Since starting in January 2019, FireCreek has sold over $1,000,000 in snacks.
After leaving his 20-year engineering career to become a local marketing consultant, Dustin Riechman discovered a jerky so good that he decided to pitch a relative stranger on a business partnership that resulted in $1mm in sales in two years.
Kurt Elster: Today on The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, I am joined by a gentleman who has sold quite a lot of meat. I am joined by Dustin Riechmann, who since 2019 has been selling beef jerky, a better for you protein snack company called FireCreek Snacks and partnered with a third generation butcher and has sold a million dollars worth of jerky. That is quite the claim. And then on top of it, from what I understand, this is a part-time gig for him on top of it. I can’t believe it. Dustin, what’s going on? How did you get here?
Dustin Riechmann: Thanks, Kurt, for having me. My story is actually mostly in engineering, so my whole career, about 18 years, I was a civil engineer, master’s in civil engineering, did a lot of consulting work, taught at a university, but got the marketing bug when I was building a side business with my wife called EngagedMarriage.com. And so, kind of cut my teeth doing digital marketing, I really started taking that serious about 2015 and it became this substantial side business for us, and yeah, so basically long story short, the end of 2017 I walked away from my engineering management position and jumped into the world of self-employment.
In the course of that, in 2018, as I was getting my feet under me and growing Engaged Marriage, but also doing some other work, I was doing a lot of marketing, consulting, and business coaching, and things like that, and a lot of that centered on local businesses. It was just all referral based, like my dentist was a client, my realtor was a client, and I walked into a local meat shop and really… It was just outside of our local area and I found a product in there that ultimately ended up becoming FireCreek Snacks, so I can definitely dive into that story and how that connection happened, but my initial relationship with Ryan Hansen, who’s my business partner now with FireCreek, was actually me doing marketing for his local brick-and-mortar butcher shops.
Kurt Elster: So, you’re an engineer for close to two decades, right?
Dustin Riechmann: Yep.
Kurt Elster: And then you discovered ,”I’m kind of good at marketing.” And from there, and were committed to it, and from there said, “Look, I want to help grow businesses.” Whether that was a business with your wife, Engaged Marriage, or some of these local businesses. Was it terrifying to walk away from an established career like that?
Dustin Riechmann: It was quite terrifying and a lot of people, they think it’s completely… It’s completely opposite thing, like how would you from an engineer to a self-employed marketing guy?
Kurt Elster: I want to know that, too!
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. I think the thing to realize is that they aren’t that much different. I mean, engineering is really just a way of thinking. It’s a problem solving mindset. So, when you encounter something, you put on your kind of engineering education and background and you step by step your way through problems. And that’s how I approach marketing as well, so we have a certain goal to hit, it’s just backing that out and engineering a marketing solution to get there. So, and also in my engineering career as you kind of ascend up, I had 15 people working for me. My primary day-to-day role was sales. I was selling engineering consulting. So, a different type of sales than selling meat snacks online, but still sales, and so I kind of see it all from the way I sit and see the world, it’s not that much different.
Now, the change from full-time engineering with benefits, a stay-at-home wife with three kids, to, “Hey, I don’t know exactly how I’m gonna make money in February of 2018,” that took a big leap. But we prepared heavily for it. For like six months, basically, in the end of 2017, I worked full time, 50 hour weeks at engineering. I was basically doing full-time consulting for marketing clients and kind of building up a war chest so that I knew-
Kurt Elster: You gave yourself a runway.
Dustin Riechmann: Exactly that. And I really had this mindset shift around the middle of 2017 when I started more seriously thinking I could actually make this leap and that that mindset really was that most decisions, almost no decisions in your life are permanent. And so, it kind of came to me one day that you know, I could go do this for three months and if I suck at it, I can just go get another engineering job, because I’m not burning bridges. I could probably go back to the same company, but if not, other companies knew about me and I could probably get another gig. So, once I realized it wasn’t permanent and once I convinced my wife that it didn’t have to be permanent, because she’s much more risk averse than I am, and we had this runway built up, and actually the way things went down I went and talked to my supervisor there, the branch manager, and explained what I was wanting to do, and I said, “I’m in no big hurry. I can stick around for a month or two to help find my replacement.”
And so, I actually for like six months, I kept working there full time and left on extremely good terms, so I still refer engineering work to them when it comes up. They’re very supportive of me and what I do, so I feel like it really turned out excellent, although it was definitely scary. Scary as hell I think going into it and trying to make that call to actually tell them I’m gonna step down from an engineering position, which was kind of my whole identity.
Kurt Elster: Well, and that’s the other part of it too, is like your ego gets wrapped up in what you do. Especially if you’re good at it, or proud of it, or you’ve just been doing it a really long time. And so, quitting a job like that to change careers entirely, but also just change, everything about how you survive… Well, that… I mean, you’re rethinking who you are as a person, and I think that’s what’s so hard about it, but also why you should be proud of what you did. And then of course at the same time, it’s easy to go like, “Well, everything worked out great, so I’d do it again.” Yeah, survivorship bias, right?
Dustin Riechmann: Exactly. Yeah. Could have fallen on my face and said I would never recommend that for anyone, I lost my family or whatever, but it turned out to be the exact opposite. We’re all super happy with the way it turned out and all the COVID and kids at home, it’s been an extreme blessing to be able to work from home, have a lot of flexibility, so looking back it’s like, “Wow, what if I wouldn’t have done that?” It really would have changed how our family dynamic works.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I mean, none of us could have known what was coming with the pandemic, or how it was going to affect us. And I think that’s what’s so hard about the pandemic, is people got affected so unequally, and it was such a matter of circumstance, such a… 2020 was a tough year. I don’t think I’m surprising anyone with that hot take.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. 100%.
Kurt Elster: All right, so you quit your job, your wife’s working on a thing, you’re a marketing consultant, and you walk into a butcher and somehow this leads to a partnership in a million dollar busines. What? How is that possible?
