Tag: homebrewing

Jason Smith – Adventures In Homebrewing

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Jason Smith – Adventures In Homebrewing & Austin Homebrew Supply

From experiments in brewing while serving in the Army to now over 20 years in the Homebrew industry, Jason Smith joins us to talk about the joy of Homebrewing and fermentation.

Checkout Jason’s fine websites to help you in your homebrewing adventures today!

Adventures In Homebrewing – https://www.homebrewing.org/

Austin Homebrew Supply – https://www.austinhomebrew.com/

Transcription

Intro: Jason Smith is the owner of Adventures In Homebrewing.

It all started when he was brewing beer in 1992. While serving in the army in 97, he left the army and moved back to Detroit to pursue pharmacy school. While preparing for school, he realized the lack of competition in the homebrew market in Detroit and opened up his own shop in 1999.

Over the last 20 years, his business has evolved into both retail and online sales as well as producing their own warehouse management system. So the gap year that he took off from pharmacy school has actually been over 20 years now, but it’s been quite a rollercoaster ride.

Jason Smith, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jason: Thanks for having me.

Brian: So why don’t you let everyone know a little bit about what it is that you do?

Jason: My name is Jason Smith. I own Adventures In Homebrewing and Austin Homebrew Supply. We do homemade beer making, wine making, cheese making, distilling of products.

We have guests that do soap making, soda making to kind of anything that you would make at home. As far as beverage supply goes for sure.

Brian: How did you end up of all things in the home brewing industry?

Jason: It’s kind of crazy. I started out in the Army. And when I started, I wanted to make wine with the guys in the Army. And they’re like wine, How about beer?

Well, I suppose we could do that.

So we got involved with some beer making.

I worked in a pharmacy. We had lab equipment available to us, of course. So we started culturing a lot of our own yeast doing different things in the beer making side of it. We really didn’t have what’s available today.

Internet access, we couldn’t just order something.

It was a lot of finding where can we get grains, where can we get hops? And then of course with the yeast we started culturing a lot of it within the labs at the hospital at the time, I did that for some time, started a small homebrew club at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, did some fun stuff with that.

And then as I left the military, I got home, I was gonna go back to school for pharmacy.

When I got home, there was a couple small shops, but nothing really, that had bar equipment and you know, the kegging equipment and just the bigger items that were available.

I just had a larger vision of what home brewing could be versus what the local shops had had. Says talking to a friend one night over beer, of course, and kind of determined that we could do a better job than what was currently available in Michigan.

So the first thing we did was kind of that ESPN mentality.

Well, we can open this in Michigan, but there’s a whole world out there. Let’s jump on the internet and make sure that we are getting out to everybody. We started collecting email addresses, phone numbers, names, building an email list and slowly developed a small website.

That was 20 years ago, the website is done well, from day one, we’ve kind of evolved.

And now I’m sure we’re the largest store in Michigan, one of the larger ones in the Midwest, and there’s two or three stores in the country that I think evolved to our size but it’s just been a an enjoyable trip.

I love home brewing. I love you know, gourmet foods, gourmet drinks, of course, type in hand in hand. And they’ve been very fortunate to get in as the craft beer scene really exploded back in 99.

Most people were like, what is this craft beer?

Today, it’s hard to go anywhere without recognizing either an event or something going on with craft beer, kind of pick the right time replace and unfortunately, pharmacy school is put on the back burner and the homebrew shops evolved into what they are today.

Brian: Wow, that’s great. Was this your first business?

Jason: It was I was very young at the time. Gosh, I joined the army at 18. I was in for six years. So by the time I was 24, I was getting out. And that was when we opened the business. So yeah, it was kind of just a BAM take off learn business on your own. I hadn’t taken any real business classes or anything. I of course was a fairly responsible kid paid my bills, everything else.

So when it came time to business, making sure that you were paying all of your bills on time and stuff just came naturally. It was something I had already done as a person.

So that side of the business was fairly easy. Started with QuickBooks just plugged in my own information. Oh, it sounds like it would go there. first few years, I think we even filed on tax returns just with Quicken.

Boom, Well, looks like this would go there.

And of course, things become more complicated over time. But starting out everything I learned about business was kind of through Quickbooks and self taught.

Brian: That’s great.

So, you say you start an email list. How else did you find those first customers?

Jason: You know, it was really email to start with.

People come to the store and ask for their email list. And I only asked because it was in QuickBooks. And hey, it asked here phone number address, and I can remember guys asking What the hell are you ever gonna do with all this?

I don’t know, maybe open a credit card in your name.

But, you know, initially, I don’t know what we would do with it was just kind of, we’re gonna collect it and we’ll start, it was weird.

