Rebuilding Willow Creek Springs

A hacker didn’t just break our website. They took it over, and that was the wake-up call to rebuild Willow Creek Springs from the ground up while keeping orders moving for the people who rely on our natural skincare and herbal remedies. Joe shares the real timeline: decades of small-batch formulation with Liz, an early run at CBD work before most people knew what it was, then the double hit of COVID disruptions and a two-year cancer recovery that forced the business to slow down and reset.

We get practical about what’s changing right now: moving to a new web host, rebuilding two sites in a simpler way, and opening up easier access while we transition. We also explain how our wholesale pricing tiers work, why we’ve chosen not to raise prices even as costs climb, and what it means to run a for-profit business without turning it into a hype machine. If you’re interested in clean ingredients, fair pricing, or how a small wellness brand survives modern chaos, you’ll recognize a lot of the trade-offs.

We also talk formulation and accountability. A new nasal spray test batch sparks online “snake oil” comments, so we break down how we think about ingredients like colloidal silver and ozonated glycerin, why we avoid harsh preservatives, and why we stay strict about disclaimers: these products are not FDA approved and we don’t make health claims. Finally, we connect the dots to Gardens of Hope, our nonprofit home garden project, upcoming wellness event plans, and white label options for entrepreneurs who want to build their own brand with trusted production.

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Live Welcome And Listener Questions

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Well, hello and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we're doing something a little special. We are live on Instagram, and we're going to be doing an update where we're going to be giving updates about Willow Creek Springs, and we're going to be answering questions and kind of getting more engaged with you guys on a one-on-one basis. Honey, can you grab my notebook out of the bedroom? My wife is here with me. I don't know if she's going to want to join us or not, but we're here to answer anybody's questions. And I have a whole stack of questions that have come in over the last couple of months. And I'm going to go through those. But everybody that logs in here and wants to get their questions answered, we'll give you a shot as well. This is going to be or is being recorded on the Healthy Living Podcast. And that's where it's going to be featured. So we're doing it live here. And if you join us live, we can engage that way. But once we're done, it's going to go straight

The Willow Creek Springs Origin Story

SPEAKER_00 1:25

over to the podcast, and that's where it'll be archived. So for those of you who don't know, Willow Creek Springs is my wife and I. I'm Joe Grumbine, my wife Liz. 25 years ago, almost 30 years ago, now we started a business where we manufacture natural skincare products, and that turned into a lot of herbal remedies. At one point, we we began working with CBD, way ahead of the curve. We've been pioneers from the beginning. When nobody knew what CBD was, we were working on it. We also have been working with cannabis products for 40 years in and out of the legal side of things, but that's a question, conversation to be held in private for the most part. We grew, everything was going really well. We started getting representatives hit or people hitting us up to be representatives. We set up a program based on volume, and at one point we decided to go wholesale only and only offer our products through our representatives. And uh it got a little complicated, but we figured it out. Everything was going really good, and then COVID hit. When COVID hit, most of our reps kind of went into a tailspin and didn't bother telling us about it. At the same time, we had grown to the point where we actually moved out of our home-based business into a warehouse and an office, and we were thriving. We had employees, we were doing business around the world, and everything was moving along real good. But COVID came along and kind of clipped our wings, and we went into a bit of a tailspin as a result. Come out of that, we're starting to put big things back together. I get diagnosed with cancer, and I had to spend the next two years sort of putting my life back together. Knowing that, I did it, I beat it, and here we are. So now we're putting things back together. Along the way, we've had two websites, and we've had a wholesale website and a public website. The public website was really informational only, where we talked a little bit about our products. You couldn't buy anything from us, but we gave you a way to reach our representatives and connected you to the podcast and that sort of thing. That site really hadn't been taken care of nearly as well, but we had a wholesale website that all of our reps had access to, and they were able to order products and get updates and even take our training courses and all the things we had.

