Episode 140: Be Sticky Like a Weed with Jessica Garza from Moose Valley Ranch

Introduction

Hey guys, I have a guest this week. It is my friend Jessica Garza from Moose Valley Ranch. And I met Jessica about a year or so ago.
We met on social media, of course, first, and then I met her at her event, Market in the Mountains in Washington. And I wanted to bring her on today to just chat about all the things she’s doing, as far as diversifying her products and supporting rural women. So hi, Jessica, welcome on to the podcast.
Hi, thanks for having me. Absolutely. So yeah, like I said, we met a while back, but do you want to go ahead and tell everyone a little bit about yourself, what you do, how you came to this place?

Growing Up on the Ranch and Wanting to Leave

Yeah, it’s kind of a long story.
So I was born and raised on the ranch, Moose Valley Ranch. We didn’t call it that back in the day. It never had like a actual name over the top of the gate, when you always think about it.
But I was born and raised here, and I was adamant that I was never coming back. In high school, did all the sports, did all the activities, all the FFA stuff, everything. And then just said, as soon as I’m gone, I’m gone.
I’m never coming home. And we’ve all had those moments. Right.
It wasn’t just me. But I think I had a Pinterest board that said, for my first six figure paycheck, because I was going to go be like a big business woman, or I don’t know what I thought I was going to do, but something. And somewhere in there, it was going to be an ag teacher.
And then somewhere else, it was, well, I went to law school for a little bit. I’m a law school dropout. And so I thought I was going to work for the USDA.
So, I mean, be glad you aren’t now. I don’t know if we’re okay to joke about that on your podcast. Right now, I’d be very grateful you’re not.

Family Ranch Background and Market Crash Memories

So I was born and raised in the ag world and on the ranch, and it was a traditional hay and cattle operation. My parents ran at the peak, a 500 pair of Hereford cows, Hereford, I think, maybe some red Angus. I don’t know.
They had a bunch of cows. And I watched them kind of walk through, you know, they almost lost everything when the cattle market crashed. And I remember the day the semis came and all the cows were gone.
And I don’t think I ever really felt like there was a future for me because it always felt like they were just barely hanging on. I mean, my mom went back to work when I was in high school. And yeah, my brother learned to farm, but it was kind of just a one man thing.
So I never went out and learned it.

Leaving Home, Montana, and Law Enforcement

And so I left and went to Montana, my grand adventure, I stumbled into like the most circular route you could take. I stumbled into law enforcement in Montana.
And that’s where I met my husband. And we had a baby and we kind of decided he was from Washington as well, like we should move home. And I don’t know that I’d want to go back to Washington, though, like, but you’re not wrong, like where you’re at is beautiful, though.
So it is, but we still suffer from the same state legislation that everyone else does. But I think at that point, I don’t know, his dream agency was kind of around where the ranch is. And so by nature of that, we ended up back by the ranch.

Not Planning to Be in Business at the Ranch

And I still wasn’t planning on being in business there. I still didn’t see a future. I was in law enforcement and having babies and having a family.
We didn’t live on the ranch. I mean, we had a little like 10 acre house in the trees with like a garden, a cute little garden. And that was about it.
We had a creek and a garden and that was it. And I started spending more time over at the ranch and really wanted, you know, you’re like your heart kind of calls you home. And you’re like, I mean, I remember growing up here and we had the best adventures and we had all the animals.
And so I started like taking my kids there more and more.

The First Wedding and “Make It a Business” Moment

And it wasn’t until a friend asked me if her daughter could get married out there. And I was like, oh, well, yeah, I didn’t even get married at the ranch.
Like we do weddings now and I didn’t even get married there. I was like, absolutely, I want to do this. And someone asked my dad, he said, well, only if you have full insurance and you’re a business so that the liability doesn’t fall on the ranch.
Like if you’re going to take money for this and you’re going to make it a thing, you need to make it a thing. And I, I, I’ve shared this before, but I think he really thought that would shut it down right there. That like that there, you know what I mean? Like, oh, I’ve given you some hurdles and now you’re just not going to do it.
And instead I was like, game on. Your dad likes to kind of like poke a little. He loves to.

3 AM Research and Starting the Business

So it was like 3am, I’d get off shift. So I was a sheriff’s deputy at the time and I would get off shift and I’d come home and I’d be like figuring out how to register as an LLC in the state of Washington and where to find insurance for weddings and what what’s required and all this stuff. And, and it slowly built from there.
And I just kind of, I don’t know, I was still working. I still work full time. But I was in law enforcement and then I transitioned to from sheriff’s deputy to internet crimes against children and child sex crimes detective for our local county, which I don’t think I ever knew how many cases there was in our county.
We’re really rural county. I think we’re less than 50,000 total and it’s a massive area.

Reality of Rural Crime Work

My cousin was a deputy for the sheriff or a detective for our sheriff’s department when I was in my hometown.
And it was, yeah, it’s shocking. You think it’s like everybody, you know, it’s never going to happen to me or it’s not happening here. We live in such a good like country neighbor or whatever.
And that’s definitely not the truth about what happens. No. So I handled a ton of cases, some pretty high visibility cases, federal cases.
I just really burned out hard. And my husband was like, I want my happy wife back. So I pushed more into the business and really tried to scale more and more and more.

Chance Meeting and Shift into Economic Development

Eventually, I ended up in a different department. And then actually, it’s kind of a funny story. I responded as the officer to a report of transients in a house and it needed to be cleared.
They were trespassing. And so I get there, I do the cop thing, I clear the house, you know, I’m like slicing the pie on all the corners and all the things. I come out and I’m like, why does a railroad own this random house? Like talking to the guy that had made the call.
And turns out the local port district that operates the railroad was looking for some investment properties and trying to get into economic development because in the state of Washington, port districts are open for that. And so I talked to him. I didn’t talk to him for like two and a half hours about the potential in this tiny town that we were in.
And it’s Newport. It’s right on the border. I think it’s got like the oldest bar in Washington state or something.
Like really cool, big rodeo town. And I was like, man, there’s so many cool buildings. There’s so many cool things you guys could do here.
Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Little did I know, six months later, he would be calling me saying like, remember that day we talked about a lot of opportunities. I think you should come apply for this job. And I was like, no, I don’t want to leave.

