Business Owner Spotlight Interview w/ Craig???

Today, we've got Tammy from the Royal Bee Company. How are you, Tam? Good, thanks, Craig. Thanks for having us on.

Not a problem at all. Thank you for being a part of this. So, all right.

So, firstly, your business, Royal Bee Company. Obviously, it's to do with bees, but if you'd like to just elaborate a little bit more on what the business is about. All right, yeah.

Okay, so my husband's a beekeeper. We started with 20 beehives in Yerba and an honesty stand at the front of our house. Yep.

So, we used to attend markets and stuff like that, just selling honey and beeswax. Yep. Yep.

Right, yeah, cool. But you're not in Yerba now. You're actually inland in New South, like you're a bit more inland now, aren't you? Yeah, so we had floods that came through at Yerba.

Yep. And it took out like all of, like majority of our honey, beehives, all our queen breeders all got flooded out. So, we ended up moving up to Tabulam.

Yep. New South Wales, where we bought a big industrial shed. Yeah, righty-o, cool.

Yeah, so we've gone from having an honesty stand to opening up a shop. Yep. We started making beeswax candles out of the beeswax, because like beeswax doesn't move very well.

It's not, everybody knows about beeswax. So, we decided to make a product that would sell and the candles have actually been quite successful. Righty-o.

So, with the business, you've got like the beeswax candles, obviously the honey. Yep. You do all the honey yourselves and cakey just about yourselves, yep.

So, anything like honey, beeswax candles, we make polish and beeswax wraps. We do all that ourselves, but we've also branched out and we now sell produce straight from the local farmers. So, you've got apples and dragon fruits and yeah.

So, we're just sort of like expanding, figuring out what works, what doesn't work. Yep, very good, very good. Now, you are a family business.

So, you've got kids and do you get the kids involved in the business or? Yes, so both my boys, well, there was three boys, but Will moved out and he's off on his own ventures now. And we're left with Joel, who's in year 10 this year and Travis, who's in year seven. Both boys help on the apiary and they also help in the shop and at markets as well.

Anything that we do, the boys help us with, yes. Oh, that's good. So, you know, it's all a family effort and yeah, it's teaching them some values around business and that too, no doubt.

Oh, most definitely, yeah, they're very well-known. Yep, that's very good, very good. Okay, so is this the first time that either yourself or hubby have been in business like with the bees, like from Yanba to here, like was Yanba the first time, yep? Yeah, yeah, so I used to be an aged care nurse and before the bees, my husband, he did a few different things, mainly in music, like he was a music teacher and yeah, he travelled around the world pretty much doing music, yeah.

Yeah, righto, cool. Big change for both of you then, doing this. Yeah, yeah.

So how long have you actually been in business with this business, the Royal Bee Company? Six years now, yep. Okay, cool, very good, very good. Now, obviously being in a rural area, you do sell your products abroad, like in everywhere, like anyone can purchase the products from wherever they are, obviously, yep? Yep, so we sell here out of the shop, we also attend the Lismore Farmer's Market and we do online sales as well.

Yep, cool, no worries. So people can actually get online and get in touch and get some of the products on there and we'll have all your links in the post and that for sure, so yeah. All right, pardon me, so just a couple of other things I'd like to touch on with the business owners, just some other areas around business and different struggles, overcoming and what have you.

Yep. Has there ever been any time, any moments within the last six years that either yourself or hubby or both of you just wanted to just throw in the towel? And if there has, what sort of kept you going? Well, the floods would have been the hardest time because everything we worked for sort of just went under water. It took a long time to recover from that.

Yep, it would, yeah. People told us, well, that's just farming and I suppose we had to write it off on that and just go forward, you know? It's farming, that's what we're doing. We're gonna come across these struggles.

Yeah. Yeah, so was there anything in particular that kept you going? As you said, like the floods, it would have been a devastating thing to happen. So it would have been very easy to just go, bugger it and go back to yourself, go back to nursing and hubby going back to doing whatever he was, but was there something that just kept you going? You wanted to, was there something that drove you guys to keep going? The bees.

It's definitely a big passion for us, working with the bees. Yep. And after being out working by yourself, don't think going back to work for the man is ever an option.

I'm pretty sure everyone in business would agree with that, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, I've got sort of random questions here, so just all over the place. So bear with me. I don't know, I've got to fix these up a bit.

So, all right. So obviously, well, you've answered one of them there. Like, yeah, you've got a passion for the bees, which has sort of driven you to keep going with it.

Yeah. Is there any other sort of passions or aspects that keep driving you every day? Or is it mainly just like the passion you got for the bees and the work? It's the passion there with the bees and just working for yourself. Like, it's just, it's different.

You know, you don't have anyone to answer to. You do what you need to do. There's no one there to boss you around.

Yep. And the kids, like, I've been able to offer the kids something totally different that most parents can't offer their children. Like, my mum, she wasn't a worker.

I'm running my own business. My kids see that. They get helping with that.

They've got a totally different education that, you know, school couldn't give them. Yep. So that as well is a big drive.

