You’re listening to the Off-the-Grid Biz
Podcast.
I’m Brian Pombo.
I’m going to set the scene for you a little
bit with this next interview.
You see this all started when I was set to
meet one-on-one with Kirsten and Christopher
Shockey.
This is kind of different because up until
this point, I had not done any live interviews
with anybody for this podcast.
Everything had been done either by phone – we
also do it by zoom, which is a digital communication
similar to Skype and so being one-on-one,
I thought I had all my equipment working properly.
Sadly, I was wrong.
After finishing up, I realized that my microphone
was not fully plugged in to my recording device.
What we ended up with was subpar audio.
The conversation I had with the Shockey’s
was so interesting, was so revealing, that
I found it necessary to get as much out of
this audio as possible.
What we ended up with is – there are some
parts of the audio you may not be able to
fully understand what the person’s saying.
So here’s what I did to help resolve the
problem: We attempted to get the audio to
sound as best as we could and I’ve added
in transcription where you can actually read
what everybody is saying.
If you would rather read it, go check out
the description or go to offthegridbiz.com,
and right in the post, you can read every
word that is spoken in the podcast.
With that in mind, I hope you enjoy this great
conversation 
that I had with the Shockeys.
Brian: Kirsten.
Christopher, welcome to the Off the Grid Biz
Podcast.
Shockey’s: Thank you.
Glad to be here.
Brian: So why don’t you just let everyone
know a 
little bit about who you are and what your
roles are at Ferment Works.
Kirsten Shockey: Yeah, so I’m Kirsten Shockey
and what we’re doing now is teaching people
to Ferment and most of that is through writing
books, and then that takes us all over the
place teaching classes.
The fun part is fermentation is becoming more
and more well known as such an important food
for our gut-health and so people are curious.
People want to feel better.
And, yeah, that’s where we come into picture.
Christopher Shockey: The previous incarnation
of the business we made products, we are an
organic food company and we would take organic
produce in the valley here and turn it into
fermented vegetables, pickles, sauerkraut,
kimchi, things like that.
We sold at farmer’s markets and sold in
Grants Pass and Medford and Ashland – in
that area.
And we basically grew to where we service
this area.
And then when we were facing the first Whole
Foods order, that was as big as everything
we’d produced before.
That was the realization that we either grew
and became something bigger, and moved our
facilities and everything else, or we decided
to transition it to this phase.
And this is what we’ve been doing since
the book came out 2014.
Kirsten Shockey: Yeah and part of that was
when we were at the market, we realized how
interested people were in understanding these
foods more than we would of known.
So, that as part of the decision.
Brian: Very cool.
So, how’d you end up here?
What’s your basic life?
Up until this point?
Christopher: We’re old enough.
That’s a long story.
Brian: Just give a brief synopsis.
I mean we learned a little bit from your bio.
Christopher: So we met in Arizona Community
College.
We back in the day, back in the 80s.
For those of you that maybe don’t remember,
it was as crazy as it looks in the pictures.
And my first career was at Hewlett Packard.
So, um, we lived in Boise, then we moved to
Corvallis.
So that’s what brought us to Oregon.
East Corvallis.
In the meantime, we had four wonderful kids.
So Kirsten homeschooled, she was trained as
a school teacher.
So, she homeschooled the kids and we got ever
progressingly larger pieces of property to
also manage.
So we had an acre in Corvallis and then we
wanted the kids to grow up in a rural setting
to know where their food came from.
And we looked all over the country actually.
Everything from played out dairy farms in
New York to South Dakota.
Places you could get a lot of land for not
a lot of money.
It was one of the trips down to California.
We came through this valley and we have friends,
the Pennington’s that live in the valley.
Yeah, just fell in love with it.
We found a farm that was – the people had
raised four kids there and they had it on
the market for 14 years.
And basically they’re waiting for a family
like, that they wanted to take the farm over.
So we kind of interviewed for it, really (didn’t
know it) but it was 110 that day and so the
kids stripped off and played in the creek,
and you know… it was the place we probably
should’ve found.
So that was in 1998, and that’s what brought
us here and we’ve been trying to figure
out how to make farm pay for itself ever since.
Kirsten: So we were homesteading and a lot
of that, like Christopher said, was so that
the kids could know where their food came
from, a part of just being rounded individuals.
And so we had dairy animals and that led us
to cheese making.
