Building a Lavender Based Personal Grooming Brand – Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there, entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks. This is a show where I interview successful e commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business story, and also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start and grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Jocelyn Shepard to the show. Jocelyn is the founder of Appalachian Botanical and they create exceptional aromatherapy, body care and beard care products. And today I’m going to ask Jocelyn a few questions about her entrepreneurial journey and some of the strategies and tactics that she has used to start and grow her business.

Now, before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this kind of content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. And for more content like this, please visit our website, Treptalks.com And with that, [00:01:00] Jocelyn, welcome, and thank you so much again for joining me today at Treptalks. Really appreciate your time.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Thank you for having me.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So very interested about your business and your entrepreneurial story. So maybe we can, uh, start with a little bit about yourself, you know, can you share a little bit, uh, about when you started this business, what were you doing before? How did you kind of get into the entrepreneurial path and what really motivated you to, uh, start a business?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Well, in retrospect, Sushant, I think I fell into it and fell into entrepreneurship. I was a consultant for about 20 years before starting the company and in late 2018. And in fact, that’s how I got introduced to Lavender and what became the company by working on a federally funded project. To prove lavender would grow well on reclaimed coal mine land.

So I co wrote the grant. I wrote the feasibility study, became involved [00:02:00] that way, stayed on the team when the project got funded. And then later year and a half later, project was finished. We all broke up and I realized, or I said to myself, there’s got to be a way to start a company around this. to grow lavender, distill it, make great products and create opportunity in the local community where we were in southern West Virginia.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. And, but the land was not, um, like once the project was completed, did you still have access to the land or where were you planning to grow lavender?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Good question. I went back to the land company who had given us permission to operate the project on their land. And told them about my idea for a company and they found me another location on another piece of land they owned about 20 minutes away.

Turned out to be a really great fit for getting the, the, the actual planting and growing of lavender started in the spring of [00:03:00] 2019.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And so your business, is it kind of specifically centered around lavender and lavender based products, or that was kind of the start and you have, uh, diversified from there.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: It’s the second. Yes, kind of. If you imagine the bullseye, the initial opportunity was to prove we could grow lavender and distill it, make great products. And then we realized it’s not enough simply to distill and sell lavender essential oil there. That market is too saturated. There’s too much well established competition.

So moving out from that center, we included hydrosols, the flower water byproduct. Of steam distillation, we then went into types of, um, hydrosol that did not include lavender. So we were branching out there. We moved into body cream, body oil, um, and some other specialty products before in, I think, 2021, [00:04:00] moving into beard care products.

And as I hasten to tell the guys who look at our products, I go, no, no, no lavender. Don’t worry about that. So we have a, we have a nice range of about eight beard, beard and scalp care products. And most recently this spring, we launched our line of due South body care, personal grooming products for cleansing, shaving, anti chafe, et cetera.

So we’ve really come a long way since starting out with lavender.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And so your profession before starting this, so, uh, sorry, if I missed it, did you say, were you a chemist or how, how, how did you get into like this kind of,

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: uh, extracting

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: the.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Not even close. That’s a great question. I, um, my education includes a PhD in literature and the library science degree and 20, 20 years of teaching and consulting.

I’m the storyteller in chief. [00:05:00] And I put together the vision for what the company could be and helped guide it along, um, along the way these past five plus years. I am fortunate to have a full time chief technical officer who is indeed an industry trained chemist. And she is the glue that holds the operations together.

She oversaw the growing of the lavender, the distillation. She formulates all our products and oversees our manufacture filling. packing and shipping. She’s amazing.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. And what kind of motivated you to get into, uh, an entrepreneurial venture business? Well, like, did you just wanted to try something very different?

Were you looking for to develop extra income? Were you looking to, you know, Create a product. What kind of motivated you to go into this starting a business path?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I [00:06:00] think what motivated me, Sushant, was I did not want to see the opportunity lost. Once that federally funded grant was over and the project was finished, we had proven that something could be done.

I can’t claim it’s unique, but it is very rare where we can take coal mine land that’s no longer useful. We can employ local people, many of whom do not possess high school diplomas. And we can grow a botanical crop that’s valuable as part of value added products and, and do it in a way that lets people who, now let’s just say they’ve gotten, they, they’ve struggled sometimes with family and life and securing employment in their home community.

So really, just very literally, I wanted an opportunity to create a business that would hire people that would have otherwise have trouble getting hired. And who could stay in their home community and do this work and be proud [00:07:00] of it and be part of something really, really cool and really different.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I think I was

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: motivated by the human aspect of this more so than perhaps the environmental reclamation piece of it.

We could really make a difference in a community. that was, was very open to us, very welcoming. And so that part has worked out very well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, it definitely sounds like a win win from, you know, even though you’re saying it’s not, you know, your motivation was not necessarily environmental reclamation, but definitely seems like, you know, you you’re utilizing a land that would otherwise probably would not have other users.

