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Episode 015.
Do you take FULL advantage of events? Do you challenge yourself to meet new people and focus on new opportunities?
Janice Cox is a leading DIY natural beauty and skin-care expert from Medford, Oregon. She is the author of several books including Natural Beauty from the Garden, Natural Beauty for All Seasons, and Natural Beauty at Home.
She’s a member of the International Herb Association, the United States Lavender Growers Association, and the Herb Society of America.
Janice brings an bright energy into everything she says and does. Her enthusiasm is contagious. Listen now!
Find out more about Janice Cox: http://www.janicecox.com
Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/
Full Transcript
Janice: I think I said this to the fair director, the world would kind of be a better place if everybody acted like they do it Mother Earth News Fairs because you have all walks, all backgrounds. There’s urban people, there’s, you know, country people, but everybody gets together because they really do want to learn and share and grow ideas.
Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.
If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.
You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.
We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.
From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.
This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.
Brian: Janice Cox is an author and leading DIY natural beauty and skincare expert. She is a wife, mother and grandmother and loves creating her own bath and body products.
She’s also a freelance magazine writer and beauty editor for Herb Quarterly Magazine. Janice is a member of the International Herb Association, the United States lavender Growers Association, and the herb Society of America.
She will be speaking at the remaining Mother Earth News Fairs for 2019 in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. Janice, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.
Janice: Thank you for having me. This is fun.
Brian: Sure thing once you let everyone know besides what’s in your bio, just tell us a little bit about who you are what you do?
Janice: Well, I am kind of a DIY beauty. I’ve just always had a passion I grew up my dad was a farmer. My mom was a home mech major. So I kind of grew up in a DIY environment anyway. And I’ve just always had a passion for body care products.
Now growing up, we lived out in the country, so I couldn’t run and buy things. So we had to craft things. And I had to use what was on hand when I first started out, people really liked my recipes. Because you could save a lot of money, which you still can.
Today, I’ve noticed that my message is kind of shifted, where it’s people are really concerned with the products and the ingredients that they’re using on their body. And so knowing what goes into even the commercial products that you’re buying, because there’s a lot of great products out there helps with your overall wellness.
I mean, I’ve seen people change their health, you know, just in the ingredients they choose. So that’s kind of a little bit of where I’ve come from, I started out just making this stuff for fun, then I was saving money.
And now I’m really looking at it as a whole wellness part of your health regimen.
Brian: Excellent. So how did you end up here?
What’s your life story to this point, what brought you to this field?
Janice: I was a mother. And so I wanted a career that I could do with my family and also so I had the passion for making my own products.
We used to live in Australia before we moved back to the United States where beauty products and do yourself things are just super popular.
So I had a collection of recipes from family from history books from just travels. And when we came back to the US, my husband went and bought me some soap that I liked using in Australia.
And he kind of complained about the price of it and said, You should just learn to make this yourself, which was nice. I mean, he said it in a nice way. So I thought, you know, there was really a need for this, you know, so I put together all my recipes.
It was my first book was called Natural Beauty at Home and that was back in the 90s.
Now I’ve written four books and for a variety of magazines, and it’s just become a career that I am lucky because I got to do it at home with my family.
Brian: Awesome.
We talked a little bit about your books. Can you tell us more about the books you have?
Janice: Well, my books are written cookbook style, and so if you can read you could make body care products there’s a variety of things I have like thousands of recipes so you can make shampoo and a stringent bath products cleansers you know if there’s a commercial product you’re using.
Chances are you’ll probably be able to make one out of one of my books and they’re a little bit like muffins like once you get down, say the cleansers, you can then just kind of play around with the ingredients. So if you’re somebody that really likes rosemary or really likes mint, then you can adapt it to your own and your skin too.
So I kind of give people the tools but they’re really in control. They’re the manufacturer of their products so they can make them any way they want and tailor them to where their skins at that’s kind of nice to you have the control of in the winter, you might need more oil in the summer you might not need as rich of a product.
Brian: So what led you to write books to begin with?
Janice: I guess if I didn’t really start out to write books, but I wanted to share recipes. So that was an easy way to share my recipes with people is to put them all into like a cookbook, that they can easily get at the store.
Brian: Got it?
Did you enjoy the process?
