Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Lard Works in Mysterious Ways: Charles Mayfield’s Unconventional Skincare Success Story

Transcript

Lard Works in Mysterious Ways: Charles Mayfield’s Unconventional Skincare Success Story · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Today we have a truly unique story to share as we sit down with Charles Mayfield, the innovative founder behind Farro, a skincare brand unlike any other.
• 0:12
  Charles Journey is a blend of culinary passion, a deep respect for regenerative farming, and a surprising hero ingredient, Lard.
• 0:22
  Yes, you heard that right, Lard.
• 0:25
  From best selling paleo cookbooks to discovering the remarkable healing properties of animal fat after a personal experience with sunburn, Charles Path is anything but conventional.
• 0:37
  He'll share the challenges of introducing a lard based product into the beauty world, the power of educating consumers, and the surprising lessons he's learned along the way, even from pigs themselves.
• 0:49
  Get ready to be inspired by Charles commitment to transparency, ethical sourcing, and the profound fulfillment that comes from building a business rooted in sustainability and family.
• 1:02
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:07
  All right, Charles Mayfield, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:12
  David's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:14
  Great to, great to be chopping it up with you today.
• 1:18
  Absolutely.
• 1:18
  We appreciate you taking the time.
• 1:21
  So let's get right into it.
• 1:22
  Charles.
• 1:23
  So how did the leap from the culinary world of paleo comfort food lead you down the path of creating a skin care brand that's rooted in regenerative farming?
• 1:36
  God, it's a great question.
• 1:39
  So.
• 1:40
  Well, we still handcraft all of our products in the kitchen and so, so it helps scratch the itch of, you know, I love working with my hands, but really, Dave, the big thing.
• 1:54
  So the, the impetus behind the cookbooks was, you know, my, my, my ex wife and I ate this way for a number of months.
• 2:03
  It changed our lives for the better, our health and all that.
• 2:07
  And so it was like, man, we need.
• 2:08
  And we were one of the few people that sort of knew how to cook.
• 2:12
  We both loved cooking.
• 2:13
  And so the cookbooks were a way for us to share what, what worked for us.
• 2:19
  And we'd seen work for many others from a culinary standpoint.
• 2:24
  And you know, with, with regards to the skin care, I had this sort of crazy moment.
• 2:30
  I talk about it on the, on the website, but I had this sunburn and we use animal fat for our, for our skin care products.
• 2:39
  We, we were talking before we hit record, we leave, we leave with lard.
• 2:42
  It's a pig fat.
• 2:44
  Spoiler alert there.
• 2:45
  But yeah, half desperation, half curiosity.
• 2:48
  I tried this stuff on, you know, arguably the most common acute skin care condition in the world, certainly in the summer months, and it worked miraculously.
• 2:59
  I mean, it just, you know, you're fair skinned enough, Dave, you know, you get a bad sunburn, it Stinks.
• 3:06
  And then you peel.
• 3:07
  And when I use this animal fat on my skin and I never peel, that was like a light bulb moment.
• 3:14
  So, yeah, you know, tinkered and tinkered around for a number of months, played with recipes, gave samples to, gosh, I probably a thousand people.
• 3:25
  And yeah, we sort of settled in on, on a formulation that seemed to work really well and people liked and, and it worked for me.
• 3:33
  And so if it worked for me, I know it can work for other people.
• 3:36
  And that's really, that's really what, what drove us to launch the company.
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• 4:07
  So that was the impetus of Faro and as you mentioned, right.
• 4:11
  Kind of very different.
• 4:15
  Right.
• 4:15
  Radical idea.
• 4:16
  So when you're promoting a product and manufacturing a product that's, you know, lard based skin care, like what, what type of challenges does that present?
• 4:27
  Oh, goodness.
• 4:29
  Well, a number of challenges.
• 4:32
  You know, the skin care is a very large industry.
• 4:35
  Some, some call it highly saturated.