Not as a business ever, but that was kind
of one of the first ferments that we were
doing.
The farm came with a lot of really old, wonderful
apple trees.
So cider making also became a thing.
And then vegetables sort of started with a
Christmas present.
My mom gave us a crock with sauerkraut in
it already fermenting wrapped up under the
tree.
So, from there we realized that fermenting
vegetables from the garden was a much better
way to preserve them and back to trying to
find a little family business to make the
farm, you know, a little bit profitable.
That was when we did the small sauerkraut
company.
Brian: And so you transitioned from having
the physical product into basically….you’re
an information business in a sense.
Right?
Kirsten: That’s true.
Brian: So you’ve written a few books.
Why don’t you tell us a little bit about
them?
The first book is, Fermented Vegetables and
that’s the one that really came out of that
whole farmer’s market experience.
And so what we were doing is, we were taking
seconds and overages and things like that
from the local organic farms.
We get called up and ” I have 400 pounds
of burdock or parsnips or fill in the blank,
can you do something with this?”
And at the time there wasn’t a lot about
vegetable fermentation on the Internet there
weren’t a lot of recipes.
There was nothing that said, “yes parsnips
are safe to ferment,” or “not safe.”
“This is how they would taste good.”
And so I just started experimenting and turns
out the science is such that you can’t kill
yourself with fermented vegetables, any vegetables
will ferment.
But at that particular time I didn’t quite
have that down yet.
So all that experimentation became, what,
50 or so varieties in that first year, because
we were just working so locally, um, and just
creating recipes from what was available at
that moment in time.
So, that became that first book.
That and having people come to the farm and
learn and really listening to their questions
and what people didn’t understand.
And so we tried to make it a book that was
like somebody coming to the farm and then
also something where anything that came out
of their garden or from their CSA gasket they
could figure out what to do with it.
So the second book was a – taking that a
little further with condiments and hot sauce.
Christoper: I went to the Grange and brought
too many peppers home.
So we had a lot of peppers and we didn’t
want to dry everything.
And so Kirsten to start experimenting, fermenting
because that’s what we knew.
We came up with some great hot sauces.
The first book is in five languages now, I
think.
And we were just in South America for the
Spanish version, teaching people in Buenos
Aires and Chile how to ferment; and we were
just in Spain teaching the Spanish version.
Some cultures like spicy things and some cultures
don’t.
Fiery Ferments has had – where people who
like things a little bit spicy, they love
it.
And for other people, its like the first step
into something a little more spicy.
But they don’t have to be hot.
Then this latest book is something still for
fermented, but very different than those first
two.
And this took us three years, write.
Labor of love.
Kirsten Yeah.
There’s a lot of topics in there.
So it’s fermenting grains and legumes – beans.
They’re all very different and with different
microbes.
It’s a fun book.
Brian: Well that’s great.
And those of you who are listening, if you
haven’t seen these books, they’re very
thick.
Full of a lot of colorful pictures.
Very well produced.
I mean that’s just really impressive.
What led you to write the first one?
Christoper: We were lazy.
So anyone that has the romantic image of being
at the farmer’s market and selling things.
And you go through and you say, “someday
I’m gonna leave my job and be one of those
people at the farmer’s market.”
The reality is, is that, you know, you’re
getting up early.
You spent the day before putting all this
stuff in jars and labeling and touching it
about seven times.
Keeping it cold.
You get to the farmers market about seven
in the morning, you get it set up at nine
o’clock.
And then all day long people come through,
they tell you how good your stuff is.
They may or may not buy it.
Then you take home everything that you haven’t
sold and you repeat.
It is, I mean, we met so many people, but
it’s a hard way to make a living.
It’s hard because you end up doing farmer’s
markets four times a week.
Building a product, making product in between.
So one was, it was hard to see doing that
for a long period of time.
We’re also bad drug dealers in that people
would get addicted to the product and then
they wouldn’t have the money to pay for
a jar.
And so we would start passing out recipes
to teach people how to do it.
Because I would say, “You just need a cabbage
and some salt and you can make this yourself.”
And they’d say, “Really?”
And I’d say, “Yeah.”
And they’d comb back and say, “Well it’s
not as good as yours, but was really good.”
And I’d say, “Alright.”
And so, I think between those two things,
we just had more of a passion for seeing people
having success and being happy about eating
it.
