This audiobook shares how successful Farms automate tasks to save time in their day-to-day operations, without sacrificing profits. From using software and solutions to scheduling marketing efforts in advance, Farms can more easily scale without added stress.

For more Farm resources, visit: https://www.barn2door.com/resources

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  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive into today's Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Stop wasting time: Free time saving guide for your farm. 

  Introduction:

  If you run an independent farm operation, you know that time is precious. There are not many breaks between daily chores, ongoing projects, harvest schedules, order fulfillments and ongoing go-to-market efforts. Streamline [00:01:00] your processes wherever possible, and delegate tasks to a team member to avoid putting all the pressure and work on yourself.

  Successful farms can better scale their business when they automate operations and streamline their processes. It is possible to get hours back in your day and increase your farm profits by leveraging third party software and service providers to offload your manual efforts. Follow these six tips to save time on your farm. 

  Chapter one: Go To Market Strategy. 

  Automate Your Orders

  To save time on the farm, you must look to automate the processes of capturing orders, even when you're unavailable. Your farm should attract new sales without your constant engagement or monitoring. Buyers prefer to secure a purchase on their own time at their own convenience. Using software your farm can provide buyers an easy, consistent shopping experience to simplify your efforts. 

  Use e-commerce for your farm to provide an online storefront that customers can access and shop 24/7, whether it be online, on their phone, social media, or through email. With software built for farmers, you can have [00:02:00] features such as live inventory updates, automated order reminders, and separate shopping experiences and prices for both retail and wholesale buyers. Entice buyers with recurring orders to purchase subscriptions. Each week or month, their orders will be automatically renewed, providing your farm with consistent revenue and your buyers with food security. In-person sales may be streamlined using a point of sale or POS built for farm food. Accept card, cash, and mobile payments, never turning buyers away. Sell by weight or fix price and connect online and in person orders with an e-commerce platform. So your inventory updates in real time without any manual efforts. Buyers will be pleased when they can shop online and easily access their products at a pickup location or through delivery.

  One of our farmers says, I've already gotten more customers just by launching the online store. They could pre-order and pay. And they said it made it so convenient for them because they're busy.

  Automate your pick and pack. 

  Leverage software to automate your pick and pack list to ensure all the order [00:03:00] information for gathering and packing your products is in one place. Every order can be aggregated into a pick list, so your harvest crew knows exactly the amount of products to assemble and aggregate. A pack list provides you with all the details to prepare orders for delivery and pickup. Instead of writing down every detail when taking orders manually, software can easily assemble all of the information for your fulfillments in seconds.

  Your farm can print detailed pack list labels, including the appropriate contents, order numbers and addresses for fulfillments . Instead of manually entering and creating labels, your store can automatically produce labels with the click of a button. Download and print on standard size Avery label stickers to attach the outside of a bag or a box. Invoice buyers, especially for larger orders, for accurate reporting on payments and order statuses.

  Simplify delivery and pickups.

  Do not waste time manually assembling and planning delivery routes, then entering addresses, one at a time into your GPS .With the Barn2Door and Routific integration, customer addresses will [00:04:00] automatically be uploaded on delivery day, and the most optimal route will be offered to your drivers. This ensures you can get your buyers their products quickly, and drivers will not waste time on the road. If you don't use routific, export your pack list for a one click upload to any variety of routing apps.

  Chapter Two: Delegate Farm Tasks.

  Use farm labor to cover monotonous chores. It is crucial to delegate farm tasks among employees and volunteers. The most successful farmers do not attempt to do everything on their own. Rather, most farmers seek assistance when tackling critical operations, such as harvesting and processing dates, and delivery days. This will also help you to eliminate the chances of burnout from managing too many tasks. Many farmers are often surprised by how many of their loyal buyers will actually volunteer to assist at no cost.

  Manage your inventory online.

  Use software built for farmers to manage your inventory in real time, whether sold online or in person. Manually tracking every movement of your products requires constant monitoring, [00:05:00] leaving more room for error. Instead, use software that will automatically update your inventory after every order. Barn2Door enables you to step away from the computer while it automatically tracks and updates your store items anywhere, anytime.

  Automate marketing engagement.

  Automate your marketing communications to send timely personalized messages to your customers. Using MailChimp, your farm can send automated emails based on your buyer's actions and purchasing habits. The Barn2Door and MailChimp integration can automatically segment your customers into similar audiences and put them into a campaign, such as new customer or loyal buyer using customer journeys.

  Meta Business Suite gives your operation the ability to schedule social media posts well ahead of time for both Facebook and Instagram. Take 15 minutes to schedule your posts every one to two weeks. Upload photos and draft captions in advance so you can focus on farming. This is especially helpful during the busy season or when you're aiming to relax during the off season.

  Meta Business Suite provides insights as to how buyers interact [00:06:00] with your posts. Google. My business allows your farm to expand visibility to local buyers. Google will verify your business information to share with current and potential customers. When customers look for your farm name in Google search or Google Maps, they will see your information locally. This gives buyers 24/7 access to your business with your website linked farm hours, marked photos of your products and reviews from your loyal buyers, building trust for potential customers.

  Use a part-time employee for marketing.

  Not every farmer enjoys the marketing side of running a business, but there is no question that it is crucial for your growth. If farm marketing is not your favorite task, hire a part-time student or employee who understands your audience of buyers. Once they understand your mission and your core values, they can begin to help market your brand to local buyers through social media and email marketing. Using Barn2Door's marketing toolkit combined with scheduling tools available for Meta Business Suite, the job of a young part-time marketer can be easily accomplished in a few hours per month. 

  Use a part-time delivery driver for fulfillment.

  [00:07:00] Many farms find that it is necessary to hire drivers for delivery day. Fulfilling orders can take several hours, whether dropping your products at pickups or on the doorstep. That is precious time that you may not have to get away from the farm, or you may simply want a well-deserved break.

  Many of the most successful farms employ part-time delivery drivers, sometimes high school or college students, who only want to work one to two days a week. These drivers can be paid as a contractor in cash or farm products for their efforts.

  Chapter Three: Sell Out Before Harvest

  Sell pre-orders ahead of season. 

  Offering pre-orders gives your farm the opportunity to pre-sell products ahead of harvest. This reduces stress in the busy season as you already have orders in hand and profit secured. To build FOMO around pre-orders, announce them well ahead of time, creating urgency with limited time offers or limited quantities Provide your newsletter subscribers with early access, including a countdown reminder to get ahead of open market sales. This will help you secure orders and attract more email subscribers. If [00:08:00] buyers fear they will not have access to your most popular items, they will sign up ahead of time to lock in their order

  Align your harvest with same day fulfillments.

  Once you secure pre-order commitments, you can align your harvest dates with same day fulfillments. This will help you streamline your schedule in the busy season without feeling overwhelmed. For pastured proteins, schedule your pickup from the processor in the morning, then pack and run fulfillments that afternoon. Stay out of the freezer business and cut your labor costs in half. For produce farms, you can plan your harvest schedule in advance, then shift labor to packing and fulfilling orders that are already in the books Preselling your products will help you reduce your cold storage costs and streamline your labor costs, which will boost your profit margins. Attempting to market and manage orders while trying to harvest your products is a tall order. Instead, get ahead of the busy season and attract pre-orders so when harvest arrives, your products are ready to move.

  Chapter Four: Capture Sales, Anytime Anywhere

  Make sales accessible from a variety of avenues to ensure every buyer feels like they have an easy way to shop from your farm store. [00:09:00] Your online farm stores should be linked across your social media platforms and your email newsletters, and on your website. Your store should be easy to shop across various devices, including laptops, tablets, or a mobile phone. Deploy an e-commerce solution that will be accessible for all of your buyers.

  Online sales will provide an opportunity for buyers to self-serve order your products 24 /7. 94% of buyers prefer to make a self-serve purchase without talking to anyone.

  One of our farmers says, one of my favorite things about the entire business is waking up in the morning, checking your email, and seeing that you sold $200 worth of stuff while you're sleeping. I mean, your whole day is just like sunshine and roses from that point.

  Build relationships through in-person sales. 

  In-person sales are a great way to form personal relationships with your local buyers. When buyers are able to put a face to who they're buying from and hear about value straight from the farmer, it helps to build your brand. Form these relationships by setting up an on-farm store, participating at local farmer's markets, or a popup event where you can also form partnerships with other businesses. Invite [00:10:00] community members to on-farm events to educate them on your practices or to show them how your food is produced.

  Once these relationships are established, your buyers will become another avenue of marketing for your farm. 

  Chapter Five: Simplify Your Product Mix.

  Use easy to shop inventory. 

  An overwhelming inventory deters buyers and lowers purchase conversions. Additionally, it creates additional work for you or any employees you may have. To maintain your order management system, focus on the products that are in high demand with buyers and bundle any items that simply don't move on their own, such as liver or cows tongue. It's recommended to have no more than 55 items in your inventory, so buyers don't have to search dozens of pages to find what they want. If buyers are given too many options, they may experience decision fatigue where they're too overwhelmed to make a purchase and abandon your store altogether.

  Successful Farms pin their five to seven most popular items to the top of their shop. This makes it easy for buyers to quickly find what they're looking for and entice new customers with your best selection first. 60% of buyers will purchase one of the first [00:11:00] three items in your page, and 80% of buyers will never get past page one of your store. As a result, put your subscriptions, pre-orders, and other high demand options first.

  Offer bundle boxes to move more products. 

  Bundle boxes allow you to move all your inventory, including less popular items that may sit in your deep freezer. Bundle boxes allow you to be in control, as the farmer. Assemble a bundle box of complimentary products. You know your products best. So a farmer's choice model will allow you to pack a fresh variety of products in a box for your buyers to enjoy. Nine out of 10 buyers are willing to opt into a Farmer's Choice model subscription. 

  Assemble three to five bundle box sizes. 

  Offer three to five different sizes of bundle boxes, so buyers have the option to choose what best suits their needs and household size. One third of Americans live alone. One third live with two people and the other third live with four and more people. Offer a small, medium, and large box size to accommodate the majority of buyers. Only giving buyers one option may scare them off or turn them away from your farm store if the box size does [00:12:00] not cater to their household needs.

  Chapter six, build a base of ongoing subscriptions.

  Build recurring revenue.

  Ongoing subscriptions can help your farm secure recurring revenue year round, so you're not constantly worrying about gathering new order commitments. All of your buyers are going to keep consuming products, so make it easy to secure ongoing access from your farm. Market ongoing subscriptions across every online channel and in person markets, popups, events, and your on-farm store.

  Ongoing subscriptions can provide you with a steady stream of revenue without any added effort year round. Best of all, your loyal buyers will appreciate the convenience and peace of mind of regular ongoing access to your products. 

  One of our farmers says, because we use Barn2Door, a third of our sales are subscriptions and we save several hours a week by not having to be on the phone taking orders. We're able to create full-time income and scale our farm business. 

  Reduce uncertainty in your farm business. 

  All seven figure farmers with Barn2Door earn the majority of their revenue from ongoing [00:13:00] subscriptions. To provide peace of mind and to scale your operations, you need to reduce uncertainties in your farm business. 

  Subscriptions enable you to know product demand months in advance, making your job easier.

  Buyers will be charged for each subscription fulfillment and your product mix can be determined well ahead of harvest. Subscriptions also enable you to maintain a routine for packing and fulfilling orders since you have a set schedule for harvest, delivery and pickups.

  Conclusion:

  Save time on your farm by automating your tasks and planning ahead of your farm sales. Use software built for farmers and hire employees to help delegate chores where your presence is not necessary.

  Your farm can get back time and increase profit margins with the right processes in place. Successful farmers save time by automating their operations from fulfilling orders to marketing to buyers. Barn2Door offers software for independent farmers to create and promote their brand, sell online and in person, and save time managing their business. To learn more, visit Barn2Door.com. 

  This has been Stop Wasting Your Time. A free time saving [00:14:00] guide for your farm, narrated by Will Guthormsen

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door. com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

Rally with your Farm friends to sell more, make more and replace bad food & big ag. Learn how Josie from Dan & Debbie’s Creamery partners with other local Farmers to replace the grocery cart for a win-win!

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

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  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive into today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Cory Hutsen: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I am Corey, and I'm on the success team here at Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. Just a little bit about myself. I'm a farm account manager here at Barn2Door. My day-to-day is meeting with our [00:01:00] current farmers, helping from everything from their farm store, to email marketing. I have a lot of just marketing brainstorms in general. Sharing strategies on growing your customer list and driving more potential customers to your farm store and doing the podcast is just one of the great opportunities I'm afforded and I love doing it. 

  So as many of our listeners may be aware Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can purchase from their farm, both online and in person. In today's conversation, we will get into expanding the cart with farm partnerships. Today, I'm happy to welcome back Josie of Dan and Debbie's creamery in Iowa.

  Josie is a part of our farm advisor network and has worked with us for five years. And since becoming an advisor has shared her knowledge of marketing to local buyers, mastering [00:02:00] delivery day, and utilizing local partnerships. I'm excited to talk to Josie about farm partnerships, expanding her inventory with local products, and how to make their farm store a one stop shop.

   With that said, welcome Josie. 

  Josie Rozum: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. 

  Cory Hutsen: Awesome. And I know Josie a little bit. She also hosts our social media academy and I've been lucky enough to co-host or more so proctor that. So, been in many of those sessions with you. 

  Josie Rozum: Yes. I love the social media academy. All things marketing. That's kind of my bread and butter. It's one of the things I enjoy doing most for our family business. I'm so excited to be here and to dive into how we partner with other local farms. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, and this is gonna be a great topic. This is something a lot of farms ask me about, so I think this is gonna be extremely helpful.

  But before we get started here, Josie, can you just give a little bit of background for any new listeners or people who may not be familiar with you know what your farm is, what Dan and [00:03:00] Debbie's creamery is. How'd you guys start? What products do you produce? 

  Josie Rozum: Yeah, for sure. So my parents are first generation dairy farmers and they started milking cows, we're approaching 30 years, um, ago, and I remember growing up on the dairy farm, my dad always toyed around with the idea of being able to sell our milk direct to consumer. And this was an idea and a dream that didn't happen overnight. It took about 15 years before we started exploring farm to table processing and being able to be involved in the whole process from farm to table.

   And 10 years ago, we're approaching our 10th year of being open at the creamery, we finally renovated an old building in our small town of Ely, Iowa. Turned it into a modern day processing facility and started making dairy products with the milk from our family farm. So we have 120 dairy cows and we bring milk over to the creamery every week and we make things. 

  We bottle milk, make cheeses, ice cream, butter, and we [00:04:00] sell direct to consumer out of our store. We also have a robust home delivery service that we offer, and we sell to a lot of wholesale partners. But one of the things that I'm most proud of over the last 10 years with our business, is really just growing our retail store.

  People coming right to the site where we're making the products. And we sell all of our products there, but then we also partner with a lot of other local farmers and sell a lot of their products as well. And so it's just really cool to see customers come in and be able to source their groceries and foods locally and it's a really special thing for our family to experience and to have that relationship with customers. 

  Cory Hutsen: That's amazing. Yeah, it's a unique deal. And doesn't sound like any of this happened overnight. 

  Josie Rozum: Nope. Certainly not. 

  Cory Hutsen: Awesome. Well, tailoring off that, how is your farm store set up? Can you give us a little bit on just what products you guys offer, whether that's in person, online, or both? 

  Josie Rozum: Well, when we first started 10 years ago, we had a retail [00:05:00] space and we knew we wanted to sell our own dairy products in. But it was always really challenging to get people to come out just for their gallon of milk or just for a pound of butter or cheese.

  So many people live in a world where they can get more items and our store was large enough where we could accommodate other products outside of the products that we were making. And so we really started, selecting products that we wanted to sell in our store that were complimentary to the products that we were selling.

  So, for example, um, we make butter and a really complimentary product to butter is honey or jam. And so we started sourcing local honey and local jams and trying to bring those into our store. And we found that those complimentary products helped sell each other which was a really powerful thing.

  Then we just started expanding into other local businesses, and today I don't really do much outreach for bringing in products to our store. We get people who come to us every day, saying, hey, would you consider selling our [00:06:00] products? And we explore if the relationship is worth it. It's just been a really great, great thing for us to be able to offer customers, but also great for the partnering farmer to be able to have a space to sell.

  Cory Hutsen: That's very interesting that it has evolved to the point where now people are approaching you. In the beginning though, how did you determine how you were gonna source other products? What were the things you were looking for or that were key aspects of what made up a partner or potential partner?

  Josie Rozum: Yeah, great question. So for us, there was one really important criteria, and that was that we wanted them to be a local small business. We wanted to make sure that they were Iowa made, so produced within our state. And we wanted it to be a product that a farmer made from start to finish.

  We didn't want it to be mass produced at the time. We really just wanted it to be a simple way. We also looked for vendors and partners that didn't have another outlet for sales, meaning they didn't have a storefront themselves or [00:07:00] they were running into issues where they just didn't have the space or maybe the resources.

  And so we wanted to become a hub and a home for them. That was how we started, but then as we continue to grow we expanded our reach a little bit and we just wanted to make sure that it was a product that we love. We feel like our brand has built a lot of trust among our consumers.

  And so a lot of the reason why people come into our store and buy our products is because people trust that we're selecting really special products that are made really well and are basically just quality products. 

  Cory Hutsen: Gotcha. That makes total sense. And a question I get a lot from farms who maybe they only have one core product, they're just doing beef, or they're dish doing poultry. So they're starting to think about whether it's selling someone else's products in their store or getting their products in someone else's store. How is that deal structured? Like, is it something super formal? Is it a handshake agreement? Can you shed some [00:08:00] light on that? 

  Josie Rozum: Sure. I've talked to some farmers that do it both ways.

   For us it's a little bit more of a handshake. We don't have any formal contracts or anything like that. My goal with selecting farmers or producers that I wanna work with is that we are benefiting them and they're benefiting us. We want this to be a true partnership, not something where I'm buying their products, but it's not selling in my store or vice versa. We want this to work for both people. And so for us it's really just finding farmers who are willing to work with us, who want an outlet to sell their products, who are willing to keep it fairly informal. And hopefully in turn we sell some products for them. The two ways that we operate our partnerships with other farmers are on consignment and then completely resale.

  So a consignment vendor is a vendor who offers a product that is a little bit more risky for us to partner with. Maybe it's a product that's either super expensive for us to [00:09:00] buy and resell, or it's a product that a lot of consumers aren't familiar with, and so it's gonna be a harder sell for us.

  So those vendors, we generally operate on consignment, meaning that they get space in our store and we sell it, and whatever we sell, they get a percentage of, and we get a percentage of after the sale is already made. Our resale customers or partners, those are ones where we buy it at a wholesale price from them and then we resell it at a price.

  So I'm buying it from them in advance and selling it all. So those are two different kind of models that we go with . We have about 20% of our vendors and partners in our store that we do consignment on. The other 80, I'm buying resale. This has changed drastically since we started. In the beginning we had a lot more consignment vendors because of the risk, because we didn't understand sales, because we weren't sure what our customers were gonna like. It's since pivoted because we just have such a better understanding of what's gonna sell and how much is [00:10:00] gonna sell from week to week. 

  Cory Hutsen: Okay. That makes sense. I imagine in the beginning, and you still to this day, probably want it to be something that kind of aligns in a certain way with your core business of doing dairy products. Milk, eggs. Butter cream. Ice cream. So is there limitations to, you know, you would get approached by someone and it's like, no, that just doesn't fit. Does it have to be local in Iowa? 

  Josie Rozum: Yes, right now we're all Iowa made. We have had talks about maybe expanding that just because there are some products that we wanna bring in that we haven't been able to find an Iowa farmer or producer or baker to fill that need. An example for us, we make cheese, and cheese and crackers go great together, but I have not been able to find a vendor within the state of Iowa that makes crackers. And so we're exploring, well, maybe we branch out a little bit. But that is one big criteria right now that we want them to be an Iowa made producer.

  The [00:11:00] other stipulation that we have is we do not wanna have a bunch of the same vendors. There's lots of different honey businesses out there in the state of Iowa. We just select one because we don't, unless they provide a different product or a different offering that we're interested in, we don't need a shelf full of honey. One honey is enough. So again, we are a small store. We're not gonna have tons of different brands. We try to just keep it to one per type, with the exception of a few, if there's some different flavors and things that we wanna expand. But for the most part, keeping it simple that way is important.

  Cory Hutsen: Okay. And on the other side of the coin. We've talked about partners you are incorporating into your own store. I know being familiar with your online store and your website that you also feature where consumers can find your products in other places, groceries and other retail spaces. How did those relationships begin?

  Josie Rozum: Yeah, I kinda have two different directions to go with that question. Number one. So [00:12:00] yes, we do partner with a lot of grocery stores and coffee shops, restaurants, things like that with the products that we make at Dan and Debbie's Creamery. Those partnerships really have grown over time.

  When we started 10 years ago, it was a lot of grassroots marketing. Walking into grocery stores, having a wholesale buyer's guide that I presented with them, presented to the deli manager or the dairy manager. I would give them samples of our product and try to get on their calendar to meet. Those were challenging days 'cause you're really just trying to hit every store, making all of the sales.

  I remember that time period just being grinding all the time. Go, go, go. Now we are at a point 10 years into our business where we don't have to do that near as much. People are coming to us, which is just, so amazing. I don't know that I do a ton of outreach at this point anymore to do our wholesale business sales because people are coming to us, which is fantastic.

   But I still provide them with a wholesale buyers guide. I'm still [00:13:00] giving them samples and trying to tell them how we're different. And things like that. So that's kind of how that side of the business works. When we work with other businesses, we don't sell any of our farmer partner products.

  We just are distributing our Dan and Debbie's products via wholesale. Our farmer partner products are primarily resold by us directly to the consumer. So, in that vein, when we started home delivery five years ago and started working with Barn2Door, we created our online store. And at first we got all of our products populated on the store and we were delivering milk and eggs.

  We also partnered with an egg farmer and started selling eggs. And so many people had visited our store and they're like, I really wanna get that ground sausage, or I wish you guys had bacon, or all of these other products that they could come get in our store. And I thought, you know, why not add them to our online store and give people that ability to start buying more?

  And so, over the course of time, we slowly started [00:14:00] adding more and more farmer partner products onto our online store. And a lot of our home delivery customers are not just getting a gallon of milk every week. They're adding on bacon, yogurt, spring mix, you name it, and it's helping to make each transaction higher for us. Which makes each stop more worth it, which is really great.

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, and I think something you said is key for a lot of the newer farms who are just starting out. It's important to note that this wasn't an overnight thing. You touched on the fact that you were going in person with your wholesale relationship, you know, binder and having to really grind it out.

  So for newer farms, like how do I get my foot in the door? That's a question I get. Do I go in person? Do I call, email? What do I say? So what would be your advice for those farms? 

  Josie Rozum: Don't be afraid to go into the stores. I remember I had fears early on, well, what if I get turned down?

  I didn't want people to [00:15:00] say no to this product that my family has worked so hard to produce. It was kind of a gut punch every time someone said no. It is hard, but you just have to keep going and you're gonna get so many more yeses. And I feel like those nos that I got early on from different restaurants or grocery stores, actually helped me deliver my presentation better in the future. I was able to prepare in a different way. And I kept it simple. I feel like so many people just send an email and if they don't get a response, well then they're not interested. I don't think that is the correct approach when you're wanting to work with a business.

  I think stopping in, dropping off a wholesale buyer's guide that tells your story and offers pricing with some samples is the way to go. You don't need to ask to meet with them. 'cause I'm a big believer in like, don't expect somebody to give you 30 minutes of their time. Just drop it off. Introduce yourself and say, I would love to [00:16:00] talk to you more about this. If you drop off a sample and your product speaks for itself, you're likely gonna get a phone call in a few weeks. And then I do check back in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not a naggy salesman, and if somebody says no to me, I move on to the next one.

  Now it's no offense . It's not always gonna be a good fit for businesses to work with us. And that's okay. The door will open on the next one and we'll just try to get that one. So keeping positive and not getting too bent out of shape and just being willing to show your face to the potential customer I think are really important things that farmers need to be willing to do.

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. So many of the best things are a result of getting out of your comfort zone, which I know in conversations for a lot of farmers and what you're saying is you may have to leave the farm and you may have to be okay with hearing, "no". Right. Which sounds like it was a huge part of it for you, and just building up that acceptance that it's gonna be a little bit of a grind.

   All right. Well, going back, Josie. You touching on what you're featuring in your [00:17:00] Barn2Door store and in your store. I know a huge aspect for online sales now we're talking specifically, are your milk subscriptions, your egg subscriptions. How do you think those subscriptions have benefited from having additional products from other producers or partners as add-ons or just how has that benefited your farm?

   Can you just talk a little bit about subscriptions and pairing with partnerships? 

  Josie Rozum: Yeah. We really only have two different types of subscriptions. It's milk and eggs. We did recently add a whipping cream, which I throw in our milk category. But those are the only subscriptions that we have because those are the things that people want consistently every single week. So those are on a weekly basis. Consumers can get those. 

  Everything else in our farm store online is a la carte, so those don't come automatically every single week. [00:18:00] Customers need to go in and buy them. So we were very strategic on which items we made subscriptions, versus which items we made a la carte.

   Customers who are subscribers, I would say at least 60% of our milk subscriptions add on items every single week. So it might just be one item. It also might be 10 items. It really just depends. But having that on the docket as an offering takes a $6 gallon of milk delivery all the way up to a $50 transaction just by them having the opportunity to add on other items.

  And it's super, super helpful for us to be able to do that. One subscription that we're exploring adding is a meat subscription that would run on a monthly schedule. Because we realize that we're selling a lot of frozen meats. We offer a ground beef that we raise and sell, but we also bring in another producer's ground pork, bacon, [00:19:00] broths, you name it. Lots of different meat offerings. And so adding that subscription, I think, can drive sales. 

  But ultimately, when I think of marketing and subscriptions, my goal is to try to get every subscriber, they're locked in weekly. They're gonna get their milk, but how can I get them to spend more with us so we can make that transaction higher every single week. It doesn't happen every single week, but the bulk of the weeks are. One other thing I wanna note is outside of our subscribers, customers can order any of our items a la carte. So maybe somebody doesn't want milk every single week, but they really wanna get a bunch of cheese and meats and yogurt and stuff, maybe once a month or as needed.

   Customers can order a la carte and get any of our products. And just this last week I had a handful of customers get our bulk beef boxes, ground beef boxes, so they're getting cases of 10. So it's a great way to allow people who maybe don't want your subscription, but still want to buy every once in a [00:20:00] while to get those new people to order and make some sales.

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, I mean, 60% of subscription customers adding on is a pretty incredible number, but it makes sense too, like getting your foot in the door with that subscription and you're already going to that person's house to do a delivery and you're already alleviating one thing they have to get from the grocery store by doing that milk delivery, but having ground beef, eggs, all these other essential items.