And number two, are these people that you’re employing, are they, are they kind of like the people who have been laid off or are no longer working in the coal industry or what’s the background there?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Uh, great question. All the answer is yes, [00:08:00] all of the above. Um, the people we’ve employed, some of them have worked in a coal mine or in companies that supported coal mining operations, or they worked in the energy industry more broadly, which has a downturn in the region.

We have people who have struggled against, uh, to overcome domestic abuse, poverty, uh, lack of a good education, um, uh, perhaps they’ve been incarcerated, or if it had issues with substances, with illegal substances. So it runs, it runs, It runs the gamut. As far as the win win that you mentioned a moment ago, it’s actually a win win win, and I think your listeners might be interested in a little bit more in depth about the MISDIS model, because there are actually three legs to the stool.

We have an agricultural lease with a land company, and it’s a 15 year lease, which was our way of saying, we’re here to [00:09:00] put down some roots. Ah, pun intended, and we don’t want to go away anytime soon. We pay the land company nominal rent and some royalties on the back end. Then we have an opportunity to take this lavender, put it into value added products and sell it commercially so we can make our money.

And there’s one more player in all of this, which is the coal miner, coal mining company that has the mining permit on the same land where we are doing our lavender. That coal mining company has an obligation for reclamation once it’s finished mining, and it has to self bond in order to make sure it, it completes its requirements.

I’ll fast forward through the details, but because they accommodated us growing lavender, they got their bond release in probably a quarter of the time they would have if they had stuck with their original plan, which was to [00:10:00] plant trees. I mean, isn’t that amazing that instead of 10, 15, 20 years, within three years of us planning lavender, they were able to file with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to say, we have completed our phase three obligation, please give us some of our money back.

Yeah,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, so it’s a very interesting discussion. So, I mean, once, I mean, I’m finding it really interesting, like, so once a coal company has mined this, and, um, you know, to me, what it seems like, or what it sounds like, uh, you know, this land cannot be used for farming agriculture. And now, you know, You are kind of using it in a certain way to grow lavender.

Is it kind of bringing back some of the vitality of the land so that it can be used in a more normal way in the future? Or is this land kind of barren land, barren land to begin with, and you’re just kind of making use of it?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: [00:11:00] Well, um, I don’t know if you can see the picture behind me, but that’s our, that’s the lavender fields on what used to be a strip mine.

So it’s actually quite verdant and beautiful up there. You wouldn’t know that this was a mining operation, uh, There really, because of the topography, because of the location, there really isn’t anything that necessarily could be built there. And actually, um, the mining company is still operating certain sections of the site.

So that’s another reason why it would be difficult for the land company to find someone else to sell the land to, rent the land to, to do something with it now that the mining is done in this particular part of the location. Thank you.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Very interesting. Um, so when you started out, of course, you know, you, you, uh, got this ins insight or inspiration, uh, of making use of [00:12:00] what, you know, what, what has already been done.

Um, did you have, did you start off small, how, you know, what kind of investment, um, go into your business? Did you kind of partner with people or did you say, you know, let me just, uh, start something and then we’ll see how it goes.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Somewhere in between, I’d say there was a little bit of leaping into it and we bit off a lot that in that first year of growing.

Um, but on the other hand, we didn’t we didn’t go crazy with the amount of acreage or the size of the crew and so on. I have an investor. And an angel investor who has helped make sure that the company keeps going while we were in the early stages focused on growing the lavender and then later when we had our first real harvest in the in the summer of 2020 and could then start making and selling product.

Um, and that’s been, that’s been very important to have [00:13:00] that support and guidance and not just the financial piece of it, but to have, to have somebody to work with in that fashion. And that was all the more important. Sushant and I know probably everybody you talk to who, who launched in the summer of 2020 launched sales has a lot of the same story to tell disrupted supply chain, inability to travel to trade shows.

Uh, in virtual impossibility, making calls on retailers or others that we knew, if they knew about our products, they would want to buy them and carry them in their stores. So we started a little bit behind the eight ball with, with the sales and marketing in 2020.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So it sounds like you kind of started, uh, B2, B2C model.

And now are you, what is, uh, how would you describe your, uh, business model?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I’d say a great majority is B2B, and that’s not [00:14:00] something we fully understood or appreciated when we got started. Um, I’m skipping ahead to the lessons learned question on your list, but one of the lessons we learned was it was extremely expensive and often frustrating. To advertise via, uh, Google, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera, in order, the, the customer acquisition cost was quite high.

Um, and I was, I was working with people who were very good in many ways, but did not have the sales and marketing background. That would have probably in retrospect been really helpful. I know I did not. And again, sort of in that category of here are things we learned. There are a lot of people out there.

You will be totally shocked. I’m sure to know who will blow a lot of smoke when they say, Oh, we can come in and we can make sales for you. And we can get you, we can get you a distributor and we can do all this. Just simply pay us this very expensive retainer every [00:15:00] month and we’ll make it happen. So to my credit, I figured out pretty quickly that that was not the case and this it wasn’t the right match wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t a good fit for that.