People would start to move to Ohio or Texas or Florida or California, whether they retire or move with a company, and they call us and hey, Jason, I really loved your store.

I can’t get that type of service here.

Will you help me out here?

It was weird how it just spread kind of like Coronavirus. Just suppose it was weird how it spread out and people would get to their new location their new home and they reached back out to us, Hey, can you do this?

And that was kind of the evolution of the website but more so it was word of mouth.

People locally did great jobs, building homebrew clubs being involved with homebrew clubs I, I’d like to think that we did a great job of just sticking around with guests at night having beers with them become more friends family than just a customer relationship.

And for that reason, so often people tended to brew more or green instead of extract which is more advanced instead of extract when they went somewhere.

They seem to be that advanced Brewer so people would ask them question, how do you do this? How do you that?

And then they refer back to us.

So it was a evolution I think or it grew because of our involvement or my involvement. And, you know, getting people involved with the all grain with the kegging equipment with a just kind of nerding out on the whole craft beer.

But we had guys open breweries we had guys open, small brew club pubs, brew clubs opened up all over. And it was weird how it just kind of spiderweb back to us.

Brian: Wow, that is interesting.

If you go from there and jump forward to today, where are you finding your newest customers at today? People are just coming across you, how are they most likely finding you?

Jason: Our email list is significant for obvious reasons.

We’ve got God half million people available to list we section that out. When we do small email groups. We’ll do a group of 70 or 80,000 to hit winemaking because this is our winemaking group or things of that nature.

We do collect emails on the website, we collect them through our live chat, we collect them via PayPal, so however you’re paying PayPal, Amazon, anything of that nature.

We have a Facebook page with about 150,000 likes on it. So we utilize that outside That not a whole lot more obviously, we’re using our SEO and Google to pull people in.

But very proud of the list that we have. We’ve earned that list.

It’s not something we bought.

It’s not something we did marketing on newspapers or gave you something free to sign up on our list. When you’re on our list, it’s because you want it to be on our list.

And for that reason, I believe our list is extremely strong with people. Yes, I want to buy from Adventures In Homebrewing. And Austin Homebrew is slowly building into that same feeling, but they want to buy it to us because they’re comfortable with us.

And because we didn’t go out and get their name from somebody else. We didn’t build it by, hey, we’ll give you 10% off for this email. We we built it by you being at the site and by you buying things from us.

Brian: No, that’s great.

That’s a really, really good lesson for others out there who are looking at building up an email list. I mean, the fact that you’ve been able to build that up and then somewhat because come depended on it as your own form of marketing.

That’s really fabulous. So do you do any other sort of traditional marketing, any type of paid advertising, anything like that to bring people in?

Jason: Right now? No, funny you’re asking during a pandemic. Um, oddly enough, it seems our government is forcing people to stay at home and not travel and what the hell do you do you cook? You brew beer, you make wine? Yeah.

So right now we’ve shut down all marketing, all advertising, BC, before COVID.

We did a lot of Google marketing. I would say Google is by far number one. And I’m sure everybody else kind of tell you the same thing. But our Google marketing, AdWords things of that nature, we try and maintain about a 10% purchasing on that versus return on investment.

But we’ve tried Facebook, people aren’t Facebook to chat with family. We’ve tried a few other digital marketing, we just don’t get the return on investment in those places.

We’ve done magazines. Unfortunately, most people are reading magazines online and such now, and you’re just not getting the tracking that you have available to you through Google. So we’ve looked at other resources.

And the truth is we just haven’t done as well with paid advertising on them. On we still do classes, we own a company in Austin, Texas as well.

And in Austin, we have a huge sign and I 35 it’s a digital sign.

So we’ve had a sauerkraut class, we’ll throw it up there and it certainly brings people in or a kimchi class or fermented foods are something that seems to be are really a good source of marketing right now.

We do have, you know, sign up for email, see what we have going on.

So Austin, Texas has been a good resource for us to continue to add. But outside of that, um, you know, the yellow pages or anything like that is gone.

Now.

We just haven’t, it’s hard to justify the investment in it any longer.

Brian: Sure, sure.

And things have really changed with with the COVID-19 situation. So let’s stick with that before COVID. You mentioned doing these live classes, right, that you’re doing with people?

Jason: Correct.

Brian: And to go to live events or shows or anything like that?

Jason: Yeah, obviously, we hit the homebrew conferences every year, um, we would do mostly local in Michigan or in Texas, we would hit local events. Those seem to be our best bang for our buck that guests or customers would recognize us there.

And they, it was a great way to, again, build that family type relationship that we’ve had most was on premise classes, or going to events and just meeting people there.

Brian: That’s great.

What would you say is your ideal customer, if you could describe them?

