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There wasn’t a lot of forethought before Chris and Mary Ginder decided to start a hot sauce company. Chris had the idea one day and suddenly became obsessed with making and selling their own fresh pepper hot sauce.
As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast!
Dave Charest: Today on episode three of the Be a Marketer podcast, you'll hear from a husband and wife team that likes to keep things spicy in the business. And if you've ever been to a party, you probably already know everything you need to know about how to bring the people that matter closer to your business. This is the Be a Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest: My name is Dave Charlest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I've been helping small business owners like you make sense of online marketing for over 16 years. You can be a marketer, and I'm here to help. Hello. Hello, friend, and welcome to another edition of the Be a Marketer podcast. As always, grateful to have you here. And I have a question for you. Have you ever noticed what happens when you go to a big party? And I mean, it's one of those parties where you don't necessarily know everybody on the onset of arriving at the party. Now, what typically happens in these situations? Well, if you look closely, what starts to happen is you start to meet new people, right? You're introduced to people within the group, and you'll start to notice that groups of people within the big parties start to congregate together. People find their people within the big sea of people that are at the party. And then what happens, usually at the end of the night, people start to thin out, right? The, the party gets smaller and smaller. And what's left? Well, the group that kind of sticks around for the after party, right. There's an even smaller group that exists there. And then at the end of the night, when you've had this good time, if you're, if you've made it through the after party and you're meeting these people, there's usually then another step that comes in where you might actually exchange phone numbers, right? You might actually get connected to those people so that you can contact them again. And there's a similar phenomenon that happens when you start thinking about what it means in the world of online marketing. And I call this the party principle. And so if you think about it, social is like that big party. You've got these groups of people that come together. You're getting connected with people that you already know. Those people are engaging with you and exposing you to new people within their network, and those people are, oh, I like this business. I'm going to start following this business as well. And then you start to make this new group of people and expand your reach at this kind of big social party. And then if you think about the after party that's when you kind of bring these people closer to your business and you start to think of your email list. These are the people that join that list because they want to stay connected with you. And then there's the vip party, and those are the people that you even want to stay more closely connected with. And those are the people that want to stay even more closely connected with you and your business. And those are the people that join your text list. And so ultimately, what you should be thinking about as you are trying to grow your business and using online marketing, one piece of it is how you start to build that audience and bring people closer to your business. And so again, it starts with the biggest social party, the after party is that email list. You start to find those people that want to stay more closely connected with you, and then those people you want to treat extra special are on that vip or text list. And that's what I call the party principle. And so I just wanted to throw that out there so that you start thinking about what it is that you're trying to do when you're using these online tools. Ultimately, it's bringing people closer to you that matter to your business and taking control of those contacts so that you are able to connect with them when it makes sense. So you can influence whether or not they're one, thinking about your business, two, doing business with you again, or three, thinking about you when it comes time to refer somebody who's looking for something that you do. So that's the party principle. So always be thinking about how you can move the people from your social following closer to you through your email list, and even closer still through the text list. Well, friend, I can't wait for you to hear today's conversation with Chris and Mary Ginder, owners of Gindo's spice of life. The Gindos make handcrafted fresh pepper hot sauces unlike anything I've ever had. You actually taste an explosion of flavor from the fresh ingredients versus the heavy salt content typically found in many store bought brands. Now, if you're into hot sauces, you'll definitely want to check them out. And if you're into hearing from business owners that freely share what they've learned over the years, you don't want to miss this conversation. One thing I'd like you to pay particular attention to is when Chris explains how they tripled their sales in one year. The reason is somewhat of a theme that's been coming up with the other business owners I've been speaking with. So why did it all get started with the guindo's. Let's find out. I'd like to start by just hearing, kind of sharing how the business got started, because I feel like this is one of those kind of accidental businesses, if I understand that correctly. Chris, maybe you want to tell us the story.
Chris Gindo: I get the question all the time, and I sort of wish there was a better sort of story attached to it. But honestly, I woke up one day and it was like an epiphany. It was like I. There was. That was that Mothman prophecies where the guy was just, like, super obsessed all of a sudden, and it was like that with hot sauce. Like, I literally one day, my wife, I'm sure, can attest to this. I just sort of, like, was obsessed with it. And it was like, it just. It found me almost, and I was going crazy. I'm talking hours of, like, looking at different bottles and different packaging and different things and names and months spent on the logo.
Mary Gindo: We must have bought hundreds of hot sauces ourselves, like, just to make, like, see if you know this idea, because it did start out. He did make a sauce. And we were like, God, this is so good and simple and fresh and straightforward. And so we felt like, do we have something here really need to, like, try everybody's sauce and see if this. If ours actually is different and if it's as good as we believe it to be. And. And, yeah, it was nonstop.