So we’ve been learning as we’ve as we’ve gone along and our model has has evolved as e commerce has evolved over these past few years. So right now we are on. Like for a retailer wholesaler platforms, we’re doing quite well on fair, we’re getting traction on bulletin. We recently got accepted onto the pod foods online distribution platform, and we’re also listed with range me, which is where the art, the buyers for the very large chains or medium, the large chains go to discover new brands.

And so we’re putting a lot of effort into, uh, getting ourselves onto those platforms and keeping those maintained and attracting, uh, business. As a result, we’re shipping retail orders [00:16:00] all over the country, and so it’s, it’s working well for us. We still have our Shopify site for our, for our B2C customers, and I need to do the shout out to AppalachianBotanical.

com. So people can go and shop and, and see what, see what we have to offer there. Um, and I really enjoy the, uh, live events, live market events that I’m staffing generally on my own and where I’m mostly regional, though, I’ve been to a few places, um, outside my region. I love meeting customers face to face.

It’s great for, um, discovering what they care about, answering their questions, um, see, I take a lot of pleasure in seeing them try out our products for the first time and realize how very, very nice they are. Um, and I will say on average, I pick up one to two retailers, For every one of those events that I, [00:17:00] I attend and sell out because they’re, they’re, they’re just on, uh, for personal enjoyment, but they see my products, they ask for a line sheet, which I happen to have with me and my business card.

And that often leads to very good relationships, people I’ve met in all kinds of interesting corners of West Virginia and the greater region.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, it’s so interesting how e commerce has evolved. Uh, are you finding, I mean, just a few years back, I think, you know, B2C was all the rage, right? You know, if people were starting their own little brands and they were, uh, uh, marketing directly to consumers and it was easy because, you know, Facebook marketing and Instagram marketing and all these platforms, you know, it was cheap and easy to market and you can, you know, drive customers, acquire customers at a lower cost.

But now, of course. All that has become so much more expensive. Um, do you kind of advise now, like if a business, [00:18:00] if someone is looking to start an e commerce business to rather go the route, the B2B route, you know, wholesale kind of route, um, and do more of a sales effort rather than going B2C and online marketing.

Do you think that’s the more, uh, like what could be the challenge in, in doing that?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I like, I like B2B. Because it, it pushed us to really up our game with our packaging, our presentation, our marketing materials, our ability to talk about our products with a variety of potential customers. And they got our products, uh, literally into stores coast to coast.

I mean, okay. I don’t mean to make it sound like, like weird, like the next huge thing right after Sephora. We’re not, but it, it, it. It exposed a lot of people to a lot of customers to our brand and they some of them have then come and shopped with us on our on our own website. So [00:19:00] I’m happy about that. Uh, that’s the online platforms make that pretty easy to do.

The cost is more along the lines of sort of classic just a distributor or a marketer taking their cut. So that, you know, fair takes X percent

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: of

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: the transaction because they not only, um, connect us with potential with retailers who want to, who want to find new and interesting independent brands, they take a cut fair does they make the they actually handle the trend.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah,

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: basically handle the transaction. Same with bulletin. They take their cut. So does pod. Um, range me just takes an, it’s an annual subscription. So there it’s, you know, we’re on our own to, to, to work, to work that and the money stays in our pocket. To me, that’s fair because I have a very lean team

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: and

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: the, these platforms [00:20:00] amplify our message and our, in our reach.

So I have no complaints. about that. I also have no complaints about starting with B2C and emphasizing as I have looking for opportunities to sell face to face because I think especially for a, a health and wellness beauty brand like ours, talking to those consumers and engaging with them directly is very important.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Yeah. And I think, you know, even with B2C a lot, I think, uh, It may be easier to start with a marketplace rather than trying to go find your own customers. Maybe, you know, I think you can’t run away from costs, you know, whether it’s a marketplace like Amazon or a, you know, a B2B marketplace like fair.

Um, there’s always going to be their cost. Do you find that once you have built a relationship with a retailer through, let’s say, fair, um, Do they prefer to continue working with you through that platform or can you go [00:21:00] outside of the platform and just start doing independent business with them?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: They can, they can work directly with us if that’s their preference.

But I’m, I’m all right with it staying on fair because there’s certain guardrails and, and sort of measures that are built into that, that I think are reassuring to the retailer and I’m okay and I’m okay with it. There are certain things, I mean, we’re a small company. We like to, we really emphasize making our customers happy and there’s some clunky things sometimes with an online platform that get in the way of doing that, but that’s a minor, that’s a minor issue.

I’m, I’m, I’m happy with whatever the retailer wants to do, because I mean, I’m complaining about marketing costs and, and social media and so on. I mean, and I’m sure you’ve got, you know, and you’ve had other guests who speak to all the things that have happened to the retail sector over these past few years.

So I appreciate what the retailers are going through. [00:22:00] I appreciate the chance that they’re taking on us with us being a new brand. So whatever they want to do, I’ll do.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Um, a little bit about your manufacturing. Um, is it in house? Are you, I mean, you did mention that you have a chemist. Uh, do you have a facility or you kind of outsource it to some sort of a manufacturer?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: 100 percent in house.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And that has benefit for you?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Huge, huge benefit because it’s all under the, under the, the watchful eye of my chemist. And I mean, I mean, bless her. She is the one who sits through the three hour FDA. updates, update webinars, right? Um, she makes sure that we’re, we’re GMP compliant, all the things that we’re accountable for.

She, [00:23:00] she ensures that all of that, that goes really well. So we don’t have the issues of working with third parties. I mean, beyond simply, you know, source sourcing our ingredients and inputs that, you know, other than the lavender, which we, which we have gotten from the farm. So I’m very happy to have it there.

I’m happy and amazed in a really good way. She’s trained people again, sometimes with minimal education. To be running distillation units and running filling machines and even doing some under her guidance have learned how to do formulation. So it’s it’s been a wonderful opportunity for for people to build skills and for us to have a small core workforce.

there in our corner of West Virginia who can do all of this so that we were manufacturing and filling, labeling, packing, shipping from a 24, 000 foot facility that we rent in Foster, West Virginia.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: [00:24:00] Wow. Very nice. Uh, so you mentioned FDA and some of these other, uh, agency that, so your products, you have to get some, you know, um, approvals from, because these are, I mean, they’re not, um, Consumables, right?

They’re, they’re, they’re just being used, uh, exterior.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: That they are all for, you’re right. They’re all for external use only. However, because they can potentially affect change on the skin, they count their classed as cosmetics.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: So what we are very careful to do, and again, kudos. every day to my chemist who keeps us on the right side of the FDA.

We are super, super careful about not making therapeutic or medical or other sorts of claims, inappropriate claims for our products. So as to be able to avoid the time, the paperwork and the expense of filing for FDA review. We’re very, we’re [00:25:00] very careful about what we put on our labels and in our marketing material.

to say about our products.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: What have you learned about your target market, uh, now?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Our target market is for aromatherapy and body care products, predominantly female, I’d say age 30 to 55 plus, um, is increasingly aware of, concerned about the products that they use on their, on their body. Likewise, the food that they and their families consume.

So I think they’re much more careful and conscious readers of labels. Okay, um, our consumer tends to like the outdoors, uh, maybe that could be gardening or walking or hiking, like, or likes travel. So there’s some disposable income there, often a little bit of extra, you know, there’s some, um, education, [00:26:00] uh, beyond, uh, college and beyond.

So we have an educated, we have an, uh, educated consumer at the same time, they’re, they’re, I think more. And this is more anecdotal. I’ve not studied this, Sushant, and now I’m realizing on your podcast, I need to go and look this up. Okay. Um, I think more people are recognizing that they have issues with their skin, with sensitivity with their skin, in particular, that they have to be more careful than they ever realized before.

Um, and so. And so even people who wouldn’t consider themselves part of that con conscious consumer class that I was just describing, value our products and they’ll pay for them because they find that our products don’t cause them the issues that other commercially available products do. I

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: mean, it’s interesting because you did mention that this category is a saturated category, right?

I know. So how do you. Yes. Like, how does, you know, when, when a [00:27:00] customer goes to a retailer and they’re looking for this kind of an item, I mean, what is it that, how do they choose your product versus like a competitor, like two, two other competitive products? Like what is the, and, uh, you know, once they have used it, like, what is it that makes them come back for more?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Okay. Well, we’ll start with the easy part. These are, these are truly fantastic, exceptional products. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Okay. It’s just, let’s just put that out there. Okay. Another part of what has, what excited me about promoting our brand was telling the story of growing lavender on the reclaimed mine land, hiring people who needed second chance jobs, doing all of this in West Virginia.

So a totally made in the USA product. Right. And you know, a story of an endeavor and, and fortitude and creativity and ingenuity, [00:28:00] and that’s great. That gets you like 10 percent of the way in the door. So what we, what we found was we needed to adjust our pricing. We came in high. Because we were basing it more on the premium quality of the product and less on the fact that we were a newcomer into a crowded market and needed to price competitively.

So that’s a, that’s uh, an important lesson that we learned and we’ve gotten good results after making After making some changes with our wholesale and our retail pricing, we could charge more, but we don’t. We want to, we want to get in there, get recognized, get, have people try us, like us and come back and buy more.

And they definitely do. We definitely have a lot of customers who are repurchasing and that’s absolutely fantastic.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So your marketing is directed primarily at the wholesaler, at the business. How do they kind of position it to their customers once, once your product is on the shelf or [00:29:00] do you kind of give them some marketing materials and things like that, uh, promotions to help itself?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: We offer that we’ll offer the retailer promotions to make it easier for them to introduce it into, into, um, onto their shelves. We also will provide, provide point of sale collateral. We’ve got a really nice, um, display unit for our three beard oils and our dome oil, which is the oil for the bald scalp. So, um, We’ve invested a lot in our, in our packaging.

I have a fantastic in house part time design director who has, he built the logo and has been building the brand with me since 20, late 2018, and has done all the packaging and labeling design. Um, and that matters a lot to a lot of our retailers will come back specifically and say, you know, I like products that are.