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, so it’s real simple. No, actually he had opened a third location. There’s the ironic part, is this location ended up failing, which you could kind of put on my shoulders as the marketing guy, but it all worked out for the best. So, he opened a location in our town, and I was… I like to smoke meat, and grill and things, so I was like, “We’ll just go check it out.” And it turned out that his partner in this location went to high school with my wife and I and was in my wife’s graduating class, and they were pretty good friends, so as we walk in, that guy is there. His name’s Andrew and he’s like, “Hey, you know, welcome to the store.”
They’d only been open a couple weeks and realized he was a partner, and he said, “We’re trying to get this thing off the ground.” I was like, “I’d love to talk to you guys. I work with a lot of local businesses.” And so, we had lunch, Andrew, Ryan, and I, and then this was his third location, so I kind of started working on all three, just doing some local Facebook ads, helping them come up with some better strategies on how to bundle products and things like that, and just doing some strategy work. And he had this jerky at the time, this FireCreek jerky in there, and I walked away that day with a bag of it because I’m a fan of those kind of products, and I had no idea it was associated with the store. I thought it was just a brand of jerky I hadn’t heard of.
So, I got it, and I ate it, I was like, “Man, this is amazing. This is super tender. This is different.” And so, I flipped over the bag and saw that it was made in Jerseyville, Illinois, which happens to be where I grew up and I lived there for the first 10 years of my life. And it’s like a tiny farm town, 7,500 people. I was like, “What in the world?” Because the town I live in now is about 30,000 people. It’s not large, but it’s a decent university town. I was like, “How is this made in Jerseyville?”
And then I realized that Hansen Meat Company, the name on the placard, was based in Jerseyville, and it was like, “Oh, wow. This is all connected.”
Kurt Elster: It’s all coming together.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. So, as I got to know Ryan over the course of a couple months, and helping him with the local stores, I asked him more about, “Hey, what are you doing with this FireCreek brand?” He’s like, “Actually, it’s interesting timing. I have some partnerships, some investors, we’ve been trying to get this jerky brand off the ground, and just we’re not getting a lot of traction. I really want to pivot into a snack stick form,” instead of the whole muscle really expensive jerky that he was trying. They didn’t really have an interest in that, so they were kind of in the middle of this transition.
And so, eventually that fall of 2018, that dissolved. I said, “Hey, you know, I love these snack sticks.” Because he had been producing those as well. He wanted to drop the jerky. It was really hard to be consistent with the way he was trying to do an all-natural, sugar-free, no artificial preservatives, and make it work, but the snack sticks, it worked. So, he was able to kind of take the same recipes and great flavors, put them into a snack stick, and it was like nothing I’d ever had, and I was like, “This is a winner. This is amazing.” I’d give it to my daughters, they’re gluten intolerant, and so all of the products we have are no artificial ingredients, they’re gluten free, no MSG, no dairy, no soy, a lot of the stuff that prevents many people, especially children, from enjoying a protein snack, because almost anything you find in the corner gas station is not gonna be able to make those health claims.
Kurt Elster: Right.
Dustin Riechmann: But they also tasted awesome and they were made with real hickory smoke, so there’s just a lot of things different about them, and so as I researched the market and I kind of found there’s spectrum of like uber healthy, Whole30, all grass-fed beef, and then there’s like the traditional Slim Jim stuff that’s not having any health claims, and so we were trying to find this marriage of the best of both worlds, and it felt like we have.
So, anyhow, that was kind of tail end of that 2018. I was still working with the brick-and-mortar butcher shops and I basically gave Ryan a total win situation. I said, “I would love to help you with these snack sticks. I think we could rebrand it from FireCreek Jerky to FireCreek Snacks. I can build a website. We’ll get on Shopify.” And so, I did all that for free. And so, I said, “If we do start making some online sales, then maybe I’ll take a small percentage of that, but basically I want to see for you especially, and less so for me, if this will work, and if it does, then we can talk about how to structure things moving forward.” So, that was kind of the first step was just bringing it online, getting some initial sales, and kind of seeing how things worked.
Kurt Elster: So, you’re in the right place at the right time.
Dustin Riechmann: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And you recognized an opportunity. And then you phrased it as an opportunity for… What’s your partner’s name in the FireCreek Snacks?
Dustin Riechmann: Ryan.
Kurt Elster: Ryan. And you phrased it to him as, “Hey, I’ve got this idea. I need your help to do it. But to prove that it’s a good idea, you literally don’t have to do anything.”
Dustin Riechmann: Yes. Just allow me to build a website for you and see how we can get some sales. And you know, I kind of… It’s very analogous to like a marriage. We were just… We started off dating, right? And it’s like I was serving, and giving, and being nice, and just trying to show that you could trust me here. I have some things to offer potentially, and I think you do too, and I think we could be a good partnership. But we were not even talking about like a business partnership. It was just let’s try this. It’s something to do for him on the side and he was very proud of the product. But he’s brick and mortar his whole life. Does some wholesale stuff, but just had never tried to sell online.
And that was my whole world, was I loved selling online, or at least promoting online to drive local business, and so yeah, just right place, right time, right personalities. We’re a similar age, similar family values, it just felt like something that some synergy was starting to build.
Kurt Elster: I like that your approach to a business partnership, similar to a romantic relationship, because there really are a lot of parallels, like communication is a cornerstone of success. And you can’t just open with like, “Hey, I’m some guy and I like your jerky. I want to build a website and sell your jerky.” It wouldn’t work. It was a months-long process leading up to that. I get these crazy pitch emails all the time where people are like, “Hey, I like your show! All right, so here’s the NDA I need you to sign.” I’m like, “I’ve never even heard of you. Delete.” That doesn’t work.
Dustin Riechmann: The NDA.
Kurt Elster: Right? There needs to be a dating process and like active relationship building. So, briefly, what are some of those… your tips for developing those successful win-win partnerships when it’s with someone new that you don’t necessarily have that strong relationship with yet?
