does a struggling artist end up becoming an apple farmer? How does he stand out in the growing and crowded cider market?

The way Andy mixes his business with his philosophy, while continuing an uncompromising life is instructive and liberating to any searching or struggling entrepreneur. Listen now!

Find out more about Andy Brennan: http://aaronburrcider.com/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Brian: Have you found any way around that yourself?

Andy: For sure. The best solution is always to build intimate relationships with customers which ask questions and you know, certainly large companies, they don't have the time or the inclination to have one on one relationships with their customers.

Even though I said I'm an introvert, I can't hide from the fact that bonding with my customers is the only thing that that's going to save, I think people like me from actually becoming road kill to bigger, faster and cheaper.

Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

Brian: A homestead farmer who began making cider in 2007 from wild apples. After rising to national prominence with his cider company, Aaron Burr Cider. He wrote a book Uncultivated, which just came out.

Andy Brennan, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Andy: Thank you. It's great to be talking to you, it's an honor.

Brian: Yeah. So, who are you, and just let us know a little about what you do?

Andy: My name is Andy Brennan and I am a homestead farmer, Apple farmer and cider maker. The town of Wurtsboro, New York, which is 75 miles North and West of New York city.

It's in the foothills, the first few mountains as you're approaching the Catskill mountains and we're very close to the Hudson Valley. But in terms of a cultural region, we're more associated with the Catskills.

Brian: So how did you end up here? What's your life story up to this point?

Andy: Well, I was an artist first. That's what brought me to New York city from originally I'm from the Washington D C area. And after art school, I ended up in New York.

Like a lot of people ended up living on couches for 10 years, trying to be the, you know, famous artists or whatever.

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Episode 010.

Do you have a cause that motivates you? Is the work in your business related directly to that cause?

Frank Hyman is the business owner, speaker, teacher, columnist and author of Hentopia: Create a Hassle-Free Habitat for Happy Chickens.

Though he wasn't planning on owning chickens, his wife really wanted to get them. He agreed, but only if they could be left during his 2-week vacations. That adventure, lead to columns about developing chicken habitat, and then this book!

How does he combine his passion for help the disadvantaged, with speaking at events like the Mother Earth News Fair and writing columns and books?

When you hear Frank's inspiring story, you'll realize how ANYONE can do the same. Listen now!

Find out more about Frank Hyman: http://www.hentopiacoops.com/

Buy Hentopia: https://www.storey.com/books/hentopia/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcripts Frank: One of my rules of public speaking is that I mean, it's important that I give people what they want. But my premier rule is that I need to be having a good time. I'm getting to tell the stories I want to tell, and I'm getting to make jokes and make people laugh. And that makes me happy. So that's my priority. And I figured, hey, if I'm having a good time than the audience will have a good time. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap. This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Frank Hyman is a carpenter, stonemason and welder, who has farm, garden and house construction experience, on two continents for over 40 years. He was a double major in design and horticulture from NCSU. Frank believes in happy wife happy life. So when his wife Chris wanted chickens, he knew they would have chickens, but also wanted to be able to go on two week vacations. He wrote a column about it, how he achieved both goals for chickens magazine, and the columns became the book, Hentopia, create a hassle free habitat for happy chickens, 21 innovative projects. Hopefully we can get Frank to tell us about it. Frank's writing appears in The New York Times, Organic Gardening, Hobby Farms, Modern Farmer as well as Chickens Magazine, and CommunityChickens.com. He's been without a day job since 1992. When he first put together a plan to make a living from his hobbies. He launched an award winning garden design plant build business cottage garden landscaping, which is located in Durham, North Carolina. Frank Hyman, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Frank: Thank you for having me, Brian. Glad to be here. Brian: Yeah. And the reason why we reached out to you is we found you on the list of speakers for the Mother Earth News Fair, that's happening in Albany, Oregon. And we saw that you're actually that you've been speaking on a lot of the Mother Earth News Fairs. Frank: They've takin good care of me, Mother Earth News does a really good job with these fairs. Very happy to be a part of that. Brian: Fabulous. So why don't you let us know a little bit more about who you are and what you do. Frank: When I was in my 20s. I was a very successful college dropout and traveled around a lot a lot of jobs...

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Episode 009.

Are you an expert in your field? Do you speak publicly? Do you write articles and books? Do you teach your skills and knowledge?

Deborah Niemann of Thrifty Homesteader is an author, speaker and successful homesteader. She's written several books including Homegrown and Handmade, Ecothrifty, and Raising Goats Naturally.