   I'm sure that just makes sense for you. It increases your average order size. It makes sense for the customer. And you touched on this a little bit in terms of trying to encourage add-ons from current subscribers, but how does the marketing aspect of it work when you are partnering with other farms and featuring things in your store?

   You lead the social media academy, are you posting about these other products, the ground beef, the beef sticks or anything else you're promoting in your store? Are you [00:21:00] expecting your partner to do some marketing as well and drive people to your store?

  Josie Rozum: Yeah. So I mean we, within our Dan and Debbie's creamery retail space, we are promoting all of our vendor products, all of our products, ice cream flavors, you name it on our social media page, daily. We are posting daily different offerings we have based on the seasons or just what we have a lot of. We wanna make sure that people know what they can get when they come to the creamery.

  In terms of the online store and specifically home delivery, one of the most successful tools that I use to help get people to add on to their subscription or just place a large order of products is email marketing. And I do that two ways. So all of my subscribers get an automated email. It's just the generic email through Barn2Door.

  It's an order reminder that goes out every Friday morning. They're cut off for their following week [00:22:00] delivery is Friday afternoon. And so Friday morning it's right in their inbox. They know I have till noon and they will urgently place their orders. So on Friday, I can almost guarantee that my inbox is gonna get dinged a lot with online orders because that reminder is going out.

   So getting a reminder, a simple email reminder out to all of those subscribers is going to help drive each transaction significantly. Another tool that we use is MailChimp. We send emails to our home delivery customers with different product offerings and things that we think they might like that are seasonal, or are really popular this time of year.

   For example, the one that I have going out this week is gonna feature some pumpkin donuts. We just got apple cider in the store. I'm gonna promote some of our ice cream flavors that are really fall inspired, like pumpkin spice, salted caramel, apple crisp. Those are all things that I'm gonna throw into this email messaging.

   I might also do two products that [00:23:00] compliment each other, so yogurt and granola. So I'm putting these ideas in people's heads of things that they might enjoy. And from those emails that go out, they all of a sudden are like, ah, I need to go and place my order for the week. They'll click. A lot of times they're buying the stuff that's in that email and many of the time they're adding on additional things.

  So those are two really powerful ways that we utilize email marketing for our sales. 

  Cory Hutsen: You're preaching to the choir on this, and email marketing is something I talk to farms about every single day and almost every single meeting. And you've referenced automated order reminders, which is such a low effort but powerful tool to hit someone's inbox again and remind, especially, you know, you group a subscription customer, let 'em know their subscription's coming up.

  I get a biweekly CSA from one of the farms that works with us, and four days before she drops off my order, she sends me an order reminder letting me know the six to seven different veggies or fruit that are [00:24:00] gonna be in my CSA. And that gives me an opportunity to kinda look at that. See, oh, okay, I'm getting this and that. Well, that gives me some ideas for what I want to cook for dinner this week. Let me go add on, click in or store and see what I want to pair with that. So those order reminders are huge. 

  And then you get into MailChimp where I'm sure every farm has their own voice, but it also allows you to expand upon and tell a little bit of a story and answer that why our products. I mean, I'm just really, really, a big believer in it. So I would love for you to go deeper into MailChimp and your newsletter and what messages you're trying to convey and what you think works in terms of getting people to actually click through those emails and back into your store.

  Josie Rozum: Yeah. So MailChimp has been a super powerful tool for us. And we started like every business from nothing. I mean, I was sending newsletters back 10 years [00:25:00] ago, with less than a hundred people. And now we have thousands of people who have subscribed to our newsletter that I'm sending messages to.

  And they've all opted into this. They've requested this, which is a really cool thing when you think about it. Like they want to hear from Dan and Debbie's, they wanna know what's going on. So a lot of our marketing, we kind of have two different, email marketing, e-blast, if you will.

  One is more sales driven, it's more product focused. The other is a little bit more like a behind the scenes if you will, um, learn more about us. We're educating consumers. That weekly home delivery message that I send out, I generally start with a. Quick. Hey, it's Josie. Here's what's going on at the farm, blah, blah, blah.

  Give them just a little taste a short paragraph. We're bailing hay this weekend. It should be nice and hot. I just wanted to say thank you for all of your support. You've gotta check out these products that we just got in store, so it feels like a [00:26:00] little bit personal. They feel like maybe they're talking directly to me or my family.

  And then we've got our featured products. I think a lot of people connect with that, and I really do believe that some people think I'm talking to them and that makes them then wanna purchase things. I really aim to connect with my customers within that email. The other email that we send is purely informational. Now, it's still gonna have products that we're selling because at the end of the day, that's the goal, right?

  We want to educate consumers, but we need to sell our products. And so in that email, which is more geared towards like a newsletter, I am educating consumers about our products. Maybe our processes, like our milk, is cream top. So the cream rises to the top. There are still consumers that don't know what that is or how to handle it when they get it.

  So I talk a little bit about that. We'll talk about how we age our cheddar cheeses and dive into different things. Both emails are very, very powerful. [00:27:00] I think transactionally we get more obviously geared towards the first one that's really geared towards sales, but I think people are highly engaged in the other one because we get a lot of clicks people wanting to read different blogs or expand on different things, different links that I have within that.

  So both have a purpose, serve a purpose. It's just, you know as farmers, we need to decide what our goal is in sending this email. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. Having a healthy mix of the three E's as you talk about in social media academy, right. Entertain, educate, e-commerce. There's room for everything. 

  Josie Rozum: Yep, for sure.

  One other thing, email marketing that just came into my mind that we do. We've started doing more segmentation in our email marketing as well. So we are diving into different customer groups specifically. For example our home delivery, we don't deliver like beyond a 40 mile radius of Ely Iowa and so let's say [00:28:00] I don't wanna reach our current home delivery customers. I wanna reach new home delivery customers. I am segmenting my audience to people who live within a 40 mile radius of Ely, Iowa, who have not purchased from our Barn2Door store, and I'm trying to send messaging to them and I'm tailoring my message assuming they haven't purchased from us.

  So segmentation has been a really powerful tool with MailChimp for us too To where, I'm getting more response from those than I am if I send it to the 4,000 people that have subscribed to my newsletter. So I would encourage anybody who's looking at MailChimp or utilizing MailChimp to explore segmentation to help really drive their message home and reach the audience that they wanna reach.

  Cory Hutsen: Start tagging those customers early and you'll be thankful down the line. That's a great, great point. Kind of hinging off marketing one more time here. Have you ever done any co-marketing with one of [00:29:00] your partners, whether it's an in-person event, farmer's market, fair, you know, cross branded on newsletters.

  Anything like that? 

  Josie Rozum: Oh, yes, we do tons of that stuff. So in person we do three events at our creamery store that are geared towards our farmer partner products. One is actually coming up in November. It's called our perfect pairing event. So that event is, in the fall it's got like a football theme because you've got all these matchups. And what we do is we highlight products that go really well together and you get to sample them together. So we're pairing different products together. The farmers and producers come on site and get to mingle with the customers, allow them to sample, talk about their processes, meet everybody.

   And those are are by far our highest volume sales days. People love them. I mean, it is free samples, which is a huge draw, but the connection that people feel from having conversation with the people [00:30:00] growing their food and making these products is really, really special. So that one's coming up.

  We also do a Holiday Eats event where we feature holiday inspired products. Now they can be purchased year round in our store, but they're really popular during the holiday months, like different wines. There's also like a Turkey and dressing that we sell in our store and things like that.

  We're cheese platters, we're promoting our cheeses and stuff like that. And then in the spring we have a huge taste of Iowa where we highlight as many vendors as we possibly can, as many products that we sell in our store at that event, we invite all of the farmers and producers to come out and sample.

  And it's just a big fun taste of Iowa. And that's a really popular event for us. And it's also the kickoff to spring where everybody's just itching to get out after the long Iowa winter. So three really funny events that have driven sales and it's helped build connectedness among farmer and consumer.

  Cory Hutsen: The power of in-person marketing, right? And I don't [00:31:00] think that can be overlooked 'cause obviously, you know, we're talking through the lens of Barn2Door which is an online platform and a lot of farms are trying to launch their product line for the first time online. Right. But there's a lot of value that can come from introducing your products in person and creating the awareness of your online store.

  And like you said, whether it's through giving out free samples and just being able to actually conversate with customers. So you're saying that in-person aspect of marketing has been huge if not one of the biggest drivers of sales for you guys. 

  Josie Rozum: For sure. And the residual sales that follow are pretty remarkable as well.

  Especially most of us in this business, our products are higher price than a lot of things that consumers can go get in the groceries. And so it's our job to add value to our products. We need to talk to people about why they should pay $2 more per gallon of milk and explain to them what [00:32:00] they're supporting by purchasing this.

  You can't do that entirely through email marketing or social media. You have to connect with people in person, allow them to sample your products and build that relationship. Social media is so powerful. Email marketing is so powerful. But as farmers, we still do need to get in front of people and be willing to talk to them to sample our products, to tell them our why. Because that, that really is going to help drive sales too.

  Cory Hutsen: I'm glad to hear it. Yeah ,that's a powerful message to pass on. Um, wrapping up here, Josie, with our closing thoughts: What would be your advice, your kind of final summary, advice to farms wanting to expand the shopping cart, increase, average order size, all the benefits that come from partnerships.

  What would be the thing you wish you knew and your final uh, message? 

  Josie Rozum: I think that it's, don't be afraid to try something [00:33:00] new and don't be afraid if it fails. You should always, if you have a farmer that you are interested in partnering in, have a conversation. See if you can work something out.

  I think the reward is going to be really great for both sides. I hear from our partners all the time, like, we love selling our products here. Thank you so much for giving us an outlet. And I feel really good about being able to support other farmers too, who are doing something similar to us. So I would encourage you to explore how you can make a partnership work. Not be afraid to have the conversation and not be afraid if it doesn't work out. You want it to be a win-win. The reward is there and the potential is there if you have the right audience. So just go out and give it a try. 

  Cory Hutsen: Perfect. Love to hear that.

  Such a great message for all of our farmers. Well, Josie, I want to thank you for joining us on this week's episode. You can check out more of Josie and Dan and Debbie's creamery on their Instagram at Dan and Debbie's Creamery. 

  [00:34:00] Here at Barn2Door we are humbled to support thousands of independent farms across the country. We are delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management, please visit us at Barn2Door.com/learnmore.

  Thanks for tuning in. We look forward to joining next time for more from the Independent Farmers Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to [00:35:00] barn2door. com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

Why not save time while making more money? Learn how Lois of Yoder-Way Farm built recurring revenue for her Farm, with $50 weekly Farm food boxes while also consolidating delivery days and locations.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive into today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. My name is Koleton. I'm an onboarding manager at Barn2Door, and I'm gonna be your host for today's episode. What I do as an onboarding manager? I help farms get their products into the store, figure out how they're going to move those products to folks, the when and the where of getting those to consumers, getting the [00:01:00] store ready to go so that when it is time to sell, they're able to make it happen. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business and selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can purchase from their farm, both online and in person.

   In today's conversation, we'll get into streamlining your farm's delivery day, and I'm happy to welcome back Lois of Yoder Way Farms in Pennsylvania. Lois has been a part of our farm advisory network, for a little while now, and she's been working with us for three years. And since she's taken in that role, she's really shared her knowledge on switching from commercial to direct sales and she's really leaned into selling subscriptions. 

  Today I am really excited to talk to Lois about streamlining her delivery day, when it comes to moving those subscriptions to her customers, saving time, and increasing the farm profits. So let's go ahead and welcome Lois. Welcome. 

  Lois Yoder: Thank you, pleased to be here. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Well, before we get into things, we always have people that have listened for a while but we have new folks who jump in, so [00:02:00] let's give them a little overview of what you got going on. 

  Lois Yoder: Yes, absolutely. My husband and I are the third generation of his family to live on this small family farm in central Pennsylvania. My husband's grandparents and his parents operated this farm as a commercial dairy farm and we actually worked with them in that capacity for about five years. During that time, we were contemplating how to transition the farm from the older generations to my husband, Jeremy and I, and there were just no good options. 

  So we actually ended up selling the commercial dairy herd and my husband Jeremy got a job off the farm, which he still does four days a week. And we were like, what do we do with this farm now? We still had the buildings and the land, so we got a few beef cattle, started running 'em in the pastures. We soon had family and friends asking us, hey, you sell that beef? Can we have some? And so we would sell some here and [00:03:00] there. And we talked with a friend who was bottling milk from his family's farm and he said, hey, I'm selling milk why can't you sell beef? And that just sparked the idea in our head. So we went through the process here in Pennsylvania and got our retail facility license and opened a small farm store in the garage of our farmhouse.

  And, we were just racking our brain on how to market this stuff. We're farmers. We are not skilled at marketing. You know, how do we do this and what do we do? And one day I stumbled across an ad from Barn2Door on Facebook and it just resonated with me. And I contacted Barn2Door and soon, started following their blog posts and podcasts and whatnot. And yeah, we signed up and we have been so grateful we did 'cause we've gotten so many good tips and helps along the way. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That's awesome. And since being with Barn2Door did that kind of open the door for subscriptions and [00:04:00] deliveries? 

  Lois Yoder: Yes, absolutely. We had not even thought of subscriptions and deliveries as a way to get our farm fresh products to people in our community that want 'em. We had no idea. I remember listening to a podcast by Will and Amy at Old Rich Valley in about the first year that we were with Barn2Door, and she was talking about their herd shares and how they use that model to deliver their product to their customer, but also to provide steady cash flow for their farm. And the light bulb just went off in my head and I did not go to sleep that night until I had that figured out for our farm. So yes, Barn2Door has definitely been the vehicle that has, increased our customer base, taught us how to market our products, absolutely. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That's great. I'd love to know a little bit more about what a typical delivery day looks like on your operation. 

  Lois Yoder: So a typical delivery day, we deliver [00:05:00] one day a week, which is always on Thursdays. Most days, most Thursdays we will finish putting together our customer orders. We will pack them into ice chest and load them into our delivery vehicle. We usually like to be leaving the farm by 11:30 AM so that we can for sure have all of our deliveries completed by 4:00 PM. We tell our customers they will receive their deliveries anytime from 12 to 5:00 PM. That's the window that we tell 'em they will receive their order. Just to give ourselves a little bit of wiggle room in case we run into traffic or whatever. But yeah, we try to be back home by four and leave the farm at 11:30. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: And I think, before when you spoke, with Barn2Door originally, did you have other delivery days than just Thursday? Did you recently narrow that down? 

  Lois Yoder: We did recently narrow that down. We used to deliver on Wednesdays as well, to a larger metropolitan [00:06:00] area. It was down towards Harrisburg, which is a little over an hour from us, and we had a few regular subscribers from down there. But our delivery here in our local community kept growing and expanding and we were having a hard time, attracting more new customers down in the Harrisburg area. And so for now we've decided to discontinue the Wednesday deliveries and focus just on our Thursday deliveries here in our local community. We're trying to focus instead of spreading out our time and resources between two days and further distances, we've narrowed it down and we're focusing our time and resources just here in our local community, probably about a 40 mile radius. And we have really been enjoying that. It has worked much better with our farm operations and with our family, and has been more profitable. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Wow. I love to hear that. That's absolutely amazing. [00:07:00] So you get to focus more on the people in your community, serving those folks that you see on a day-to-day basis and you also get to save time. You cut out a whole delivery day. I mean, that's a lot of time back. 

  Lois Yoder: Yes, it is. And we needed that time here with our animals and with our, you know, behind the scenes operation with our farm. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yeah. So, if we were to dive a little bit more specific into it, when it comes to getting ready for delivery day, or how far ahead do you pack those orders?

  Lois Yoder: So, we typically pack orders starting on Wednesday. We love to use the pick and pack list which is phenomenal for just telling, you know, how many chicken breasts we need, how many packs of ground beef and all that. So we'll gather all of that together, on Wednesday. We do not have a walk-in freezer here yet, so we are operating out of chest freezers and in order to keep our packaging looking crisp and fresh, we do not actually pack the orders into the bags that we use, we use brown paper [00:08:00] bags, grocery bags. We do that Thursday morning just to keep our bags looking fresh and crisp. Chest freezers are notorious. You have to stack, and we just don't enjoy stacking our packed bags on top of each other and getting them all crumpled. But we do gather on Wednesday, we gather all the items that we need. And have them ready to go in a freezer. It's very simple Thursday morning, then to just open that freezer and put everything into its correct bag and package it into the ice chest for delivery. And the pick and pack list is so, so helpful in that process.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: People do really eat with their eyes and so I know that, taking that extra step to ensure that it looks good as it arrives at their door when you give it to 'em. I'm sure that really makes a difference. 

  Lois Yoder: Well, I have considered that maybe I'm too fussy with that.

  But like you said, people eat with their eyes and I know that I eat with my eyes. I like to eat pretty food and I like when my things come home from the grocery store, [00:09:00] looking good. And so that's what we wanna do for our customers. We want them to. When they first see their order be like, wow, can't wait to open this up.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yes. Yeah. They see it, man, it's almost like a Christmas present, but what's it gonna be in it today? And a lot of what you're doing is kind of Farmer's choice, is that right? For a lot of these subscriptions? 

  Lois Yoder: Correct. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Talk to me a little bit more. How did you come to that conclusion?

  Lois Yoder: Farmer's Choice, we decided to go that route, because it helps us manage our inventory. This was also an idea, a light bulb moment that went off for me from following Chucktown acres on Instagram. He has a CSA and I remember one day I opened up Instagram and there he had two dozen eggs and a couple packs of meat sitting out in the grass and this was his bundle for the week for his customers. And I was like, wait, a weekly bundle? And it's farmer's choice. I mean, I was like, brilliant. So that's where that light bulb went off. And, we started our weekly farm box. I didn't know if it would go in our area or not, but we tried to [00:10:00] price it what we thought would be a good price point in our area. It's $50 a week, four pounds of meat and a dozen eggs. And we tell 'em, it is Farmer's Choice, but it has been wildly successful beyond what I thought it would be, and it's been fun to market it. And our weekly subscribers for the Farm Box are all very satisfied. I've tried to check in with all of them. You know I ask them, are you getting stuff you can't use or you don't like? And they're like, oh no, we use everything. Now, I don't give them liver or bones or anything like that. I try to give them essentials that they'll use, like ground beef, hamburger patties, pork chops. We will give them steak periodically but all those things help us manage our inventory and the customers are just delighted that they can purchase a one-time subscription and every week it just shows up at their door and they don't need to do anything else with it. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That is [00:11:00] fantastic. That's like Christmas, but it comes every week.

   I love that. And the farmer's choice just makes so much sense. They don't have to do any decision making. You get to pick what's fresh and from the farm. Such a great, great thing. So kind of jumping tracks here, when it comes to delivery, right, you've probably exponentially grown your customer base, who you're delivering to. How many stops do you have, like on any given delivery day? 

  Lois Yoder: Well, it can vary quite a bit. Especially this time of the year, with the weekly farm box and our weekly eggs and milk that we offer, customers can skip if they're not gonna be at home for a week and so on. One thing we are learning over the holidays, like Christmas and New Year's and in the summer we get a lot of skips, which is fine. It's very understandable. So, you know, this time of year it fluctuates quite a bit. This week I think we're probably doing 15 stops here in our local community. It might be more, I'm not sure. I'll be printing out those pick and [00:12:00] pack lists later on today, and, um, then I'll know for sure what we're doing this week. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: And do you use any kind of routing app or navigation to, to streamline those drop offs? 

  Lois Yoder: At this point, we have not, we are picking up enough deliveries that it is a conversation my husband and I are having. I think probably at some point we will use the Routific integration that Barn2Door has. We've looked at it a little bit, so at this point we're not, it's basically our local community, so we kind of know the best routes. But, I definitely think in the future we will be using some kind of app or software to help us be efficient in that area. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yeah, and like you said, Routific is great. It's integrated with Barn2Door, so as you get those orders, it's able to know where you're delivering to and then come with the most efficient route. And for a lot of our farms, it ends up saving them a couple hours a week, at least on delivery, I think two to three, which is fantastic. When it comes to delivery, you sell [00:13:00] online and you sell in person in your farm store. Is everything that you're listing available for delivery? 

  Lois Yoder: Almost. We do not have quite everything available online that we do in our physical farm store, simply because we don't want to create buyer fatigue when they're going through our online store.

  We do have all of our beef, pork, and chicken and eggs and the local milk that we sell, all of that is listed out in our online store. Some of the other local products that we sell from other local makers, we don't have quite all of them listed out in our online store. Simply because we were getting too many items in our online store.

  But the most popular ones we definitely have in the online store and offer them for delivery and people seem to love that. They will pretty often pair the local hydroponic lettuce, with the meat that they buy and, the local milk that we sell with, the rest of their eggs and sausage, you know.

  So it seems to work [00:14:00] well. They love that they can get a variety of local items delivered to them. To my best knowledge, there's maybe only one other farm in our area that offers local delivery and we found some success in bringing in some other farms and offering delivery of their products directly to people's homes. They can get our beef, pork, chicken, and eggs, as well as local milk and local lettuce, local canned goods, local jams and jellies, local honey, you know, that type of thing. It can all be brought to their home. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That's awesome. And in your area, would you say it's more rural? Is it more suburban? Urban? 

  Lois Yoder: We're a very rural part of Pennsylvania. There are several larger towns close to us. The largest city, which is not even really a city, would be State College where Penn State University is, so yeah, we don't have a large metropolitan area real close to us.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: And there's a lot of other farms around you from what it sounds like, [00:15:00] but you're having no problem growing your customer base and selling to these folks in your area. I know in onboarding a lot of the farms I work with, that's definitely one of their fears is we're surrounded by farms. Everybody knows a farmer. I don't really know if this will work out, but I mean, obviously that's not your experience. That's quite the opposite. 

  Lois Yoder: You are so correct and I can very well relate to these other farms and their fears because it was our exact fear. We were like, everybody knows they can just go to a farm and ask them, you know? I mean, there's eggs on every corner around here and it really doesn't work that way. We have found that even though we live in a rural community with lots of farms, people do not realize there's a missing link in people's thinking when they shop for food. They don't think that they can just walk onto a farm and ask to buy food. They think they have to go to the grocery store. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yeah. And that's huge. Does having the online store and the website has that been big in helping people bridge that gap and make those connections that they can actually purchase from you? 

  Lois Yoder: [00:16:00] Yes, absolutely. It's been a great tool in educating people that, hey, you can buy one pound of ground beef from our farm. Right here's the link, you know. And I send it to them and they're like, whoa. And then they're like, oh, whoa, you'll deliver to me too. And I'm like, yeah. So, yes, that has been a phenomenal tool to use in bridging that gap.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yeah. And I'm, I'm sure that's a big difference. There are a lot of farms around you, but how many, like you said, offer delivery, have an online store where people can see what they can buy and how they're gonna get it, let alone have it delivered. Sheesh.

  Lois Yoder: Yeah, exactly. That is, so very true cause we do run into the thing, I mean, we do have a physical store. But, it's not convenient for the small town that's 15 minutes from us. Those people, I mean, some of 'em come out here, but it's basically the older people that do the busy families, the busy suburban mom. She's not likely to pack up her kids after school and come out here and shop in our physical on farm [00:17:00] store. But if I send her the link for one pound of ground beef and she sees it can be delivered to her home, she soon becomes one of our good customers.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: I love that. And I mean, that's actually a really good point. When you started to roll out deliveries, how did you get people to sign up? Was there a lot of reluctance? 

  Lois Yoder: Not really. We do charge a delivery fee, so for some people that's a little bit of a hump to get over, but we offer them free delivery if they place a $150 order.

  So I have to chuckle sometimes because, we get these orders that are $150 and 30 cents, you know, But we had decided early on if we're gonna offer delivery that is taking our time, our energy, and our resources, and if we're gonna stay in business, that's gonna have to pay.

  So we have always charged a delivery fee and most people they don't mind at all. It's not a game changer. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: So if I understand, even in a rural area, when you're delivering to these people, they see the benefit and the convenience of [00:18:00] having it delivered and they're willing to pay more for it.

  Lois Yoder: Yes, absolutely.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That is super good to hear and they don't mind compensating you for your time. 

  Lois Yoder: No. In fact, many of them will leave us a tip on top of paying the delivery fee. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Wow, that is fantastic to hear. So. I wanna just dive in a little bit more about delivery fees. When you do deliveries, are you doing them? Do you have employees that run those for you? Do you either gonna be your children or I don't. I don't know how old they are. Can they drive yet? 

  Lois Yoder: Yes. Our children are definitely coming to the age where they will soon be driving and be able to help us with more of that. Right now I am the one that is doing the actual physical delivery.

  One of our sons is enrolled in an online high school. So he's doing his high school here at home. He is the one that helps manage our inventory, packs orders. We always write little notes on our customer's receipts that we put in with their order. So he's writing the little notes every week.

  He just takes care of a lot of [00:19:00] those little details that we like to do to give our customer a good experience when they open up their order. We also put in recipe cards with the orders. He takes care of that aspect of it as well, and he helps with packing the orders, packing the ice chest. He loads the vehicle every week.

  Basically, I just have to jump in the vehicle and go do the deliveries because he does the rest of the things for me. So he's our employee. We don't have any other employees. It's just my husband and I and our children at this point. Along with, talking about the route integration, we've also been talking about hiring someone to run the deliveries.

  So we're not quite sure which direction we'll go in the future if we'll put our children to running the deliveries or if we'll hire someone. It'll depend a little bit on what our children's interests are. If they're not interested in that, there's plenty of work here at the farm that they can do if they're more interested in that, and we will hire out the delivering of the orders. But for right [00:20:00] now, it's me. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That's great. So if, if somebody purchases from you, you're gonna be the one delivering. And when you do set up that delivery, do you need the people to be face-to-face? Do you ask 'em to leave out a cooler? How does the logistics of getting them the products, what does that look like?

  Lois Yoder: Yes. We do not ask them to meet us face-to-face. Now some people do. There's some people that I will meet them every week or every month when I take their delivery, and they always wanna talk to me a little bit. And I'm fine with that. We've built some great relationships that way. There's also people that, you know, they don't wanna talk with me when I drop off their stuff.

  Just like, I don't necessarily wanna talk to the UPS driver every time you bring something. Um, so we ask them to put a cooler out on their porch or wherever they want us to put it. That has worked phenomenally. There's been no issues with that at all. Once we pull up to their place, we take their order out of our cooler, take it in, and put it in their cooler, and then it's there for their convenience whenever they [00:21:00] get home.

  Now, periodically someone will forget to put a cooler out and um, I always try to carry one or two extra styrofoam coolers with me when I go on delivery days just in case that happens. I very rarely need to use them, but I have used them already. It does happen at times that people forget. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That's a very nice personal touch, and I'm sure that that customer is a customer for life when they see you do that.

  Lois Yoder: Yes. People always feel so bad when they forget to put their cooler out. I've just been amazed at how thoughtful people are. They really do not wanna make life hard for us. So yeah, they're always very grateful when they still get their order even if they forgot to put their cooler out. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: That's good to hear. When you're doing these deliveries, what kind of vehicle are you going in? Does it to the T, does it have your name on the side? Is there stickers or is it a very nondescript type delivery vehicle? 

  Lois Yoder: It's a pretty nondescript type delivery vehicle. We do have magnets with our [00:22:00] farm logo, farm information on it that we put on the driver's door and on the passenger's door.

  That's the only branding on our delivery vehicle. I figure at some point in the future we would like to get a delivery vehicle and put a fancy wrap on it and all of that. But for now we are just doing what works. And I have found those little magnets have really done the trick because otherwise people aren't gonna know who's pulling into their driveway.

  And it's nice if they can see, oh, that's my farmer pulling into the driveway, I know what's going on. Or, if they're watching their security cameras from work or the office or something, and they get a notification, well, if they have no idea and if they've never met me face to face, they're not gonna have a clue who's this lady walking across my yard? You know, So I do feel it's important to have your vehicle identified somehow, and we just ordered simple little magnets that we can put on the side of our vehicle, and it has worked very well. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: So talking a little bit more about [00:23:00] delivery day, and I, I'm actually looking forward to one day seeing your tricked out delivery vehicle. I think that's gonna be awesome. Maybe a repurposed ice cream truck then you play a sound.

  Lois Yoder: Oh, that'd be fun. Yes. I love that. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: You have mooing, going on in the background so people know you've got the goods. As you're doing those deliveries, you kind of focus on specific zip codes. Is there a way that you maximize or increase your farm profits on delivery day? 

  Lois Yoder: I would say the biggest thing we've done in that area is just eliminate that Wednesday delivery that was not picking up steam for us. We're hoping to at some point revisit that Wednesday delivery day and give it another shot but for right now with the time and resources that we had available we didn't have the time to go down there into those communities and meet those people and set up at those farmers markets and things like that. That's a goal for the future that we have. Right now it's much easier for us to be involved with local [00:24:00] events in our local community ' cause it's not far from us, not far from the farm. So that's why we consolidated our delivery options for now. And yeah, we do try to have a community presence in the zip codes that we deliver to' cause we have found that if we have even a short conversation with people and they see us face to face and we tell them that we will deliver our products to their home, they become a customer. That face-to-face contact is important. And it's a good way to establish loyal customers. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yeah cause they wanna know who they're buying from and they don't get that at the store. Lois, it sounds like y'all are doing a phenomenal job when it comes to delivering, garnering new customers, making it convenient, all fantastic things and it seems like it's really been paying off 'cause y'all have just been growing and growing your business. And so for anybody that's new out there and they're looking to get into delivery, what did you wish that you knew? In the beginning when you started doing [00:25:00] delivery that you know now?

  Lois Yoder: One of the biggest things for me, as I look back onto those first months when we first offered delivery, and I can clearly remember that some weeks it was one delivery order and I was like, this is so worthless. Is this ever going to work? Well then some weeks it might be two and then maybe every once in a while there was none. So, one thing I wish I would've known is that you really need to market the fact that you offer delivery. You just gotta talk about it a lot. I have really started to try to focus on the beginning of the week. So our delivery day is Thursday, so on Monday and Tuesday on social media and in our farm newsletter I like to just try to say, hey guys, delivery day is Thursday. Place your order by Wednesday noon. You just have to remind folks constantly. We've also recently utilized the Barn2Door order reminder in the Barn2Door software. It's a [00:26:00] very simple thing. I heard Janelle talk about that over and over and over, and I was like, okay, I gotta set this up.

  And I finally got it set up and it has pulled in orders for us. It's just a very simple thing that you can set up that automatically goes to your customer's inboxes, however often you've set it. And, I have ours go out Wednesday morning and it just says, remember to place your order tomorrow's delivery day. And often, Wednesday mornings, we'll get a few orders coming in yet.

  So all those things just to remind your customer that you do offer delivery, and then do not be discouraged if it seems slow and not worth your time in the beginning. It's an investment that you're making in your future. If you just quit in those first few months, you're not gonna pick up the steam or the ball won't keep rolling.

  And once your customers that you deliver to, once they start talking to their friends and their neighbors, you know, hey, my farm fresh food just shows up on my door every week and then they start, [00:27:00] asking questions and looking on your website and things, and it just takes time. So don't be discouraged If it seems slow and not worth your time in the beginning, just keep at it because it will pay off.

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yes. Definitely. And, something that I know that some of our farms have done in the past. I don't know if you've ever given it a shot, but I'd be curious to know, uh, if you have or what you think is, they'll actually reach out to their current customers and ask them if they know anybody who would want delivery.

  So, hey, go ask your family, your friends. Do you know anybody who wants this or do you know anybody who would be interested in farm fresh food? Have you ever tried anything like that? 

  Lois Yoder: Not directly. It's very interesting to me that you bring that up. It confirms to me that I need to do that.

  We have a customer who is also a business owner and he has been chatting with us and giving us ideas on ways to market and build our customer base. And it's just been fun getting to know him. And that was something he suggested to me. He said, you reach out to your current [00:28:00] customers and offer them a discount code that they can pass to their friends and family.

  He said, I don't want you losing money or anything, but give them a little incentive and see what happens. So we have toyed with that a little bit. Oh, it's been a little while. I did set up a discount code and I think I sent out one or two newsletters with it. But I think this time around when I do it, I wanna target specific customers that are loyal customers of ours that have already been talking about us and just give them this discount code that they can use and that they can share with their friends and family. Yeah, that's a great idea. 

  Koleton Kleinsmith: Yeah. I love it. I love what you've got going on, Lois. And to hear about all the success that you've had with Barn2Door it's just been awesome. 

  I want to thank you so much for giving me your time. It's been a pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. Check out more of Lois and their farm at their Instagram at Yoder Way Farm.

   Well, here at Barndoor we’re humbled [00:29:00] to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who is just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management like Lois has done, please visit barn2door.com/learn-more.

  Thank you for tuning in today, and we look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door. com backslash resources. [00:30:00] We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week's episode, James and Alyssa discuss the rise in Farmers using AI logos for their business, and the potential negative impact it can have on their brand. Hear how designers build out unique logos to help Independent Farmers stand out.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer of Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all in one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman and selling direct under their brand to serve their customers who can purchase from them both online [00:01:00] and in person.

   In today's conversation, we're gonna be going into detail about artificial intelligence and the impacts it's having on farmers when thinking about creating a logo for their farm business. I'm happy to welcome back Alyssa from our design team at Barn2Door. Alyssa has worked for us for more than five years, and her team has helped to create thousands of beautiful websites, logos, and farm brands for producers across all 50 states.

   Alyssa is the de facto expert in the United States when it comes to creating an attractive farm brand. Today I'm excited to talk with Alyssa about AI generated logos, why they're problematic, and the importance of working with a professional design team that actually understands farm brands and what they need.

   Welcome back, Alyssa. I have to tell you, it's hard for me to believe it's been more than five years since you joined Barn2Door. It's been fantastic to see your career evolve here. So I'm so thankful you've grown your career with Barn2Door. But more importantly, I'd love to talk a little bit more about your role here, given you started here [00:02:00] as a young designer many years ago, and now you run the entire team.

   Tell folks who are new to Barn2Door's podcast, who have never met you, a little bit about your role and about the design team. 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yes. As a design lead on the team, I'm really proud to be able to be on a team that's happy to help our farmers and to offer a variety of different services to our farms.

   We build out websites, we also do farm logos and we also do design edits so we don't leave people high and dry after their website goes live and we don't nickel and dime them. If they need some help, we're here to help, and we're also happy to provide for our scale farms some email assets and banners. 

  James Maiocco: Alyssa, with all this experience you've had, I'd love to dig specifically into today's topic and talk, about logos, right? Because your team has done, hundreds of logos for farmers. And I know all of us really appreciate a good logo, but many of the farmers who are listening to us probably don't understand all the work that goes into it. Can you give us a little bit of an overview, like how do you guys [00:03:00] undertake designing a farm logo today? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah. It's actually a four step process that we go through.

   We do a logo intake form, we do a logo review call, we do edits and then we provide the full package at the end. 

  James Maiocco: Okay. Well tell me a little bit about the intake. What's that look like? What type of information are you asking the farmer to help you guys start to generate initial ideas for the farmer for a logo? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah, so on the intake form we want to understand more about their business and the type of logo that they're looking for. It's really important that when they're filling out this form, all the decision makers are involved in the process. They'll be able to go through and decide what type of logo they're looking for, if it's an emblem circle, emblem signage, an icon, or a letter mark.

  This also helps our farms to communicate to us just what style we should be aiming to create for them. And also we'll be able to decide if it's gonna look more modern or rustic, more luxurious or more playful. And then we also want them to choose a main focus for the [00:04:00] logo, whether that be their animals, products, farm scenery, anything like that. Some farms, they have specific landmarks or trees or farm structures they want to include. Farms also have very specific breeds that they have for their animals, and we need to know that type of information because we're not just pulling these icons from anywhere we are creating these icons from scratch, and we wanna make sure that we are telling their farm story and we're making sure that we're including information that is unique to their business. 

  James Maiocco: I think that it's one of the most, exciting parts about what your team does is just the level of attention and care that you pay to what matters to the farmer and what makes their business iconic.

  Like you said, one breed of cattle versus another, it looks vastly different in terms of stature and how they look, right. When I've seen the logos you guys have created, I've seen massive variation based on, for instance, just a breed of a cattle or a pig or a chicken, whatever it may be, right?

   In fact, I can't remember the name of that funny chicken that has a little [00:05:00] really fuzzy head, great example, right? I mean, there's just, there's so many different varieties, and then you also mentioned other icons that might be important to a farmer that you see on their farm, like a tree or a barn?

  What are some examples of some things that you've seen there? I'd be just kinda curious what comes top of mind. 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah, so there's a lot of different types of barns out there. Of course, if you imagine it from kids stories, you might see a specific type of barn in your mind, and that's probably more what AI logos would be pulling in.

   But there are some really unique barn structures out there and historical barn structures out there that we actually take a photo and we draw that from scratch and put it into their logo. 

  James Maiocco: That is so cool. That is awesome. So you guys are really tailoring this based on what's specific to their farm. Walk me through the next step so after you capture all this information, got some photos, got some feedback from the farmers. What's important to them, the styles they like. What's next? What do you do in terms of marinating or creating the first set of ideas for the farmer? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah, so [00:06:00] we really take all the information they give to us.

  We spend some time thinking about it. We do ask for a two week lead up to a logo review call so that the designer has time to actually create these designs and show something that's worth showing on that call. So for the next step, that logo review call is the presentation of the three versions that designers come up with.

   This is the opportunity for the farms to ask questions to the designers and the designers to get more clarity on the designs that, maybe they wanna know are you wanting to lean more toward your premium products or are you wanting to lean more toward your sustainability side of the business? It could be important for both of those things, but the logo needs to get tailored down a little bit. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. And I know internally we have a messaging tool called Slack, where I know your team often posts like, Hey, here are three variations. We do these votes. And I, see the, battles that go on internally inside the company and people voting on what logo they like better.

   What do you see among the farmers? 'cause I know many times I, imagine [00:07:00] farmers must feel torn about which direction they wanna go. 'cause it's such a personal. decision, right, for them. 

  Alyssa Pascual: Definitely. You get lots of different variety of people. You know, some that are like, I want that one. It's the perfect option for me.

  And then you have others who like all three, and you have to really dig deep and ask specific questions and help them decide which one are they leaning toward more? Or you get people who are between two and then they're like, okay, I need to show this to some people. We need to have a vote ourselves and see what we wanna go with.

  James Maiocco: That's awesome. What a great problem to create, right? Something that's iconic, but something that's gonna last gonna be a real symbol for them. It's gonna have it all their merchandise, their hats, and , packaging, all that good stuff. So, what's next? Once you've presented three different logos what comes back to you next? You mentioned something about getting feedback before you go to a final version. 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yes. So we have our farmers fill out a feedback form for the logo where they'll tell us which version they've decided on, and if there's additional edits that they [00:08:00] wanna see made to that logo.

   We don't expect everyone to just choose one right away. We usually are expecting at least some edits to come through. So once we get that feedback form back to us, we'll make the changes and then we're not just gonna straight up package the logo and send it to them right then and there. We do email them the updated version and we just double check for final approval. And once that's approved, that's when we'll actually move to the final stage of packaging the logo. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. So before you go and present the final version of the logo, tell me a little bit about the emotional experience of the farmers. They get excited about seeing the final product and what does the final reveal look like? What's that experience been for you, Alyssa? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah. A lot of times when we send over the final packaging, we get emails back of our farmers just being so excited and wanting to go share it out on social media.

  They're wanting to immediately go get it printed on their packaging, get some signs created and also as a design team, we are very happy when people send us those [00:09:00] pictures of the final versions out in the wild.. You know, definitely send us those pictures if you have them. But it's just a big thing seeing it come from an idea to reality and now it's gonna be part of their brand and their identity and what people know them for. 

  James Maiocco: That's well said. And it's great to see it. And I know you've shared some of these pictures too, where you see 'em on their trucks, you see 'em on their banners, you see 'em on their hats. It's very cool. Really well done. So, with this, again, personalized approach that you guys have taken, Alyssa, I mean it's not free, right? There's a cost to doing this, and we're not the cheapest solution out there by any means. But you get what you pay for and you guys provide an incredibly well tiered farm branding experience for farmers.

   Now some farmers we've talked to are trying to generate logos themselves with AI, and I think we've seen some real challenging or some funny, you know, outputs might look kitschy or what have you, those type of things. Talk with me a little bit about what does that AI logo making process look like today?

  If I was a farmer and I wanted to go out and create a logo with an AI tool today, what's [00:10:00] involved, and what are usually the outputs? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah, so AI logo makers are pretty straightforward. You type in your brand name and the industry, you pick a few style preferences, and then the system will actually pull from a library of existing icons and fonts and it'll mash something together.

  So what you get is a set of variations on a theme, but it's not true creativity. It's really just pattern matching and remixing what's already out there and not crafting something original for your brand. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. Are they completely free or is there some cost to some of these AI generated logos as well?

  Alyssa Pascual: A lot of AI logo generators advertise themselves as free, but technically you can play around with them at no cost and you can type in your brand name and pick a few styles. Preview different logo options, but the logos you see on the screen aren't the files you actually use for your business. If you want the professional files, the high resolution versions, the vector files for printing, the formats you need for packaging, signage, or even just a website, that's where you're gonna hit a paywall.

  So while [00:11:00] the process feels free at first, if you want something you can really use to represent your business, you're going to have to pay for it no matter what. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. Yeah. There is no free, so like you said, it's gives you the illusion of being able to do some of these things, but if you want something workable, you're gonna have to pay for it. Do they allow edits with these AI logo generators? What if somebody gets the wrong breed of my cattle, right? Or the, color isn't quite what I was thinking of. Right? Do they allow you to do edits on those AI logos? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Most AI logo tools do let you make some edits, but they're usually pretty limited.

  You're not gonna be getting your specific animal breed in there. You can change the color, swap out fonts, or move an icon around things like that. But you're really working within a template and you don't get the kind of flexibility you'd have with a designer, where you can dig deeper into the symbolism or completely rethink the concept. With AI, you're more or less just tweaking what it gives you and not collaborating to create something unique.

  James Maiocco: Got it. So, like what would be one of the biggest issues? Because I can imagine, like you [00:12:00] said, you often ask for pictures from farmers of iconic barns or trees or products or animals on their property. Can you do that with the AI as well? Will they allow you to create something you know, that's truly unique and iconic to your farm, or is that just, well wishes?

  Alyssa Pascual: To a certain degree, but you really don't have flexibility with it. You can probably put in an image of your barn and it will sort of give you something that looks like your barn, but it's not going to be a hand drawn sketch or icon of your barn where it's clean, you can make the tweaks that you need to, you know, you'd have to be going with something that's close, but not really exactly correct, especially with the breed of animals. It doesn't typically know what those look like. 

  James Maiocco: Alyssa, you've worked with many farms and generating some beautiful logos. What are some of the struggles you've seen with farmers who've tried to generate their own AI logos, and have you had to fix some of the things that you've seen come [00:13:00] across your plate?

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah, so I've noticed some common issues with AI logos for farms. One of the biggest problems is that there's often just too much going on. So the AI logos tend to try and include everything at once. Animals, barns, plants, and it ends up feeling cluttered rather than simple and memorable. , The animals themselves are another issue.

  The breeds are usually wrong. Their sizes can be off, and there's sometimes been even deformities that we've seen, like a pig that didn't have a proper face. , and then barns, like we talked about earlier, will rarely be able to see the farms, actual buildings. It makes the logo look a little bit more generic and not personal. And then in terms of like practical design limitations, many AI logos come in full color and not always, able to be turned into a solid color version. So you might not be able to use that for signage, packaging, marketing materials. They might not be in the resolution that you need or the right formats, so they just don't look as professional as they could be.[00:14:00] 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, I know many times you like to have just a plain black version, a plain white version, so you can put it on a, shirt or a mug or a hat. I know we've done the same thing with our logo here at Barn2Door, even though it's a two color logo. The reality is we have black and white versions as well 'cause they look very clean and crisp on a hat or on a piece of merchandise. so with AI generated Legos, even if you do a paid version, do they not give you multiple formats generally? 

  Alyssa Pascual: You have to really know what to ask for if you're looking for something like that. And you have to be very particular with your prompt, which at that point you almost need a designer to even create the AI logo for you as well because it's not going to do just information that is straight up one color. When you put in the information you're looking for, it's going to give you a full color version and not likely to give you the solid color versions, and it's just going to give you one version. It's not going to create a special color palette for you like a designer would where they're considering your [00:15:00] full brand colors and how that's gonna look on a website and on your marketing materials. It's gonna give you something that's more generic on there. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. So what would you say to a farmer who's considering an AI generated logo for the business and how would you contrast with our design process today? 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah, if a farmer's thinking about using an AI generated logo, I'd say it can seem like an easy shortcut. It is fast, it's cheap, and you get something that looks okay right away. But AI logos do often miss the mark. They can give you a barn and a few animals, but they usually don't capture your farm's story, values, or what makes your farm truly unique. Plus you can only make limited edits and bigger changes are difficult or even impossible to make.

  Our design process is different because we work exclusively with farmers. That means we understand the industry and what matters to both the farmers and their customers. We know what makes farms unique, so we ask the right questions to create the logo that's personal and distinctive. And we design custom icons from scratch that reflect the farm itself, whether it's [00:16:00] the specific barn or tractor or maybe even a historical fence. And because we are professional designers, we do follow best practices for logos. We make sure that design isn't too busy, it's versatile, and that the files will work wherever they need them, for the packaging, for the signage, for their social media. The end result is a logo that not only looks great, but truly tells the story of the farm, and that's something just AI generator can't do.

  James Maiocco: Yes. And it's just clean and beautiful. You guys do such a great job, and I know there's so many examples of logos you've done of all kinds of stylistic preferences, right? That the farmer, may have. And so it's just great to see the diversity that you guys have built over the past several years. But like you said, the experience of building a logo is truly unique and truly created for that given farmer is very special, right? You wanna spend the money, you get what you pay for. 

  Well, Alyssa, I really appreciate your time because I know you're busy. I know your team is managing, again, hundreds of farm brand packages as we speak, that we're rolling out this month. 

  Is there [00:17:00] any last bits of advice or words of wisdom you'd share with farmers who are thinking about the importance of building their farm brand and making it something that's attractive, for their buyers. 

  Alyssa Pascual: Yeah. I would say for your logo, when you're creating this, you really gotta think of the importance of it and where it's going to be and how long you're going to be using it.

  Because when you're creating something with an AI generated logo, it might be okay as an initial placeholder at the beginning. But if you're going to be having this brand on all of your packaging, on all of your shirts and mugs and hats and signs on your farm, then you want to have it represent you and you want it to represent your story.

  So take the time, do a little bit of research, and then consider the best option for you, whether that be something that is quick and easy, or if it's something that truly identifies with you guys. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, one thing I absolutely love about what you guys do, Alyssa, is the fact that you guys create emotional [00:18:00] appeal.

  With the, quality of the logos you designed truly bespoke to each farm and attractive to their buyers, right? That is just truly unique in a truly creative process, in this world of AI I know there's many good uses for AI, but I will tell you the creativity you guys bring to the table, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

  Thank you for all your hard work, Alyssa, that you and your design team do. I wanna extend my thanks to Alyssa for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Barn2Door on our Instagram @Barn2Door. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country, and delighted to offer services and design services too to help farmers access more customers, increase sales and save time for their businesses.

   If you're an independent farmer who's looking to get started or transitioning to selling to direct, or you just simply want to simplify your business management, please visit Barn2Door.com/learnmore. Thank you for tuning in today, and we look forward to joining you next time on the Independent [00:19:00] Farmer Podcast.

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week’s episode, Ryan speaks with Joe of Dirty Girl Produce (CA) to break down how to expand your product to increase sales. Joe created canned items, preserves and juices to use harder-to-sell items, and stock his store with exclusive products.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Ryan Grace: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Ryan, I'm on the success team here at Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. On the Success Team, we work closely with farmers just like Joe here, on a day-to-day basis, giving them resources and best practices to help them achieve their business goals.

  As many of our listeners may be [00:01:00] aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand and making sure their customers can purchase from their farm, both online and in person. In today's conversation, we'll get into expanding your product with value added items. Joe of Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz, California. Joe is a part of our farm advisory network and has worked with us for over five years and since become an advisor and has brought insights running successful wholesale and retail produce business.

  I'm excited to talk to Joe about expanding his product, value added items such as jams, preserves, and more. Welcome, Joe.

   Thanks for making the time here with us today. Now, I know you've been on our podcast before, previously, but for those who are listening in for first time, give us a little bit about your background and what got you into working over at Dirty Girl. 

  Joe Schirmer: Sure. I started farming when I was in college, halfway through 93, 94, and then when I [00:02:00] finished up, I was totally hooked on organic farming, small scale, sustainable farms of all kinds.

  And so, I started traveling around working for people and then ended up working for my two good friends and mentors who really got me started in farming. Showed me how cool it was, Jane and Ali, the dirty girls. They started their business and for two years they ran it just themselves. And in the third and fourth year I joined them and then they were ready to move on.

  So, I just kept farming as Dirty Girl Produce. And that was in, 99, I think they left. So it's been since then. I think we need to have, we should have had like a 25th anniversary or 30th I think, something like that. But yeah, that's what we are doing and uh, we just grow all kinds of row crop veggies. 

  Strawberries, tomatoes, all kinds of normal little carrots, that kind of thing. 

  Ryan Grace: Gotcha. That's awesome. I mean, it's been a blast getting to, to work with you on the Connect and hear the ways that you've encouraged some of our farms with your story and the lessons you've [00:03:00] learned along the way. So, looking at today's topic and expanding your products, what led you into or encouraged you into adding those, value add items?

  Joe Schirmer: Well, the value added is yeah, I think it, it's twofold. One is the idea that you can elevate the amount of net profit you get on something you grow by preserving it, right? So there's that. There's also, when you run a farm, you know that, I'm gonna plan for getting 500 pounds of tomatoes, I'm just making this up, per week throughout the growing season, but it never works that way.

  It's like you have 300 and then 400, and then you have 5,000 pounds one week, you know, so you always have overproduction and underproduction that you're dealing with. And if there's some way to hold onto the value of your produce, that is more than you can just kind of sell, you know? 'Cause production, for me at least, I see a lot of bell curves.

   And when [00:04:00] you have too much production and not enough demand to sell right on the spot, what are you gonna do with that?

   A lot of farmers, what we have to do, is we just have to turn that stuff back into the soil or feed it to our pigs, goats, chickens, whatever we're gonna do, right? Make compost. And we do a lot of that anyway. There's a lot of waste. There's a lot of stuff that we can't sell, but value added allows you to retain some of that value that you've put in and you've yielded and you can sell it later.

   So, I think all of those things kind of hitting you as a farm, you'll naturally question like, oh my God, what do I do with all these tomatoes? And what do I do with all these strawberries? And that's what has always hit me. And so I just kind of seek out different ways of, over the years, you know, how we can preserve stuff like dried stuff.

  You can put stuff in vinegar, you can heat it up and get a certain acidity and jar it, you know. So, we do whatever we can really. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. No. I know you've been at it for a long time, but some of these farms that are just getting into this, especially in the produce world, how do [00:05:00] you go about planning that out and figuring out what's gonna work as a value added item down the road?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah. Well, that's a good question. I think you have to just chip into it. If you go too crazy and put too much of your cash reserves into glass, maybe co-packing fees if you're having someone else do it. You can really spend a lot of money and you can essentially spend half the money that you're gonna get back selling the stuff retail into the preservation of the stuff.

  So I think, you know, people should be careful. It's always good to be able to do it all yourself at first and test and see then what people are gonna buy. If you do something that's too weird and turns out you don't have anybody to buy it later on, you're not producing a product that people want.

   Then, it's another way in farming you can lose money. Right? And our goal here is to make more money and to not lose money. So, [00:06:00] value added, I say start small. Figure out what people like and then do what people like. You know, for example, we do a lot of different tomato products because one of the problems with the tomatoes, we do here in Santa Cruz County, we do a dry farm tomato, which means we don't water 'em.

  And so, they get really stressed. They're really high acid, high sugar, they're really very delicious tomatoes, but they have a lot of blossom end rot, which we're trying to remarket as blossom end sparkle. But, what happens is we get a lot of cosmetically flawed fruit and, you know, what are we gonna do with it?

  We can sell a lot of it, but, it's really the best fruit to preserve. So, we do all kinds of different recipes and from just quartered and crushed tomatoes to sauces and see what people like. And really people, we found, really like the most basic of recipes, you know, a quartered crushed tomato or a blended [00:07:00] tomato.

  Simple. And then they can do what they want. We've made like pasta sauce and different kind of thing. We've made tomato waters, we've made tomato juice, we've spicy tomato. We've done a clamato version that we call squidmato with California Pacific squid instead of fish sauce if you've had a clamato in Mexico.

  It's pretty weird, but it's fun and, but you know, not super popular. So, really the basics is what we've found that people want. We also do strawberry jams and we've done like strawberry varietals that are specific varietal strawberries, and then it's almost too much information for people.

  They want a basic strawberry jam, you know? So, we're trying to hone into it and we try to come and get a good balance of how much money we feel like we can basically invest in glass, is what I call it, you know, and sit on that, you know, 'cause really we need those cash reserves all the time.