The product which “you should of bought
ours” versus somebody else’s.
And so that’s what lead us in to just, “We
should just teach people how to do this”
instead of making it and having them eat our
version of it.
Kirsten: We just feel like the food is empowering
and making it yourself or with friends or
whatever is so much more empowering then going
out buying it.
Brian: So about the book-making process, the
writing and everything that goes into the
production, do you enjoy all of that?
Christopher: Yes, we’re a little unique
in that we are a husband and wife writing
team.
Kirsten: We’ve made it through three books
and haven’t killed each other.
Christopher: There have been times.
Kirsten: Actually, we’re on the 4th one
and we still haven’t.
Christopher: We have a lot of author friends
now.
One of the biggest things is finding a company
that’s good to work with.
Storey Publishing is who picked us up.
They’ve been really fabulous to work with.
If you have a good editor that, you know,
can walk you along the process.
And like you said, they’re really beautiful.
They have really quality photographers that
come out and shoot these things.
So you know, it looks very professional.
It is very professional.
So that helps.
The writing processes, it’s interesting
because Kirsten and I are very different in
that I’m more of an ideas guy and kind of
scattered and I like to talk about things.
I don’t necessarily write anything down.
Kirsten is also a big ideas kind of person
and also she’s the one that can put flavors
together.
Since this is going to go with that, I don’t
know if you gave me water colors, I’ll always
end up with brown.
You know, maybe I want to paint something
pretty, I just add too much.
It ends up always brown.
So she’s got that flavor palate skill.
Between the two of us, we kind of fill in
the gaps.
Don’t you think?
She keeps me on task.
I’ll say, “Oh my gosh I found this piece
of research, its really great, it explains
this.”
And she says, “Did you write it down?”
I said, “No, but, I also just-” “Stop.
Go right down.”
It’s working.
Kirsten: Oh very much.
I, mean, there are day.
Brian: Yeah.
Kirsten: Deadlines are ugly.
Christopher: Like today: So, this is our second
podcast.
Just did a demo.
We’re on tour – just starting to tour
for this book.
We just got the manuscript back yesterday
for the next book.
And Kirsten’s working on the third book.
Kirsten: We don’t get bored.
Christopher: Partly we’re just kind of squirreled
away, trying to come up with words.
It’s much more just work ethic, you know,
it’s just like any other job.
Several – I have multiple projects at the
same time.
Kirsten: And I think what’s probably changed
with writing is you do have to find other
outlets.
So, physically teaching or teaching online,
or whatever that is, is a way to help make
the books possible – because you certainly
don’t make a living writing books.
And then the other thing is, I mean, our books
sell so well, but there’s a lot of work
just constantly trying to be out there with
just free content for social media or whatever.
Just constantly putting it out there, and
I think that’s probably what’s changed
a lot for authors.
It used to be your royalties and whatever
made you the living, and you could “squirrel
away” like Christopher said – but now
it’s, it’s not like that.
I think, you just, you’re constantly just
reminding people what you’re doing.
Who you are.
Whatever.
Brian: So where would people go beyond the
books with you?
You said you have classes that they can get
involved with?
Christopher: We wanted something that people
could use to start easily right away.
So on our website, we’ve got a seven-day
course that they can sign up for – which
is free.
There’s no hidden anything in there.
And then we’ll start email them each day
with, “Here’s what you need to get,”
“this what we’re going to make.”
And we’ve got thousands and thousands of
people who have done that and sometimes they
bought the book, but they still just needed
that very focused, “We’re going to make
sauerkraut tomorrow.
So today you’re going to go buy cabbage,
and some salt.
And tomorrow we’re going to make it.
And we’re going to make lemon kraut – lemon
dill.
Then we’re going to.”
We get people all over the world to do that
one and so like I said, I don’t know how
many thousand people completed that and that’s
usually the first start.
We usually do a whole classes on our farm
every year and we have people that come in
either from the west coast, or we’ve had
people as far as New Zealand and Europe come
to the class, so it’s a chance to do an
intensive couple of three days, just dive
in and do all kinds of ferments.
And then in the Rogue Valley, we do a lot
of libraries and things in Ashland and Medford.
We just try to keep doing things for the community.
Usually they’re free or your minimum costs
things so people can come.
Sometimes they just need to see it, experience
it and then we do things around the country
in terms of Mother Earth News Fairs, workshops,
other places that are doing things like that.
