Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Killik. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Michael, thanks for joining us today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?
For the first few years it was just me, the lone madman, doing everything! And it worked great! I got us to national pretty much by myself! But I knew I couldn’t take it any further than that, and I was getting exhausted! Being that my previous career I was a middle school teacher I had a good eye for spotting diamonds in the rough, or people that are being underutilized or underappreciated in their current jobs. And secondly I am a father of four daughters so I’m used to having a lot of female energy around me telling me what I’m doing wrongs , so the majority of my team are women. My inner circle consists of Jenny, my CEO. She has a brilliant mind for business, and she reads all the contracts and does all the business projections for the company. My assistant/Sidekick is Olivia. She challenges me on literally everything I come up with and that is wonderful because it gives me pause to think to make sure I am making the right call and she is absolutely annoyed with mediocrity which makes me challenge myself to work harder! And lastly there is a Antonio who is our Director of Sales. Who is my constant sounding board on the direction of the company and keeps me on track! I value all of their opinions and they keep me grounded! My last boss had to be the best at everything and I thought how exhausting! I picked people that are good at what they do and I trust them to do their jobs!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Killik Hot Sauce Company is owned and operated by me, Michael Killik: veteran, father of four daughters, stroke, and heart attack survivor. In my previous life, I taught middle school science, which is what gave me the passion to discover the scientific process of fermentation! After my stroke 15 years ago, I had to make a career change into restaurant management, where my passion for food blended with my passion for science. The last straw, per se, was when I had a heart attack in the same week as my father. I survived my father didn’t. After surviving the heart attack, I decided I had to change my way of life but loved hot sauce! I researched that most hot sauces have very high sodium levels and that this could’ve been a contributing factor to my heart attack. Having been dabbling in my own hot sauce making, I found that what I was creating was a better tasting, better-looking, and much healthier hot sauce! With this belief that I was doing better for people struggling with their diet like had been, I started Killik Hot Sauce Company!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
When I started social media I looked around at what everybody else was doing. Shots of their product with food, dumb stunts, hopping on the latest trends, and I decided I wasn’t going to do any of those things! So besides promoting my hot sauce, I also promoted other peoples companies that I admired and that were friends of mine. I also start promoting my ideology. That if a knucklehead like me could be successful without selling out, then anybody could! So just be yourself, you do you, love who you want to love, be who you want to be and you could be successful! You don’t have to fit into any kind of f*cking corporate cookie-cutter bullshit ideal of what a successful business person looks like!
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Honestly, the best source of new fans of the hot sauce are farmers markets in Word of mouth. Every time I do a new farmers market we get new followers! The first thing I have to convince people that the name of the Hot Sauce “Killik“ is my last name and not a stupid Hot Sauce name lol! And then I have to convince them that it’s about the flavor not about the crazy heat! but once they try it they’re sold! And then comes the second part. I know that every person that buys a bottle, or every bottle that I give away, they are going to towel 5 to 10 people about it! It’s so different, that’s just how it happens!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.killikhsc.com/
- Instagram: @killikhsc
Image Credits
Michael Killik