We can't begin to cover all the issues involved in mushroom growing here. We have an entire site dedicated to the topic, and we have an entire site dedicated to selling mushroom spawn.

Consulting may cover naturalization of new mushroom species on your property, assessing the habitats on your property, helping you learn to ID mushrooms already growing there, assessing potentials for commercial operations, helping you obtain spawn for rare types of mushrooms, developing markets for mushroom production, and much more.

Our Mushroom Spawn Store - Be sure to look at the menu on the right side (scroll down!) to find information on growing mushrooms. We also have a book on Starting a Mushroom Growing Business on a Shoestring, which is in the books section on that website. Once you've seen what we offer there, you'll know whether or not we are the people you want for a consultation on how to start your own mushroom growing business, or how to find a mushroom product that you can produce yourself that will be manageable and profitable.

Consultations for this fall under Phone, Email, or On-Site Consulting pricing and policies.

Be sure to read our article on Just For Beginners on our mushroom site if you are a rank newbie in the mushroom world. Oh, there is no shame in being a rank newbie, or in admitting it! Everyone has to start somewhere, and this article will tell you just how to go about finding out something about mushrooms, and how to decide whether you would even LIKE growing them.

There are all kinds of ways to earn from selling homegrown or wild foraged mushrooms, and there are all kinds of ways to grow them in the home, in the garden, in the yard, or in the woods, so while the topic may be a little overwhelming at first, it is NOT discouraging because there are so many ways to do it affordably.

Mushroom growing is one of the things you CAN build into a successful business from a shoestring budget.

So go dive in and see what you can learn from our Mushroom site, and then give us a call or email us if it sounds intriguing.

Do you need help in outlining a good startup plan for your farm? Are you in need of a lucrative business plan for your small farm?

The money you pay a good consultant to get the ball rolling may be some of the BEST money you ever spend on your farm.

We'll help you focus on the things that matter most. Rapid return on your investment, cash outlay where it pays you to do so, sweat equity where you enjoy it most (and less so on the tasks that are less enjoyable), and weighing the revenue generation options so that you sell what earns you the most with the least overhead costs and regulatory burden.

Whether you sell online, at the farm, at farmer's markets and trade fairs, or from a truck on the side of the road, there is a marketing and presentation plan that will help you sell well, even when other people are not doing as well as you. You need the edge up over your competition, and a little brainstorming with a pro who has a broad range of experience can really give you a significant boost that increases your sales and profits long term.

All consulting and training that we offer is PERSONAL, and takes into account your preferences, resources, location, and needs, while providing you with valuable information and statistical norms that help you have the knowledge to go forward with a higher success rate and more confidence.

The cost of a single call or series of emails will pay you back over and over. Consultation fee is $200 for a 1 hour call or 1 week of emails (plus follow up questions for either option). On-site consulting is also available.

NOTE: ASK FOR YOUR "First Consult Discount" and we'll give you the initial consultation for $100 (one time per client).

It starts with a call or email to request the assistance you need, and to schedule the consultation. Go to our Contact page to proceed.

When you've been working your business, and customers are not coming, something is wrong! A Website Assessment or a Marketing Assessment can help you to know where the problem is, and give you valuable suggestions for turning things around. We can even offer you some marketing training or talk you through making changes to your website if you need (or refer you to a pro if you need that).

Your business NEEDS to make money! This service can help you know how to help that happen faster.

A website assessment means we take a look at your site, and check all of the basic factors that a customer sees on the first few minutes in the site. Typically, these are the factors that determine whether the site earns or not. We also look at your Search Engine Optimization, and at a few little technical things. Most changes recommended have to do with wording (to make it more logical), and site organization (to make it easier to understand and find things).

A marketing assessment looks at what you are doing, your marketing response goals, and if you have a website, we will do a traffic analysis on your site (if stats are available). All of this gives us a good idea of what is happening, and gives us the ability to recommend to you some specific strategies and changes to make BETTER things happen! Before we were Firelight Heritage Farm, we were Firelight Web Studio, and taught Small Business Marketing classes at night through the University of Wyoming.

