About Me…
I’m a marketer, virtual business growth consultant and online teacher who helps farms, ranches, and other businesses that sell food online create long-term, profitable relationships with their customers.
I love to work, create things, solve problems and help execute big ideas, but those are just a small part of who I am.
First and foremost I’m a husband to my college sweetheart, Katie, and father to our kids, Abbie and Griffin.
We currently reside in the Springfield, Illinois area, although the pull to transition to the Central West End in St. Louis, MO area is strong.
We’re keeping our options open and, for the time being, prioritizing travel as often as we can.
I’m a sports dude…bring on St. Louis Cardinals baseball, St. Louis Blues hockey and University of Illinois Fighting Illini athletics.
And, yes, I’m still a homer for Tiger Woods.
I have enjoyed coaching my son’s travel baseball team since 2014. Those summer nights and weekends at the ballpark are tough to beat.
I’m a health advocate that believes any business owner who wants a healthy business should be prioritizing their own health and wellness first.
I enjoy playing golf, but I suuuuck at prioritizing time for it.
I renew my energy by hopping on my bike, walking, cooking, working in my yard, or taking a chill day, night or weekend at home with the fam.
Oh, I love books.
About My Values
More than anything, I value time spent with my wife, daughter, and son.
We’ve enjoyed creating many amazing family experiences together; be it a magical Disney moment, post-ballgame pizza run, or a 4-minute commute to drop off at school.
I’m not motivated by shiny things or titles. Rather, I’m motivated to create a life that works and allows me to prioritize my health and relationships while investing time in work that challenges me and fulfills me.
I value the opportunity to be able to work from my desk at home, or any coffee shop in the world.
I appreciate authenticity and vulnerability.
I seek continuous growth and self-development and have learned that teaching what I’m learning to others is the fastest path to mastery.
I believe in and LOVE America 🇺🇸 even though we have tough, deep issues that hold back even more greatness.
Behind every business is a business owner with a life. It excites me to play a small part in helping them create a more profitable business that they own, rather than being owned by the business.
About What I’m Doing Now
When I started consulting in April 2017 I had a goal to find a niche I was interested in that matches my skillset.
As it turns out, farm-to-fork Food Ecommerce is pretty badass!
Since January of 2018 I have been helping farms and other suppliers that sell perishable food online create new customers, re-activate former customers and build endearing, profitable customer loyalty.
I was blessed to connect with Blaine Hitzfield from Seven Sons Farm in November 2017 and have been involved with their incredible team since that time.
After 4+ years as a “contractor” I excitedly accepted a role as their Director of Digital Marketing in March 2022.
I continue to consult with other food producers and when time permits I share what I’m learning here.
About This Website
My mission here is to help you identify a number of opportunities to generate more sales and strengthen the relationship you have with your customers.
You’ll find resources to help you create an onramp to your customer’s first purchase…and repeat purchases.
You’ll learn how to communicate WITH your audience and not AT them.
You’ll build your belief in email as an incredible channel for consistent, reliable growth.
(…and much more).
I answer your questions like:
“How can I use email to get more subscribers to become a first-time customer”
“In what ways can email marketing save me time and money?”
“I’m sitting on waaaaay too much inventory. What can I do to move it, and move it quickly?”
“My promotional / sales emails don’t get opened or generate revenue…WHY?”
“My new products aren’t selling quickly. What can I do about that?”
“What should I even be emailing my audience about?”
“Do I really have to email every week? How is that even possible?!
“I’m sorry…but what the heck is “marketing automation” and post-sale marketing in the first place?”
“Potential customers are visiting my site, but they rarely buy. Why?”
ALL are fair questions. 🙂
Depending on your current skillset you may visit this site and find actionable ideas that you’ll implement yet today. That’s GREAT!
Or, you may be discovering the power of email marketing automation for the first time and discover you need more “know-how” to strengthen your personal belief system or need help with implementation.
I’ll be rolling out fresh ideas on the regular so make sure to subscribe to my news updates to keep up to speed.
The ideas shared, if implemented, will almost certainly help any B2C eCommerce business be more profitable THIS year.
But, those who use Drip by Leadpages for Email Marketing and Marketing Automation might be ready to do handstands or cartwheels.
Drip is the “eCRM” or eCommerce-focused email marketing platform for a reason.
(whispers…and you can even start with a FREE 14-day trial to kick the tires.)
About My (Past) Work Experience
I was fortunate to grow up in a family of small business owners.
