Meet Megan Schisler

We were lucky to catch up with Megan Schisler recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Megan , thank you so much for agreeing to open up about a sensitive and personal topic like being fired or laid-off. Unfortunately, there has been a rise in layoffs recently and so your insight and experience with overcoming being let go is relevant to so many in the community.

In 2019 I finally made it! Or at least that’s what I thought at the time. With a busy family life, it took me longer than most to finish schooling to be a medical assistant. I dreamed of nothing more than to start as a medical assistant and work my way up to nurse practitioner someday. After clinicals, I began working weekend shifts around my busy family schedule at two facilities, one an urgent care and another an express care. I was loving it! Then shortly after covid began, I suited up and worked 14-16 hour shifts at the urgent care because, in the beginning that’s where all the patients were sent. I worked hard, changed out of scrubs in my driveway to not bring it home to my family, and went back to do it over and over again. I eventually caught covid pneumonia and was out for 5 weeks with 2 of those being in the hospital. I as very scared, it took a while for me to gather the courage to go back to where I caught a virus that made me so very ill. I sat with oxygen on at home at 35 years old for 2 weeks, recovery was a long process giving me plenty of time for mulling this over. During this time, the state enacted a mandate requiring the new covid vaccine for healthcare staff, and a looming date of 10/29/2021. I recovered and felt grate about my decision to come back. I was only back for a tumultuous 3 months before the date came, and I was forced to resign because I chose not to get the vaccine, it just wasn’t right for me. After giving patients the right to choose, I was left with out a choice at all, except to leave the job I thought defined me at the time. After grieving for a while, I reached a point when I decided that my handmade tallow skincare I use to sooth my children’s eczema would be come a business. At home I have four children, two of which have extensive food allergies, asthma, and severe eczema. We had tried all other avenues to improve their eczema, with little to no improvement. It was heart breaking to see them scream in pain from the stinging of store bough moisturizing creams. The beef tallow skincare does not at all fix the eczema but adding it our skincare routine has been a complete game changer! And so I decided this is how I would help people! It has become a thriving business over the past few years and I now sell my handmade products in 18 stores throughout the United States.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

With a combined 20 year background in the medical field and cosmetology, I went to work! Our basis of beef tallow (rendered beef fat) began from it fitting our families needs. My girls were not allergic to it, and it contains all the same vitamins, minerals and fatty acids that our skin has making it the ultimate “skin food”. Simple, natural and back to the basics has been my focus for my natural tallow products all along. My husband and I personally make the tallow for all my skincare, making sure to have the highest quality possible and sourcing my suet from a local butchers. It is quit a long process that sometimes includes long nights, and weekends but the result is worth putting the time into.

Our logo is a heritage breed turkey, which I do get questions about a lot! It simply stands for traditional ways and ingredients. Which is fitting since tallow has been used since ancient times, but was left behind during the industrial revolution when goods became mass produced for as cheap as possible and ingredient quaintly has continually become poorer ever since.

It is a true family business, we have grown so much since I first started that now my four children and husband all help in different ways from labeling, marketing emails, bottling, markets, sorting, shipping logistics, and bringing boxes into CVS for shipping. The best part is seeing the kids take in the basics about running your own business, both the good, and the hard! But the most cherished part for me personally, is when a customer comes back to tell me how their skin or their child’s skin has improved! That’s just close to my heart, because I have been THAT parent before searching and try anything to help make your baby’s skin a “little happier”.
Our focus is to slowly keep scaling our tallow skincare to the point that it fully financially supports us, I have branched out to include a few new items including a tallow Dish Soap Bar, and a Paw Balm for pets! My best seller is whipped tallow body butter, which only contains 2 ingredients and I love to show people that sometimes that’s really all you need!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three skills that were the most impactful for my business have been my work ethic, creativity, and life skills.

Work ethic is the most important! When you are running your own business, there is no structure already in place. I struggled with this in the beginning. It came down to putting time in each day, making a structured plan such as making products 3 days a week and computer work on the other days. Showing up on a consistent basis no matter what because I NEEDED to make this business work, to replace the income lost from my forced resignation. It was also so important that I bring back the lost art of using tallow and what it has to offer!

I have always been a “crafty” person and loved to make things! I have been able to channel this creativity into creating and formulating my products. It is in every aspect from designing my website, business cards, marketing, creating my packaging, creating limited edition products, new scent blends and more!!

Life skills I had picked up along the way were all mashed together to create my business. Having a bachelors degree in health science and being a mom of four and learning to navigate food allergies, asthma, and severe eczema along the way. The endless research and doctors trips all over New England looking for a doctor that might provide a tid bit of new information that would help us manage their skin a little better, working in the medical field, as a cosmetologist, and a whole lot of trial and error.

The advise I would give to another entrepreneur would be to look back at previous experience and see what might be useful for the challenge you are dealing with, pivot when needed and don’t give up! You won’t see growth on a daily basis and that’s normal! Celebrate the little wins and learn from mistakes. Making a simple goal sheet has been helpful for me for many things such as events & markets I will be participating in, wholesale goals, seasonal specials, and more. Through this I have been able see what markets were worth going to for both networking and sales,

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

Time management is my biggest obstacle! Starting as a “micro business” in 2021 where I was making 3 jars of body butter at a time for a farmers market and 10 bars of soap, to a larger business selling wholesale in 17 stores and online some times it can be also. Mu husband works full time out of the home, the kids are in school each day, and we have a small farm that also requires some attention. We have sheep, chickens, turkeys, and grow a lot of garlic! The products I make are both time consuming and time sensitive, and being in and out for school pick up and drop off, farmers markets, appointments, and mundane errand its difficult to find time to fit it all in. We often work evenings and weekends to make tallow and products, and pack orders.
We have trimmed out previous parts of our business that provided funding for getting the skincare off the ground but are now too time consuming to keep including wooden agricultural equipment my husband and son would build such as livestock stands and different style hay feeders.
I expect my business to double in size this coming year, and my way of managing this challenge is to make a more structured written schedule for product production, and a better system for keeping track of materials and ordering so we don’t run out of the essential things like jars, labels, boxes and such. Bringing on more consistent help is also part of the plan! Meaning the kids would have a more structured set of age appropriate tasks to complete on a regular basis to keep things running smoother also.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://heritagehomesteadco.com/
• Facebook: HeritageHomestead2020

Image Credits

all photos were take by me (Megan Schisler)