   We don't have a business that we can just have a lot of cash hanging around. It goes out as soon as we get it. [00:08:00] So, so to put the money into our value added products. We really need to be very conscious of it. And we have had one year where we had the U-S-D-A value added grant.

  I think it was for man, I think it was 80 grand. And so, they basically paid us back and so we put like a hundred grand into value added products and we actually did that in 19, 2019, right before COVID. And so, it just happened that we had a 40 foot container filled with fricking jars. It was crazy.

   And I really thought like, oh my God, we've completely overproduced here. And of course I had to put all the money in, but I got it paid back, which was cool. But then COVID came and everybody bought, and we sold out. And I don't think we could sell that much retail, you know, as we did during COVID.

  It was crazy. So, now we've kind of dialed back down as we have to be the ones that are just putting all the money up front, you know, to put like 60 grand in and try and sell it over the winter and into the spring. [00:09:00] We have a hard time producing as much preserved items as we can. For example, like tomatoes, that we can sell them all year round.

  We end up selling out. Right? And we could do more, but in order to do more, you gotta put more money in. So really, I think, like where we are, kitchen space is expensive. Land is expensive. I think we have some of the most expensive ag land in the country here, as well as, you know, the square footage.

  I think there's a lot of people that probably have a little more affordable square footage and kitchen space. You can get commercial kitchen rentals or even if you can do it on your own farm, I think that's awesome. I know people that have that and it, and I think it works really well and it's one of our dreams.

  But you really gotta look at all the costs of everything and try to dial it down and not invest too heavy at first, figure out what's gonna work, right? But, cast the net wide. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, you bring up a good point. When we are looking at all the expenses and that upfront investment, that helps for the long term, right?

  But how do you [00:10:00] determine what items or like the demand that's coming in from your customers, the feedback, how are you getting that feedback and how is it influencing your decision on what items you're gonna move into that value add? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, I mean, I think from every email, there's probably 20 other people that feel that way.

  So, if people, you know, are verbal and tell me something I listen, it's also, you know, the dollar is mighty when it comes to the influence of what we're doing. If someone sells it, if we sell it, then let's do it again. Right? So, that's kind of what we've done. We've had a lot of different experiments.

  And, the products that sell is what we try to do. I always try to do like, okay, let's do something kind of cool, and try it out and see if it works, you know, but really I don't try to go too big on anything that's new because I wanna make sure that it sells. 

  Ryan Grace: Do you have like a sample customer base that you kind of go to as your reference sheet for if you're starting a new product, you can [00:11:00] sample it out to these VIP customers first.

  How does that work? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, well, you know, we have really established farmer's markets that we've been doing for over 25 years, and I think 30 years now. So, that's always really a good place to try out anything new because there's not a lot of consequence. And just presenting something, you know, and then talking about it and see how people react.

  It's also great that now we're on the platform online, so we can, you know, I just, for example, this year, for the first time ever, 'cause we have so many trial varieties that I'm, I have a tomato breeding program that I'm doing. I'm trying to get new lines developed and so we have a tomato box that's a mixed box.

  We just put that on mixed box five and 10 pound. And it's nice. You can just throw it on a store and see if your existing customers want it. And it's been selling, so it's like cool. So, I think, you know, having some sort of a stage, whether it's in person or online to try stuff, put it in a newsletter, put it [00:12:00] in, you know, online store or on your brick and mortar or at your roadside stand.

  All those things are really important to see what people want. And of course we have a bunch of stores that we deal with as well. So we do a lot of shipping and we have brand awareness. So whenever we have a new product we're working on, I can kind of reach out to people that are, they're already buying one thing from us and maybe they'll buy another thing.

  So, but you gotta knock on doors, make phone calls for sure. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Now bringing in new products also brings in a whole other variety of things to start thinking about. I think one of the more common questions I get in our role as success managers is, what should I price my products at? Like, how do I price these effectively?

  So when you're bringing in a new item, how are you factoring that in? How do you figure out pricing for those? 

  Joe Schirmer: Right? Yeah, that's super tricky. And first thing you gotta do is you gotta cast your net wide and you've gotta look at all the stores, all the other farms, all the other like products, and figure out [00:13:00] where you are gonna fit into all that stuff.

  Are you better than them all? And so you can ask for a bigger price. Are you underneath them? And you need to get rid of this stuff, so you're gonna undersell, you know, it's kind of where do you wanna find yourself in the price range, right? And so usually what I do is I try to. You know, it's nothing like selling full retail on a product.

  Like, you know, we're talking about tomatoes here, but it could be a lot of different things. Right. But the price per pound on tomatoes, we're selling tomatoes at $6 a pound right now retail. You got five pounds, it's still a $30 box. 20, we're selling at 80, and then of course we're shipping pallets, you know, so that's like, it goes from $6 a pound to $4 a pound when we're shipping pallets across the country to Detroit, or we're going up to Portland, Oregon.

  To our stores, you know, we come down to like $2.50 a pound, right? So I have to consider, well what is the product that I have and what do I want [00:14:00] to get per pound off of this fruit? Right? So you have to do that. So a lot of things, what do we do? A lot of times we have off grade and off grade boxes.

  What are we gonna sell that for? A lot of times, you know, just because it's cosmetically flawed, it still costs you just as much money to grow it as it does the A Grade, right? So you really have to take that in consideration and you can't just give it away, right? So, what we do is we try to calculate, okay, like a $50 box, 20 pound box, you know, $2 and 50 cents a pound, how can I retain that $50 box?

  So I calculate what's the cost of the co-packing, what does it cost to make the label, what does it cost to pick up and deliver all this stuff? I mean, there's a lot of storage. You know, like we have one place that sometimes we'll store our product on palletized jars and stuff like that.

  You know, there's a lot of different kinds of costs that you need to scratch it all out and figure out what it is that you need [00:15:00] to get out of it and what you can get out of it. And I'll find that like when we retail value added, that's some of the best price per pound we're gonna get on any of our fruit.

  Right. Like start with $6 a pound, full retail. We're gonna get eight or 10 a pound if we do everything right and we sell it by the jar, single jar at full price off the table. Right? And that's great. But then I also realize like the reality is that there are times in the week where I've got 80 cases I've got to get rid of.

  I'm either gonna feed 'em to the pigs or I'm gonna send them to a co-packer. Right? And when I send 'em to co-packer and they come back, that 80 cases might be 80 cases of jars, you know, 12 each per case. And I can't sell that much retail, right? So I'm gonna have to take half of that and sell to stores, and they're gonna only be able to, you know, they've gotta make their profit as well.

  So I'll try to cut that price per pound in [00:16:00] half and essentially figure out what, you know, I've seen our jars, which is 16 ounce tomatoes. In stores buy right for $16 a jar. Right? We sell 'em for $12. You can find a 16 ounce jar of tomatoes preserved for like $5 or $6 or something, you know what I mean?

  We come in way above, but we've got a story, we've got a better product, you know, we go for it. So, you gotta balance all that stuff. You gotta figure out what a store, if you're gonna, if you're gonna wholesale a value added product, that's a whole nother can of worms. And it's pretty, pretty tough to make any money doing it.

  But sometimes, like I said, we just need to recoup our cost. We have to say, Hey, this stuff's either going, you know, to the compost pile, or it's going here. And if you average it all out and say, how much am I making from this, you know, stack of 80 cases, and calculate, you know, you just gotta keep crunching those numbers and figure out what you can do.

  Also, sometimes it helps if you're trying to get into a store to meet them [00:17:00] at a price that they can afford so that they like your product, customers want it, and then later you can say, Hey, I gotta raise my prices. So sometimes, it's worth getting into an account and, you know, then being able to have a discussion with people and charging for it.

  So, pricing is super tricky. You gotta charge people and the smaller the better because if you're sitting on a huge inventory, you're gonna be faced with the idea of having to stoke everybody out with Christmas presents or, you know what I mean? Like donating stuff you get, there's a lot of, you know, you donate it to a 5 0 1 C3 and you get a tax write off if a tax write off can benefit you.

  You know, I mean, there's a lot of different ways of working it, but I think that, another way of pricing that I think can be factored into this is how you're gonna co-pack, right? Co-pack, meaning someone else is packing for it. Now, if it's you doing it. Then you gotta figure out what's the cost of you doing it?

  What do you [00:18:00] need to get back? Is it you personally doing it? Are you paying someone's wage? Are you paying for a commercial kitchen? Right. All that kind of stuff, or what? I have a lot, I have a lot of relationships with other farms and other businesses where they preserve food.

  Right. And I've got two this year that I'm working with, and it's funny, right before this I was getting on the text chain back and forth with one of these businesses, right? Saying, Hey, I don't have the dollars to just invest, you know, pay for 10,000 pounds of tomatoes that I know I could sell if they were preserved.

  You know, I know I could sell it, that's no problem. But I don't wanna write that check. So, we're going back and forth and she has a whole business. And so, we're gonna work on a whole deal where I'm basically paying her with product. So I'm gonna give her tomatoes, she's gonna make her product that she makes, and we're gonna keep a tab on that end.

  And then she's gonna give me jars on my end, and we're gonna keep tab that in the end of the year we're gonna settle up. I've got another person that I deal with, same thing. Does a lot of pickling, does a [00:19:00] lot of beans. And I'll tell you, green beans are harder and harder, especially in California because they're so labor intensive.

  And we still do beans because we can, for some crazy reason. And so we do really good green beans. We have french beans, we have romanos, yellow acts, all these really specialty green beans. And so, we're gonna basically be giving him all these products, green beans, strawberries, tomatoes, all these things.

  He's gonna make his products. We're gonna keep a tab, and he's gonna return by doing value added on the stuff that we most need to get value added. That, Hey, I'm swimming this week in this, can you do this? And he's like, yeah, let's go. You know? So these are relationships that I've built.

  I've got another one that's a farm that has a drying process. They're in the California Central Valley where we are in Santa Cruz County, it's wet and drippy, and foggy right now. It's terrible. And you can't sun dry stuff. You'll get mildew. This guy dries stuff. I give him, I gave him 20 flats of strawberries last [00:20:00] Saturday and this Saturday when I see him at the farmer's market, he's gonna give me half.

  And that's generally has been good, as far as pricing, if you give someone a hundred pounds of something, expect 50 pounds, half of it coming back to you, they can keep it. You gotta negotiate that. People will see whether that's fair. Maybe you gotta go 40-60 or 60-40 depending on who's doing it, you know?

  But you gotta really cover those co-packing costs and there's a lot of relationships you can develop with people that want to do co-packing for you. That'll take it and trade, which is a lot of time. Much better deal for a farmer because you're sitting there with a surplus and you don't have the cash.

  And hey, I'd much rather pay in product than pay in cash. Right? 

  Ryan Grace: Absolutely. I love that you brought that point up. It's one of the things that I'm always encouraging the farms I'm working with to look for some of those partnership opportunities [00:21:00] to identify, 'cause you have products, you have things that you can offer.

   But, if you don't have that cash flow on hand right away. Because we deal with a lot of farms, big and small. And now looking at some of those farms may be on the smaller side, just getting into produce. Just getting started in this, what would be some of the things you would recommend for them for moving product and managing their product?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah. Well, I think that, based on my experience, there's nothing better than time and like season after season, after, you know, building your customers and your products over seasons, you know, you give it one year, you, hopefully you have some downtime where you can really think about it and when you're planning for the next year, plan according to what happened the previous year and what angles you think you can improve on and stuff like that.

   So, it's really hard to adjust mid-season, once you've already sewn the stuff in the greenhouse, planted it out, and you're yielding, it's hard to change your plan. You just gotta kind of roll with it, right? And unfortunately, sometimes I'd say it's better in the long run to just disc in [00:22:00] product that's in the field that you can't sell rather than make it worse.

  When you overproduce, sometimes you just gotta suck it up and it hurts, but you gotta do it if you have a plan in place. I think it's great. Go for it. You already have the glass, but if you're staring at cases of product that's already picked and just sitting there and you've gotta figure out where to buy glass jars or whatever, you gotta figure out, you know, I gotta get copper pots, it's almost too late.

  It's almost too late. Right. You gotta plan this all out. So, there's nothing like building season after season, after season. That said, come up with a good plan. Get all your stuff in the off season ready. Right? So, you're ready to go. Especially when it comes to value added. You want to be ready to go and like we have, you know, I have copper pots on our walls in our kitchen at home because we've trialed a lot of jam. My wife used to make this [00:23:00] most incredible strawberry jam. She actually went and took a course with this, you know, jam maker and figured out how to do like the bomb jam. That's hard to do commercially, right? You're taking a good product, you're elevating it, making it even better.

  So, when people try it, they're trying the best strawberry jam they've ever had in their life. You know what I mean? So, I think, really just having that plan and, I mean, man, it's hard to change course once your year. Like, God, it's August, mid August right now. It's so hard to change course right now or try something new, right now. We are so overburdened with what we've already gotten ourselves into, so, you know, downtime is everything. Downtime is when we catch our breath, where we revise our business plan, when we order seed, when we plan on new livestock or whatever it is we're doing.

  You know, see if we can get equipment, see if we can get credit lines and loans and relationships with [00:24:00] customers, how we're gonna attack the next season. So, yeah. I think really time is the best thing and to go slow with everything. Don't go too big and just, invest in things that you feel like it's not just a good idea because you probably have a lot of good ideas, but they have to be someone else's good idea, and that other person has to be your customer, right?

  So you have to meet people and they have to understand what it is you're doing. So I think everything comes up together with the product, pr, marketing, your customers. Everything gets built slowly over time. I think you can launch in and have a really good plan. But like I said, it's hard to switch gears once the season is already fully rolling.

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. How far ahead do you start planning out your year? And I know obviously with your yields you have a good idea of when those are gonna be happening, but how far do you start planning some of this stuff out? [00:25:00] 

  Joe Schirmer: Well, you know, like I said, some of the things are just year after year, right?

  You build off of what you're already doing. So, now that we're like all online and organized, I have spreadsheets for our crop plans. We grow veggies, right? They all start from seed, or crowns. And we have a direct zone spreadsheet. That's all our direct zone, raw seed that goes into the ground. And then we have one spreadsheet that's everything that goes in the greenhouse, right? Of course we grow strawberries, which we buy crowns from a producer. But we have it all spelled out and so we have 2024 and I copy and paste that thing for 2025, and I just go week by week and figure out when I'm going to dial it, and I change everything based on what my experience is.

  I try to follow that record of how all the sewings went, how all the yields went, how all the sales went, and I try to adjust it every year, you know, tweak those knobs slightly. And every single number, the way that I look at it is, every single number that I put in [00:26:00] 2025, for a sewing date, say example, May 15th, has a sewing date, and I have a number of everything I'm sewing every single one of those items, carrots, beets, whatever. Every one of those numbers can be tweaked either up or down. Maybe you see a number that's perfect and you don't change it. Okay. That's possible, but in the reality, I always feel like it can be up or down slightly. So, I just try to go meticulously through and change everything based on that and adjust my crop plan based on what the previous season is and what I expect the next season to be.

  Maybe I want to totally downsize, maybe I want to invest bigger in something. Maybe, you know, who knows what ideas I have. When it comes to value added, it's tricky because, you know, Dirty Girl Produce has outlived like four co-packers that we've used in the past. You know, people that have popped up, love small farms, wanna be this business that takes all this surplus produce and turns it into this product, puts it into [00:27:00] stores, and they've folded, or given up, or transitioned into something else. So, we still have a couple of people that we really deal with, one in particular that we've been with all along. And they've outlasted everybody in whatever sphere of business, marketing, whatever they do, value added, but a lot of people pop up and go.

  And so, we are constantly looking for co-packers. We're constantly looking for new people that have ideas. People come up, but a lot of times, you know, until they're tried and true, you don't know how much you can rely on people. And when it comes to all the value added stuff, this is stuff that is produce that is fresh produce of some sort. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to preserve it so it doesn't go bad, so you can eat it later. Right? And I'll tell you from personal experience. That's not easy. You can dry stuff and then open the thing and it's moldy. You can have beans and dry beans and you open your [00:28:00] bag of beans and there's bean weevils crawling, and it's terrible.

  You can get lids that pop and fermenting bad preserved tomatoes or jam or you name it, you know, things can go wrong. So, you really do need to do a good job. When it comes to value added stuff, a lot of it is really like, really old technology that you just need to, you know, follow down your list and do everything and heat it up to the right percentage, put a right amount of salt, cure it the right way, do it all right and it'll go. But, people with the best intentions, you know, you can really lose stuff. So, you really need to have a good plan and have a trusted partner when it comes to people taking your produce and what they're gonna do with it, if it's not yourself. 

  Ryan Grace: Absolutely. Yeah. And it sounds like you'd spend a fair bit of time on the research and development side when it comes to you bringing in new product, some of those taste testings, sound like they're pretty fun for you, getting try out all those [00:29:00] different jams that your wife's making. But how much time do you spend, in the kitchen working some of those ingredients out and figuring out what's gonna be a great value add? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, well, not much to be honest. I mean, I've done a lot of it, but, I trust people that are better than me at doing that, right? I mean, there's people that do this, I don't have a canner's license. Here, in order to sell in a store, you have to have a canner's license, which basically you go through a class, you learn all the stuff, and you're certified, right?

  So, a co-packer is certified, in what we do. Now, if you do small scale and you just send to your retail customers or you send to a farmer's market here there's a cottage food act, I think it's called, something like that. You can do a certain amount in your own kitchen. But, I really trust people that do this for a living to do it because a lot of the volume and stuff, I mean, I definitely have ambition of doing this ourselves and I'd like to, but it's always more complicated than you think. What if I invest in a big kitchen and I do all this stuff and I make all this [00:30:00] stuff and then the jars start popping anyway, and I'm like, oh my God, you know, because this happens. So, yeah, I've had fun. The most fun I've had is probably, I spent a lot of time in the beach, in Mexico. Surfing, drinking beers. A beer that you drink in Mexico is called a clamato or a michelada mix. And I've always seen that. It's very weird, you know, for a lot of people that you add like basically a tomato juice, it's a clam tomato juice. And so I wanted to repeat that and figure out how do we make, 'cause Nestle actually owns the branding clamato.

  Right? A michelada is a drink, clamato is something you buy in the store and it's terrible. It's probably in like seven 11 or whatever, you know, and it's a lot of preservatives, a lot of junk, and it's got a little bit of clam broth and a little bit of tomato juice and a lot of salt, celery juice, whatever.

  So, we had this whole big party where we were basically cooking up tomatoes and mixing with [00:31:00] different fish sauce that we come up with. And clam broth, we made clam broth, which is really fun. So that's really fun 'cause we're trying to make something, you know, like a bloody Mary mix, michelada mix and everything in between, you know, and so that's fun.

  We had a fun party one time. I think it's way back in our social media. If you look at squidmato on our Instagram stories, I think you can go back if you go, it's pretty fun. But really, you know, I mostly trust other people and I've really found that the most sellable product is the basic product.

  It's not the weird product, like if it's tomato, you just do as basic as you can and then people make their own thing. Some people, yeah, they want a specific pasta sauce ready to open and throw on. That sells a little bit, but nothing that doesn't sell as much as just the basic preserved tomato.

  Whether it's a crushed tomato or a blended tomato, same with strawberry jam. Just do a basic strawberry jam. The standard halfway sugar [00:32:00] just jams. When you make strawberry jam, you really like God, this has a lot of sugar in it, but it's the basic jam. Everybody loves it. You start doing lower sugar or different twists or you put pepper in there, or people do all kinds of weird stuff with jams.

  It's neat, but the basic is good to stick with, you know? So, yeah, I trust other people. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's just a good business model, you don't have to be the expert in every area. If there's somebody who's already great at it, just partner with them. So, now for marketing those items, so reminding people who are ordering from you regularly, maybe they're bought into your CSA or your delivery, how do you remind those customers that you have these new value items?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, that's a good question. So, one of the great things that we do now that we are online and using Barn2Door and using MailChimp for our newsletters, is we send out two newsletters every week. We have a wholesale one to all of our restaurants and stores, and then one that's a retail newsletter [00:33:00] and we can give farm updates and different things what's going on on the farm. But really, we use it mostly to just update, let people know what products we have. So, when we're about to send a whole bunch of strawberries and tomatoes to get preserved this Sunday. And so, when we get back, our MailChimp, our newsletter's gonna be, you know, bomb.

  We're gonna take a fresh photo. We're gonna say, look at what just came in. It's a great opportunity to let everybody know when something just comes in, even if it's a value added, you know, the idea of value added is you're not in a hurry to sell it, right? Sell your fresh stuff and chip away at this stuff.

  But, the reality is people really, once you start selling value added stuff. People really want to know when it comes back in right away, they wanna buy it right away. They're excited about it. So, that's one thing about having a newsletter, is that we let people know as soon as we have our value added products, you know, we're gonna have a bunch of dried strawberries coming [00:34:00] on Saturday, that we'll bag up in the little bags and sell, and then we're gonna have new strawberry jam.

  Because we already have some strawberry jam, but this is gonna be a little different. And then we're gonna have our first tomato preserves are gonna go crazy 'cause we've been sold out for months now and everybody asks for it. What blows me away is I always thought when I first started preserving tomatoes that, once our tomato season starts. We want to be sold out of jars, because no one wants to buy our jars when we have fresh tomatoes. People want to buy preserved tomatoes year round. As soon as you have 'em in the middle of the tomato season, people could buy fresh tomatoes, but there's people, they wanna buy the jars.

  They like it, they get used to it. Once they try something they like, they want to try it again. So, it's really kind of cool because, we go year round on tomato jars and they don't make it anymore. So, we are gonna sell out on this first batch of [00:35:00] tomato preserves, they're basically pre-sold because there's all the stores that already want 'em and there's all these customers that already want 'em, that buy 'em by the case, though, the first one's is already sold, which is nice. And then after that, we're probably gonna start, you know, filling up our shipping container and chiseling away at it. But, it'll be interesting to see this year because I don't know what, it just seems like every year once you build it, you know, the demand builds, and then you don't have something that people are used to and they start asking. So, it'll be interesting to see what this year brings. 

  Ryan Grace: Do you ever put together any bundles of some of these value add items where you have like an ultimate pantry bundle that has some of the tomatoes, the canned green beans, and all of those in one item that they can buy?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, especially during Thanksgiving and Christmas, you really gotta get ready beforehand. But, we were doing a lot of shipping for a while there and one of our shipping items would be a mixed case and it'd have jam. We [00:36:00] would've two different kinds of preserved tomatoes. We'd have tomato juice, we had a spicy tomato juice.

  We had our michelada mix if people want. So, we'll do any kind of combo and just see what people want, you know, see what sells. That's why I think it's good farmer's market. We can kind of like put that together, put it out there and see what people want. Do like three different kind of configurations and see what people wanna buy.

   It's good to have it pre-packaged with nice little bags, nice little mixed boxes. We get in destructo boxes of, they're called, yeah, in destructos, which are shipping boxes, which are nice that people can give as gifts. That's always really useful. But yeah, we'll try any configuration of value added items for people and they seem to go pretty well.

  We sell the most of our basic preserved tomato, the most basic one is what sells the most, more than anything else. So, we try to do that, but it's good to just try everything and see what works. You know, we've ended up having a bunch of filling our shelf with all the different [00:37:00] configurations ready to get out and go on shipping or go straight to our retail pickups.

  And we've ended up unpacking some of our mix. When we sell out a regular, you know, our mixed boxes we'll take out and 'cause of those blended people wanna buy, or they want just jam or whatever. But it's good to try everything and be ready for Christmas, 'cause that's when people wanna buy Christmas presents.

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Yeah, I'll be ordering some of that spicy tomato juice you got for my dad. He loves that stuff. That's his go-to after mowing the lawn, so I'll be sending some his way. Last question I got for you today is just, what would be the advice you'd give to someone who's just getting started into looking into their value adds?

   If there's one piece of advice you'd say you wish you knew this getting started, what would that be?

  Joe Schirmer: Go slow. Try everything, go slow and then just invest money into what you know is gonna work and what you know people are gonna buy. Try not to invest too much in something you haven't sold yet, you know? [00:38:00] So, cast the net wide, do a little bit of stuff. If something doesn't work, don't do it anymore. You know, don't try to, beating a dead horse is a terrible metaphor, but, don't keep doing something that's not serving you.

  You know, put all your efforts into things that you find work and there's interest, and if you're gonna do value added, especially putting stuff in jars. Buy the glass, buy the stuff you need, the pots, the cans, the whatever, all the infrastructure you're gonna need to do it. Buy it way ahead of time, so you're just sitting on it.

   Because when it comes, and you're gonna be doing this stuff, it's gonna be a lot of work. So you want to, you wanna limit it. So, yeah, just go take it easy. Go slow and nothing works better, I've found than going building year after year on something and being able to change, tweak the knobs for the following year's crop plan. 

  Ryan Grace: Awesome. [00:39:00] Love it. Well, definitely wanna extend my thanks to you, Joe, for joining me here today on our episode. You can always check out more for Joe and the farm on their Instagram @DirtyGirlProduce. Here at Barn2Door, we are humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.

  We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management, please visit www.barndoor.com/learn-more.

   Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you on next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank [00:40:00] you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week’s episode, Kevin speaks with Shauna of Mom’s Micro Garden (and Sasquatch Family Farms, WA). Shauna discussing how she started her microgreens business, how to attract Buyers and the value of building local partnerships. Hear her advice for new Farmers and goals for scaling her business!

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Kevin Soncrant: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Kevin on the Success team at Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. My job all day every day is to support, coach and work with farmers for their business to be successful. I've worked with hundreds of farms and have story [00:01:00] after story of farmers crushing it with local customers, local partners, and increased sales.

  All the while, using Barn2Door to manage their business, promote their farm brand, and offer convenient options for local buyers to buy from their farm. I'm a big fan of helping farmers work smarter, not harder, since I've never met a farm with extra time on their hands. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can purchase from their farm, both online and in person. In today's conversation, we will get into growing a microgreens business Today, I'm happy to welcome back Shauna of Sasquatch Family Farms and Mom's Micro Garden in Washington.

  Shauna's a part of our Farm Advisor network and has worked with us for two years and since becoming an advisor has brought knowledge on starting a farm business and scaling it into [00:02:00] two. I'm excited to talk to Shauna about growing a successful microgreens business, how she got started, and her advice for others trying to build their operations.

  Welcome, Shauna. 

  Shauna Perez: Thanks for having me today, Kevin. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, of course. I'm so glad you're here. I was just telling you before we started recording, microgreens is one of the most highly sought after podcasts I've been waiting for, and I'm super excited to dive in today's topic, 'cause I know many of our microgreen farms are looking to learn more.

  So, we're gonna start with an easy one. How did you get introduced to Microgreens? 