You know, use [00:30:00] botanical ingredients, um, minimize, uh, don’t use chemicals, minimize synthetics, etc. But often I find that it’s sort of, um, the products have, um, the packaging has a mom and pop feel to it. Somebody made it in their kitchen. They say to us, we really appreciate how professional and, and modern and fresh.

Your packaging and presentation. And so, you know, I’m glad that we took the time and spent the money in order to do that, because while I’m super proud that we got, we’ve gotten our start in West Virginia and have a lot of people there who love us, I also love the fact that we’re shipping to California and New York and, and elsewhere around the country.

So I wanted a brand that would look great sitting next to another national brand.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, your presentation definitely is really nice. And, you know, just by looking at it, it gives the sense of, you know, [00:31:00] being organic, you know, environmentally friendly. Uh, so your director is definitely doing a great job.

Um,

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I will tell him that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Uh, so I completely skipped the question. I was going to ask you. Um, so let’s, let’s go there. Um, how, you know, you’re fulfilling, you said you have one, um, one location, one warehouse, and you are doing everything fulfillment, uh, manufacturing, everything from there. Um, can you talk a little bit about your team and like, what does it take to really run the whole operation?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Well, it takes a brilliant person who doesn’t sleep a lot. And that’s my chemist. Okay. Let’s uh, um, and we have, we have some people who’ve worked for, worked for us on the fulfillment side, on the, on the operation side now for a number of years. [00:32:00] Um, it take, so it takes the, it takes a core group who are, who are now trained The, you know, the basics of manufacturing and, and, and fulfillment on my, sort of on my side of the equation.

I have, as I mentioned, a wonderful part time design director. I have an eCommerce manager and I, and I’m basically the face of. Of the sales and the marketing, we are working with an outside consultant who for a reasonable monthly fee is is working our range me applications and interacting with some large grocery chains and some other large multi store retailers, working on getting our products introduced there.

So that’s, that’s pretty much the team.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, I have to say, like, given that you are, you started your career as an English major, you know, I [00:33:00] believe you said library or something. Um, how do you, um, how are you finding, and it seems like you’ve been able to scale your business really well. Um, what has the entrepreneurial journey been like for you, uh, you know, becoming a manager, becoming.

Uh, someone who has the vision and be able to scale a business, uh, and, uh, make it profitable. Um, how long have you been doing it and what has been the growth journey for you?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: It has been. It’s been, it’s been exciting and wonderful and frightening and stressful, the usual entrepreneurial journey, right?

Well, for many people, I’d say, um, I’ve learned a lot about myself and, and I, I’ve had to change some things about myself. I realized that when I was confronting, um, difficult to challenging situations, my go to [00:34:00] solutions from my prior life. Didn’t work so well. So that’s been a learning that’s been in sort of internal learning process, uh, for myself, I’ve learned, uh, to appreciate really smart people and be comfortable with not being the smartest person in the room, um, on just about any number of matters related to the running of running of this business.

It’s. That then, and maybe that’s part of the challenge of working with, with slick, with people who come in and sound very slick and professional and say, oh, we can do this, this, this, and this for you. And it only costs this ginormous amount of money. I grab it, I gravitate toward people who come across as smart and capable and experienced.

And then you got to what I’ve learned to Sean is you’ve got to probe that and find out. Is that really true? Or is that the facade that they present? So that’s, that’s a little bit of. Lesson learned slash [00:35:00] advice for people out there. If there’s part of the business you don’t know, you have to find somebody to fill that gap.

And so sometimes it’s a challenge to find the person with the right skillset who is also reliable and trustworthy.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. I think that’s a key entrepreneurial skill, you know, is to recognize that you don’t, I mean, entrepreneurs have a vision and they basically bring a group of people together with the skills to bring that vision to life.

And I think that’s a key entrepreneurial skill and anybody who’s starting on the entrepreneurial journey, I think they have to, at a certain point, if they don’t already. Are the entrepreneur minds that have to recognize this, otherwise they’ll just be working, uh, themselves to, uh, you know, all the time and, and not be able to scale very well.

Um, I’m one thing that I’m very curious about. I mean, you definitely your product range, you know, one is more around aromatherapy and body care, [00:36:00] and then you went into men’s grooming. How, like, what was the. What was your process of recognizing where the demand is, like, what kind of motivated you or, or, um, influence you to go into like a men’s grooming, beard care kind of a product?

Like, did you test this, test it out and realize that maybe there’s a market there? And, uh, like, what was that process like?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Have I, have I mentioned I have an amazing chemist? Uh, who it so happened had a men’s grooming products company before she came on board with us.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: And what she said is she had a number of formulas, proprietary formulas that she had developed that she knew she could very readily adapt them.

into new formulas, which we could then make and sell under the Appalachian Botanical brand. So it was leveraging piggybacking off of her [00:37:00] expertise and her experience. So that’s an important factor, um, being able to make something really, really good in house, really high quality. The second factor is What we’ve all, you and I have both mentioned now, which is how saturated the market is with lavender products specifically, and more generally, uh, the beauty and, and skincare and so on.

