We love making things better at Heffys, turns out we have a lot of fans with great ideas on how to do just that here at Heffys.
Fans like Millie Picker (aka MP)
Millie has been a fan for the last 7 months or so ever since she got her first taste of Heffys. Since then she has been planning on giving it away to her friends and family, but she had a problem.
Back in September Millie wrote on our Google Checkout Comment section:
It was very easy to order; however, I would like to see an option provided to put a greeting, for example, “Merry Christmas from the Pickers”. I want to send Heffy’s to some on my Christmas list and it would make it much easier if an option like this were available instead of them wondering who the heck sent me BBQ sauce!
By millie – Sep 7, 2010
So we went to work and added the functionality to our site. Now Millie can send “gift messages” to all her friends and family this holiday season, for their birthday, weddings or whatever is going on. We will HAND WRITE her note, attach it to her order and send it to her friends and family. It’s that simple. We love getting notes so it only make sense that we send them too.
This week we held production of all 3 varieties of award winning Heffys BBQ sauces. I took Josh Jackaway, a good friend and avid Heffys fan with me to finish up a production and participate in our taste test….here is what he had to say about his experience:
I’m not an early morning person. So it takes a pretty special occasion to wake me up before the sun shines her face. This morning such an occasion presented itself: to rise before dawn and get sauced with my friend and Heffys CEO Mike Farag. I went to bed last night giddy as a boy before Christmas about the opportunity to go see how my favorite BBQ sauce, Heffys Hot & Spicy, gets made. I couldn’t believe the smiles on peoples faces as they took part in the creation of what could possibly be the greatest sauce invented since the first animal gave it’s life for the worthy cause of a good ole fashioned BBQ dinner! What struck me the most was how the rich aroma of spice lingered heavy in the air and wove itself firmly into the fabric of my clothes for hours, seriously I smelled delicious the rest of the day.
But what was even better than seeing The Creation is what came afterward: product tasting! Now regularly my taste buds only salivate for coffee this early in the day, but today there was no caffeinated beverage that had more of a draw on me than the three Heffys sauces. Fresh off the line and even fresher to the palate, what the boys at Heffys have done is down right miraculous. I took it down sans meat and without even a thought in my head that I was consuming this at a time when normally my face would still be buried in a pillow.
I don’t need a reason to keep coming back, I’m already a fan. But I love their story too…made in Kansas City, the heart of the barbecue world, hand labeled by Special Olympic athletes, with each batch being tested by founder and CEO. This brand isn’t based in a board room but rather is squeezed out of the real stories our lives our made up of. I was handed my first bottle of Heffys nearly 2 years ago and somehow its unique flavor and spices changed the way I look at sauce. Now having seen how much care goes into crafting each batch I know why I’m a fan and I can’t help but be even more in love with it.
Thanks to Mike and all the guys at Heffys for this experience.
Heffys Batch #1029 Taste Tested, Josh Approved.
Well Josh, thanks for being a fan. You’re quite welcome.
Feels like I never quite know how to adequately say thank you to those who have served in such a profound way. Willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. I guess God knows how to put it into words better than I do. John 15:13 somehow puts it into perspective for me: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
His friends. I can’t help but think of this as I walked through the memorials in Washington DC a few weeks ago. I was there supporting my significant other, she ran in the Marine Corps Marathon. Her first. Fitting to give her first effort to those willing to give us their best.
As she ran….she was among thousands like her who had come to show their appreciation by running but she also ran alongside Marines, Rangers,Navy men and women…. friends. The energy there was amazing, the sites we witnessed were moving. At one point she was running by a Marine who had lost both legs and one arm. He was using only one arm to propel a modified bike his 26.2 miles. This man wasn’t alone. He had 4 of his fellow Marines running along side him, there to ensure he had the encouragement and support to go the distance. He wasn’t alone. They were dressed out in full gear, packs and all. Attached to the top of their packs…..his prosthetic limbs.
She stopped and cried at the sight. I can only imagine his story.
It sounds so trite given what they do for us daily. But today of all days we need to….Stop. Cry. Celebrate. And say Thank You.
From the Heffys Family….THANK YOU to all our Veterans and Military!
Back in April, Jason Drumright and his wife Mindy, two Heffys partners finished Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace classes. It was a life changer for them.
I was a little shocked honestly, not that these two were that far off track at all, but what they learned and changed made it possible for some noticeable & sweet impact on their financial standing. So I joined them.
My brother and I decided to take the class together, we started 5 weeks ago and are having fun wrestling with a budget, spending habits, attacking debt among other things. It’s been fantastic to take a harder look at my finances, I thought I had a really good handle on them but it’s been a great challenge to do more.
Dave’s teaches about freeing up money so that you can give freely, what a great simple message and it’s very biblical. We are all about that at Heffys. So Jason and I decided to attend the simulcast of EntreLeadership last week, with more than 15,000 attendees across the US it was a great way to see Dave’s advice on how to run a more financially responsible business. I have to say it was just what I needed.
We don’t aim to be the largest BBQ sauce business in the world, just one of the best. We want to be known just as much for our philanthropy as we are for making great sauce. To do that we have to make great financial decisions, just like we do at home. We don’t always do it right but we have to keep working for it.
Thanks to Jason and Mindy for leading the way…and for Dave for giving some tools for us to follow.
A few weeks ago we were at the American Royal BBQ competition. Some of you may know that Heffys has taken home lots of awards in the sauce contest over the last 4 years. Let’s just say, 3 Time “Peoples Choice” Award, 3 “Top 10″ finishes among others…
So it’s no surprise that they asked us to come cook something with Heffys at the cooking demonstrations. We sent our CEO, Mike Farag, over to the Royal to be one of the chefs’ presenting that day, he happened to be right before Hell’s Kitchen winner, Holli Ugalde.
What did he make you ask….Heffys Rocket BBQ Hummus. Yeah that’s right. Hummus & BBQ. A match made in heaven, according to the over 100 people who watched eagerly as our boy combined all the elements most would never think to do.
Heffys finds financing back home. American helping American….pursuing a dream, like something out of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
It takes money to run a business, we’ve all heard it said in one way or another right?! Well it’s true. As Heffys has grown, thanks to fantastic fans who appreciate our premium Kansas City made sauces that are lovingly hand labeled by Special Olympic Athletes, the need for some dough to help finance our growth has come along with it.
Enter the problem….banking these days is in an “interesting” spot. But being the optimistic guys we are we thought it wouldn’t be too hard for a good banker to see how sweet of an investment we are. I mean we (the American public) bailed the banks out to help spur business growth right?!
It was frustrating to experince first hand a rather large issue keeping our economy from healing, the inability or unwillingness of some banks to help small business. Kind of felt like we were up against Mr. Potter in the movie. You remember that crotchety old guy, only bent on making lots of money for himself. But as it stands we found that America still has heart.
Inman Kansas is about 20 minutes from Moundridge, Kansas. Why the geography lesson you ask? Well our Heffys BBQ award winning original recipe was born out there in the Kansas Prairie’s of Inman Kansas. We’re proud of that, although we are made just up the road in Kansas City these days. We make it a point to remember where we came from.
Lots of folks in Inman remember the family too. Larry the banker knows Phil, the dad of Jeff, one of our founders. See we are already at 3 degrees of separation and it only gets better. Phil and Larry were talking about the financing needs facing Jeff and Heffys BBQ Co. Larry pipes up and says “I’d love to step in and help, we’ve done business with your family for years. Let’s get them what they need”. And just like that a neighbor helps a neighbor striving for a dream. That’s as American as it gets! For us it really was something right out of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life (happens to be one of our CEO’s favs).
Larry and Phil, thanks for proving to us that the American dream is still alive and well. We’ll travel to Inman anytime you need us, cause that’s what neighbors do for each other.
So Heffys BBQ Co. turned 4 years old this weekend. We have had a blast the last 4 years building a little BBQ sauce business into a little bit bigger BBQ sauce business, thanks to loyal fans.
Fans like Erik W. (aka E-Dub)
Erik has been with us since the beginning, he is a Heffys Fan, he gives us his opinion whether we want it or not. We love him for it.
A few weeks ago he shot us a note about our outrageous shipping prices, he was like “I don’t have Heffys in my house because of how much it costs to ship it to me”.
We have learned a lot the last 4 years….one thing for sure is to listen close our fans.
We also know if would be more convenient for Erik and his fantastic wife Stacey to buy us at their local store which is why we invented the I LOVE HEFFYS program. But still we wondered if we could do better with our shipping prices. So we went to work, took a look at our current shipping policies & providers, and tightened down some screws where we could and after much sweat and plenty of empty beer cans we came up with the “E-Dub” shipping method.
So in honor of Erik and our 4th birthday, we are officially launching the “E-Dub” (our nickname for Erik W.) shipping policy. It’s super simple….$4.95 flat rate shipping on up to 12 items.
Buy 2 bottles = $4.95 Shipping
Buy 12 bottles = $4.95 Shipping
Any combination of 12 items is one flat rate to ship!
Pretty sweet huh?! We think so, but don’t thank us, thank Erik!
Wanna be as cool as him, drop us a line and talk to us.
We have a sweet deal for our buds on Facebook. If you haven’t “liked us” you should.
Our brand spankin new “I Love Heffys” program is ready for action. If you don’t “like us” on Facebook yet you should (we know there should be a LOVE button for you to use. By the way….this program is just for our friends on Facebook for now.
Do you ever wonder why sometimes that drink you order doesn’t taste the same every time, or the cake you make comes out just a little different? You know why, because chances are the same person didn’t make it or they used a little more of this or that in the process. Maybe they have never even tasted the drink they are making for you!
At Heffys we do our level best to make sure that every batch of Heffys BBQ Co Sauce is perfect. So our CEO TASTES EVERY BATCH we make. That’s a lot of sauce but hey, we love it that much. Do you think KC Masterpiece’s CEO does that? Hmmm…we doubt it very much.
Ever heard the term, measure twice, cut once. Well we take that pretty seriously at Heffys. It’s called batching, we measure out every ingredient before we even think about firing up the kettles to cook up delicious BBQ sauce.
Check out the process a bit closer, if you lean in you can almost smell it
Fans like Millie Picker (aka MP)
By the way….this program is just for our friends on Facebook for now.