Encouragement from Her Mom and Taking the Job

You know, I know law enforcement. I’ve been doing it for almost a decade, almost up for public service forgiveness for my student loans from that dropout of law school thing. And I thought, man, I don’t know that I want to switch and learn something new.
And it was actually my mom. She’s like, your degree’s in economics. Like, do you think maybe that’s a sign and you ought to go apply for this? So I did.
And now it’s been almost a year that I’ve been in economic development for rural county, which looks incredibly different than doing it on like the I-5 corridor or big shipping ports or anything. And so that’s been an interesting step, like closer to what I do at the ranch because in Moose Valley, it really started, Moose Valley started to build a community when we started an event for rural women in business. And it’s been an interesting intersection now between my professional life and then all the work I was already doing with Moose Valley.
I’m just like, this is weird. It’s so overlapping. I like to do that and then complain that I’m overwhelmed.

Balancing Ambition, Work, and Motherhood

So I told my husband, I’m like a girl boss too hard. I have to go to work today. And he’s like, yep, have a great day, sweetie.
Go get that paycheck. But then I don’t think I could be a stay-at-home mom. So I really struggle with that.
Like nowhere in my brain do I want to, you know, just home make or stay at home. That’s just not me. And so sometimes I feel weird that like one part of me, I think it looks like it should fit there.
You know, like you see me making sourdough and planting my garden. And I, like, I love to do all those things. And so people kind of assume I’m, what’s that like trad wife, trad wife? I’ve been hearing some of that.
Yeah. Yeah. And so people will talk to me like that.
I definitely think I fit that like trad wife thing now. And I’m like, oh my goodness. If you came over here and like saw me like yelling at my kids in my sweatpants, I do not fit that.
And then like juggle between, oh, I’ve got to be here for work. Oh, I’ve got something for Moose Valley. And then like, I’m not obeying my husband.
I mean, I’ll listen to him, but I’m not obeying him. I annoy him. Does that count? Absolutely.
So I really kind of struggle with lots of different pieces of me, not really ever fitting fully in one thing or the other. And like I’m in business and I run my own business, but I also really love my career and have found a lot of joy in going into that economic development side of it. So that’s kind of my journey.

Rapid Diversification at Moose Valley

I guess I didn’t really tell you the ranch kind of grew. It blew up. I guess I didn’t even tell you about that.
There’s so many stories. So we started with weddings. We do hosted hunts sometimes on the property.
Sometimes we’re just facilitating like the camping spot for people to access state land. We have gather, which is our rural women in business event and market in the mountains, which is the luxury Western market. We are just finishing construction on our geodome for short-term rental stays.
We’re harvest hosts. My kids have an egg stand, a very lucrative egg stand at the end of the road, which is odd. They bought kayaks last year from this egg stand, kayaks and their pool they paid for.
That is awesome. We just happen to be on a really good state highway, I guess is part of it. So yeah, a little bit of everything.
And I’m always looking to scale and grow. And I mean, I have a ton of plans for the future, but we’re working really hard to twofold. Like it’s a blessing that my parents worked so hard to keep the land that they did.
Like they’re the first generation. They’re the ones that struggled to make the payment on the land and hold onto the land. And they have successfully done that.
And then here we are as the second generation where it’s like, man, I would love to get to the point where we’re profitable enough not to have to work outside of the land. And I’m raising the third generation where I’m like, man, I don’t want to just be profitable for me. I want to be able to have enough room for my children and their spouses and eventually my grandchildren to come back here.
And especially with the route I’m going, it’s not traditional agriculture. That is such an infrastructure-heavy, capital investment-heavy business model, that we are just in no rush to leave our full-time jobs when we can invest more back into it, develop different lines of diversification on the ranch. My goal, I always joke, is 10 different income-producing avenues on the same property.
I say five per thing. So yeah. Yeah.
I love it. Anything I think you can do to sell the same thing slightly differently, rather than going and finding more acreage or doing something else, a different location, I want this to be as profitable here as it can be. And so we are, I think we’re at like six out of 10.
So I’m not planning on leaving my full-time job until I hit 10 out of 10. Nice. I mean, that’s an awesome goal.

Host Shares Her Own Work/Home Story

I actually left my full-time job almost 10 years ago. Wow. And have not gone back.
Yeah. Because I was like, well, I’d been a single mom for a long time. And I met my husband and he was like, I’m a disabled vet.
And so we have a base income. Why don’t you quit and be a mom to our kids? Because that’s what they need right now. That’s amazing.
And that was where we needed to be in our life. So, you know, his boys had just lost their mom. She’d passed away.
And my kids had been in public school. My son’s autistic where, I mean, it was just, he wasn’t getting the support that he needed. And I was able to just take a few years off and be mom.
And that was amazing.

Jessica on Taking Time Off and Not Feeling Fulfilled

See, I took a year. I took almost a year off in between law enforcement jobs, and it was good.
But I don’t know that I ever felt fulfilled just in, like, I still had Moose Valley at that time. So I was working the ranch, never just being a stay at home. And I don’t know that I still felt as fulfilled as I wanted to, which probably sounds bad.
No, I don’t think so. Because I don’t think I would have felt that way had I not had my husband home with me. So, you know, we dropped the kids off and we were going to breakfast or going for hikes or working on projects together.
So I’m so jealous. Right? I know. That is amazing.