Um, the, the, the men with beards, that’s a less well served market. There’s an opportunity there. And the opportunity was not just simply to have products because certainly there are companies like old spice and some others that are quite well known. There are new companies like Manscaped and others who were serving that demographic.

Um, but we saw an opportunity. We saw more of a niche there, Sushant, to be able to bring our philosophy and our approach to really high quality products, botanical forward, um, no synthetic fragrance, [00:38:00] uh, virtually no chemicals, et cetera. So we could do a moderately priced, very high quality product and be competitive in the space.

By the way, well, that’s how it evolved.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: What is the future vision for your business? What, uh, you know, what are you working on now? Like, are you focusing mostly really on customer acquisition, getting your product, um, set in front of as many people as possible?

Or are you also, uh, [00:40:00] you know, developing new products? I mean, you definitely have a good product range, but are you developing new products as well?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Well, apparently when you have products, it’s a little bit like the shark. You can’t stop swimming. So we have several products, um, a, a blood orange body care line coming out later this summer.

So a body butter scrub, a body wash shampoo combination and a facial cleanser. So that takes us into another area of personal body care that we’re excited. We’re excited to be in, and the blood orange is really fabulous. So I will tease, I will tease that. Um, we, we need to really, really exploit these, uh, e commerce B2B platforms as fully as we can.

Because as you can imagine, it’s one thing to get yourself accepted onto them and listed. And then it’s another thing to take full advantage of, say, their, their promotional opportunities or making connections directly with the [00:41:00] customers that they serve. So we, we need to put some, uh, some energy into that.

Into into that we have been and we need to increase that, um, in in another direction. Uh, I participated in a U. S. commercial service trade mission to Panama and Costa Rica in the spring and had some excellent B2B meetings that were set up for me in advance by the commercial service staff at the embassy in in Costa Rica.

And so I’m in the midst of figuring out literally what it takes. In order to set to to put all the pieces together to, um, export some some of our products to those countries and that involves, as you can imagine, uh, product registration and and figuring out logistics and and doing some things that that, um, are new to us.

But we’re, we’re, we’re working on figure, figuring [00:42:00] it out again. I think it’s a function of the saturated market for our products in the United States that while we continue to make strides and gain traction, there’s actually more opportunity with the right partner in those countries to be, to be able to, to achieve more of the higher volumes that we would

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: like to achieve.

Very interesting. Um, so, so those are the first countries outside of U. S. that you’re kind of venturing into.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Through, through FAIR, we have shipped a couple of small orders to Canada. And so after Panama and Costa Rica, Um, Canada and Mexico, both literally and figuratively loom large in, in our plans. You may have heard the expression, never try to eat anything larger than your head.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um,

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I’m trying to do that with exports, starting with, uh, countries where it’s, it will be, it’s manageable. Um, Just in [00:43:00] terms of the scale of it, the proximity, uh, free trade zone, very helpful, uh, and also, um, and, and countries where, um, retailers and distributors are accustomed to importing American goods. So we have a very long history of working very well with, uh, With, um, American manufacturers of consumer packaged goods.

So I feel like, you know, thanks to the help I’ve gotten at the state level in West Virginia and from the federal folks with the commercial service, I’ve been able to put my best foot forward on it. And, you know, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that it’s going to bear some good fruit between now and the end of this year.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I think that makes a lot of sense. I guess, you know, the other markets would for these kind of products, at least, you know, would be other Western English speaking, or I would say Western, you know, maybe in Europe or Australia would be other markets probably.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I had a, I had a study performed [00:44:00] that looked at the countries around the world using weighted variables that I provided.

And the number 1 country out of the 177 or so that they looked at was Canada, language, ease of doing business, the tariff situation, etc. Um, and also highly ranked were Western European countries. At the same time, it’s funny, uh, I still need to work on how I set up my variables. That would be an incredibly difficult market to break into, for some of the same reasons that it’s been hard for us to gain traction as fast as we wanted to in the U.

S. market. And that is saturation from other com with other companies, other competitors, and also very, very highly regulated industry. So I’m looking, I’m actually going a little farther down the list

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: going,

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: okay, where is it? The market’s not nearly as large, of course, [00:45:00] but the opportunity to do deals and and be able to have this commerce in a way that’s affordable and manageable for us.

I say, you know, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll see, I’ll see you in San Jose and Panama city.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Um, by the way, we are a little bit over time. Are you still okay for a few minutes to go? Sure. Okay. Okay. In every entrepreneur’s journey, there’s always mistakes made lessons learned failures. Um, what has been, you know, a big mistake or failure in your own journey that you, I mean, I know you mentioned like one big thing around recognizing, you know, people and genuine talent and people who are selling you stuff.

But what has been like a big mistake maybe that you made where you, you know, maybe lost money or what was the lesson for you and what can other entrepreneurs learn? I

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: would say we lost, we did not spend our money well on some of the people we first worked [00:46:00] with on the sales and marketing side. So, so that was an expense, you know, an expensive, uh, lesson to learn.

