Meet Sarah Hilton of Big Head Barbeque

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Hilton. 

Hi Sarah, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up just outside of Detroit with my parents and younger sister. When I was 10 years old my father had a massive stroke which left him disabled and my mother had to become his primary caregiver. Money was very tight growing up so I started working a regular babysitting job when I was 12 and then moved on the restaurant business as a teenager. While in college I started working at a local radio station dabbling in nearly every department. That was just a great job where I learned a lot. After I graduated from college my sister and I traveled around the world for several months. I was a pretty picky eater so missed out on many incredible meals, however, I learned so much about myself and that I wanted a job that allowed me to travel for work. When I returned, I started working locally as a promo model, basically giving away free stuff at events. From there I landed a position for a road tour and provided food samples to the public in supermarket parking lots. This job allowed me to see much of the US while working. When the tour ended, I decided to call Chicago home and started working for an experiential marketing agency. I built and executed large experiential marketing programs for clients like Walgreens, Verizon, and Seventh Generation and still got to travel all over the country. My time at this agency helped me to understand how to grow a brand and effectively reach the public. The knowledge I gained here gave me the tools I needed to help launch Big Head Barbeque. Although it has been much different working with a shoestring budget as opposed to the millions, I had access to at the agency. My oldest daughter was born in 2013, my priorities shifted, and traveling was no longer how I wanted to spend my time. My husband, Keith, and I decided to move back to my hometown to raise our family so that I could be a stay-at-home mom. While in metro Detroit our second daughter was born and shortly after we got the itch to relocate. Blindly we choose to move to Nashville and start a country life. We bought a house with some land, got some chickens, and an old pick-up truck. And we had baby number 3. After a few years, we decided the land was too much and we moved into a small subdivision in Gallatin. 

After being a stay-at-home mom for nearly 8 years and dedicating my time to my beautiful children I was ready to go back to work but not ready for the commitment working for someone else would bring. Keith had been perfecting his seasoning blends over the years and I thought they were excellent and that we should share with others. After some months of R&D, we were ready to start selling. We decided to dedicate the business to Keith’s late father who he shared a love of grilling with. The joke is that he and his father and well all of the Hilton’s have “big heads”. Hats have forever been an issue for them. 

We started selling our products at our local Farmer’s Market and gained many repeat customers. After our first market, an unexpected surprise happened. Our oldest daughter soaked in everything we were saying and quickly became our #1 salesperson. She works alongside me at all of our markets, making it difficult for anyone to say no. Our one-year anniversary for Big Head Barbeque is in May 2022, we’ve learned a lot in the short time we have been at it. We are looking forward to continuing to grow the brand. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has been bumpy but I am overcoming obstacles. I did not want to take out loans or have to find outside funding so we have funded this business 100% out of our pocket. Because of this, I am hesitant to take larger risks or buy larger quantities of inventory. Part of our promise as a brand is that our rubs are small-batch produced so this means that I make everything by hand as we need the product. It has been challenging to find suppliers that meet the quality that we want to provide to our customers. When I started this business, I had no connections and blindly started searching the internet for packaging and spice wholesalers. I’m still learning something new every day. 

Social media has also been an obstacle that I am slowly starting to overcome. As a small business with a very limited marketing and advertising budget, social media is how I can reach the most people. Before I started Big Head Barbeque, I had no idea how to post on Instagram and now I’m able to figure out how to schedule posts in advance. This is a huge accomplishment for me. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Big Head Barbeque is an all-natural, small-batch-made dry rub, seasoning, and dip mix company. We take pride in leaving out preservative and additives that only take up space in a bottle to drive down costs of the producer. The flavors that you will taste when cooking with one of our products is authentic. Our specialization is in our brown sugar-based rubs. When used on the grill or smoker you will easily be able to achieve the perfect bark on your meat. Our rubs are versatile meaning they can be added to sour cream for a smoky and sweet dip or mixed with cream cheese for wonderful topping for corn or bagel. We are different than the rest because we use quality ingredients and do not sacrifice flavor for convenience of mass production. 

I’m most proud of how we stand behind what we believe, that people should eat real food. 

We care about how we interact with our community of customers. We want your experience with Big Head Barbeque products to be excellent. I guarantee if you give our Windy City Onion Dip or any of our rubs (The Don, Hot Stuff, Chicken Rub, Bourbon Salt Steak Rub, etc) a try you won’t be disappointed. 

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Before we launched Big Head Barbeque, I started asking questions to vendors at the farmers market about where they got their packaging, how they navigated through the regulations with packaging food products, where they source their ingredients, etc. Some of the people that I tapped, in the beginning, are still contacts now and we stay in touch frequently. 

I also started attending local Women in Business luncheons, listening to what others have to say, and asking as many questions as I could get answered. 

Contact Info:

• Email: bigheadbarbeque@gmail.com
• Website: www.bigheadbarbeque.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/bigheadbarbeque
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bigheadbarbequetn