Income Drop and Staying Home Alone with Kids

I probably would have felt better had, but instead I was like, here he was getting up early and then taking overtime shifts because our, you know, like that was such a drastic drop in income for us. And then I felt like I’m at home all the time and doing all the dishes. And the kids are, you know, the screaming at the time, the kids were pretty little, you know, and it was just me 24 seven.
And I’m like, I would rather work a little bit than I’m this situation currently, but I have good friends that like love that situation. And so like, no judgment, just not my vibe. You know, I think we still like, we still have that.
I don’t know. Like we, I always joke with it. We were the like most unlikely homeschoolers because we were like, ew, why would we want to be home with our kids all day? Like, what are you talking about? Yeah.
I don’t disagree with that statement sometimes, especially after we had a math test today and I’m just like, oh, maybe public school’s not a bad idea. And then now that we’ve had our kids home for, I think it’s eight years now, we’re like, yeah, they would never, ever go back in a million years. And I couldn’t even imagine that I said that, but then my husband and I still play the, they’re annoying me, they’re your children card.
I try to text my husband. I’m like, your kids are waiting for you to come home. Right.

Grandparents Close By and Daily Help

I’m with them. I’m with them a little bit more just because I can work from home a lot and they’re old enough now that just kind of like keep them moving and make sure they don’t like light the stove on fire or do something dumb on their bikes outside or with a hatchet or something. And then they’re okay.
And I can handle it. But we’re, we’re lucky. My parents are right here and they help a ton.
Like if I’ve got to go over for meetings or I have whatever, they can just hop in the side by side and zip up to my parents’ house. And then I don’t see him for hours. And my dad’s like, come get your kids.
They’re hungry. I don’t want to feed them. But we’re like, Oh no, they’re your kids.
I’m like, yeah. Remember how you missed our whole childhoods by like working a lot. I’m re-gifting you the ability to enjoy a childhood.
Here you go. You should be thanking them. And I’ll be up for dinner too.
I sent him a study on that, like having young children around like diminishes, like can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s or dementia or something. So one day I was being sarcastic and I was like, you should be grateful. Like you’re not, look, you’re not going to have dementia as quick because here’s your grandchildren.
I love that. Yeah. They didn’t respond to that text.
I don’t think. I’m sure. Yeah.

Living and Working Near Parents (Property Boundaries)

They’re kind of, my dad, like you said, he’s a little, he’s a little difficult sometimes. He’s always, always a challenge living and working on the same property with them is well. So our home, our home is attached to the ranch.
Like it borders the ranch property, but our home and our acreage is our own. But then all of my business is on ranch property. So that was like, that was a specific request from my husband when we decided to move on to the ranch, decided to move and really make the business what it is.
He’s like, I never want our home to be at risk to anything that’s dealing with the ranch. Like we had had friends, you know, lose their housing because grandpa passed and they weren’t in the will to get their house. And all of a sudden it went to an uncle who didn’t want them living in it.
Or just like we had heard all the horror stories had responded to all of them as cops, like you show up at all the disputes at Christmas. And so that was like my husband’s one request was like our home, our living situation. I don’t ever want this at risk for any sort of ranch or family decision.
Like this needs to be fully in our control. And so we, we did that. I wish we were on the other side of the highway sometimes just for convenience sake, because we do have to the state highway.
But then there are days I’m like, we didn’t go far enough away. I could feel you there. Yeah.

Different Kid Personalities and the “Feral” One

At the same time, though, we have no grandparents around. So, but we luckily have teenage children and smaller children so they can, they’re somewhat self-sufficient. I do have one that is a terrorist, like absolutely feral, no keeping him contained in any way, shape or form.
Like he’s five. I’ve even had, you know, like my mom be like, have you tried just disciplining him? And I’m like, oh, thanks. Never thought of that.
Yeah, no, that didn’t occur to me. Thank you for that revelation. Like our other six kids, they’re fine.
They, they all well behaved, but I just decided with this one to not raise him. Yeah. Just, just thought maybe we’d throw everything out the window that we’d been doing thus far.
Yeah. That’s frustrating. So yeah, he’s definitely like the kid can jumpstart the tractor.
Like we’ve had to hide equipment from him. We caught him doing an IV on the dog. Like, oh, he’s just always, and he’s five.
I mean, and this stuff wasn’t all happening when he was five, it was three and four. And wow. My friend says he’s a four-year-old stuck in a 40-year-old’s body and he is pissed off about it.
Or no, a 40-year-old stuck in a 40-year-old’s body. I’m like, that is so spot on. So true.

Trying to Keep Kids Safe After Seeing Tragedy

Like my husband said he was going to go weed eat by the barn the other day and then sat down to have some lunch and branches out there, like pulling everything out of the garden shed, getting it ready to like weed eat. And he’s out there like our weed eater has one of those like blades on it right now. And so he’s like trying to lift that.
And so then we’re like running out there in a panic to make sure he doesn’t like lop an arm off. And I think we went too far. Well, I don’t mean, I don’t know that you can ever go too far with our kids, but sometimes I’m like, oh man, I think we may or may not have disciplined the like wild child out of them in this.
Like we’re so focused on safety. That was so important to us as law enforcement. I mean, like I’ve responded to the case where like the dad accidentally backed over his child in a stroller and crushed the child.
And I’ve responded to the farm accidents and I’ve responded to the, you know, just I have double decapitation on a four wheeler. I’ve like, I mean, I’m trying to do fatal crashes, like airplane crashes. I mean, everything.
And that trauma, if you’d asked me while I was in it, I think I would have told you like, oh, there’s no trauma. I deal with this fine. Like, what are you talking about? It doesn’t affect me at all.
Cause I was that way. But looking back now, I’m like, oh, we definitely, we definitely like, I don’t want to say beat some of that out of our kids, but like they knew from a very young age, like if we say this as a safety rule, like there is no negotiating, there is no hesitating. There is no nothing.
And I can see it now where some of my kids, my friends’ kids are like crazy and they’re out doing stuff. And, and I’m like, why do my kids not try to do that? Cause they’re older now. They have like the opportunity now, like they’re out and about by themselves and doing things on their own more.
And I’m always kind of like, why don’t my kids ever do that? Like, why do my kids not build a random ramp for their bikes and jump off of it? Well, we spent the last 10 years basically being like, if you die, we can’t get you to the hospital fast enough. You know, like the life flight still going to take 45 minutes to get here. So don’t do something stupid.
And I, sometimes I regret that a little bit. I’m like, oh, but honestly I don’t regret it because I can’t, I couldn’t bring my children back. So, but it’s definitely a whole different scale.

