Rural & Rooted with Natalie Kovarik
Next in the National Women’s Small Business Month entrepreneur series, I am introducing you to my dear friend Natalie Kovarik. Natalie is a ranch wife recently turned full-time rancher raising cattle and her three boys alongside her husband Luke in rural Nebraska. She shares her heart for the ag and western industries through her beautifully curated social media, using her creativity and passions to create a business that compliments and advocates for her ranching lifestyle.
In this episode, we’ll chat about:
Following your heart to pivot careers
Creating community and empowering others
Building a business and brand that aligns with what matters most
MEET NATALIE KOVARIK
I first met Natalie when we both served as Marketing Ambassadors for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Convention in 2020. She is a rancher’s daughter turned ranch wife turned ranch mom turned rancher since just recently leaving her professional career as a pharmacist to go all-in on the ranch with her family.
She was born and raised in southwest Montana as a 4th generation rancher's daughter, loving the ranching life but thinking she would eventually leave it to pursue a career outside of agriculture. She went to school to be a pharmacist and practiced full-time pharmacy for eight years before going part-time after marrying her husband Luke and moving to the ranch in Nebraska.
While working part-time off the ranch and raising her boys, she caught the bug of entrepreneurship and being able to create something for herself. While she loved her career and working in healthcare, she’s come to learn that there are seasons in life and her part-time job was no longer conducive to balancing family and her new ventures.
She admits that change is not easy, and you start to question yourself when your head and heart aren't aligned. Just because you did something before doesn’t mean it has to be the story of the rest of your life. Making big changes is hard, but the moment she left she felt lighter and knew she made the right decision.
NATALIE ON THE RANCH
When I first met Natalie, she was one half of the Ranch Wives Beef Company, a ranch direct beef business she started with her friend JaTanna. It was there that she first fell in love with taking people along and sharing her ranch story through social media. Because we, people in agriculture, are so often surrounded by others that do the same thing that we do, we forget that less than 2% of the population have ever experienced it and it’s something really special to share.
Under the ranch direct business social media page, it was hard for her to walk the line of what to share about the beef industry as a whole versus just their product and how much to share about their family versus just the business. She felt called to step away and focus more on sharing her family’s story and start advocating for the industry as a whole through her own personal social media pages as well as starting a YouTube channel.
Calling yourself a “ranch wife” can have mixed opinions in agriculture, but Natalie proudly wears the title. She believes that families are the key to the success of any business or industry. While working part time, she was the one working off the ranch and taking care of the kids while her husband was out tending to the cattle. Whether you are taking care of the kids and the home or taking care of the livestock, both rancher and ranch wife play important roles in the operation
That being said, now that she is on the ranch full-time, she’s excited to take a more active and traditional ranching role while simultaneously sharing their story online for people to follow along.
HUSBANDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
While Natalie leads the charge in sharing the family’s ranching story, the whole family is involved. When I asked her about her husband Luke’s response to being active on social media, she said it’s been a journey and a growth phase for sure.
She had an idea for what role he would play, such as taking photos, but said she got it all wrong. Luke stayed true to himself and took it in his own direction to embrace social media in a different way. He naturally has an educational voice, which has naturally made him the star of their YouTube channel in front of the camera instead of behind it.
Luke’s involvement has catapulted the growth of their channel and brought up opportunities that wouldn’t have been available otherwise, his knowledge and expertise allowing them to work with brand partners beyond the scope of Natalie’s original vision.
Her biggest tip for others navigating getting their spouse involved on social media is to let them show up the way that they want to. Just fumble your way through, but stay true to your values and listen to the people around you and what they want too.
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
Natalie knew that one of her goals with her social media platforms was to eventually work with brand partners both inside and outside of agriculture. Even before landing any partnership deals, she started showing up in a way she felt would serve the brands she wanted to work with well. Instead of waiting for them to come, she laid the foundation of showing up in an authentic way and it made establishing those relationships much easier when the time was right.
Agriculture is a little bit behind the times and many companies are new to using influencers; however, they’ve started to embrace them more which has been a great opportunity for Natalie and others to bring in more income for the ranch.
Natalie has been the first influencer that many of these ag brands have ever worked with. As she helps them navigate the waters of influencer marketing, her hope is to open the door for other women to come up behind her to bring in more income to their ranch operations too.