• 4:37
  I, I think there are sections of it that are, but yeah, large.
• 4:43
  Funny enough, there's a number of animal fats.
• 4:46
  Tallow is very hot right now.
• 4:47
  Tallow's beef fat for your listeners.
• 4:51
  Tallow is pretty hot right now.
• 4:53
  And then you've got sort of the Maha movement over here.
• 4:55
  That's rfk.
• 4:57
  And a number of people are touting tallow for cooking.
• 5:00
  Returning, returning back to, to that.
• 5:03
  But I would say the biggest challenge we have is just culturally, lard's been out of our vernacular for a very long time, even though it was, it was the staple fat that we cooked with.
• 5:15
  We made, you know, a lot of different skin care products with various things up into the early 20th century.
• 5:24
  And so I would say the challenge is sort of that unfamiliarity and I'm hesitant to say disgust.
• 5:33
  But you know, a lot of people associate lard with, you know, and it doesn't, it doesn't sound very fancy.
• 5:39
  You know, even tallow has that sort of je ne sais quoi to it.
• 5:42
  But yeah, so marketing's been a little bit of a challenge.
• 5:46
  We haven't spent a lot of ad dollars yet.
• 5:49
  We're sort of developing that.
• 5:50
  But long form podcasting, in person, conferences, face to face where we can really sort of walk the customer to our product.
• 6:00
  And sort of the whys have proven to be very effective for us.
• 6:08
  And you know, sort of the clickbait ad stuff is a little challenging because if people scratch just a little bit, we lead with lard, we lead with animal fat.
• 6:18
  We're not trying to hide anything at all.
• 6:21
  And so without being able to sort of walk the customer to that, from an educational standpoint to why our product might be just what they're looking for, there's a lot of like pent up.
• 6:36
  Oh, that, that sounds gross.
• 6:37
  Or it's comedogenic.
• 6:39
  You know, it's going to clog my pores.
• 6:40
  There's a lot of misinformation as well in the skincare industry.
• 6:44
  So fighting all that's been, been our biggest challenge in terms of sort of what we're bumping up against now is one of the reasons I was excited to come on and talk to you.
• 6:55
  So we still handcraft everything.
• 6:57
  You know, a good month for us is 2, 3, 400 units, you know, shipping out the door.
• 7:03
  And so we're sort of at this next tipping point of, you know, do we try to find a co packer, do we, how do we scale?
• 7:11
  And so, you know, co packers.
• 7:15
  Our product is, our product is not retail shelf friendly.
• 7:20
  You know, it's, there's no chemicals or anything in it, so it's temperature sensitive, lots of various things.
• 7:26
  And so, you know, warehousing it for Amazon or, you know, even, even a brick and mortar store, it's not, not conducive to our product.
• 7:34
  And so trying to figure out how to make that, that next big leap into not only like throughput production capacity, but also fulfillment and, and time and, and, and building the team, you know, to, to, to accomplish that.
• 7:52
  Okay, and so how did your experience in co authoring these bestselling cookbooks, you know, prepare you for the, the, the task of product development in the skincare industry?
• 8:06
  Well, I don't know that it prepared me.
• 8:08
  I mean, I love the kitchen and so, you know, you get plenty of reps with all the equipment.
• 8:13
  We right now manufacture all of our products with what I would call basic kitchen equipment.
• 8:19
  It's really just, it's like make it a cake.
• 8:21
  You know, you just get the ingredients right and make it up.
• 8:24
  We're still hand piping our products into the jars that we, we ship things in.
• 8:32
  So that, that was part of it, the, the Paleo cookbooking also.
• 8:37
  It was, it was Paleo that brought me to Regenerative farming.
• 8:41
  We didn't really touch on this much earlier you brought it up, but it, I spent about six, six and a half years intimately involved in raising, nurturing, you know, ultimately butchering and consuming pigs.
• 8:56
  And they're a remarkable animal by, by every count, both agriculturally and and ecologically.