Host Shares Her Own Kids’ Accidents

We have six and they’re all very different. And they’ve all been raised, even the older ones who like their mom was in law enforcement. My husband’s a first responder.
All of our kids have been on our volunteer fire department and they’re all different. Like I have one that fractured his neck running as hard as he could into his buddy’s truck with a helmet on. Oh, okay.
And then I have the one that’s like our most cautious, sweet little boy was wanting to ride on top of the hay bale on the tractor the other day. And the implement came off and he got like crushed under, not, I mean, just his legs, but like under a 1200 pound hay bale. And I mean, it was like mortifying and like he’s seven and like cried for the next three hours because it scared him so bad.
So I think it’s just individual children and their personalities. I know. I think those are like good, like, right.
That’s how they learn their boundaries. And I get that about the, like, I never wanted to be a helicopter mom and really let my kids do a lot, but like my kids to the point that they know when a tractor started up, they would run for the house because if they weren’t up by the house, then that was a rule because I just seen so many people, like, I didn’t see him. I just ran over him and I didn’t see him.
And, and they truly didn’t, it wasn’t intentional. They weren’t mad. They weren’t hot rotting.
And I think I saw too much of that. So now I’m trying to do the same as you. Like if I say do something, you do something right now.
And I’ve had parents be like, geez, you’re kind of harsh with your kids. I’m like, no, if I say do something, you do it right now. If you want to have a conversation about it later, I’m happy to explain, to teach, to whatever it is.
But, you know, one of the things I say with that a lot is, you know, we work with livestock, we work with tractors. I, I need them to answer right then. We live 45 minutes from the closest town.
If we come up on a car accident, we are the only help that’s coming. Right. Yeah.
It’s very true out here too. So I don’t want why in the moment you just need to start acting. Yeah.
That’s just stay out of the way. I mean, it’s not bad. It’s not a bad thing to have.
I don’t know. I just, I wish I was now I’m like, why don’t you go do this or do that? And then they don’t want to as much. And I’m like, Oh, I kind of wish you were a little more wild, a little more feral.
But I always tell my husband, I’m like, we’re going to mess them up one way or the other. So we may as well just keep contributing to the therapy fund and we’ll see what they blame us for when they’re older, because it feels like we’ll be alive to go to therapy. Fair.
Fair. And that doesn’t even address all the other ways they could get hurt or we can get hurt or any, I mean, like, you know, you know, how it is, especially first responder background. It’s just like, I had someone asked me that I shared about, Oh, I had that cop video.
I don’t know if you saw that that video went viral. It was my last arrest at my department and it went viral. Someone did a freedom of information request for body cam footage and they happened to stumble across that one.
And that’s the one they shared on their social media. And it wasn’t bad on my part. The lady was awful, but it went viral on there.

Viral Bodycam Video and Online Safety Concerns

And I kind of posted, people started sending it to me and like, is this you? And I’m like, yes, please don’t tag me in the comments though. Like I don’t want the anti-law enforcement people to find me through this. Yes, that’s me, but I don’t need you to tag me or send it to me.
And I addressed it. And then someone asked me like, well, don’t you, don’t you get worried? I mean, you share on social media about your kids, you share your kid’s faces, you share like, and I go, you know, if someone really wants to hurt you, they’re going to hurt you. And, or if something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.
And there’s not a whole lot you can do. Granted that doesn’t like go into the whole, all the other stuff we talk about. And I have a couple of podcast episodes on mine about like safety, more safety specific and things that we do on the ranch and how I share.
But I, I thought that was an interesting kind of like judgment, not judgment, but you know what I mean? Like, like, yeah, no, I know what you’re saying. Like I’m aware of it. I show my kids faces all the time, but they also travel with me to conferences.
So I’m taking them to be like, here’s my children, you know? Right. But then I posted a picture, my boys were in their underwear, but I mean, come on, they’re like boxer briefs, you know, they’re boys. Yeah.
And little boys playing in the like, compost manure pile, and they were like covered in head to toe and literally manure. I can smell it now. Right? Like I have a sand pile that I put in my garden, and it’s next to like the compost manure pile.
And I so I told the boys to like, you know, I’m going to be in the garden, you play where I can see you. And then I kind of wasn’t totally paying attention to him because I could hear them. And then I look over and they are literally like head to toe and manure.
And so I took a video of it and posted it on social media. It was hilarious. And people are like, you shouldn’t post pictures of your children in their underwear.
Like some people might do think bad things about that. And I’m like, or do bad things. And I was like, I really like I mean, because what if I put them in their swim trunks doing like running through the sprinkler? Like, exactly.
And I mean, I think there’s like that, that like, holier than thou effect with that to lecture because I’m like, of all the people that I have seen over 300 people search histories that are guilty of child sex crimes. I’ve looked through their phones, I’ve seen what they search, I’ve seen what they’re looking at. And like, I think of all the people to make a judgment call and like what’s gonna share or not share, like, probably don’t ask me if I’m okay with it, because I’ve thought about it.
And so I generally when someone asked me, I’m just like, well, you know, that’s my choice. Thank you. If you don’t agree, you can go somewhere else.