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. Number one, just like you said, is communication. It’s being very open, transparent about what I think I can offer, where I see I can provide value here. I think as much as possible, some people aren’t in the position where they could just do work for free, but maybe at a low cost or for a percentage of additional profits, something like that to where you’re providing really no risk to the other person if it works out well. And I think kind of taking it slow. We didn’t have anything in writing until the next year, when I actually became a partner in the business, and at that point I feel like having things in writing is really important, but in these early stages it was can I trust you, can you trust me, let me have a little more responsibility, hey, can you go do this for me? And kind of feeling out that we could really work together as a team.
Kurt Elster: I like all of that advice. Moving forward, so then obviously Ryan says yes, and then you build the Shopify store with these snacks.
Dustin Riechmann: Yep.
Kurt Elster: Had you built an online store before at that point?
Dustin Riechmann: I had never done anything on Shopify in my life. I’d never really done eCommerce.
Kurt Elster: Did Ryan know this?
Dustin Riechmann: No. I don’t think so. He knew that I could market online.
Kurt Elster: I see.
Dustin Riechmann: And-
Sound Board: Oh, geez, Rick!
Dustin Riechmann: … drive business to brick and mortar, and he knew that Engaged Marriage had been successful and it’s all online, but it’s all digital. Basically, information products. So, this is the first time selling a physical product other than a book online. It’s the first time I’d ever tried Shopify, but it’s worked out pretty well.
Kurt Elster: So, you built the site, and right now the site looks really good. It’s clean. It works. It’s got lovely branding. Is that… The way the site looks now, did it… How different was it in 2019?
Dustin Riechmann: It’s very, very similar.
Kurt Elster: Oh, okay. Well-
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: If you had never built an eCom store, this looks great.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. The structure’s always been about the same. The things… I’ve added testimonials as we’ve collected those over time. What you can see on the website right now is our second generation packaging, so we had an update there from the first generation. We’ve now got a third generation, just not… We haven’t had the professional photos taken. We’re getting our first run of that in about a month, so we’ll continue to update. We’re adding another flavor, so there will be updates, but the basic structure and the calls to action have really been consistent, and what you see there is the direct result of… Well, we can talk about 2019, going to a dozen trade shows, putting tons of snacks in people’s mouths, letting them react to it and tell us what they think, and we just kind of encapsulated that in some very simple bullet point languages that we hope can convey why this is different from the moment you hit the site.
Kurt Elster: I really like the copywriting on the site. I like sites that aren’t afraid of including some darn copywriting on the homepage and trying to sell me on it, on why I should care. And you have done that, and I think it works. I think it works pretty well. And you’ve got a quote. I love this, like, “It’s always fun to see the reaction when someone tries a FireCreek Snack Stick for the first time. They’re usually surprised by the texture, since it’s different than the big brands they may have tried. When they find out it’s healthy too, that’s when they say it’s the best snack they’ve ever had.” Ryan Hansen, third generation meat man and creator of FireCreek Snacks.
So, it’s like starting to tell that story. It’s very clever. It’s good quality copywriting.
Dustin Riechmann: Well, thank you.
Kurt Elster: But putting up a Shopify store, having a good product, and having great copywriting by itself is not enough.
Dustin Riechmann: Right.
Kurt Elster: If you build it, no one will come. It doesn’t matter. You have to go out and really sell the thing and drive people to this site and make them aware of it, because no one’s heard of FireCreek Snacks, then no one is going to hear of FireCreek Snacks until you breathe life into that brand. So, you’ve built the store, it looks great, you’ve got this great product, you’ve got this partnership, but then that’s still not enough. We’ve only… We’ve not even done half the work to sell this thing yet. What happens next? How do you start selling this thing and get to seven figures in sales?
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, so the very first thing we did, fortunately, is I started working with Ryan with his brick-and-mortar shops, we came up with a loyalty program, a VIP club, those sort of things, and so we were driving people to an email list for his local business. And so, we had those initial emails, so those were our first customers, was, “Hey, you may have seen these in the store, but you can buy them at great pricing here, free shipping,” and get people to try them locally. So, all of our original customers were local. Then we could see that they were referring friends and family from other places and it started to grow a little bit organically.
And so, the eCom side of it kind of just sat there and did that. We did some partnerships with letting people review it, and they would send an email, and we got some sales, but the direct-to-consumer piece in 2019 was not a huge part of the business. We inadvertently, it wasn’t my interest at all, because I just wanted to do the eCom side, but Ryan pulled me in pretty quick and in 2019, we ended up going to a dozen trade shows, and it was all selling wholesale. And so, the first one of those would be a good example, was the PGA Merchandise Show down in Orlando, Florida. So, it’s like golf, right?
And so, we had a little booth there. We did all kinds of crazy stuff. We hired models to drive people down our aisle. We’d never been to a trade show in our life and we shipped like 10,000 samples down there, and we were just throwing samples out. I had a Square reader and I’m taking these PGA pros’ credit cards, and we’re taking orders. We just kind of went in, baptism by fire, and what was so awesome about that was we got so much firsthand feedback about what people reacted to, all the hesitant people that would walk by, there might be a middle-aged woman with kids and she’s like, “I don’t eat that stuff.” And it’s like, “Please, just try this teriyaki. I guarantee you unless you’re like a vegan or vegetarian, you will like this. And if you don’t like it, you can punch Ryan.” And we kind of got this shtick going and just got a lot of excitement. Four days down there for this brand and we sold into almost 180 golf courses.
Kurt Elster: Wow.
Dustin Riechmann: And so, we’re like, “Wow, we’re onto something. This is good.” And then we started noticing more web orders, because people might have sampled and maybe they didn’t want to buy. Maybe they weren’t even with a golf course, they were another vendor. But just getting all this feedback, so yeah, so we did a bunch of those. We went to a bunch of independent hardware store shows, like ACE Hardware, True Value, where the owners might only own one to five stores, but they can make their own decisions, and so that was really the growth in 2019.
