I feel so defeated

Pex - you have good sauces, but you have to take a mile high view. "Build it and they will come" only works in Field of Dreams.

1. Sourcing: There are other people growing peppers. That shouldn't be a problem. A little effort and research and you'll find another source.(also did not know Judy was done - that's too bad)

2. The Internet is great - but it's not that great for a food product. There is simply no substitution for getting out and getting people to taste your products. Get them into stores, do demos, join a farmers market org, get into local community festivals. Do community events. Get people tasting. Those people will buy - some will refer others who will order online. Real world sales will drive Internet sales.

3. Be goal oriented. Set goals & meet them.

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic - I get what you're going through. Every business has its dark days. That said, I just spent 2 days standing on my aching feet for 14 hours a day working my county fair - an event I spent months planning while working my 7 markets a week. I will be on my feet for another 15 of the next 18 days as well doing this event. sales and marketing day after day, week after week. There is no accidental success. You have to get out there and get people to try your products.

My mantra: it's possible to hustle and still fail, but it's not possible to fail to hustle and succeed.

The more energy you put in, the better the chances that you find success. Hell, I've missed every BBQ, wedding, birthday party & other event in the last 3 years for having to work weekends. But I'm trying to build something - it's the price I pay.

This topic might garner a few more sales, as THP suggested, just as your going out of business fire-sale on Reddit garnered sales - but you don't want to become the furniture store that's had a "going out of business, everything 50% off!" sign up for 5 years...

Get out and sell your products to people. They're good sauces. I've had a few and liked them - lots of people on reddit seem to love them. That's a good start. Now go hustle and stop posting stuff like this. There are always going to be days where you feel like giving up - use those days to ask yourself how you can do more for your business tomorrow than you did today. Then execute on those ideas.

That way if it fails, at least you did everything you could. That's all I hope for my own business - if Lucky Dog goes tits up tomorrow, no one will ever say it was for lack of hustle.

Good luck dude
:cheers:
 
Have you thought about going to some local restaurants and collaborating on an event where they feature dishes made with your sauces. Something like a Diablo night or a special wing night. Might also check in with some local places about carrying your sauces on the tables or having it available. Might also check into Firehouse Subs and other places that are known for hot sauces and see what you have to do to get on their vendor list.
 
hogleg said:
Besides, watching all the smoking hot women at the FM, while selling sauce isn't half bad.
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That part does not suck, no. 
 
But as with anything, human interaction also has its ups and downs. Some people were raised to be polite whether they appreciate a product or not. Some notsomuch. While I have thick skin, there have been extremely unflattering customers who leave you speechless - and since it's a passion business, sometimes the 1 jerk will weigh more heavily on you than the 100s of complimentary people. It's hard not to take it personally, because it is personal - it's your creation. 
 
That said, it's all part of the game - if you put yourself out there, you're a target.  And like I was saying above, you have to be mile-high view about it all. 
RocketMan said:
Have you thought about going to some local restaurants and collaborating on an event where they feature dishes made with your sauces. Something like a Diablo night or a special wing night. Might also check in with some local places about carrying your sauces on the tables or having it available. Might also check into Firehouse Subs and other places that are known for hot sauces and see what you have to do to get on their vendor list.
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That's a good marketing idea - and a continuation of that idea is to suggest that those places carry your products for retail as well as for sampling. 
 
And if only the former, consider selling to local restaurants below wholesale - I would avoid the chains - there's little soul there. Locals support locals - get into local bars & restaurants as the house hot sauce. Sell to them at your bare bones pricing. Don't lose money but don't look at it as a profit center. this is purely a marketing play - put up a sign with your website. The bar wins because they get cheap gourmet hot sauce. You win because this will drive retail sales. 
 
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As LD an others state, get into the real world. FMs. Restaurants. Grocery chains. Etc.
 
Get into the hot shops. They are always looking for new stuff but you have to contact them.
 
Try to get into the Hot Shots distro catalog.
 
This is all real world stuff, but it all still comes back to the net. Because you should document the steps of all of this. People love to follow stuff like that. Your journey, your success. Why do you think everyone here knows LDHS does tons of FMs? He even takes pics delivering to restaurants. It's all about the real world and "keeping it interesting" with some injected humor etc. on social media. When you are active and are hustling people respect you. Like in any other biz. And when you keep the people in the loop they feel like they are sharing in your success when you are successful. Because they took the journey with you, and perhaps supported in some way.

Example:
Your pickles came out of nowhere. If you announced they were coming soon, and documented the process. Pics of you choosing the best cucumbers. Pics of bottling. Teasers! Making people want them before they exist. I guarantee you could have had a lot more orders than you got when you released them.
 
I'm going to second what THP just said.

Man, not too many of my friend D's like hot sauce so when I can come on here, which is everyday since I don't do the FB, it makes me feel a part of something g special.

An example. When Salsa Lady truck blew up I showed my girl. I show her the Garden of Evil videos. I show other people Wicked Mikes pics of his garden and how he mentors the kids. I show people stuff from here. They probably couldn't care less but I do.