Obviously, it’s someone that has interest in home brewing, but is there anything more than that, that really the type of person that finds you the most interesting becomes a great customer?

Jason: 20 years ago, you know what it was white males 40 years old. That was all we saw. It was almost like they came out of a mold in the beer belly, with a beer. 40 years old. It was pretty funny at that time.

Today, it is evolved.

We have women coming in. It doesn’t matter if African American or Asian, it’s just everybody is into the fermented foods especially so we’re getting a lot of we saw a lot of the cracks and things for kimchi or sauerkraut or any of those types of things we’re getting people in for that.

The beer brewing has just evolved and developed into a much larger crowd than what we would see years ago.

But no, I would say beer brewing still remains to be a little bit younger. It seems to be that 40 to 50 year old crowd. Well, I would say 50 all the way down to 20 now.

And above 50 tends to lean more towards the winemaking side.

We’ve really seen a huge increase in distilling.

And so people doing their own hard liquors and such of course sanitizers right now, I tried to sanitizers but online later on the jello shots or something. I have a hard time rubbing on my hands when I can drink it.

But, uh, overall, it’s really developed a much broader customer base than I’ve ever seen. Ever thought we would see. It’s been a pleasant surprise.

Brian: No, that’s great. After COVID I imagine the demands pretty high because of the situation or at least it hasn’t changed drastically what what other type of changes have you seen that have hit your business?

Jason: It’s just increased really, we’re up about 10% or so on sales.

So more people are certainly brewing we’ve funny the homebrew industry does really well, when there’s a bad economy. As the economy has started to tank we’ve started to increase. For the last five years the economy has been so strong that our business was kind of tanking on its own.

It’s like, Oh gosh, this is bad. We need something to happen.

I don’t wish for this. It hasn’t hurt business, of course. So prior to this, the good economy was certainly hurting business with this. Fortunately, fortunately, it is helped her business significantly.

The hardest part now has just been hiring qualified people.

With people getting what they’re getting on employment. We’re not seeing a whole lot of applicants, of course.

So we’re having a difficult time hiring right now and keeping people comfortable. The back of our warehouses. It’s hot, summertime, it’s especially down in Texas.

The guys and gals don’t want to wear masks during the day and trying to enforce that. And people have told me I’ll quit if I have to do this. I got one side they’re saying it’s just too damn hot. I can’t wear masks in the warehouse.

With our retail locations. We do wear masks and we protect all our guests. But then some people when they put in their application, they come in, they don’t see masks, oh, gosh, I don’t want to work here because you guys aren’t wearing masks in the back of warehouse.

So we’re really in a tight fix right now.

Those that have been here are very comfortable and look for six months, we haven’t wore masks back here and we’re fine. You’re gonna bring in a new guy that’s going to tell us all we have to.

So it’s been difficult to maintain that balance and keep everybody happy.

Brian: So that’s an interesting perspective.

I hadn’t heard about the hiring issue before that no one’s brought that up right off the bat. But that makes a lot of sense, especially if everything else is stable. How about the supply chains, anything like that any of your back end, logistics, have you had any issues there?

Jason: Fortunately, we wrote our own warehouse management system.

As I said, as in the military, I worked in the hospital. I worked in pharmacy directly. So logistics was a strong point coming into business. And we wrote our own warehouse management system.

So as soon as we do saw the increase in sales, the increase in we ramped up all of our stock levels. And I really think we have stayed ahead of it.

There’s some off the wall things coming from like Australia that we’re having a little bit of a difficult time maintaining.

But overall, we were out ahead of this guys, we’re gonna get busy. And we did we were able to prepare for it better than most I talked to, you know, of course, I have friends in the industry that own businesses and they’re a week or two behind on stock levels or whatever else and we were out ahead of it just pure it on lock system working well for us.

And just enough foresight to see, hey, we’re gonna get busy.

We need to get ahead of this. Unfortunately, over 20 years have seen down economies we have busy economies we get slow. It was to be expected. I just totally was ready for what came, as far as the sales go.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely.

I know a lot of companies that are on the grow that would love to have an opportunity to have a logistics system like that.

Have you ever thought of franchising out your warehouse management system or selling that process?

Jason: Yes, we did a good job developing it, and it works for us very well.

The downside that I’ve found with it is unless you have the people in place that understand excel and offer, that we’re going to be supporting it too often, that I don’t think we can support that and continue to support the company.

But it’s certainly something that my wife and I have talked about that. Brandon who helped me develop the system and I have talked about, it’s probably as valuable as what our company is because of what it does.

We had NetSuite and we got rid of NetSuite. And we moved in develop this and I would say We are every bit as powerful as what a NetSuite type platform would be. So no, we we have talked about it, it would just you take the beers out of my hand and put a suit and tie on. I don’t know I’d want that. Lol!

