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On this week's Influential Barbecue, I chat with Chris Sussman, the person behind The BBQ Buddha and author of The Four Fundamentals of Smoking, about why he believe they key to success is providing value and not making everything about yourself.
A weekly podcast focused on talking to influencers in the barbecue industry, uncovering how they’ve cultivated huge followings, unique income sources, and sponsorship possibilities from a love of cooking over fire. Hosted by Jordan Moore of @thebackyardbrisket
002 Providing Value with Chris Sussman of The BBQ Buddha
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[00:00:00] Voiceover: You're listening to influential barbecue, the podcast where we talk to influencers in the barbecue industry to uncover how they've cultivated, huge following unique income sources and sponsorship possibilities from a love of cooking outdoors. If you want to turn your passion for food and fire into a world of opportunities, you're in the right place.
[00:00:23] And now your host, Jordan Moore.
[00:00:29] Jordan: Hello. Welcome to influential barbecue. This is so exciting. This is my first full episode of influential barbecue. I've been working on this for quite some time now, and I'm just so excited to finally get it out and into the world. If you're asking yourself. Is influential, barbecue and Clint, the super voice actor.
[00:00:48] Didn't answer that question for you in the intro. Check out this trailer episode episode 0 0, 0. I go into a bit of a deep dive on what prompted me to start this show. Why I want to do. And what I hope that this could evolve into for the first episode of this show, I sat down with Chris Sussman, also known as the barbecue Buddha.
[00:01:10] Chris recently released his first book, the four fundamentals of smoking, which is a great cookbook for beginners and intermediate. So like he runs barbecue classes, barbecue popups around his area, creates educational content on YouTube and he pretty much does it all. Pretty in-depth about growing yourself and your brand by shifting your focus away from yourself and putting more energy into providing value to your audience.
[00:01:34] But Chris says it much better than I do. So let's get into my conversation with the BBQ, Buddha
[00:01:50] hello, and welcome to influential barbecue today. Chris Sussman of the barbecue Buddha. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:01:57] Chris: Glad to be on. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:00] Jordan: So just to get things rolling, um, for anyone who doesn't know who you are, would you mind giving us some info on who you are and what you do and what you're all about?
[00:02:08] Chris: So as introduced, my name is Chris. Susman otherwise known as the barbecue Buddha. I'm a block. Um, barbecue influencer. I'm a member of the big green egg pro staff. And I worked with my sponsors, dizzy pig, lobster, anywhere, and snake river farms to help promote their products. Oh, and I'm also an author as of April of 2020.
[00:02:34] My book is available now just in time for Christmas, everybody
[00:02:38] Jordan: still getting used to putting that one into the list. Yeah,
[00:02:40] Chris: I know. It's like I should lead with I'm an author and then I'm all this other stuff, but our, yes,
[00:02:47] Jordan: you'll get there eventually. So how did you come up with the name, the barbecue you Buddha?
[00:02:52] Chris: So, uh, in college I was a philosophy, major philosophy and political science, you know, young strapping lad, trying to change the. And, um, I got very interested in Eastern philosophy stuff like Taoism and Buddhism. And I've always toyed around with that. Try to put things of that nature into my life from a spiritual and a mindfulness perspective.
[00:03:16] Um, but I always wrestle with, you know, how far I could take it. And my wife is one night was like, well, why, why do you always struggle with this? And I said, well, I can't do the vegetarian thing. I'm committed to my barbecue journey and those spiritually, this stuff talks to me. Um, I'm not ready to give up cooking meat and all that stuff.
[00:03:35] And she says, well, what, what, is there any reason why you can't do both? Just be the barbecue Buddha, right. Thus the journey began. That's how the name. Yeah,
[00:03:44] Jordan: that's awesome. So you kind of combined your existing passion and kind of a new passion that you discovered together and made it into one collective thing.
[00:03:52] Chris: Yeah. And really it's, it's kind of synonymous for what I do or what I like to fancy myself. You know, I'm, I have a big personality, but I'm not so much personality driven, like your Canadian brother and the dark side of the grill. And some of the people that are really blowing up right now, all over, uh, Instagram.
[00:04:11] I really fancy myself, a teacher and a guide. So what, what for me drives my boat was social media and my posts and the work that I do. As helping other people discover that passion and follow the path. So, you know, really barbecue. Buddha came as the thing is very personal to me, but now it's a thing it's sort of a mantra.
[00:04:31] If you will. I like taking people on this journey and showing them things and learning with them and really helping them develop this passion. Barbecue first, but really food and cooking overall. I
[00:04:42] Jordan: love that it's more of an experience and not just create the Chris Sussman show. Right. You're giving people other things to feel and learn at the same time, rather than just cooking.
[00:04:51] Right. And if,
[00:04:51] Chris: if, if my personality shines through, uh, through all the work that I do. Gravitate towards me as a person and as a personality. Great. I considered that as a bonus, but I never wanted to really lead with, Hey, here's me and my shtick. And oh, by the way, I cooked this thing I really wanted, I really wanted to make it about the people and the followers as opposed to making it.