Kurt Elster: Was going to these oddball trade shows that had nothing to do with snacks, or jerky, or food even.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: But where everybody… Just about any location, whether that is a country club golf course or ACE Hardware can put quality beef jerky on an end cap.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. Yeah, so almost-
Kurt Elster: And add a point of sale.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. Almost all of these shows have a large impulse aisle is what they call it, so it’s the candy, the snacks, peanuts, whatever, and actually ACE, like the ACE Hardware and True Value especially have really become in a lot of smaller towns like the general store again, and so they actually specialize in a lot of really kind of gourmet, high end, craft snacks, and people go in there just to buy them. Something I’ve kind of learned in this process, that that’s kind of one of the ways they’ve positioned themselves to be different than Walgreens or whoever else might be in a small town, is like-
Kurt Elster: Interesting.
Dustin Riechmann: Hey, go to ACE, because they’ve got some really cool, unique snacks that you really can’t get most other places.
Kurt Elster: I guess I haven’t been in an ACE Hardware in a while.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, they’re different.
Kurt Elster: I used to go all the time.
Dustin Riechmann: A lot different than I remember.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, 20 years ago you couldn’t get me out of an ACE Hardware. Now, I don’t know the last time I was in one.
Dustin Riechmann: Well, when you go in, you’ll find that most of them have a huge snack selection up towards the front counter.
Kurt Elster: I will have to check it out. We have one local. So, the thing I’m not… I’m not hearing about all these traditional digital marketing efforts. It was step one, build a Shopify store. Step two, go to trade shows and sell wholesale. But it worked so well, you got national… Started to build national recognition, and so the people who tried it were then Googling it and buying direct from you, and they were like repeat purchases?
Dustin Riechmann: That’s part of it. We were doing some other marketing. We did some. We’ve always done baseline kind of Facebook ads, and so when I say baseline, we may have one prospecting audience. We’re not spending a lot on it. We’ve always got retargeting running, so we’re picking up those kind of sales. One thing we did really well in 2019 was we hired a… We’ve basically become the live spot on the drive time afternoon radio show in St. Louis, so we kind of had two mantras. One was to sample to as many people as we could possibly sample to, and the trade shows were a great venue for that. We ultimately got into our local Walmart stores and were able to sample in there, too. I can talk about that. It’s a totally different story.
But we really wanted also, the other mantra was own St. Louis. So, we’re in the St. Louis metro area, in Southern Illinois, and we knew that we were starting to develop a reputation locally, and people in St. Louis are very proud to buy from people in St. Louis. We got in all the local… One family owns all the local ACE stores, and they were promoting us as a kind of St. Louis proud brand, and so we were selling all over the country and all over the world. We were in international golf courses and things like that from the PGA show, but we really tried to focus locally as much as possible at first, and radio became an excellent channel for that. It wasn’t something that we necessarily thought would work, but we gave it a shot, they gave us a good deal, and it worked really well.
So, yeah, we were doing that. We were doing some ads. Really 2020 is when the partnerships come in, which is really where I think we threw fuel on the fire from a direct-to-consumer standpoint.
Kurt Elster: So, we’ve got we’re going to trade shows, we’re getting in physical locations, you start using local radio ads, which I think is really clever, because radio ads just keep getting cheaper but they’re hyper-targeted locally. It’s very clever. All right, so then from there, the next phase that really starts to scale things is… what you’ve been to referring to as partnerships. Tell me about that.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, so partnerships has really been the focus in 2020. That can take on a lot of different forms, but it’s basically borrowing other people’s audiences and providing value so that it’s a win-win again for… Again, one of our mantras is always lead with a win, and then a lot of times that’ll reciprocate back with a win, so early on partnerships for us looked like subscription boxes primarily. So, I started researching healthy snack subscription boxes, keto diet boxes, things like that, and there were a lot of them, and there were some really small ones that would just pay us our full kind of wholesale pricing. There’s some larger ones that want donations, but they can offer some marketing in exchange. You can negotiate. So, we got in a bunch of those in 2020.
We were featured twice in SnackNation, and so SnackNation is the largest… I think probably the largest subscription box, period. But it’s more of a corporate model, where like Facebook would buy snacks for a whole division, and they would typically go to their office. Of course, 2020, people were working from home, so they started making these work-from-home versions, but we would get FireCreek featured in this box and then that would get sent to these higher end, higher salaried professionals, and we’d see sales from that. And it also gave us a lot of I guess brand notoriety. It was not easy to get into that box. That was kind of a gorilla marketing thing, because almost everything they feature is a very well known, national brand. It was more finding the meat snacks buyer, connecting on LinkedIn, having some conversations, just convincing him to just try it, and once he tried it, product kind of sold itself and he said our teriyaki flavor was… He’s been doing this his whole career basically is sampling protein snacks. He said, “This is one of the best snack sticks I’ve ever had, hands down.”
So, he kind of pushed to get us in the box, and yeah, we actually recorded a podcast called Brand Builder, which is their podcast. It’s the biggest consumer packaged good podcast, so Ryan and I were able to record that together recently. It hasn’t aired yet. But again, that’s just an extension of that partnership, as an example of what can kind of come out of leading with value and trying to build a relationship with someone that I knew would really appreciate the product if he would just give us a shot, and he fortunately did.
Kurt Elster: So, really, one of the core tenets here is the product has to be amazing. You have had this tremendous, atypical marketing efforts that have worked really well, like a lot of grassroots stuff and gorilla stuff, and stuff people would not have thought of, but it wouldn’t have worked if you had a junk product.
Dustin Riechmann: Right.
Kurt Elster: It wouldn’t have worked if you had something generic, or some private label whatever. That wouldn’t have worked. Something print on demand. Like you had… It started with you found this jerky product that you’re like, “This is really good. More people need to eat this.” Like you believed in it. That was step one.
Dustin Riechmann: Yes.
Kurt Elster: Okay.
Dustin Riechmann: And step two I think was really understanding how people reacted to it, because originally when I saw it, I’m like, “Yeah, every middle aged contractor in the Midwest would like this, because he likes Slim Jims.” But it turns out most of our customers are moms. A lot of them are feeding them to their kids. My daughters, they take them every day in their lunch box, and I can feel good about it because I know it’s a good, hearty, healthy snack, but there’s no allergens or any artificial ingredients.