Brian: That’s a good point.

So what’s your top selling product right now?

Jason: Believe it or not nothing, and it was really cool. I hired a warehouse manager about five or six years ago. And one of his first questions was Jason, how many line items do you have?

I go, Well, we’ve got about 7,000 line items. And he goes, well, what’s your top seller?

Like his thought processes exactly what yours is, and I go, Well, we don’t have a top seller. That’s the cool part about this.

He worked for me for about a month and after about a month, he pulled me aside he goes you know, Jason is going to tell you you’re full of shit. You’re going to have a top selling item. You’re not, you sell all 7,000 items, and he was just shocked at how diverse our guests were. In what they were buying that it wasn’t just one thing keeping us afloat.

And the banks have told us that before you know, they come in and they look at you get what if you lose this one customer, you’re gonna be in trouble.

We don’t have that one customer our average sale is 75 bucks ahead and we sell all 7,000 items pretty much evenly.

We’re fortunate in a good blend of business to keep us very safe.

Brian: That’s fabulous. That’s really cool.

What do you like best about your business and or your industry as a whole?

Jason: I think it’s the customers.

I love having our guests come in and I’ve seen what they build and what they do. It’s enlightening. It’s motivational, it’s to see the things that they’ve built in their homes.

And you just look at it, you’re blown away about how interested somebody could be in this hobby. And then you get the other side of the spectrum.

I’ve had guys bring beer in, in those tide dispensers. And I’m like, You gotta be kidding me enough. I rinsed it out, put beer in there, you push a little button and serve beer like, Alright, and my response is pretty much the same as yours. You’ve got to be out of your mind and but just the broad difference of what we see in our customers is so much fun.

And you know, they come in and I’ve had guys that had fermented milk and really fermented milk? Oh yeah, I’m gonna try goat milk next.

I’ve had guys that have taken artesian well water and made their beers with it.

And I picked the hops outside of a brewery and I go to Michigan and I got the lake water out of us go to Michigan and we’re, you know, got natural yeast. That’s awesome that guys and gals are that involved with what they’re doing.

So I think that’s by far the most fun today.

We’re working out front and two different guests came in throughout the day, hey, we brought you beers. You’re just sitting there and you get enjoy, whether it’s beer, cheese, or wine or some type of distillate. It’s neat to have people bring those things in but I think when it’s all said and done that’s what I’ll miss the most.

Brian: If there’s one thing on the opposite end of it, if there’s one thing you could change about your business, what would it be?

Jason: I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of change a thing, sometimes there can be a lot of people get into homebrewing because it’s gonna be cheaper. So, I think sometimes there’s that side of it, where everybody’s trying to save a buck.

And it makes it a difficult industry to, you know, keep your staff paid or make decent money in. But, you know, sometimes I think that might be a little funny, but I assume you probably see that with a lot of the prepper mentality is, how cheap can I do this?

And the other one maybe is Amazon. I think for years, I thought that we were bulletproof. We could never go out of business we can never go under. And over the last two or three years, a lot of homebrew shops have gone under. It was where are you gonna go buy yeast?

Where are you gonna go buy hats other than a homebrew shop?

Where are you gonna go buy grains other than a homebrew shop and Amazon is really change that they’ve made those things available to anybody, and you can buy anything on Amazon.

But I think that removing the Amazon area from the industry would be really nice again to force everybody to come in and buy. Now, I hate to use the term force, but have everybody come in and buy everything from the homebrew shops.

It is a struggle to maintain a small mom and pop shops like that. And Amazon has certainly put a hurting on an industry that I just never ever thought was possible that the homebrew industry can be hurt by the big box stores.

I think that’s probably one and again, the mentality that hey, you can do this cheaper. Sometimes that makes it a little rough too.

Brian: Yeah, that makes sense.

If you and I were to get back together and say like a year from now and talk again, and we were to look back over the last 12 months and everything that you had done, what would have had to have happened for you to feel happy with your progress in your business and your life?

Jason: Next time, you should send me a six pack first, that’s all. Lol!

You know, Brian overall as long as my family stays healthy staff stays healthy. I say it’s been a good year. We’re happy with the company, we have a have a family setting with the staff and we’ve got 60 staff members and about 58 of them get along together.

So we’ve been really lucky with what we do, um, sales wise, over 20 years, I can say every year that I’ve been satisfied with where I’m at, I’m not the type of person that he’s driving around in a Corvette or Ferrari.

I’m happy in my 2000 Toyota For Honda enough, it’s so pretty laid back individual a lot of what I do because I do love the customers that we have.