Janice: I like meeting people. I think what I like about the writing, writing is kind of a solitary process, but it’s very creative. So I like that.
But I also like it when I go out.
The best compliment I can get is when somebody comes up to me with my book, and it’s just all marked up and used. It has oil stains. I love that.
And then a lot of times I learned from my readers, they will send me you know, like we like this, but have you thought of using jojoba oil? Or have you thought of, you know, doing this with rose petals?
And I like that part of it. So yeah, it’s just I just like everything about it.
Brian: That’s great.
Janice: It’s a good career.
Brian: So you’re slated to present at Mother Earth News Fair, you’ve already presented at the earlier ones.
What are you going to be covering in Albany?
Janice: Okay, in Albany because this is my second round of Mother Earth News Fairs and my second Time in Oregon.
This year, I’m taking ideas out of my book, Natural Beauty From The Garden, which is all plant based recipes. How to enjoy your plants that you might have or your neighbors might have in a new and different way as in body care products.
I also have a book coming out at the Oregon fair for the first revised edition of Natural Beauty For All Season. So that’s a lot of gift giving ideas.
What we’re going to do up in Albany is we’re going to have I’m going to give a talk on garden beauty.
We’ll talk about all the different plants that you might not have thought of using like parsley.
It makes a nice cleanser or roses, you know, you can also use in the bath or you know, just common plants that you have. And then we’re also I do a talk on lavender, lavender has been very popular now as a plant.
And so we’re doing a whole lavender for health and beauty and on Sunday we’re doing a lavender breakfast, where I’ve teamed up with the Oregon lavender association which represents all the farms and growers in the state.
We’re going to talk, we’re gonna have some farmers there. We’re gonna have some plants there.
We’re going to make a whole breakfast with lavender inspired dishes like a quiche and scones and we’ll have lavender coffee.
And we even have a sampling of lavender mimosas.
Yeah, so you get in early to the fair and you can have your lavender breakfast and then go off and enjoy everything else.
And then I’m going to do a hands on workshop that day, I work with Mountain Rose Herbs out of Eugene, and they’re sponsoring the ingredients that we’re going to use and we’re going to make some baskets at a newspaper and then fill them with about six different body care products.
We’re going to make a soap and a cleanser and hairspray and I’m trying to think what some summer those roll on perfumes.
I mean, it’ll be really fun. People last year, I did this, and it’s about two hours and we do make a lot of things but people really enjoy it and it kind of takes on a life of its own.
Brian: Very cool.
So what do you hope people are gonna get when they walk away from your presentations, what do you hope they get out it?
Janice: My mission is to make people better consumers.
That’s really where I’m at right now, in my career. I think a lot of people will buy things and they don’t necessarily read the ingredient label.
And there’s a lot of good products out there. There’s a lot of things that you’re spending a lot of money on, and which is basically water, or salt.
I’m teaching people how to read a product label, and also realize what the ingredients are not all ingredients are bad.
I’m not down on, you know, natural beauty products, which is not really a regulated industry in this country. I mean, in other countries, they’re very, like Canada and Europe.
I mean, there are products that, you know, they have like lists of thousands of products, I think our list is maybe 11 that can’t be in body care products.
So and anybody can say natural on their label, and it might not necessarily be natural.
I’m just trying to teach people how to read a label, know what they’re using, if they want to create their own chances. Are they have things already at home or in their garden that they can do that.
And so I’ve seen people, you know, people live like a healthy lifestyle or even a gluten free lifestyle, but they don’t think about what they put on their body every day.
I kind of say what goes on you goes in you, because they’ve proven that 25% of the ingredients in your skincare products goes directly into your bloodstream. I mean, that’s why nicotine patches pain patches birth kit works so well through our skin, because things go directly and so by looking at the your body care products.
I mean, there are people like I said, gluten free, and they’re using a shampoo that has gluten in it. So there you go, you’re not really getting anywhere.
Brian: Yeah, good point.
Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business. Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets.
We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.
When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.
If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away.
These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.
They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.
That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.
BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.
Brian: Why are you going to these Mother Earth News Fairs and putting on presentations?
What do you hope to achieve personally for your business?
Janice: Well, I’m kind of a super fan of Mother Earth News anyway. So besides whenever I don’t know, I might have a reputation because I also go to the classes, I also go to the talks, and I just love everything about it.
