We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Albright a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

This topic is near and dear to me, as I lost my father to cancer on January 4, 2023. I always knew I had an awesome dad, but I feel like when you lose them and when have children of your own, you start to realize even more just how amazing they were and how impactful their parenting was as you move forward.

I was raised by my dad from the age of 5 and we were two peas in a pod. He was a simple man and didn’t require much to be happy. One thing he always said was “work hard, and stay humble”. That saying sticks with me throughout my every day life!

On days when I don’t feel I have the energy to do a task at hand I’m reminded of how hard he worked to provide for me growing up. I also remind myself that even though he had cancer, he kept working. Six days a week sometimes and never missed a day— even through the pandemic! So I tell myself “if dad could do it with cancer— then I have zero excuse”.

The humble part comes in that I never take my business or my customers for granted. I frequently let them know how much they are appreciated. Sometimes through a social media post, other times through a note I send along with their orders. Without my customers, there would be no Goldfinch Meadows, and I make sure that they know that.

Jennifer, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Goldfinch Meadows Soap Co. was started completely by accident. My husband and I bought his family farm and converted it from thoroughbred racing to a grass fed beef operation. At the time I was in the investment industry as the operations manager for an investment department of about 25 people.

I decided to leave my career to stay home with my 3 young children, but I missed having something to “run” outside of my home. When our first herd went off to “greener pastures” the processor included our beef fat in our freezer beef. Being new to farming and homesteading in general, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it!

I started researching the benefits of rendering tallow and taught myself how to make soap with it. I absolutely loved how my soap made my skin feel, I found the actual process of making soap to be therapeutic along with being a creative outlet.

I’m proud that my items are the perfect way to “waste not, want not”. I am able to honor our herd by making sure we use as much of them as we can. What would normally end up on the butcher room floor I take, and turn in to beautiful, nourishing, self care products.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I first started Goldfinch Meadows Soap Co. I wanted to have something for everyone. Every suggestion of a product or scent that came in, I would make happen. I found myself making products for theses special requests only to find that #1- I was offering way too many different items and becoming a jack of all trades and master of none. And #2- yes, I would make that item to please one customer, but then I was left with the rest of the batch of what I made after they purchased the one item they requested— or worse they’d suggest it, I’d make it, and they’d never purchase it.

I had to change my thinking a bit. Yes, I want to please my customers, but I also need decide “who I want to be when I grow up”. I needed to decide what my brand will be, what will be my core products and stick to that and master it before adding more. This allowed me to streamline my processes and become more efficient in their making, and it also prevented me from having a large amount of investment in raw materials that I ended up using only a few times.

In time, I decided that the core of my company would be tallow soaps and other bath/soap related items vs. candles, cosmetics, wax melts, bathbombs, etc.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

As my company was growing, I needed to scale up my production so I invested in larger soap molds. What I didn’t realize is that because of that, the labeling I had been using for 5 years no longer fit my larger bars of soap.

I had been toying around with the idea of changing my packaging for some time, but this little discovery forced my hand on the matter. While my cigar labels were beautiful, I knew I wanted something a little more polished and converted to half boxes.

This was a big investment that I wasn’t sure would pan out, but since changing the presentation of my soaps, I have now had half a dozen business all across the country who buy my soaps for their retail locations. Presentation is key and I feel that these locations love the look of my products in their stores as much as they love what the products do for their customer’s skin.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.goldfinchmeadows.com
• Instagram: @goldfinchmeadows