   

  Shauna Perez: Well, so we have the hog farm and the pigs love produce, and a really great little Rainier Fresh Country store donated produce for our pigs every week and they also owned Mom's Micro Garden. And every week we'd go and pick up the most delicious produce for the pigs.

  And I learn a little bit more about microgreens. And we, at our hog farm, Sasquatch Family Farms. It is a property that [00:03:00] really needs some regeneration and needs a lot of cover crop. And microgreens happen to produce about 50 acres of byproduct seed and cover crop a month. And so, as we started chatting about things, it was like, wow, well, like the pigs love 'em and the chickens and everything down here loves the microgreen byproduct.

   The conversation just evolved and added some partners and we got started in this project. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Did you know anyone else around you growing microgreens? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, so I maybe part of the journey is last December we bought Mom's Micro Garden, but, August, we went on this amazing Lewis County Farm Bureau tour and Hot Frog Farms took us on a tour of their microgreens and they shared their whole business journey with us and we were really inspired and like scratched our heads and said, wow, that's really cool and you got all these grants to help you do this and build this and wow, that's awesome.

  I wish we would've known about that when we were starting in farming. 

   That was so cool. They have 35 employees and Wow.

  [00:04:00] This just sounds incredible.

  Kevin Soncrant: Do you, looking back at it, if you had known about microgreens before you started the hog business, do you think you would've started with microgreens first or not? 

  Shauna Perez: I think we've learned a lot of things in the journey and hard to say, does the chicken or the egg come first? 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

  So do you think having another farm business, prepared you well for your microgreens business? Or are they just so vastly different that it didn't really matter? 

  Shauna Perez: I think they're really vastly different. I think some of the structural and systems things that Barn2Door helped us implement that I had a very steep learning curve on with our Sasquatch family Farms.

  We knew three months prior to buying microgreens, Barn2Door started helping us on the backend, and I think I really the second time around with Barn2Door, what I appreciated was the real systematic structure that you provide for a business as you onboard. They run very differently, but I think there's some systems and structures, things that we've really benefited from.

  And a lot of it is the coaching around with [00:05:00] Barn2Door. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, yeah. I've heard you talk about that on a previous episode, how much you really benefited from the coaching. What about customers? Is there any overlap there between the two businesses? 

  Shauna Perez: I think that's super fun. It's really great, the Microgreens came with an existing clientele of really amazing five star restaurants.

  And then to say, Hey, we could also be your local protein producer, has been really fun. And, on the protein side, we were really well connected down in Lewis County and so to be able to take some of those connections and join the hub as a second producer, there's just 35 farmers as part of the southwest Washington food hub that we're part of.

  And to have two farms in that hub is pretty awesome. 

  Kevin Soncrant: I imagine that, in spite of some of the overlap, there's probably quite a few differences. Like some of your microgreen customers are probably never interested in your pork products and vice versa. So, maybe talk to me a little bit about like the customer profile, like who you're targeting, who your ideal customer is for the Microgreen business, and what you really think about when looking to acquire new customers there.

  Shauna Perez: [00:06:00] Yeah. I think for us with microgreen, with both farm businesses, I think what's really important to us is that our businesses have a diversity in sales channels. For example, we sell to retail customers with porch box deliveries. We sell to wholesale retail and hunger relief. And we've found that some of those will ebb and flow up and down.

  And when you have a really strong base and a multitude of environments, we're able to kind of weather whatever the up or down is a bit better. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Talk to me more about the porch box delivery program. 

  Shauna Perez: We love Barn2Door. You know what, Kevin, you and your team have been awesome in helping us. That's not something that Mom's had, and it's a very strong sales channel for the Sasquatch Family Farms.

   And so, you asked me to tell you more about Porch box delivery. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Oh my goodness. That is a really amazing story. So we knew, we really liked the system that Barn2Door puts out to help you get out in front of customers. And we've watched that grow. We just launched [00:07:00] that in April and we're watching our sales and we're really proud of ourselves, for this being our first season of the Porch Box delivery program. For us, it's really springboarded though, so Hunger Relief right now is really having a hard time with funding. I mentioned that's one of our sales channels. So we've built, into our porch boxes, we give back to Hunger Relief as a fundraiser for them. And we've learned a lot of people have been impacted by not having federal funding in this season.

  And for them to be able to partner with us for their customers and their clientele to say, Hey, if we bought this great local box of produce, then it's sort of a fundraiser for us and it's a win-win. And we have a large distributor, Cascadia Produce, who I call every farmer's best friend who helps us with the logistics for our boxes every week.

  So, they do all of the packing and there are 17 farms that we source from that they handle all of that within their already existing system, which is pretty cool. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Wow. So, you [00:08:00] mentioned the delivery program for, in terms of how you fulfill the two businesses. Is there any overlap there? Like do you have some of the same pickup locations or target some of the same neighborhoods, or are those completely different as well for the two businesses?

  Shauna Perez: They're completely different. So, the two businesses are roughly 90 miles apart. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So I think they definitely feed off, we feed off of each other a lot and hey, this is like the Southwest Washington food hub being part of a food hub, Barn2Door. That was one of my first meetings with Alex, when I came to his marketing class, was be part of a food hub.

  They really help us a lot, so. The pork and the microgreens, we both sell through the food hub. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Gotcha. So raising animals versus microgreens, talk to me about like pros and cons of each. 

  Shauna Perez: I mean, the microgreens, you water them and they don't squeak or squeal, but they taste delicious as you walk through.

   They don't get you up at 2:00 AM to have babies. I'm not up all night with the microgreens. They're pretty plug and play. And I think they both have [00:09:00] their pros and cons. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Sure. 

  Shauna Perez: The microgreens, it's certainly nice to close the greenhouse door when we walk away at night. Right. And you can truly close the greenhouse door and not worry that you're gonna be chasing cows at 7:00 AM 

  Kevin Soncrant: Sure.

   Any unexpected things that have occurred with the microgreen business? 

  Shauna Perez: We're part of an incubator farm with the microgreens business, Riverside growers. There's three, four farms now there, and it's really neat to be part of an incubator farm with that, and just catch all of the positive energy and vibe off of everyone growing.

  Kevin Soncrant: What is an incubator farm? 

  Shauna Perez: Well, an incubator farm. We have this amazing mentor who spent 50 seasons in farming, Ben Degoede and Degoede farms. They have one of the largest hydroponic lettuce farms in Washington state with a incredible grow. Like, I've never seen swimming pools with lettuce floating on floating docks before.

  Right? And he also owns Windmill Gardens, which for 50 years has been the place that we go to buy our Mother's Day flower [00:10:00] baskets and is just a real force in the community of amazing for gardening and farming and local. And he walks through our greenhouse every day and says, Hey, I was thinking you ought to try.

  Hey, what do you think about this? And he sends us all these great, uh, we recently got a tray washer. So we've gone from spending a lot of time washing trays, thanks to his nudge, we got an automatic tray washer and we do a hundred trays in 15 minutes now. Huge labor savings for us, but just having somebody who's really experienced and he's really automated in his systems and his willingness to share has been great.

  We're going through the GAP and the Organic Certification process, but he's our host farm for our incubator farm, and he is already gone through both of those. So, when we needed something like, Hey, what's the water analysis? He was like, oh yeah, let me explain that to you here, I got all the documentation and they come here.

  And so I think for the microgreens, we feel really supported and surrounded and that's really cool. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Talk to us more about the [00:11:00] process of growing microgreens. Like what's that process look like for actually growing the microgreens? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, we, so I think when you ask me what's the difference between microgreens and animals, the microgreen grow is about seven days.

  So we get the soil, the seeds get laid on, it goes into the germ tent, comes out. The little baby veal of vegetables are grown. They get harvested, put in beautiful little packages and shipped off to the customer. As opposed to the animal operation, Hogs take us about 13 months from the time we breed till the time we have bacon in a package.

  So, it's a seven day turnaround. And I think initially we had some hiccups like when you take over something new, you have hiccups, right? And the cool thing about microgreens is if you make a mistake as a business owner, you have seven days and you can turn it right back around, that's pretty awesome.

   I think it's one of the reasons I think we love microgreen so much is any microgreen problem is truly solvable in seven days. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Amazing. How cool. [00:12:00] How did you decide which varieties to focus on and grow for the microgreens? 

  Shauna Perez: Mom's came with this really great customer list already of chefs and already had an existing list of here's what we're growing.

  I think as we're entering our eighth month now owning Mom's and we're starting to branch out and we have our chef clients who will call and say, Hey, I'd really like in this season we'd really love to have popcorn micro shoot, green shoots. Can you do that for us? And we'll say, sure, let us give it a try.

  You know, it only takes seven days. Let's see how we do. And so it's been really fun. 

  Kevin Soncrant: What's your most popular microgreens for like, regular retail customers? Like people like me that are buying microgreens? What's the most popular one? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. Hands down, it's our custom Mom's mix and it has seven different kinds of microgreens layered into it.

  Kevin Soncrant: I'm gonna put you on the spot. Do you know all seven off the top of your head? 

  Shauna Perez: Yes, I definitely know all seven off the top of my head. You're so kind. Okay. You ready for the mom's mix?

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. Yeah. Please. 

  Shauna Perez: May contain: pea shoots, broccoli, [00:13:00] kale, mustard, nasturtiums, radishes, fava, chervil, or cabbage. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Okay, interesting.

  Yeah, pea shoots is probably one of the most common ones I see across the board. Between that and broccoli. Those are probably the two most common ones I've seen. There's so many varieties. It seems endless for the varieties that are out there. 

  Shauna Perez: I think too, Barn2Door really coached us up a lot about, Hey, if you have an online store, you have consumer fatigue.

  If you have more than 10 things, how do you pick the top 10 things to really list? And like I said, we do the popcorn shoots, but you probably don't see that on the store, right? Like, that was my customer request. 

  Kevin Soncrant: So, your top seller then, you just do, essentially your own blend that you choose out of those varieties.

  And basically people get a, a sampling of your microgreens. That's awesome. When they purchase that one, how many ounces is that in that blend you were just describing? 

  Shauna Perez: Well, so we've decided to go really deep with that blend. We sell an eight ounce blend that's really [00:14:00] popular with like a first time sampler blend.

  We sell a container size of it that's 12 ounces, a 12 ounce container, and that's really popular for our porch boxes, and retail base. Then our chef clients like that in a 32 ounce container. 

  Kevin Soncrant: So, you mentioned Mom's came with its own existing customers, right? I'm sure though, knowing you, you've probably been out looking for new customers as well, so I'd like to talk about like what you've done to attract new customers.

  Maybe just start from like, maybe we'll break it down like a little bit of each section. Like when you look at in-person marketing efforts, what have been some of your in-person marketing efforts that you've done for the microgreen business? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, I think we really wanna engage with the community. So, we hosted an Ag day with about 20 other farms and producers and agricultural related things at the greenhouse where you could tour and walk through and teamed with high schools and the community.

  So that was a big outreach event about lettuce, tell you about microgreens, this career and technical education program. [00:15:00] From the high school came out and they did the floating lettuce, the hydroponic lettuce mixed with our microgreens, and they crafted up this delicious salad dressing. They tossed it all together so you could taste, what does this taste like?

   We talked to people about, so when we cut those pea shoots, we're done with that mat, like, right, that's our waste product. But, it grows back and we harvest a lot of trays every week. So we gave people their own pea shoots, and I think what I have loved most is we gave them those pea shoots back in April.

  We're now getting all of these social media posts about, look at our pea shoots from Mom's Micro Garden, and there's these beautiful gardens growing all around the community from our waste product. So, we really focus on being a circular farm. And as much as I love them down at Sasquatch, regrowing for our animals and them eating 'em.

  What's even more cool is all the partnerships that have formed out of that with schools and community gardens where they're taking our once harvest, so our seconds, replanting them and have made bountiful gardens. 

  Kevin Soncrant: How [00:16:00] cool. Yeah. It kind of spills into the next part too, 'cause that's like an in-person marketing effort that turned into an online marketing effort.

  You may not have even foreseen that. How you get people to then just post about you from their experience. What else have you done from an online marketing perspective for the business? 

  Shauna Perez: Well, my business partner Jill, is really great with graphics. Like, shout out to Jill. She does all of our social media postings.

  So, every week Jill takes a picture of the three different boxes we sell for subscription boxes, and she gets a really great post that says, Hey, this is what we have going on this week. Isn't this awesome? Right. And then she lists out because most people don't just want a microgreens box, right?

  Like we found people want a variety. So we've partnered with those 17 farms that Cascadia produce aggregates out for us, and then packs into a box. So, she'll post like, Hey, your peas this week came from four elements. Or she's posting about where everything comes from and source, we really wanna be transparent about what's coming in your box.

  Where does it come [00:17:00] from? Where was it sourced from? Who grew it? 

  Kevin Soncrant: Love that. So obviously there's some educational aspect there. What about education that's specific to microgreens? How much do y'all focus on that in terms of nutrients or usage or any of those aspects of those unique plants. 

  Shauna Perez: I think I wanna like pitch the Barn2Door marketing class.

  Like in that class you all taught us that we needed three to four posts a week and you kind of like walked us through the formula of that. So, we tried to use that Barn2Door coaching in our social media posting. So, we tried to have a picture of what did we eat as a family this week that had microgreens on it and what's the recipe for it?

  Did a customer eat something great with microgreens on it? Send us in a picture, post it, and we sent them back a freebie. Just looking at if making those three to four posts a week, what does the produce box look like? What does the greenhouse look like? 

  Kevin Soncrant: Awesome. Yeah, I always appreciate that too, being someone that buys microgreens regularly and I just found myself kind of throwing them on top of stuff occasionally.

  So, being able to get more [00:18:00] concerted ways to use those is always helpful for me as a consumer. Pickup locations. You have quite a few of them. How did you choose those pickup locations? 

  Shauna Perez: Thank you. We do have a lot of pickup locations. So, Windmill Gardens is that incubator farm that we are already based at with our greenhouse, so that made sense to be a pickup location there.

  Plus, I think when we're looking for pickup locations, the microgreens are really temperature sensitive. So, if they just sat out somewhere. They wouldn't be very happy. So does the pickup location have cold storage that they would let us use for this as part of our community farming effort? 

  Kevin Soncrant: Makes sense. Any other pickup locations you're considering right now that you're looking into? 

  Shauna Perez: I think we're always looking for more. I think what we're really excited about this fall is we're partnering with some high schools and some preschools and elementary schools around their need for fundraising and nutrient dense food.

  And so their parent organizations are gonna do like a little mini farmer's market pop up [00:19:00] for us. And we're very excited to get in the community. And so those will be some pickup locations coming once a month where your purchase not only supports us as a small farm, but then we'll also partner to support the community organization you're passionate about.

  So we have a couple of those that are partnerships with community organizations. We have Three Dogs Cider down here, and they've been a great resource, I would just say breweries and cideries are like thumbs up. We're trying to do some like, you know, if you do your beer tasting, you should do a microgreen tasting right alongside it.

  Kevin Soncrant: How cool. What a unique idea. Yeah. That's such a great thing to consider too, 'cause especially, local breweries and cideries, the people go in there already paying more for local products, so they're naturally inclined to be willing to pay more for like, locally raised produce and microgreens. It makes so much sense.

  Shauna Perez: I should tell you, one of our chef clients is called the Neighborhood. They're in West Seattle and they took our cantaloupe microgreens and they've now made it into a simple syrup that is one of their bestselling drinks this month, like on the foodie scale. We're [00:20:00] just appreciative that a lot of the places that work with us and buy our product, then also partner with us.

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. How amazing. So, this is maybe just kind of encompassing marketing efforts all across, like anything. What's your focus right now in terms of bringing in new customers? What would you say some of the top tactics y'all are looking to employ to bring in new customers are right now? 

  Shauna Perez: Ooh, that's a great question.

  I think that we are really working on, we talked about the different sales channels, right? So we have the produce boxes, we have the restaurants, we have our wholesale. How can we diversify that and add more clients that we serve every week? So, we're just really working on how do we continue to increase that number of customers that we're serving every week.

  Kevin Soncrant: Any plans for any farmer's markets? 

  Shauna Perez: We currently go to two or three farmer's markets a month. I think for, like from the farmer hat, if I put the farmer hat side on, every time we choose to go to a farmer's market, we know that's gonna cost us [00:21:00] from a revenue side. When we've done the math on it, it costs me $500, before we get there. So, if we're going, does it have the potential to make $500 or is it a marketing activity for us? 

  Kevin Soncrant: I imagine, regardless, you probably still always think of it as a marketing activity, right? 

  Shauna Perez: I think the marketing activity is always an extra win. So we're going to one Friday, that's a really cool housing, in a housing development, that we're very excited about.

  I think it's a great time for us to talk about nutrient dense local farm food. And for us, it wasn't an every week farmer's market. For them, it was just a, Hey, we're gonna try this and see. And we thought, that's great. We don't have a long-term commitment. We'll try that and see with you. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Makes sense.

  So when you're there in person at like a pickup location or at a market, what are some like really good practices you would say that you would give advice to newer farmers that haven't done that before? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. I would say this comes again from your Barn2Door marketing class that I didn't know when we started this.

  So, we have flyers and postcards, and we leave [00:22:00] those everywhere we go. So every community board for everywhere that's a pickup location, but also just like, Hey, am I shopping at Safeway, at a chain grocery store and they have a board, I'm gonna put a flyer up for my produce everywhere I go. I'm putting those up like we carry 'em in our purses with tape and tacks.

   Everywhere you go, you put those up. Like the goal is to go through 500 postcards a month from personal, putting those up somewhere. So, our kids are tasked with that. Our husbands are tasked with that. Everybody we know hands out the flyers and the postcards. 

  Kevin Soncrant: I love that. What's the core information that's on your flyers?

  Shauna Perez: We keep changing it up. So we have recipe cards that on one side will have a recipe for like, how do you use pea shoots? And the other side tells you about order our fresh produce box. Take that workload off of you. We try to double up on it and do a two-sided postcard and then the flyers are just constantly seasonally changing.

  Like most places take down your flyers after 30 days. So like, where are we going that we need to [00:23:00] put up a new flyer next month? 

  Kevin Soncrant: Gotcha. So, is there some information that's always constant, like website, QR code, or is it always different? 

  Shauna Perez: I love that coach in you. Yes. Always has the website, always has a QR code.

  Make it easy. People don't want multiple clicks. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Right. And then, we talked about partnerships. So how'd you form these? Obviously there were some partnerships that existed when you go to form a new partnership. Like how, what's your approach there when you're forming a partnership for the business?

  Shauna Perez: I think we just love our happy little microgreens so much, and we probably over the top talk about how much we love our microgreens and it just organically seems to form partnerships when you're like, Hey Kevin, let me tell you about my microgreens. Come taste these cantaloupe greens. They are like the most juicy.

  I can't even describe the best cantaloupe you've ever had in a little green sprout. Right? Like it's totally mind blowing and I think we're just so excited about microgreens and talk about them everywhere we go to everyone we go that we have a lot of organic partnerships that pop up. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Oh, cool. [00:24:00] Yeah, your passion obviously really comes through in that instance.

  I can say I've never had cantaloupe microgreens, and I want them really badly right now. I will look endlessly for them. 

  Shauna Perez: Okay, Kevin, we'll ship you out some cantaloupe microgreens.

  Kevin Soncrant: Amazing. So, talk to me about partnerships and how they can be mutually beneficial for both businesses.

  Shauna Perez: Well, I really think for the Cascadia Produce is probably the biggest mutually beneficial for us and it kind of radiates out. So they really helped us with this concept called economy of scale. Our packaging, because we purchase our packaging through them and they buy so much. Packaging is now 25% less than I can buy it from anywhere else.

  And for a small business to save 25% on something I need every day is pretty huge. And then that sort of spider webbed out into, there are multiple other microgreen farmers we're connected to who are like, Hey, who are you using for packaging? We're getting this awesome deal. Wanna jump on the economy [00:25:00] of scale with us?

  And so, now we're all saving that cost and as we're like just everything seems to get more expensive every day. So to save that much on packaging has been a huge economy of scale. How do we find an opportunity and then share it with our farm network? 

  Kevin Soncrant: I love that. So goals, as you look towards like the end of this year and into next, what would you say some of the top goals are for Mom's Micro?

  Shauna Perez: Our number one goal is to grow our produce box. We love that produce box. We have three of 'em. We have a wild harvest that's like the best deal in produce this week. We have the local box and we have an organic box, and we're finding that people love them as soon as they find out about us and that people don't know we exist.

  So for us, it's to grow the produce box and help everybody get really nutrient dense, healthy food. 

  Kevin Soncrant: And so when you say that, just for clarification, that would be like a subscription to that produce box, right? 

  Shauna Perez: Yes, a subscription to that produce box. And what we're finding is some of our larger and even [00:26:00] smaller like wholesale clients, like restaurant clients that we deliver to, or institutions when we say, Hey, we have this produce box and you could have it as an employee benefit and we're already coming here on Friday. You want us to drop this off? And your employees that have tasty, fresh produce, they're like, yeah, that's awesome.

  So I think when you said how do things mesh together, it's, it's what's our existing client base already ordering and how can we add value for them? 

  Kevin Soncrant: Sure. What a great way to think about it. How do you hope to expand the business? 

  Shauna Perez: We hope to grow by leaps and bounds. So, we have one 3000 foot cold frame right now that we grow in, and we're hoping that we really would like to double that by next year.

  Kevin Soncrant: Holy smokes. 

  Shauna Perez: So we're, we're pushing the edge of it today, and we're hoping, business and microgreens kind of goes up and down. And today our farm manager, Elaine called and she said, Hey, do you think you could pick me up some more racks? We're outta rack space. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: And so, I think we're just looking at how much more can we push in the space we have.

  And [00:27:00] the cool thing about where we're at is they have 11 more spaces for us to grow into. 

  Kevin Soncrant: That's a lot of room. That's awesome. 

  Shauna Perez: Unless we get some more like incubator farms. Like if people are interested in getting into farming in the Pacific Northwest, give us a shout and let us tell you about this cool place we grow our Microgreens at.

  Kevin Soncrant: Great. I love that. Any dream partnerships that you're exploring or looking into? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, I think what we've really learned is, as we're growing in sales volume and the next step for us, we need that gap in organic certification to take advantage of some opportunities being sent our way. And if, for people who don't know, GAP certification is good agricultural practices.

  So we put in today for the USDA to come out and do the good agricultural practices audit of our farm. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, I know that can be a pretty lengthy process sometimes. How about advice for other farms that want to pursue a microgreen business? 

  Shauna Perez: Do it yesterday. Do it yesterday. Get started. Just get started.

  I think you need really great soil, really great seeds, [00:28:00] and you have to be passionate about how much you love the happy little green growing. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. Passion makes a big difference for everything in life. Right? Anything you wanna mention that we haven't covered? Anything that you think is really important?

  Shauna Perez: Just thanks for having us. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, of course. Thank you Shauna. So yeah, I wanna extend my thanks to Shauna for joining us on this week's podcast episode. 

  You can check out more of Shauna, and the farm on their website, MomsMicroGarden.com. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales, and save time for their business.

  If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management, please visit Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  [00:29:00] Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to Barn2Door.com/Resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week’s episode, Kevin and Cory of Barn2Door’s Success Team discuss how Farms have built successful partnerships with other local businesses in their community. By identifying ideal partners and uncovering their Buyers' local loop, Farms have created convenient ways to expand their product reach.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Kevin Soncrant: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Kevin, the head of our success team at Barn2Door, and I'm your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, [00:01:00] taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can purchase from their farm, both online and in person.

  In today's conversation, we're going to get into utilizing partnerships in your community and the local loop to expand your farm's reach. Today I'm happy to welcome back Cory, who's one of our account managers here at Barn2Door, and helps farmers implement best practices when building their brand and direct to consumer operations.

  I'm excited to talk to Cory about forming partnerships with other local businesses, uncovering your community's local loop and expanding your farm's reach to increase sales. Welcome Cory. 

  Cory Hutsen: Thanks, Kevin. Good to be back on the podcast. This is one of my favorite things to do at Barn2Door. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, I've listened to some of your previous episodes.

  They are very good. You're a natural for this, that's for sure. And who better to have on this particular episode than someone who's probably had these types of conversations with farms more than just about anybody here? So Cory, can you give us maybe just a little background on how [00:02:00] you help support farmers who are trying to expand their reach within their community?

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah so, when I meet with farmers as a farm account manager, I'm covering a lot of different things from the basics of helping farms, you know, help with their store, MailChimp. But a big portion of my meetings is having marketing conversations and having conversations on how to grow your customer list, how to effectively reach customers and drive those customers to your online store. So, expanding out and tapping into their local market and partnering with businesses has been something that I've constantly been brainstorming ways, listening to other farmer success stories of how they've been able to achieve that.

   So, it's one of my favorite topics to discuss and yeah, excited to dive a little more into it. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Awesome. Yeah. Let's maybe just start then with a brief overview, like what does it look like for a farm to partner with other local businesses? 

  Cory Hutsen: So, [00:03:00] it can look a couple of different ways. From a very basic way, it can look like you are selling another business's products in your store, or another business is selling your products in their store.

   Now you take kind of the next step and we'll get into this a little bit more using the example of like a independent grocery, but maybe you're using a local business as a drop off point, a convenient spot where some of your customers already frequent and you are utilizing that business as a drop off point.

  They have refrigerators or cold storage, and in exchange you are driving foot traffic into that business. It can look as simply as maybe in a church or a coffee shop, you have your flyer on their bulletin board, or maybe that business is including a link to your store in their newsletter.

  So, there's a number of different ways these kind of partnerships can look and formulate. [00:04:00] 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, I've even seen some farms partner with other local businesses to do giveaways to expand their reach. And, you know, they'll launch a giveaway, combine each other's products, use that to capture emails, share it on each other's socials, and really boost each other's presence using their own current followings to essentially dip into each other's customer bases.

   But yeah, I mean, ultimately there's an immense amount of ways in which they can partner with other businesses. And one additional topic we'll get into further that kind of goes hand in hand with partnerships is the concept of the local loop. So, anyone that's not familiar with this term, could you maybe just give a brief explanation of what the local loop is?

  Cory Hutsen: The local loop is gonna be where yourself and your customers frequently visit. The places of business, the locations. So, this can be churches, grocery stores, schools, gyms. The places that are most frequently visited by yourself and your community or your potential customer base. 

  Kevin Soncrant: [00:05:00] Yeah, absolutely. And to expand on that a little further, generally, you know, you look at a suburban mom who's the ideal customer for a lot of our top Farms, you know, every week she's kind of making the same trip, traveling throughout the community to and from school, dropping her kids. There might be a local gym in there on a weeknight, maybe a local church on the weekend, a coffee shop on a Saturday, Bar or Brewery on a Friday. And so, those places that she is consistently going on a week to week or month to month basis would be a part of her local loop.