It really is an event where the things that you read in the magazine can be inspiring, but also you will up your skill level for sure.
Or maybe be exposed to something that you might not have. I took a class last year on growing mushrooms and I hadn’t even thought of that, that I could do that at home and you know, and now I have some spores, you know, out in my yard under my oak tree.
But yeah, there’s things like that that you will discover. I don’t know.
I like going to the fair. I like the magazine, I like meeting people.
It also energizes me and gives me new ideas for articles that I can write. And you know, so because I speak at other events also, not just Mother Earth News.
So a lot of times I might be working on things like lavender, or like my loofahs sponges, I did a lot on loofah sponges.
And then I ended up doing a webinar for Herb Society of America. And it really helped me because after a year of talking about loofahs sponges and with people about loofah sponges, you know, it turned into a really nice class.
Brian: Oh, that’s great. Who are you most hoping to reach with your presentations, both, you know, in person, and in your speech at the event. What was the ideal person you’re hoping to connect with?
Janice: Well, I don’t know if I have a type. I think everybody has skin and hair and is concerned about their health and wants to keep their body in good shape.
So I think anybody that’s concerned with health, wellness, and just wants to have a good time, you know, learning something new. And, you know, even making the workshop this year.
We’re gonna even focus on things that you could make and give as a gift or put in your farm shop if you’re somebody that’s already has products, so things like that. So anybody I’ll talk to anybody.
Brian: We have a lot of business owners, executives that listen to the show, because we kind of look at the entire self reliance field from business perspective. So do you think that it’d be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this?
Janice: Oh, definitely, definitely. Because the thing that’s nice about it, it’s a small, very intimate event.
In a way, I think a lot of things happen even outside of the booth outside of the talks outside of the workshops. I’ve seen people networking and getting together, you know, and even, it’s funny, there’s businesses there like I there was one, it’s a chicken company, but the people that are either the customers or new customers, they’ll get around that.
And they’ll just be like, these big, almost like a mini conference, about a product or about a skill, I’ve seen that a lot of people will go just to network.
Brian: Yeah.
Janice: And it’s you know, people are very open to talking about products and sharing ideas and even helping you improve yourself.
I think I said this to the fair director, the world would kind of be a better place if everybody acted like they do at Mother Earth News Fair, because you have all walks, all backgrounds, there’s urban people, there’s, you know, country people, but everybody gets together because they really do want to learn and share and grow ideas.
Brian: Awesome.
How did you end up becoming a presenter to begin with Mother Earth News? Did you reach out to them? Did they reach out to you How did that happen?
Janice: I asked them.
Brian: Yeah.
Janice: See there I go. I’m a super fan.
So I did, I asked them, I read the magazine. I’m a subscriber.
And then I saw the fairs advertised, I had never been to a fair contacted them and said, you know, this is what I’m about and it fits perfectly with what you’re about. And I would love to be a part of your event.
Lucky for me, they said yes. And they’ve let me in and they still keep letting me show up.
Brian: So do you have any logistical tips for other people that travel?
I mean, you’ve got to travel a lot to go to these. Do you have any logistical tips of things to keep in mind if they’re either speaking or presenting or putting on an exhibit or anything like that, and these both these fairs or any type of events like this?
Janice: I’ve gone to all the fairs and I would say, you want to really make the best of your time so I would come the day before. And if you’re working, if you can kind of walk right everybody’s setting up but you get a feel for the layout.
You also can go online, I usually go online right now you can print the whole fair brochure and schedule and see all the speakers and I see a lot of people that will show up with that already highlighted.
So they kind of make the most of their day because some of these workshops are like an hour or two hours, and so you want to make that, then you’re going to see what you want to see.
I mean not to say you, you don’t really want to be to planned out because sometimes things take on a life of their own. I mean, I’ve gone to, you know, Uncle Mud’s stuff about making a pizza oven.
And I wouldn’t have maybe thought of doing that. But it just turned out, I had that time open.
So you have to come, but you can plan ahead of time online.
And then also, I would stay close to the fair because I think that’s kind of nice, because you can kind of come and go easily, and just be open.