BUILDING COMMUNITY
At the end of 2019, Natalie decided to pick a word for the new year ahead. Her word was COMMUNITY. She had created all of these relationships with others online, but she craved something deeper than just the surface level.
At first, her goal was to reach out to one woman each month to collaborate with, but instead something much different happened.
While Natalie was part of the Ranch Wives Beef Company, her and JaTanna invested in a business retreat called Suzy School hosted by Suzy Holman. It was her first time ever experiencing personal work and she left learning how to listen to her inner voice better.
Inspired, she wanted to create a similar space for women who were from a similar industry as her own. She reached out to Suzy herself to see if she would be open to hosting one solely for ag, western, and rural women bringing on Natalie as an assistant coach. Suzy suggested instead that Natalie lead the charge, and so, her Rural Rooted Retreat was born.
Before officially jumping in, she had a lot of self-doubt and imposter syndrome pouring in. She knew it was time to either buckle up and do it or let her ego get in the way of her own growth. It could fail and be a total embarrassment or be absolutely amazing. Thankfully, it was the latter and to date she has hosted four separate retreats. Not only that, but in 2022 she’ll be bringing back her alumni for the first ever Rural Rooted Reunion that I have the incredible honor of being a small part of.
AGRICULTURE ADVOCACY
Not only does Natalie use her page to share her family’s ranching story, but also as a platform to advocate for the beef industry as a whole.
Although she grew up on a registered cattle operation in Montana, she was a little nervous to dive deep into advocacy because she herself felt that she had so much to learn about other aspects of the cattle industry. Creativity at the core of everything she does, she wanted to keep sharing her voice but wanted to do it differently.
Inspired by a fashion influencer she saw write something on a dress in a photoshoot, she wanted to give the concept her own ag flair. Hitting a creative block, she wasn’t quite sure what her tagline would be but found herself saying in a conversation, “Ag is not the problem.”
She took the idea and ran with it, collaborating with a local photographer to bring the idea to life, writing #AgIsNotTheProblem on a shirt as the focal point.
She sat on the photos for a little bit and finally shared them with the world. She was overwhelmed by the response, especially the amount of DMs from her community with people interested in a t-shirt of their own. After listening to her audience, she decided to work with a designer to put together an Ag Is Not the Problem t-shirt launch, coming out soon.
At the end of the day, her mission is to get people to believe in and trust in agriculture as much as she does. To know that other voices within her online community echo her sentiments is amazing.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is a powerful tool and an incredible opportunity unlike ever before to market to a large number of people for free. When I asked Natalie to share some of her high-level tips for social media, this is what she said:
Start with WHY. What is your mission? Make sure you’re deeply connected to your mission beyond simply trying to make money.
Know WHO you are serving. This will help you decide which social media platform is a good place for you to start with to connect to your audience.
Stumble through it and fall your way forward. Start showing up and you’ll get better with time. Give yourself permission to just start and let it be messy.
Allow your audience to help guide you and your direction based on their response to your content.
FINDING BALANCE & JOY
When I asked Natalie how she managed her time and projects, she said a big lesson for her was that balance doesn’t mean that equal parts are allocated to each aspect of your life at all times. It’s more about understanding what season you’re in and ebbing and flowing with it.
Sometimes that might mean putting more energy into the Rural Rooted Retreats and having her husband help pick up the slack with home duties. It’s okay if some areas have to drop for a bit, but the key is not letting them drop for too long and losing yourself in that process.
For 2022, she has big beautiful dreams ahead but she’s focusing on the small things and baby steps ahead. It’s good to know the goal, but she’s learning to focus on the first step of the staircase instead of the next landing she’s trying to get to.
When Natalie thinks about what she really wants, it comes back to sitting in a saddle working cattle in the pasture with her family. Hustle culture, especially as an Enneagram 3, can distract us from what really matters to us most. Keeping herself rooted in those little moments that bring her the most happiness is what keeps her grounded in her greater purpose.
Her last piece of advice is to look inward and ask yourself, “What really do you truly want in life? Don’t lose sight of that. That is what will refuel you and take care of self-care for you.”
Follow Natalie on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheKovariks
Follow Natalie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nataliekovarik/?hl=en
Visit Natalie’s Corner: https://www.kovarikcattleco.com/nataliek
Rural Rooted Retreat: https://www.kovarikcattleco.com/theruralrootedretreat
Follow Natalie on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nataliekovarik
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