How Good Ranchers Spends Less Than 10% on Meta and Still Scaled to 9 Figures

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0:21Brett Stapper:Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Future of Consumer Marketing. Today, we're speaking with Ben Spell, founder and CEO of Good Ranchers. Ben, how are you? Hey, man, doing well. Thanks for having me. Amazing. Super excited to have you here. Let's go ahead and jump right in. So talk to us about the aha that led to the founding of the company. I was watching a lot of Shark Tank back in the 2016, 2017 time with my wife. And I had done a little bit of outside sales for a meat company. And outside of that, I knew nothing about meat. But doing just a little bit of sales for another company, I learned really quickly how misleading the industry is and how there's a lot of marketing jargon and a lot of labeling workarounds on things.

1:00And I kept saying to my wife, man, someone should do, my actual words was, man, somebody should do this, this, and this, and they could probably have a really great company. And when I first said that to her, in no way did I think that we would ever start a meat company because I didn't know anything about meat. I wasn't passionate about meat. My background's actually music and ministry. So yeah. And the other side of that was, again, this was 2016, 2017 at that time really omaha steaks was the only player in the meat world as far as delivering it to your home and so it was coupled with those two things and that's what i kept telling my wife man like omaha steaks has all the market share when it comes to meat delivery butcher box was coming on the scene around 2016 around that time but they were still you know back when my wife and i were talking about it we had never heard of butcher box we only knew of omaha steaks so yeah so that's how it kind of came to be was just seeing a hole in the market and seeing a need in the market.

1:54Brett Stapper:When you told her this, this, and this, what were those three thises? What was like the POV that you had in the market that you were going to do differently? So there's no country of origin labeling law for beef or for pork in the US. So consumers don't understand that, don't realize that a lot of what they're buying in the grocery store, a lot of what they're buying online, only because I mentioned ButcherBox once, I'll just go ahead and say it with them, that they import most of their beef from Australia. A ton of consumers don't realize that. It's not like they broadcast it on their website.

2:25And the way the law is written in the US right now, you don't have to do that. So it's funny, you have to put made in China on your plate or Taiwan or wherever, or made in the USA. I don't know who makes plates in the USA, but you have to put a country of origin labeling on the plate and the utensil you use, but you don't have to put it on the food that you put in your body. So when we learned that and realizing that we wanted to start a company that had 100 % born, raised and harvested American supply chain and shipped directly to consumers.

2:55Brett Stapper:Why do you think that is, you know, was like big meat able to like, you know, carve out some part of the law to get around that? Because like, it's a bit concerning, like you're putting on my consumer hat, like, why does the plate say it? But the stuff that I'm actually putting in my body doesn't say it. That's a bit concerning. Very concerning. It is, you know, we've been working for years now. giving a message. We were absolutely the first and the loudest of talking about country of origin labeling for beef. And we're actually starting to see some change in the legislation. And next year, there's voluntarily, they're not, it's still not mandatory, but next year there's a voluntary cool law.

3:31The law's changing a little bit in our favor, but it's still not 100 % of what we would like to see it.

3:37Brett Stapper:So the law is voluntary? What kind of law is voluntary? Exactly. It's like 60 miles per hour, but it's voluntary. I don't understand. How is that a law? You can label it if you want to, basically. That's fun. Yeah. And where do you source the meat from then? So I know there are farms in the US. What was it like building those relationships and finding sources for the beef? A lot of work. I could imagine. A lot of traveling, a lot of nights away from home. But now we sell beef, chicken, pork, and wild-caught seafood. So you don't source from the same places, obviously. But our beef is predominantly sourced throughout Colorado, Utah, Idaho.

4:14And then we have a few dedicated sources in Texas as well. But primarily our beef comes from Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. Really great beef raised in that area. Climate's great for raising cattle.