So, and it was only through toe-to-toe… I’ve probably literally handed samples to… I don’t know. 5,000. Probably more than that. 10,000 people in 2019. And had conversations about it on the spot, what’s your initial reaction, and then of course got them in the sales, and then we get to talk to the owners, what are their customers thinking, are they asking questions about? How could we improve our packaging? And you know, what are some claims people care about? I didn’t know what a nitrate was, and we started hearing over and over from people that, “Does this have nitrates? Does this have nitrites?” And like, no, it doesn’t, and so in our latest floor display, it’s one of the top things we’re putting on there as a claim because it’s actually important to a lot of people. I didn’t even know what it was at first, because I wasn’t a food guy.
So, yeah, having that understanding, but yeah, you’re right. I completely acknowledge that I might be okay at marketing, but our unfair advantage is the product. But it’s really hard to get people to try a food product for the first time, and it’s really, really hard to do it when there are no trade shows and it’s COVID times, and people don’t… They’re not gonna sample food in an open air market no matter what’s going on. So, I’m sure we’ll talk about the 2020 pivot, but it was way different than 2019.
Kurt Elster: So, yeah, 2019 is handing out samples face to face.
Dustin Riechmann: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And I’ve heard other entrepreneurs where they went to where their audience was and whether that was like we set up a table at a 5K, it’s always like we set up a table or booth somewhere, and then we talked to people. That’s the magic, like nobody wants to talk to anybody. No one wants to engage with anybody. But you have to.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. I’m a super introvert and it’s exhausting to try to coax people over to try your product and you’re standing there for 12 hours on a concrete floor. I mean, I hate 2019, but also love 2019, because it taught us so much. It really helped us dial in our messaging.
Kurt Elster: Well, you put in the work.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And then 2020 rolls around and no more trade shows. No more conferences. No more… Really not a lot of in person and certainly no just like handing out samples of jerky on a plate at the mall. Not gonna happen.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. It’s crazy.
Kurt Elster: So, now what do you do? Because you’ve got this potential rocket ship and you go, “Uh oh.” March 2020, what are you doing?
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. So, luckily going into 2020 in general, we realized we’re like 80% wholesale as far as our revenue goes, the margins aren’t great. We knew we wanted to be 50/50 or more on direct to consumer, so we were already thinking we need to… We’re gonna refocus. We’re gonna go to a few key trade shows. We went to one right before the shutdown. I was driving to one in Indiana when it got canceled on the drive there in March. So, we had a few we were gonna do, but we were not focused on that.
So, really it’s been this partnership thing, so the subscription boxes were all through the spring and summer. We did a bunch of those, saw some good success from that. We did quite a few email promotions with people in what I call shoulder industries, or industries that have similar audience, but we’re not a direct competitor. So, an example would be like someone who does… He writes about barbecue, about how to be a great barbecue griller and smoking meats, so there’s a portion of his audience that would love our real hickory smoked snacks, so we just sent him some. He did a review. Did an initial email, we got some good sales, so we followed up and paid him some money to do another email blast. We got good return on that, so we’ve done numerous of those kind of relationships.
But my number one thing, and really my goal fourth quarter in 2020 and now going into 2021 is to form a partnership every week, or at least pitch a partnership every week. And so far for me, by far and away the best types of partnerships have actually been podcasts, like the one we’re doing here, because there’s a lot of cool residual benefits that I didn’t even expect when I got on my first one. I’m happy to talk about that.
Kurt Elster: Tell me about it. What’s the big benefit of being on a podcast?
Dustin Riechmann: So, number one is the direct sales, and most of the podcasts I’ve been on have actually been business, eCommerce types of podcasts, just kind of telling the business story, so the audience isn’t even like keto dieters, or gluten-free moms. I mean, that’s to come. I’m gonna do a lot more of that in 2021, because we have true stories to tell around those aspects of the brand. But it’s really just in any population, a large population of an audience that gets to hear you for half an hour, an hour, and gets to know, like, trust, they might resonate with your story. There’s some portion of them that like, “That sounds like a good snack. I’m gonna try it.”
We usually provide a coupon code or whatever to give people a chance to try it. So, just the direct sales by itself would be worth it, and we have a great customer lifetime value because of recurring sales. So, for like a midsized podcast, just to get some details, we might sell $3,000 or $4,000 in direct sales the week it airs, but those customers are worth about $10,000 total because they’re gonna typically, on average, repeat three, three and a half sales as an average. And so, that’s really good revenue for being on a podcast. I love getting on podcasts to be able to tell our story. I’m very passionate about the brand. Ryan sometimes joins me. We’re able to really talk about what he was thinking, what I was thinking, and I think people really can relate to the entrepreneurial journey.
So, there’s the direct sales. Number two would be just the relationship with the host. I mean, I get to know… now I know Kurt a little bit, right? And Kurt might think of someone else next time that something comes up with consumer packaged goods. And I’ve already had referrals from other podcast hosts. “Hey, we had this guest on. You guys should talk because there’s some definite synergies between your brands.”
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Once you get your foot in the door with that network it kind of snowballs. I did my first podcast… Geez. Probably in 2013.
Dustin Riechmann: Wow. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And they said, “You were pretty good.” And then I got a referral to somebody else and that person said, “You know, you’re pretty good.” Referral to somebody else and that person said, “Hey, you should start your own podcast.” And a year later, I did it. But yeah, there’s a lot of introductions that occur as a result of podcasts.
Dustin Riechmann: Yes. And so, there’s the relationship with the host, and that’s good, but I’d say 10X all of that combined has just been relationships with listeners. It’s been amazing, like I’ll do it here whenever we’re finishing up, but I give people my email address. I’m very transparent. I love having conversations with people that are… hopefully I can provide some value to or however that works out. But I’ve probably had a dozen, probably 20 Zoom calls with different people that are just really ambitious, high quality, business minded people, and so some of them, like one was this… I say kid. This senior in college who goes to the same university I went to. He’s studying in the exact same program. He’s very entrepreneurial. He’s looking at real estate investing. And so, he kind of became a marketing intern for me, and so he’s helping me do some research and things, and it’s just like how cool is that, you know? This kid’s me 20 years ago and now I can hopefully be a little bit of a mentor to him. He’s learning. I’m sharing with him what we’re doing.