We know just how much traffic a website needs to get to make 1 sale per month, and the factors that stop them from making any sales at all (or too few sales). We know how to find out where the customers are that you need offline, and how to market without sinking money into it, both offline and online. We won't tell you the same useless stuff everyone else is saying either, everything we recommend is tested on our own network of websites, and has stood the test of 18 years of testing on our own and our clients' websites.

These are things we are HAPPY to share with you, once we have isolated the specific things you need to know.

This is probably the MOST VALUABLE thing a struggling business can do.

$200 gets you a complete Assessment, with a written report with findings and recommendations, and email follow-up to help make sure you are able to make use of the information (we'll even check your changes and give you our opinion).

Call or Email us to request a Website or Marketing Assessment - or to tell us you don't know which one you need (we often overlap the two for people who need parts of both).

If your website or business is less than 2 years old, please ask for a discount.

Sometimes you just need someone to come to your farm or business, look things over, and help you determine what your strengths are, what the advantages of your land are that are marketable, and to show you hands-on how to set up or establish certain structures or tasks.

We can assess your land for forage, advise on simplified soil building, advise on woodlot management, mushroom cultivation or foraging, make suggestions for stocking levels for how many animals you may raise on your land, aid in building design, demonstrate feed production techniques, research and assess product and financial potentials, recommend options for lowering regulatory burdens, and much more. We can also do limited types of troubleshooting to aid individuals in overcoming chronic problems.

On-site consultations are not cheap, but the value is solid because you not only get the help you need, where you need it, in a way that will benefit you for years to come, you also get email follow-up for up to 1 year.

Follow up email means that you can ask for clarification on things discussed, resource links or book referrals for things we discussed but which we informed you were beyond the scope of the consultation, or you can send us pics or describe how you are carrying things out, or even show us text you've written for your website or marketing materials and have us give you an opinion on whether it is being done correctly. It does NOT mean you can ask us questions involving new issues, or ask us to explain in email what we already stated was beyond the scope of the consultation (we can point you to resources, or schedule a training call with you, or an additional consult). We'll be respectful of your budget in determining where to draw the line.

Cost for on-site consultations are as follows:

You pay travel ($.35 per mile) and accommodations for 2 people (average $100 per night), plus $1750 per day on site. Weekly fee - $4500, Custom Quote for Extended Consults of more than one week. (Weekly and extended fees based on 6 hour days, for 5 days per week, to allow time for us to take care of our other business concerns.)

One way travel must be paid prior to our beginning our journey, and return travel must be paid to us on arrival, along with the first day's fee. All daily fees must be paid in advance. Fees will be paid through PayPal, where you have the right to dispute for non-delivery if we fail to show up, or if we leave prior to completing the time which we have agreed to consult with you through.

Consulting Fee Discounts may be available to farm owners who have specific mushroom types growing on their property, or nearby, which we can obtain during our stay. We are also willing to barter for specific livestock breeds, or farm production.

When you have a big project to undertake, and NEED it to be successful, on-site consulting can help you get MORE help in a short amount of time than you can get any other way.

Call or Email us to explore options for on-site consultations.

NOTE: On-site consultations are NOT available in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, or New York. Virtual services utilizing Google Earth, Photos, Descriptions and Samples, with email and phone calls, are available and are charged by services used.

An email conversation that can change your farm and business in amazing ways!

Just email us and let us know what you are trying to achieve, and we'll honestly let you know whether we can be of help or not. If we can help you, we'll be happy to begin a consultation with you (phone and on-site are also available).

Email consultations provide 1 week of daily emails (1 extensive email, and other shorter emails if needed each day), PLUS follow-up email support.