Chris Gindo: I kept going back and forth to the hot sauce store and buying all these different hot sauces that were supposedly all completely different. And honestly, they all had the same three ingredients. They all tasted, in my opinion, mostly all the same, like, vinegar that was spiced up with some sort of an infusion and lots of salt.
Dave Charest: Yep.
Chris Gindo: And I remember asking Mary, I'm like, why doesn't someone do, like, bottle a fresh pepper version of this? Like, what you find at the farmers market the way we cook. And of course, I realize after years and years of trying to do it, why no one else is doing it like that. But I think ultimately it was worth it.
Dave Charest: Yeah. Well, so tell me a little bit about then, the background there. I mean, were you coming from a place where, like, what were you doing before you started this?
Chris Gindo: We were both kind of in the, in the. In the bar industry. We were managing bars and restaurants, and so food service was very part of our life, for sure.
Mary Gindo: We also had a very big passion for food and flavors. We were living in Los Angeles at the time, and we were fortunate to work in some really unique restaurants that had incredibly flavorful and experimental menus. We also had friends in the industry, so we got to eat at a lot of different places and experience a lot of different types of foods. And we love, love, love food. And we were never, the mission was never to cover up food or be like a thrill seeker sauce. It was more like, how do we complement foods with freshen peppers and sea salts and things like that?
Chris Gindo: In fact, the challenge then, and not so much these days, I don't think. But the challenge then was convincing chefs that this could accompany one of their dishes. Like, it was really, at the time, it was the backyard barbecue guy. It was the person who didn't really care about food, who just wanted to make it really super spicy, who might not have had a developed palate. So convincing these sort of three to four star restaurants that maybe this is something they could put on their menu. The chef was like, why would I do that? I would just make my own thing. I wouldn't use your sauce.
Dave Charest: Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting.
Chris Gindo: It was almost like we were creating a product without a market. Almost. At first, it was like two different people, sort of.
Dave Charest: Well, as you're saying that, I mean, as I mentioned, you can really taste that, right? It's not just like a cover up. It's like these really fresh flavors, which is amazing. And I think something really special, I think, was starting a business, something that you kind of always wanted to do or thought you would do at some point, or, like, how did we get here?
Chris Gindo: No, I think it was always in the back row, but more. More of a fantasy level than the reality level. More of like, oh, we should do this one day, or maybe I should do this one day, or, it would be really cool to own this kind of business.
Mary Gindo: We don't come from entrepreneurial backgrounds. He comes from lower income family on the east coast. I come from, you know, like, blue.
Chris Gindo: Collar family, hard working work, one job.
Mary Gindo: Nurse, and asphalt, like, so it was not something that we really had grown up in or really been around in our life. It just, like you said, it kind of came to us and we just dove in.
Chris Gindo: I mean, we do consider ourselves to be artists on certain levels. We were living in LA to pursue different dreams in that sort of world. So for me, it is a creative outlet, for sure. Like, the creativity and the coming up with the different flavors and the flavor profiles and even the designing of the labels and all that fun stuff does speak to me. The business part of it, we're constantly learning. We still take classes. We're still trying to learn all about that. We did not come from that part of the world at all. Luckily, managing bars and restaurants gave us a little bit of experience there, but as far as running a business and understanding that we had no experience in that at all.
Dave Charest: Yeah, I'm excited, actually, to talk more about that in a little bit. How did you end up in Illinois then?
Chris Gindo: You know, I married into it.
Dave Charest: Okay. All right.
Mary Gindo: I'm from Illinois, and we launched the business and officially sold our first case of sauce in 2011. And by 2015, we had gotten married and we had a daughter, and we were pregnant with our second daughter. And it was just getting harder to try and manage the business and the family and all of that in Los Angeles. And the cost of living was just skyrocketing. So we had to make a decision in 2015, where are we going to go? How are we going to do this? And it was, I guess, sort of like, what sacrifices are we going to make or like, what, or what doors are we going to open? How is this going to work for us? So we decided to come to Illinois not just because I'm from here, but also because Chicago is such a big, big food hub, and it's, you know, it's so central to so many things.
Chris Gindo: Also the potential for me to be actually be able to work with farmers and know the farmers and actually know that this is a good farmland area. Right. So if I can make relationships here and we can build our own facility and actually work directly with the people providing us with our ingredients, this would be a great place to do that. I really saw the potential in that early on. And so, yeah, we almost had like, a swot analysis up place we could live to and why we live there and whether or not we can make the business work there. And this had a lot, it circled a lot of things that we were looking for. The foodie culture was a big part of it, for sure.
Mary Gindo: And the sense of community. Really awesome.