But also, what hopefully will be a really large direct benefit, we had a guy listening to one of the podcasts that was a finance guy, young guy in Bentonville, at Walmart, and he was like, “You know, I don’t know anyone, but I have a Walmart email address, so I’m gonna find the buyer for your category.” And we have been selling locally in Walmart as like a local vendor, but we have no distribution through the corporate side of things. We can just sell directly to store managers. We have to service our own product. It’s okay, but it’s a lot. It’s a tough struggle.
And we’ve tried for a year just to get a phone call and it’s really difficult.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. They’re famously tough.
Dustin Riechmann: So, he sends an email internally, didn’t get a response. Then he writes me back three weeks later, to his credit, and says, “You know what? I had heard there was some people moving around. I checked. There’s a new person in that position. I’m gonna email him.” We got an email back in 15 minutes from this guy saying, “I’m in the middle of category review for protein snacks, let’s have a Zoom call tomorrow.” We got on there, I was able to kind of give a sales presentation about what we’re about and our success that we’ve had locally with our Walmart efforts, and that decision’s still ongoing, so I don’t know what’s gonna come of it, but-
Kurt Elster: But you got your foot in the door with Walmart.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah. We got to send them samples.
Kurt Elster: That alone is the win.
Dustin Riechmann: He’s reviewed our packaging. He’s given us great insight into what he would want to see if he does pick us up for any kind of distribution. And that was some guy who thought my story was cool and just reached out. There was a Navy guy down in Florida who reached out and he has… He’s making his own consumer packaged good, so he knew one of the buyers. It’s called DeCA. It’s basically the massive government organization that buys food items for the military, for all the bases, and so I’ve got an email introduction to the category buyer there.
You know, I don’t know if that will result in anything, because they don’t review till the fall of 2021, but I’ve got his email address. We’ve communicated numerous times. That was totally based on an introduction that someone made to me. And they can go on and on. It’s amazing to me.
Kurt Elster: That’s amazing.
Dustin Riechmann: I think it’s… There’s something about people that really like podcasts, and we’re likeminded, we like to learn, we appreciate when people lead with value, and if there’s something that I can help them with, I welcome them to email me and likewise, obviously if they have a connection that some national retailer or if they’re an actual buyer there, because those people live in the real world and like to listen to podcasts too. That’s the intangible. I call it the halo effect. And the other thing about podcasts as you can appreciate, Kurt, is they’re evergreen. So, I mean a lot of people listen in the first week, but we still have people months later contacting us that have just listened for the first time, so that’s pretty awesome.
Kurt Elster: Right. Yeah, it’s always funny, like yeah, 98% of your downloads happen in the first six weeks, and 90% happen in the first probably five days, but then there’ll be months or even years old episodes that somebody will be like, “Hey, I just listened to this episode.” Like, really? How did you even find it?
Dustin Riechmann: It’s funny, I-
Kurt Elster: I don’t even remember doing it. I have to go look it up. I’m like, “I recorded with them? Are you sure?”
Dustin Riechmann: I’ve found my way into those rabbit holes a few times where I was like a particular guest that I like and I’m like, “Wonder if they’ve been on any other shows and they kind of tell a different aspect of their story.” So, sometimes people will actually look for guests. It’s probably a complete failure in my case because no one ever spells my name the same way, so-
Kurt Elster: I copied and pasted it to be sure.
Dustin Riechmann: I appreciate that.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Didn’t want to screw it up. I believe in this concept called a luck sale, and I heard about it in a TED Talk, and it’s you can’t necessarily create opportunities, but you can create scenarios where you get more opportunities. And it sounds like doing a series of podcast guest appearances is a way to build a luck sale in a very practical way. Both in it was my experience and it sounds like it’s also been your experience.
Dustin Riechmann: Yes.
Kurt Elster: Oh, that’s cool.
Dustin Riechmann: Yes. 100%. I’m passionate about it. I guess a tip for someone listening, it’s like how would I ever get on a podcast? Don’t just cold email people that you don’t know anything about. Take time to get to know them, build a relationship, add value, and-
Kurt Elster: Your pitch was so good.
Dustin Riechmann: Thank you.
Kurt Elster: I’ll tell you, I get a lot of crappy pitches, and I delete them now.
Dustin Riechmann: I do too.
Kurt Elster: Because it’s daily. And your pitch immediately stood out, so teach me. Teach me how to write a decent pitch email.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, so it starts before writing. One is every podcast I’ve pitched, so just to let you know, I’ve sent eight cold emails, I’ve got eight yesses. Now, they aren’t all recorded yet and only like three have aired, because this is all fairly recent, but the key is for one, to really know, and like, and respect the person you’re writing. Get to know about them. Get to know about their business. And so, in your case, I’ve been active in the Facebook group for a long time. I try to provide value there. I’ve reviewed things that you’ve written, and other people have written there, and so just trying to be active and a member of the community, first and foremost.
In some cases, I haven’t done that, because there aren’t communities with some podcasts. But typically, I’ll make sure I’m… With yours, I probably listen to almost every episode, but some other ones I intentionally just went and listened to three or four episodes to really understand what kind of guests they like to have on, what’s their conversation style, and then I try to find a few episodes that really stand out to me, like legit stand out to me, and I kind of just relay that back. Hey, you know, I’ve really enjoyed your podcast. These two episodes, here’s the value you provided me. In your case, you had a book that you contributed to, so I was able to take a picture because I had bought that book and reviewed it, and I had FireCreek Snacks sitting next to it, so I’m sure that helped catch your eye.
So, these are all anchor points, but they’re not… What I don’t want people to hear is that they’re just artificial, like-
Kurt Elster: It’s not a gimmick.
Dustin Riechmann: Oh, I found out he has a dog, so I’m like, “Hey, Kurt. I have a dog too.” It’s-
Kurt Elster: Those are… Yeah, I can see through those a mile away.