I would say the best thing is to come with a good attitude, and be open to maybe what you might discover. I know that there’s a lot of these stories and maybe you’re coming up to the fair for the first time you might meet somebody.
I met a guy in Maryland that he has a very successful chimney cleaning company, and he wouldn’t have ever had that company. If he hadn’t been a magazine reader gone to the fair learn some skills. And now this guy, you know, that’s all he does is clean chimneys. But he said He owes it to Mother Earth news fair, which is kind of
Brian: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. What else Haven’t I asked you that you think would be good to talk about?
Janice: I don’t know, I think I’ve told you about how, you know, you want to take good care of your skin and hair, keep it clean, full of moisture and protected from the sun. I think I’ve told you, you want to go up to the Mother Earth News Fair with a good attitude, and open to learning something new and even talking to somebody new.
A lot of times, I used to have a game if I went to an event, I try and meet three new people.
And I think going to the fair, maybe discover three new booths or talks would be good.
I don’t know just have fun. It’s, you’ll see and well, maybe I’ll have to come back up here because we kind of live by each other.
Brian: Yeah.
Janice: And do a post fair.
Brian: Oh, that’d be great.
Love to have that for sure. So what could a listener that’s interested in finding out more about you checking out your books, everything else, where’s the best place for them to go?
Janice: They can go to my website. JaniceCox.com and because you can send me an email, ask me questions. My books are available pretty much everywhere. They’re on Amazon. They’re Barnes & Noble, you know, any bookseller has the books.
But if you want to speak to me directly, you can just go to my website. It’s JaniceCox.com and I will talk to you.
Brian: Awesome. Awesome.
Janice, thanks so much for being on the show. Really enjoyed having you here. We’ll definitely have you back.
Janice: Oh, I hope so. Thank you. See you at the fair!
Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Janice is such a ball of energy. I’m so glad we got to meet in person.
She went through so much in that short period of time where we were talking that I’m just going to point out just a few things.
Janice follows along with that process of learn, do teach. Here’s a person that enjoyed learning these ideas so much. She automatically got out and started teaching other people how to do the same thing. But she said she soon switched Instead of just helping people to save money, she started showing people how to focus on health and all natural items really focusing on the quality life.
And that could be a different market that could those can be different people, she may be able to charge higher pricing for those type of items versus just playing to people to show them how to save money. These are things you have to consider when you’re letting your business grow.
What market are you playing to?
What needs wants desires are you attempting to fulfill in your customer base, you have to know who you are, what you’re good at what you aren’t good at because she’s a people person.
She learns from her readers. She relates back to people directly, she realizes that she enjoys being in large crowds of people. In a previous episode, we were talking with Andy Brennan. And while he enjoys teaching and being around other people and doing everything that goes along with being a speaker, he is initially an introvert, he tends to need some alone time to be able to recharge.
These type of experts have been doing it long enough that they know themselves and if you know yourself, you’ll know what you’ll be good at and not good at, and you’ll be able to focus in your strengths.
And like I always say, you focus on your strengths and you want to outsource all your weaknesses.
Janice puts a lot of focus on collaboration to a lot of great tips when it comes to going to events, attending events, both as a spectator and a person that’s going on business.
She plans things out, but at the same time, leaves things open enough to be able to have things happen on their own.
Another thing I want to point out is that she lets her niche or niche expand out so that it not just fits within a bubble. I mean, she has this entire book on creating gift ideas and you flip through this book.
These are not super hard to do. These are simple concepts, but can really create an impact.
If you’re looking at making your own gifts from scratch like this, her focus on skincare on all natural skincare. She’s taken her niche, and she has expanded it out to areas where it normally would not go. And she talks about it in a way that other people don’t talk about it.
This allows her to really stand above and beyond. You’re going to hear Kirsten and Christopher Shockey in a later episode discuss the same concepts.
Overall her super fan attitude about Mother Earth News and the Mother Earth News fairs is pretty contagious. I love that line.
I wish everyone in the world acted like they do at the Mother Earth News Fair. And once again, she has a huge focus on just having fun, just like we heard from Frank Hyman.
There’s so much more I wanted to get into with Janice and I’m happy she lives so nearby where I am in Grants Pass, Oregon so we’ll definitely be hearing from her if not at the fair, definitely after the fair.
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I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.