Shelley Whitehouse of The Smart Chicken Coop It all started with 3 chickens on a porch, that turned into a side interest in backyard chicken keeping, that grew into a successful online business. Shelley Whitehouse shares her story about her company, The Smart Chicken Coop as we cover various topics listed below. Be sure to checkout The Smart Chicken Coops quality products at the link below! The Smart Chicken Coop - https://thesmartchickencoop.com Topics Covered It all Started With 3 Chickens On A Porch Craigslist & The Smart Chicken Coop's First Customers Credibility & Trust, Help Convert to Sales Facebook & Google Advertising Success COVID-19 Effect on Business Life, Caring for Animals & The Value of Homegrown Food Increase In Demand: The Start of DIY Chicken Coop Kits Importance of Business Acumen & Self Discipline Challenge of Developing a Marketing Plan for Nationwide Success The Joy of Providing Value to Others Bad Reviews & Quick Responses Meeting Demand, While Maintaining Our Product Level Advice for New Business Owners A Joy for Indian Runner Ducks The Value of Perseverance In Business Transcription Shelley: Just started out as a lifestyle business, do you know what I mean? Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Shelley: I didn't know that it was going to become so popular. And then of course with COVID, it became ridiculous. Brian: Yeah. Shelley: But my husband actually took three months off of work his work, because we couldn't get everything done, we were working full-time, all of us. We're working. It was crazy. It's crazy, but really fun too, because here are these families who are stuck at home with kids pulling their hair out, and they get to build chicken coops and then get the chickens. It's a fun business. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman. We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Shelley Whitehouse has quite a varied background. She spent many years performing as a professional orchestra flutist, raced mountain bikes for the heck of it, coached high school sports, raised three kids with her husband, then decided to go back to school to get an MBA. After several years working as a management consultant, one of Shelley's side interests, backyard chicken keeping, morphed into a business called, The Smart Chicken Coop, that sells fancy backyard chicken coops nationwide. Shelley, welcome to the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast. Shelley: Thank you for having me. Brian: Absolutely. So what brought you into Backyard Chickens in the first place? Shelley: Well, this is a funny story. So as I said in the bio, I was working as a management consultant. My daughter, who was at UC Santa Cruz at the time, decided to stop out of school and move to rural Yucatan. And so she dropped three chickens on my porch en route. And I hate birds, but what I found is that they were really fun. And people started saying, well, what's the latest with the chickens? That turned into, why don't you do a blog, that turned into me buying chicks to sell in my backyard, to people saying, where'd you get that chicken coop?
