You know we do a lot of dreaming at Heffys. We love to talk about how things will be in 2 years, 5 years, or even 10. We have been doing life together as friends for more than 15 years, so sometimes these dreams have been around for awhile. A few years ago while dreaming we started asking questions…. what if kinds of questions.
•What if…. we sold Heffys for like 40 million dollars?
•What if…. we made an Organic or All-Natural Sauce?
•What if…. Heffys was always made in small batches?
•What if…. Heffys helped change the world?
•What if…. people could get Heffys all over the US?
What if…?
Well, asking questions like these lead us to really start working on some of them. We wanted to share some with you.
What if we sold Heffys for like 40 million dollars? –While this sounds cool, we think we would like to own and operate our business for years to come. Maybe forever. We make you this promise….We will always make it personal. We vow to have fun, be real, and to always be passionate about our customers and our products.
What if we made an Organic or All-Natural Sauce? –It took us over a year to get it right but in a few short weeks you will be able to order Heffys All- Natural Sauces. All the taste you have come to love, without all the high-fructose and non-natural stuff that gets in the way. We are super excited, this has really been a labor of love. Want to get a sneak preview of our new label? Like us on Facebook and see it there!
What if Heffys helped change the world? –We take this to heart….thats why it’s part of our everyday business to give back to the community by employing Special Olympic Athletes. They lovingly hand label each and every bottle of Heffys. It’s one of the ways we feel like Heffys is changing the world for the better.
We will keep dreaming, keep asking what if. But we would love to hear more from you too. Feel free to drop us a line and tell us a little more about what you think about our what if’s.
I LOVE coffee. In fact most of us at Heffys LOVE coffee. Almost as much as we love Heffys BBQ Sauce. That’s saying a lot.
Recently, I met a really cool guy, Danny O’Neill (aka The Bean Baron), he owns The Roasterie here in Kansas City. We have lots in common, a desire to do good, a desire to make a product that people love, doing it with integrity among lots of other things. This guy LOVES coffee. He is passionate about doing it better than anyone else. So we sat down and swapped stories. I learned a lot.
As I was leaving Danny suggested that we create a special blend of Roasterie coffee that could represent Heffys. Sold.
So I recruited a few trusted coffee coneseuirs (minus brother Jason who was unable to make the trip to KC) and went to work.
Their “coffee hunter” Paul Massard, led us through a coffee cupping. We tasted, discussed, rated, and repeated for hours. We used spoons to slurp (no better way to say it) up the fantastic nectar. Awesome. The smell was amazing, the process helped us blend 3 diverse beans together at specific ratios to create a uniquely Heffys Blend Coffee. You will be able to snag a bag of this coming very soon, so get on our email list well let you know when.
Thanks to Amanda, Paul and Danny and all the kids at The Roasterie for letting us in. New friendships are exciting, new products are a privilege and sharing the stories of how both happen is just plain fun.
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 Movember I’ve decided to donate my face to raising awareness about cancers that affect men. My commitment is the growth of a moustache for the entire month of Movember, which I know will generate conversation, controversy and laughter.
I’m doing this because:
· 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in his lifetime
· 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime
This is a cause that I feel passionately about and I’m asking you to support my efforts by making a donation to support the great work of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG. To help, you can either:
- Click this link http://us.movember.com/mospace/1257078/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account
- Write a check payable to Movember, referencing my name or Registration Number 1257078 and mailing it to: Movember, PO Box 2726, Venice, CA 90294-2726
The money raised will help make a tangible difference to the lives of others, through the world’s most promising prostate cancer research and LIVESTRONG’s programs that support young adults and their families battling and surviving cancer.
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.
This Movember I’ve decided to donate my face to raising awareness about cancers that affect men. My commitment is the growth of a moustache for the entire month of Movember, which I know will generate conversation, controversy and laughter.