Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jason Rodriguez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jason, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think it takes to be successful?

There are many things it takes to become successful, but I can certainly share a few key insights from my experience as an entrepreneur as it relates to our current business and other companies we’ve grown in the past.

1- The first may seem extraordinarily obvious, but for some reason, sometimes, it is not. Maybe because we are blinded by our own passions or our own vision, but for whatever reason it is, sometimes as entrepreneurs we can get this one wrong which can flaw the entire premise of what we are building. #1 is to develop a product or service that your customers REALLY want or need. Not just something you like or inspires you as an entrepreneur, or something you think is a good idea, but truly putting 100% of your focus on your customer and creating something that they really want or need in their life. As a sales person, before becoming an entrepreneur, I can’t tell you how many countless hours, days, months I wasted trying to sell products that I thought were really great, but the customers I was selling to did not really want or need. As soon as I figured out products that a customer really wanted or needed, the sales process became almost effortless. After you develop a product your customers really want or need, you can develop a compelling story around that product and customers will be driven to you based on your product or services merits and benefits, never again having to work so hard trying to convince others to purchase from you. Just give them what they want and make your job 1000x easier!!

2- Mindset- A mindset for success can, and needs to be developed from many different angles depending on where you are on your journey. Here are a two key mindset development training aspects I’ve learned over the years and have helped me with my success.
A. Be an amazing gatekeeper of your mind. Not letting in negatively biased information constantly (ie turn off the news!!) Distance yourself from negative people and naysayers! And surround yourself with positive sources of information and other successful people. If you don’t have a lot of successful people on your life, purchase their books or listen to their podcast interviews all the time. Keep the positive, “can do” information flowing. This is critical. Do whatever you need to do to keep the good influences flowing in to the mind, and the bad influences out!
B. Meditation/ mindfulness practice. There are different meditation and mindfulness practices I have incorporated over the years and they do different things. At the most fundamental level, some of them will provide deep relaxation and stimulate the parasympathetic nervous systems(rest and relax), and reduce sympathetic nervous system response(fight or flight). You can use apps like calm, synctuition, or mantra based meditation for this. Mindfulness practices are also extremely powerful for this, but also go a step further allowing you to cultivate deeper awareness as well (too much to discuss on that in these few paragraphs). Just get started with some type of meditation/mindfulness practice today, and then you can explore different types as you progress and want to learn more.

3- Become a top notch problem solver- I thought I was a great problem solving entrepreneur, until we bought 87 alpacas and started an organic vegetable farm. At 37 years old I went from being a boy, to becoming a man really quickly. When you have acres of plants to care for and lots of animals lives depending on you constantly you very quickly become an amazing problem solver. There is no time to procrastinate, no time to second guess yourself. Problems need to be solved every day, and everything is depending on it. Cultivating this type of mindest has been invaluable in launching our honey candy company. I have a culinary background, but not manufacturing, and there was a TON to learn in manufacturing. Between the farm and candy company I’ve had to learn how to solve more problems in the past 5-6 years than I can even count, and this keeps everything moving forward at a steady pace

4- Make decisions quickly, and adjust when needed. Have to admit, I stole this one from Reid Hoffman, founder of linked in(he said it is the number one piece of advice he would give to entrepreneurs) , but it has been a game changer. It helps to develop confidence and to keep the ball rolling everyday. I’ve found that if I delay decisions it only causes more stress, and I generally come up with the same decision in the end anyways.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

About myself- I began my career in the culinary arts, being inspired by my Abuela’s cooking, and wanting to become a chef from a very young age. I went to culinary school, then restaurant management school. After working at restaurants for several years and personally becoming interested in Organic foods, I began to become disillusioned by the poor quality of ingredients the “high end” restaurants I was working at were using. This was before the farm/restaurant movement and everything came out of these large Sysco trucks, and I just wasn’t’ happy working with these types of foods anymore. At that point I redirected my career in to the natural/ organic foods industry and began working in outside sales for a couple of great brands, placing great products in Whole Foods Markets and other natural foods stores throughout southern CA.

Shortly after my wife and I traveled the world for a year and I became very interested in culturally significant foods and the quality and Love placed in foods in different cultures and countries we traveled to. After my son was born we moved back to Colorado, started Bee Grateful Farm, and then a couple years later launched my lifes work of bringing an incredibly delicious, handcrafted, local and organic ingredients product to market, Bee Grateful Farm’s Honey Candy Company, currently being sold on over 500 stores around the country.

In my life and career I am most proud of our farm and honey candy company. On the farm I worked 60-70 hours/week, without pay for 3+ seasons to build it with our farm staff to what it is today, and now it is a source of inspiration and joy for myself and many people in our community. The farm is amazing, and even with how hard the work was, I would do it all over again if it was required for it to exist.

Our Honey Candy Company came out of the farm, and is truly my life’s work, combining my Love for incredible ingredients, the most delicious flavors, and providing Love and smiles in every bite to 1000’s of people every day, like my Abuela did for me with her cooking. Bee Grateful Farm uses 100% local Colorado honey working directly with a CO beekeeper to supply all of our honey. We use only organic and natural ingredients, biodegradable wrappers and packaging, and is made in a solar powered kitchen. And our candy is so amazingly, mind blowingly delicious too, making you smile and fall in Love with the flavors the moment you take your first bite :)

What sets me apart from others? Unrelenting commitment to positive mindset, and dedication to quality ingredients, artisanship, and Love in all we create

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Our most effective strategy for growing our clientele has been the “good old fashioned” way of knocking on doors and getting on the phone. There is no shortcuts to growing your business when you are a young/new company. No one is going to do it for you. When we first got started I’d spend most of my time cooking the products, and part of my time driving to different locations, walking up and down the street, telling our story to any business owner that would listen, getting samples in their hands and mouths, and asking them to carry our products. Getting face to face with other small business owners is invaluable. No one is going to be able to tell your story as good as you are, so as a business owner you have to do it yourself first. Once we got a little bigger and I was in the kitchen more, we hired my Dad to do the same thing over the phone. We basically followed the same model, but did it on the phone and sending samples through the mail which was a little trickier, but still very effective. The most important thing through this entire process though was honing down our story so folks could relate and be inspired by it, and making the product so incredibly delicious that after we spent our time telling the story, if they tasted it they would HAVE to buy it! Now we have larger stores and chains that are working with us and are interested in us, but this all started with our door to door efforts in the beginning.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Keeping a concise well-defined story built around our farm and integrity in all communication and messaging. Commitment to product quality and sustainability. And infusing Love in to everything we do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.beegratefulcandy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beegratefulfarm
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beegratefullfarm/