And as long as we can continue to pay the bills, I don’t think there’s anything more than I would ever ask for to call it a successful year. I call it successful 21, and I hope next year I was able to say, hey, it’s been successful 22.

Brian: That’s great. So what advice would you have for the business owner out there just blanket advice?

Jason: Oh, gosh, read a business plan and know what you’re getting into.

I think so often people think they’re gonna jump in, open up. And these things are gonna happen without looking at profit loss statements without truly getting a good understanding of what you’re getting into a solid business plan.

Again, QuickBooks of all weird things has just a basic template that you go in and follow. And I throw that in there get an idea. I mean, if you want to make 100,000 a year and you’re getting into the whole machine, shop industry and it news for you to make 40 a year or 50 a year, make sure that the end goal is something that you’re able to accomplish in the business you’re getting into.

Embrace technology, make sure that you’re jumping on to the website sales and things of that nature, or make yourself available, whether it’s through like a zoom meeting or something Make sure that you are available the technology I think so often people get into it and they think they’re just going to get it from the local business.

And unfortunately, nowadays, first place you are I will look for something is online, open up the computer and where is it. So local is difficult to be, you’ve got to get out there and be available online, at start with the business plan, and you make sure that what you’re planning to do, you can be successful or happy.

Again, success isn’t measured by money, but successful, happy doing what you’re going to do financially, it’s going to be stable enough to put you where you want to be.

Business plan and making sure that you’re getting yourself out there to a broad enough audience that you’re able to be successful in that area. But I think those are probably the biggest things that I would say.

Brian: Those are great points. Really good.

What can a listener do if they want to find out more about adventures in homebrewing?

Jason: Fastest thing right now, visit the website, HomeBrewing.org and we have AustinHomebrew.com as well.

But websites are a great resources.

There’s a learn how to section we have YouTube videos and such directly from the website. So I take a little time there if they’re more interested in checking it out, um, anything else feel free to shoot me an email I still respond to every email I get if they’re looking for something or have a question, Jason@homebrewing.org. I still, believe it or not, 20 years later, I still respond to all of them. And I enjoy speaking with our guests.

Brian: All right, Jason Smith, owner of Adventures In Homebrewing. Thanks so much for being on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jason: Thanks for having me Brian I appreciate it.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Jason was a real kick to talk to if you couldn’t notice.

He just has such a great positive attitude, confident about what he’s doing. But open to new ideas. If you listen to very many of our episodes, you’ll notice that the people that are the most successful are the ones with a similar attitude.

They don’t necessarily have the same personality, but they have the same attitude. There’s a light easygoingness but at the same time, a determination and just a future focused attitude about things that’s very refreshing.

I found it interesting that the biggest issue that they’re dealing with right now, with the COVID-19, is that they’re dealing with employment issues, finding the right people to be able to do the job.

That’s very interesting, but it also shows that they’re on the grow, because they wouldn’t be hiring if they weren’t informed on the growth. If they didn’t need the help, they wouldn’t be doing it.

And like we talked about, he is on the grow, demand is high. A lot of people are getting into this industry right now and into this hobby, or these hobbies that he has equipment to help you out with whether it be wine making, cheese making what have you.

He’s got the equipment available for all these different things.

And they’re all growing right now, which is really cool.

But running into that employment issue. It’s sad to see and you can see how so many of the events that are going on right now have people in a very uneasy state, people are scared to get sick, and they’re scared to give up their unemployment checks.

There’s so many issues going on all at once.

It’ll be nice to see what happens when things calm down a little bit and we move on to whatever the next new normal or what have you is around the corner with all that it’s really neat to see that he’s been prepared though, that he has this warehouse management system that allowed him even when the times were not running as well for them to be prepared for when times did start going good.

And they did. It’s just a matter of time before things turned after the economy soured a little bit, everything started going well for him.

It’s another example of a type of business that can go well in what would be perceived as a quote unquote bad economy. And do you have the elements in your business to be able to do that?

Or do you have the ability to be able to prepare for bad times as well, for when the economy twists on you or when your business ends up falling behind?

Do you have the ability to make up for that good times bad times, having the control over those logistics will make a big difference to you in the long run.

Jereme Zimmerman – Make Mead Like A Viking

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Jereme Zimmerman
Make Mead Like A Viking / Brew Beer Like A Yeti

Episode 019.

Are you willing to break the barriers of your “comfort zone?” Is your natural personality holding you back? Were you made for employment or entrepreneurship?

Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Kentucky with his wife, Jenna, and daughters, Sadie and Maisie. In 2015 his book Make Mead Like A Viking was published, and became an unexpected hit! He followed that up with Brew Beer Like A Yeti in 2018.