Chris Gindo: Yeah, I love that.
Dave Charest: So definitely want to talk about community a bit later because I know that's an important, plays important role in what you all do. And I think also recognizing Chris, that, oh, these relationships that I can build with local farmers and all of that kind of thing is going to play a big role in your success and what you're going to do. I think that's something maybe somebody might not even think about, especially when getting started. Speaking of getting started, there's a few questions I have in here, but I'll start with what scared you about starting the business?
Chris Gindo: Well, I had absolutely no idea. It's hard to imagine a time where you could not just go to the Internet and get all your answers. I was cold calling different small businesses, trying to get help wherever I could go into farmers markets, meeting people. It took us two years just to figure out how to get this thing legally bottled. We knew we weren't just going to try to be like the farmer's market guy. We were actually going to try and get this thing in such a level where it was all above board and we could sell it to restaurants and stores and it would be compliant. And so what I realized, well, what's the gold standard? And at the time, the gold standard was Whole foods. So I would go take classes at whole Foods. I would ask, what's it take to get into Whole Foods? What do I need to do to get my product to a level where whole foods would accept my product? And so I focused my energy sort of there.
Mary Gindo: At the time, I was the one who was doing all of the legal aspect, trying to figure out how to become form a legal entity and how to start doing bookkeeping and how to, like, you know, get the labels and all of that stuff figured out. And it was extremely overwhelming because I was an english major in college, and I just didn't know, you know, financially and how to, like, you know, juggle all these new things and how to basically, you know, establish the business legitimately. So we both had our own things that we focused on, and we still continue to this day. You know, he's more the recipes and I'm more like the business side of things in marketing.
Chris Gindo: And then we collaborate, collaborate a lot on the creative, right? And so constantly sort of coming together on that part of it. But, yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. It was like literally, I mean, I'm talking calling up Tabasco to ask if they had advice for me.
Mary Gindo: I had no idea because this was like, yeah, like 2008, 2009 that this really, the idea started. You know, I said, we sold our first case in 2011, but it took like two, three years for us to just try to get to that point. And living in an apartment in Los Angeles, trying to rent a commercial kitchen to make it ourself was too challenging at the time. So we actually started the business with co packers, and we had two different co packers that were making the product for us. So it was high minimums.
Chris Gindo: And not only that, I had zero control over my product. I really was, you know, here you are writing checks for $15,000 and they're doing you a favor and making you realize that they're doing you a favor.
Dave Charest: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you mentioned Whole Foods. I mean, are you in Whole Foods today?
Chris Gindo: We are not. That's the irony of the situation.
Dave Charest: Is that something you're still trying to get to?
Chris Gindo: Not necessarily. We had had a couple different scenarios where they had reached out to us, wanted to get our product there. We fill out all the paperwork, and one thing led to another, and for whatever reason, they never actually put the po in.
Mary Gindo: At the time, we were self distributing, and we still are, to be honest with you. We're working on establishing a distributor here in Illinois now that we have our own manufacturing facility. But what happened was we trying to do it through a co packer was just so hard on us financially, and renting commercial space in LA was very expensive. And so when we moved to Illinois in 2015, we shifted everything, and he took back manufacturing, rented those commercial kitchens. We built relationships with local farms to get the ingredients locally. We made a decision to be fully committed to making it ourselves and not outsourcing it like the majority of other people do in this industry, because it is a very labor intensive, costly thing to do, all of the bottling and manufacturing.
Chris Gindo: And you mentioned community earlier. I guess I mentioned it initially, but that was the other thing. So we took it as an opportunity. Like, how can this business survive a move at this stage in the game from Los Angeles to the Midwest? What are the things that were working? What are the things we want to change? How are we going to approach our business? It was almost like we got to start over and diving into the community and becoming sort of immersed in that was a big part of it, for sure. Getting out and joining all the local chambers and trying to get back wherever possible. Coming up with different charities and different things like that were a big part of it.
Mary Gindo: So the whole Foods thing got set. We said, you know what? We don't want to try to just be in 500 stores. We want to build this from the ground up and really build, like, true, meaningful relationships with people and let people know, like, what the story behind the product before we get to that level of like, okay, we're in every store. Because right now it's more just making sure that we are establishing this commitment to quality and freshness and being able to produce the product that we want. And so the next phase is going to be getting into some of those more wholesale accounts and growing it in that retail level, because for now, it's really been.
Chris Gindo: For now. It was naive back then, back in ten years ago, you could have told me, we'll give you an account at Whole Foods. Seven years later, I realized that would have been a nightmare. We were not prepared. We didn't have any infrastructure in place for that. There's no way we could have pulled that off.