We do those things too.
Kirsten: We’ll partner with people to put
together workshops, so that, you know, everybody
gets paid.
And we’re working on some online content
and classes and things like that that we don’t
have date for all that.
But we do have a lot of big ideas and hopefully
that will help supplement so that we don’t
have to travel as much.
We enjoy the traveling, but still just paying
for our time to you know, find more of those
sources of (what’s the word I love?) passive
income.
Brian: Yeah.
Commercial (Brian): Okay.
We’re gonna 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’re 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 there, talking about
how to use events, books and speaking all
to build your business.
That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.
And now back to the conversation.
Brian: Makes a lot of sense and you mentioned
the Mother Earth News Fair, for those of you
who weren’t aware, they’re going to be
speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair and
Albany, Oregon.
What are you going to be covering there?
Kirsten: Ferments.
We’re going to be talking about making condiments.
Fermentation with condiments.
We’re going to be talking about gut health.
A lot of what we’re doing now, it started
out just really just culinary, like, “Preserve
your vegetables” or “You can get some
probiotics.
Your vitamins are going to be increased”
and all of that.
But since the first book came out, five years
ago, the country has gotten sicker and the
science has gotten stronger that our guts
are everything.
Brian: Yeah.
Kirsten: And so we do the talk on gut health
and kind of pull it all together.
We’ll be talking about the new book.
We’ll be making some hands on miso so folks
to sign up for that class.
Christopher: I’ll be teaching hordes of
little kids how to make sauerkraut.
Kirsten will disappear right before that then
she’ll show up at the very end.
It’s really cool because you know, part
of it is just, it’s one of the things that
people – well, they basically park their
kids someplace and go do stuff – so kids
have very low expectations about what’s
going to happen.
And when we say, “How many of you like pickles?”
Maybe 2 kids will raise there hands out of
50.
Or, “How many like sauerkraut?”
And there’s always like one brave little
girl, who finally raises her hand.
And everyone else – kids’ll be holding
their nose.
Then we talk about what it is, we talk about
microbes and their job is to eat sugar, and
fart.
And then the kids are like “I’m interested
– that’s a job!”
And we’re going to do that.
And then, “We’re going to get to touch
our food.”
And they’re like, “With our hands?
Yuck!”
We’ll have them taste raw cabbage, and I
would say 80% of the kids have never tasted
raw cabbage.
They don’t know.
And they taste it and they say, “It’s
sweet .” “That’s sugar, that’s what
the microbes want.”
They’ll say, “There’s sugar in vegetables?”
“Yeah!”
And then they’ll taste it and we’ll make
sauerkraut and we’ll say it tastes like
salt and chips.
And they’ll be like, “Oh that actually
tastes like a potato chip.”
I’ll say, “Well, yeah, kind of.”
And then they’ll put it in a Ziploc bag,
and we’ll talk about, you know, millions-
Kirsten: -We have them taste it.
We bring already fermented food so they can
taste that.
Christopher: Then they take a little Ziploc
bag home with millions of microbes here, they
have to take care of, and sauerkraut.
I mean, so they’re looking at the bag, and
they’re so excited that they’ve done this.
And, you know, the parents will come to pick
them up and they’ll like, “Oh, I made
sauerkraut!
Look at all these microbes are farting!”,
And you can tell the parents are like, “What?”
At the Farmer’s Market, the thing that would
just kill us would be: kids would come up
to us and they’d start grazing on the samples
and they loved it.
And the parents would slip in and say, “Oh,
you’re not gonna like that, that’s sauerkraut.”
And the kids would, like mid-fork, put it
down, “Oh I didn’t like it.”
But they loved it.
We grew up with sauerkraut coming out of the
can and it sucked.
So, we perpetuate those things that we think
are bad without letting our kids taste it,
or experiencing something new.
And so I think for us who are kind of dedicating
our lives now to this, getting to the kids
is really important, because shortcut out
that part of what we as adults think and just
go straight to them.
And you know, they typically love it and if
they’re brave and they taste it and they
like it, they don’t know it’s weird, and
they just eat it.
And then now they’ll tell their kids, “Yeah
that’s sauerkraut and you can eat that.”
So to us to make a huge difference, kids are
really important.
Everywhere we go, we’re trying to make sure
there’s some kind of kids thing that we
do to, sort of, infect them with this cool
thing.