Yep. No, that's good. Now, not only having the struggles of being in business, but being in a location where you're, I could say isolated, because I know the area that you guys are at, and it's not just a 15 minute trip down to the next big town, right? So you're fairly isolated.

So what sort of, is there anything that keeps you motivated to be out there? Like to, obviously, that'd weigh on you a bit, you know, being so far from everything. So is there any other, like any aspects that keep you motivated with it? Like, because it does get lonely and boring sometimes being in the middle of nothing. It's not so much the middle of nowhere, but it's, yeah, like, yeah, it's isolated.

Like compared to say on the coast here, you know, like you've got everything at your fingertips where you'd be half, well, probably near an hour to the next major town, wouldn't you? Yeah. It's about 45 minutes to Cassino, yep. And then I think Chennafield's 60 Ks from here.

Yes. Yeah. I don't mind living in the country.

I'd actually quite prefer it. I'm not a city person. Yep.

As soon as I get into this city, I'm trying to turn around and get back out. But it's the people you meet, like we don't have like much of the local support more than we have tourists. So we get to meet people from all over Australia.

I've had somebody, this was their first stop from Canada. So they got from Canada, went to the Brisbane airport and then into a car and this was their first stop. Yeah, wow.

Yeah, so I actually got to meet ranchers from Canada. Do you know what I mean? So you can never guess who's gonna walk through the door. Yeah.

No, no, that's good. Yeah, because as you say, like you're getting to meet all different types of people, like the touristic people on their trips. You know, so that's, yeah, that'd be really, like that is really good when you get to meet lots of different people.

Yeah, for sure. Yes. Now, looking back on the last six years, is there anything that you look back on that you think you would have done different or you'd be, you're pretty happy with the way you've done things? Because like some people look back and they think, well, if I had that chance again, I'd do something different.

I'd do this different or that different. So it's just a question of- Probably just saved more. In the early starts of business, you know, when things are going well, you think, oh, beauty, you know? But then we got hit with COVID-19 and it shut everything down.

So we had no tourists living in Yamba. There was no tourists. Do you know what I mean? So all of our income came to a stop.

Yep. Yeah, so that would be one thing that I could change, but as for everything else, it's all a lesson, whether it went right or wrong. Yep.

It's all added up to where we are today. Yeah. Yeah.

No, so that's it. Yeah, because most people wouldn't change, but some people think, well, if I had that time again, I'd probably do this a little different or that, but yeah. So it's not, there's not a big, you wouldn't change much, if anything.

No. Okay, so, well, this probably same sort, probably gonna be a similar answer. For anyone that's just starting out in business or wanting to start out in business, is there any advice you would offer from your perspective? Go for it.

You've got to start somewhere. You start, today in the shop, like I'm slowly expanding, you've got to start with one thing. Yep.

And move on, you know? We didn't start off with a whole heap of anything. We started off at the bottom with one thing, selling that, turning that into two things and so on and so forth. Yep.

You just have to leap in and have faith. Awesome, I love that answer. I do, because that's the thing.

So too many people, the going gets a little tough and people just give up. So. It's, there's gonna be struggles no matter what you do.

You know, like perfect example is, like I make candles. I went and I bought a new pouring jug, just trying to work out what works and what doesn't. And I scraped out the candle jug and put it into the wax melder.

And I didn't realise that all the metal from the jug came off and went into the wax melder. So I had to throw out all of that wax. Doesn't matter what you're adding into your business, you're gonna have to feel it out and stuff everything out and just go with it.

Yeah. That's it, really, yeah. That's it, there's no one method.

There's no cookie cutter method to it. It's all. That's exactly right.

That's exactly right. Even if you've been doing something, like doing that thing for years and you go into business on your own, it all becomes different. That's exactly right.

Okay. What would, I'm curious at this one too, actually, but your biggest why, why you're doing all this? Is there a specific why? Like everyone's got, everyone has a why for doing what they do. For the kids mainly, and just building something, being a part of something, I think is a massive why.

I mean, you can always go and work for the man and you're gonna have your struggles there, but when you actually build something yourself, you've got like a little bit of a legacy there, something that you can hand back to your children and yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Okay.

I think that might be about it, actually. Oh, actually one more. With viewing failure, because this is one that people, there's two sides of it.

People view it as a positive, people view it as a negative. How would you view the word failure, like the thought of failure? Oh, failure can be a pain in the backside, but it's also a very valuable lesson. Without failure, you're not gonna go anywhere.

You're gonna fail at certain things when you're trying them, but you just have to learn from that failure and figure out the right way. And once you get there, it's so rewarding. That's it, absolutely.

That's exactly right. So why I look at it too, it's a learning curve. Yes.

Anyway, all good. Well, that's about it. We'll wrap that up.

Thank you very much for taking part in this. Now, if anyone's after any honey or any wax or bee products, by all means, reach out to Tam at the Raw Bee Company. Now, all the socials will be in, the links will be in these posts and obviously on the page here.

So yeah. Alrighty, Tam, thank you very much for being a part of this. No, thank you, Craig.

Not a problem at all.