COVID Disruption And Cancer Recovery

SPEAKER_00 4:06

The websites had been run or built and maintained by volunteers, people who loved us, loved our work, offered their services, and that changed over the course of the years. A few different people worked on them. And unfortunately for us, that caused us some problems. And there were problems with the site. And I was always being told, you know, we got to do this, we got to do that. And ultimately, at the end of the day, both sites got hacked. And our public site, I found out, was hacked by some Chinese company that was selling their products on our site, and not on our site, they had literally taken over our site. The wholesale site just stopped working. And so over the last month or so, I've been working on figuring that out. Went through a lot of time talking to our host and trying to solve it that way. And ultimately, I moved over, started all fresh. We have a new host. I am in the process of rebuilding the websites myself. And you know, people have offered help, but right now I'm just gonna build a real simple site for both sides. Yeah, it does suck. It's been a been quite a journey. But we're doing it, you know. The good thing is our products that my wife and I have been making for the past 20 to 30 years, depending on the product, are so good that the clients keep reaching out to us, they won't let this company go down. And even though our reps have given us ebbs and flows of of good things, none of them are very good marketers, and they're not bringing the new business that's required to keep a company happy and healthy. And so we're rebuilding in a new way, and we're still a wholesale company. So anybody

Two Websites Get Hacked

SPEAKER_00 6:20

that works with us is still gonna only have wholesale access, but we're making it a lot easier. The minimum order quantities are low to get started. There's still tiered pricing. So if you want to be a rep and you want to buy a little volume, you still have access to really, really good prices, amazing prices, and you can you know make your profit that way. One thing that people may or may not understand or realize is that if you've been grocery shopping in the last five years, you realize everything has gone a lot. Gasoline, vegetables, food, restaurants, every product you want to buy is gone. But guess who has not raised their prices? One penny. Willow Creek Springs. I just would rather stay our course right now and offer good great products at good prices, be reasonable and fair, give an opportunity for people that want to take advantage of what we offer, turn it into a business, all of those things. As long as we can make enough to uh survive and grow, we're gonna make it work. This is a for-profit business. We need to make enough money to live on, but we're not greedy, so we're not out there trying to build this giant empire and all of that. Another thing, the laws surrounding CBD, our products are not particularly CBD products. They're great natural products that many of them happen to have CBD in them. But for the new sites, we're not really gonna make that our focus. In fact, we're not really even gonna get into it that much because of the way the laws are all around the country. It's just ridiculous. And it's it's even the merchant services. If you talk about CBD, if you claim CBD on things, they say, well, we can't work with you. And so we're gonna be a little bit more low key about that, but on a one-on-one, we will share everything and anything that you want to hear about and learn or know about our products. We just have to, you know, be smart about things nowadays, which apparently we weren't all that much. I have been developing new products from the beginning. My wife has as well. Excuse me. We started out, my wife made a lotion and a salve, a lip balm, a few items, and it's just gone on from there. Usually the products that we make, new products, come from somebody that we know that has a problem, a health problem of some sort. To be clear, none of our products are FDA approved. They're all natural products. This is old school, and we're not trying to make any health claims. We can talk, and I have people that come on the podcast as guests that talk about their personal experiences, and frankly, there's lots of them, and people find tremendous benefits in tremendous ways. But anybody who knows me knows I'm a terrible salesman. I'm not into it for that. I don't even like doing this, what we're doing here right now, because I just like making the products and getting them in people's hands and watching them work. To me, that's what makes sense. It's kind of funny.

Wholesale Rebuild And Price Philosophy

SPEAKER_00 9:50

We're just releasing, or not even releasing yet, we're testing out, but I'm I'm confident it's gonna be a good formula. A new nasal spray. Excuse me. And I had posted just a little simple reel of the ingredients mixing in a first little test batch. And some idiot comes on Facebook and he starts going, Oh, this is snake oil, you're a charlatan, and all this. And it was the funniest thing. I didn't make a single health claim. And he was talking about colloidal silver and how it's no good and it doesn't do anything for anybody. And the truth is, I've never sold colloidal silver. I happen to use it as an ingredient in a few of my products at fairly low concentrations. And I'm more than glad to talk about the science and the understanding that we have of any of our ingredients. And the truth is, colloidal silver is touted as doing a lot of things. I'm not touting those things, but it's known to be an antimicrobial, antibiotic, antifungal. And those are the properties that I added it to this formula for. Not so much to say it's gonna heal you, but it's gonna stabilize the formula. It's gonna keep the formula from having problems without having to put a bunch of sodium, benzoate, or other harsh preservatives that I don't want to use. But we do use ozonated glycerin, and that's gonna be a topic of more conversations. That's a great ingredient that we're starting to work with. And we make it ourselves. I know everything about it. We use a beautiful organic glycerin source and an oxygen concentrator, an ozone generator, and the right equipment. So for anybody who likes to come on social media and hack and stab, I want you all to understand a little bit about science. You know, science is wrong all the time. Science has been wrong since it called itself science. And science claims to know you know the leading edge of things, but the truth is every day, every week, every month, every year, it says, whoops, we were wrong, and this is what we've learned. The premises I'm working with are experience and hundreds, thousands of years of people working with plants and natural ingredients. And I'm not making any health claims at all. I'm saying I put this thing together. It should be really good for these things, but try it out yourself. Try a little bit, put a little bit more until you find the part that makes it work for you. And if it doesn't work, then don't use it. But nobody's ever making health claims, nobody's ever trying to sell you anything. So please be sure of that, be aware of that. All right, I'm gonna get into some questions. And anybody who is listening to this and has questions, just send me a direct message, or I'll try to do this about once a week or so, depending on the interest. This is the first episode, so we don't have a bunch of people popping in live just yet. But yeah, if it grows that way, that's cool. Otherwise, it'll be featured as a podcast episode, and you'll be able to get answers to those questions. I tried to do this with the forum