Dave Charest: Interesting, interesting. So how long before it became, like, this was the thing you're doing full time?
Mary Gindo: It was 2017. He was still working full time, bartending, managing, and we had an opportunity with a local organization, Fox Valley Entrepreneurial center. We were qualified for mentorship with this local, like, business support group, basically to help grow our business. We were actually. We had a family thing going on. My dad was sick, and I. We were helping family and all of that, and we were looking to buy a house. And we basically decided instead of buying the house, we put the money into the business, and he quit his job. And we dove right in full time, both of us, to the business. And it was sort of like a sink or swim.
Dave Charest: Trey, as you think back on and reflect a little bit on kind of what's been going on, like, you know, what has been the most challenging or scariest time for you with the business?
Chris Gindo: Oh, man.
Mary Gindo: Covid was one.
Chris Gindo: Yeah, that was a big one.
Mary Gindo: That was a big one.
Chris Gindo: I mean, I think we felt sorry for ourselves for about three days. Then we got together and had sort of a little meeting about, what are we going to do? This thing ain't going under.
Mary Gindo: How do we stay relevant? How do we let people know that we're still here, you know, because that was. I mean, we knew businesses that went under. You know, that was.
Chris Gindo: A lot of our friends were in restaurants, and they got hit really hard.
Mary Gindo: We have another couple who were hot sauce makers that had been in business almost as long as us, and they closed their business that summer. That was really sad.
Chris Gindo: Yeah. And, yeah, we just realized, what do we have going for us? Well, we have the ability to pivot. We have the ability to shift gears. What's it going to take? And we just started making moves.
Dave Charest: Yeah. You know, I know, Mary. We talked, may I think, of earlier in the year, and, you know, after that, and you talked about some of those things. But what. What would you say was the biggest thing that you learned during that Covid period?
Mary Gindo: I feel like community, connection, staying connected, and to me, just communication. And even though we couldn't all be together physically, just trying to connect to virtually was incredibly huge that we were able to do that in this time period. And I feel like that type of support that you were still able to give each other was instrumental in helping us get through it. I feel like.
Chris Gindo: Yeah, I just feel like the adaptability, to me, it gave us confidence to know that we could pivot, we could find a way that there is no just one wall that's going to be the end of us no matter what. We'll find a way around it or over it or under it. Humbling. I mean, obviously, our fans have been super supportive. I mean, we had people just ordering a dozen gift boxes just because they knew it would help keep us in business and stuff like that. And so it was really awesome.
Dave Charest: Yeah, that's amazing. Mary, one of the things you mentioned when we last spoke was just challenges with hiring. For example, where are you now in that world? Is hiring getting any better? Or how do you feel that went?
Mary Gindo: Gosh, when we talked in May, we were going through some major shifts. We had lost some people and had a couple people that started, and it was a very interesting time. I feel like we were still coming out of the COVID winter shutdown again, and we were getting ready, gearing up for our festivals and our summer markets and all of that. By about July, we actually were getting pretty slammed. We had kind of gone down to a smaller crew, and we were like, oh, my goodness, we can't handle this. So we actually brought on a couple people, and one of them being our kitchen manager now who's handling production. And that has been amazing, having somebody that's a strong role like that to give him support so that he can get out and work on sales or distribution. So that way he's not always just, like, stuck in the kitchen bottling, since he is, you know, the person, I feel like the strongest salesman of our group to be able to explain who we are as a company. And so we're at a. I feel like right now, heading into, you know, not knowing where things are going economically, we're not going to be hiring anybody at the moment. And, you know, we're looking at maybe like, four months down the line, maybe bringing on, like, two to three more people. We feel like that'll probably be about the time when we're ready to justify it again. I feel like right now we can hold steady not knowing what the world is going to be like in the next couple months, if there's going to be a recession at all. So we're just kind of. We want to make sure that we are able to employ the people that we have and keep everybody working.
Chris Gindo: We did get lucky. We got a couple fun sort of new hires, too.
Mary Gindo: Yeah.
Chris Gindo: The one lady had just opened a restaurant downtown, but it collapsed due to Covid. And so she was really immersed in the food world, so she was excited to come be part of our team. And. Yep, what's cool is because we're so small, it's not like you just have this one job where you're going to be like, you kind of got to be willing to sort of do a few different jobs. Yeah, we're a lot of. And so she seems to be pretty open to that. She helps with our social media. She helps package up online orders. Yeah, a little bit of office work.
Mary Gindo: Most everybody is cross trained in some way so that they can help out wherever it's needed.
Dave Charest: How big is the team?
Mary Gindo: We have ten people steadily and three or four seasonal people. Somebody else who just reached out that wants to try and join our team for farmers markets and festivals next year.