Uh, I think I and so I underestimated what it takes to get a product from our from our building and what Foster West Virginia on to a shelf. in a store. I did not have a, I did not fully appreciate the challenges and sometimes complexity, but the challenges, especially in COVID times of, of, of our products making that journey.

So maybe it’s good that I didn’t, it might’ve, who knows, it might’ve scared us off. You know, retail, retail is tough. And I think B2C was earlier, was easier years ago. And now it’s tough because it’s a more crowded marketplace and it’s prohibitively expensive for a small company, uh, to try to, to launch, uh, a [00:47:00] wellness brand.

So I was not fully aware of the, or the deep pockets that can be needed, uh, for that. Those are the main, I’d say those,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So the challenge that you’re saying is more on the logistic side, like, I mean, if you’re shipping within the U. S. No,

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: no, no, I mean, no, again, finding, finding, I’m almost embarrassed to say how long it took me to realize that what we needed was a relationship with a distributor who could take us on, And include us in on their roster of product lines that they were that, you know, they were serving their their retail customers with, um, I did not know the catch 22 of we approach a distributor and they say.

Bring us three customers who will buy that product from us and then we’ll talk to you. Maybe okay. Um, and then the other part of [00:48:00] the catch 22 is talking to a retail chain who says. We need you to be in with a major distributor, national distributor, because that’s how we want to work. But we want you to have that relationship in place before we send you a purchase order.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And what is, what is the, what is the key to kind of getting into the door there?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Like time, persistence, alcohol. Actually, my salesperson has a lot of experience in retail grocery and that’s been been helpful to us. Honestly, platforms like RangeMe, which I think specializes in catering to the large, the larger chains looking for brands, um, it makes it easier to put ourselves in front of those people.

It has been challenging though to get to the interview stage to, to getting, getting the purchase order. And I’ll [00:49:00] just Pause one, one moment for like a minor vent. Um, we were talking to a very, very large company and they were talking in a way that made, led me to believe we would be getting an order from them and, and they ghosted us.

I don’t know why. I don’t know. Was it because the number of minimum, the minimum number of cases I said they would need to order, whether our wholesale pricing was off. They just ceased communication. It was at the time it was really shocking. It’s happened a couple of times with other much smaller potential customers where I’m less surprised that it happened.

It’s like, it’s a weird world out there.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do you, do you think that, you know, A key to this, of course, you know, there’s, there could be very different, a lot of approaches, you know, there could just [00:50:00] really be sweat equity approach where, you know, you’re really just, uh, putting in a lot of effort to try to build those relationship.

But do you think, um, the key is to find the right person who can make the, the right connections, who can make the introduction with the right buyer, you know, that, you know, I think, you know, if you have the right relationships who can make the right introduction, I think that sometimes can be can be a catalyst to opening some of those.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: You are absolutely, you are absolutely right. You know, I, I get, it can be frustrating and, and, and wearing to, when approaching, um, large, especially larger retail retailers, only to be told, go fill out this form on our website. If we are interested in you, we will, we will contact you. Don’t contact us. Right, and you don’t and everyone, everyone is too busy and I recognize that they are very [00:51:00] busy.

People are stretched thin. But what that also means if you don’t hear anything from them, you don’t know why you don’t know how to improve. You don’t know what to adjust. It’s just this giant wall of silence between the large customers and a small worthy, uh, company such as ours that, that, that wants that, you know, wants that chance.

So go back to your point. Um, I very much value the opportunity in my networking and I, I network as, you know, as much as I can to say to somebody, if you can make a warm introduction for me to someone at the sea level or just below in this company. I would just like to know that our information is getting to a human being.

So you’re, you are absolutely right. Find that right person, make that right connection. And that’s, that’s just so valuable. Awesome.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, now we’re going to move on to our rapid fire segment. And this segment, I’m going to ask you a few quick questions. [00:52:00] You have to answer them maybe in a sentence or so, or, or a word, a couple of words.

Um, so a book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Guy Kawasaki is the art of the start, because I, I know it’s almost a cliche, but it’s still, it’s really great read. And it reminds people that you want to do something that’s meaningful and valuable to you and for the people that you’re working with.

So

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: yeah, Guy Kawasaki. He’s a great personal brand builder. , I think. Oh, seriously, . Um, I’ve, I’ve met him in person, uh, oh one at one of his book, uh, readings. I think he’s, he does a lot of, uh, public appearances and so forth. Um, well, and I would too, if I was . Yeah, he, he has, he has perfected his story. I think, you know, he really has his story of working at Apple and so forth.

Um, that’s right. An innovative product or idea in the current e commerce, retail, or tech [00:53:00] landscape that you feel excited about.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I’m liking the look of a new platform called Tailory. Uh, it, they offer for a nominal, um, monthly fee what amounts to focus groups and marketing for a company like mine that doesn’t have the bandwidth.

To send out samples and follow up with focused strategic questions about those products. Um, so I think that’s really, that’s really clever. That’s and it’s it and doesn’t cost what, you know, others. I get lots and lots of cold inquiries about stuff that I don’t think I can afford or really need, but I just like the look of that model.