CBD Compliance And No Health Claims

SPEAKER_00 13:15

in the past, and you know, in the old days, forums were a great way of sharing information and people would get involved, but I don't know. I'm never caught up on the latest thing. I'm really not doing the TikTok thing, and I I don't even like Facebook, but we're doing what we can to get the information out. For anybody who doesn't know about the podcast, we have a podcast we've been doing for we're in our third year. Uh, it's called Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs. Willow Creek Springs is the sponsor of this podcast, and we are all about healthy living. Oh, yeah, this is our little brochure. We have a lot of products that we offer. It's my wife who doesn't want to talk, but she'll show us stuff, and we love her so much. Anyways, the podcast features all kinds of different guests. It's not a Willow Creek Springs infomercial. I very seldom even talk about Willow Creek Springs, but we've had a number of our reps, we've had a number of people that have benefited from our products come on as guests and share their experience. If you're interested in coming on as a guest, let us know. We'd love to interview you. And it doesn't have to be about Willow Creek Springs or anything like that, but that's what this conversation is about. So I lost my track just a little bit. Oh, yeah. Questions. So the first question that comes up and comes up all the time is how do I get access to these products? And it used to be, well, you gotta go find a representative. And that was a good way to work. I tried it, we did it for almost 15 years, but as a result of what I told you in the beginning, it's not enough anymore right now. And so we've gone back to dealing with the general public. We offer a three-tiered pricing system. Right now, as I'm building the websites, we're just dealing with people one-on-one, old-fashioned way. Reach out, message me, phone, direct message, text, whatever, and we'll get together. We'll put it together. I'll send you product information, I'll send you brochures, pricing sheet. Our tier one, where we have really low minimum order quantities, and there's tier two, tier three where the pricing gets significantly better, but it's all wholesale. So that's how you can access us. Just reach out and we'll make it happen. New products. We've been introducing new products from the beginning, and sometimes the product will get traction. It's always organic. I've never done a marketing campaign. A lot of times we'll test a product out with a before we build a label for it. If you're interested in product testing, let me know. There was a time before

New Nasal Spray And Ingredient Science

SPEAKER_00 17:02

I dealt with health issues and before COVID that we had a lot of people. We had a whole product testing team, and we would introduce a product, we get reviews, we'd get feedback, and then we would either release it or not, or make changes to it as needed. That sort of fell off as all the things fell apart, and I'm starting to put that back together. So if you're interested in learning about unregistered products, special order products, new products that haven't gotten labels yet, all of that stuff, let me know. And I'm working on putting it back together. Again, the disclaimer, I'll make this a few times through the show. These are not FDA approved products. We do not make any health claims about our products. We do not claim that our products will cure you of any disease or ailment of any kind. We just make natural products that maybe they'll be helpful to you, and we'd sure love to get them in your hand. People ask me, I talk a lot about gardens of hope, and people say, well, what's the deal with Gardens of Hope and what's Willow Creek Springs connection to it? So Willow Creek Springs is not only a brand name, but it's also a place. It's a place where my wife and I live. It's a garden that we've built for 30 years. We grow ingredients for these products in this garden. Three years ago, we started a nonprofit called Gardens of Hope. And I will mail to Tennessee. I'll mail to anywhere in the United States. You got to pay for shipping, but I'm more than glad to get them to you. And for new clients, you know, I'm I'm always glad to send some samples of things. You know, if you buy a couple of items, I'll send you a couple samples and some brochures and you can try some things out. Gardens of Hope, it's it's it's it's our home where my wife and I live. And it's also the home of this nonprofit. Willow Creek Springs, the company, has literally carried Gardens of Hope on its back as it's been getting started. We actually make two items that are specifically for Gardens of Hope. We make a salve and a lip balm that has calangula in it. And it's a fundraiser. So basically, our donation is the product, and all proceeds from those items go directly to Gardens of Hope. We're working out some ways of helping Gardens of Hope even more in a way where we can also benefit from it. It happens all the time. For-profit and non-profit businesses work hand in hand. And so, and Donna, I I I appreciate that you've come out here before, and that makes me happy. And we're we're we're more than glad to send you products anytime. And it's it's neat when people have been out here before, and they've been here, they see it, they've seen the gardens, they've seen where we grow our plants, they've seen the love that we put into this thing. We're not, you know, hempworks, we're not a company that's out here just selling products and putting up events and doing all this stuff like that. We're just my wife and I, and we make these products for ourselves and for our loved ones and for people that have real needs. And you know, there's no reason why you can't make a business out of helping people in a good way like that. And so we are hosting an event, and it was originally scheduled to be in October, but I think we're gonna move it out. It hasn't manifested quickly enough, and

