#45 - How a Mother of 8 Turned Goat Milk into a Successful Family Business

Risk Without Regret: Thoughts On Life, Business, Freedom, & Happiness

Today's guest sure has her hands full. PJ Jonas is married with eight children in rural Indiana. For almost ten years, the entire family has been running a business called Goat Milk Stuff. When I first heard about the company, I was like, someone is making things out of goat milk? So obviously I had to check it out since my curiosity couldn't take it anymore. I'll let PJ explain the full story about how she came up with this idea, but essentially, she was tired of seeing all of the products that everyone is always using filled with harsh chemicals. So she decided to do something about it. Initially it was just for herself and her family, but she quickly realized that this idea could help a ton of people all around the world. It's primarily an online company, but it is constantly growing into a tourist attraction for people that want to come and check everything out in person. Just like a lot of stories you'll hear on this show, most start off with humble beginnings before the idea really takes off. The Jonas family story is no different. In this episode, you're gonna learn about patience, hard work, taking care of your customers, creativity, and plenty other lessons in business and in life. Plus if you listen all the way to the end, PJ has a surprise for everyone listening! So get comfy, block out all the distractions, and listen to my amazing conversation with PJ Jonas of Goat Milk Stuff. Enjoy! I hope you loved this episode, and if you did, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a quick review!

Connect with PJ

Website: GoatMilkStuff.com Facebook: facebook.com/GoatMilkStuff Instagram: @GoatMilkStuff YouTube: youtube.com/GoatMilkStuff

My Online Course

Online Shop Master Course - Teaching you how to build your own e-commerce website so you can start selling your products online. With no software, even if you have zero web design experience! Sign up here...

Free Gift

Just for being a loyal Risk Without Regret listener, PJ is offering you a free bar of goat milk soap so you can try them out! All you have to do is visit GoatMilkStuff.com/RiskSoap. Enjoy!

Best quotes from this episode We really understood our target market, because we were our target market. Word of mouth at the beginning, that was really how we had most of our initial growth. Social media is definitely been worth it for us but it's something that we definitely keep in it's perspective and do just try to keep it social. You don't have 8 children in today's society without sacrificing a lot. We didn't realize it at the time, but the fact that we spent so many years living below our means, not having any debt except for the mortgage, and paying down the mortgage, that's what enabled us to build Goat Milk Stuff so quickly. If we had been on the Today Show and we were trying to make it out of the kitchen, there's no way we could have filled those orders. It's kind of the myth of the overnight success, people think it happens so quickly, but they don't see the years and years of hard work and prep work that went into it. It's not about having a profitable business, it's about cash flow. There are plenty of profitable businesses that go out of business because they don't have the cash flow. It's better to grow slowly, because so many businesses will die because of growing too quickly. For every dollar of pre-tax income you want to make, you have to sell five dollars worth of stuff. Your expenses grow so much more the bigger your business gets. Everyday, if you can look and save yourself two steps or save yourself one action, that's going to add up over time. We really underestimate children in our country. They're capable of so much more than we give them credit for. And with the right support and the right tools, so many of them can do great things and I'd love to see more of that. You need to have the work ethic. Hard work covers a multitude of sins and a multitude of weaknesses. I've never met a problem I couldn't solve. You're never staying at one point, you're either growing or you're shrinking. You have to constantly be moving and adjusting and adapting. There were businesses that started, grew, and thrived during the Great Depression. So to say it's not a good time and you can't succeed, I think it's completely false. You always have lots of opportunities, but don't let the good distract you from what's the best. Work hard. Be financially responsible. Have integrity. You don't need all the best stuff to get started. You have to put things in perspective and you have to put money into the things that are going to have a return. If you don't live what you speak and speak what you live, that's going to come back and hurt you. If I'm not willing to use something on my children, I am not willing to sell it. I wasn't going to let someone else or their experience tell me what I could and could not do. I don't let other people's reality impact my reality. I don't want to get bogged down into worrying about what my competitors are doing. I want to care about my customers, I want to give my customers what they want at the best price that I can, and I've got to believe that that's going to take care of itself in the end. It was such a learning experience for my children, to know that what we do isn't just about making money so we can feed ourselves and pay our bills, it's about impacting the lives of others. I tell my children all the time, we are so blessed because we are able to work together, we are able to help people, and we're able to support ourselves doing it. I can't even imagine anything better than that. It doesn't matter what, I have to push through this. I have people counting on me to make all of this work.

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