The time is YOURS, and we will tailor any advice or suggestions to your particular needs. We will address your concerns, your resources and limitations, and take into account your particular circumstances (and we know that they may be similar to others we have encountered, but we also know that yours won't be exactly like anyone else's!). If we finish the week, and we have an absolutely fabulous idea (sometimes the best ideas occur when we've had time to think and mull things over), we'll email you and outline the idea I just had.

Standard fee for Email Consultation is $200.

Initial "Startup" or "Where do I start?" consults are $100 for Phone or Email consultation.

When you begin your consultation, we will invoice you via PayPal. You are required to pay the fee prior to our sending ideas or instructions or answering major questions.

Once your week is completed, you get additional email follow-up - we'll answer short questions during the weeks following as you put the things into place that we discussed, so you won't feel like you have to go and carry out things that you are unfamiliar with, while having no backup!

Follow up email means that you can ask for clarification on things discussed, resource links or book referrals for things we discussed but which we informed you were beyond the scope of the call, or you can send us pics or describe how you are carrying things out, or even show us text you've written for your website or marketing materials and have us give you an opinion on whether it is being done correctly. It does NOT mean you can ask us questions involving new issues, or ask us to explain in email what we already stated was beyond the scope of the call (we can point you to resources, or schedule a training call with you, or an additional consult). We'll be respectful of your budget in determining where to draw the line.

We aren't real tough on ending the consult at 1 weed - we expect you to get SEVEN DAYS (and we do not work on Sundays), so we will extend your time if there are interruptions beyond your control or if we cannot reply for a day, if interrupted by Holidays, etc. Email consulting gives you time to process each new bit of information, and to think more about your questions, so if you communicate well by writing, and learn well through reading, it can be a better way for some people to consult than over the phone.

Email conversations and training have been a mainstay of our business for almost 2 decades, and we'll put our experience in communicating with clients to work for you, to help you overcome your hurdles and build your farm into something that you will always feel good about!

The best hour you'll ever spend to move your business forward!

Just email us and let us know what you are trying to achieve, and we'll honestly let you know whether we can be of help or not. If we can help you, we'll schedule a consultation with you (email and on-site are also available).

The time is YOURS, and we will tailor any advice or suggestions to your particular needs. We will address your concerns, your resources and limitations, and take into account your particular circumstances (and we know that they may be similar to others we have encountered, but we also know that yours won't be exactly like anyone else's!). If we finish the call, and I have an absolutely fabulous idea (sometimes the best ideas occur when I've had time to think after a call), I'll email you and outline the idea I just had.

Standard fee for Phone Consultation is $200.

Initial "Startup" or "Where do I start?" consults are $100 for Phone or Email consultation.

When you schedule your consultation, we will invoice you via PayPal. You are required to pay the fee prior to the call.

Once your call is completed, you get email follow-up - we'll answer short questions during the weeks following as you put the things into place that we discussed, so you won't feel like you have to go and carry out things that you are unfamiliar with, while having no backup!

Follow up email means that you can ask for clarification on things discussed, resource links or book referrals for things we discussed but which we informed you were beyond the scope of the call, or you can send us pics or describe how you are carrying things out, or even show us text you've written for your website or marketing materials and have us give you an opinion on whether it is being done correctly. It does NOT mean you can ask us questions involving new issues, or ask us to explain in email what we already stated was beyond the scope of the call (we can point you to resources, or schedule a training call with you, or an additional consult). We'll be respectful of your budget in determining where to draw the line.

We aren't real tough on ending the call at 1 hour. We typically do NOT schedule calls back to back, and we don't schedule anything in the hour following a consult, so if you need an extra 10 or 15 minutes, we are prepared to give it to you so we can finish the topics at hand. Typically your brain will be on overload within about an hour anyway, so you won't want to do more than wrap it up after an hour.

Phone consultations have been a mainstay of our business for almost 2 decades, and we'll put our experience in communicating with clients to work for you, to help you overcome your hurdles and build your farm into something that you will always feel good about!