Our conversation with Jereme goes into his life as a freelance writer and how it has lead him (inadvertently) to publishing books, and giving public speeches about homebrewing and the history surrounding it. His story is interesting and inspiring – Listen Now!

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

 

Full Transcript

Jereme: I almost think I’m just kind of made to do this kind of thing. Same as when I was homeschooling I could I get up in the morning, my dad taught high school English, you’d get up really early, I get up with him do my work, I’d be done by 11 o’clock.

Sometimes, the rest of the day I’d be playing in the woods, doing chores and stuff. And then when my school friends came home, they’d been set in school and I’m like, ready to go.

So it’s the idea of just being able to get up. And even though it can be daunting, sometimes at least I know, okay, well, here’s a list of what needs to get done.

I’ll get as much done as I can and often do my chores now.

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: Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Berea, Kentucky. He has been published in various magazines and websites and travels globally to speak on topics such as fermentation, natural and holistic homebrewing, modern homesteading and sustainable living.

He is an avid fermenter and researches extensively into traditional fermentation practices in order to revive lost food arts, and to educate people on how to preserve food using traditional natural and healing ingredients and techniques.

His first book Make Mead Like a Viking was published in 2015. His second book, Brew Beer Like a Yeti, was published in September 2018.

Okay, Jereme Zimmerman. Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jereme: Thanks for having me.

Brian: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are, and what you do?

Jereme: Well, you’ve already said my name. So we got that far.

I grew up on a goat farm in Kentucky, homeschooled all the way up through high school, didn’t go to high school. And my family was very self sufficient, can then preserved and hunted and fished and dad made his own wine from, you know, stuff he found in the woods and grew and that kind of thing.

That was my background.

And I chose to become an English major and actually use my English major for my job at this point.

I’ve been a freelance writer about 15 years now. And up until the past five, six years.

Yeah, it was just standard, just kind of business technical writing kind of thing.

My interest in homebrewing kind of started to get out there on the internet. I started blogging about it and from there very quickly turned being asteroid magazine articles to now having two books out.

Brian: What made you jump from the writing of articles to making book?

Jereme: I didn’t so much jumped as I was pushed.

So it was always this sort of yeah, like doing this, but I don’t know if anybody really wants to hear me write about.

Basically I had a friend who started a website called EarthandAir.com, which isn’t around anymore, but it was all geared toward homesteading kind of people.

And he kept pushing me to write blogs and I’ve been brewing beer. I was getting into Mead, and that was such a simpler thing to write about and talk about and I thought it was good for homesteading audience.

So I started blogging under a pseudonym redhead, a Yeti.

And he just was getting a tons of hits on the blogs and just turns out mead and Vikings were getting to be pretty big and they still are. So from there, just you know, I found a publisher at a Mother Earth News Fair.

They connected with me a presentation that I did and it just, things moved quickly from there.

Brian: So how did you end up doing presentations?

Did you ask them? Did they ask you how that start out?

Jereme: Again, I was pushed.

I my goal in becoming a writer was to live out in the woods, summer by myself, send my workout and I’d ever have to interact with people.

Turns out, you know, you kind of have to get out there in front of people.

So again, my friend Dan was here he was connected with Mother Earth News. So I’d never done anything more than talk in front of like five people at a time. And he connected me, got me doing a mead presentation to a couple hundred people at a Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville, North Carolina.

And, so I was like, do or die, why not? I’ll go ahead and do it.

And it went really well.

People kept asking if I had a book that some publishers were there and so that’s from there, I realized that the speaking thing is kind of important. So I’ve really honed my speaking skills and I’m actually starting to enjoy it.

Brian: Yeah, it’s great.

We got see your first your first presentation. Here today on beer making. That was great.

Me and the producer Sean here. You’ve written a couple of books here, can tell us a little bit about them for people who haven’t seen them yet.

Jereme: Yeah, so the first is make need like a Viking. And mead is a honey wine. It’s basically just an alcoholic beverage made from honey primarily.

And that was kind of my first blogs and my first workshops I called that, Make Mead Like a Viking.

Part of the inspiration for that was I was interested, I’ve always been interested in history and mythology and all that kind of thing.

But I’m specifically interested in how people made food and made and drink alcohol and other beverages. How they live, you know, everybody needs a drink.

So I kind of went at that from a DIY perspective.

And that’s where that came about.

And then my second book is almost twice as big as the first it’s called, Brew Beer Like a Yeti.

We decided to keep with a similar theme, but I went way beyond Viking in that one. So we didn’t didn’t really call it for beer like a Viking. And what that one is is essentially all the research I found on beer traditional beer brewing that just didn’t make sense man that made book.

So they’re kind of companion books basically.