   So, we all have slightly different local loops, obviously, but understanding your ideal customers' local loops and where they're already going can give you a leg up on the ability to get in front of them and secure more customers. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. Securing two birds with one stone situations. If someone's already going to the, you know, church for a Wednesday night Bible study, that's a great, great way to knock out, you know, they're not making an extra trip to go pick up their order, places they're [00:06:00] already visiting.

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, absolutely. If you can meet 'em where they are, you're making their lives easier. And convenience is king when it comes to online e-commerce. The more convenient it's for people to get your products, the more likely they are to wanna purchase them. So Cory, let's, let's dive a little bit deeper into some different ways we could partner with local businesses and really just like how to start, as well.

  So like, if I'm brand new, I've never partnered with anyone, like what would you recommend? How should I start this process?

  Cory Hutsen: To start, before you do anything, I would first think about your approach. And as you're thinking about your approach, one thing I've started to talk to farms about doing, is just take out a pen and paper, or maybe you're on your laptop and start just jotting down names, people you know, whether that's friends, family, parents of your kids, coaches of your kids' sports teams, people you've worked with in the past.

   And start to just note down different people and [00:07:00] like how you can network or speak with those people, about your store and your online store. And then you can also start to jot down businesses that you're already familiar with. Maybe you will know the coffee shop owner in town. Maybe your friend or your kid's baseball coach knows the coffee shop owner in town, or your friend's mom goes to the local yoga studio in town.

   So, that's a very preliminary start. And then, on top of that, I would start to think about your message that you're gonna present these potential businesses with. Like, what am I going to portray as what a partnership would look like, what the benefits would be for that business when I speak with them. So, you're just not going into it, you know, cold when you first start to approach these businesses with that.

  So, you want to be ready to go and have a game plan. Now, I was speaking with a farm very recently, and I think they're an amazing example [00:08:00] of what it takes and what it looks like to form a partnership with a business. This farm had a local grocery, just a small local grocery that was focused on curating local products, had more of a health nutrition vibe to it, and she thought that would be an amazing partner, but didn't know this store owner. 

  So what she did, she first, she drove and went to that store. The owner, manager wasn't there, so she dropped off her flyer. Now, her flyer had her QR code to her signup form. It had her website, URL on it, had some key bullet points on what she does and what her overall values are like, grass fed or sustainably raised, or just locally raised, whatever's most important to you and you want to portray, those are good things to list as well. Now, she then followed up that after driving home. She followed up a few days later with a phone call and talked to the owner. Did you see [00:09:00] that flyer, owner answered, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, she eventually talked to that owner again and said, Hey, I think it'd be great for us to meet. Let me just get in front of you and talk to you about what I do and what this could look like. The owner was apprehensive. Again, not really knowing her, but once she was actually able to drive and schedule that in person meeting, Hey, here's what it's gonna look like.

  I could just do, you know, popups have my bundle boxes. I already have this existing customer base that are placing orders all the time on my online store. They're gonna be placing orders, it's gonna be more customers coming into your storefront on a Saturday afternoon, it'd be great for me 'cause I'm gonna have access to more customers.

  So, that was a lot of effort on her behalf and she took all different approaches from emailing and calling to going in person, dropping off a flyer, to following up and actually scheduling a physical in-person meeting. So, that's what it takes a lot of the times, but, the hard work definitely paid [00:10:00] off in that scenario.

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. Amazing. What a great story. And I love the way you started that too. It's just like for people to sit down and just analyze their own current network, 'cause a lot of times we don't realize how strong that network is and how many people we know and how many connections and opportunities may exist right there when we just sit down and simply write out who we know and who they may know, and then start asking people for help.

   One other thing that it's probably worth talking about here too, when we're looking at starting is, once we've kind of exhausted those means would be, utilizing the brand basics worksheet at Barn2Door, where we will work with farmers to help them identify their ideal customer and then places those ideal customers frequent.

  Could you maybe give a little insight into what that process looks like as well, Cory? 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, the brand Basic Worksheet is an incredible resource as well, and kind of serves as almost a guideline to some of the list building that I was referencing earlier. They will actually send out that brand basics worksheet, before a lot of our academies, like grassroots marketing or Social Media [00:11:00] Academy.

  And it's just, it's a thinking exercise as much as anything else. It'll help you kind of go through your local loop, like it'll ask you to identify the places you frequently visit churches, schools. It'll ask you to identify who you think your ideal customer demographic is. Is it, you know, young adults? Is it married folks?

  Is it a couple with three, four young kids? Is it, you know, like you referenced earlier, suburban Sally, your active gym goer. So, it's making you think about all these things that, for a lot of farms I've met with who are new to selling in general or selling online, a lot of times they haven't really like put a ton of thought into who is my core demographic, who's going to be my ideal customer?

   And that brand basics worksheet does a really good job of helping you dig deeper into some of those things. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, like you said, the simple act of sitting down and identifying who that ideal customer is. Their demographic information, where they're frequenting can really help [00:12:00] you utilize your marketing efforts more wisely.

  So you're not trying to market to everyone and not trying to make everyone your customer, but a very select group of people, which can allow you to be much more specific with your messaging as well as where you're going to find those people. You mentioned on the brief overview some different ways we can partner with local businesses.

   Could we just maybe go over a few other ways in which some farms can partner with local businesses?

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, absolutely. So, we touched on earlier, some brief overviews of ways that you can partner with other businesses. Now some of the most successful ways I've seen are from a very basic standpoint of exchanging social media shoutouts, like maybe you are partnering with the local coffee shop in town and you've started to build a little bit of a Facebook or Instagram following, you know, you're promoting their store and maybe they're promoting you, send over your Barn2Door store link, and they're posting that for you on Facebook.

   And you can get into [00:13:00] things, you know, a little bit deeper. Like I had mentioned, the local grocery, which is a great example because sometimes they might have refrigerator space. So, if you are a protein farm doing beef, pork, chicken, and you need cold storage, partnering with like a local grocery to be able to drop off your bundle boxes for your customers to pick up. And again, you're kind of messaging that to the owner as, Hey, in exchange for this cold storage, like we kind of share ideal customers, customers are buying from me because they want local sustainable foods. Those are kind of the same people who are visiting your store.

  So, while they're coming to pick up bundles, I'm driving that traffic into your store.

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, that's fantastic, Cory. I know many of our most successful farms, their mindset is never turned out an opportunity to meet with someone or get your name out there so, you know, if it's the local news organization that wants to do a story on you or you know you have an opportunity or seek out opportunities to even go speak at schools or do [00:14:00] school field trips, work with your local church and do giveaways or even speak at the local church.

  We've had very savvy farmers as well look at building co-op and workspaces. We have a farm actually that drops their CSA off here where we work. We have a 19th floor in a downtown office with a number of other businesses that share this workspace and they advertise their CSA here and drop it off every week and every two weeks for people to pick up.

   And ultimately, the more opportunities farms take to get their name out there, the more opportunities they give themselves to build a strong customer base. So, Cory, let's move on a little bit and talk more about, when farms are forming partnerships, where should they begin? 

  Cory Hutsen: So, and I should have mentioned this earlier, Kevin, because one of my favorite exercises to do when I meet with farms is when we're actually looking at what businesses we're identifying is to just pull up Google Maps, right?

  This is after we've already started brainstorming, using the brand basics worksheet and creating our own list. But, when I'm meeting with farms. I will just pull up maps, [00:15:00] whatever. Where's the town? Where's the city? Where's the neighborhood that you're looking to target? Where do you think your ideal customers are gonna be coming from?

   And so, one exercise I'll do is I'll pull up Google Maps and I'm just gonna type in gyms. When you do that on Google Maps, red dots are gonna populate on the screen that are gonna show you each gym in that area. And you can hover over it. You're gonna see what the gym is. You're gonna be able to see the website link. Now, I will, and this goes for other businesses as well, because I'm going to add a few key things that are gonna help us here. We're gonna immediately eliminate any chains, right? Same goes for coffee shops or grocery stores. 24 Hour Fitness, Anytime Fitness, we're gonna eliminate those. We're specifically doing this on Google Maps to identify those gyms where we can actually talk to a decision maker, that's gonna help us.

   So, you can do the same thing for whatever businesses you're looking for, but starting there, mapping out [00:16:00] Google Maps, and then you're just going to the website. There's gonna be contact information, pull phone numbers, pull emails. That's your first place to start. Make sure you have something ready to go that has a link to your store.

   What you're looking to do, what you're looking to offer, but before driving out to meet people or picking up the phone, I would just start behind your computer and pulling up Google Maps. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. I love that. And I think coming back to what you said on the front end, because it's worth repeating here, is that going back to the local loop and looking at your own connections, but your own local loop.

  Right. Start there first. It's a great simple starting point. Businesses that you go to, restaurants that you visit, a school that maybe if you have any kids that go to a school, if you attend a church, places within your own local loop that you're already frequenting are also very good places to start.

   Cory, what are some typical partnerships that you see your farms forming?

  Cory Hutsen: So, I just touched on like the Google maps, and I use the example of gyms, but I use that [00:17:00] example for a reason because that's been an extremely successful partnership for a lot of farms I've worked with. I initially started mentioning that because I'm a gym goer myself, I also am someone who cares a lot about the food that I eat.

  I'm very nutritionally focused and so, going to local farms, like as soon as you get anybody who is nutritionally focused or fitness focused, they're gonna eventually listen to something or read something that's gonna tell 'em how amazing it is to buy from a local producer. Right? So when they do that, those people are looking for farms.

   The big issue right now is they don't have the awareness. Like if I asked any of my friends where they would go to buy from a local farmer, they're gonna say, I guess the farmer's market. You ask that same question, the person's gonna say, well, you know, I go to the farmer's market maybe once a month or once a year even, which I think is actually the statistic in which average Americans frequent the market.

   So, gyms is an incredible partnership. [00:18:00] Those people are gonna be nutritionally focused, they're gonna be quality focused. They're not gonna be price focused on the food they're purchasing. Now, I've had it go from as simple as the gym owner allows you to hang up your flyer with your QR code to they're gonna include your store link, your Barn2Door store link on their newsletter to their own internal customer base.

   All the way to, I have a gym that drops off a cooler of beef sticks as a quick snack for gym goers. I have farms that do bundle boxes and protein subscription drop-offs at gyms. So, there's a wide range. I mean you're gonna take a little, but you know, you continue to develop that relationship. And generally gym owners are pretty excited, to speak with farms, 'cause there's a reason they're that entrepreneur and they started a gym, they're probably pretty aligned with what you're gonna be doing. So, gyms is a huge one. We already discussed local groceries, utilizing [00:19:00] schools like just going within your own family. A lot of times we've spoken with farms who will go to, you know, their kids' schools and do guest speaking events.

  That's a great way to get in front of parents or, you know, in exchange, Hey, we actually do on-farm visits, you can bring your kids out to the farm, but that's an awesome opportunity as well. Just that also, not even building the customer base, but starting to build an actual relationship and a brand loyalty.

   You know, If parents are super excited about a farmer speaking to their kids and now knowing there's a place where they can take their kids out to see, you know, animals and spend a day outdoors. And then the last thing I'll highlight just because I've heard it so often, as well is churches. Obviously churches have bulletin boards in their lobbies, but we've even had farms who after Sunday services will have their truck with coolers and do [00:20:00] pop-ups outside of the churches.

  As the congregation's flooding out the doors. So, that's an ideal scenario as well. And there's many, many more examples, I could get into, but those are some of the key big ones. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Great examples, Cory. I'll share a couple I've seen, I've seen local breweries be a great pickup for some farms. Unique thing about a local brewery is the people that are going there value local products, they're generally gonna be paying two to three times more for the same, for a domestic beer versus the local brewery. So, they really want a high quality local product. And, generally you have people that are going there consistently on weekends.

  Salons have some potential. You talk about, again, another ideal customer overlap. Suburban Sally. A lot of people going local beauty shops or salons. And then, one thing maybe worth just mentioning here, Cory, one thing you and I were discussing the other day was potential for like firehouses. Do you want to maybe share a little bit about what we were thinking about with that?

  Cory Hutsen: Oh yeah, firehouses and another one of our account managers, Ryan Grace has brought [00:21:00] this up as well, but thinking about incredible partnerships, when you think about firehouses, almost every single town, city has a firehouse. A lot of times, those firehouses are gonna have their huge garage doors open, and you're gonna be able to see the firemen hanging out inside.

   And those firemen spend a lot of time together cooking, grilling, doing different activities. They're also generally very involved in the community and very highly regarded by the rest of the surrounding community. So, that could be a super approachable business to, you know, just go over to, hey, I know you guys love to grill.

   I've got my incredible beef and pork box. If you guys place an order in my online store, I can come drop it off. Maybe we could have some other customers come to the firehouse to pick up or you guys, could start spreading the word for me as well. So, firehouses is a unique one, but I [00:22:00] do really love it, when I first heard it and the more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, that would be an awesome partnership.

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, absolutely. Great. Thank you for sharing all those examples, Cory. Let's talk a little bit more about just like uncovering the local loop in your community. Like if we're, again, starting out and looking to find our local loop in our community, where should we, how can we uncover that further?

  Cory Hutsen: I mean, I think it's, for a lot of farms, Kevin, and this is, you know, I have this conversation with farmers where you're on a farm, right? A lot of times your farm is generally pretty removed from the actual town or city. You're very rural. Maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it's an hour away, to where the bulk of your customers actually live and the local loop that you're looking to identify. So, I think the first step in starting to uncover more about your local loop is getting off the farm a little bit. Right, it's gonna be leaving the farm and driving into town and [00:23:00] starting to scout out local businesses, talking to folks, shaking hands, 'cause we can talk about all these different marketing strategies, QR codes, flyers, driving people to your online store.

   The best way still to bring awareness to the fact that you have an online store is word of mouth and it's meeting with people and you're never gonna be able to portray the message in a way that you want it to better than you will be able to in person. And actually talking to folks. So, I think that's the biggest thing in uncovering your local loop is starting to get off the farm and talking to folks about where would be a convenient pickup location if you were able to establish one.

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, talking to people and asking questions. There's so much that can be learned from asking questions in such a simple practice to implement. Some other things we've seen some farms do that have been helpful, surveying people, right? Sending out a survey on social media or email. And then just getting a grasp on customer routines can be really [00:24:00] helpful as well. Understanding what their routines are, and again, sometimes that comes through just talking and asking questions. So Cory, when we look at partnerships and the local loop, there's some overlap there when it comes to farmers' marketing efforts.

  Could you maybe expand on some of the overlap you've seen between those two? 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And so one thing I wanna highlight that immediately popped into my head, Kevin, you had mentioned breweries just a minute ago. So a lot of our farms might already have wholesale relationships, with clientele like breweries or restaurants that they're already making frequent visits to. Well, it's always worth speaking with some of those owners in your point of contact you have the wholesale relationship with and see if there's an opportunity for that business to be a pickup location for the rest of your customer base.

   So, I think that's a great overlap. Again, you're already frequenting maybe delivering that wholesale order each week, and potentially you have a great relationship with them and your customers are already, you know, a lot of [00:25:00] them already like to frequent that brewery, so might be potential for them to pick up their bundle box on their way home. Now, looking at some other ways this kind of overlaps. One thing I actually mentioned to you in the office today, Kevin, maybe you're a farmer with young kids, maybe you have friends who have kids. I was speaking with a farmer the other day who was going to baseball tournaments, little league baseball tournaments almost every single weekend.

   And everybody knows like little League Baseball, you have your little concession stands there. Well, he saw an as opportunity to bring coolers with his beef sticks. And what better way where you know a high concentration of customers are gonna be in one area. You're gonna have a lot of parents watching kids baseball getting hungry and you have, you know, a much healthier, better option than what's generally available at those little league baseball games as someone who spent a lot of time playing sports and knows what's offered for [00:26:00] parents and kids playing sports. So, that's an awesome opportunity to just meet people, introduce 'em to your products, get a sampling out there. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. I can't tell you how many packs of bubble gum, and packs of Skittles I had growing up playing baseball would've been much welcome to have some local farm food. For sure. 

  Cory Hutsen: Exactly. 

  Kevin Soncrant: Cory, any other parting words of wisdom you wanna share before we wrap up? 

  Cory Hutsen: One thing I'll just mention, because it's not as much related to, we've talked a lot about the different local businesses and your local loop, that you can partner with and start to identify. But, sometimes that might look in the sense of like an actual club or an organization. So, I just wanted to mention that to close too, because I've had farmers who have built partnerships because they're part of their local rotary club or the local chambers of commerce.

   Right. Where that's a great place to meet local business owners. So, even going to a town hall meeting, or getting involved in [00:27:00] one of those organizations, that can be a great way, again, to get you off the farm and start building some of those relationships and networking. 

  Kevin Soncrant: I love that. That's great. Well, Cory, thank you so much.

  I wanna extend thanks to you for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Barn2Door on our Instagram @Barn2Door. Here at Barn2Door, we are humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales, and save time for their business.

  If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and want to simplify your business management, please visit www.Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  [00:28:00] Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week’s episode, Joe of Dirty Girl Produce (CA) shares his experience in building a base of Wholesale Buyers in his community. Learn best practices for attracting and retaining Wholesale Buyers, and picking which customers are right for your Farm.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer of Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, and selling under their own brand, online and in [00:01:00] person.

  In today's conversation, we're gonna get into creating an ideal customer profile for wholesale buyers and how to identify and target those customers. Today, I'm happy to welcome back Joe of Dirty Girl Produce in California. Joe is a part of our farm advisor network and has worked with us for five years. Since becoming an advisor, Joe has shared many tactics for serving wholesale and retail buyers alike, selling at local farmer's markets, and scaling his produce operation.

  I'm excited to talk with Joe today about identifying wholesale buyers, how to target these customers and how they're different than serving retail buyers. Welcome back, Joe. It's great to see you. 

  Joe Schirmer: Good to see you. Thanks for having me. 

  James Maiocco: Well, you're looking good. A little older than we last talked last time.

   But great to see that you're healthy and I hope you and your family are well. Before we get started and dive in to talking more about your business, can you share with our listeners who may not know about Dirty Girl Produce a little bit more about your origin story. How'd you guys get founded?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, right. Two good friends of [00:02:00] mine, Ally and Jane started Dirty Girl Produce in 94 and I was an intern at a homeless garden in 93, 94 with one of them, Jane, became really good friends with both of them. I was touring around, working on farms. When I heard that they had, you know, kind of started a little garden back home and I actually moved back to work for 'em.

  So, I worked for 'em for a couple of years and then they wanted out. So, I just basically continued Dirty Girl on the land they farmed, the tractor they had and the farmer's markets that they had established. By 2000 I had taken over the farm entirely. It's been, you know, now 25 years, and it's been 30 years that Dirty Girl has been around.

  So, we have a lot of the same customers. I just saw customers in Berkeley that I've seen for 30 years, it's pretty crazy. 

  James Maiocco: Wow. Talk about a loyal customer base. That is amazing. What was it like, I mean, at that time growing the business in the early days, and I know you guys have your growth has continued to grow and be propelled.

   But what was [00:03:00] it like early days versus what it is today? 

  Joe Schirmer: Completely different. I mean, when I started we didn't have cell phones. Right. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Joe Schirmer: I remember I was in a, on a farm in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the summer, and it was like off grid, I mean, 10 miles on a dirt road. You know, I bought a motorcycle just so I could get into Santa Fe, and I remember driving on the way out, leaving, and seeing all these billboards. And the billboards, I'm like, there's another one where it said like, www. Whatever, there were websites. You know what I mean? So I was, God, everybody's doing this website thing, you know? So, it was pretty, pretty crazy back then. Right? Everything analog. I mean there was computers and stuff, but you know, you're just talking maybe like a word processor, for someone like me, we weren't really using anything.

  So, it's crazy how technology has changed, farmer's markets have exploded. There were very few farmer's markets. There were very few direct to consumer avenues that you could do. I think these are the early years when I first started. CSAs were just starting. They were [00:04:00] just getting started and now they're all over the place.

   So, it's been crazy and we have definitely scaled up, but we've still stayed small. You know, we have 46 acres that we lease. And so when we started, we're three acres and now we're 46 and you know, we've contracted to 25 and then back up to 40 and 50 at one point. So we, I've had a lot of little leases over the time and, we mostly just grow row crops, row crop veggies, you know, organic veggies, and it's been good.

  James Maiocco: What an incredible journey. Like you said, probably for many of our listeners probably don't recall the era before cell phones, let alone the internet. Right? Yeah, I know that the changes have been, dramatic across every industry. But I think, you know, farming may have been a little bit late to the game.

  Like you said, most farmers, you know, outside of word processing probably weren't using technology. When did you guys actually make the transition online? When did you guys first open up a website? I'm kind of curious about that. 

  Joe Schirmer: That's a good question. The first website, I remember it. But I'm trying to think of what year [00:05:00] that was.

  It's probably been a while. It's probably been like 15 years since we had our first website and our first website, it was so primitive and the motivation was really to try to, I wanted to put recipes online. 

  James Maiocco: Mm. 

  Joe Schirmer: You know, because I basically wanted to answer the questions that people were asking me at farmer's markets.

  'Cause that's essentially what we sold a lot. You know, we did deliveries, but that's always transactional. But when you're at the farmer's market, people ask you so many questions. You know, how do you use this? What do you do? And so, we started with this Dirty Girl cookbook idea and then started getting a lot of chefs to put in recipes.

  So, I think it was probably around 15 years ago. Might have even been more like 15, 18 years. But I think that's been totally scrapped since I think we've, on our website like three times, four times, I don't even know how many times. And of course, getting, actually using a website for e-commerce is totally different, right?

  It's totally different than what we used when we first got on with a website, right? Which is basically just a landing place and maybe you leave a phone number or [00:06:00] something, you know, for someone to contact you and some info. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, life's changed quite a bit since then. I'm gonna probably maybe after this go take a look at the Way Back time machine where I can see back, you know, you know what your website may look like a long time ago.

  It's pretty cool. Well, let's talk a little bit about wholesale buyers, 'cause you guys have done a fantastic job. You know, getting yourself into some marquee places there in the Bay Area, super well respected. How have you built the Dirty Girl brand to gain the trust of the wholesale buyers you serve?

  And maybe share with the listeners a little bit more about the types of wholesale buyers you're working with today. 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah. Well, first of all we're positioned pretty uniquely because we're in Santa Cruz County where all our production is, and that's about 60 to 70 miles, depending on which ranch, to San Francisco.

   So, the Bay Area, I was just telling Maimee, I think there's 8 million people in the Bay Area. It's a huge, huge food city. So, we're really lucky in that way. A lot of other farmers are much more rural or further [00:07:00] from cities that aren't as big, so we've always had sort of a presence as a small farm, doing little organic veggies and having all these chefs come into our farmer's markets, right?

  So, we've always had that exposure and a lot of our PR and marketing has always come from being exposed to these chefs because restaurants, as you know, really live and die based on their reputation and what kind of review comes in the paper, and for the San Francisco Chronicle, that's a huge publication and has a really big presence.

  So, I think a lot of it has to do with our exposure, but also since we've been doing it so long, there's nothing like time to build relationships, right? It's hard to just, if I was to just jump in and start all over, you know, without knowing anybody, without having a thousand contacts in my cell phone, it would be tricky.

  So over the years, a lot of customers have come and gone. I've had quite a few that have stayed with us for many, many [00:08:00] years. And so, building those relationships really take a lot of time and it takes a lot of exposure and it takes a lot of knocking on doors. And, you know, it's really interesting now that we're online, you know, we have the internet, there's different creative ways that you can reach people that back in the day you had, you know, I literally would knock on the back door of restaurants, and say, Hey, look what I have, you know?

  And that's also the idea of wholesale, that there's a lot of businesses that we put into the wholesale bucket. We're talking, mom and pop restaurants to corporate restaurants at big hotels, to actually all the different online, sort of middlemen, businesses that are going on, like around here.

  We have Good Eggs that does home delivery in the Greater Bay area. There's a lot of different people buying and selling, people that have really big distributions. There's stores, there's all kinds of stuff. So, you know, it's nice. Lots of demand and lots of possibilities. We consider restaurants to be wholesale even though a [00:09:00] lot of times, a lot of what some restaurants are buying or they're buying straight retail from us, retail prices.

  James Maiocco: When people see the Dirty Girl brand, right, and then, and for those listeners just, you know, on a podcast right now, Joe's got a hat on right now with his Dirty Girl logo on it, which well done. That's a great thing. I love your logo. It's very memorable and it's a memorable name. What does the brand reflect, like when people see that brand and they hear about it?

  I mean, what would people say if I went and talked to one of your wholesale customers? What types of things would they say about Dirty Girl Produce?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, that's a good question. It's funny, I just went to the gym. I have a gym and they moved right near my house. So I walked in there and it just, yesterday morning and I had, not this hat, but like a nicer one.

  This is my work hat. And I came in and like, oh, where'd you get that hat? Did you get that from the farm? And I'm like, no, you know, I actually got this from the hat maker. He stitched it for me, 'cause this is my farm. She's like, what? Dirty Girl Produce. Oh my God. So there's a lady behind the gym, you know.

  I've never met. She knows all about Dirty Girl produce. She loves it, says their strawberries are [00:10:00] great. She's driven by my farm before. Great. You know, I mean, it's like, it's crazy. How, when I first started, I felt like everybody that knew about Dirty Girl Produce I knew personally, you know, like I interacted with these customers and now because of the idea of brand awareness, I never considered my farm a brand, right?

  Like people are building brands, but especially when you get online and we have social media and stuff, farmers really need to start looking at themselves as a brand, especially when we're, you know, smaller, we're artisanal. We're selling something that has a value other than just the product itself.

  We're selling that product, which may be similar to another option they have, but it has our name on it, and it has our reputation. So, and the only way to really, gain that trust and to build that reputation is to do it over time and to constantly be putting out really good products.

  So, we try to be the best at what we do. Not that it's like a competition with other farmers or whatever, but I'm really critical about the quality of the [00:11:00] produce that we grow, not just the varieties, but also the post harvest handling and the display at a farmer's market, or when something's going out to a restaurant that's gonna be delivered, I wanna make sure they open that box and it's like the best romaine they've ever had, you know, the best broccoli. I mean, a lot of things we grow are very, very common place vegetables, but when you get a regular vegetable, when you get a carrot, that's really good, you're like, oh my God, this is good. Or when you get people strawberries, like right now it's strawberry season for us.

   And when you get people's strawberries and he said, that's the best strawberry I've ever had. I'm like, yeah, well, 'cause you're buying from the store and who knows how long ago those things were picked. 

  James Maiocco: Exactly. 

  Joe Schirmer: They're grown, they're shippers. You know, they're not grown to be totally red and picked the day before you eat 'em.