• 9:07
  And so, you know, that was, that was one of the things that really motivated me to sort of launch this company was I, okay, if you raise a healthy, happy pig, okay, they taste great, they're unbelievable for the
• 9:20
  land, but oh my gosh, here's this, here's this waste product, so to speak, from, from the animal consumption industry.
• 9:29
  And look at, look at how unbelievable it is at skin care.
• 9:34
  And so those, those three nodes really sort of ultimately undergird Farrow as a, as a brand.
• 9:42
  Yeah.
• 9:42
  And I love your, your, your slogan of the, the lard works in mysterious ways.
• 9:48
  Oh, thank you.
• 9:50
  You know, when you break it all down like that and you see what it can do for people and this, the, the success stories you've had and like you said too, it's something often overlooked and, you know, you
• 10:02
  wouldn't think that there's something there, but then lo and behold, you know that there's a big benefit to, to using the lard.
• 10:11
  So that, that's fantastic.
• 10:12
  Could not agree more.
• 10:13
  Yeah.
• 10:15
  So, you know, you mentioned the consumer education standpoint as a, as a, you know, critical component of, of the marketing.
• 10:25
  So, like, what, what type of strategies?
• 10:29
  I mean, you mentioned the podcast and just getting in front of people, but growing a brand like this.
• 10:35
  Yeah, where you, you really have to get out in front of the, the marketing and, and really give more education.
• 10:40
  Like, what other type of strategies do you have to, to educate the consumer?
• 10:46
  Yeah, well, we've got a CRM, so somebody buys something from us, they're going to get, of course they've already purchased.
• 10:53
  Right.
• 10:53
  But we're going to bring them along on a journey, get them up to speed.
• 10:59
  Some people do respond to an Instagram ad.
• 11:04
  Some people do certainly word of mouth.
• 11:06
  So we get quite a few referrals from very happy customers.
• 11:11
  And so skincare is one of those.
• 11:13
  Well, I think any industry really, but certainly skincare is one of those industries where, you know, if Susie tells Jenny, I've been using this stuff and it's amazing, you can bet your bottom dollar Jenny's going to buy it.
• 11:25
  And so automating, you know, sort of a client funnel, an education funnel for our, for our email subscribers has been very valuable.
• 11:33
  We get fairly good response on that.
• 11:37
  And that's, that's really been the extent of what we do to this point.
• 11:41
  We are jumping more into affiliate based marketing, so finding, you know, influencers or people in the health and wellness or even skin care space for that matter.
• 11:53
  But people that understand our product, appreciate it, and then we can align with them and, and you know, cut them in on the deal, put a, put a discount code together with them, you know, track the metrics on
• 12:04
  a quarterly basis to see how everyone's performing.
• 12:07
  And so that's, that's our next sort of avenue to, to grow business, grow our, our customers.
• 12:14
  Okay, and how is your definition of entrepreneurial success evolved, you know, from the cookbook days to, to what you're currently doing with Faro.
• 12:25
  Evolved?
• 12:26
  Well, the cook, we ended up writing three cookbooks and so we, we stopped at some point.
• 12:35
  But you know, that, that always, that always felt like a one and done.
• 12:40
  Even on the second and the third.
• 12:41
  I funny enough like the, the first cookbook was the most fun because you're just new and, and every, everything's awesome.
• 12:49
  And then you know, it sort of became a grind at some point.
• 12:53
  You know, with, with Pharaoh.
• 12:56
  It's a couple of pieces to it.
• 12:57
  One is it is manufacturing, it's, it's creating a, a real product.
• 13:06
  One equals one equals one.
• 13:08
  You know, you send off a book to the publisher and they can run you off a whole bunch of stuff, whole bunch, whole bunch of copies.
• 13:17
  You know, you just got to pay for them.
• 13:20
  So I've really enjoyed this venture to the degree that I just feel like every aspect of the business I, I'm touching and obviously you've got to, we've got to find a path out of that.