Okay. Sorry. That was way more than two sentences. No,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: no. That’s totally fine.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Please continue.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: A business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tip.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Password manager. Sorry.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Which one do you use? LastPass or?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: [00:54:00] Yes, I do. I do.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: You know, sometimes even those password managers tend to get hacked.

So they’re not completely foolproof.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Oh, so you would like me to get started on two factor authentication. Okay. No, we don’t have time.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. We’re

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: all doomed. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And with the AI, I mean, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Um, AI will be breaking stuff. So, uh, a startup or business in e commerce, retail or tech that you think is currently doing great things.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I think Taylor, again, Taylor, they’re, they’re working with like 12, 1200 brands. So they’ve really established themselves well. Um, I’m impressed. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, another peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Um, I had the good fortune to meet and talk several times with Brad Smith of Intuit.

Well, now he’s president of Marshall University, [00:55:00] and he was very kind and generous with his time, and just had good advice for, You know, what could be sometimes a lonely entrepreneurial journey.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, I mean, talking about lonely, uh, and you, you did mention, uh, networking. Uh, do you have any, how do you kind of build, I mean, first of all, how, how do you get time to network and, uh, what is your, any, do you have any tip for networking, business networking and really, you know, building a relationship?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Uh, I take, I try to take advantage of opportunities presented by the organizations that are helping me as an entrepreneur, small business, for example, the SBA in West Virginia, or the, I mentioned the U. S. Commercial Service, because not only can I get the help from them, but that I meet other entrepreneurs and small business owners, and that’s extremely valuable.

The [00:56:00] other thing I like to do, it’s like, you know, just, Call me Guy Kawasaki Jr. is, if an organization invites me to come and tell the story and show slides, I’ll do it. And it’s partly, it’s partly because some sales or some relationships will come out of it. And it’s just partly to be in a room with people after nearly three years of not being in rooms with people.

It’s still feeling, it’s still feeling really good to be able to go and do that. So if anybody out there listening feels nervous or self conscious about speaking. I recommend figuring out a way to get over it because many organizations are looking for fresh content and new speakers and interesting ideas.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Uh, final question. Uh, what is the best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: I think the best, best advice I read in a book on [00:57:00] consulting by Peter Block, um, he said the two great, the two great negative motivators for people were fear of being embarrassed and fear of losing control. And that’s, and that matters when you’re a consultant working with a client who at the end of the day, doesn’t really remember what you did for them, but they remember how they felt working with you.

So I think I go, I go into relationships and opportunities. Attuned to what my own fears around that are, as what, as well as what the concerns of the other, other parties are. So just being aware that sometimes the way people are reacting to you, it’s not so much you, it’s something going on with them. And and their concerns and issues and being able to meet them, um, partway and be aware of that is really great.

And I do want to throw in one quick shout out to a woman named Hildy Gottlieb, who has been a real advocate and champion of the concept of [00:58:00] catalytic thinking, because under, um, In that thinking, instead of asking a lot of, well, who and why and how and how much and, and who’s going to do that instead, when you’re presented with an opportunity and idea, you say, okay, what difference will that make?

And for whom? And then what’s the highest possible benefit that could be achieved by doing this? And for whom? It’s a very generative, open, and kind of very positive way to approach, you know, opportunity and engage in some very honest and open conversations. So Hilde’s work has been very influential with me.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, that’s a, that’s a great, uh, I think that’s the, probably the fundamental driver or fundamental, uh, That should be the fundamental driver for any business is to say, how, how, you know, what, [00:59:00] what am I doing? That’s adding value to people out there. And I, and, and I think that’s, you know, the more value someone adds to their, whether it’s a product or a service, I think the, the, the easier it is for business, that business to get traction and I think, I think, uh, many times people start with the idea of how can I make money.

And maybe they kind of lose focus on, you know, on the value, value aspect of that. And I think, um, you know, what you mentioned is definitely to, to help you think about, you know, how am I adding value to the world around me? And I think that’s, that’s a great way to start for any business.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: It’s wonderful.

And it’s, it’s helped attract some really great people to work with me on the journey. And I’m, I feel very lucky and blessed every day for that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. I mean, I think Most people want to work for a great mission. So I think if that you can inspire that [01:00:00] and people, I think that’s, that’s definitely a great way to attract.

Well, with that, Jocelyn, thank you so much. Uh, those were all the questions that I had. Um, thank you for sharing your story. Very interesting story, uh, about your business, some of the lessons learned. If anybody wants to get, uh, um, you know, uh, buy your product or get in touch, what is the best way to do that?

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Well, buying the product is at Appalachian Botanical. dot com and they can contact me at support at Appalachian botanical dot com and I’ll be very, I, I welcome the conversation. Welcome the email inquiry.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, Jocelyn, thank you so much again. Really appreciate your story and your, um, uh, uh, you know, all your advice as well.

So thank you so much again and wish you all the very best.

Jocelyn Sheppard of Appalachian Botanical Co.: Well, I thank you very much. I appreciated you having me today.