We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Enrique Trevino a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Enrique, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I believe that I’ve developed my resilience over the past three years of being in business, but also that developing resilience is an ongoing process for me especially as my business has faced some recent, unexpected challenges. When my family and I first started Thoughtful Snacks LLC, we were only selling our first and signature product Coco Chops: air-fried chocolate covered pork rinds. In the beginning things were pretty slow, and it took a while for people to be willing to try our product, and even more time for us to start gaining familiarity among our customer base at farmers markets around San Antonio. During these beginning times, I frequently felt like quitting, but I always reminded myself that this was something that I loved doing, and that I got fulfillment out of it. Those initial months of my business were what first built up resilience within me. That has lasted and benefited me in the years since, especially right now as we had to temporarily halt the production and sale of Coco Chops. That resilience has led me to develop a new line of snacks as well as start building a quality commercial kitchen so we can come back from this setback stronger than ever.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My name is Enrique Trevino and my parents and I run our small business: Thoughtful Snacks LLC. Our signature product is Coco Chops: air-fried chocolate covered pork rinds in five delicious flavors, but we’ve recently expanded our product line to include chocolate covered banana chips and chocolate covered gummy bears. We also plan on releasing more delicious snacks as well!
Since day one, the most exciting part about what I do is serving my customers, whether retail or wholesale, and introducing them to my company’s amazing products! It’s always great to see someone at a farmers market, for example, see our snacks, not know what to think at first, and then end up loving them after trying a sample. That experience has been priceless for me over the past few years. Expansion has also been something very exciting as well, as we’ve sold to several stores in the past and have also attended markets in Austin and the surrounding area.
Recently our business has faced a bump in the road and we’ve had to pause the production and sale of Coco Chops until we build a commercial kitchen, so this challenge is but a new chapter of our business and I’m happy to say that we have made a lot of progress already and that our products, company, and brand awareness will greatly improve because of this endeavor.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three qualities/skills that I find most important in running my business are patience, persistence, and customer service. It’s taken a lot of patience and persistence just to get where I am today and I know that it will take even more to get where I want to be, personally and professionally. It took a lot of time to build up a small customer base for my product and, like I mentioned earlier, there were several times where I felt like giving up. But I’ve come to realize that even though I care greatly about my business, I don’t allow it to stress me out as much as I used to. When you sort of let go, put in the hard work, and have fun doing what you do, you’ll find yourself closer to your goals than if you’re stressed out all the time. This makes it slightly easier to persist in pursuing my goals because it allows me to really step back every now and then and focus on what’s really important: improving the quality of my product, getting into more stores, building a commercial kitchen, and customer service.
Customer service is also an important skill that I’ve acquired since I started my business, as that shapes how people see myself and my business at every market and venue that I attend. I’m always trying to establish friendly relations with my customers and potential customers at the markets I attend, especially because I know they are out there supporting local small businesses instead of shopping at huge chain stores. I believe that most people would really rather shop small and attend more events like farmers markets, so when they do put in the effort to come out there, it’s very important for me and my business as a whole to be a warm and welcoming presence.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’m always open to collaborate with individuals and small businesses who have a unique idea for a snack that we can develop together. Potential collaborators can be the suppliers of a particular ingredient for example, or they can be wholesalers. It’s very interesting to team up on a new snack idea, experiment with making it and seeing how it tastes, and then working out the specifics of selling it. I believe in supporting other small businesses with these ideas so that’s why the thought of collaborating with them on something like this is so exciting.
People with ideas for collaboration can connect with us on Instagram (@thoughtfulsnacks), or they can email us at thoughtfulsnacks20@gmail.com.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @thoughtfulsnacks
- Facebook: Thoughtful Snacks