Chris Gindo: So it's small, depending on how you count, like full time and part time. But if you're talking just actual bodies, I think altogether there's about 14 of us.
Dave Charest: Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. You mentioned obviously moving into the new year, and we're looking at 2023, and there's fears of recession and inflation and all of that. And I know one of the things we were talking about was just having to figure out pricing and where you guys were at. And do you feel like you're at a good spot? Have you right sized where that needs to be?
Chris Gindo: We're getting there. I think we had to increase our price in a couple areas for the.
Mary Gindo: First time in twelve years this year.
Chris Gindo: Yeah. So on our eight ounce bottle, we had to go up 20% on that one, but I haven't. No one seems to be.
Mary Gindo: Everybody's been incredibly supportive about it. I mean, we're trying to keep it as reasonable as possible for what we do. And so we're, you know, we're aware of people's pocketbooks and we try to offer deals. I love to use constant contact for my newsletter and put out deals every month, you know, different types of promotions, because I do personally appreciate shopping for it, like, with a deal. So I always try to, like, be like, hey, you know, I know, you know, this is regular price, but we are offering this deal over here, so check it out. You know, for a limited time, where.
Dave Charest: Would you say you are now in terms of offline and online sales? Has that shifted online right now?
Mary Gindo: It's always up at this time of year. Really, the challenge is, like, getting it to be up all year round. Like, it goes, you know, it goes in waves. And one of the things that does help us is our hot sauce of the month club being able to offer, like, the monthly subscriptions for people that they can either prepay or they can pay as they go month by month. And so that helps us as far as planning for production for limited releases and things like that. It's an ever, you know, an ongoing challenge, keeping online revenue up, being a smaller company with other companies having much more, much higher funding for SEO and things like that to, like, be able to bury us. But we're doing everything we can to keep our name out there and keep growing our brand so that our online continues to grow because of the way.
Chris Gindo: We do our business, too. I think a yddeh a lot of our customers love to come see us in person. We do a lot of events in person. And so we noticed, obviously, after Covid, sort of the lockdown, if you will, kind of opened up a little bit. A lot of people that were ordering online started just making drives out to see us and come visit us at different things and different events we were doing or our store, different places we might be.
Mary Gindo: That, in and of itself has made me really realize this year that we are not putting ourselves out there enough online. And I feel like we're trying to do more with that, like, getting, like, our faces out there and talking to people kind of like we do at our markets for those that don't know us. Like, he's been doing these really great pepper short videos on our, like, Instagram and Facebook and TikTok because we got all these beautiful peppers from these local farms this fall. And it just kind of dawned on us that, like, we should be just doing, like, quick little videos about these peppers and getting him talking about them because, you know, like, when you hear him talk about them just on a day to day basis, you're like, whoa, I had no idea about that pepper. And then you, like, you know, get to try it in a sauce. It's awesome. But, like, to see him talk about.
Chris Gindo: It, we're going to start talking about our sauces like that as well. So hopefully, instead of having to drive all the way out to see us somewhere to hear us talk about it or have us explain it to you, hopefully, virtually you'll be able to do that also.
Dave Charest: I love that. I'm glad you're doing that. And it's funny when you think of to you, what might seem like somewhat inane, right? Like, but to a layman like me, it's like, oh, wow. Like, I mean, that's how I found out about the no heat habanero. I was like, wait, that's a thing? And I've been. I've been like, did you know that there are no heat habanero? Like, it's like, all because of that video, right? I'm like. I'm like the cool guy at the party now. Like, right? It's like, hey, guess what? So it's amazing. Yeah.
Mary Gindo: That's what's so fun about it. I mean, there, and I didn't even know, like, when we started this business how many different types of peppers there are. I mean, there, like, we got these komodo dragons and death spirals and armageddon and then, like the sugar rush cream peppers and the mad hatters and, like, all these different types of peppers that you just don't really think about. They're so awesome. And they all have their own subtle nuance of flavor.
Dave Charest: Amazing. So I want to talk a little bit because you guys have been getting into it somewhat, and then we'll get to kind of the marketing pieces in a minute. But, you know, when you start thinking about your goals for 2023, what are those conversations? Like, how do you do that? How soon do you start thinking about that and how specific do you get with those?
Chris Gindo: Honestly, we started really focusing on that last week, and today was our first meeting about it. We plan on getting very aggressive about it because we know we have pretty much hit it. We're at that level where we're ready to turn it on now. We put a lot of systems in place, then we just have to fine tune them. And once we get everything sort of fine tuned, we know we can grow. We can actually make this thing a little bigger. And so we want to really make sure that everything is ready to go. We're actually putting together our production schedule for the whole year, which will be.