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, like I knew you lived in Illinois, and so I live in Illinois, that’s a connection, and I included that, but that’s not like a hang your hat thing. It’s more, “Hey,” I linked to that someone had an interest in wholesale questions about Shopify that same day and I had provided a really detailed response and I said, “I can talk about wholesale if you want, because people are interested. Here’s a link to what someone asked about in the group today.” So, it’s just being very cognizant, I guess, of what the host values, but not long, so it’s a little longer email, but it’s basically anchoring two to three times if we can, meaning common points that shows that I’m not just some weirdo on the internet that’s spamming you.
I have at least listened to your show and I understand what you’re about. And then transition to what can I provide. What value can I provide your audience? So, in our case I provided some bullet points. I can tell the story of how to do good partnerships. I can talk about business partnerships like Ryan and I, but also how to do partnerships in the sense that getting on podcasts or subscription boxes. I talked about our wholesale journey. So, some things that I know are a little unique. And then a strong call to action. Are you interested? And then sign off. That’s essentially it.
Kurt Elster: Well, that… Yes. And it was a perfect pitch email. And one of the… So, critical part one is showing relevance, like I actually… Proving that you put in the effort and knew who I was and what I was about.
Dustin Riechmann: Right.
Kurt Elster: And so, immediately I’m like, “All right, they put in the effort. They have now earned my attention. I’m going to read this email.” And then you said, “Hey, here’s a series of topics.” Well, I don’t see a series of topics. I see a choice of yeses. It’s like, “Which one of these am I going to say yes to?” And that’s the big advantage to pitching like, “Hey, here’s three ideas we could discuss.” All right, if you just gave me like, “Hey, can I be a guest on your podcast?” No. “Can I teach your audience A, B or C?” All right, A, no. B, no. C, yes. Aha!
So, it works very well. And in your case, when you had laid out those things, I was like, “All right, well, that’s the journey, and that’s then the episode.” It’s like he wrote the show notes for me.
Dustin Riechmann: Right.
Kurt Elster: Right?
Dustin Riechmann: Yes.
Kurt Elster: So, it makes life very easy. All right, before we get into the lightning round of questions, I want to know how you drive repeat purchases. And I know the core answer is, “Well, the beef jerky is really good.” In those first two years, you gotta drive awareness, and get new customers, and you have given us so many great ideas on how to do that. But once I have those customers, how do I keep them coming back? How do I drive up that customer lifetime value?
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, so we did a lot of email marketing, a lot of email follow up. I’d say we do sales, but outside of those promotions, 90% of our email content is user generated. So, we use Loox, L-O-O-X app, and it’s basically asks people for testimonials and then they get a discount code if they provide an image with that testimonial, which can be really powerful, so we include a lot of that. If it’s a cute kid holding up snacks, or someone with their pet out on a hike, and people can relate to that.
And so, part of it’s email marketing using user generated content that reminds people or gives them another option for how they could use the product. We have a referral program in place, so we’re using Referral Candy. Very simple. We’ve only been doing that maybe two months. We’ve generated some decent referrals from that and that’s just a straight incentive, refer a friend, get 10 bucks off your order, they get 10 bucks off their order, that sort of thing. So, that’s very direct.
We include a physical mailer typically. We ran out through the holidays, but that’s basically a postcard and it highlights our subscription program. So, that’s like, “Hey, this is your first order. If you love it, you can get 10% off all your future orders.” And it shows a little screenshot of how to do the subscribe and save option, so we try to drive subscriptions that way.
Yeah, and probably honestly the number one thing is just people really like it, so they’re emailing us, “Hey, where can I buy this?” And a lot of times we say, “Not in your local area, but just get it back on our website. It’s free shipping.” And so, that’s the number one thing, but we’ve definitely added in the past year. We’ve added many more mechanisms to remind people and we also use automation in our emails to remind people that, “Hey, you’re probably about due for a reorder.” And check it out that way.
And then we do most of our promotions are really around holidays and gifts, so it may be that you ordered a variety pack for yourself and you liked it, but you weren’t incentivized enough to buy another one at that moment, but hey, it’s Father’s Day. Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day. It’s Christmas. And so, we get a lot of repeat purchases that people love the product themselves, now they’re wanting to buy it for a friend.
Kurt Elster: Now, I wish I had discovered this product prior to 2018 when I still ate meat. Because you were kind enough to send me, and I did, I used to love… I loved beef jerky. I suppose I still do. I just can’t eat it. And you talked about, “I didn’t know what nitrites or nitrates were.” That’s like one of my issues.
Dustin Riechmann: Oh, really?
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Well, my cohost Paul Reda has a friend who’s an ER doctor, and I don’t know how it came up, but the guy just… He was like, “Hey,” something to the… I’m totally paraphrasing, but “Oh, I’m scared of cancer.” And the ER doctor says, “Well, don’t eat…” He goes, “I’ll tell you something. Don’t eat nitrites or nitrates.”
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And I heard that story. Scared the hell out of me, right? The moment an ER doctor that you respect tells you this, because I knew the guy, like, “Oh, crap.” So, I started researching it and then that became one of me issues, is like I’m not eating nitrites anymore. I don’t even know what they are. I just know I’m not eating it. Right? That’s how those health crisis go. I don’t know what it is! I don’t want it.
And so, like that was a buying trigger for me, and we got it home, we opened it, they smelled great, they look good, and my kids, who are like the pickiest, most obnoxious eaters ever, all three of them loved it.
Dustin Riechmann: Awesome.
Kurt Elster: Loved it!
Dustin Riechmann: Awesome. Yeah, we have three flavors currently. Original, Kicker, which is a little spicy, and then Teriyaki, and we’re coming out with a Smoky Barbecue very soon. But the teriyaki is like kids love it, and it’s like a candy treat, at least my girls, but it’s seven grams of protein, just a little bit of sugar, no artificial ingredients. So again, I don’t mind if they eat one each day for their lunch snack, so I appreciate that your kids enjoyed it.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. No, they loved them. They went through the variety pack in… I think within a week. It was just gone.