Though she didn't grow up on a farm, she has become a leading homesteading expert. She can tell you about raising chickens, dairy, pork, goats, and so many more topics. Her thirst for practical knowledge is evident after just a few minutes of conversation with our host Brian J. Pombo.

What does it take to be an world-renowned expert? Deborah's journey through life, and her ability to take advantage of opportunities around her is motivating and instructional. Listen now!

Find out more about Deborah Niemann: https://thriftyhomesteader.com/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company:http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/ Full Transcript Deorah: Raising goats naturally basically means you are letting the moms raise the babies. To me, that's the cornerstone of everything. You know, I saw something the other day online that said 10 things you must have in your goat medicine cabinet. And I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, if you think you have to have 10 things in your medicine cabinet, you're doing something wrong. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman. We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid. Brian: Deborah Nieman is a homesteader, writer and self sufficiency expert. In 2002 she moved her family from Chicago suburbs to a 32 acre parcel on a creek in the middle of nowhere. Together they started raising goats, sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry to provide 100% of their meat and eggs. They have a garden and fruit trees for fresh produce, and they make their own sweeteners with a little help from these and maple trees. She's authored several books including,Homegrown & Handmade, Eco Thrifty and Raising Goats Naturally. She's currently at work on her sixth book. If all that wasn't enough, Deborah puts on workshops across the United States and Canada. She's presented at the Mother Earth News Fairs in North Carolina and Maryland. And you'll be able to see her at the upcoming fairs in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Kansas. Deborah Nieman, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Deborah: Thank you very much. It's great to be here today. Brian: It's great to have you. Besides what we heard about in your bio, tell us a little more about who you are and what you do? Deborah: Well Usually the first question people ask when they meet me is did you grow up on a farm? And the answer is no, I did not. Just because you didn't grow up on a farm doesn't mean you can't do this. And I think that, really that's the main reason most people ask that because for some reason, you know, I used to be a reporter and nobody ever asked me, were your parents reporters? Like they get it, like you can go to school and learn to be a reporter or a doctor or a lawyer or whatever. But for some reason, when it comes to just living on a homestead people think you have to grow up like this. Otherwise, you can't learn it and you totally can.

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Episode 008.

How do you use events in your industry? Do you interact with your customers (and potential customers) in-person? Can they experience your products or services in the real-world before purchasing them?

Andrew Perkins is the Events & Business Development Director for Ogden Publications. They publish the legendary self-reliance periodical Mother Earth News. He is one of the main people behind developing the Mother Earth News Fair in 2010, which is a live representation of the magazine. They have grown out the Fairs to six annual shows, spread throughout the continental United States.

Though he started out in the field of journalism, Andrew found himself in the Ad Sales Department and eventually handling large-scale events. We are talking with him about that journey, and what people can expect to find at a Mother Earth News Fair.

Can you profit from using events in your business? You'll be surprised to find out how, as well as other incredible tid-bits in this first episode of our mini-series about the Mother Earth News Fair of 2019. Listen now!

To find out more about the Mother Earth News Fair go to: http://motherearthnewsfair.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company:http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Brian: All right. This is the first in a full on series of episodes that we're going to be doing here at the podcast, all about the Mother Earth News Fair's.

So what are the mother earth news fairs?

This all stems back from the legendary magazine Mother Earth News. If you don't know much about Mother Earth News, you should go and check it out if you go to their website and their about section.

Here's a quick synopsis. They're the most popular and long running sustainable lifestyle magazine. Mother earth News provides wide ranging expert editorial coverage of organic foods, country living, green transportation, renewable energy, natural health and green building, lively, insightful, and on the cutting edge.

Mother Earth News is the definitive read for the growing number of Americans who choose wisely and live well.

So the Mother Earth News Fair, is like a live presentation of this magazine and their snippet off motherearthnewsfair.com website says, the fair is your passport to money saving hacks, health boosting remedies and environmental strategies from leading experts and entrepreneurs around the country.

In addition to presentations and hands on workshops, you will encounter a vast marketplace of bounding with innovative resources and products to enrich your life.

We even host book signings featuring some of our favorite authors who are available to field questions and hear your stories one-on-one.

It's also an ideal destination to meet and network with likeminded enthusiasts from across an array of fields from natural health and beauty to homesteading for profit and beyond. Admission for children is free and there are plenty of youth oriented activities including live animals.

With our growing emphasis on interactive programming. You can learn new skill sets live and onsite more than ever before that Mother Earth News Fair is truly an immersive experience where the magazine comes to life.