How to Show Kids Online Without Drawing Unwanted Attention

I don’t know. I don’t love is the emojis over the faces that makes kids look people get like, like they want to know like, so if you intentionally hide them with a bright emoji, I always teach that too. We do like a verbal women’s group coaching, like a monthly membership with live sessions and stuff.
And that’s one of the things we talk about in there is lots of times women come in, they want to start a business, they’re not comfortable sharing their, their kids faces. And we say that’s fine. Take a video from the back or take branding photos where they’re not looking at the camera, they’re like head down doing something.
But don’t like smiling family photo, and they’re replaced with a sun emoji because it makes some people get like, why are you hiding them? What like, then they want to know and it makes it a thing. It’s just don’t be in just intentionally shoot from angles where you don’t see their faces. Right? Well, it actually kind of makes me question those people more.
Because nobody will like are the people who like, you know, come reach out to me and they’re like, you shouldn’t have your kids in their underwear. Like, why is that bothering you? Because you didn’t message me and say anything about my daughter and her bikini at the beach. Yeah.
So like, why are you thinking that way? Because I wasn’t I thought it was funny that little boys are rolling in poop. I think it’s anytime you’re like an expert in something, I feel like for some reason, unhappy individuals want to come and like, prove that you didn’t know everything. Like it becomes this sort of like, badge of honor that they can tell you how to do something.
And I’m just like, that’s not I don’t. Yeah, I had this woman like arguing with me on a post one time, like, just going on and on about something with food history. And I was like, Yeah, that’s yep.
But I read food history stuff all the time. Like it is the only books I read for joy. And then I still write, you know, I’m writing books with them myself.
And so I’m like, Okay, yeah, that’s true. And she’s like, still arguing me. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s true.
And she’s just like, kept going and going. I was like, Why are you arguing with yourself? And she’s like, you’re showing your own stupidity now. And I was like, okay.
Yeah, I don’t know what just happened. I feel like the internet is the best and worst place at the same time. Like I love it because I get to meet, you know, people like you, all my other market vendors, all the rural women that I’m in community with, like, the women that come together, just even the connections, I was just talking today about someone and they were saying, Oh, I want to get in to a program, you know, for kids school lunch stuff.
And I was like, Oh my gosh, I know someone let me like, let me help you make that connection. You never know, maybe it’s two years down the road, but like, at least you’ll know who to call. And so it’s so good in that way.

Viral Content Also Brings Trolls

But in the other sense, like every time I have something go viral, I’m just like, Why am I on the internet? And so we have a family saying don’t argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. And so we just try not to engage with that. But it’s yeah, that one was when I didn’t realize we were fighting until then I was like, Wait, why are you arguing with yourself? Are we doing this right now? We’re gonna okay, we’re gonna do this like that you have nothing better to do today than to be in my comment section on the page you could very easily have left like just just go hit the unfollow button and like it and you can block me too.
I’m fine with that. Like please, by all means block me if you don’t want to see my stuff. I got for some reason in the construction of the dome platform, we were using a lot of heavy equipment like my dad’s old bulldozer and big stuff.
And for some reason I fell into the rabbit hole. My algorithm was sharing the content with the equipment like old white guys. Oh my god.
Like the epitome of a man who might still be in his mom’s basement in his underwear like with nothing better to do than to tell me how horrible of a person I am and unlike all these like really awful things and I’m just like, I’m sorry, I’m really busy like building something and doing things and being a productive member of society. So I’m just gonna let y’all fight this out in the comment section yourselves. I don’t even want to I don’t want to read it like don’t tell me that I drove the bulldozer wrong.
Like I’m here driving it. What are you doing? Like maybe if you spent more time driving a bulldozer, you wouldn’t have time to argue with me online. That and that amount of you.

The Viral Chew Reel Story

I had one real go off about the price of a can of chew. So my husband chews. I hate it.
I wish he didn’t. And I he’d said, hey, can you swing by and grab me a can? And I’m like, fine. So I went in and it was like $8 $10 for a can of chew.
And I remember when a log was like $10. Yeah, so I like about fell out of my chair because I haven’t bought it like the whole time we’ve been married hadn’t bought it. And so then I buy this and I’m like, fuck, you better never judge my coffees again, because I know how often you’re going through a can of chew.
And so then I went and got a coffee and I made like this funny reel about like ladies if he’s ever given you crap about not getting a coffee, make sure he’s not chewing because I and I posted the receipt, the amount of guys straight up calling me a liar. Like I even went so far then I made a reel that had like a response to a reply of a comment. And I took that in the next reel.
And I videoed myself driving to the gas station and buy because he said, Oh, I must have known somebody at the gas station to like make the receipt up. So then I like did the video and I’m like, actually, it’s it’s that expensive here. Welcome to Washington State, we have some of the highest taxes in the nation.
And I wasn’t on a reservation where they don’t have to pay some of those. Oh, my God. In fact, one of my followers just messaged me.
I think I asked like, where did you find me? And and why did you stick around? And she was like, I found you from the chew video. And I was like, Oh, man. Oh, my goodness, the comment sections on hit, I finally just turned it off.
Like it could have I don’t even know how many comments on it at this like 3 million views. And I was like, I’m done. Like, delete, mute it.
I don’t want to hear anything from this. So I don’t even know what the comment section I should go back and look at it now. Yeah, I might be entertaining now that like your frustration with it is like, I’ll still be just as frustrated.
I’ll go back and start reading it and be like, what? You don’t understand that Texas are different between the states like you don’t understand that your state in Tennessee could have a different tax on to than my state does. And that could cause a price difference. Like, if you can’t teach if they don’t know that you can’t teach them that in a Facebook comment.

Pigeonholing Women Online

Yeah, you know, a big one I get is, oh, you’re a conservative woman. So you hate public education. I was like, I don’t what? And I’m like, who told you that? Everybody? I’m like, what? I don’t hate public education.
Why do people forget that? Like, two things can be true at once. Two things right here at once, I can be a conservative woman and still believe that like, I don’t know, x, y, z, whatever is okay. And I can be just fine with I don’t know, I just I struggle so hard with it.
If this then this like if this you must be this or if this then you are that and it’s like no two things can be true at the same time.