How To Order And Join Product Testing

SPEAKER_00 21:02

we're quickly quickly coming up to October, but we're gonna be doing a wellness event that Willow Creek Springs will be part of, and one of the brands that we're making products for is gonna be one of the hosts as well. It's gonna be an all-day event in the gardens. We're gonna have vendors, speakers, food, we're gonna have demonstrations of products and services and things like that. It's gonna be a great little thing. So I'm looking forward to meeting more of you. Gardens of Hope hosts all kinds of workshops, retreats, classes, healing sessions. We do volunteer days. There's all kinds of things that happen at Gardens of Hope. I'm figuring out the best way to kind of commingle these. We'll probably have a Gardens of Hope page on the Willow Creek Springs site so that you can access that information. But the two are very separate, even though even though they're connected. Let's see, white label. That's another question that comes up pretty regularly. People say, well, you know, I love your products, but I've got my own brand. Can you make something for me? Yes. I'm a formulator. My wife is an exceptional formulator, but I'm the one who does most of the production work. And I can come up with formulas that can be scaled and replicated and that sort of thing. My wife's like a gourmet cook, and she makes these exquisite lotions and creams and fragrances and textures that are just beyond world class, but she makes them in her way, and they're never going to be made big enough to where we can get them out there on a bigger scale. But you have access to her as well for things that she's already made. I work with people. We can take a product that we've made already, test it tried and true, and give you an opportunity to put your label on it and work that way. Or sometimes we formulate a brand new product. And when we do that, usually it's my formula, and I might want to keep it for myself, or maybe we just only make it for you. It goes both ways. If you want exclusive rights, there's a ways to do licensing and all that. But we try to keep it simple. You know, this is like cookie recipes. I'm not trying to patent anything. I'm not trying to, I know the love and care we put into these products, and I know you could steal my formula right out of my formula book and try to make it yourself, and it would not be what we have. So I'm not worried about that. But we do want to support people. We're entrepreneurs, we're self-made. Everything we have, we've done on our own,

Gardens Of Hope And Wellness Event Plans

SPEAKER_00 23:47

brick by brick, block by block. We love partnerships, we love working with people, helping raise up small businesses and people that way. So if you've got an idea, something that you've made on a little scale and you want to connect with us like that, let us know. Maybe there's a way we can work together. So that's I think the questions that I have on my plate right now. There are a lot of other questions that come up, and I welcome them. I'm glad to get into ingredients, I'm glad to get into formulas, experiences, ways to use our products, ways not to use our products, and that sort of thing. So let me know if you want this to continue. I'm probably gonna do it for three or four weeks in a row and we'll see how it goes. And if there's enough interest, we'll keep it going. If not, at least we'll put that information out there. It will be available on the Healthy Living Podcast by Willow Creek Springs. I'll put that link in once this live is done and comes down. And I want to thank everybody who's participated, and we'll see you next time.

White Label Options And Partnerships

SPEAKER_00 25:12

All right, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. The first time I've done a simulcast like this, so it was a little clumsy. But I hope you enjoyed it. And again, if you've got questions or want to be featured as a guest here on the podcast, let me know. And I want to thank all of our listeners to the podcast that have made this show possible, and we will see you next time.