Brian: That’s huge too, because the demonstration
and getting their hands in it, creating that
memorable experience.
I mean that works with adults, but with kids
that’s highly impressionable.
That’s awesome.
What do you hope that everyone else is going
to walk away with after watching your presentations?
What’s your main goal there?
Kirsten: So fermented foods, are basically
processing food with microbes.
And for the last 100, 150 years we’ve been
told that ears told that microbes are not
often a good thing.
Antibacterial is what we do.
And for good reason.
Um, however, now we’re realizing, “Oh,
wait a minute some microbes are good.
In fact, there are a lot that keep us going.”
So I think that people come with fascination,
curiosity, they’re feeling bad, they want
to feel better, but they also come with a
head full of fear about these foods.
They don’t understand them.
And so walking away, understanding them and
feeling safe enough to go home and try it.
Because, honestly, you know, these foods – sauerkraut,
you leave it on your counter for a few days
or a weeks and then you stick your fork in
it, right?
Now everybody’s been told you don’t do
that, right?
Or some of these ferments in the new book,
you know, you’re growing fungus, so you’re
in, working in these temperature zones that
we’ve been completely told will make food
spoil.
So I think that’s a big part of actually
when we’re live with people you’d be surprised
how many people are raising their hands because
they’re afraid of the food.
The big take away is: it’s easy, we’ve
got this, it’s not scary.
I know safe.
Brian: It’s really funny about American
culture and how you’re slowly seeing this
change, and I think it is because it’s in
the news all the time about the gut biome
and the connection to mental health and everything
else and it’s amazing all the things that
are tied back to gut health.
And just thinking of American culture.
Me growing up, that was the same thing is,
“You won’t like that.”
Especially when it came to sauerkraut and
things of that sort.
And it was always one of these things where,
we were always pushed away from that.
And nobody was doing it on their own, that
I knew of that, was actually fermenting foods
themselves.
My wife was born in Ukraine and they did a
lot of that.
So when we started hanging out together, she
was showing me all these things she was doing.
It was different, but at the same time I’m
adventurous so I was willing to go with it.
Kirsten: And she’s probably cute.
Brian: Oh yeah, of course!
So it is really interesting how things are
changing.
You guys are helping to change the world here.
It’s really cool.
If someone is thinking of going to, let’s
say the Mother Earth News Fair, let’s say,
the one in Albany, Oregon or any of the ones
that they’re putting on all over; what’s
the main thing you would say to encourage
them to come out?
Christopher: Well, the neat thing about the
Fair is that it’s one place that they pull
together a lot of similar – even if you’re
into homesteading or self-reliance or alternative
energy.
It’s all there and you can go at your own
pace.
There’s usually a group five stages going
at every time, so you can plan it out.
It’s very kid friendly.
So you can take the family and learn everything
from tractors to microbes and everything in
between.
There’s lots of animals.
And so it’s kind of got that country fair
feel to it too.
But at the same time if you really have projects
or there’s something you’re trying to
figure out, you can go and ask someone who
is in that line and you can answer your questions
face-to-face.
And I see that all the time, when people ask
me really in-depth conversations about starting
a farm or gardening or going into business
doing one thing or another.
And I think that’s really neat that there’s
a place with like-minded people and lots of
vendors, but kind of focused around that.
Kirsten: It’s really – if you’ve seen
the magazine – it’s kind of like the magazine
come to life.
You know, the speakers are very accessible
and there’s just a lot of information shared.
Christopher: Yeah, and there’s a huge book
store.
You really can see somebody speak or look
at the book, go ask them questions, you know,
look through the book before you ever make
that decision to buy the book.
So it’s kind of nice that way too.
Brian: If you were to describe, like, the
ideal person, the person that maybe you’ll
have a long-term relationship with or what
have you, that you’re meeting at something
like this, who is that person?
Who is the ideal person that when they come
in contact with you, they’re like, “Wow,
this is a piece I’ve been missing and I
can’t wait to learn more.”
Just the people that 
just really eat it up.
Christopher: We can do a couple, because there
are demographics – um, 20-somethings are
really, as a demographic, they’re kind of
rebelling against being told what to eat.
Kirsten: That whole Millennial group, they’re
rebelling against that thing that was really
loved in the 50’s like, “My burger is
always going to taste the same at this place.”