   You know, and that's what we do. So, brand awareness is huge and it's a whole world of, you know, it's a different whole thing, especially for farmers. 'cause we're so crusty and curmudgeony and we're Luddites. If I'm gonna throw us all under the bus and be honest, we tend to [00:12:00] want to retreat from the urban zones and be in our rural place.

  James Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Joe Schirmer: Where we like it, this is the life we like, but at the same time, we need to interact with our customers. And so, we need to learn all these things. And that's why, you know, coming on board with Barn2Door , I've spent a lot of time with a lot of people helping me how to do this kind of stuff.

  It's been a lot of learning. 

  James Maiocco: It's been really great to see how much you guys have leaned into your brand, 'cause number one, like you said, you have a recognizable brand. And to your point, appreciated locally by people you don't even know. Right? And the fact that, as you said, that your brand is not just known for being a local producer, a local farm, but also for quality, right? Quality's number one, like you have to have top tier product. But, to your point, you stand out big time versus other commodity products. A chef I'm sure is gonna buy from you nine times or 10 times outta 10 versus buying from Cisco or unfi.

  Right? They know your product is fresh, it's gonna taste fantastic. Right? You do a really great job on social media too, featuring your [00:13:00] products. Can you share a little bit with our listeners about like how you capture those moments on the farm, on social media to draw people in closer and build brand awareness.

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, I can still remember the first time, years ago, an employee and friend Aquila was like, you should get the farm on Facebook. And I'm like, what? Facebook? What? What is Facebook? I was just totally not on, and I did it, and then we start seeing people interact and oh my God, I haven't seen this person in a long time.

   It's just like when you know, you see your family or whatever. So, I remember first getting on and just being like, now what do we do? And then, you start looking at it and seeing how I look at it and then I see, okay, how's someone else gonna look at it? You know?

  So, that's always how I think about it is like, what do I wanna see and what do I, what story do I want to tell? And so one thing that I really like about social media is I always have my cell phone on me, and so when I'm doing my rounds, which a lot of what I do is really administration and management.

  I'm not the guy on the tractor. I'm not the guy [00:14:00] with the knife. These are all things that happen like all day, every day. But you know, I'm more and more like the supervisor, as time goes on, and so I keep my phone on me and I take pics and videos whenever I can, and I just keep 'em, because a lot of times too, I'll start feeling like, oh God, we should do a social media post on Instagram or whatever, but I'm like stressing and I'm not in the mood.

   But, if you can get that pic and get the video or even do a little selfie and say, Hey, look at this right here, these are some phylums, they're attacking the root zone, whatever. And then later on when you're in a better mood, or maybe in the morning when you drink your coffee and you have a little bit of time, or you're on the couch later, you have a time to kind of fiddle around and do social media.

  I mean, I know some people, a lot of businesses, they hire people out to do their social media, but I think a lot of small farms can really have the ability to be honest and genuine and do their own stuff. And I think that people really appreciate that too. Even if it's a little grainy, it's a little weird, but you know that it's coming and [00:15:00] it's authentic.

  It's not too groomed, you know? So yeah, I try to do that. I try to take pics, you know, I've tried before, put on a calendar, like, okay, Tuesday at noon I'm gonna go out of the office and I'm gonna go post, and I go out and I'm just like, cringing. And it's like I don't want a camera in my face and I'm just not in the mood, you know, that happens to me all the time.

  And so, I try to just go ahead and take the pics and take the videos, sort it out later when I'm in the mood to deal with that kind of thing. When I'm done with my daily tasks and I have a moment or something like that, I've also incorporated a lot with my kids, at different times, I'm kind of like doing less with my kids because, social media and putting your kids on there can be weird. Also having them on the backend kind of fiddling around because it's kind of a cool thing to share and to see people's reactions and stuff. So, I try to keep it playful. I try to not be too robotic with it.

  Right? You know, I'm not trying to game the algorithm as [00:16:00] much as you can tell a lot of people are, which is probably a good thing. But, in that way, I think I just try to keep it authentic, with social media and try to have fun with it and tell stories because I got a lot of stories and it's hard to tell people what's going on.

  James Maiocco: I think this is just such great advice, regardless of the type of buyer you're trying to hit. Being authentic, playful, and consistent telling stories, right? Like you said, it's no reason to try to be something you're not, right? Be honest about who you are, your products, et cetera. And to your point too is like no harm in just taking pictures throughout the week or a small videos throughout the week.

  I know many farms will just sit down at Meta Suite once a week and you can schedule your post even, right? So, you don't have to be out on the field at 12 o'clock noon. You can just schedule it as if you were, right, and I'll just post as if you were out there probably, you know, you might be off doing something else.

  Pretty cool. Back to the wholesale buyer side, I'm kind of curious about this, you know, when you think about those chefs or those corporate buyers, et cetera, do you find them on social media as well? Are they interacting with your content? I'm [00:17:00] sure you're getting a lot of consumers who are probably following you as well, but.

   Do you find that the wholesale buyers too are active on social media? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, they all are. They pretty much all are. I mean, if you have a business, you're active. It's very rare these days that we have like a restaurant that comes on board and is buying and then I'll look 'em up, 'cause, with our Dirty Girl site, like I have a personal Instagram account. And I have a Dirty Girl site and whenever someone comes and buys, I look 'em up and follow them. And then they'll come up in my feed and then I'll look at 'em too and see what they're posting. And so, one thing that I've really come to start doing, especially on our two biggest farmer's market days where there's a lot of restaurant pickups, that's Saturday at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, so it's a Saturday morning. That's a really big pickup, and also Tuesday afternoon in Berkeley. That's a really big restaurant pickup, even for people in San Francisco. They come over and pick up.

   And so what I'll do is we always have our sheet of all our orders, right? And I'll go and [00:18:00] I like to have a post either of just picks or best is someone walks around and introduces the stall just to say what we have and then you just tag everybody that bought that day, you know? And sometimes I'll tag people that usually buy but didn't that day or whatever, you know?

  But I usually like to do that. A lot of why I like to do it is because there's a lot of businesses, like restaurants that really have kind of what I'd call maybe an expanded PR and marketing campaign when it comes to social media. Like they're really trying to make an effort because they know that people are gonna find their restaurant if they can see 'em online, or if they're, Hey, I want to eat somewhere great, I'm gonna look it up right now. And they're gonna look up the Instagram or they're gonna look up Facebook, or they're gonna look 'em up online, see what they can learn about 'em, right? So, I noticed that when I tag them on our post, they see it, you know, and they'll like it or they'll comment and it's a whole kind of, I don't know if it's a game, that's how I like to look at it. Try to keep it playful. But you know, I'll [00:19:00] tag 'em all. If they buy, they get tagged.

  I was doing our delivery route too, I tried to tag those businesses that are, did a delivery or Thursday delivery on maybe like a Wednesday afternoon, you know, stroll through the tomato fields or whatever. And you'll see that come back. Right? And so, and I think it's really good.

   Every once in a while, I'll just scroll through. Like, I'm pretty much just on Instagram. We share it to Facebook as well, but I'll go through Instagram and I'll scroll through in all of our restaurants and all of our accounts that have made posts, I'll like, or I'll even, you know, comment and just with a heart or with this and keep it playful, keep it authentic.

  Like I say, not robotic, but also I'll try to make an effort to acknowledge that they're doing this, right, because, a lot of times when people, for example, want my tomatoes, I think there'll be quite a few people that want our tomatoes 'cause they taste better than everybody else's tomatoes.

  Right? But a lot of restaurants, they want our tomatoes not just because they taste [00:20:00] better and they're gonna be popping on the plate, but because on the menu they're gonna put Dirty Girl Produce Early Girl Dry farm tomatoes. And so, they use our name all the time. All the time, and that's really part of the whole game when it comes to branding and really selling yourself as a small scale farmer.

  You know, people want that value added, which is not just the actual produce, but the story behind it. They wanna say, Hey, we are supporting our local economy, we're supporting the local farmers. This is a farmer here. Oh, I've seen that. And people come up to me all the time and say, oh, I saw your name on the menu here and there, and all over the place.

  You know, so people use it, and essentially when they buy something from me, they've bought the right to use our name. 

  James Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Joe Schirmer: And that's really important for restaurants, especially these days. You know, I don't see a lot of restaurants that are really kind of trying to really do a, a, I wouldn't say fine dining, because there's all kinds of cafes and stuff, but I would say elevated food, you know, they tell you where the food is when they can, you can't always do [00:21:00] it.

  But, but absolutely, so. So, yeah, we like to get on that and play the social media game with them as much as we can. 

  James Maiocco: I think that's just really great feedback. And to your point, it's a two-way relationship, right? Your intention is not to game the system.

  The reality is by tagging all those people as well, you're actually helping raise their profile and raise their visibility in other people's feeds, right? And so, obviously that's also then causing them to come back and click on you, which is also then raising your visibility. So, you guys are actually scratching each other's back by doing that in a good way. While also building relationships. Right? So, that's just great, great advice. And then, what about email? I'm kind of curious, 'cause I know obviously, I am actually on your email newsletter list 'cause I always just love to see what you guys put out.

  And, you know, I think I'm on your consumer list. I don't know, do you have a wholesale email newsletter list as well? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, we have two. We have two. Yeah. You need to use a different email. Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: Okay. What do you do differently for your wholesale newsletters? 

  Joe Schirmer: So, yeah. Well, what we do we essentially have like a retail and a wholesale newsletter.

   And the [00:22:00] retail comes out Saturday morning because our biggest retail day is really Saturday at the ferry building, even though we have three farmer's markets on Saturday morning and then two on Sunday morning. And what we do is we highlight what's in our farm box, which is basically our CSA share, whether we have, you know, this time of the year, you can get strawberries either in half flat or full flat.

  We have value added stuff, basically like generic bulk bins. We don't customize our CSA at all. We have a salad box, and it's essentially, shows what exactly is in the box this week. And then, we have an opportunity to give any kind of update that we want to do. For example, we just did a campaign, this spring to get people to have subscriptions for our tomatoes.

   And what we allowed is people to do upfront, I forget it was six or eight week tomato subscription. And so it's all paid upfront for the whole subscription, the subscription was available to buy in April, but they're not getting it until the end of July, right? And it's basically this whole thing of, hey, help support [00:23:00] our farm, buy it, prepay for a subscription at this price.

  Right? And so we have, you know, those sorts of games and those sorts of information that what's going on in the farm, that's retail. On wholesale, what we always have is exactly all the items that are gonna be live, because the way that we sell wholesale is all of our items, everything that we have, and what's great about Barn2Door, it really allows us to put items that otherwise have a very limited inventory.

  It's always easy when you have a infinity, you know, like I could sell a pallet of strawberries to someone, but we might only have 24 bunches of turnips for the weekend, so I can put all 24 turnips on there, and when it sells out, it sells out. And when I wanna highlight, hey, we are swimming in Romaine right now, and so we're gonna put a special on, I'll lead our wholesale newsletter with Romaine sale, and with the, you know, you put the picture of the romaine, the best picture you can get of Romaine, that looks really good.

   And they can just click that and go right to the store and buy it, right? So, [00:24:00] it really changes how I want to categorize what people see and what they want to know and how people are buying. I mean, a wholesale buyer buys things, by the item, whatever quantities they want. And our retail buyers, we try to push subscriptions, 'cause that's always nice.

  But also we do single purchase and so we wanna update exactly what's gonna be in this week's box, you know, and the wholesale goes out Sunday afternoon and it goes out Sunday afternoon because another item that we are able to do really because of Barn2Door, is we are able to sell all the produce that comes back from the farmer's market.

   We call it, you know, lefties, ex lefties is kind of funny little slang, and so we'll have all of our items, then below that we'll have ex lefty items and they're like either half price or dollar bunches. Or also when we're just swimming in a item, I'll put ex lefties, I'll just bulk up like put 500 pounds of romaine, 'cause we're swimming in it.

   And if price is an issue for someone, I don't [00:25:00] wanna stop them from buying it. So, we really play a lot with the wholesale, on trying to push items that we need to sell. And we used to donate so much of our produce that was leftover from farmer's markets, you know, and now we sell it all. Like everything.

  I mean, it's almost like the first thing that restaurants buy, once they know that this is as good as if we gonna pick it. Because a lot of times we pick something on a Friday, it goes a Saturday, and then they're gonna get it on Monday or Tuesday, and it's been in the cooler the whole time.

  So it's really like, we've treated it really well. It's not like it's been outta the cooler, it's limp, it's nasty, it's, you know, compost. This is like grade A, I'm not putting anything on there that isn't really good. So, it's really good how I can kind of get all the different streams of sales between retail and wholesale.

   And how I really try to tweak the knobs and utilize the different options that you have on the platform of Barn2Door to try and get people to buy certain things. I mean, obviously the email newsletter with MailChimp allows you to put [00:26:00] the little icons and pictures on there, you know, and what's good about it too is that, when we're really busy and we can't do like a really thorough email that says, here's our walkthrough of the farm and here's at the market and you can kind of robotically do it and kind of do the same thing as you did last week and maybe update something or don't update anything except the date and just send it off and not spend any time on it, which just really comes in handy when you don't have the time, because that always is gonna happen, you know? Unless you're a business that has a big enough staff that someone is always dedicated to doing that, and it's a priority. A lot of times we have to do, you know, priority. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, exactly.

  Joe Schirmer: And then all of our PR, marketing, social media, that's secondary.

  Right? That's when we've finished our other tasks, so. Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: Oh, it's amazing. So, thinking about your wholesale buyers, are there any wholesale buyers that you don't work with, right? I mean, when you think about the wholesale buyers that are going to appreciate your brand and appreciate your product, how do you segment between the wholesale buyers [00:27:00] that you would consider working with or those who would like to purchase your product?

  Right? Especially when you have a limited quantity. 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah. Well, I think we're fortunate in that most of the time, we sell to everybody that comes looking for it, you know? And I don't need to go knocking on the doors and even calling people. Like there's times when we have a lot of stuff that I'm definitely texting like the top five at any pickup or delivery route just to say, Hey, you want some strawberries? Hey, you want some romaine? You know, because I know they buy a lot and support a lot and a lot of times I know that they can push. A friend of mine, Dave, who has Mission Hill Ice Creamery downtown Santa Cruz, he'll buy strawberries leftover at a reduced price and he's gonna process 'em in the kitchen and then freeze 'em, and then they'll make ice cream later.

  And I tell him like he knows our system is like, sometimes I get caught and I have a bunch of strawberries. You know what I'm saying? And so, luckily I don't have to play the game of like calling everybody, pushing our product out. People really come to us. But that's just something that we've established over [00:28:00] time.

  And then we definitely do get those moments where we're like, okay, we're getting a big push for this. I need to push out and communicate, knock on the door, call 'em, email. There's so many wholesale buyers around San Francisco and even around Santa Cruz.

  And a lot of times what I find is that when you're a small grower and you don't have a lot of accounts established you have to compete with the other growers, and it's a race to the bottom, right? I hate that game. I do not wanna race to the bottom. What are you selling? Strawberries. What are you paying for?

   Well, right now they're buying 'em at 50. Well, 40, 35, 20. All of a sudden you're selling your flats of strawberries for 18 bucks. And it's because the sharky wholesalers are gonna play you against each other, and they don't really even care because for them, they're gonna buy it, whatever.

  They're gonna mark it up. You know, with an algorithm that makes them money no matter what. Right? You know, they'd love to sell more at a cheaper price, you know, but they gotta buy it at a cheaper price. So what I really [00:29:00] like to do is try to avoid the people that really I know are super sharky and don't have a lot of brand loyalty and they're just looking for a commodity at a low price.

  And I try to sell outside of my direct region as much as I can. And, you know, that's something that you can establish over time and you always have that time where you do have to just randomly cold call people and see what you can get for what you have, 'cause you have to sell it. Even if it's just paying. Like strawberries, you have to sell 'em sometimes at a loss because you absolutely have to pick the strawberries. Otherwise you'll build disease and pests if you don't, you know they strawberries here, you have to pick entirely all the red fruit twice a week. If you don't keep up with that, you're gonna have colony collapse basically. So, even if you sell 'em at a loss, you have to do it just to maintain the sales that you will be selling in the future, you know? So, and that's really unfortunate for a lot of farms that they get into that pattern of really that race to the bottom, so, you know what I mean?

  You just gotta be [00:30:00] aware of that and try to stick up for yourself. 

  James Maiocco: Well, let's talk a little bit more about pricing, 'cause I think you've done, you've made some interesting moves in the past in order to preserve margin, right? So like, how do you treat a wholesale buyer, for instance, who only wants to buy just a single flat versus somebody who wants to buy multiple flats?

  I mean from a pricing profit margin protection, can you share a little bit about how you've used volume based or bulk based pricing to actually tier up the discount provided that they buy more? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, for sure. And you know, I mean it really depends on how much I have.

  I mean, for example, strawberries and tomatoes are the two items that when it's strawberry season and tomato season, we're wholesaling. Our biggest wholesale customer is Plum Markets in Detroit. So, we're shipping across the country. Right? But this is a really established account with people that I really trust.

  They've come and visited the farm, three or four times over the years. So, what I do is I really try to establish ideally a [00:31:00] price that we want, and I'm essentially growing for them because if I had to just get into the open market with wholesale and like I said, what happens is a race to the bottom.

  I mean, you always want to ask high, but you eventually have to sell for whatever you can get, right? So, the way that we do it is that, a lot of things that we have, you know, I'll say turnips for example. We don't grow tons of turnips. We have enough to put on all the market tables. We have enough for a few boxes to chefs.

  People usually wanna buy a dozen, maybe six, 12, maybe 24, maybe 36. And so we tier it all out based on the commodity we have and how much we really ultimately need to sell. So, for example, when we use Barn2Door, we tier it out in, let's use the example of turnips. You know, I put the single price, if someone wants one to 12, you know, they're gonna get full retail, they're gonna buy it retail.

  If they're gonna buy a case of it, then they're gonna [00:32:00] get a discount. They're gonna get it at $2.25 or $2.50 per bunch. Right? And that's a pack, that's a given box, we usually put 18 in a box of turnips. But what we can do as well is, when we don't have that many turnips, we just click it off and so that option isn't available.

  The only option is, you buy a single item, you can buy as many as you want, but you're paying full retail. And so, we do that for a lot of items. For example, last few years, beans, with labor, like they're the most laborious things because they're easy to grow, but they take a long time to pick. We do little french beans or you know, to get the quality and everything, so we just have a single price.

  We don't sell 'em by the box. How many pounds you want? That's what you're gonna buy. And there's a single price. But what comes with strawberries, tomatoes, you buy one flat, this is the one flat price you wanna buy three or four or five, depending on where we're at. This is the price. If you want 10, if you want 20, we have a 20 case, 'cause we have stores that'll buy 20 strawberries. And what that does for us is that really gives us the opportunity to streamline [00:33:00] our wholesale pick. When we know there's an order coming in for 20, we're picking specifically for that customer. And so, it allows us to give them a cheaper product.

  And when we don't have that many strawberries and we're gonna sell 'em all, we click off that option. We're not gonna do the 20, we'll do the one, we'll do the five, we'll do the three, or whatever it is, you know, whatever we feel. So, we're constantly updating throughout the week our inventory and our bulk pricing.

  If that makes sense. So, you know, like things like tomatoes, when tomatoes are on, we have bulk pricing. You know, if someone wants to buy a half pallet, 40 cases, 40 20 pound cases, that's gonna be an option for them. And this is the price that's gonna be competitive with the pallets that we're gonna be shipping across the country, which will be, we'll probably do 50 to 70 pallets, full pallets of tomatoes this year.

   But a lot of times, a lot of what we grow, we are a small grower and we have a very limited inventory. We don't have like, just, you know, for example, when we have tomatoes, single box of tomatoes, I'll put a [00:34:00] thousand boxes, right, 'cause I don't wanna run out.

  And what happens is people buy, buy, buy. But everything else turnips, we have to put 24, we have to put 48, maybe we put a hundred, maybe we put 200 when we have a lot. You know, so we don't run out. But we also don't wanna oversell. So, we really limit, make sure we don't oversell and make sure that we don't sell everything that we could have sold at full retail for a discounted price.

  Like we need to make money. We only want to discount when we need that, right, when we need to move that sale. So, we're constantly tweaking those knobs. Every week we're going back and forth and everything. 

  James Maiocco: It does take effort, right? I mean, you're effectively, you're maintaining a live fresh sheet, right?

  Instead of a, a stack fresh sheet that gets sent out once a week and then the second it's sent out, it's outta date, you now effectively have a live fresh sheet, right? That is constantly being updated either by you or by the people who are purchasing it, because it's automatically deducting that inventory, like you said, right?

  So the 24 turnips, once they're sold, they're gone. Right? And then you're [00:35:00] not having to chase that down. Wow. Such great feedback. Let's just circle back a little bit around to thinking about a new farmer, for instance, who's looking at trying to expand into wholesale markets, right?

   What are the steps that you would recommend or give to a farmer who's perhaps there are some farmer's markets today who, for instance, don't have as many chefs that are attending. Like you said, you're very fortunate to be in that metro market where there's a high demand of these types of, you know, marquee chefs coming to you.

   What would you do if you were a farmer in a secondary market where you'd like to get into those types of restaurants, but it might take some effort? What are the things that you would suggest? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, I would knock on every door. I would try to try everything. And that means everything that's analog, everything that's digital, you know, make business cards, make flyers, have samples.

  I would say like back in the day, you look in your phone book, remember those days and now you Google, you like, what's near you? What's your range of [00:36:00] delivery that you can meet, right? And who's within that radius? And you can do that. You can go straight up and go, okay, 50 miles as far as I want to go, what's within a 50 mile radius and just cold call everybody. Maybe a generic email that you're gonna send to people. Maybe even have a flyer or something you can, if you can go and meet the people and say, Hey, I'm Joe, I just started microgreens business. Here's a little packet of some of the microgreens. Go meet the chef. Go try and meet the owner.

  Meet the person who the most important person is a person in charge of buying the produce. Sometimes that's owner, sometimes it's a sous chef, sometimes it's a line cook. Whoever's shown up to the farmer's market, right? That those are not always the same people. Right? So, I think really like just putting it out there and navigating your surroundings and who you can possibly sell to.

  And then just going one after the other, making efforts. You know, you can Google it, you can email, you can look up phone numbers, you can call. And of course, I think a lot of people [00:37:00] really work analog. And those people can be converted. You can go get someone that's used to being very analog and they're used to getting, you know, a, a piece of mail or they're used to getting an email, or they're used to someone knocking on their door or whatever, and you can go and say, Hey, this is my site, this is my store.

  This is how we do it. You know, if you have an email, solicit their email, solicit their phone number. You can text someone with a link that goes to a description of how to place an order for your business, right? And what you do. And obviously it's your website and so have all those things established, have your website, have all the information you want, have your store established, and then go out and reach those people through all the means that you can come up with, right?

  And I think, farmer's markets, 'cause I've always done farmer's markets. And farmer's markets can be very good for a lot of people, but I find that the most useful across the board reason to do farmer's markets is PR and marketing. I see a [00:38:00] lot of people coming into farmer's markets when they're starting their business.

   It gets them up and going. It gets the pick going, it gets the sales going. You meet the people, the customers, and I see a lot of people leaving the farmer's market because they already have enough sales. They no longer need to. They needed it to step out into the market and to meet the people that they needed to meet.

  So I always say, sit in those parking lots, spend the time, meet the people, even if your goal is to not do that long term. Maybe it turns out that that is something, what we do is, try to have a lot of branches of the trees, you know, revenue streams and mix it up as much as we can because we jump from revenue stream to revenue stream constantly depending on what we're trying to sell and what our options are.

   So, and we have markets around us that are profitable, that work. There's a lot of 'em that over time you wanna pull out of, it's too much time, you're not making enough money, it's better to wholesale. It's better to do a lot of other things than that. And if you can meet all these [00:39:00] retail people, meet all your retail needs and you don't have to do that, then you know that's gonna be a lower cost to run a delivery when it's full retail than if you have to sit for eight hours on a parking lot and not have that many sales.

  So, I think there's all these, all these things that a farmer can do to reach out and find people, and you gotta just research all of 'em, try everything. If it's not serving you, let it go and then move on to the things that do work. 

  James Maiocco: That's great feedback and I appreciate the roll up your sleeves, grassroots just brute tactics. 'Cause ultimately, you know, like you said, those analog efforts, they'll pay off. And like you said, you can convert 'em online. We see this all the time, converting those buyers that you meet at the market to a regular subscription for pickup. Right? That'd be awesome.

  Right? So that way you have certainty that they're gonna keep coming back. Is there any messaging in particular when you're first meeting those people and you shake their hands you find that resonates with them? Outside of showing them the quality of your product, do you share with them a [00:40:00] little bit more about, Dirty Girl and about what you've done and the quality of your practices as well?

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, and I think the biggest thing, 'cause people have always asked me, because we tend to have a reputation for selling a lot to restaurants and like, how do you do restaurants? And so, what I've found, why a lot of people don't deal with restaurants is because there's the separation of urban and rural, right?

   And I think a lot of times, people aren't comfortable in their sales roles, like farmers, we want to be out, we wanna farm. We love the country, we love soil, we love produce, we love this life. Right? Getting into more of an urban setting, sales being sharky when you need to be sharky.

  'Cause you need to sell your stuff and need to make sure you get paid. It's real tricky, you know, it's a different skillset than just doing the growing and doing the work in the field, right? So, what I've always felt with restaurants is I've always felt that this real kind of commonality between the chefs because the people that [00:41:00] are chefing and the people that are trying to move I wouldn't say climb down the social economic ladder, but in a way that's what a lot of us do that weren't born on farms. It's like we have a lot of opportunity, but we find a lot of meaning in farming. And it's the same thing with a lot of people that are chefs. They could have done a lot of other things, but a lot of times they find a lot of meaning in cooking.

  Right? And so, I really find that there's a lot of commonality between chefs and farmers that a lot of people may not know about. And so, I think bridging that difference is really key to the whole thing. And just really being able to pass on your story and what you're doing and why you're doing it, and finding those people that appreciate that. There's gonna be some people that don't appreciate it and don't get you, and that's fine.

  And you let them go. You don't want to keep trying to satisfy someone that's never gonna be satisfied. Right? And so, if it's not working, it's not working. But there's also, [00:42:00] there's just a lot of people I find that you can meet within the restaurant world that will understand what you're doing and you'll have much more in common than separate.