Question: Social Media for Rural Women in Business

So I have a question about, you know, I know you work with, you know, rural women in business a lot. And I mean, that I feel is like, probably one of the biggest driving forces of so much of our economy right now.
I mean, women in agriculture, women, you know, starting businesses so they can be home, all that type of stuff. Yeah, I feel like the biggest, like, everything suck of our businesses is social media. Have you found any tricks or anything that makes it like not? I mean, this is a little bit of a personal ask.
Yeah, at the same time, like I get it all the time from my business people to know, I love this so much. I hear it all the time. I think we’ve got like, I don’t know, around 100 people in our group coaching, and they’re all women.
And then almost all the podcast listeners are women and a huge portion of my social media is like women in business, especially with market stuff. Like the more market pops off, the more I find rural women in business are on my account. And oh, I’m so excited to answer this question.

Reframing Social Media as Documentation

Our job, most of us are not just influencers, like I’m going to put on a dress and take a picture of myself in a dress. We’re documenting our entire lives. And it’s exhausting.
Yeah, I mean, twofold. So I think part of it is a mental shift. I don’t hate social media.
Like I will say that I’m not one of those people that’s like, oh my god, I gotta I gotta make content today. Like I genuinely enjoy it. I enjoy brainstorming.
My girlfriend, Alyssa owns us by the moon. And she’s always like, you’re the content queen. You’re the content queen.
And I’m like, well, it really started to advertise market. It started with a period of time. So my first my first tips or trick is, if you haven’t been consistent with it, and it feels like it’s taking so long over and over again, is to force yourself to do it for a certain amount of time.
So that the skills are there to make it easier, because it was not easy, fun or enjoyable until I committed to posting three times a day every day for the month leading up to the first market. And my motivation was that I didn’t want any vendors sitting in my field saying, she never talked about it. Of course, nobody came.
You know what I mean? If no one showed up, I wanted them to see that like I had done everything I could. So I committed to that. And it was about three weeks in of making a ton of content that I was like, oh, okay, like I’m finding trending audio faster.
I’m matching it to the beat quicker. I’m thinking of more creative ways. And it wasn’t until I forced myself into that.
So if you’ve got a good product launch, or event coming up or something like that, and content is a struggle for you, I challenge you to commit to making a large amount of content over a longer period just to get that comfort level with it.

Duct Tape Phone Holder Tip

And then I have a ton of tips and tricks about my favorite phone holder, I get asked a lot of times like, okay, but who was taking the video like how you were doing this? But like, who was taking the video for you? And I’m like, a roll of duct tape for my I have an iPhone. I’m not kidding.
So I have an iPhone. I don’t know. I mean, some phones are different sizes, right? So like, crazy big one, this probably isn’t going to work for you.
But I keep a roll of duct tape in every farm vehicle. And it perfectly fits my phone case, it’s kind of sticky on the bottom of the roll. And so it sets everywhere and it will like hold your phone up for you.
Oh, that’s awesome. Kind of you can kind of like mess with the angle and stuff like that. So I love a roll of duct tape, twofold, because duct tape makes the farm go round.
And because it’s a great phone holder. And I never then have to be like, oh, I didn’t bring my gimbal, or I didn’t bring my tripod, or I didn’t whatever, like I will sometimes hook it on a tree branch, I will put it up against a rock, I will lean it in anything, but the duct tape is a great thing.

Saying the Same Thing in Different Ways

And then I really try to see how many different ways can I talk about the same thing.
I think a lot of times on social media, you feel like you’re having to reinvent the wheel a lot, like I need to say something new, or I’ve already talked about this, I’ve already done a reel on this, I’ve already done something like that. And instead, what I teach is that you don’t need to, you need to say the same thing over and over and over again, just in slightly different ways. And we know that from like the rule of marketing, where a person on average has to hear about something seven times before they purchase it.
I heard it’s more than seven at this point. Oh, I think we’re so inundated. It absolutely is.
But that’s like the commonly known rule of seven. And so I let go of that feeling of like, oh, I’ve just said the same thing that I said, like that was just on there last week. Like, I’ll talk about the same thing.
I have two reels up right now that are exactly the same. They’re just different captions in on the screen. I always get that advice.
And I’m like, if I post the same thing every time, nobody’s going to want to follow me because they’re just going to roll their eyes and be like, oh, Cody always posts the same thing. Why are they following you then? Because they want that content. That’s why they’re following you.
Especially if you have a reel, like I had a wonderful market reel. It was one of the first ones I put up this year, advertising this year’s date. And it went crazy.
It’s got like over 5,000 shares on it. And I was super tired on a weekend. I didn’t want to do anything.
I wasn’t feeling inspired. And so I just remixed that old reel, which you literally just hit the remix button, pick a new audio, repost the same thing. Oh, man.
Because it was kind of an ever, I mean, it’s in the lead up to market. It’s got the dates on it. It’s not saying anything really crazy.
That new one with the slight change of caption is over 1,500 shares, I think right now. And so it’s like getting smarter about making the content so that when you aren’t feeling it, it doesn’t take as long and it doesn’t weigh you down as much. And it almost gives you like this freedom to get creative with it.

Viral Husband Reel and Reusing Content

And then I’ve got two more. And I could go on and on about this. Honestly, like my most viral reel, my husband flipped me off and then was laughing at himself over it.
And so I like did that video and just clipped off the like flipping me off part. It went like hundreds of thousands of views. And then people are like, oh, you can see how much he loves you and how well you guys get along by the look on his face.
And I’m like, he was just proud of himself for being a jerk. Yeah. Yeah.
Remix it. Do it again. Next time it comes out, put it on Father’s Day.
Like that’s I reuse content all the time. And I have a really good bank of B-roll. And I don’t know how familiar like B-roll is when you’re just doing something, you’re not actually facing the camera and talking to it.
And so I’ve kind of got my family trained to like pull their phones out and get little clips for me. And then they just drop them. I put my social media calendar when I do it at the beginning of the month, I put it on the refrigerator.
And then everybody is what like kind of knows what I’m waiting for all month. So they’ll send like the whole family will just be catching clips.