• 13:32
  There's only one of me and, and we've got a team helping out behind the scenes.
• 13:37
  But you know, when you start talking about scaling and you know, ultimately giving more people an opportunity to try these products, they have helped a tremendous number of people.
• 13:49
  And so you objectively, you want to, you want to facilitate the spread of your product and hopefully the relief or success with more consumers that we've seen.
• 14:05
  And so I really like the idea of building a family business.
• 14:10
  I've got two young kids, they've somewhat been featured here and there on the website.
• 14:16
  10 and 12 years old.
• 14:18
  And I grew up in a family business when I was a young kid.
• 14:22
  That family business did sell when I was in high school.
• 14:26
  And so you know, just sort of creating, try to create that legacy with, with my kids and that opportunity with my kids is, is one of my big motivators, for sure.
• 14:39
  Okay.
• 14:40
  And so you mentioned the, like, the fulfillment it brings you to be able to really touch every aspect of the business and learn it all and be involved in it all.
• 14:51
  But like you said, that's not really sustainable when you, when you're thinking about scaling for the long term.
• 14:56
  So what.
• 14:57
  How do you know when it's the right time to kind of step away from some of these aspects where you're, you know, you're involved in every, every aspect and, you know, how do you, how do you know when
• 15:08
  it's time to kind of give some of those up and start looking to, you know, outsource and begin to scale?
• 15:16
  Well, some of those things, you know, immediately I mentioned I do have a team sort of behind the, behind the curtain.
• 15:23
  So most anything technologically related, I'm already outsourcing to some degree when it comes to the manufacturing side of the house.
• 15:34
  I do like mentoring.
• 15:35
  And so I've got a couple people coming on board and we're dripping them into learning sort of our systems.
• 15:42
  You know, I would say keep keeping a really good eye on your metrics and, you know, what's working, what's not.
• 15:51
  Our trend line's been, you know, pretty steady in terms of growth.
• 15:54
  And so when we see it, when we see a blip, for better or for worse, that's always a moment of, to sort of step back and analyze, okay, what just happened, why did it happen, and how do we
• 16:10
  either do that again or avoid that in the future?
• 16:14
  And so, so there's a, there's a piece of that that's analytically driven.
• 16:21
  You know, candidly, my kids, I mentioned 10 and 12, so they're starting to get a little bit more active with baseball and softball.
• 16:28
  And, you know, it's the classic sort of teeter totter of, you know, focus on the business, focus on the, on the cherished children time, you know, as much as.
• 16:38
  As much as you can.
• 16:39
  And so I would say in the last 12 months, I've started intentionally finding ways to bring other people on board or be more efficient with whatever it takes to get the creams out the door.
• 16:55
  And so those are the two big things that drive me, are the data and the dad time, personally.
• 17:05
  Okay.
• 17:06
  All right.
• 17:07
  And so, you know, today there's a much bigger focus on, you know, transparency and ethical sourcing, particularly in the beauty and the skin care market.
• 17:19
  So how, how do you think that helps you when you're, when you're growing a business like Faro?
• 17:26
  Yeah, well, you can Piggyback on a, on an ethos that's already back out in the market.
• 17:32
  Um, I, I won't, I won't name names.
• 17:35
  There's a, there's a very successful skincare brand that, gosh, I want to say that had about a $450,000 capitalization and you know, four or five years later sold for, oh gosh, I think seven or $800 million.
• 17:50
  You know, a really, really, really big, big move there.
• 17:54
  They, they rose to prominence by taking out six ingredients in skincare.
• 17:59
  Okay.
• 18:00
  And for your listeners that don't know, there's, there's thousands of arguably non effective or, or ineffective or toxic ingredients in skin care certainly here in the US and so there's already a consumer mindset around cleanliness, around, around ecologically
• 18:21
  friendly, around.
• 18:22
  You know, the skin care industry is fairly dominated by, by the vegan ethos, you know, plant based vegan e.
• 18:32
  I don't subscribe to that personally.