Point being if I feel a part of I show others. That's word of mouth.
 
The Internet is a great tool. So most of your sales come from FMs, but how did those people know you were at the FM? The sales lead may have come from the net. So the numbers are a bit misleading.
 
It's important to be in the real world hustling, but also using the net to its fullest capacity.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
 It's important to be in the real world hustling, but also using the net to its fullest capacity.
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There's no sauce vendor fully leveraging the Net, that I've seen ...

I'm tempted to organize a GoCoffeeGo type site based on indie sauce-makers drop-shipping where I can be doing all the Internet Marketing for everything under the umbrella ...
 
grantmichaels said:
There's no sauce vendor fully leveraging the Net, that I've seen ...

I'm tempted to organize a GoCoffeeGo type site based on indie sauce-makers drop-shipping where I can be doing all the Internet Marketing for everything under the umbrella ...
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I could be doing a lot more if I wanted to spend $$$$ on the Internet.

But I am of the belief that food is a better "real world" product. People are hesitant to purchase food without tasting it first.

I get quoted pricing on Internet marketing all the time and I'm skeptical of the numbers.

Here's an example of why: when I did my Kickstarter campaign, ZZ Top shared it on their Twitter (~80k followers) and their Facebook page (4,000,000 followers) - very kind of them, and more than I'd ever ask.

It was "liked" over 3500 times, and shared more than 300 times.

The result? About 10 modest pledges, and maybe 1/2 dozen web orders. Lots and lots of "cool points" for my brand and 100s of new "likes" of my FB page, but it's pretty hard to pay my mortgage with that.

The point being, it's much easier to click "like" on something than it is to purchase a food product without tasting it first.

Hot sauce is a real world product. To get people to try it, you need to be there sampling it. The most frequent comment i get is "I dunno....I'm very picky about my hot sauces...

That's why when I get contacted by the food network celebrity chefs for paid endorsements I ignore them. for the kinda $ they want I could make 3 more flavors of sauce & pay for every festival I do in a year. There's one new-ish brand out there on IG posting pics almost daily of celebrities holding up his product at a red carpet event and I smh....such obvious shilling.

My $.02 on why maximizing Internet marketing may not be the best plan. Better to maximize on getting into local stores and restaurants & directly marketing product & bringing customers on board one tasting at a time. Overnight quantum leaps in growth are few and far between in the food business.

I don't love standing in a grocery store for 4 hours slinging sauce that I make $1 on while they make $4-5, but I do it because it increases sales in the big picture.

Real world product, gotta get out and hustle it. Internet contests are great & so are online sales, but it's drops in the bucket compared to one demo at a grocery store.

+1 to THP on documenting the journey - I didn't do that with the specific intention of using it for marketing - but I have received a lot of customer feedback that because of it they felt like they've been a part of the growth. When I've had new products coming out, teasers absolutely helped - pics of the label, pics in the kitchen making it - it all builds up the anticipation of the product release. Great point there. :cheers:
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
+1 to THP on documenting the journey - I didn't do that with the specific intention of using it for marketing - but I have received a lot of customer feedback that because of it they felt like they've been a part of the growth. When I've had new products coming out, teasers absolutely helped - pics of the label, pics in the kitchen making it - it all builds up the anticipation of the product release. Great point there. :cheers:
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It does help! Plus makes you look like you are out there hustling, um, when you are. People like to support that. Liken it to a small band on the road posting pics with fans. Releasing one song early to fans only. Letting them see album art before it is released. A contest to use fan art on the record, etc. By the time the record comes out, there is automatic support that was built over time. They didn't just drop the record. Social media is great for that kinda stuff. It's great to follow saucemakers the same exact way. Interaction is key.
 
Some social media pages have updates from months ago or even last year. This always make me wonder if they are still in business.
 
Of course I am an Internet person, but I speak as a follower, and yeah, it's important.
 
I can't recommend watching Chef, enough ...

Nice little feel-good flick, depicts all of this in relation to a food truck, and just enough Sofia Vergara to keep you awake until the end ...

And if that isn't your jam, the Aaron Franklin cameo probably is, LOL ...

We really liked it.
 
Lots of good advice here (think long term, build local relationships, etc), but I'll add one thing: Focus on what makes you unique. And I think your honey thing is pretty unique. On your product labels, you could say "Honey Habanero [or relevant pepper] Hot Sauce" on the front. You could also make chile pepper infused honey. Check out this case study on Bees Knees spicy honey. You can't straight up copy them, but there's some good relevant info. 
 
Building on that, you know what I think would be cool? Spicy honey sticks! I used to freaking love honey sticks at the farmers market when I was a kid. Tons of flavors, but to my knowledge there's no spicy honey stick. The nice thing about that is it doesn't take a lot of peppers or honey to make one, and you could sell them in 5 or 10 packs with a bunch of different flavors (different fruits, different peppers). Get nice looking packaging for the packs. Then email around offering free samples to online media places like Thrillist. Anyway, I'm just spit ballin here. Good luck!
 
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