Host Admits She Doesn’t Use a Content Calendar

So do you want a dirty secret? Yeah.
I don’t do a content calendar. I travel so much. I have to know.
I know. But I mean, like I and I teach I teach the content calendar method because it works really well, especially when you’re like, not. I just wake up every morning and I’m like, what am I going to do? And I boom, done.
Like it’s and I mean, I plan out stuff as it comes up or launch sequences and things like that. But I don’t have like an every day. I think it’s finding something that works for you.
But people always ask me like, oh, can I get it? Can I see what your content calendar looks like? And I’m like, no, because I don’t I don’t use that method. That’s what that works. And I mean, mine is still like written on a piece of paper with my different colored pens.
Like all reels are red and all blogs are green. I love that. I love a good color coding moment.
It helps me like my ADHD, like be able to see it like pop out easier. But yeah, it’s I do it like that. My friend’s daughter comes up or my my daughter’s friend.
Yeah. My daughter’s friend comes up and she does B roll video and like takes pictures of the cows and everything. And then she will edit them and send them to me and I’ll give her like 50 bucks for it.
So amazing. Mm hmm. Yeah, I don’t have I mean, I have my husband.
I’ll make him like his favorite dinner if he takes takes a good video. But it’s usually just me.

Posting with Your Cycle and Keeping Notes

Let’s see.
What other tips do I have to make it easier? So share, share the same thing over and over again. And then I like I don’t know, I like to have fun with it. But I also like to recognize I don’t know how to broach this without not broaching it.
But like, okay, I’m not a hippie dippy kind of person. Like I don’t not really in with my feminine side, not really into like any of this stuff, right? Like all the things that are hot right now. I that’s not I just like not well, someone at one of our retreats was talking about haven’t you ever noticed how your cycle affects your content? And I was like, No, I don’t even know when my cycle is happening.
Like, I don’t even keep track of that. I’m not having kids anymore. I don’t even I don’t even track it.
I don’t even know my husband texts me and he’s usually like, Hey, don’t forget to pack you know, your stuff when you leave because you’re gonna need it. And I’m like, Oh, really? Is that is happening this week? And she said that and I kind of started like wondering, gosh, does it and like, dang, if she wasn’t right. When I’m in a certain phase of my cycle, it’s really hard to create content.
And then when I get to a different phase, supposedly, I mean, I don’t like know what they are. But it all of a sudden, I’m like, Oh, I could do this. I could do this.
I could record this. I could have this idea I could do that. So I keep records in my notes on my phone.
And like when I have random ideas, I just drop them in a note on my phone. So that on the days where it’s really hard, I just go to the note on my phone. And I’m like, Oh, oh, yeah, I did have that idea.
And it was a good one. But I let go of that feeling of having to make new content all the time. And I have zero issues sharing the same thing saying the same thing reusing videos, like our lives are hard enough.
Let’s not make it harder on ourselves. Yeah.

Tough Love About Social Media as Marketing

I mean, when we have our businesses, like I’m at that is my business.
Like, I also have to like document my business. And yeah. And it’s a little tough love too.
We share that, you know, especially in our retreats and our group coaching, like when we’re hearing the same really adamantly, like, I don’t want to be on social media. I hate this. I like what we go then stop and pay for marketing in the traditional way.
Pay for an agency to run this, pay for an agency to put up billboard ads, pay for print marketing, pay for something else. But if you want to have a business, marketing is part of having a business. So if you don’t like social media that much, or you’re unwilling to teach yourself tips and tricks and things to do, then you’re going to have to pay somewhere else.
And most of the time, then we get this like, Oh, I never thought about that because they feel like they have to be on social media because it’s social. But it’s like, if it’s a tool, we talk about that as a woman in business, you need to sell. And I think women have a really hard time with that.
Like, we don’t want to be salesy. We don’t want to look pushy. And instead I’m like, absolutely not.
If I’m putting this time into my social media, it dang well better be generating revenue for me. And you can watch it. If you start to pull the analytics on things like when you send a newsletter and email newsletter, that’s a form of marketing.
What are your sales doing? When you post a reel that has a link in it, or you do something in your stories or whatever, like, and you see the sales come in all of a sudden, you’re like, this is a tool for my business. This isn’t me just trying to be on social media. And so I think kind of that rough mindset, my poor group coaching girls are probably like, yeah, she’s kind of mean.
She just said, I’m like, but I’m not your yes friend. I’m not here to be like, yes, social media is so hard and you shouldn’t have to do it. It’s like, it’s free marketing.
You can do it or you can not, but you’re gonna, you’re gonna market somewhere.

The Exhausting Part: Repurposing for Every Platform

I think what kills me is like, say I do a blog. Well, then I have to have a blog graphic, I have to have a Pinterest graphic, I have to have a Instagram graphic and a, you know, if it’s any type of video, then I have to have it, you know, this way for YouTube and this way.
And I’m like, why has Canva not come out with like a suite yet where you can be like, my social media suite, and you design one and it just populates the rest and you have to go in and like clean them up a little. I mean, I think it’s getting better with AI, but there’s your million dollar idea. And probably because at the same time as these people are trying to develop the technology to do that, the social media is, I mean, look at the Instagram went from squares to rectangles.
Like, can you imagine if you were trying to develop a program that did that and you’re three years in, and all of a sudden Instagram’s like, JK, we’re going to rectangles on the main feed, don’t need the square. And you’re like, right. And of course, it’s the exact opposite of Facebook.
So like, even crosswise. And so it’s like, I tried to do some of that to be like, oh, I’m going to fit the thing. And then I ran my like, regular monthly ads that I do.
And then they were all cut off. And I was like, so now I have to do everything square to like, meet both of this is. And I think that’s what gets me more than the actual creation.
I mean, yeah, it’s exhausting to have a whole second layer of what you’re doing. But it’s that like having to do it 27 different ways. And then you’re trying to teach a VA or something to do that.
And they’re like, why do I have to do it all these different ways? And I’m like, just don’t ask questions.