[00:05:14] Jordan: Can you take me through kind of your progression? How did you get started with barbecue and how did you then end up becoming someone who's doing courses and catering and then an author. How did that kind of go from a to Z
[00:05:27] Chris: interesting journey? So, uh, you know, I'll, I'll give a quick elevator pitch. If it gets too long, we're on video.
[00:05:33] Hopefully won't be showing it to the people listening, but just give me the hook and. Yeah, I had the luck of grown-up in a restaurant family. My father who's since passed, was a restaurant tour and owned steak houses. And it was kind of a blessing and a curse thing as a kid growing up because during the school year, I was the coolest kid in school because my dad and my mom were never around.
[00:05:55] They were always at the restaurant. So after football practice and after high school, everybody would be at my house causing trouble. But during the summers, when all of my friends would be away at the beach and having fun, my dad would put me to work. So I have. Uh, you know, the first chapter in my life was the restaurant business.
[00:06:10] I've worked every position in the kitchen, on the floor, bartender manager, all that stuff when it comes to. So that's really my passion for food and the food service industry began. My passion for barbecue. My grandparents lived about three hours south of us in the Washington DC area. That's where I'm originally from.
[00:06:28] And whenever we would drive down there, we would always, my dad would make a beeline for this place called them. Pierce's pit barbecue, which is still there. And they're famous for their book. And, uh, we would always get this pulled pork sandwich and I'm seeing my daddy would love to put the coleslaw on the pulled pork sandwich and get an ice cold Dr.
[00:06:44] Pepper. And that started my affinity for barbecue. I just was hooked. I would go home and try to recreate the barbecue sauce on the weekends, but I never really did barbecue with my dad. So fast forward to my adult life. Now I have children, uh, I, my career originally was it. I was an ITA executive and the way I found stress relief was cooking, you know, in the backyard, like most of us, um, mostly weekend warrior stuff.
[00:07:10] Cause you know, when you're young and your career, you're working late at night and you usually carry out fast food as we can do for dinner, you a hundred percent, but cooking on the weekends. And I discovered Steven Raichlen's book, barbecue USA and was enamored and I immediately went out and got a Weber.
[00:07:26] Smokey mountain was my first smoker was the first thing I got away from the gas grilling. And after I did that for several years and got really good at smoking and then sort of honed my craft and started learning. What would eventually become the barbecue Buddha? Uh, I was in the mode of a new grill, but the, the, I love the Weber smokey mountain, but it has some limitations in particularly cooking in cold weather.
[00:07:50] Um, so I didn't like the fact that I could cook half the year and not half a year. So that led me to research and I discovered the big green egg and in the early mid two thousands, like 2009, 2000. I bought a big green egg. And then, Hey, we're coming to the end of the, your question or the answer to your question here.
[00:08:07] And a couple of years later, if it cooking on big green egg, this was before anybody was doing social media stuff. Facebook was still new. Instagram hadn't come out yet. Um, my space was dead at this time and I would randomly on Facebook, uh, post pictures of steaks and stuff that I'd be cooking on the big green egg.
[00:08:24] And it started catching people's attention. And then 2011, my daughter. Who was still in high school at the time was like, have you seen this new thing called Instagram? I signed up for Instagram. And then of course, like everybody else, it was mostly like an extension of Facebook. I would just be posting family pictures of vacation pictures, and then the occasional, Hey, I cook this on my big green egg.
[00:08:45] And I would notice when I would do that, they'd pop off. Uh, people wanting to start getting followers and people start interacting with me. And then, then I just really got into that. That's a couple of years later, a few years later there was 2011 and by 2014 on really built a little online community and had a couple thousand followers.
[00:09:05] I thought I was Mr. Somebody. And, um, and, uh, I came up with the name, rebranding myself, started a blog and it was slow going at first, but it really started picking up steam a couple of years after. So that's the first piece of advice to anybody is just keep at it. You know, there is no magic button. There is no, you know, on, you know, easy button lagging the staples commercials.
[00:09:28] It is a lot of hard work and tenacity and like everything else, creative, you have to be willing to change yourself and take a lot of criticism and just keep on. So that's, that's the long answer to your short question. I love
[00:09:43] Jordan: it. And if you want even more details, there's some in Chris's book, the four fundamentals of smoking that you can go buy almost anywhere
[00:09:49] Chris: that you buy stuff.
[00:09:50] It's true. And you can find it. My website, the barbecue, buddha.com. You can actually have me autograph it or sign it for you. So that's, that's an added bonus.
[00:10:00] Jordan: So you mentioned in your journey there near the end that you had to really figure out how to deal with criticism. And I guess haters as people call them today.
[00:10:10] What do you do to kind of get through that? Because I know a struggle for a lot of people is if they post something and it doesn't land, people start criticizing you, especially with tick-tock. Now they just gang up on posters all the time. Like how do you kind of deal with that and shut that out and not let it take the wind out of your say.