Mary Gindo: First time we've done that. We've been winging it for so many years. We're really good at that.
Chris Gindo: What's Chris going to invent this week?
Mary Gindo: Right. Throw it together. So planning, that's what we're trying to focus on now, is being a bit more precise with our goals and with our plans and with the sauces that we're putting out and with the marketing behind that, being a little more strategic with it, coordinated with it, especially with the team that we have now, because that has become, you know, for the first time this year, having this many people working together, trying to make sure that everybody understands what's going on and that the communication is there and that the planning is there so that things work more smoothly.
Dave Charest: Speaking of that, you know, you mentioned a little bit, like, being involved in the community and, like, chambers and stuff like that. Like, who are the people you go to for business support and like to help with, like, the challenges that you may have?
Chris Gindo: We have. I have a sort of, what they. What do they call the BBX.
Mary Gindo: And it comes mainly from the local chambers of commerce. We're with the Batavia, the Geneva, the St. Charles, the Naperville, and the Oswego chambers of Commerce. And these are all different types of groups that we're able to reach out for, for different types of things. We're also a part of the St. Charles Business alliance. We actually received an award this year. They started honoring different businesses here in St. Charles, Illinois, for being a made in St. Charles company. We also got awarded a maid in Illinois, like, mentioned that we are a manufactured in Illinois company as well.
Chris Gindo: She mentioned the FVEC.
Mary Gindo: Yep. Which is called the Fox Valley Entrepreneurial center. And it's a local not for profit organization here that helps small businesses in any different capacity with different types of mentorship. We're part of an alumni group with that. That's great. I'm able to get together with other local business owners locally here and share challenges or successes together to help, like, support each other.
Chris Gindo: Another group that I did some. A little bit kind of fell apart over the last couple months. But the mastermind group that I was part of, and then also the charities, we try to. We make it really well known to everybody. We want to get involved with charities as much as possible. So we partnered up with those kids.
Mary Gindo: These are high school students that are about 20 miles north of us that started a group called Students Advocates for underserved children everywhere. Yep. And the acronym is sauce. So we developed a sauce for them.
Chris Gindo: So all the money from these three different sauces that I created all go to different charities that these kids support. Also the veterans or coats for veterans.
Mary Gindo: Yeah, we're taking coats for veterans here at the shop to donate at the end of December. And we are also. We've done. We've done different types of fundraisers. We've worked with Save animal organization for helping raise funds for their foster animals. You know, we do love being involved in all the different ways with the community.
Chris Gindo: I'm pretty easy, actually, if you have a good charity, I'm not getting.
Dave Charest: All right. I love it. So I know, you know, making sure people are not forgetting about kindos is an important thing for you. Both. And so let's just talk about, about that marketing for a bit. Right. How often are you working on marketing your business and what specifically are you trying to do?
Chris Gindo: Well, the newsletter is a big part of it. We seem to get the most response from our newsletters.
Mary Gindo: Really? Yeah.
Chris Gindo: But also, you know, we have weekly meetings for marketing with our small little team here as well. What's the Facebook look like? The Instagram, the TikTok, the Twitter, all that stuff.
Mary Gindo: We do have a schedule that we've managed to stick to pretty well these last few months where we've got different content going out each day. Like our make it Mondays. We always put a recipe out Mondays so that people can see how to use the sauce. And then we've been doing giveaways again just to kind of engage people and like, just like another fun way to get, give back to people that are, you know, that might be like, oh, I can't afford a $12 bottle of sauce. And so, hey, you know, we're going to do a giveaway. Just keep following us, keep trying to get involved and you could win one.
Chris Gindo: We were doing taste test Tuesdays where it would be me videotaping different people trying our hot sauces and the reaction to it. But we also want things to get stale, so we're constantly trying to kind of sort of change it and evolve it and make sure it's not the same thing every single time it comes in. It's always different.
Mary Gindo: And we also, too, because we do so many collaborations with local breweries and different small businesses, we also try to do, like, little, like, video features of, like maybe their store or their restaurant or, you know, just to kind of help share the content that, like, you know, that they can share them to their people.
Chris Gindo: And it's not even really about us. We try to make it about them. We call it featured friends, and it might be a restaurant that we work with or a farmer that we work with, and we go out and I videotape sort of their environment and help get our fans excited about what they're doing as well. So hopefully we have this big collaborative thing that we're all doing it together.
Dave Charest: I love that you do that. And that's one of the things that we're often, like, encourage people to do is get together with people in the community and figure out ways that you can collaborate to do that type of thing. And so. Well, I'm going to jump there now then. What is the role of community in your business from your perspective?
Mary Gindo: What is the role? It's a huge part of our business. Our mission statement is we make fresh pepper hot sauces designed to inspire creativity in the kitchen and support local farms and businesses. I mean, it's everything for us. I mean, we have our family we're raising here in this area, and we. It's our family, our business. Like, it all goes hand in hand. And our kids, friends, and other people that we meet, like, we're all about trying to build each other up. I mean, I love this area that we're in. When we were in LA, it's just so big and so many people, and it was so hard to try and find, like, your footing there. And, like, we came back here and. And it's a bit smaller. You know, you see a lot of the same people, which is just nice, you know, people's names, and you can, like, check in with people. And, you know, we get a lot of people that just, like, are in the neighborhood, and they're like, oh, come by the shop, and I'm gonna grab something for so and so.
Chris Gindo: And, you know, I saw you on Instagram yesterday. I thought I would drive out to this one of a kind show downtown.
Mary Gindo: Yeah. Come see you at an event or whatever. So it's just. It is everything. I feel like I don't. I don't think we could have our business without our community.
Dave Charest: Yeah. What would you say works best for you in terms of just raising awareness for the business?
Chris Gindo: Well, we're constantly working on that. We feel like that's one of our biggest areas that need to be improved. We feel like we've got a pretty good brand awareness in this area where we are, but finding a way to sort of expand that is one of our challenges moving into the next year, for sure.
Mary Gindo: Just kind of like what we said, like, when we do events and we get to talk to people face to face and share, like, what it is we're doing, it's so great. And it's so awesome to see people's reactions when they try the sauce for the first time. And so trying to, like, translate that into this, like, digital world and getting people excited about something and wanting to, like, go online and order and try us out for the first time, that's something that we're trying to navigate all the time and especially right now, like, trying to figure out how to, like, let people know that we are a small business, a family owned business. We're using fresh peppers. We're handcrafting this product. We care about everything that goes into this, and we really want this to be the best sauce you've ever had. We want you to be like, oh, my goodness. These are the ones I want to stick with this company. It's something that we're constantly working on.
Dave Charest: Yeah. So it sounds like when you're thinking of, obviously offline, right. All of these local events, all of these face to face things are really important when it comes to thinking just on the online side of things, what's working best for you in terms of actually driving sales?
Mary Gindo: The newsletters that we put out are consistent. Whenever we take that time and put together a newsletter and get it out, we're aiming for, like, you know, two times a month now. I've actually finally got some support with that. I have somebody who's working part time, she works from home, and she's, she's done my last few newsletters that have been just beautifully laid out for the holidays. You know, we're always growing our subscriber list, but we have, like a 48% open. You know, we've got, like, good return on those. It's just amazing to see, see people excited to, like, open up our newsletter.
Chris Gindo: We're constantly trying to the other areas of it as well. To be honest with you. I wish I knew the answer to that. I don't know the right answer. We keep trying different things. I mean, truth be told, I don't actually think there's anyone else in the world doing what we're doing and getting the message. To know that, to understand that and to find us is one of those things. I have no background in the online marketing. We're trying to figure that out as well, and we're constantly trying to improve that as much as possible.
Mary Gindo: So. Yeah, and to that end, so we're using things like constant contact for our newsletter, and then we're using social media, and then I'll sometimes share the Constant contact newsletter to the social media platform or I'll pull aspects of it. You know, we did start putting out, like, a QR code for people to just be able to sign up right away, you know, at an event. So it's easy to just, like, scan it and then sign up for our newsletter because I'm like, hey, we have all these things coming out. New hot sauce every week, hot sauce of the month club, you know, special sauce is coming out every Christmas. Follow us. You know, check it out. Come along for the ride.
Dave Charest: When it comes to constant contact, what would you say is your favorite feature of constant contact?
Mary Gindo: It's just so easy. I mean, it's just like, it's just so, like, I'm not a tech person at all. I am not like, you know, I did, I. This is like, I'm all self taught, like, with label design and all of that. And so, like, constant contact is just so easy. Like, I usually, what I'll, what we tend to do is we kind of pick up, create, like a layout, and then we copy it, and then we just change everything out again. And it's so simple and like, you know, the girl that's doing it for us now, like the one, she's able to just go in and see all the stuff that we've done and be able to. She's super excited. She just realized that we can connect all of our products, and so we're going to be doing that now. So it's easier for people if they want to order from the newsletter.
Chris Gindo: It's more her wheelhouse. But I can tell you as someone who's sitting there and talking to her about different things that are going to go on the newsletter.
Dave Charest: Yeah.
Chris Gindo: Fact that there's actually support and she's able to get ahold of somebody.
Mary Gindo: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Chris Gindo: Answers when she needs to find them. There were other scenarios. We didn't start with constant contact. This is far superior than what we were doing before, I can tell you that.