Dustin Riechmann: That’s what we like to hear. Next generation customers.
Kurt Elster: Okay. Let me hit you with some lightning questions.
Dustin Riechmann: Okay.
Kurt Elster: If you could gain instant expertise in any category, what do you want to be an expert in?
Dustin Riechmann: I’d say partnerships. I think there’s-
Kurt Elster: You are an expert in partnerships.
Dustin Riechmann: Well, I’m getting there. I think I’m like 20% there. I think there’s a huge… There’s big partnerships waiting out there that I’m building up to.
Kurt Elster: What book belongs on everyone’s bookshelf?
Dustin Riechmann: That’s a great question. I would say I love the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it’s not so much about the specifics of what he talks about financially, but it’s this mindset that you should always be building assets in your life rather than liabilities. So, that’s something I’m always thinking about with FireCreek, is this week what asset can I build? And that could be a piece of content. It could be a new product idea. It could be a partnership. But it’s always building new assets that are gonna build the value of the brand.
Kurt Elster: I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I really should revisit it.
Dustin Riechmann: I just reread it, like the 20th Anniversary Edition, like two weeks ago, which is probably why I said that answer, but I really… I saw it in a whole different lens than when I first read it and thought it was only about real estate.
Kurt Elster: I read it 15 years ago. And it like… The amount of ideas in it that stuck with me is unreal. It’s been beneficial. What’s the next thing on your bucket list that you’re gonna do?
Dustin Riechmann: Bucket list. I don’t know. Hopefully, some kind of massive family vacation, because we haven’t done anything in two years. My son just turned 16. I’m starting to feel like these… He just started driving literally last week and-
Kurt Elster: Exciting.
Dustin Riechmann: First time I’ve cried in a long time was just like this emotion, like, “He’s gonna be leaving soon.” So, I think we’re really motivated to do a really cool trip later this year, but I don’t know what it’ll be yet because there’s still so much uncertainty about what we can do.
Kurt Elster: Like two days ago my wife was like, “All right, so we’re gonna get…” She’s like, “As soon as I get that first…” We get the first vaccine shot, then she’s like, “All right, so it should be X number of weeks before the second, and then it’s effective X number of weeks after that, so as soon as that needle’s in my arm I’m booking a trip to Disney World.”
Dustin Riechmann: I was gonna say, I knew it would be Disney, but that makes sense.
Kurt Elster: Of course. I’m like I want to go, like all right, let’s roll. Well, this leads to the next question. What are you most excited about right now?
Dustin Riechmann: I’m really just… I’m honestly really focused on FireCreek Snacks and growing it. I’m really excited about the relationships that grow out of these partnerships, so again, as this halo effect, so there’s definitely the direct benefit to FireCreek, but like the awesome people I’ve gotten to know, and I’ve only had three of them air so far, and I’m like, “How could this get any better?” These people that reach out, so I’ve had great conversations with people about like real estate investing, like I mentioned the kid I’m helping to mentor from college, I’ve picked up… not that I need more work, but I really love coaching people and doing kind of… Leading people through things that I’ve already gained experience in. So, I’ve picked up actually a couple of business coaching clients from being on podcasts, talking about snack sticks.
So, just like this… I just feel this building momentum of coolness and things I’m able to kind of give back to as a result of growing FireCreek, and then just FireCreek itself. I mean, we’re barely tapping the potential of it and we have really big visions for it.
Kurt Elster: Not only did that put a big smile on my face, it gave me goosebumps, because like that early entrepreneurial excitement is better than any drug. It is what I live for. That was… Oh, that felt good. That was cool.
So, let’s say you’re looking at your Shopify store. You go down to apps. You have to delete… Gun to your head. You have to delete all but three apps. Which three apps are you keeping?
Dustin Riechmann: Um, I would definitely keep the Loox app, or any kind of reviews app. I think we have to have… We’re currently on Active Campaign, may consider Klaviyo switchover at some point, but whatever our email is, definitely connected to that for all the automations that that provides, and then we have the Bold Subscriptions app that does a really good job handling our subscription revenue, which is super important to us. So, I would say those are probably the three off the top of my head.
Kurt Elster: I love it. And final, final question. You have a platform here. You can talk to an audience. All right, let’s say they’re still listening. You got 30 seconds. What are you telling our listeners? What great piece of advice? What share? What do you have for them?
Dustin Riechmann: I mean, take a mindset of seeing opportunity and leading with wins for other people. So, anytime you see something that catches your interest and you’re curious about it, think of a way that you can help the person who owns it, or who manages it, or who is connected with it, and you’re never gonna not benefit from that. I mean, maybe it ends there, but many, many times they’ll reciprocate or somehow it’ll be reciprocated back to you through the ether, I guess. The Ethercycle.
But yeah, I’d say that. I’m not perfect at it by any means, but I’m always looking to lead with a win anywhere I can.
Kurt Elster: I think that… Oh. You have no idea how refreshing that advice is, or how brilliant it is, and I think… It’s the golden rule, man.
Dustin Riechmann: It really is. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Centuries old advice here that is coming back to us and I think would all be wise to observe it. Dustin, if I want to buy some beef jerky, where can I go and get it?
Dustin Riechmann: Yeah, FireCreekSnacks.com. Pretty simple. We’ve got a coupon code, so it’s just UNOFFICIAL, like the name of the podcast, so if you put in UNOFFICIAL at checkout in Shopify, you’ll get 15% off and free shipping. The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, if anyone wants to collaborate, has a question for me, has some way that they think I can help them, definitely reach out to me, and my email is Dustin, which is D-U-S-T-I-N at FireCreekSnacks.com.
Kurt Elster: This has been fabulous. Dustin, thank you so much.
Dustin Riechmann: Thanks, Kurt. I really appreciate the opportunity. I’ve learned a lot from you and really am grateful to be able to give back a little bit to the audience here.
Kurt Elster: The highest honor I could pay. We’re going out on Yakety Sax.
Sound Board:
Kurt Elster: My favorite sound drop.