4:27Brett Stapper:I told you no hard questions, but I'm going to ask you one. What is your number one favorite piece of meat, type of meat? That's not hard. When it comes to beef, New York Strip is my favorite. And most people go, oh, ribeye. I'm a ribeye guy, right? To me, the New York strip is absolutely the cream of the crop. It's got the intramuscular marbling that you want, but it's got that beefy flavor and it's a little bit more tender. Yeah. I'm a bone-in strip guy. Nice. I'm normally a ribeye guy, but I'll try a strip. I'll switch it up. Yeah. I'll post order after this. You try Irish. They're the best.

4:59Brett Stapper:Sounds good. I'll definitely do that. Now, I see you were founded in 2018. Did you ever feel like you were too early? Because it seems like right now there's a lot of awareness about what we're putting in our bodies, but going back eight years ago, seven years ago, like, was there that much awareness about the quality of food? Not nearly as much as there is now, but I think we were just at the right time, honestly, kind of, you know, we didn't start selling online, started selling. I was selling meat out of the back of a truck in a parking lot in Waco, Texas, and went from, you know, one truck to two trucks to 10 trucks to 20 trucks.

5:31And then when COVID happened in 2020, that's when we, we always knew we eventually wanted to get online, but it's really hard to ship perishable items. And so that was a big lift. But once COVID happened, that really opened the door and it opened the door, but it also forced us to have to speed up the process to get online because it really normalized shipping for a lot of people. And so we sped up the process when we got online in 2021, and then we shut down all the trucks by the end of 2021, just went fully online into 2022. So it was actually a really great time for us to start the business because we had a few years of kind of figuring out things before we launched online, you know, real grassroots start meeting people in the parking lot, talking about beef.

6:16Brett Stapper:You know, on the topic of shipping, I won't name the company, but now my wife and I used to like every couple of months, we'd order like Wagyu from this company online. And one time we had my in-laws coming and the whole family and we were excited. And like, you know, we told them We're going to do like a big Wagyu dinner, blah, blah, blah. And we order it. And then it like just doesn't come. And then like 24 hours later and it's like, you know, all bad by then. And I've never ordered from that company again. They did a very poor job kind of handling the situation. But that alone, you know, that cost them a customer.

6:45Brett Stapper:And like, I'm sure that happens all the time. It has to be very hard to get fresh food delivered. How have you approached that? And what have you done to have that situation that I just described not happen to you and your customers? Yeah, well, I will say this. Unfortunately, nobody in our space bats a thousand. You're at the mercy of the carrier and the summertime gets really hot. But for us, we do have a very good track record, I would say. And we've learned over the years. And our packaging is actually different from everyone else that we know of. And we order regularly to see what people are doing.

7:16So we have like multiple layers of insulation, not just one. And the insulation we use is there's much cheaper options out there. ironically we just ordered from a wagyu online company that came in today because we wanted to just check them out because like i said we regularly order from our competition as they do the same you know with us and the insulation that they used i don't know if it was the same one that you bought from but we all commented on how cheap the insulation that they were using was so we use like a robust insulation through the summer we'll use less insulation through the winter because makes sense but yeah we really spare no expense on the shipping part from thick insulation and then we put all of our meat inside of a silver like space type of bag close that up so that insulates the meat inside in this silver bag and that's where we put the dry ice inside of there which keeps that cold and then we put that inside the insulation and then we put that inside the box so again nobody in our space that's a thousand because if it gets held up in shipping and sits for an extra couple of days.

8:23And, you know, sometimes the driver just doesn't take it off the truck and goes back and sits there. Yeah, not much we can do there in 100 degree weather. But if we have on time delivery or even a day late, our product always shows up still very cold or completely frozen.

8:40Brett Stapper:Now, when you were getting the product out there, selling out of the back of the truck, was that like farmer's markets or where was the distribution point? Like where were you putting those trucks? Yeah, so we would partner with like a mall or retailer and then only because everybody in the city knows where the mall is. So we were making kind of our own farmer's market and we would, we'd get on the radio and we'd advertise, Hey, we're going to be here this weekend and a fresh local meat, you know, whatever, depending on where we were in the country. And we would kind of do it that way. I see. And then when you had to start kicking things in the gear for COVID or during COVID, what was it like ramping up the e-commerce channel?