I think you'll get a feel for what these things are all about. These original episodes all take place previous to the Mother Earth News Fair that is happening in Albany, Oregon, August 3rd and August 4th of 2019 we'll also have episodes that take place at the fair and we'll be talking with people after the fair who attended it and get to hear their perspectives on what went down.

So without further ado, first episode.

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Episode 007.

Who is your tribe? Which customers represent your products perfectly? Do you show appreciation for them? Do you try to duplicate their success?

Jake Daly is the CEO of Tiny Life Supply, and they treat their best customers like royalty. They are not stopping there.

Jake is out to find every person who is interested in the scaled-down, minimalist lifestyle and offer them products that can build and transform their homes.

With only three years behind him, Jake has learned a ton about business management and not sweating the small stuff. Well worth a listen!

To find out more about Tiny Life Supply's fine products:United States: https://tinylifesupply.com Canada: https://tinylifesupply.ca/

Find out how you can transform your successful company into your Dream Business: http://brianjpombo.com/dreambiz/

Full Transcript

Jake: We'd get all these calls from broke hippies saying like, you know, I'm working on this crazy thing.

Can you give me a free toilet?

Can you give me a free stove?

Can you give me a free this?

Can I how much of a discount can I get on this?

And I looked at Axel and I'm like, why have we made a business where our target market is broke Hippies?

Like we should, we should open a jewelry store. You know, let's sell diamonds to people.

But then not long after that, it kind of struck me. I was looking in the mirror and the face looking back at me. It's a broke hippie. I am a broke hippie.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Jake Daily is the director of marketing and founding partner at Tiny Life Supply, which is an online store and information hub that supplies everything necessary to build a maintain your own tiny dream home.

He lives and works in his hometown of Smithers, British Columbia.

Oversees all aspects of marketing, brand management and business development for Tiny Life Supply.

In 2017, Jake co-founded Canadian tech startup proximity app. Prior to his work in tech, Jake founded and manage equilibrium contracting and has also contributed to business growth in a variety of managerial roles.

Companies such as Backwoods Contracting, Caldera House, and Canadian National Railway.

As a volunteer, Jake recently co-founded Mountains Of Relief, an NGO dedicated to earthquake relief efforts in affected areas of rural Nepal.

After building a strong foundation in business development management, web design, and HR, Jake was looking for an opportunity to utilize his unique skillset to contribute to positive change.

After numerous brainstorming sessions with his childhood friend, Axel Whalen, Jake joined tiny life supply in 2016.

And with that I'd like to welcome Jake Daily to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Hi Jake.

Jake: Hey Brian, right on. Well thanks a lot for having me. Excited to get to spend some time chatting here.

Brian: We're happy to have you here.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do.

Jake: Yeah, well our main mantra, we didn't start Tiny Life Supply with a, you know,

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Episode 006.

What type of business are you really in? The Product business? The Service business? Both?

Are you in the sales and marketing business? Are you sure?

Dave Zook is the CEO of Horizon Structures, knows what business he's in. He doesn't let himself get distracted with details that don't add up to more structures being sold.

Whether it be dog kennels, horse barns, chicken coops or even log cabins, Dave has become a master in the sales and marketing of modular buildings. Using all his resources online and offline, he's putting together an empire that knows no boundary.

There are a lot of great lessons here for ANY self reliance-based business operator. Listen to this!

To find out more about Horizon Structure's fine products: https://www.horizonstructures.com

Find out how you can transform your successful company into your Dream Business: http://brianjpombo.com/dreambiz/ Full Transcript Brian: What type of business are you really in? Are you in the product business? Are you in the service business? Are you in both? Are you actually in sales and marketing, and you don't know it? Today's talk is with Dave Zook of Horizon Structures. And I think you're going to find this one really interesting because a lot of the points he brings up can be applied to just about any business. Listen to this. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman. We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid. Brian: Dave Zook is the CEO of Horizon Structures, building custom modular barns, sheds, garages, kennels and coops for nearly any scenario. Founded in 2010, Dave went from being a one man owner operator to a team of seven sales people delivering products to all 48 states and even internationally with multiple manufacturing facilities across the US. Horizon Structures now has global reach. Dave, his wife and four children live happily and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Dave, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about what you do. Dave: Hey, thanks for having me on your show, Brian. You know, I got a few things going on. Like you said, I grew up in a very entrepreneurial business friendly family and my very first venture into the business world I was preteen. My dad had a business where we were manufacturing modular building. So I kind of grew up in that world, and I got to the point where I was in my late teens, early 20s, the internet was still very young at that point and some of our dealers for our modular buildings, were starting to get on the internet as back in the days when you could, if you had a modular building business, you could put your thing up on the internet. And you were on the first page of Google. I mean, it was so young and I remember going to my dad and saying, Hey, what do you think about advertising on the internet and really getting our presence up there? He looked at me like, I was crazy. And it's like, how busy Do you want to be? I mean, you know, we were just slammed. I remember like 10, 12 weeks on behind getting buildings out the door. And so I ventured off and started my own business started Horizons Structures for two reasons. One was because I saw an opportunity to was because I didn't want to grow up in the business world,

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Episode 005. How much do you know about your business and industry?

How often do spread your knowledge and experiences through free media?

Every business has it's friends, it’s competitors and it's sworn enemies. It is amazing how many executives have a difficulty naming names and standing-up for their brand.

Ann Molloy, the sales & marketing director at Neptune’s Harvest, exemplifies this attitude that everyone needs when discussing their products in public.

Listen to our conversation about the highs and lows in the organic fish fertilizer business.

And to find out more about Neptune's Harvest fine products, please click on the link below!

https://www.neptunesharvest.com/

Transform your company into an absolute Dream Business! http://brianjpombo.com/dreambiz/

Full Transcript

Brian: Who are your customers?

Who are your competitors in your industry?

Who are your enemies?

Today we're talking with Ann Molloy. She's the sales and marketing director at Neptune's Harvest, which is a fertilizer company out of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Stay tuned, we're about to talk to her and afterwards I'm going to give you some thoughts on our conversation.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Ann Molloy was born and raised in Glocester, Massachusetts.

After several years of traveling around the country and world. She settled back there and has been helping run her family business for almost 25 years, Ann has verseeing the marketing and sales for the Neptune's Harvest division of Ocean Crest Seafoods.

Which came about to fully utilize 100% of the fish by turning the curie, everything that's left over after you filet the fish into an organic fertilizer.

She has a wide knowledge of organic fertilizers and the fishing industry. She also loves to paint, right and see live music. Ann welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Ann: Thank you for having me.

Brian: Great to have you here.

What is it that you do for Neptunes Harvest?

Ann: I'm in charge of sales and marketing.

Basically do the ads for the company and I oversee the sales.

Brian: Have you always see yourself in the family business. How'd you end up here?

Ann: Well, actually I was an art major in college and I never thought I would be in the family business because it was a seafood company and I did the books for a little while as a teenager. I really didn't like bookkeeping really wasn't my thing.

But then when we went into the organic fertilizer business, I said, well this is something I could absolutely get behind.

I was definitely interested in the business at that point and I've been here ever since.

Brian: Oh, interesting. So you've always been on that side of things, since this began.

Ann: Right. I was a bookkeeper for Ocean Crest Seafoods for a short amount of time through high school and summers during college briefly.

And then I had my son in 1991, when he was about three years old, I went back to the family business full time.

Brian: Great.

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Episode 004. How do you insure you're meeting your customers wants and needs? Do you have a mission or cause that your customer can relate with and buy into?

Brad James discusses how he is leading Beepods (https://www.beepods.com/) to not only revolutionize the beekeeping industry, but to change the world by finding a real-world solution to the well-publicized epidemic called colony collapse disorder

Full Transcript

Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast, a place for conversations about out of the box businesses in the self-reliance space.

I'm Brian Pombo.

Today we're talking with Brad James. I wanted to point out right off the bat that we were experiencing some technical difficulties during this recording. I thought the information was so good. It was worth putting out, even though it was slightly flawed. So hang in there, listen to this. I think you're really going to enjoy it.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Brad James is a rogue beekeeper and the CEO of Beepods, challenging the norms of keeping honey bees by leveraging science data and grit, to ask why over the traditional, this has worked for me.

At Beepods they create complete beekeeping systems that provide hardware, training, outreach and data tools to schools, businesses, nonprofits and backyard beekeepers all over the world.

Teaching and practicing a reflection based sustainable philosophy.

Beepods goal is to see a world where pollinators thrive with aggressive innovation, intelligent observation and unapologetic audacity, Brad and the Beepods team pursue solutions to make this vision a reality and our lifetime.

Brad James, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Brad: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian: Yeah, really happy to have you here. We'll just start out at the very beginning. Why don't you let everybody know what it is that you do.