• 18:35
  So there's sort of a niche there for us in terms of we think our products are more highly effective.
• 18:43
  We're back to transparency.
• 18:45
  Like I'm perfectly happy having a conversation with you or with a consumer or you know, on a stage addressing sort of the, the sacred cows behind some of these marketing campaigns that I think are not necessarily very truthful.
• 19:05
  And so being hyper transparent, back to the leading with lard, like our logo is a pig for crying out loud.
• 19:13
  So we're not really trying to hide anything.
• 19:16
  And having said all that, we're also willing to have all those discussions around, know what is in skincare, why is it there?
• 19:26
  Is it really helping you?
• 19:29
  One of the day, one of the education pieces that I enjoy frankly the most is talking to people about, forget our products for a second.
• 19:41
  Talking about like the foundational things you can and should be doing to give your skin permission to look its best.
• 19:48
  And you know, none of those involve buying my products.
• 19:51
  It's just making little tweaks in your everyday life.
• 19:53
  And so, you know, you know, again, for me that, that sings of transparency.
• 19:59
  You know, the, the skincare industry is, is going to tell you how to fix the problem with their product.
• 20:04
  I'm trying to tell you how to address your problems, you know, from the inside out with food and sleep and all these other lifestyle things that are, that frankly are directly tied to optimal skin.
• 20:17
  And so I think that's a really nice silver bullet to have in your gun, is just being willing to talk outside of your brand, outside of your products, to the, you know, the very basic foundational things that people,
• 20:31
  you know, consumers should be focused on.
• 20:35
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:36
  And you know, as you said, that can get that, that message can get lost in, in a sea of marketing with, you know, particularly in a, in an industry like skincare, for sure.
• 20:48
  Okay.
• 20:49
  And Charles, what's been the most rewarding aspect of building a business that's so deeply connected to the land and sustainable practices?
• 21:03
  It's the stories we get from our customers.
• 21:08
  I've got early in the business, probably six months into the business, I got a call from a guy whose daughter, she's about my daughter's age.
• 21:20
  So this is a couple years ago, maybe 7, 8, 9 years old, 6, 7, 8.
• 21:24
  And she has eczema, you know, and you know, it's on her hands, it's on her face, you know, very, very common, you know, sort of autoimmune skin care condition.
• 21:33
  And I had, he's a buddy of mine and so he, I had, I had sent him some product, just hey man, try, try this on your daughter.
• 21:43
  And again, I not trying to say our product, you know, there's, there's words you can't use, you know, heels or whatever, but you know, to get a call from him, you know, maybe a week or two later saying,
• 21:57
  hey man, you know, this stuff's gone away.
• 21:59
  The girls at school have stopped teasing my daughter, she feels better like.
• 22:03
  And so it's stories like that, you know, I've got pre cancerous sores.
• 22:08
  I had a 75 year old guy out of I think Wisconsin and you know, bought the product, tried it, you know, went into his dermatologist and like, oh, you're all these pre cancerous sores on your head are gone.
• 22:21
  Of course he just sends me this email and pictures and so that's, that's, I would say that's the most rewarding part so far.
• 22:32
  I would couple that with.
• 22:34
  I, I have brought my kids along on this journey to whatever degree I can since the beginning.
• 22:40
  You know, it was born out of farming.
• 22:42
  They were helping me on the farming front, you know, early on.
• 22:46
  And yeah, I'm sitting in our fulfillment center here at the house and if the kids are here, you know, my, my 12 year old son, he'll come in here and he'll, he'll have you know, 10 or 15 orders
• 22:58
  like batched out, pulled, ready to, ready to ship out.
• 23:01
  You know, they're just, they're just into it and I don't overexpose them.
• 23:06
  You know, I give them just enough.
• 23:07
  You know, kids got to be, need to go be kids.
• 23:09
  But they really do enjoy, you know, keeping their hands in the business and talking about it and all the fun.
• 23:14
  I got them business cards, so it would be hard to actually.
• 23:20
  Testimonials and results aside, it's probably hard to put that below anything else just because I really enjoyed having them along with me.
• 23:30
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:32
  Okay.
• 23:32
  All right.
• 23:33
  And so you mentioned your journey with farming and how that's where all started.
• 23:38
  And of course, like you mentioned earlier, your logo is a pig.
• 23:41
  So what can you learn about business from a pig?
• 23:48
  Well, couple things.
• 23:50
  Pigs like company.
• 23:52
  They're very gregarious animals.
• 23:54
  So if you're thinking about starting a business, what do they say?
• 23:57
  You can go faster alone, but further together.
• 24:01
  And so I would say that's the.
• 24:05
  The quickest and earliest lesson I got, not only from the pigs, but just starting this business.
• 24:10
  And, and, you know, in today's world, I.
• 24:13
  I've mentioned I have a team.
• 24:14
  None of them live within 20, 50, 100 miles of me.
• 24:20
  I've got a virtual CFO and a virtual this.
• 24:23
  And so that would be one big thing is pig.
• 24:28
  Pigs definitely like to have company.
• 24:31
  They, they go further together than they do apart.
• 24:35
  They don't let anything go to waste.
• 24:38
  And so I think in terms of the early business, I didn't let any downfall, any mistake, any victory good or bad news.
• 24:48
  I think it's really important to pull a lesson out of everything, especially early on.
• 24:53
  Obviously, we're still learning every single day in terms of, you know, how to make this business better, but don't.
• 25:00
  Don't let anything go to waste and don't be scared to get really dirty.
• 25:03
  Pigs.
• 25:04
  Pigs actually thrive on.
• 25:07
  On, you know, getting in the mud.
• 25:09
  And, you know, people think it's, It's.
• 25:11
  It's a problem.
• 25:12
  It's actually the pig doing what the pig loves to do.
• 25:14
  And so I think embracing.
• 25:17
  What do they say, like, embrace the suck.
• 25:18
  You know, any business is going to have low points.
• 25:22
  And so learning how to mentally just face those and understand, it's.
• 25:29
  It's going to be great.
• 25:31
  It's.
• 25:31
  It's not going to suck.
• 25:32
  It's going to.
• 25:33
  It's.
• 25:33
  This is the lesson, and I'm going to.
• 25:35
  I'm going to come out of this stronger, I think is a.
• 25:38
  Is another great pig lesson.
• 25:42
  So those.
• 25:43
  Those are three good ones.
• 25:44
  Okay.
• 25:45
  Love that.
• 25:46
  All right.
• 25:46
  And Charles, if people want to reach out to you, learn more about your product, how it could potentially help them with their skin or, or anything else with, with your.
• 25:56
  Your current business, what's the best way that people can reach out to you.
• 25:59
  Yeah, our website is Farrow, Farrow Life.
• 26:04
  And you can, you can do the contact us form there.
• 26:10
  Our.
• 26:12
  It's.
• 26:12
  It's a.
• 26:13
  Social media is such a struggle for me on Twitter or X.
• 26:17
  Now we are at Pharaoh Skin, so you can DM me there.
• 26:21
  I.
• 26:21
  I answer all the.
• 26:22
  The DMS on X and then we're Instagram.
• 26:26
  It's Pharaoh Dot.
• 26:27
  Skincare is our IG handle.
• 26:30
  But the website's the best place to, you know.
• 26:32
  Again, if you send a contact us form, I'll.
• 26:34
  I'll get it.
• 26:35
  We haven't.
• 26:36
  Haven't delegated that out just quite yet, but yeah, that's where folks can find us.
• 26:41
  Okay, excellent.
• 26:42
  We'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 26:45
  All right.
• 26:45
  Well, Charles, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 26:51
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 26:53
  Thanks, Dave.
• 26:54
  It's good to be here.
• 26:55
  All right, and that's all the time we have for now.
• 26:57
  We will see you next time.