[00:10:26] Well take
[00:10:26] Chris: talks the worst. I am. There's a lot of trolls everywhere, but I have never seen trolling, like there isn't Tik TOK. And the thing with Tik TOK too, is it's so fast and it's, so it, to me, the thing that I don't like about tick-tock the thing I love about Instagram is it really gives you a feeling of community and the people that are looking at you.
[00:10:45] I really feel they're either an extension of my community or in my followup. It's basically, we all share the same passion we're in tick-tock I think just random people end up seeing what you see and then they'll just start unleashing stuff. So my thing, my daughter always cracks up because when she reads all my stuff and, and, and we'll see, you know, some of the haters come out on some of the posts and she always cracks up because I just say, thank you, somebody like Levy's criticism to me.
[00:11:13] I just diffuse it by saying, thank you. Now they really. There's a couple of people in my life that, you know, I'll say, thank you. Most people just go away, but we'll just keep coming back with that Ramoni and really negative energy. And eventually I'll just block them or delete their comment off the feed.
[00:11:29] But, you know, life is hard enough, you know, if you start listening to the track, Then you spend too much of your emotional energy trying to serve people that already have stated they don't like you anyway. So move on. Right? That's a
[00:11:42] Jordan: great piece of advice because you know, you're never going to meet those people.
[00:11:45] They're just causing hate. Cause they either just don't like what you're doing or don't understand what you're doing and yeah, they already don't like you. So why are you trying to fix that and bring them back over there? It's just not worth your energy. Put it into building something positive again for somebody else.
[00:11:59] Right. And
[00:11:59] Chris: if I was a professional chef, I'd be working in a restaurant, I would be able to have gone to cooking school. I, you know, I'd be doing that. I'm a, I'm a home chef. I'm a home pit master. I mean, I'm a little more than that now because of what I've been doing the last four or five years, but still I'm the thing that I want everybody to know.
[00:12:16] And that I, that I hope that I convey is, Hey, I'm on this journey with you. This is the thing that I think. You know, and this is how I did it, and this is what I learned by doing it. Sometimes it turns out great. Sometimes they'll say, Hey, I overcook this or I could've done this better. And then I iterate and get a better, but really the thing for me is sharing the journey and a shared passion.
[00:12:38] Hey, I'm at the top of the mountain already. Look at me, look at me. It's like, Hey, we're all together. Climbing the shared mountain. Let's all share what we're doing together and how we're doing it because we have a passion for learning how to cook or barbecue or fill in the blank.
[00:12:52] Jordan: Yeah. And that goes back to your point on Instagram, being more of a community, because I see that everywhere.
[00:12:57] You know, if, if people are willing to tell their processes, show their failures and show their growth, everyone kind of rallies behind you and we all help each other on the Instagram. To get to where we want to be. We share advice, we share accounts and it's just, it really is a sense of community. There were Tik.
[00:13:12] TOK is just a cesspool. It's like YouTube comments. Now
[00:13:18] Chris: this may or may not be good fodder for a podcast, but Tik TOK is my favorite thing. To look at when I'm sitting down on the tool. It's like, if you really want to like, just like, you know, blank your mind out while you're doing your thing for 10 minutes, just scrolling through all the shit on Tik TOK is good, but I never really get a sense of.
[00:13:38] Learning, even though you can learn some stuff, we'll take targets more. I find me Tik TOK and my friends that are on Tik TOK for my family. It's more like I see a really funny video and I forwarded it to somebody like, Hey, look at this really funny video. It's very infrequently that I'm interacting with somebody that created content or made something that I want to know or.
[00:14:00] Or an Instagram, you know, to me, that's still, you know, you curate your own fee. You know, I, I see what I, I look at unlike Facebook, which is everybody's opinions on Instagram, this is what I like. This is where I look at. It's curated for me. And then you build friends and community that, uh, all. You know, mostly the similar stuff and you don't get all the other stuff that becomes a distraction or causes anger or, or, or bickering back and forth.
[00:14:28] Jordan: Right. And it's all about just, you know, this was supposed to be fun. So we got to keep the stress low. There's no need to get into stuff like that. Right. Right. Um, so you mentioned, you know, you used to just be a little bit of a chef and now you do so many things. How do you balance, you know, the Instagram community.
[00:14:45] I see you do some courses here and there you do catering. Now you're writing books and I'm sure there's other things that I don't know that you're up to, but how do you balance those things and how did really, how did you decide to do all these different things?
[00:14:58] Chris: It comes over time. I mean, the best thing about, you know, a side hustle like Instagram or cooking for living in a.
[00:15:06] Stuff is there's all these things like podcasts and writing books and a blog. And there's all these sort of things that you do. So you're not one thing, you're all these things. And if you get enough of an audience, if you relate with enough people, eventually you could start monetizing some of these things.