Brad: So at Beepods we provide a complete system and education tools to all of our customers and clients all over the US and all over the world.

Our big goal is trying to find solutions for the pollinator collapse that we're witnessing, especially over the last 10 to 15 years. And trying to figure out why that's happening.

So for us, our big step forward with all of our customers is how do we get them involved in beekeeping and aware of it and then give them the right tools so they can feel like they're part of the solution and feel successful in raising honeybees.

It's really about customer focused and helping support them because they want to be part of a bigger story than themselves.

Brian: Got it. So how did you get started with the pods?

What's your life story up to this point?

Brad: It's a great question. I'll try and keep that shorter. My background was in biochemistry and microbiology and I was on my way to med school when I was in college until I decided I was done with school.

So after that, it was about switching directions. During that time I had been doing some freelance and pro bono work for nonprofits and some other organizations around my school.

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Episode 003. Do your customers think you're just another website, or do they feel like they are part of a community?

Mark Robinson discusses how he developed Walkin' Pets (http://walkinpets.com) from a tragic lesson he experienced years ago. He describes the highs and lows of building a community that became his most successful business to date.

Walkin' Wheels® Dog Wheelchair - https://www.handicappedpets.com/adjustable-dog-wheelchairs/ Walkin' Blind Dog Halo - https://www.handicappedpets.com/walkin-blind-dog-halo/ Chris P. Bacon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tP7Xrrxfxc/ TO THE PETS! Music Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rB8tVjj_aQ

Transform your business into an absolute Dream Business! http://brianjpombo.com/dreambiz/

Full Transcript

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: All right, so on the show today, we've got Mark C. Robbin.

He's the founder and president of walk-in pets by handicappedpets.com. A company that makes products for aging, injured, and disabled pets around the world.

His signature product, the walking wheels, adjustable dog wheelchair has helped over 50,000 dogs live happy, healthy lives.

Mark has had several businesses in the past in fields including security systems, magazine, publishing, computers, renewable energy, and more. This one though is by far the most successful.

You've also hosted your own show called a happy healthy pets, which you can find on his website, handicap pets.com so here's Mark Robinson.

Hi Mark.

Mark: Hi Brian. Thank you for that great intro. Great to be on the show.

Brian: Yeah, I'm really happy to have you here. It's a very interesting site if anyone's listening it, whether you have pets or not, it's worth looking at this site.

There's a lot going on here and we're going to get into some of the details as we get moving.

Just give us a little bit about what it is that you do Mark?

Mark: The website is called WalkinPets.com and there's no G in there. That's WalkinPets.com.

The reason for the long name is used to be called handicap pets.com we changed the name to Walkin' Pets because our users seem to like it a little better.

So now when we introduce ourselves, we use both names, but you can also get to it at HandicappedPets.com

Brian: Awesome.

So how did you get started in this area? You know, what's your life story, up until this point?

Mark: I had a computer business called computer network services that provided computer support for companies getting into networking back in the days of Novell Networks.

And I sold that business and was doing some private consulting for awhile, and was looking for ways to figure out really how to use the internet more and how it was used for business.

I wanted to try to create a website that was able to do e-commerce.

Many years ago I had a dog, a little Keeshond named Mercedes and it started snapping at my newborn son at the time growling. And I took him to the vet and the vet, he had canine epilepsy and said, you know, there are treatments but we can't guarantee tha...

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Episode 002. Have you taken full advantage of "content marketing" to both educate your crowd and prepare them to buy?Greg Key discusses how Hoss Tools (http://hosstools.com) uses a combination of superior customer service and content marketing to bring people to gardening tool website.

Hoss Wheel Hoes - https://hosstools.com/product-category/wheel-hoes/ Premium Garden Seeds - https://hosstools.com/premium-garden-seeds/ Hoss Tools YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZnfO4fIz4ThYKHwB7t4NWw

Amazon-Proof Your Website! http://brianjpombo.com/amazon/

Full Transcript

Intro: Welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, a place for conversations about out of the box businesses with heavy e-commerce elements. I'm Brian Pombo.

When thinking about your business or project, what do you think about when I say phrases like customer service, ideal customer profile and content marketing?

I know these are kind of dry and they're overused so often cliches in the industry, but today's conversation is going to uncover how to bring these concepts into actual real life for your business and how you can profit from them.

Here's our very first conversation for this podcast and if you stay until the very end, I'm going to go over some of my takeaways from it. Listen to this….

If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family, if you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing, you may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Greg Key is the owner of Hoss Tools.

