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

Hi Jeremy, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?

My “real job” is a corporate leader focused on customer service and customer success. For 25 years, I’ve worked directly with customers on challenging issues and problem solving. Sometimes, this involves travelling to them to meet face-to-face and see their challenges directly.

My role requires empathy and great listening skills.

As I scale my small business into a more profitable venture that will carry me into retirement (from my corporate job), listening and empathy are key to establishing a core customer base who trust you and your products.

We currently market and sell our products at local markets. As a cottage producer, word-of-mouth referrals and trust are key to sustainable sales and repeat customers. When customers feel heard and valued, not just superficially, but genuinely, they will help you grow your business.

A great example is learning my customer’s names and story, as they learn more about me. I take time to engage with my regulars and ask questions to get to know them better – if I see them every week, why not get to know more about them? This creates an empathetic relationship where we can engage on a personal level.

I also solicit their feedback about my current products and what they would like to see me produce as new offerings. Listening to their input allows me to focus my R&D on items that meet their specific tastes or preferences. It’s exciting to see their reaction when I offer a sample of a new product that they recommended!

Jeremy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Spivey-Q really started when I was a young child. My dad was a butcher and entrepreneur, and he enjoyed cooking BBQ for our family and friends. Throughout my childhood and into my adult years, I’d spend long nights tending the wood-fired BBQ pit with him and my brother making southern-style pulled pork.

When my wife and I moved into our first house, one of the first priorities was to get my own smoker to make BBQ for our family, friends, and neighbors. This led to me creating my own BBQ rub that became my signature flavor. Soon, I was taking BBQ to work to share with my co-workers and to celebrate major events and milestones.

Flash forward 20 years later and found myself creating new BBQ rubs to give as gifts and sell as a side-hustle/hobby. I enjoyed sharing my passion with anyone who was interested!

Then, 3 years ago, I wanted to get serious about sharing my passion for BBQ with those I didn’t know from work or my family. I began to visit local maker’s markets and farmer’s markets to take in the atmosphere and observe other vendors in their “natural environment”. It only made sense that we would also find some local vendors who share the same passion as we did to turn their hobby into a business. We’d talk with them about the market culture and how they got started.

Not long after, we jumped in with both feet and got accepted into a local market where we could start selling our 4 flavors of BBQ rubs. It became immediately clear that our customers wanted more than just seasonings (many of them lived in apartments and didn’t have the facilities to grill or smoke). They wanted SNACKS!

We started researching ways to make food with our seasonings and developed a process for seasoning and smoking saltines. That quickly grew from 4 flavors of saltines to 10 flavors of crackers, corn chips, and other snack foods!

We are now a regular at the Coppell Farmer’s Market and you can find us there every Saturday!

How did you build your audience on social media?

I knew that social media would be an important part of reaching new customer and maintaining a relationship with existing customers. However, I didn’t know much about how to grow or engage my audience.

My first issue was that I didn’t know how to use Instagram effectively. My first step was to follow vendors, makers, and personalities that I engaged with personally or was part of my core market – vendors I would meet at other markets, or BBQ restaurants and influencers who created content that was interesting to me. I would encourage any vendor I followed to follow me back. This helped generate a baseline audience. However, they were fellow vendors, so were not my target market to grow sales.

The next step I took was to create a QR code and use LinkTree to create an easy-access page that linked to all of my public pages – Facebook, Instagram, Website, Contact Into, etc. I added this QR code to everything – I mean everything; business cards, signage, and product labels. I mention this QR code to every customer so they know how to get in touch with me and find me at markets if they want to purchase again.

Lastly, and this is an ongoing effort, I post regularly. I’m no algorithm expert, but I try to post relevant content that let’s my audience know where I am, what I have to offer, and about my process and new products I am working on.

I use Canva to help create reel/story content that I can quickly edit and post without lots of hassle. I also cross-post all of my Instagram content to Facebook automatically to save time and effort.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

My products are a combination of pre-produced ingredients and value-added steps that I complete myself. Our BBQ rubs are scratch made from store-bought ingredients. There are no artificial flavors or colors, and no preservatives.

Our snacks are pre-made saltine crackers and other snack foods that we purchase and add our ingredients to for a finished product.

All of our offerings are GoTexan Certified and produced under Texas Cottage Law.
For the BBQ rubs, I’ve found recipes online that have ingredients or flavors I’d like to replicate. I take those as inspiration and add my own twist to them, remove ingredients I don’t need or like, and add others in that make it my own. In most cases, we’ve taken our baseline Spivey-Q “The Classic” BBQ rub and added new ingredients to create a new flavor (Jittery Jones, Cajun Sunrise, and Smokin’ Hot).

For the snacks, we use our own BBQ seasonings in the marinade and smoke them on our backyard smoker.

I am looking for a co-packer to help me scale the BBQ rubs to a commercially produced level where I can wholesale to other outlets. The right organization will take the same pride in the process as I do, but can also manufacture for me at a level I can sustain for my growing market. It’s important that any co-packer or manufacturer have an NDA with you, can produce at a reasonable volume for your business, and is committed to be a partner for the long-term.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://spivey-q.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiveyq_bbq/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpiveyQ