Amanda NorthcuttFounder & CEO | Keynote Speaker, LevelUp · B2B sales as a solo is HARD. I’ve got you. I help consultants & coaches sell high-ticket services comfortably & confidently, while enjoying consistent, predictable revenue | Founder & CEO | Speaker |

How Meat Sticks Led Me to Podcast Guesting (No, Seriously)

4 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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In this first-person narrative, Dustin recounts his journey from running a meat stick business that relied on brick‑and‑mortar retail, wholesale, and trade‑show sales to being forced into a pandemic‑driven pivot. When COVID‑19 cancelled a key trade show in March 2020, he lost half of his local client base and faced the challenge of selling a product that traditionally required in‑person sampling. Seeking a way to market from home, Dustin discovered that storytelling on other people’s podcasts—acting as a guest and sharing his entrepreneurial story—became an effective channel to reach strangers online and continue selling meat sticks. The anecdote illustrates entrepreneurial resilience, the shift from physical to digital marketing, and the power of podcast guesting as a storytelling‑driven sales strategy.

Chapters

So everyone's always like, how'd you get into, you know, podcast guessing? I'm like, well, it was meat sticks, of course. And so I had this meat stick business, completely different side of the world. We got into like retail, brick and mortar, wholesaling, went to a dozen trade shows in 2019 and learned how to sell on my toes and all that that entails. And so that was sort of the path forward. I was like 50/50 partner in this business, still doing some marketing consulting. Life was good. I was a full-time entrepreneur. I was doing the thing. And then, you know, March 2020. I woke up, I'm driving to Chicago for a trade show, and they're like, hey Dustin, trade show's canceled. And I'm like, what? So I come home, lose half my clients, you know, who are local businesses and shut down for COVID, of course. And the silver lining in all that is it pushed me toward a whole different chapter, which was like, how can I market from my house? How can I sell meat sticks to strangers on the internet without them sampling them? And it turned out that storytelling, specifically on other people's podcasts, was the way I did that.