Jenifer & Tristan Hoke with The Drunken Chef

The Forrager Podcast for Cottage Food Businesses

Jenifer & Tristan Hoke of Tecumseh, OK sell baked goods, smoked spices, and other items with their cottage food business, The Drunken Chef.

In their first year of business, they struggled to find consistent sales, despite trying many marketing avenues, including starting their own farmers market.

But finally, they found a sales venue that turned everything around, and now they are building an expanded kitchen on their property to try to keep up with the demand.

Jenifer and Tristan’s story is one of persistence and determination, and of celebrating every single win, big and small.

What You’ll Learn

• The value of starting small and testing the market before fully committing to a business idea
• How diversifying your product offerings can attract a wider customer base
• Why you must persist to overcome initial business challenges
• The power of building a community and networking with other small business owners
• Why you should always listen to customers, even though the customer is not always right
• The importance of celebrating every win, even a small one
• Ideas for finding a viable way to ship products
• How to embrace the unexpected, and be always open for the right opportunity
• Why cottage food entrepreneurs tend to be more community-oriented

Resources

The Drunken Chef Facebook page

Pirate Ship (business shipping rates)

Oklahoma Cottage Food Law

Free Tutorial: Intro To Email Marketing

Are you building an email list for your business yet? If not, you really should be collecting customers’ email addresses and emailing them on a regular basis. Even these days, email continues to be better than social media for generating consistent sales, and the best part is that you own it. Once you build an email list, nobody can take it away from you.

I created this free tutorial that will walk you through the essentials of using ConvertKit to build an email list and get more followers!

Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/117