More specifically, I was fortunate to be blessed with a dad that chose to make an impact as a small business owner.
He owned four independent pharmacies that at one point employed 22 people in three farm communities in rural Illinois.
The business was a HUGE blessing for the communities, his entire team…and for our family.
While he laid out the vision of what entrepreneurial success could look like as a retail pharmacist and pharmacy owner, I initially did not follow in his footsteps.
Instead, I started to work as a home infusion and consultant pharmacist for a large nursing home provider pharmacy upon graduating from pharmacy school with my Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2001.
It felt great to consult and advocate for an underserved population. I was a happy new graduate applying my professional education to make evidence-based recommendations.
And…for the first time, I was exposed to software that helped me make decisions.
This was intriguing.
From 2001 to 2003 I learned more about how the software was suggesting recommendations to consultant pharmacists based upon the interaction of medication NDC codes, laboratory values, and disease ICD9 codes.
I turned my inner nerd level up a tad. 😉
I also started noticing the many shortcomings of the software.
For instance, there was a lack of professional communication, inconsistency in the way that recommendations were structured, minimal (if any) supporting evidence, and limited personalization.
We were making it very hard for appropriate recommendations to be approved by the patient’s physicians.
So, I started being the “squeaky wheel” who submitted change request, after change request, after change request.
Then, in December 2003, a position was created to overhaul the existing content and oversee the review process for the entire clinical knowledge base and recommendation logic moving forward.
Guess who got the job — > The squeaky wheel. 🙂
This was important for me because for the first time I saw the power that automation and personalization can have when it’s done right.
I also learned the pivotal role that communication style, tone, prose and presentation have when you’re trying to educate and influence someone to act in their best interest or the best interest of others.
I remained in this unique pharmacist position for 6 years.
During that time my team and I re-wrote the entire clinical recommendation library that was used by 400+ pharmacists nationwide to deliver evidence-based, personalized recommendations to physicians and nursing home administrators.
I enjoyed much of the experience but became frustrated by the culture in the company and the pace at which change happens in a Fortune 200 company.
…and the entrepreneurial bug began to bite more, year after year. So, I started evaluating my exit strategy options within the pharmacy/healthcare field.
I traveled to Atlanta, GA in 2009 seeking opportunities at a diabetes educator conference when I stumbled upon the Team Beachbody Coaching Business.
I was already LOVING P90X and openly advocating that others should do it. So, in 2010, while still a full-time pharmacist, I started my side hustle as an online health coach.
This one decision transformed my life and, in a roundabout way, led me to where I am today.
I transformed my health, felt the pride of owning my own business for the first time, met some AMAZING friends, and I was introduced to some incredible mentors.
It’s where I learned everything that goes into earning one new customer at a time and retaining them as customers. It’s where I learned the importance of disciplined, persistent, personalized, and timely follow-up.
It’s where I identified the commonalities between customers who were experiencing a transformation with our product.
It’s where I learned about the importance of community, growing a team, leading a team…and the many blessings and challenges that come with leadership.
It’s where I cut my business teeth and wore the CFO hat for the first time in my life.
And, 6 years after starting, my wife and I had built a successful small business of our own, having grown an AMAZING 1,000-person organization that twice had annual sales of over $2,000,000.
That number primarily serves as an indicator of the number of people we helped throughout the year.
In the end, that translates into A LOT of life-changing health and wellness products being used to create meaningful results while being coached by life-changing people from our team.
It was also during this time that I was introduced to conversion marketing and email marketing automation and was able to demonstrate success in applying both to our business.
It’s what gave me the confidence to see the value I can bring to other small business owners in teaching and implementing conversion marketing and marketing automation.
I felt compelled to give birth to my own consulting business and the content and products I share here which beat the drum for conversion and email marketing automation…because they work.
I made the decision in October 2016 to get specialized training in conversion marketing while attending Converted, Leadpages’ former annual Conversion Marketing Conference held in Minneapolis, MN.
I earned my Conversion Marketing Certification after completing the intense curriculum and practicum in 2016. And, in 2017, I participated in the inaugural Drip Consultant Certification program, earning my Drip Certified Consultant status.
Wrapping up..
If you’ve read this far, here’s your medal. 🥇 LOL!
This is my promise…if you sell food products directly to consumers online and have “good” sales…I can teach you get to GREAT sales by creating evergreen customers.
Make sure to subscribe to my emails below so you can get your hands on new articles, guides, case studies and lessons.
Thanks for taking the time to read this page.
Regards,
– cg