Brian: Very cool. Got see your talk on beer making initially which is great, especially great for beginners people have never done anything like that before. I had a little bit of background I had a brother in law that had done it and so forth.

So I’d seen quite a bit of it before, it’s really great.

What’s your other presentation going to be about?

Jereme: So basically, I do a presentation for the beer book and presentation for the mead book.

So the one I’ve been doing at every Mother Earth News Fair since the first one I did like five years ago, I think it’s just make mead like a Viking. Is talking about the basics of me making and a little bit about the history mythology behind it.

And but I also do a third one Mother Earth News Fairs have started doing hands on workshops where people actually make a little bit of something and bring it home.

So we’ll be making a mead starter.

So basically, everybody takes a jar put some honey and water in a few other like fruits and berries and herbs. And that will then when they take it home as they do it right it’ll turn into a starter that they can then use as yeast to start a new batch of beer or mead.

Brian: That’s excellent. That’s so cool.

What do you hope people will walk away with after watching any of your presentations?

Jereme: Well, the one thing I always like to hear is, oh, that sounds a lot easier than I thought it would be.

So my goal has always been fermentation at its core is a very simple thing.

There are lots of lots of things you can do to make it not necessarily more complex, but more interesting. Although some people do like to make it complex.

I just really want people to understand that. It can be as complicated as you want it to be or it can be as simple as you want it to be.

So simplicity is the keyword for what I want people to walk away with.

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: We were talking before we started recording about how your publisher has set you up to attend these. Chelsea Green Publishing, right?

Jereme: Yeah.

Brian: And besides selling more books, what do you hope to get out of it? And what do you get out of putting these on coming to these events and so forth?

Jereme: Well, honestly, I’ve been doing it a few years now.

And I run into lots of the same people. It’s almost like a family reunion or a bunch of carnies is now I think about it.

It’s kind of a traveling carnival not just the fellow speakers, but all the people who put on the event, producers and you know, all those people are become friends and we all hang out afterwards and, you know, have a beer or whatever.

So it’s got that element.

I run into a lot of a lot of the same people who were just attending. Like this year, a guy came into my work shop and started talking to me, and I’m like I, I remember you. Yeah, I think I talked to you last year.

So there’s this real camaraderie. But I also use it as a springboard to tag on other events when I’m in a completely new area.

So I’m looking for article research for magazines. I’m finding other places in the area where I can do presentations to sell books. And you know, kind of a little bit of fun, too.

Brian: Well, that’s great. That’s really good.

Did you have a lot of history tied into everything that you do a whole lot of it’s a history lesson. Has that always been an interest to you?

Has it been something that’s just grown out of the general interest of making these things?

Jereme: Yeah, little both. I mean, I’ve always been just a history geek and and not just history, but the literature mythology and stuff of different time periods. And I always just figured it was just me and a couple of my geeky friends and it would never go beyond that.

But it just naturally became part of what I teach. I don’t really want to just teach.

Here’s how to do this A, B, and C, good job, go home. I want to learn how other people did in the past and it just kind of has become a natural thing for me to then pass it on to other people.

Brian: So you travel quite a bit to do these type of things. You have any logistical tips for other people that might be traveling and speaking doing some more things?

Jereme: Yeah, I probably got a ton of them. I don’t I don’t know how many am I want to get into.

But basically, try to get as many expenses covered as you can.

Like I said, you might my publisher helps to a degree that Mother Earth News Fair people help to a degree, but when I’m tacking on other events that aren’t tourism, then there’s no shame and asking for even just a little bit.

Travel pay, like you know, at least cover my gas maybe make sure you put me up.

Occasionally I’ll get an event where they can’t quite do all that but I understand that it’s really good for book sales or for networking.

So as far as if you’re just traveling to try and sell your stuff and sell your books, those are some of the biggest tips is just watch your money try to find any way you can get any of that I’m compensated because I’m not getting rich off this, but I’m at least getting by.

Brian: Absolutely. And then the book writing process.

Do you enjoy that whole process you like, don’t you? You see yourself doing it again?

Jereme: Yes and no.

Another author, you know, I was jokingly saying, she was working on a manuscript and I was like, it’s fun, isn’t it?

She like yeah, it’s fun when it’s done.

So there is a lot of you know, I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t something I didn’t reeally like some aspect of. You know, parts of it.

They’re just a lot of fun. The research is what really I think is fun for me but also gets tedious after up I’m like, Okay, I gotta stop at some point.

The writing is fun it’s when you get into the the final stages of proofing and editing which never seems to end, but I’m kind of a perfectionist unfortunately my editors are too.