I think we’re getting away from that now,
and that generation is really leading the
charge.
Christopher: And there’s so much more information
out there.
So when somebody tells them, “That’s harmful,”
people look it up in the phone they have in
their pocket.
And so it’s a time now where society can
make their own decisions about things.
And so, when we are at some places, it’s
funny, because it’s those younger people
that just think this is cool and they want
to do it for themselves, that really “do
it themselves” ethic, and flavors.
And then, surprisingly, it’s an older population
too.
We have people now in our classes that are
in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s who are very
traditional, would be considered traditional
in-terms of-
Kirsten: -Just conventional lifestyles.
Christopher: Yeah, and for some, they’re
working on their health.
You know, and they’ve come to this from
whatever avenue, whether it’s diabetes or
osteoporosis, some lifestyle thing.
And they found fermented foods and they want
to make it themselves.
You know, they’re eating enough of it that
they want to do it themselves.
They’re the ones that I think, email us
when they make the first one – they show
us pictures.
Our email…
If – we get a lot of attachments and – the
good and the ugly.
We see, we see successes and failures all
over the world.
Kirsten: I think we mostly see failures.
Christopher: Sometimes we’ll see one and
they’ll say, “Look at my beautiful thing
it worked!”
It’s like that’s a pretty one.
We get a lot of mold pictures.
Because people just want to know “Is this
okay eat still?”
And so we do a lot of that, a lot of outreach
about that.
But those are the kind of people that, once
they’ve had a success, they get excited,
they start combining flavors.
They’re just proud that there doing it and
they want to share it with people.
So we become friends.
Brian: We have a lot of business owners and
executives that listen to this podcast because
we look at the self-reliance field from the
business point of view of not just what you’re
providing people, but specifically you and
the fact that you’re looking to, kind of,
run things to become more self reliant.
I mean that’s your whole story.
You think it would be worthwhile for them
to do something similar?
Would you encourage other people to write
books and speak in the same way that you guys
are doing?
Chirstopher: Well see, so our path was: a
product company and then.
Like we said, we saw information now.
It’s a very crowded world as you know, you’re
one of a few podcasts, right?
I mean, people have limited amount of time.
So, I think, just in the information economy,
as well, you need to have a clear voice.
Something that’s strong and differentiated
from the others.
And the other thing is you just have to keep
building upon it.
So if we’d stopped with Fermented Vegetables,
we would be one of many, many Sauerkraut books
now, out there.
We kept learning.
So that’s the it advice, is that even if
you have a niche, whatever it is, you need
to continue building upon that with your own
experiences or others or new information and
data to stay up on that and be willing to
pivot.
You know, we thought we were a product company,
and now we’re books and classes.
Don’t know what we’ll be in the future.
But whatever needs are there, you’ve got
to keep your eyes open about what’s not
being filled, right.
Books are like that too.
No one’s really written about that.
So we didn’t grow up making miso or tempeh
or natto.
It’s not like Kirsten’s Korean and I’m
Japanese, and she said, “Let’s just do
these flavors that we grew up with because
these American’s don’t eat it as much.”
You know, I grew up in the Midwest, “casserole
city”.
Yeah, so you have to be willing, I think too,
when you see an opportunity to be able to
invest your time and expertise to really learn
that deeply, and then write from that knowledge.
It’s also very rewarding.
Kirsten: Well, and it’s a lot of work.
It’s a lot of work.
It’s a lot of hustling.
For – I mean, we’re making it, and it’s
fun; and I think that’s the best part.
We’re doing what we want to be doing and
we’re doing it together.
Which – you know, our product company was
our first go at that, because before that
we had a traditional – Christopher had the
outside job, and kids.
But you know we’re also, we’re traveling.
We live where we want to live.
Don’t necessarily need anymore.
A little more, may be good.
Christopher: Oh income?
Kirsten: Yeah.
Christoper: Always.
Brian: You won’t turn it down if it shows
up, right?
Kirsten: No, I mean, I guess what I’m saying
is (and I believe I said it once, but) book
writing isn’t a path to wealth.
Brian: Yeah.
Kirsten: It just isn’t.
But it is a path to credibility and opportunities
that get your message out there.
If you have a passion and something to say
too.
Brian: Well said.
Great Advice.
How did you end up becoming a speaker at the
Mother Earth News Fair?
Was that through your books?