Born and raised in South Georgia. Greg has been involved with agriculture and horticulture for over 30 years. He's witnessed how food was grown years ago on a small family farm all the way to the huge corporations that dominate agriculture today.

Being a big believer in clean, healthy food, Greg started Hoss Tools to help people grow their own food with quality tools and supplies. He enjoys growing food sustainably on a 10 acre homestead with his wife of 34 years.

Two dogs, eight chickens, two horses and one jackass.

Preserving the harvest, making wine and enjoying his four children keeps them busy.

Greg: Grandchildren.

Brian: Sorry, four grandchildren.

Appreciate you coming on the show. Greg, welcome.

Greg: Well, thank you. Glad to be here, Brian.

Brian: Yeah, this is really great. Why don't you give everyone an idea of what it is that you do?

Greg: About nine years ago, we started a company called Hoss Tools. And our goal is to give people the tools and information for them to be successful and grow their own food.

Brain: That's great. How'd you get started in all of this?

Greg: Back in the early two thousands we've kind of seen the trend were a lot of products being imported in here.

They were being sold, but they were not being supported. So if you went about a product and it tore up, you simply threw it away and went and bought another product. And the quality of the garden tools we seen was on the demise.

I thought, you know, there's gotta be a better way.

What we decided to do was start a company, manufacture as much product as we could in USA and make a jam-up quality product and support it. There's nothing I hate more than to call a company an...

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Episode 001. Why "Off-the-Grid Biz?" What's it all mean? In this mini-episode, host Brian J. Pombo introduces himself explains the story behind this new and strange podcast show. Transcript Brian: Alright, welcome to the very first Off The Grid Biz Podcast, a place for conversations about out of the box businesses with heavy ecommerce elements. I'm Brian Pombo. So why Off The Grid Biz? What's it all mean? Well, it all goes back to growing up working on the family cattle ranch in the San Joaquin Valley of California. There was always a mystery and romance surrounding the concepts of living off the land. My grandma used to talk about our pioneer ancestors. Well, part of me always look to escape the country life for adventure and fortune in the real cruel, unknown world. Allah Luke Skywalker, the other half of me looked hunker down and live off the land. As a young adult and 1999 I had the chance to attend a survival and emergency preparedness show that was dedicated to those concerned about the Millennium bug of 2000. Which if you don't know about go and look it up, I was amazed at the variety of wares and information for sale, everything from nuclear bunkers to, to gardening instructions to outright extremists, political tomes. There was tons on alternative energy and food storage. While I wasn't scared about the Millennium bug I, I was a little smitten with all of it, to tell you the truth. But as January 1st came and went, it became one of those last memories that I would someday look back upon. Fast forward somewhere around 17 years and I've actually built up a nice little consulting firm where I work as a business strategist, helping successful but overworked business owners transform their companies into perfect dream asset scenarios. I've worked in a lot of different capacities for a number of larger groups, Microsoft, Shell, Craftsman, Ink Magazine as well as a number of radio networks and smaller podcasters. In discussing people I can help with my friend and business associate, Sean E. Douglas we brainstormed those industries that we could be passionate about. And the one we tend to to come back on again and again, was those all connected with self reliance. So where does one go from there? I just began emailing and calling up owners and executives of companies that I found interesting, and those ones that I really thought had a unique self reliance flair to them. Spoke to so many different types of people. Spoke to people selling beekeeping supplies, goat milk, soap, people selling livestock, homesteading supplies, gardening needs, like fertilizer and heirloom seeds. These were the type of people we were talking to people who had started companies from scratch, anything that had to do with do it yourself. Really, as these conversations continued. I met some of the most interesting people with some of the most intriguing stories. So Sean and I kind of sat back and ponder, what if I could take these stories and condense them, maybe edit them down, add a little emphasis were needed, and then spread them out there as podcasts? After all, we've done it a million times for our clients, why not do it for ourselves? So here it is the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. With Sean running duty as a producer and lead researcher and myself as host, we're given the chance to tell some of the stories while at the same time letting a select few listeners know how I can help fix their nasty headaches, introduce them to a friction free zero point lifestyle through my personal strategy sessions and products. So here we are, we've got a lot of great conversations coming up that we've already recorded. We're just getting them edited and sending them out to you. Along with this first episode, there should be at least one or two other episodes available for you to listen to. I hope you enjoy it, love to hear some feedback. You can find us over at OffTheGridBiz.com. And you can also find me at BrianJPombo.

Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast: Recent Episodes

Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast