Welcome to our weekly update of the "Founder's Log" a blog dedicated to the progression of American Butchers JERKi, highlighting the things we've accomplished thus far in the past week, paths we are currently working towards right now, and unchartered paths we hope to accomplish in the upcoming week! Starting a business can be a tough decision so I've added this so you can stay up to date with things I've learned along the way! Have a question, don't hesitate to leave a comment below!
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A look into the past week
A week of progression, a week of commitment and a week of hard work would describe the two weeks between blog entries were on the Founder's Log. We have focused a great deal of attention is not only handling community outreach and building the brand but also the contributions made by so many of you to help us reach a goal to donate more bags overseas. I will let more into that in the next paragraph.
The joint effort between myself and Joe has provided a great deal of assistance in handling business progression while balancing the workload. Recently we've set Joe on a task of outreach and brand placement. What does this mean? Well, Joe has focused a great deal of his attention on podcasts, news placement, ads, and campaigns to help drive attention to our mission. His focus has been primarily on reaching out towards prospective audiences that might be interested in helping donate overseas or interested in jerky themselves.
What would this blog be if I only shared the positive benefits that happen to our business? I want to share some real facts that we've experienced that don't add some sunshine. Sales have gone down, the buzz has faded and we are now on raw organic searches. We have paused all ad campaigns and focused on determining where we should be spending our marketing budget and the direction we want to take American Butchers JERKi in campaigning. It was exciting to see the phone blow up with orders coming in but the reality is we need to push ourselves harder to reach out to prospective markets. This is on us and is a determining forward progression. If you are reading this and feel sorry, DONT! If it makes you feel better Amazon didn't turn a profit until 2001 (started in 1994). So we have high hopes and as long as we continue our mission of sending bags overseas then our mission and goal are complete. (Check out Today's section for the update on this!)
Today
Today, today today... The future is looking bright and today has been a prime example of the opportunities ahead. Recent buzz has begun to develop here at work regarding American Butchers JERKi. The part-time initiative to donate overseas has sparked an interest in a number of brass here on base. This is great news and shows our "Word of Mouth" has progressed moving forward. All it takes is placing the goals in the right ears and let the mouths do the rest.
Another big accomplishment today has in store for us is that we are mailing out a total of 41 bags of Taste of Home to two additional units stationed overseas. The first is 10 bags going directly to an Army unit and the second is 31 bags going to the Marines. This will be our first engagement with the Marines so big moves here in the donation section! Special recognition to all those who supported us so far and allowed for this to be carried out! All orders are packaged and shipping labels placed just need to go out and mail them this afternoon!
The final thing I have tasked out for me today is the setup of customer reviews and other highlights for Instagram. I think a great thing to demonstrate on our social media right now is the wonderful reviews that so many of you are writing about us. I want to share these on a highlight section to allow others to read and understand a little bit about the product before they purchase. We understand that food can be a tricky thing to purchase and all it takes is a leap of faith! hopefully, this helps verify that luxury premium flavor instilled through our product.
Cheers to the Future
Three main things I'd like to keep you informed on as we progress forward into the next upcoming weeks. The first being opportunities for samples. The second being engagement with marketing outreach. The final one focusing on balancing the work-life with the JERKi life.
So to start, Samples. We have thought about the idea of giving customers the opportunity to experience luxury. Try American Butchers JERKi sample which would be a smaller amount to see if you like it and before you spend your hard-earned money on some premium beef jerky. Too often jerky is just looked at as an incentive buy or quick gas station buy but we want it to be more. We want you to LOVE jerky and we want you to understand this is more than just some beef jerky company. Think of it like cars, yes you can go buy a little mini-cooper and drive to your objective but who wouldn't want that same drive but now rocking a Lambo or a Porsche? Maybe that's just me but the car gets you the same place but now why not experience the luxury and flavor that goes into it? Almost as if Porsche decides to give a car to someone when you bought a car? Pretty rad idea right? We thought so. So here's the idea: $5 Sample. 5 bucks will get you a 1oz bag of some pretty dang awesome jerky to try and it includes everything from shipping to the actual product. We are still tossing the idea up but it's a thought to try an amazing product. More information on this later as we progress the thought process.
Long first paragraph... we know. But the second thought for the future is engagement with marketing. As the third topic and second blend together, we will do our best to highlight both in one section. We recently got selected for an assignment that makes our full-time much busier. Yes we still will be finding time to focus on this business but the everyday promotion of the marketing side will be limited. This is setting up ads, creating marketing push, and setting up the SEO optimization. Recently a marketing company reached out to us for an opportunity to work together and at first we thought we could manage all hats of the operation. As we find our time dwindling, it might be beneficial to add on a marketing team to help promote the backwords of the business and advertising all while giving us the time to focus on building the brand, packaging, and doing the actual promotion while finding a balance in our full-time jobs. This is a big step but we see it has an opportunity to give the right amount of attention to a business that we are very passionate about and might not be able to give this moment. Food for thought and cheers to the future!
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The Founder's Log is designed to be a behind the scenes of American Butchers JERKi. With that, I encourage you to ask any questions you might have regarding our product or about the business! Hope to catch you next week, Same time?
-Calvin