Did Storey [Publishing] set that up for you
or did you reach out to them?
Did they reach out to you?
How’d that work?
Kirsten: Yeah, the first Fair was through
Storey, who set it up.
Yeah, the first go-round, the first set of
fairs that I did was all through Storey.
We have a good relationship now with Mother
Earth News Fair.
And we both do, you know, freelance articles,
things like that with Mother Earth News – and
they’re launching Fermentation Magazine.
Just coming out in September.
So we’ve been helping with that.
Brian: I bet.
Kirsten: And then otherwise, you know, it’s
really like any other field it’s like who
you know, and we all try to connect each other.
And you know, this friend says, “Hey, we
know these guys doing a fermentation festival
here.
Why don’t I do an email introduction?”
You know, and we do the same thing.
The fermentation community is very welcoming.
Like any business, it’s the same thing.
It’s just, who do you know, and connections
and trying to get yourself out there.
Brian: Awesome.
And you guys have been traveling a lot, because
you’ve been hitting all the different fairs
and so forth.
So, what are some logistical tips that you
would have for other people that are doing,
speaking a lot of traveling.
Kirsten: Well, if you have to travel with
ferments, good luck!
You’re going to always be checking your
bags.
You’ll always get a love letter from TSA.
Christopher: Traveling with knives and blocks
of mold.
Pretty much gets you on their list.
Kirsten: Jars of sticky things that are is
getting warm in your bag and starting to waft
up.
Hot sauce bottles.
Christopher: We both teach in the workshops
and I think in all those cases, my biggest
thing is manage your energy.
Because when you’re, you know, some of those
things, some of the days you teach for six
hours, a few hundred people and you really
drained at the end.
Just staying on top of a class full a hundred
people with knives is, you know, that’s
a lot of mental energy just making sure no
one whacks somebody with a knife.
And everybody’s got fingers at the end of
the time.
There’s no blood, and everybody’s happy.
So just taking care of yourself on the road.
You’re getting enough sleep – drinking
enough water.
Trying to eat right.
It’s tough for us, because we wind up in
really difficult places, that just have chain
places to eat.
And so just taking care of yourself when you’re
on the road, because it can seem very romantic
and you want to just go experience everything.
You just come home completely drained for
a few days if you’re on the road all the
time and you don’t have those recovery times.
So I think that’s a big one on the speaking
side.
The other one is just, you know, it’s a
business too.
And so we can get caught up speaking and not
take care of, “Where is this going next?”
Making connections.
You know, trying to plan out like Kirsten
said, you’re always hustling.
So remembering that you are the speaker but
you’re also the CEO and you’re also the
marketer and you’re all those things.
And so, depending on –
Kirsten: – You’re also the contact person.
Sometimes for my personality it’s hard to
say, “yeah I actually do need pay for this.”
And I think that’s probably something that
writers and speakers in this day and age really,
really suffer with because so many magazines
or blog posts, it’s like they’re happy
to get free content and they’ll expose you
to so many people.
And I think while this online self-publishing
thing started, a lot of writers, in a way,
shot themselves (and the whole writing industry)
in the foot in that people expect free content
and it still takes work to make it.
It still takes time to take pictures, and
develop the recipes or whatever your content
is you’ve invested in it.
And yes, you do have to give some of it away
– that’s part of it.
And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing
– I’m just saying at some point if you
want to make it a career, you have to start
valuing yourself and being able to say, “Yes
I’ll do this, but here’s what I require.”
Whatever that is, if that’s $50 dollars
or if it’s $2,000 dollars.
And that’s hard move to make.It’s really
hard to take that leap, to say, “Yeah I
would love to come do this.
But, let’s talk about how to make that happen
so it’s good for everybody.”
Brian: Absolutely.
It’s funny I spoke with Gary Collins with
The Simple Life earlier today.
He was mentioning the same thing about having
to deal with the fact that we’ve created
kind of an entitlement society in a sense
that people kind of all have their hand out
and they’re expecting everything for free
and it’s eventually you’ve got to put
a price on things because if it’s actually
going to be valuable because everyone needs
to eat.
That’s some great, great advice, definitely
if you’re new to the information business
is something you definitely need to keep in
mind.
If you aren’t new, you already know it but
you have to keep on top of that for sure.
I really enjoyed my time here with you guys.
What could a listener do who’d want to find
out more, want to read your books, everything
else, and all the classes that you provide,
where could they go?