So that’s almost fun in a way it’s just going through and tightening up some of the text or being like, you know, I think one of the phrases here sometimes is kill your darlings. You got sometimes there’s a big chunk that put a lot of time into and it’s just not working so I cut it out, but I always save it and I basically got a second book out of that. I still had to cut a lot of stuff out but yeah, it’s enjoyable, but there’s just there’s just so much more to it than just writing.

Brian: Makes a lot of sense then it’s funny because your background I was just curious. Being homeschooled and everything, homeschooling tends to be weaved throughout the DIY community.

Is Do It Yourself schooling, how how does that fit into your…..I don’t know, adventurous spirit or your ability to just kind of go out there and try new things, or have you seen that tie into it at all?

Jereme: Yeah, I mean, I always think it would be harder for me to do this if I didn’t have that background.

And I’ve thought about it. I’ve been basically self employed freelancing for most of my career and was 15 years now. And even though there are aspects of having a regular full time job, like insurance and retirement and all that.

For one thing that appealed to me and I do occasionally apply for a job that looks like something I might enjoy, but you know, basically, I think I’m just kind of made to do this kind of thing.

Same as when I was homeschooling I could I get up in the morning, my dad taught high school English, he’d get up really early, I get up with him. Do my work, I’d be done by 11 o’clock sometimes.

The rest of the day I’d be playing in the woods, doing chores and stuff. And then when my school friends came home, they’d been sitting in school all day and I’m like, ready to go.

So it’s the idea of just being able to get up. And even though it can be daunting, sometimes at least I know, Okay, well, here’s a list of what needs to get done.

I’ll get as much done as I can. And then I’ll go off and do my chores and have some fun.

Brian: Yeah. I appreciate you taking time out. It’s a busy weekend and everything taking time out and hanging out with us.

What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you or to get a hold of your books or anything else?

How would you direct them?

Jereme: Well, the easiest thing to do is just to Google my name, because I’m on like multiple different platforms. So my name is my website, which is the name spelled a little different, it’s, J E R E M E, and the website is, Jereme-Zimmerman.com.

So yeah, long enough of a name might be quicker to Google that, but I’m also if you have a business Facebook page, which is different from my personal so that’s, that’s where you can find me on.

I’m on Twitter a little bit.

I don’t use it much, but @JeremeZimm is my Twitter and my Instagram login. And for getting books. I mean, it’s all over Amazon you get if my publisher Chelsea Green Publishing, but my website I sell them through my website and I always sign anything I sell.

So you want a signed copy can do that and 24.95 the jacket price, but I usually sell for a little less.

Brian: Right on. Hey, thanks so much Jereme Zimmerman for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jereme: Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s been great.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Really nice guy, lots of fun to sit down and talk to very personable.

Which is interesting because he’s also kind of admitted that he’s somewhat of an introvert, but he got pushed into not only becoming a writer but becoming a public speaker.

You have to get out there in front of people to promote your books and so forth and to get your name out there. And that’s a big piece I think that most people completely miss when they start down the road of writing a book.

We spoke with Andy Brennan in an earlier episode. And it’s impressive to me that these people who would normally consider themselves introverts do so well on a stage.

And he did well on a stage, Jereme was very good on a stage and was able to put these very complicated concepts and make them very simplified. I really liked it.

His willingness to go along and try out these new things and finding other opportunities and being open to other opportunities is really cool, too.

It’s an attitude that I think all successful business owners have, and people that are on their way to becoming successful. You need to realize that those are the good parts of you.

The parts that seek out opportunity, the parts that are willing to go beyond your comfort zone, don’t neglect that side of you because that is what’s going to lead to success for sure.

And also the realistic end where he says that there’s no shame in asking for travel pay. It’s something that’s necessary when you’re moving ahead.

But it’s like he said, You don’t do it just to sell your books, you got to make sure you can at least get by.

Don’t spend more money than is necessary to be able to go out and promote your books in order to make money. Your budget has to match up at the end of the day. Really good advice.

I like how he blends history along with the How To of making beer or making mead or all the other things that he talks about. That’s very much a personality thing.

And for him to allow himself and his personality to spread out, makes his entire brand unique. He doesn’t have to worry about competing against everyone else telling you how to make beer or how to make Mead.

These are all things you can look up online.

What he brings to it is personality background, and something that you just get from anywhere else.

If you have that type of courage in your writing in your speaking in your content development, you’re going to get a good response back and you will delete any sense of competition.

Finally, I love when he said, I guess I’m just kind of made to do this type of thing.

And he was referring back to homeschooling. And he related all that back to being self employed. Tying in directly with the homeschooling, that self reliant attitude is great because we have a podcast here about self reliance, but also it goes to the core of what being an entrepreneur is all about.

And Jereme definitely has that entrepreneurial spirit.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas. I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.