9:11Oh man, I'll say this to anybody listening that's starting a business. We made so many mistakes in the beginning. I mean, so many mistakes in the beginning and we were very fortunate that we were able to get through them. So I like to say fail fast and you got to try new things. You have to, but just don't get stuck doing something that doesn't work. So for us, when we first started in e-commerce, we were trying to ship to the lower 48 out of one fulfillment center. You can't do that with perishable goods. Yeah. Again, through the winter, you could get away with it, but in the summertime, you got to have closer proximity for shipping.

9:49Now we have five. So we've got the lower 48 covered.

9:52Brett Stapper:What were some of the other big learnings that you had there besides the fulfillment center side? Like anything specifically on the brand side, the marketing side, the e-com side? Yeah. I don't know if this is specific or not, but one of the things I look back and we kind of talk about internally, if I would have had an MBA on staff early on, we probably would have never gotten where we've gotten. Honestly, like, you can't just take money in a business book and start a business. There's some intangibles to really, you know, starting a business and building a brand. And it kind of takes some of that founder gut mixed with a little bit of crazy to just try things and hope it works.

10:28So, and for us, that was the way we started marketing when we were online is still to this day, very different than any DTC company. We spend very little on digital, like very, very little, less than 10 % of our marketing budget goes to Meta or Google. And that's, yeah, for a D2C company, that's kind of unheard of. And even when we first launched online, Meta and Google wasn't even, it's only less than 10 % now. And it was pretty much non-existent. We went a completely different route through broadcast, radio, and podcasts, you know, really getting people's voice to advocate for us rather than just, flooding meta and Google with digital ads.

11:09Brett Stapper:For podcasts, was that you going on as a guest to talk about the product or were they ad spots within podcasts that your ideal customers were listening to? Both, yeah, both. But yes, but a lot of ads, ad spots. But pro tip, if you're buying podcasts, we negotiate in every podcast that we go to advertise that I have to get on the show at some point to do a live, like founder's interview. I feel like that's probably the most powerful type ad that you can have, right? Whenever you can hear the founder talk, the story, I feel like that's what resonates. And then the second you can put a face in a story behind a brand, it instantly has more appeal.

11:42Brett Stapper:So that makes sense. Obviously, if you look at the market, there's a lot of people who buy, if we just look at one product, there's a lot of people who buy beef. How did you narrow that market down? Or did you narrow into a niche to say, this specific persona that buys beef, we're going to go after them? Or was it really anyone who buys beef that cares about quality? Yeah. So for us, it was not nearly that narrowed down in the beginning because I'm from South Louisiana. So sometimes I kind of oversimplify things, but in my mind, I'm like, everybody eats meat unless they're vegan. So that's not our customer.

12:14But if you eat meat, you're our customer. That's kind of how I looked at it. But it is definitely more than that. For us, it's people who want quality, who care about sourcing. That's a big one. People who care about where their meat's coming from, what's in it. And also there's a huge patriotic lift with our business. We're very pro-America. We're very pro-agriculture. So people who love America, love farming, ranching, want to support local, want to support U.S. businesses and want good quality meat, that's our customer.

12:45Brett Stapper:It's interesting because you obviously got the consumer awareness side down or the timing was perfect there, but it sounds like you also had the right timing for the pro-America side of things. I feel the same way. I love this country, you. But I think that back in 2018, it wasn't as cool to love America, right? It seems now that it's back and it's cool to love America. And just as someone who loves the country, that's been cool to see. But it makes sense that you were able to just nail that trend as well. You seem to be very good at nailing trends and getting timing perfect. I think we got really lucky.

13:15Brett Stapper:I don't know, man. That's like three different trends all at the right time. I don't know if you can say that's just luck to get three trends right at the perfect time. Blind squirrel finds a nut. What else have you done from the marketing side? So on your LinkedIn, I see you have a picture of this epic race car with the brand on the side of it. Is that a strategy that you've seen work very well? Yeah. So again, we did a lot with podcasts and radio. And after a few years, we started realizing, okay, man, we started seeing these audiences that really resonate with our brand and our product. And so we started saying, okay, well, where is that customer, but not, You know, where's that same customer also at?

13:53You know, people who feel this way, but aren't listening to these shows, you know, where else are they? And we were like, oh, racing. Racing is so, I don't know if you know or not, but it, I mean, they sing the national anthem before every race. They pray before every race. I mean, it's a very, I would say conservative leaning or it doesn't, you know, there's all kinds in there. But as far as the overall demographic, it's very pro-America, you know, very much in line with our brand. And so that kind of what got us looking at racing. And then in the American racing, as far as like the big sports of American racing, you have NASCAR and IndyCar is open wheel racing like F1, but it's the American version.

14:30And I say it this way, I hope I don't get in trouble for this, but the main difference between IndyCar and NASCAR is more people wear their shirts at IndyCar. That's the difference. For us, honestly, the NASCAR is a bigger sport, so it's more expensive. IndyCar is not as popular as NASCAR, but then also NASCAR has 40 races a season, IndyCar 17 races. So you can get more frequency in a more of the season with less races on the IndyCar side. And then going back to kind of what you were saying earlier about things that we just kind of happened to hit, we only bought two races with IndyCar with Team Penske our first year, which was 2023.

15:11And our very first title race, our driver came in first place. Nice. Like it never happened. It had been like 10 years since that had happened. And then our second race, our second title race that we went to go do, he won again. Okay.

15:26Brett Stapper:It's not luck at this point. I think you're blessed. Like blessed has to be a better word to describe it. Yeah. It's been a fun ride. So yes. And if anybody's watching this and you don't ever watch IndyCar, you should watch IndyCar racing because it is absolutely great racing. Yeah, I have to imagine. I don't know if I've ever watched it, but I just finished watching or I've been watching the Formula One show on Netflix and that has me just interested in general in this general category of sports, like a lot of other folks, I'm sure. So I'll have to check this out. There's a documentary called 100 Days to Indy.

15:55It's on Netflix as well. 100 Days to Indy. You should check it out because it really teaches you about the sport and the drivers and the teams and stuff.

16:02Brett Stapper:Amazing. I'll check that out. Now, how do you think about the ROI of an investment like that or marketing spend like that? Because obviously, it's, you know, it's hard to quantify. How do you think about ROI and justification of that spend? Yeah. Talk about the thing that, you know, we talk about all the time. It's really, really hard to measure. For us, there were a few different reasons we were doing it, not just, you know, you're not going to get direct sales for anybody listening to this. If you just put your name on the side of the car and put on a racetrack, it's not really going to do much for you.

16:32For us, it's, We leveraged, you know, we partnered with the team, which has, when you look at Team Penske, who we partnered with, other sponsors are Verizon, Shell, Hitachi, could go down the list, billion dollar businesses that have huge networks. And so part of the partnership for us was, yes, putting our name on the car and winning was great, you know, and getting that side of the exposure. but the other side was working the B2B relationships, the other businesses and getting, and for us being a, you know, a small business, it was kind of like a brand elevation thing, kind of a brand left. It's hard to soar the Eagles if you're surrounded by turkeys.

17:11Brett Stapper:You have so many good one-liners in this conversation. Normally I have to wonder like, oh, what parts do we clip out? You're making it very easy. Yeah, no, I'm saying, you know, if you want to elevate your life, change the people you're hanging out with, right? From a business perspective, I kind of looked at it the same way. Like, how can we align ourselves with these businesses, you know, that are already where we want to get to? I mean, it's a very smart strategy, not just in life, but in business as well. So it sounds like you've really hit that. Now, I know we have to wrap here. I'll have to bring you on for part two.

17:40Brett Stapper:I feel like there's a lot that we could really go deep on. So I'll check that in a couple months and we can get that set up. But really appreciate your time. This has been awesome. Learned a lot about the brand. I'm going to convert now. I'll be a customer. So appreciate you coming on and just sharing all the lessons learned and just talking about what you've been building. Yeah, Brett, I appreciate you for having me. Thank you. Cheers, man.