Kirsten: Our website has got our calendar
for classes, we also got the free e-courses
at Ferment.works.
That’s probably the best place.
I think we’re most active on Instagram as
far as just, sort of that, what’s going
on kind of place.
And that’s also “@ferment.works.”
Chirstopher: There’s Facebook.
Kirsten: Facebook.
And the books are available anywhere that
you buy books.
You’re a little mom and pop, brick and mortar
store to big online sellers, they’re there.
Brian: Fabulous.
Hey, thanks so much for being on the Off-the-Grid
Biz Podcast.
Chirstopher: Thanks for having us.
Kirsten: Absolutely.
Thank you.
Brian’s Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed
sitting down with Kirsten.
Christopher, I wanted to point out just a
few things from this conversation.
First, the fact that they use an initial free
course, this is common throughout Internet
marketing, but not as common within the realm
of self-reliance businesses and it’s something
that I think is quite useful.
They mentioned, they have thousands of people
who have signed up for this course and it’s
called, “Five Ferments in Seven Days.”
It’s an e-course.
You can find it on their website.
Ferment.Works.
So why is something like that so useful?
It’s useful because it starts the conversation.
It gives someone something quick valuable
in exchange for their email address so that
you can continue communicating with them from
that point on.
And today, the world is so distracting.
Any chance you get to be in front of the same
person more than once is a good thing for
your business.
Something you should keep in mind is any form
of lead generation like this, a way that you
can have a lead that you can go back to that
you could communicate on a regular basis with
that is very valuable and it’s way overlooked
by most people in the self reliance field.
I love their story of starting and stopping
having these tough days at the farmer’s
market.
Getting their product out there, going through
all of the hassle, realizing finally when
they’re at the peak, when they’ve got
this great deal with whole foods that this
is going to get even harder.
You know, with the physical products and them
looking themselves in the mirror and saying,
what are we doing?
Where do we really want to go with our business
and making the courageous decision to say,
no, we’re going to pull back and go in a
different direction.
And how did they choose that direction?
They chose it by listening to their audience.
Their audience wanted to find out how to do
it themselves.
It’s all because of the fact that as he
said, they’re bad drug dealers.
They were giving it away.
They were giving away the information straight
off the bat, allowing people to make their
own, but through doing that, they found out
that many people were more interested in doing
it themselves.
Then in purchasing the final product and the
dirty little secret is that an information
business is a lot less backbreaking if it’s
done correctly and this is the thing that
they point back to over and over again.
They’re doing what they love to do.
Yes.
It’s a little tiring if you’re traveling,
if you’re on the road and promoting a book,
putting on presentations, these are all things
that you have to way along with it, but overall
information is delivering a book in the mail.
It’s sending information online.
It’s having online courses like they’re
talking about having more of.
The best thing about information, it could
be added to any current running business.
Even if you have physical products that you’re
already getting out to people, you can tack
on an information business like we’ve heard
other people do, like Gary Collins.
You can go and listen to our conversation
with him and that would give you more of an
idea of how he’s been able to do it.
I think it’s great that they’ve been able
to work as a couple.
They can deal with all of the stress that
comes along with that because they have two
very different personalities, but at the same
time they found a way to work around it.
Part of the struggle of having an information
business is constantly reminding people who
you are and what you do.
And that’s what Kirsten said and that’s
dead on.
That’s a huge piece of what they’re all
about right now and it’s important that
they have their eye on that.
It’s also important that they have a focus
on developing passive income because they
don’t want to run around forever.
They don’t want to have to keep this thing
going on its own.
They have to have some pieces of their business
that run on their own that allow people to
access it without them having to hold people’s
hands every step of the way.
That’s what automation is all about.
That’s what outsourcing is all about and
I’m glad to see that they have their focus
in that direction because I think they’re
going to get the best results with that in
the long run.
And finally they mentioned that free information
problem that Gary Collins had also mentioned
and this is something that that the information
marketer has to think about.
What can I afford to put out there for free
of the free stuff that I am putting out there?
How much of it is encouraging people to take
the next step?
We can go on and on and we will definitely
be touching about that idea in the future.
We will no doubt be talking again with Christopher
and Kirsten because they live so nearby me.
I can’t wait to be able to dig in a little
deeper into their concepts of business and
the adventurous they’d been having on the
road.