Permission to Set Things Down and Focus on What Works

I love and it’s probably a little bit more product specific. I really love to also give women permission to set it down.
Yeah, if your blog is not driving sales, and it is creating such a friction point for you that you’ve got to do like you said, it takes a lot people don’t realize how much it takes until they sit down to do it. And you’re like two hours in on a blog, and you’re just like, what is this doing? Set it down. I can write a blog like while I’m drinking my coffee in the morning, right? It takes me the rest of the day to get it out to social media.
And that’s where I tell I tell women like if you’ve got a good if you’ve got a good handle on your numbers, and you’ve got a good handle on your ideal customer, and you’ve got a good idea of where they’re spending their time online, focus there. Like you will not see Moose Valley Ranch on TikTok. Should I? Could I? Sure.
I own the handle on TikTok because I don’t want someone else to go get it. So there’s another another little bonus point for you is to go make sure you have a handle on your handle so no one else can take it. But I’m not over there posting because right now, that’s not where my ideal customer is.
And she’s on Instagram. So I’m spending my time on Instagram. And if and when that shifts to TikTok, sure, we’ll pick it up and deal with it then.
But I can’t be everything to everybody. So same thing with my Facebook, it auto posts things over to my Facebook, but I am not driving things to Facebook because that’s not where my ideal customer is. So I think when you’re building things, you know, if you’re if you’re a local flower farmer, and you’re wanting to sell blooms, it’s it’s Facebook community groups, your best place to be in, because that’s the people that are going to drive out and buy them, then be more worried about that and put more time into that than you do maybe being on Pinterest, because Pinterest is more of like, if you’re going to launch a calendar with the photos of your flower farm, then maybe you want to be on Pinterest so that people are finding those photos.
But if you’re looking for local foot traffic, Facebook community pages might be where it’s at. And I think kind of drilling that down is really helpful for rural women in business. And when you start and you don’t have anyone telling you that, it feels like you have to do everything.
And it feels like you have to be everything to everybody and you do not have to.

Different Platforms for Different Offers

That’s definitely like the Homestead education spends way more time on Instagram, where our pork sales happen almost exclusively on Facebook. Yeah, isn’t that crazy? When you start to look at that, and I think a lot of times too, that just comes with developing your mind for business.
And sometimes I struggle because rural women in business, like they start the idea because they want to be home, or they want to get a little extra cash so that they don’t need to go back to work part time or whatever it is. But they don’t have a good wrap on the business side of it, like the analytics and the dollars and cents and the numbers. And so we try to talk a lot about that in group coaching of like, I don’t know, guys, like, yes, the flowers are pretty, but did the flowers make you money last year? And if they didn’t, then we need to assess because that was a huge chunk of your time and energy.
And if you’re not even looking at those numbers, we need to, we need to get comfortable being in the numbers. And I think that’s a pretty big hurdle I’ve seen from rural women is like, I’m going to sell tulips. But when you pencil it out, and then you calculate the number of hours you spent right up to Mother’s Day, which is not what anyone wants to be doing on Mother’s Day, that it’s like, okay, but like, let’s really look at the economics of the situation here.
And like, did that pencil out if you only made 12 cents for every hour you worked on those tulips? Do you want to do tulips? Or do you want to do something else?

Saturated Markets and Solving a Problem

I’ve definitely, I’ve talked to a lot of my clients about that as well as also the saturated markets, like you, it doesn’t matter, like how much you like narrow down your goat milk soap, and you know, your cost and everything like that, that unless you’re out there, like educating, teaching, going to every single event, you know, and pushing and pushing and pushing, you’re not going to make a living off of that one. But if you’re selling some, like, there’s some that can, but I mean, it’s just not your general. I love to tell them to solve a problem.
Yes. Like when someone comes to me and is like, I want to start a business and I’m going to do this. I’m like, what’s your problem? What’s the problem you’re solving? And if it’s a flower farmer, I just was in a one on one with someone and we were talking through things and again, hate social media, doesn’t want to be on it, doesn’t want to travel for work.
And I said, then send postcards out to all the houses out here that can’t get floral delivery. Cause you’re so far out of town that like florists won’t deliver. So can you set up a weekly porch bouquet drop-off for them? Because you can make the flowers.
And then you just go put door hangers on doors and say like, if you want a weekly delivery of blooms, here’s where you sign up. And it was like, mind blown. You mean, I don’t have to be on social media? You mean I don’t have to? And I was like, no, you can literally just go stick it in their mailboxes and go do it that way.
And you’re filling a need because I can’t get flowers. If someone wants to order me flowers, they can’t deliver them. Nowhere in town is going to deliver 50 miles out here.
No. Yeah. Okay, cool.
There is an option then as a flower, you have solved a problem for your customer, which bonus makes social media so much easier if you are going to do it. Because if you know what your problem, your customer is having, then you know exactly what pain point to be talking to. Yeah.
Makes it easier for content. Side note. That’s awesome.

Wrapping Up and Where to Find Jessica

I think that’s where I’m going to wrap it up. But, um, so first off, where can everyone find you all your goodies? Everything is Moose Valley Ranch. So moosevalleyranch.com, moosevalleyranch on Facebook, on Instagram.
The only thing that is not is in the podcast. If you’re interested in our, um, weekly podcast, it’s the workhorse podcast. And that’s on anywhere you can find, um, podcasts.

Signature Question: Keep Growing

Awesome. And my favorite question for all my guests is what does keep growing mean to you? Oh, that means be sticky, like a weed, just keep going. And like roundup is not going to kill me.
Physically removing me is not going to kill me. Like it doesn’t matter what I’m going to be gritty and I’m just gonna stick. I love it.
Well, thank you so much for coming on and everybody go check out Jessica.