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

Steffen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I was made redundant on my birthday in 2019. The company I served for seven years saw fit to let me go with no warning and I had to turn on my heel quickly in order to keep afloat. I had to think fast and move faster.

I had been playing with making soap and decided that the only way I could guarantee instant work was to do it for myself. The way my life was set up – and still is – was one of caring for, rescuing and sometimes fostering dogs. No income, no dog food, no money for vet bills… you get the idea. I couldn’t let them go hungry and the painful process or applying for jobs within my skillset was going to take too long.

Call it a curse or a blessing, I have a high work ethic, sometime even to my own detriment. If I can’t count on me, who can I count on? Certainly not anyone that I’d shown loyalty to year after year.

My hobby became greatly out of control and so combining my love of caring for dogs and my hobby – that I’ become pretty good at – became my job. The Soapy Paw. Soaps for people in order that I could continue caring for dogs. And other bills, of course. But dogs. Priorities, y’know. *wink*

So I built and Etsy page, made up some social media accounts and hit up some farmers markets with no real actual clue how any of it worked. But I had to do *something*, even if I was making it up as I went along.

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?

The Soapy Paw offers bars of soap for showering, bathing, that kind of thing in a huge array of scents and styles. Fresh, fruity, floral, masculine, feminine, neutral… even “food-y” scents like coffee, oatmeal, pumpkin spice and even cakes and cookies can be found.

Everyone has a different palate. Where banana-scented soap might work for this guy, something like fresh linen or bamboo might work for that lady. I try to accommodate as many people as possible – not everybody likes the same thing.

As and when they’ve found their bar or bars, they can go home with a warm and fuzzy feeling in their bellies, knowing that they’ve helped towards the care and upkeep of dogs that were abandoned or unloved. They’ve directly contributed to them being loved.

Indeed, some friends even donate food or flea medication. The Soapy Paw shopping Wishlist is entirely dog-orientated, right down to the pills that help strengthen their bones.

I’m super proud of the people that keep returning, because I know they love dogs. I’m a sucker for dogs. They’re my favorite people.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting from my last career into what I do was borne of necessity and urgency.

What I had to do was to reinvent myself in a matter of days in order to stay afloat. It wasn’t so much that of playing a hand of bad cards, moreover one of, “well this game sucks, what else can I play with these cards?”, you know?

I didn’t want to leave my last career. I was good at it, I enjoyed it and I was – by the customers, at least – respected. I still often talk to them, many on a daily basis.

But what I did then and what I do now are entirely different animals. I still do what I do with the same consideration and work ethic, but now the only person I answer to is me, and even after all this time, it’s still a cool feeling that I’m my boss.

A mixture of harnessing different energies and the ever-present sword of Damocles hanging over me if I didn’t do something made for unusual and unwanted inspiration. I already worked hard, I didn’t need to be poked any harder to up my game. I now just work with a different goal doing a different job, but with the same old ethic I always had.

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?

During lockdown, we all had a tough time. I was no different at all.

Many of us suffered financially and struggled to find ways of putting food on the table. Or dog bowls, in my case.

What I did was to suggest that if people wanted to go old school and swap for bars of soap, I was open to that. Bartering. Cans of dog food. Bags of kibble. Farmers would swap with carrots and beans. Chicken farmers unabe to sell freezer-burnt meat would do a swap or donate. If it benefitted the dogs, I was open to it. The people that supported what I did could see that the dogs were the priority. They always were, always are and always will be. Building that trust and that base grew.

I suppose it could be considered a marketing strategy, but it wasn’t something devised as a, “this’ll get customers to part with their money” -situation, moreover one of being able to continue providing. Just as with starting this little venture, it was borne of necessity and adapting, pivoting, making something happen in order to keep moving forward.

To this day, people will still sometimes show up with cans of food or perhaps even a little ziplock bag of Milkbones as gifts for the dogs. Luckily for me, I’m often able to capture cute pictures or silly antics on videos and share them on social media. People like to see what they get up to and laugh at their canine tomfoolery.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheSoapyPawShop
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soapy.paw.soap/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSoapyPawShop
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesoapypaw2612
• Other: Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/19FX3CTKWWNTS?ref_=wl_share

Image Credits
Cookie – Steffen Cook (me) – owns all image rights.