Dave Charest: I love to hear that. Well, it's always important to us. I mean, it's one of the reasons why we're doing this show, too, to help other customers and do all that, and it's important for us. One of the things, I've been a constant contact for eleven years now, and one of the things that really keeps me here, too, is obviously the people that I work with. But the fact that we're all really excited to help small businesses get to that next and make progress, and so it's great to hear that. So I appreciate that. Interesting how? I mean, a pandemic will do that for you sometimes, right when that's like, you're one. The rebirth of QR codes, those were gone and it was like that was the only way you could look at a menu. And then two, it's like, oh, the only way we have to communicate with people is actually sending this email out. So it's amazing how that had really accelerated quite a few things. When you think back to advice that you've been given over the years, what is the best piece of marketing advice you think you've received?
Chris Gindo: Well, I got this from actually one of my, it's funny, we were just talking about one of our co packers. Butch did give me great advice early on, and he said it's all about connections. And so you need to know in this world, if you're going to succeed that every person you meet could be your next best connection. And so make sure you conduct yourself that way.
Mary Gindo: And we also really try to impart that on our team, too, like when they're going out and working events, you know, you represent our company and you need to be, you know, you need to be putting your I best foot forward no matter who you're talking to. Like any, any disgruntled employee can or not employee, any disgruntled customer can turn out to be your most loyal fan if you talk to them right and with respect and treat them, you know, the right way.
Chris Gindo: So that's another advice from somebody who once told me that everything about you is, is part of your marketing, which I thought was interesting. And so that's like, from the way you dress, from the car you drive, to the way you talk to people, to the way you respond to issues, to every single thing, your email you send, it's all part of your marketing. Just to know that that's all encompassing, that everything about you is part of your brand, it's good.
Dave Charest: I love to hear you one. I think recognize that I talk a lot about this idea of experience and particular for small businesses. It's like you've got this opportunity to really create these amazing interactions with people. And I love that you're talking about making sure your staff understands that because I'm sure we've all experienced when you go and, like, the person's at a caboose or at something and looking at their phone and not paying attention to people, and it's like, come on. Right? And there's such a huge advantage, too, particularly when you think of the big box people these days are trying to pull people out of that scenario. And it's like you're checking out your own items, you're bagging your own things, and, and it's like, look, I'm one of those people that I'm like, okay, I'd rather be in my house and not have to deal with people. But, like, if I have to go out, I want to deal with people, and I want that to be a pleasurable experience. Right? It's like, it's just small businesses, and it sounds like what you're trying to build there is that right? And so I'm happy to hear that.
Chris Gindo: We're lucky we have people call us and tell us, hey, your employee was texting all shift long. I know that's not part of your brand, but I think that's a testament to what we've done. Someone knows they need to call and tattletail on this part of our event, you know?
Mary Gindo: Yeah, talk to that person and it was a miscommunication. It's fine.
Dave Charest: And no one knows where that person is anymore.
Mary Gindo: No, but it is true. I mean, like, you know, and there's people that conduct themselves even worse and from other companies. And so like that, that was like the only thing that they were, you know, we, and we handled that right away and addressed it and let everybody know this is not how you handle yourselves. Like, I think that's one of the biggest things, is that everybody just, if you're out and about, like, you know, even if you don't really want to be talked to by somebody, you at least just want to be seen and, you know, you can at least say hello and at least just greet people. A friendly hello goes a long way, in my opinion. Or have a spicy day.
Dave Charest: Well, friend, I hope you were inspired by that conversation as much as I was. There were so many things to pull from there. I'm just going to highlight a few things that I found valuable and stood out to me. One of those is that just relationships are so important to what it is that you do as a small business owner, as a small business marketer. And often those relationships are the key to your success or helping you reach a new level. So keep that in mind. The other thing is, there are so many resources available out there for you today. Take advantage of those so you can figure out how to overcome some of the challenges you may be experiencing. Look for those opportunities to connect with other business owners. Listen to this podcast on a regular basis. Connect with other constant contact customers as well. I'm sure they'll be happy to speak with you. And lastly, create a schedule for your marketing so that you can be consistent and not fall behind on keeping your business. Top of mind. If there's an action item out of all of this for you here today, I would say right now, take a moment and make a list of some non competitive local businesses you could collaborate with. Reach out to those businesses and then look for ways that you could support each other so that you're gaining more exposure for both of your businesses. Of course, this will help you both in the end. So, friends, as always, be sure to reach out and let me know how it goes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. If you have questions or feedback I'd love to hear from you. You can email me directly at dave dot charestonstantcontact.com. if you did enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. Well friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.