In today's episode of The Harvest Growth Podcast, we're thrilled to welcome George Jorgensen and Steve Ross, the duo who transformed Amish Farms Soap from a humble side business into an impressive eight-figure natural skincare empire. Their journey is a masterclass in complementary partnerships, authentic marketing, and unwavering product commitment. What began as George's modest soap-making venture 20 years ago exploded when Steve joined in 2021, bringing his retail expertise to George's manufacturing prowess. Together, they've developed products that aren't just selling — they are changing lives.
With thousands of testimonials pouring in from customers experiencing dramatic skin improvements, they've created something truly special while keeping their products remarkably affordable. From securing placement in 380 grocery stores to their game-changing partnership with an authentic influencer, this episode reveals the strategic decisions that fueled their explosive growth. Join us as we uncover their journey, development process, and the business wisdom they've gained along the way.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
How finding the right business partner with complementary strengths can exponentially accelerate growth
Breaking into major retailers through strategic distribution partnerships
The power of authentic influencer marketing that doesn't feel "salesy"
Why embracing negative feedback is crucial for exceptional product development
The importance of cash flow management when building a startup
And so much more!
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
Visit www.amishfarmsoap.com today to experience the affordable, natural soaps and face creams that built an eight-figure skincare revolution and start transforming your skincare routine.
To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!
Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands that now total over $2 billion in revenue? Set up a free consultation with us today!
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
How do you build an eight figure company in a highly competitive product category? Today's guests own a soap business. I have a cousin, a friend, and at least a dozen people on my Facebook feed that also own soap businesses. Our guests have a better product, sure, but it takes more than that to win in a competitive space. And they share their story today on how they built up not only their soap business, but their new face cream as well.
Announcer [00:00:25]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know. Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest Growth podcast, Jon LaClare.
Jon LaClare [00:00:45]:
Welcome back to the show. Today I'm really excited to be speaking with two partners and founders, really the owners of Amish Farms Soap. They have built an incredible eight figure business around this line of soap, face creams and other products. And we're going to talk about how they made it so successful and understand their products a little bit better. But first, I want to welcome both of you to the show. Steve and George, thanks for joining us today.
George Jorgensen [00:01:09]:
Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.
Jon LaClare [00:01:12]:
It's great to have you guys on with us. So let's talk about. Well, actually, I want to share my personal experience if I can first. So you guys are certainly the experts on Amish farm soap, the face cream, you know, why they're different and better and I do want to dive into that, but for the benefit of our audience. These are amazing products. So there's two that I've been using. So one is a bar soap, which is really how their business, I believe, started, or at least the first big success. And they sell a ton of these across all channels.
Jon LaClare [00:01:36]:
We'll talk about the business, but it's, it's a hand cut, handmade bar soap that is very healthy. I love it. It's like I've, I've transferred everything to this in my own kind of like, you know, showering, washing at home, et cetera. And then I'm not a big, personally a face cream user as I assume a lot of men aren't. Right. But I have started using this and I'm getting older and, and man, I probably need it more. I live in Colorado as my audience knows, it's dry out here. It's been a game changer too.
Jon LaClare [00:02:04]:
And there's so many benefits. I will tell you personally, for me, my complexion has really kind of softened. If that's the right word. Like it's not hard and dry like it often gets in the winter. I, at my age, it's, I'm embarrassed to say, but I still get acne here and there and it's, it's crazy. You'd think it'd be done by now, but it's like it's really helped with that problem, both the soap as well as the face cream. So for me personally, I just can't say enough about it. Total game Changer Products and I'm excited to be speaking with really the owners of the company that, that lead this and run it and have developed this and really got it out to the market to be able to share with, with our audience and people.
Jon LaClare [00:02:39]:
Like, thank you.
George Jorgensen [00:02:39]:
Thank you for those nice words.
Jon LaClare [00:02:42]:
Absolutely. So I'm going to turn the time over to you guys now to talk about why are they so good? I, you know, I can say they're great, but I don't know why as well as you do. So can you describe maybe let's talk about the bar soap first. So that's your bigger seller of these two items, at least so far, just because it's been around longer. But what makes this, what is it about it that makes it so good and so much better than other soaps on the market?
George Jorgensen [00:03:03]:
Ours is mainly made of natural. We don't use a lot of chemicals if we don't have to, you know, and we really focus on, on, on natural ingredients and stuff, you know, and I don't know why a lot of these soap companies have to put all these nasty chemicals because you don't need them, you know, I mean, Steve is working on a, on a fragrance free and D free. And that's really, that's really a good product.
Jon LaClare [00:03:28]:
And as we meet, you know, in early 2025, right now, it feels like chemicals in our foods and in our beauty products are much more part of the conversation in our country right now than they have been for a long time for a lot of reasons. Politics is one of them right now. Right. But as we think about that, you know, I don't want to be ingesting chemicals. I also don't want to be putting them on my skin any more than I have to. Can you guys talk about, so what are some of the ingredients in the bar soap specifically that make it work so well?
George Jorgensen [00:03:57]:
Thing about, about these days, like you said, with the politics and everything, you know, a lot of these big soap companies, I won't mention names obviously, but a lot of the big, so they Say, hey, this is made in America. You know, it might be, it might be packaged in America, you might get here and it gets packaged, but the ingredients all come from overseas, comes from China. You know, ours is manufactured, everything is made right here in the United States. And it's, it's, it's, it's right here in the heartland in South Dakota and Steve is over there in Alabama, you, couple of very good states, you know, Colorado as well, you know, and we pride ourselves on that. And the big, the big natural ingredients that I don't think a lot of people use is bentonite clay. And bentonite clay has a lot of benefits for your skin. It's unbelievable. And that's how we kind of got started.
George Jorgensen [00:04:45]:
And I think that's, that's, that's one of the big keys of our success is bentonite clay. I hate to say that because, you know, I don't want everybody else using bentonite clay in their products. You know, all of a sudden everybody's, everybody's selling a soap with bentonite clay, but they don't, and I don't know why. With our great success, it's really a good, good process, you know, and on.
Steve Ross [00:05:05]:
My side, the key in your conversation is, you know, I'm making a fragrance free, dye free product. And it has, we just launched it literally three weeks ago and it has been off the charts successful. And you know, it's all natural ingredients. Coconut oil, shea butter, castor oil. Again has the bentonite clay in it and it has just taken off especially with the, the younger generation as well.
Jon LaClare [00:05:35]:
That's awesome. You mentioned this, that that is a brand new product. How long has the rest of the business been around? How long you guys been selling these soaps?
George Jorgensen [00:05:43]:
Well, I, I started about 20 years ago and then we just kind of, we just kind of plugging along as best we could and, and then I met Steve and the partnership was, was a, was a match made in heaven. You know, I mean, it really took things to another level once I met Steve, you know, because I was doing everything myself. I was manufacturing, I was marketing, I was selling, I was doing everything myself. And you know, you can't really keep up with that. The one person. And it was the right time. We weren't really ready. When Steve and I met, what, about five years ago, we weren't really, I wasn't ready up until that point.
George Jorgensen [00:06:15]:
And it was, it was perfect timing and the perfect storm when him and I got together and you know, as all success stories goes, you know, was just, everything was Everything was really perfect and we kind of fell backwards into it, you know, I mean, the way he just called me out of the blue and he wanted to buy a couple of pallets and like Steve says, this guy conned me into buying a whole semi load. Wasn't that what you said, Steve? And so he bought a semi load. And it's been, it's been just every month is more and more and more successful.
Steve Ross [00:06:51]:
Yeah, we, our skill sets totally complement each other. In May of 2021 is when I didn't dip my toe. I went head first into the entire operation and it's been pretty much non stop since then. Now, as Matic is better than non stop, it has grown double every year, exponentially.
George Jorgensen [00:07:18]:
It definitely, it definitely has. I mean, we went from. Yeah, I, I don't want to say we didn't, I didn't start this as, as a joke, but I didn't start it. And I never realized that it was gonna ever, ever be this big. You know, I just started, kind of started it to make a little extra money and, and, and start a little business and kind of a side hustle really is how I started it. But it's, it's sure ain't no side hustle anymore, Steve, you know, and it's a magical combination between two of the perfect people meeting each other. We're totally opposite people. He's more professional and college smart and I'm more street smart and I'm more of a guy that gets in.
George Jorgensen [00:07:59]:
I like building all my own equipment. I've made everything myself. I get out there and I get a welder and a torch in my hand and I manufacture all our equipment. That's how I started and I would rather do that than sit in an office. Me and Steve are really opposite, but boy, I'll tell you, us coming together is formed a really successful business.
Steve Ross [00:08:21]:
And I also think the key is that we have a, you know, nothing is going to get in our way attitude. You know, if something breaks, guess what, we figure it out and make it work.
Jon LaClare [00:08:31]:
Absolutely. I think it's great advice. Anybody that might be listening, that is in a partnership or potentially considering one is, you know, you got to find whether it's a partner or whether it's employees as you build your organizations to find people that complement your skill sets. Right. As entrepreneurs in the early days, you kind of have to do it all by yourself. Right. In the very early days usually. Right.
Jon LaClare [00:08:50]:
Unless you got a lot of funding from day one or whatever. And so you get used to that and you think you can do it all. And, and as entrepreneurs, you guys are very successful entrepreneurs. Yeah. You can do it. Right. But you're going to do it much better if you find people that we can't be great at everything. Right.
Jon LaClare [00:09:05]:
So work what you're great at and then bring in other people, partners or employees to help round it out. Right. To round out your skill sets. And as you guys have done, it's taken off.
George Jorgensen [00:09:14]:
Exactly. And, and Steve and I are the perfect combination from that. You know, I didn't know that when I met him. You know, he took a chance with me and I took a chance with him and it just accidentally, really. Right, Steve. I mean, it accidentally grew into this, you know, and now we've got a multimillion dollar company that's, that's, that's, that's going to go beyond that. Yeah.
Steve Ross [00:09:35]:
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
Jon LaClare [00:09:38]:
That's right. Yeah, you say that, but you guys have been so smart in everything you've done in this business so far. You know, to build your business into an eight figure business, no matter what it is, it does, it takes. Yeah. A little bit of luck. Right. We all have to have that in our lives. But it takes a lot of hard work, skill and a great product to really get there.
Jon LaClare [00:09:54]:
And it really is, as you said, George, it is not a joke. This is no joke. To get to that level. Let's talk about. So what was the first success you had again? We're staying kind of on the bar soap, you know, the original one that took off. We'll get back to the, the face cream. Face cream in a minute. But what was the first success that really started to skyrocket? The growth?
Steve Ross [00:10:13]:
Yeah, I would say it would have probably been around the year 2000. I come from a retail background for most of my life and I wanted to get the soap into the grocery store format and where I used to own grocery stores. I hooked up with a broker friend of mine and then that's how I started. You know, I got it into. I go into the distribution centers, not the grocery stores individually. And I was able to get into a grocery store chain that had 380 stores. So they have different things, free distribution and all that. So I did a free distribution where I gave the distribution center a case of soap and that got me into their stores and then it just kind of took off from there.
Steve Ross [00:11:04]:
And then in 2021, that's when I hooked up with a, again, my broker hooked this up with me with an influencer and she's an hour from where my factory and warehouses. And we're like best friends now. So we launched and it was May of 2021. I remember it was the Monday after Mother's Day. And it's been a trajectory like this ever since between her and George and me, and adding new products, et cetera. It has gone through the roof.
Jon LaClare [00:11:41]:
We've talked a lot about your business, of course, and your relationship with Brenda, your influencer that you work so much with and you always call her your friend. I thought you guys were friends first. This is the first time I've heard actually that it was kind of referred over. And it's great to hear. I think know when you've got a solid relationship like that and you have become very close friends and it's been this, I think symbiotic relationship where, you know, you bring great products to her and she helps you guys grow. That's, that's awesome.
Steve Ross [00:12:04]:
Well, when we sat down at the meeting to discuss an influencer opportunity, you know, she, because she, at that point in time she had 2 million followers. Now she's got almost 4 million followers. And she had her attorney there, her son in law who was a district attorney. And then we just started talking and we hit it off. Until now she supports mainly Alabama businesses, which, this is an Alabama business. But I'm not from Alabama, I'm from New Hampshire. So when she asked me that question, she stood up and goes, you're a Yankee. I thought the deal was done.
Steve Ross [00:12:38]:
But she was, that was just her humor. You know, we sat back down and it's, we've been like best friends since then.
George Jorgensen [00:12:44]:
And you know what really helps too is that we all believe in the product. Brenda believes in the product. And Brenda would not have influenced it and she wouldn't be promoting if she didn't try it herself and believed in it.
Steve Ross [00:12:54]:
Yeah, yeah, well, that was the key. You had to give her the product, she had to test it, you know, and I mean, she was hooked on it.
Jon LaClare [00:13:03]:
I, I think when our audience hears Influencer, a lot of them might be thinking, you know, a 20 something year old girl that, you know, is always wearing outfits to show up things, whatever. It might be this kind of like, you know, heavy music and intense graphics and all this kind of stuff. And there is that side of the influencer world, Brenda's on another side, which is I would call more real. Right. And I think it's important to realize that there are other influencers out there. Right. Because a lot of business owners Might be thinking like, I can't sell my product to 20 year olds. Right.
Jon LaClare [00:13:34]:
It doesn't make sense where it's not the right audience or whatever. But there are influencers that fit really any category, any age group, any target. Would you mind just, I guess, describe what her content looks like normally? Who is Brenda? What type of content does she do and how does that fit with your brand?
Steve Ross [00:13:50]:
Well, her primary is a cooking show and she has three people that she likes and she does a video for them and talks about the product. But she's a cooking show, Christian background, so she reaches that target audience. She's just real genuine, you know, she reminds me of your grandmother, you know, and that's what most people say. And you know, everything she talks about is resonant resident resonates with them because it's like, like talking with their grandmother, you know, and even the, the older generation thinks about their grandmother, you know, and she's just real honest, real down to earth, you know, she'll give a little sermon kind of at, you know, during it, but primarily it's a cooking show and she's already got three cookbooks out. She's. We were just, I was just over our house a couple days ago and she's going to be doing a tabletop book. So very successful, but just really kind, gentle. Real.
Steve Ross [00:14:49]:
That probably would be the best word if she's real.
Jon LaClare [00:14:52]:
I love that word. I use it all the time for influencers and I think it's what makes, whether it's influencers or pitch people talent, but it's being genuine or being real makes, I think, all the difference. And you know, my audience, they've heard my story many times about working with Billy Mays back in the day. Right. And, and how much I learned from him. And it's interesting. We did a lot of market research or focus groups and tried to figure out, yes, he was exciting and energetic and got your ATT attention. But what really people resonated with was the fact that he sounded real and genuine even though he's doing yell, what they call yell and sell.
Jon LaClare [00:15:23]:
Right. It was clearly a pitch man, but you, you felt like he believed in what he was selling and that's, that's a hard quality to come across. And I think a lot of quote unquote influencers feel very salesy. Right. They feel like you watch their videos, you can tell they're just trying to sell you something. And I think that's a great learning. Brenda's a good example of being different than that and, and finding Again, she's not gonna be the right one for everybody that's listening. But connection with talent, pitchman or an influencer, that is real, that is genuine, that is sharing a story with their audience that they truly believe in.
Jon LaClare [00:15:57]:
Not as a. It doesn't feel like a pitch. Right. It doesn't feel like a sales pitch. Makes all the difference.
Steve Ross [00:16:03]:
And exactly right with, with her, we, we right from the beginning had an agreement that this was not going to be where she was trying to force our product down their throats. It was conversational. You know, she would either start it, start off the video with it, or embed it somewhere in there, actually, she could be cooking something. And then she goes over to wash her hands and there's the bag of soap. And she talked about the soap for a couple seconds and that's. That was it, you know, but the people saw it, you know, and they wanted to know what she was using. You know, it wasn't like she was trying to sell it, she was just talking about it. You know, there are points in time, like where she will do some selling, if you will, but even then it's not, you know, like Billy May selling.
Steve Ross [00:16:43]:
It's just. She was just talking about it.
George Jorgensen [00:16:45]:
Yeah, no, I, I've seen her lots of times and, and she doesn't sell it, she just uses it, you know, and yeah, it's, it's, it's, it is, it is pretty neat.
Steve Ross [00:16:55]:
She actually did a video one time with one of her friends and showing. Because it does have some really good healing properties. And they did a before and after picture and the before and after was just astonishing that the woman had such bad scaly things on her legs. So they did it before and after and she wanted to post that video to show her and her attorneys wouldn't let her do it because it was so drastic and you couldn't make that statement even though the person was going to do it as a testimonial, you know, but that's the level of how much she loves the product.
Jon LaClare [00:17:31]:
So that brings me to the question. On a lot of consumer feedback you guys have gotten, I know you get customer emails or customers reaching out to you all the time saying what you've done or your products have done to help them. What are some examples? I know you know, there's only so many things we can put into, like paid advertising, that sort of thing. But it's amazing to hear sometimes benefits that come across from real users and changes they've experienced in their lives. What are some of the stories you guys have heard.
Steve Ross [00:17:57]:
Well, I mean, as we have those, some of those testimonials are actually on the website. But I probably get 10 to 20 emails a day talking about, you know, how it's helped them, their kids, you know, their, their grandkids, whatever the case is. And primarily I, I got into this whole thing and I guess I can say this because my eczema was really bad and I was actually selling it in one of my stores and a guy says, you need to use this because I, I'm in Alabama, I live in shorts and a T shirt, and I had eczema all over my legs. And I said, what? He goes, yeah, you need to use it. And I, I'm telling you, John, I went home, tried it, a week later, I was about 80% eczema free. And from then on, you know, I was hooked. Which is the key thing if, you know, if I like the product and it's an easy sell, you know, so then it would became. Okay, let's go as far as customers.
Steve Ross [00:18:57]:
I mean, my goodness, it's stories like that, you know, this one probably resonates the most is a lady had, it was middle of summer down here and she had a long sleeve sweater on. And me being me, I just asked her, well, why are you wearing a sweater? It's 95 degrees out. And she goes, my skin is so bad that I'm embarrassed to take my sweater off. So I gave her a bag of our soap. And then she came back two weeks later and she still had the sweater on. And I said it didn't work. And she pulls off her sweater, she's in a short sleeve blouse, and she goes, it changed my life. You know, from a guy, you don't really think about it.
Steve Ross [00:19:36]:
But for a woman to be able to wear clothes that she could never wear before she started crying on me, it was so touching. You know, we're in the middle of a store and she's crying and saying how much it changed her life. That would probably be the biggest one that I could tell you. In regards to customer testimonial, we get.
George Jorgensen [00:19:55]:
Really, really touching emails, thousands of them. You know, the story is exactly like that. You know, we are not saying that it helps for that because, you know, you have to be. What did you say, Steve? You had to be.
Steve Ross [00:20:12]:
It has to be certified and to be able to say these statements.
George Jorgensen [00:20:18]:
So we're not saying it does, but we're saying that we get a lot of testimonials, people that say that it really, really works. Well, and personal experience with Steve and me, I got the same exact story as Steve does.
Steve Ross [00:20:29]:
Yeah, that's literally how I got into the whole thing.
George Jorgensen [00:20:32]:
Yeah, I went through chemotherapy 15 years ago, and I'm at the same experience as that lady. I had the same experience as she did.
Jon LaClare [00:20:40]:
Yeah, I've heard that chemo can be. That's a common side effect, is just really dry, almost painful skin afterwards. Right. So how was your experience with that? How long did it take to recover from that with the soap?
George Jorgensen [00:20:52]:
Not long at all. I mean, I've always used amishorn soap and I never had any problems with the people after. After surgery, after chemotherapy, after all that nightmare is done, then the last thing you do is radiation to hit it, make sure it's gone for good, you know, and when I was doing that, it was kind of like a group, kind of like a group of people in a room doing that at the same time, you know, all kind of waiting. And I was only, you know, what was I, 39 years old at the time? And everybody else there was in their 60s and 70s, you know, and I used to talked to them about it. And I wasn't promoting Ambushtorm soap with them, but it was a long time ago. But I was hearing all their stories about how dry their skin got, every single one of them. I got rashes. I can't do anything about it.
George Jorgensen [00:21:40]:
We're using this and we're using that to help our skin. And I didn't have any problems. And I'm assuming it's because of that during that time, I've had the same.
Steve Ross [00:21:49]:
Comments numerous times from our customer base.
Jon LaClare [00:21:52]:
The amazing thing after all this is I can imagine our audience thinking, well, yeah, sounds great, but is this probably going to be one of those crazy expensive skin care solutions? Right? These beauty products? But the pricing is. Is low. Right. I encourage our audience. Check outamish farm soap.com the link is in the show notes. Of course, you can find them on Amazon and retail stores as well. But you got to check it out to see the pricing. It's.
Jon LaClare [00:22:16]:
You'll be amazed. Right. It's not expensive, especially when you consider all these benefits that are included with it. If I can change this topic a little bit, I want to talk about the face cream. So this is a newer product for you guys. So the face cream you guys are launching or have launched, but it's fairly, fairly recent and already has been extremely successful. So we talked about the bar soap a little bit. The face cream, how is that different from other face creams? That are on the market.
Steve Ross [00:22:40]:
You know, that, that was, that was a project that probably George started on it for probably a year. And then when it was finally presented to me, you know, we still went through a genesis with it, you know, to, to improve it, make it better. You know, we all sent it out to friends and family and, you know, probably I probably had 200 that I gave it out to as samples for their feedback. And from the time that we started with that process and six months later, we came up with that item right there. So it didn't, it wasn't like a snap your finger, you know, And I think that's what some of the people have to understand is some of these things it takes, you know, the product that I just launched, it was almost a year in R D to get it to where I, I felt like it was the product that I wanted to sell, you know. And that's no different than the face screen.
Jon LaClare [00:23:36]:
Yeah. And it is. I'll echo. I mentioned quickly in the beginning of this, my personal experience with it. It's been phenomenal as well. And again, all natural beef tallow is a, is a primary ingredient. And that's kind of a buzzword these days, even for cooking with tallow, but also beauty products with, with, with tallow. Can you talk about some of the properties or benefits of using tallow? And in, in beauty products, tallow seems.
George Jorgensen [00:23:59]:
Like it's the boss of all beauty, beauty things right now. You know, I personally wanted to go with like, like a Crisco oil, like a soybean oil type of thing, you know, and everybody kind of talked me out of it. They're like, you know, you know, right now, tello is really trending until it's really. So I tried it myself and it, you know, as you could tell, I've. I've prob. Both of you, and I've got some wrinkles. And really, it really does work. You know, I mean, a combination between that and the vitamin E and the bentonite clay, it's fantastic.
George Jorgensen [00:24:28]:
It's just a really good, really good deal, you know. And again, just like the soap, we've been getting thousands of emails from people, you know, saying that right now it's hundreds, but the soap is thousands.
Steve Ross [00:24:41]:
But Brenda is an important part of what we do. And so, you know, I needed to make sure that it was something that she liked, you know, because she's the one who's going to be talking to it, her 4 million Facebook fans. So I would give her a sample, sample, a sample. And then she Liked them, but it just wasn't right. I didn't think it was where it needed to be. And then we, between George and me, we kept on upscaling it. Well, I finally gave it. Gave her the final version of it, and her accountant was in there, and her accountant literally grabbed it out of her hand and started putting it all over her face and just took the jar and went home with it.
Steve Ross [00:25:23]:
You know, it was that kind of a reaction in regards to how good it was working.
Jon LaClare [00:25:28]:
And you talked about testing, so you, you shared it with people you knew. You shared it through Brenda, you know, who's an important part of the team as well. But on top of that, you also reached out to your existing customer base, which you have the benefit of having a large email list from being in business so long and having much success with the bar soap. How did you use your existing customer base to provide feedback for this new product launch?
Steve Ross [00:25:52]:
Well, I have all kinds of different platforms that we use, so, you know, sometimes you can get too much information. So I picked 20 out of each platform. So it was like 80 people, you know, and of the 80, I got rave reviews other than one person. And that was because they were using it incorrectly. You know, it's, it's. It's. You don't slather it on. You literally just tap it, you know, because it's that good.
Steve Ross [00:26:20]:
And if you slather on it, gets the tallow by. By nature is a little on the greasy side. But that was the only comment that I had that was not positive. And then, then at that point in time, you know, half of them were wholesalers that were going to resell it in their operation. So then I knew, okay, we're. We. We got the item that we need.
Jon LaClare [00:26:39]:
The beauty of testing like that is negative feedback can be great, right? So if they're using it incorrectly, well, now you've learned, okay, maybe it's something we change in the instructions or make it more clear, whatever it might be, right? So even negative feedback, of course, can be. Can be really helpful, but it's nice to hear.
Steve Ross [00:26:55]:
Well, yeah, but the negative comments is what got us to that point. You know, initially it was going to be just beef tallow, but it just, it's. It didn't smell right, you know, and my wife particularly said, there's no way in God's green earth I'm putting that on my face because it didn't smell right. You know, and then that, that went and brought us to a whole nother level of, okay, we're gonna have to add this. We add this and, you know, we changed a bunch of stuff around.
Jon LaClare [00:27:22]:
I don't know, George.
Steve Ross [00:27:23]:
It probably took us what, five, six, seven, eight times until we find the right combination. That wasn't too little. It wasn't too much, you know, and then when we finally hit on it, it was like, okay, we got it.
Jon LaClare [00:27:35]:
Well, you know, you guys could test it with yourselves, with Brenda, maybe with a couple of others and have great reactions. But I love that you tested with, I think you said, 80 people in total, and I'm sure more beyond that as well. But because everyone's skin is different, right? Everyone's going to react differently to it. Everyone has different desires for it.
George Jorgensen [00:27:51]:
Yeah. We tested this thing for what, almost about a year, year and a half, two years came along. We were testing this thing, and it's just, you know, like you said, it's the fragrance. And I was going straight vanilla flavoring. And then everybody says, oh, it smells like this smells like cake frosting. You can't use that, you know, and so we went a little less vanilla, a little more orange peel, and we finally got the right, the right deal there. I think. We sure haven't had any complaints on the, on the, on the scent, you know, that's good.
Jon LaClare [00:28:22]:
Yeah, no, it's a great product. And as I was saying, it's, you know, when you test it with just yourselves, you might find out what you think is perfect. But when you involve others in it, you're going to hear comments coming back where maybe, you know, you don't mind the scent, etc, but getting what's going to work for a larger group of people is going to help you to be more, more successful in the marketplace.
George Jorgensen [00:28:40]:
When you do that, you're looking for negative comments. You want the negative comments because you want, you need to know what to change. That's why you're asking, you know.
Steve Ross [00:28:47]:
Well, but that's true for us. But some people, that's not the case. They. They want you to sugarcoat it and tell them how good it is. And you're not doing anybody any service if you do that.
Jon LaClare [00:28:56]:
That's true. Is there anything I didn't ask you guys that you think could be helpful for our audience?
Steve Ross [00:29:01]:
You know, I think probably the biggest thing for me when we started up, and this is all going to entrepreneurs, you know, the, the underlying thing is cash flow, you know, and as you're trying to build this business up and, you know, you have all these great ideas, but, you know, you don't have the money to be able to do it to the level that you want to do it. So, you know, you got to kind of pace yourself a little bit. You know, I don't personally want investors. I want to be able to do it all by ourselves, you know, and without that other person kind of helping you out, then you've got to be able to be able to. You got to pay your employees and all the rest of that stuff. So, you know, that was a labor of love in regards to how to kind of just, you know, build it kind of slowly and organically until I got to the point where I was like, okay, now I can kind of, you know, jettison it up a little bit because I was in a little better financial cash flow position.
Jon LaClare [00:29:59]:
That's great advice.
Steve Ross [00:30:00]:
And that's the hardest part. I mean, any business that I ever had, you know, cash flow is king. You could have all the sales and you want, but if you don't have cash flow, not much you can do.
Jon LaClare [00:30:09]:
Very true. Yeah, it is king. It is key in every business that we do. I do want to tell our audience again, it's in the show notes, but go check them out at amishfarmsoap.com or look for them on Amazon again in your local retailer as well. And for our audience, did you know you can also meet with a member of my team absolutely free for a 30 minute strategy consultation. We've launched and grown hundreds of products since 2007. Learn some of our strategies while growing OxiClean back in the Billy Mays days. We're here to help, so please go to harvestgrowth.com and set up a call if you'd like to discuss further.
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