[00:15:25] And for me, it all was like, most of us, it wasn't for money in the beginning. Right. And it was for the love and the passion of it. And, and, and now. Because of that, I'm able to monetize some of the things, but I'm really honest with my audience. I don't, I very infrequently and I have made a concerted effort to stop.
[00:15:45] And I just taking anything, either freebies or, you know, your quick hit for money in order to promote a product that you may or may not like just to make the money. I really whittled myself down to a few sponsors whose products I really believe in. And, and I'd like the relationship. So diversification is the biggest thing.
[00:16:04] You have a, you know, a little money farm over here with a blog and you have a little money farm over here with Instagram, and then you do these side gigs. I just moved to Florida from Louisville, Kentucky four months ago. So I'm rebranding myself or re localizing myself here, um, to get the gigs. And I actually have my first public gig here.
[00:16:23] This Saturday, I'm doing a pop-up. At a local restaurant called Stella's in Gulf port and a book signs. That's fun. And, uh, you know, hopefully by this time, next year I'll be doing farmer's markets and catering and barbecue classes in the backyard. It's just, it's fun. Sharing the passion and getting to know people that want to learn.
[00:16:43] Jordan: So for any listeners that might be interested in doing some classes or cooking for people, or, you know, posting up at a farmer's market and cooking some stuff. How do you go about tracking that stuff down? Like who are you reaching out to? For a location to do it. What do you kind of need in place to do little catering, things like that, or sell your food at a farmer's market or anything like that?
[00:17:07] Cause I think a lot of listeners would like, we all love to cook for people, but it's hard when you're just in your backyard doing it yourself. So how do they can, how can they branch out and find things like that? First
[00:17:18] Chris: of all, I know I started this podcast by saying I'm not a big personality. If you know me in real life, I'm a gigantic personality because I like people.
[00:17:27] I'm a people person. I like talking to people. And so I'm a hard person to stop. So when I'm out and I'm out and about, and a meaning, people are a map. Farmer's markets. It's really easy for me to. Talk to people and get to know people and build relationships. And I'm also lucky that now I have enough of a following and I'm an author and all that stuff.
[00:17:48] So there's a bit of legitimacy behind me, you know, but to, to answer the question for anybody just hustle, that's where the, the, the side hustle thing, the big word is hustle, right? So hustling is just, you, you talk it up, you know, and so for me, Really at the beginning of all this stuff, I just sort of was this person that I ultimately became, but I was this person before I became that.
[00:18:13] So I just would lead with confidence and know I was good in front of people. No, I could teach. No, I can build relationships. And most important thing is goal congruency. If you are aligning your, if you're doing it just so you can have your five minutes in the sun, you're not going to get. But if you're aligning yourself with your sponsors, with the people at the farmer's market, with the catering trucks, you know, fill in the blank and you're making it a win-win for both parties, then everything just sort of falls into place at some, you know, at the beginning, I would do these things for free or for.
[00:18:46] Just to get my name out there and then you promote it. And then people are like, oh, I want to do that too. And then it just sort of builds on itself, but there is no answer to this. Other than hustle call people, meet people at the farmer's market. Ask how they got started. They'll tell you, go to the person at the chamber of commerce.
[00:19:03] Talk to this person, call them up, go get your health licensed, find a shared kitchen. Do all these things. That compose the hustle of the side hustle, and then you'll start getting these gigs and once you get them, then you break the ground and now you're not nervous. And then you've got the infrastructure, the licensing and all that stuff in place to do more and more.
[00:19:24] That's
[00:19:24] Jordan: that's great advice. Cause yeah, I think, you know, just getting out and talking to people is the biggest. But for some reason, I feel like a lot of people keep their ideas a secret, and they don't want to ask people for fear that they're going to spread the news that this person's planning, this big thing.
[00:19:38] When in reality, everyone out there wants to help you succeed. They want to give you the information that they have to get you to where you need to be, because if they were going to steal your idea, they would already be doing it. You know? So it's, it's no, it's not beneficial to you to hide your idea and sit inside thinking, oh, I really want to do this.
[00:19:56] Just get out there, ask some people. And then if you ask the wrong person, they'll probably tell you the right person to ask. So you just got to get it.
[00:20:03] Chris: Yeah. And you'll run into some people that are protective and don't want to share that information with you. And, you know, it's just like Instagram. That's not the person you're going to interact with very much.
[00:20:12] Right. So new home. But in my experience, you found most people that are. Really welcoming and want to help you succeed. And they want the comradery. And the other thing is, and I learned very early in my life, and this is advice that's worked for me. And I'm hoping it's great advice for you and your listeners.
[00:20:30] Um, but that is if you aim for perfection all the time, if you plan, you know, it's like paralysis through analysis. If you wait until you get to be perfect, if you wait until you have 5,000 followers or 10,000 followers, if you wait and told this thing, For you start to do the thing you desire. You're always gonna find a reason not to do the thing that you desire.
[00:20:52] So get out of that mindset. I have to be perfect. I have to, I have to have all of my ducks in a row before I attempt this thing I'm passionate about and allow yourself to be vulnerable because everyone makes mistakes. But Hey, guess what the difference is, you're the one that took the opportunity to do it.
[00:21:10] And all those other people are still wishing they could do it. And that's what sets me apart. And, and I hope this advice helps you and your followers set them apart. You fail, sometimes you succeed sometimes, but if you keep us, then you're going to go in the right here.
[00:21:27] Jordan: Yeah. And if you screw up, you're relatable now you're not suddenly on a pedestal as this person who's, you know, unattainable or uncontactable you now, you're just, you can start a dialogue with even more people.
[00:21:38] If you show vulnerability, if you screw something up and laugh it off, because that that's stronger than being perfect at everything. Nobody likes someone who's just does everything perfect. Because you can't work with those people. Yeah,
[00:21:50] Chris: it is perfect. Even the people that seem perfect, they have their issues, right.
[00:21:55] So that's, uh, it's, that's always worked well for me. Don't be afraid to try.
[00:22:01] Jordan: I love it. So I just wanted to say, I just saw on your story that your first run of your book sold out completely and you had to order more so big. Congratulations on that. Thank you.
[00:22:12] Chris: It's uh, it's been a really interesting journey.
[00:22:14] I had, uh, a friend of mine, not even in the barbecue business. I had a buddy of mine that lives out in the Pacific Northwest and they were in with their wife shopping at cabana. And there was a big end cap with my book all on. And he was like, holy crap, dude, during Kybella is, this is so cool. And he took a picture and, uh, you know, stuff like that I think is really cool.
[00:22:33] The book is, you know, it's not number one best seller by any means, but it's selling nationally internationally. And, uh, it's doing pretty well there. I'm in talks with them. Now we haven't signed the paperwork, but about doing a second book. I'm
[00:22:45] Jordan: happy about that. That's so cool, man. Congratulations on that.
[00:22:48] How did it come to be that you wrote a book? Where did that start? Well,
[00:22:53] Chris: kind of when you, hopefully some of your own into labor relate with this kind of, when you start to build a following and get attention, you'll get a bunch of opportunities and, uh, you know, for all sorts of stuff, I've had a bunch of near misses for TV shows and all that kind of stuff.
[00:23:08] Um, and book one comes up most often, but all the early book deals that I got offered, really, they had the script already like, Hey, here's the book we want written, you know, here, here are the recipes we want created. Here's the outline we want. We just need you to do the work. So essentially they're hoping they could get a blogger in somebody that has a following to just fill in the blanks, right.
[00:23:30] Produced this word. And I never wanted to do that even just to say, Hey, now I'm an all. Because it wasn't me. So it was oddly enough, right before COVID blew up around the world. I started talking to this company page street publishing. They reached out to me and said, we really like your writing. We like your voice on Instagram.
[00:23:50] We think you'd have something to say, what are some ideas that you have for a book? And if one of them sticks, then we'll do a deal. So I pitched a bunch of ideas once. Um, you know, it's, there's no easy button for that either. They didn't just say, okay, here's a bunch of money and go write a book. I had to write a sample chapter.
[00:24:08] I had to go back and forth with the, uh, the table of contents until the editor, uh, and the publisher and I were on the same page. And then that's when the deal fell into place of literally. Two weeks before the world went on this bagel cock down in March of 2020. I signed that deal. And oddly enough, it was a good thing for you, for me with COVID because now that I'm stuck at home and I can't do the pop-ups and the, and the catering and all this other stuff, I really was able to put a lot of focus into the book, but all that book is all made.
[00:24:39] It was all my ideas. I did all the photography. Um, it lock stock and barrel. That book is a hundred percent pre-assessment. So I was really
[00:24:47] Jordan: proud of that work. That's great. Cause the book looks amazing. I, I read through it. I did your pork belly recipe the other day. And what I like about that book, especially.
[00:24:57] You do more than one recipe for certain types of meat. Like a lot of cookbooks out there have here's the one pork rib I do. And then I went to yours and I think you've got five different pork rib recipes in there, right. In a row. I'm like, oh, there's a way I can do more, do this more than one way, which is awesome.
[00:25:12] So I don't need to flip through six books to find one rib recipe that I want, which is a lot of
[00:25:18] Chris: fun. And some people who picked up on this too, is a lot of the sauces I use on the ribs. People. Tag me and say, I use this sauce on chicken wings, or I use the sauce on such and such. So that's been a fun thing too.
[00:25:30] I like, you know, I liked the smoking and the cooking, the meat aspect, but I also really like working on sauces and flavors that are different than your usual barbecue. And, uh, I'm glad people got a lot out of
[00:25:42] Jordan: that. Yeah. It's great. Are you able to tell us a little bit in depth, the process of writing the book?
[00:25:48] Because I think a lot of people kind of romanticize the idea, like, Hey, I want to write a cookbook someday. I want to be an author. I want to do what I'm doing and put it in a binding in a book and sell a book to people. And it sounds easy when you say it out loud, like I'm just going to write a cookbook.
[00:26:03] I cook all the time anyways, but like what's truly involved in that process.
[00:26:09] Chris: A big question and I'll answer it, hopefully concisely. Um, but you know me, I've already answered your short questions with long answers. So. Uh, well, first of all, it's a lot of work and the first mindset that you got to get out of, and this holds true with a lot of the advice I've already given to you and to your listeners is you got to stop, especially with the book, you got to stop making it about you and you have to make it about the reader.
[00:26:36] So the biggest thing I can give anybody advice in this translates to social media as well is to have empathy, have the ability to put yourself in the person's shoes. That you're writing for that you're creating content for and sell them on the, so what, so if you really notice in the book, I'm speaking to you, the individual saying, Hey, here are all the things I've learned.
[00:26:57] Here are the questions I get, what I'm doing. And here are the things that I've found that helped the people at the most of you really want to learn to improve your game. Here's how you do. And, and, and fill in the blank. So that was a big thing because once you have your moment in the sun, the very first iteration of my introduction in the book is me, me, me, me, me, I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this because we're all my OPIC in that view of our life.
[00:27:20] Right. We're individuals. So that's first thing, second thing is, and I'm, and I'm blessed to have an amazingly organized wife is to get very disciplined about the work, because for me, I'm super. It's hard for me to focus on something and writing takes a lot of focus. And so when you get it, it's I guess the better way to say this is you have to break down this giant journey in the very small steps and organize yourself to take these small steps until you finish the race.
[00:27:52] I, when I first got all that and all the commitments and the due dates and everything, I was like, holy shit, how am I ever gonna do this? You know, I gotta get it all done now. And, uh, and she was like, no, you know, this week we're going to focus on chapter one. And this week, we're going to focus on chapter two and here's when the photos are due.
[00:28:09] We're going to schedule all the photo shoots and we're going to prepare this over these four, you know, so I had this whole editorial calendar that she and I worked on together. And then each week it was just like work and get up in the morning, drink my coffee and check my email, do all that stuff. And I'd look okay today.
[00:28:25] I've got to work on chapter one or I've got to cook 10 recipes and set up the photographs for 10 recipes. And so being organized. Not taking the whole journey in one step and really being methodical about that is how I approach it. It is a lot of work, but it's extremely rewarding. When I first got that physical copy, it was like amazing, really, really
[00:28:47] Jordan: cool thing.
[00:28:49] Yeah. I can't imagine the feeling of that because you've put all this work and you're right. It, it, it landed at the perfect time where, you know, everything's shut down and there was nothing to do. And you just got landed with a full-time job. Hey, write me a book.
[00:29:00] Chris: All right. It had not, I mean, I was really starting to pop off at the time.
[00:29:05] I had a big 250 gallon commercial smoker. I had all these breweries and move a lined up that I was doing. Pop-ups at. Catering. I mean, I was really working full time at this and when COVID having all of that stuff dried up and so this really took the place of
[00:29:20] Jordan: that, which was great. So I was bombing around on your website a little bit, and I noticed you have a bit of a, an email funnel built in where you can get a free steak cooking ebook, and you collect your email addresses for a mailing list.
[00:29:36] What, uh, like what are you using that mailing list for? I'm just curious. What, like, what are you collecting that for?
[00:29:42] Chris: Well, and effort of full disclosure. I'm I'm of all the things I managing do, or the blog. And, um, my goal for 2022 is to really turn that around because with very little, I put a lot of effort into it at the very beginning.
[00:29:59] And then, you know, and then it became fits and spurts, but Instagram really became like the, the, the, the tip of the sphere with all that stuff. So the goal is ultimately to build just yet another channel that you can market and communicate with yourself or with your fans and with the people that follow you, you know, share recipes.
[00:30:16] So your swag, you know, get out information about your events, hopefully at one point that you get your list, big enough, you, you localize it. So I know you're my local people, so I'm doing a pop-up here locally. I sent it to them, but to be honest with you, I have the last year really dialed in with the blog and it's on my to-do list to get that fake.
[00:30:36] So keep your eyes out. 2022. I'm actually been working on this the last three. I've got a whole new plan. I might do a redesign on the website on the logo, but the website itself. And, and so my goal with the website to answer your specific question will be I'm going to really align it to when I do my recipe videos and I posted on Instagram in my bio, there'll be a clickable link.
[00:31:00] That'll say recipes, and there'll be a picture of each recipe. So if somebody really likes the recipe that they saw in the video, but they want to get the recipe right now, everybody's. Even if I put it in the comments, no one reads the comments and they'll go, oh my God, that looks so great. Do you have the exact measurements?
[00:31:17] And you get old after a while you get old saying, just look at the comments. So I really want to tie that into people, get interested in the recipes have created it, and I'm doing, it'll take a tie back to the blog and it'll be a full circle customer service thing for people that like.
[00:31:32] Jordan: Right. So making it more of a central hub at the website, instead of having three or four different locations, everything will tie back to one and then you can go out to wherever from there, which is a great idea.
[00:31:42] Chris: Yeah. And, and, you know, at the beginning, you know, I really got into food photography at the very start, like 20, 15, 16. I was taking classes, was reading about food styling. I got all the equipment and I got pretty good at food photography enough to where I did photography for. And then I got into video editing, but for the longest time, it was weird.
[00:32:02] I was thinking about all these channels of say. And I really wasn't tying it all in, you know, the YouTube was its own entity. Instagram was its own entity and the blog was its own entity. And then, uh, and then eventually it just dawned on me and I don't know why to me the song, it should, all, it should be a hub and spoke model.
[00:32:19] You know, there should be really one. Unifying thing. And that each plays a part. So people that are YouTube people on like the long form content could like this recipe and jump off and go get the longer video of people. Our blog, people will want to read about it and print out the recipe. They could go to the.
[00:32:37] The biggest, the biggest thing for me, the paradigm shift I had in 2017 is, and I still do this just to keep content out there. But mostly, especially when I do my recipes, this is the thing for me. And the advice I can give to your followers or your listeners stop making it about you. There's. Now, when I started this 2014.
[00:33:00] 20 of us that were doing big green egg stuff. Now there's thousands of people. There's be, I've discovered people every day. I'm like, holy cow, I never even knew this person was out. So how many you led off the podcast by saying everybody shows pictures of the risk and their port. I mean, literally how much can I show you?
[00:33:18] Even in my nail, my risk and how much is it really going to resonate with you or anybody? You can see it a thousand other times and a thousand other places. So give value to people. You know, if you're putting something out, put yourself into it and say, Hey, this is this thing that a try and that worked out really well.
[00:33:35] Or here's this technique that I learned that it worked really well, or here's this great dish. But I did so on and so forth. Try to add value to people and then people were.
[00:33:45] Jordan: That's such a good point. You also need to remember too, just because everyone's posting a picture of something doesn't mean you shouldn't, because you're going to have your own followers with you.
[00:33:54] That really appreciate your specific content, but you're right. Add something more to it. Add a little more value or a little more insight, or like a tip you haven't seen before. Or just even being more engaged in the comments, responding to people as a way to really help you grow your audience and following and grow your respect within the community.
[00:34:14] Because if you're just posting stuff, it's it just kind of lands flat on its face.
[00:34:19] Chris: That advice really wasn't don't do it. It was just like, realize if you want. Meaning you want more people to follow you, right? Because it is what it is. We live in a society that judges everything based on scarcity scarcity.
[00:34:33] If you have a hundred thousand followers, I'm always going, I don't have 200,000 followers, but then somebody that's 10,000 followers is always like, I don't have a hundred thousand followers. I don't know if you've ever played world of Warcraft, but I went through my world Warcraft phase 10 years ago.
[00:34:47] And no matter what level you got, you always wanted the better sword, the better Mount, the better, this better. That it's the same thing in. So for people that are really looking for growth and they don't want to skirt or cheap or game the system either by reposting content or. Buying followers or being in the growth pods and all that other stuff, which I'm not denigrating them.
[00:35:08] Everybody has their own way. But for me, my trick, what I learned is when I turn it around, when I turned that microscope from looking at me and what I did. To making it about what I can show you how to do this thing. That's when it exploded for me. And, and, and it's a B for me last week, I did a bunch of posts.
[00:35:30] The two posts that popped off the most, for me, teaching people how to cook a Turkey and roast a prime rib for the holidays. Right. It wasn't about though, both looked awesome. It wasn't just like, Hey, here's an awesome journey. Or, Hey, here's an awesome roast beef. It was like, Hey, this is how you do it. And people would ask questions and interact and it just, they went not.
[00:35:51] And then, you know, and that was traveling last week. And I posted a couple pictures that I had in my phone of a state here in the state there. And people were like, yeah, that's great. I think, good, Hey, barbecue, Buddha. But it just doesn't get the same engagement that when you're teaching somebody.
[00:36:03] Jordan: So, right.
[00:36:05] I think something, a lot of people should keep in mind too, is you don't have to be a trained cook or a trained professional to try and teach someone how to do it. Just teach. The way that worked for you and you made it this way and you thought it was delicious. So teach them how to do it that way. And then they can decide if what you did was good or not, but you don't need to have, you know, scientific reasons or classical training to teach someone how to cook something the way you made it, because you could have just made it up and went.
[00:36:32] Damn. That's good. I want to show you how to do that.
[00:36:35] Chris: Right. And the other thing about it for me is take away Instagram, take away Facebook, take away, take talk, take away. I'm still going to be out there cooking almost every night. I mean, the number one passion for me, uh, number one side hustle for me is cooking.
[00:36:50] I always tell my wife, man, I wish I just had a gig cook and like shorter cook stuff at the local diner that does breakfast lunch is that would be fun. Just cooking like that all day long. I love cooking. So for me personally, it's re it's, you know, maybe I toyed around with going to cooking school, but I figured, you know, in this day and age you can learn everything online or with books.
[00:37:13] When I'm not on camera, I'm constantly reading. I'm constantly watching videos of constantly iterating them. If I hear, you know, somebody had success doing this, I'm going to try it for myself. So I'm doing the work behind the scenes in order to whatever content I put out. Hopefully it's giving people.
[00:37:30] Jordan: Yeah, you always have to be learning and always have to be working. So just before we wrap up here, I wonder, where do you see the barbecue Buddha progressing to? Like you've dropped the day job and gone full time. You've got a cookbook, you're getting classes and events up and running. Like where, where are you looking to go from here?
[00:37:49] How are you trying to be even more of a barbecue Buddha?
[00:37:52] Chris: So it's, you know, life stuff happens. The book came out, uh, we moved to a different state. I'm finally getting settled in here. You know, Tik TOK came out. So that changed everything. And now that's changed Instagram and reels and all that stuff. So the frustrating part in the challenging part about all of this stuff is it always changes the stuff I did two years ago that was smash it, some of it resonates, some of it does.
[00:38:16] So I'm back and do a re-inventing myself phase. You know, what is working? What is it working? What can I add value to people from a social media standpoint, from a local standpoint? And starting to do the pop-ups, I'm going to eventually figure out how to do the local farmer markets around here and things that worked really well for me in Louisville were cooking schools.
[00:38:38] I used to host two times a month, you know, 10 to 12 people cooking classes, barbecue classes at my house where people would come and I, you know, I would have. Two sets of product one that was finished and one that we prepped together. So as soon as we went through all the prep of the ribs or the brisket or whatever, then we'd all sit down and eat and see what it looked like again.
[00:38:58] Um, so those are the things I'm doing. What I get asked the most is when am I going to open up a fresh. And being the son of a restaurant tour, I can assure you, I will not be opening up a restaurant, uh, that sucks. You know, the great thing about the side hustle and Instagram and social media and popups and stuff is it gives you lots of room to do the other things in your life you love to do so.
[00:39:19] Hopefully I'm writing another book. I'll be putting out YouTube videos again here soon, uh, and, uh, creating a lot more content in recipes. Uh, for viewers online and then anybody local to me in the St. Pete Gulf port area in Florida, uh, I'll be doing lots of local classes, popups, and a farmer's
[00:39:38] Jordan: markets.
[00:39:40] That's awesome. I'm excited to see what you get up to in the next year and a bit. And man, thank you so much for taking time out of your morning today. It was, you dropped a lot of knowledge bombs here for anyone looking to, you know, really take this more seriously and just really appreciate you taking the time out of your day.
[00:39:55] Chris: Well, thanks for thinking about me. I'm sorry that we missed last week. I'm glad we connected this week and I look forward to chatting with you again soon. And anytime you need anything, just reach out. I'm a very open book, glad to help. I
[00:40:05] Jordan: love it. Thanks so much, Chris.
[00:40:06] Chris: All right, man. Thanks Jordan. Take care.
[00:40:14] Jordan: So that's it for my interview with Chris Sussman, the barbecue Buddha. I hope you enjoyed listening to this first episode, as much as I enjoyed planning it and recording it. Chris made a lot of really excellent points and through a ton of great advice for anyone who is getting started or trying to really grow in the online barbecue space, but what stood out to me the most, and I think what really.
[00:40:34] Chris as well is to stop focusing on yourself. If you want to really grow your audience and have people genuinely be interested in what you're posting and what you're saying, you need to be providing them some sort of value. Not every post has to be a valuable post, but the majority should be, whether it be a quick recipe, something you recently learned that you want to share, or even just shadowed another account that you really love that will start to catch people's attention more than just posting pictures and talking about.
[00:41:01] And that makes you more relatable and more human to your followers, which is what we all really kind of want Instagram as a social platform. So be social talk with those that follow you and those that you follow, create relationships and bonds share recipes and information amongst each other. That's what's going to help you grow.
[00:41:18] It's what's going to help you be noticed and really flourish. And honestly, it'll help you create relationships that are gonna last a lifetime. The barbecue community is so good, so be good to it as well. That will do it for this episode of influential. Thank you for tuning in this week. This is the first week of the show and there will be a new episode every Wednesday.
[00:41:38] If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a review, share it with your friends or help spread the word to those. That may find it interesting. If you have any feedback, questions, comments, or specific topics you'd like to hear about, please shoot me an email at podcast at influential barbecue dot. Or send a DM to influential barbecue on Instagram.
[00:41:56] I'm Jordan Moore. You can follow my barbecue adventures on Instagram at the backyard. Brisket. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week and keep on grilling.