  So, I've just seen a lot of that, also, like, farmers, when you meet your restaurant client, that is awesome, and they feed you and you get to be a farmer that's fed and they're like, Hey, meet my farmer. You'll feel that, it's a stoke to your ego. It's a friendship. It's a relationship that's meaningful, that's really meaningful, and also can be economically viable, right? And so, I think the bridge between rural and urban is something that I think it's good to just acknowledge it. And I think a lot of chefs are really searching for that. They're searching for you. They want to find you, right? They want that in their restaurant, you know, no matter how urban, how wherever you're at, you know, they want to bring that farm to the table in the restaurant. So, I think just knowing that and acknowledging that and finding the people that have [00:43:00] that mentality and are willing and eager to buy your produce, I think is key to finding those. And let 'em go, that's a big thing. Don't waste your time on people that look down on you, that don't understand you, that don't appreciate you, and are always trying to undercut you and try and get you to sell stuff for a cheaper price. It's better to walk away, you know, and just say whatever. A lot of times those people will come knocking once they know you have a product that really has a value.

   Sometimes the best way is to just like set your boundary and be willing to leave and then see if they come back or not. 

  James Maiocco: Really well said. 

  You remind me so much of thinking about like somebody like Dan Barber, like a chef who truly just absolutely appreciates the growth of the product, right?

  I'm sure you've read his book, Third Plate, and it's just that the story of a fantastic carrot when it's grown properly just comes out of the ground and what it tastes like when it's properly prepared. Like you said, I think in many great chefs, and great farmers like yourself, you guys [00:44:00] actually share a lot more in common that many people probably appreciate.

  Right? Do you ever have chefs come down and visit you down in Santa Cruz from time to time? 

  Joe Schirmer: Oh yeah. All, all the time. Yeah. And I try to coordinate it with, you know, a lot of times the restaurants that are really into it, you know, they're really into supporting the farms and restaurants that really want really good food, you gotta buy really good food. I mean, that's just it's ingredient forward, is just so big right now with restaurants, right? And they want to teach their staff what's going on and not just be something that comes in a box from a truck, you know? So, usually there's big staff outings.

   And we have just multiple restaurants every year come and visit. And I try to, you know, people we wanna come visit is like, come during tomato season, come in September, you know, maybe August, September, October come when I have really a lot of stuff. Sometimes it's in the winter, which is fine.

  And 'cause we do a whole, we grow year round and we have a whole winter veg scene going on, and that's pretty cool, especially when we have chicory, but I like [00:45:00] to really bring people in when I have something exciting to show 'em, and that really makes a difference, you know?

  And when you can like, bring people in and like I said, you're getting all these chefs, I get chefs from Oakland, lot of these kids are like really urban, you'll have a mix of people come in that are chefs, oh, I worked on a farm here and there, and whatever. And some people are like, what?

  Where does that grow? And like pull a carrot out of a ground, is just mind blowing for so many people, you forget how neat that is. Right? And also to pick a strawberry and eat it. Right? You know, I mean, I forget how mind blowing that can be to people that haven't been exposed to that.

  So, I love doing that kind of thing. During tomato season we did, I don't know, you know what clamato is? 

  James Maiocco: Mm-hmm. Of course. 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah. It's kind of terrible. Most people would probably think it's kind of terrible, but it's basically like, um, it's clam juice and tomato water, essentially celery water.

   I think Nabisco owns clamato, the brand clamato, but it's basically like a Michelada mix, similar to a bloody Mary mix. We basically copied that because in my years going to Mexico, having a clamato or Michelada is always [00:46:00] kind of fun on the beach when it's cold.

   And so, I get people come and get some ice cold beers in the cooler, you know, and then the table come out and have like, pull out some glasses and make micheladas for everybody. Just kind of fun. Make it really fun and make it something that people really remember. And, one thing I've found doing this year, after year, after years, that you have all these young chefs coming up working for another person and then they own their own restaurant.

   And when they do, when they see this vision, when they're young and they're on their way up and they have their creative mind visioning this business plan that's gonna be their dream restaurant. They think I'm getting from Dirty Girl. When I do it, I'm gonna buy the best. And everything that I've learned how to do, all the technique, all the purveying, everything, I'm bringing all that in.

  So, so many times chefs, you know, end up as line cooks, sous chefs, executive chefs, and they end up owning their own restaurant, and they bring you with [00:47:00] them, you know, and also people just work from this restaurant to another restaurant, to another restaurant, another, you know, these, these people were buying, you know, X dollars a week on Saturdays.

  But this chef that came and visited the farm ends up working over here in a big hotel and he has a huge buying power and he wants to bring us over. And that happens all the time. So, you never know when you invite a Restaurant in or some sort of, you know, wholesale, wholesale group, you never know who's going to years down the road where they're gonna land, you know?

  So, it's always great opportunity to host. 

  James Maiocco: Great advice. One last question related to that. Do you ever do like an on-farm event that features a local chef? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, I don't know if you've ever heard outstanding in the field. Jim Deneven, he started in 96, 97, 98, somewhere around there.

  And he really started a lot of his meals in the field, you know, setting up a table, cooking a meal, everybody coming to the farm. I mean, it's really farm to table meal on a farm is something that's [00:48:00] so common right now, but outstanding in the field started here in Santa Cruz, Jim Deneven. And he would have, you know, he'd have like pig roasts and like, just crazy stuff.

  And there's always be a farm that's hosting it. A chef, that's the chef. And then a lot of times these other farms or wineries or breweries, whatever, they're gonna pour whatever you're going to eat. People come and they talk and do that. So, I was really involved a lot in a lot of those events, in the early years.

  And I still, I don't host as many, but I go to them and speak, you know, 'cause they'll buy my food. But yeah, we do a lot of events like that. It's pretty awesome and I look forward to doing more. But it's also like it's a lot of work cleaning up your farm and hosting those 

  things.

   I

  James Maiocco: bet. Yeah, for one event.

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, you either do 'em and like have a regular pace of doing those, or you kind of don't do 'em. It's really hard to do one and the amount of work it takes, people are coming to look at your farm, oh my god, what a mess. Are you kidding me? It's huge, but it's [00:49:00] also really fun and it's a great service.

  It's a great thing for customers, to come and be able to do, come see your farm and go have a meal on your farm. It's like huge. So whether you make money or not, or it helps you with PR and marketing, whatever it is that you get, maybe it strokes your ego a little. It feels good. That's real and that's important, you know.

  But it's cool. I really appreciate it and I'll probably have more in the future, but I've definitely had so many that I don't look forward to planning 'em right now just 'cause I know how much work is involved. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. Yeah. Hosting events can be a lot of work. I fully appreciate that.

  Well, you've shared so much great advice, Joe. Thank you so much for your time. I know it's valuable. I've seen your team coming in and outta your office there. I'm sure waiting to get your feedback on whatever is happening on the farm. So, thank you for making time to share your wisdom with all the farms who are gonna listen to this podcast.

   Any last words of wisdom that you would like to share before we sign off about, [00:50:00] you know, working with or serving wholesale buyers for young and aspiring farmers? 

  Joe Schirmer: Yeah, I would just say that my most valuable implement that I have is my cell phone. With all my contacts, and it's because over the years I have acquired so many friendships and relationships, whether they're accounts or other farmers or even businesses like the amount of relationships you build up over time are so important in farming, you know, to not make the same mistake someone else has made and they can tell you is just gonna save you money and time.

  So, I really think just people that are just starting out just to be really, try to be strong and try to love the suffering that you're signing up for as a farm. You're choosing to suffer in certain ways, you know, and to just have ownership over that and to really stand up for yourself when it comes to selling your produce, because I think it's really easy to love the [00:51:00] horticulture, and the animal husbandry and the actual farming part. But, when it comes to selling it and marketing, a lot of times we need an extra little fight in us. You know, we need a little bit of support and it's so good to be able to have those contacts to call and advice, you know, make sure you ask your advice before you're already in trouble.

  You know, if you can, if you can. I mean, you're always gonna get there and be like, what do I do? But, just having those contacts, building those relationships with other farms, building your relationships with the crew at Barn2Door. What do I do here? All the different inputs that are gonna be going into your farm.

  It's really good to have, build really good, healthy relationships with all these people and have people that inspire you, that you can call for help and to ask, don't be bullheaded, you know, be humble. Keep it playful if you can, you know, so you can be soft and go, Hey, what do I do?

  Thanks [00:52:00] so much. I'll buy you a beer. I'll do this. Hey, I got some strawberries. Whatever, you know, like, ask for help, ask for advice as much as you can. And try not to reinvent the wheel all the time because that's a lot of what we do as farmers I think, is we're constantly reinventing the wheel. And anything you can do to get people to give you a little bit of advice is awesome and very helpful.

  And sometimes it takes that little bit of like someone needs to give you permission to ask for help. Right, and I think like, here's your permission. Ask for help. Do it. Reach out. Even if you gotta just Google it, you know, whatever it is, you know, figure it out. So yeah, build contacts. Yep.

  James Maiocco: Well, I wanna extend my thanks to Joe for joining us on this week's podcast. You can check out more of Joe and their farm on Instagram @DirtyGirlProduce. That's @DirtyGirlProduce. Here at Barn2Door, we are humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country with software and services to help them access more [00:53:00] customers, increase sales and save time.

   If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or been at it for a while and want to simplify your business operations, please visit us at Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today, and we look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to Barn2Door.com/Resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [00:54:00] time.

In this week’s episode, Phil from Hopewell Farms (GA) shares how he has scaled his poultry operation from scratch to a profitable business. Hear how he thinks about costs, builds in recurring revenue and successfully prices & packages his birds.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can [00:01:00] purchase from them online and in person.

   In today's conversation, we're gonna get into selling poultry products directly into your community. Today, I'm happy to welcome back Phil of Hopewell Farms in Georgia. Phil has been working with Barn2Door for a number of years and is part of our farm advisor network. Since becoming an advisor, Phil has shared tips for building a local customer base in your community through educating and connecting with buyers.

  He helps train a lot of other farmers, basically, he gives 'em all kinds of good advice. He has successfully grown a six figure operation, shares his tips and tactics with other independent farmers across the country. Today though, we are specifically diving into how Phil manages markets and fulfills his poultry sales.

  Welcome, Phil. 

  Phil Bonelli: Thank you so much. The timing is great because every three weeks we harvest our chickens. Which we do turkeys too, so there's more to the poultry of this chickens. But tomorrow we'll be harvesting our next batch of birds and I just stepped in from taking receipt of an additional like [00:02:00] scalder that we needed, that we got just in the nick of time.

  Yeah. So, poultry processing and always selling on the brain right now, specifically. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I can appreciate that. It'd be nice to do a tour or an intake of folks like, Hey, what's on your brain right now? 'cause not everybody would say Poultry processing and scalders. 

  Phil Bonelli: That's right. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's great. I love it.

  You know, what's on my brain? I'm getting ready for next month 'cause it's the end of May and so, in our business, it's like, okay, you have to get all the things wrapped up in one month and then geared up for the next. So it's a busy, busy time for us too. That's awesome. Okay, so that we can share all of your great ideas and processes and cadence and things that you've learned on poultry, and maybe we should dip into Turkey.

  We'll, we'll do that just for fun at some point. Before we get started, for those who maybe didn't listen to your other podcast episode, can you give them a quick four one one on your current operation? Just your farm, where you're from? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: How long you farm? The [00:03:00] upfront sort of bio, if you will.

  Phil Bonelli: Sure. I'm on my home farm right now, which is 43 acres and we recently began leasing 48 acres, so we're farming 91 and we moved here in 2019. We're sitting here and it's 2025 and, we weren't looking to farm. We just wanted some land to play on, but we quickly got into farming and then it became all encompassing.

  So, we got some cows, 'cause we wanted to do grass fed beef, which we still do. And then, as I got into regenerative agriculture, through some learning, you know, it dawned on me, nature's very diverse and it's kind of weird for one property just to have one kind of animal.

   So, the chickens do one thing to the land. Cows do, pigs do, turkeys do. So, we diversified our animals really more for the impact on the soil. But now I'm very glad that I'm diversified because it brings me joy that I raise all of my own animal proteins that I eat and I get to provide all of the animal proteins to our customers.

  So, I think [00:04:00] that that part is fun. It's tough to manage all the different species, but, I like doing it because, you know, I like to have all those different products. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. It makes so much sense, doesn't it? And I also kind of love that you coined yourself the accidental farmer.

  Phil Bonelli: I really was. And there's so many good things about that. For one, like my background was in business. I had zero farming background, and obviously I had to learn the farming, but I came about it from a business viewpoint, which it is a business, so that has been very helpful. And also the business I was in before, I was very involved in my community and I still am.

  And that was helpful for, you know, getting going on customers. 'Cause that's a lot of my marketing is like getting out there and speaking at things. Just being out and about. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And you've been on various podcasts and did a lot of business consulting too. 

  Phil Bonelli: Correct.

  Janelle Maiocco: It's pretty special in my opinion, almost that you started with business and [00:05:00] got good at business and then went into farming.

  'Cause I feel like the majority of farmers that we help and assist through Barn2Door, we're helping them stretch their business brains, but they're incredible at the farming side. Right? And that's what they've been doing. But they're like, oh, this is a business. Help me think of this as a business. And that's, you know, not only we do the software, you know this, you're part of this.

  We do the software and the resources and everything to help them run and operate their farm as a business, which of course, helps with everything, helps with sales, helps with efficiencies, helps with logistics, you know, all of the business moving parts. So I love that you started with business and then went into farming.

  I, I don't know what every farmer would say out there, which end they would wanna start at, but it is a chicken and egg people. You do need both. 

  Phil Bonelli: I will tell you, I did have to remind myself that it was a business because as I got going, I did just like wanna grow and I just was growing in my production.

   And I had this other income because I was still working off the farm [00:06:00] at the time and I wasn't really running, I myself wasn't running it like a business for a period of time. And I had to remind myself of that. And I made a bracelet, run it by the numbers just to remind myself to do that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Uh huh.

   I can appreciate that. Like, it's so fun to grow and if you can just put money there without actually thinking, wait, what is this costed out versus am I making a profit? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Like nobody wants to spend money to grow food and then essentially give it away. At the end of the day, if it's a business, you need to be putting that food on your own table too.

   Let's talk a little bit about poultry specifically. So, did you start with the cows and then you ended up getting chickens intentionally because of the regenerative cycle? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yep. I wanted to diversify that and now that the chickens are the part that I'm scaling the most and the reason for that, there's a couple reasons for that.

  One.

  Janelle Maiocco: Love this. 

  Phil Bonelli: We invested in and built an on-farm poultry processing plant. So, if you process and sell less than 20,000 birds a year [00:07:00] from your own farm and sell them within the boundaries of your own state, then you are exempt from USDA oversight. So, we could do it ourselves and.

  Janelle Maiocco: Nice.

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah, and it was quite the challenge, to follow then the Georgia Department of Ag's regulations.

  But we did that and we invested in building this plant, so that removed a bottleneck. And there's only one place in my state that you could get chickens harvested USDA. And it costs like $13 a bird. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow.

  Phil Bonelli: So.

  Janelle Maiocco: There's your margin out the window. 

  Phil Bonelli: That's right. And, I mean, it costs me quite a lot and I'm happy to share for those listening.

  And there's ways you could do it different. There's plenty of things I did dumb. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Phil Bonelli: I didn't know I was talking about, but all in, I mean, it probably cost me around a hundred thousand dollars to build my own plant. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Phil Bonelli: But, I've got my processing costs with labor and packaging down to like $4 a bird.

   So, I'm saving $9 a bird. This year, we should harvest between six and 7,000 [00:08:00] birds. So, let's say I do 6,000 chickens and I save $9 chicken, that's $54,000. So that's half the cost of the plant. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Phil Bonelli: So that works. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Uhhuh. Yep. 

  Phil Bonelli: And also, chickens are my most profitable gross margin product. And having the plant allows me to do whatever cutups that I wanna do.

  So, I can play around with, and I get help from Ryan at Barn2Door and resources and the other Barn2Door folks as I think through how am I even gonna package it? How many breasts should I put per pack? How many thighs should I do? You know, 'cause all those are questions to be answered. 

  I do significantly better when I cut the bird up versus a whole bird. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You're taking all my questions away from me for the future conversation, Phil. 

  Phil Bonelli: We're just tied in like that, Janelle. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I know. I love it. Well, honestly, it's a good slippery slope to be thinking about cost and pricing and profit and being a viable, sustainable business in [00:09:00] addition to being a viable, sustainable Farm.

  Right? It absolutely is the right things to be talking about. But, the reason I'm stopping you is 'cause I know this from feedback from my marketing team, a lot of our listeners actually are current Barn2Door users, and so I'm gonna stop here and pause because of what I wanna say is.

   If you really wanna run through costs with Phil directly, you should go to an office hour with Phil. So Phil, because he is part of our Farm Advisory Network, he hosts office hours. You can go online and they can actually find which one you're hosting, if you just search Barn2Door office hours.

  But, the great part about it is, is they can find the one you're in and jump in there and you can talk about pricing out poultry. I mean, clearly you're like, Hey, I can scale this. But I've done the math and done the crunching. And to your point, your beginning benchmark included the cost from a USDA facility in Georgia and those regulations, et cetera, et cetera.

  Right. And the sunk cost of building the facility. So, that's specific to Georgia. However, if you have the information from other farms all across the country and other [00:10:00] states, you can help them put together that math as well, and sort out, Hey, how can I scale? How can I make this more efficient? How can I make more money doing the same thing?

   Which is lovely, right? We're always looking to reduce the cost and increase the revenue, even on our existing business. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yes. And another great resource is APPPA, the American Pastored Poultry Producers Association. 

  Janelle Maiocco: A-P-P-P-A for those of you, three Ps in the middle. 

  Phil Bonelli: Three Ps, and they're awesome. And, I have got a tremendous amount of value from, I went to the, APPPA conference in January.

  Hope to go next January. And that's one thing I love about Barn2Door and being on the office hours. You learn so much from these other farmers doing things. So, the more you can do that, the better. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I actually was on stage once there with Alex from Chucktown Acres at an APPPA conference and we chatted about like email collection, honestly, of all things because people were trying to grow their operations.

   It was pretty neat and sort of buyer expectations, which is, of course, also helpful for folks business. [00:11:00] The last resource I'll drop in here and then I wanna get back to your poultry operations. Barn2Door just started, you might not even know this, Phil. We just, with the farmer to consumer legal defense fund.

  Phil Bonelli: Mm. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Who are amazing. It's very inexpensive. It's a hundred and change for a membership for a year. And if any of you know the cost of legal professionals or attorneys, you know that that's a steal. Because you can get on the phone with them and talk anytime and ask legal questions.

  And so we are working with them. They actually are gonna host, starting next month, will be hosting an office hour on behalf of Barn2Door for our farmers to go ask legal questions because, you know, the laws are so different, I know that there's some breakthroughs in North Dakota recently on raw milk and there's lots of other things going on all across the country.

  Poultry in particular, right? All the regulations. And so you can have a very fantastic legal conversation too. Again, I think that's all on the website where folks can find out when the office hours are or when those are hosted. You gotta have the information to make good business decisions, right?[00:12:00] 

  Phil Bonelli: Yep. Gotta have the info. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Love it. Okay, quick back to the birds. 

  Phil Bonelli: Okay. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So in particular, I always get a kick out of this, which is, your farm is literally, I don't know, you tell me. Does it stick out like a sore thumb in your neck of the woods? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yes, so Gainesville is the poultry capital of the world.

  This guy, I won't bore you with the whole story, but it's pretty cool. This guy, Jesse Jewell, he invented basically industrialized chicken after World War II. And I find industrialized chicken to be gross. But it was not started out that way. It was not started out with bad intentions. But, it's tons of chicken farms, you know, which really to me don't even, I don't even think of them as farms because it's just a guy who manages a warehouse really, with all these birds he does not even own.

  And he is just running machines and carrying out dead birds. But all that to say, there's a... 

  Janelle Maiocco: That is gross. 

  Phil Bonelli: It's gross. But there's tons of chicken plants and chicken farms around here, and it is really cool being in this area. And all my [00:13:00] marketing is focused on my county, Hall County, that I live in, and doing kind of like a redeemed chicken.

  And, it is great that there's all these different used resources, for example, like these drinkers, these bell drinkers. There's no shortage of drinkers or all my chicken tractors I use, for the roofs, I use recycled aluminum. On the rental farm that I mentioned, this 48 acres, we started renting, there's old caved in chicken houses and I told the property owner we'd clean up the trash for 'em. So, I took all the good aluminum roofing and I used it for my chicken tractors. Which just feels so cool. These old industrial chicken houses. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's very cool. What did you do with the footprint underneath the roof, which is gonna be disgusting?

  Phil Bonelli: It's been so long since it's been a chicken house. You can't even tell. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. I mean, and you know, soil will fight its way back if you give it some help. 

  Phil Bonelli: It sure will. Especially if chickens were pooping on it for a long time. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, no kidding. [00:14:00] Yeah. My goodness. Okay. That's incredible. This is kind of a selfish question, but do you feel like in that community, because you are not industrial chicken factory farming, in fact, it's regenerative and pasture poultry and all the goodness that we all love. Are you having an impact on farms and people around you? What is that? Is there a tension there? Like what is that like? 

  Phil Bonelli: Definitely there's a positive impact more on the beef side.

  I'll chat about in a second, but the industrial chicken complex, let's say it, I wouldn't think really looks on me favorably because they look at our kind of operation as just this huge threat for bird flu. Whereas I look at it quite the opposite. Like I think our kind of farming is superior when it comes to mitigating bird flu.

  But all my buddies that are farmers and that have, you know, I'm involved in like farm Bureau and stuff. That's totally nothing to do with regenerative, but it's just connecting with farmers. Man, they think it's cool. Like they think it's neat and [00:15:00] especially when they taste our chicken, it's infinitely better.

  And they can tell, they think it's cool, but as far as impacting the community there lots of farms in my area. They have poultry houses and they have cow calf operations because they just had land that they inherited and then chicken houses got put on it. So, we are having a regenerative kind of all natural meat impact on the cow side because that's something easier for me.

   I can't produce enough cows for what their demand is. So I do work with some other farms, say, Hey, if you convert over to doing things all natural, don't use any hormones, don't feed the cows any grain. And then I, you know, purchase, they raise those and purchase some cows for me. So, everything from that to getting my hay guy to not spray herbicide or synthetic fertilizer on the hay.

   Like if you're a business, I'm pumped about making the world a better place and business to me is it's the best tool to do that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Aw, [00:16:00] I love that. Thank you for sharing that. By virtue of your values, you're just sort of pushing the envelope in different places, and throughout those relationships, as well.

  That's really neat. I love that. 

  Phil Bonelli: If people get paid, they'll do good stuff. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Phil Bonelli: They don't mind. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm like, okay, I won't spray. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: That's good. Okay. So, if I am listening here now and I'm trying to improve my poultry operations by hearing how you've done it well... let's talk about packaging and pricing and how did you decide your product mix, right?

   Did you try certain things at the beginning and you stopped doing those things and changed course? How did that evolve for you in terms of packaging your poultry and then pricing your poultry? 

  Phil Bonelli: Well, I started out doing all whole birds 'cause that's all that I could do. And that went well and I started eating 'em.

  I was like, wow, this is so good. I still do some whole birds, but I moved to cut up because I do get a higher margin. So for example, and I'm happy to share what we price at and everything, but I [00:17:00] always try to think of how can I make things to be what people want, what's easy for them to cook and as much as I can, easy for them to contemplate and purchase.

  So, people love boneless, skinless breasts. I particularly am a dark meat man, and I like a skin on, bone in thigh myself is my favorite. But, people pay a premium for breast. And so I charge $20 for a pack of breasts, which is like two breasts or the breasts from one one chicken's worth of breasts, I do $20 a pack.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that's a good margin. Like compared to the whole. Yeah. 

  Phil Bonelli: And that's still pretty good. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Because you're doing the work to cut it up, ironically, and that's closer and more proximate to what that end buyer wants. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. And I do everything by the cut. I sell the breasts, I sell a pack of four thighs.

  I sell a pack of eight drums and I sell a pack of 12 wings and, it's not by the pound because that to me is just so much more difficult. I'm selling things and I'm utilizing online tools, so they need to [00:18:00] purchase an item for a price. So, not selling by the pound is a big win and, I am able to now through Barn2Door, like on the whole birds, have a large and a medium and a small whole bird, let's say, you know, I can do sizes, but getting away from selling by the pound is a big win, to me and.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Phil Bonelli: Because people do love breasts and also tenders, I forgot, we do eight tenders to a pack. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. How much do you charge for those? 

  Phil Bonelli: The tenders? It's also $20 for an eight pack. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Eight, yeah. Right. I get it. Yep. 

  Phil Bonelli: So all in, like, if I cut up a chicken, then that chicken is going to be a retail value of like $44.

  If I cut it up. That is also very helpful, Janelle, to run it by the numbers because again, since I'm taking pounds out of it, I know my exact revenue per bird because last time I checked, every chicken has two wings, two thighs, you know, two breasts, one on each side. So I don't worry about the variables of pounds.

  I know [00:19:00] my retail input per chicken. 

   

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Value. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. I love that. I know that we have farms that do it both ways, right? But I do love, especially on poultry, on smaller proteins in particular, that it can make a lot of sense to just do set prices, especially when you can figure out your set cost and just know that you're clearing a margin and clearing a margin, clearing a margin, and it's saving you time too, which if you value time, you're actually bringing your costs down even more.

   Because you're not having to get cute with poundage on, you know, on small cuts. Versus we have a lot of farms who will take deposits on half, whole hogs and quarter, half, whole cows or that sort of a thing. And you know, that's great 'cause they can vary. And turkeys, I don't know if you do that way with turkeys, but those are expensive birds.

  So, we have farms that'll take a 50 or a hundred dollars deposit on a Turkey and then charge the difference when Thanksgiving rolls around. 

  Phil Bonelli: Well for the audience too, I do half cows and whole pigs also, and I do it in a similar manner in [00:20:00] that a half cow for me, is 175 pounds, and so I charge $12 a pound, 175 pounds.

  So, it's a half cow package, it's $2,100, and yeah, they don't have to worry. I don't want my customer, I mean. 

  Janelle Maiocco: They don't have to do math. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah, they don't have to do math. And if the cow is 400 pounds of meat, so there's 25 extra pounds per half, well I have a retail store and I plunk it in that, you know, but I want it to be as easy for them as possible.

  I wanna make it easy to buy from me. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I love that. It's probably worth repeating the easier it is for a person to buy, which means self-serve, purchase online with a set price so they know exactly what they're paying. They don't have to do any math, they don't have to pick up a phone and talk to anybody.

  They can shop anytime of day or night is a win for farmers because there's no friction in that process. So that's just a big, big deal. And then of course if you tack on door to door [00:21:00] delivery or local pickup, it gets even more obvious for people to complete that purchase, ' cause again, it's convenience and no friction in the process for buyers, it's a real thing. It really will impact sales. 

  Phil Bonelli: And I don't wanna talk about price. I'm more expensive. And so like, I want ultimate clarity. I want people to just be easily able to see, this is what I pay and this is what I get. And if 80% of the people say, woo, I don't want that, and click out, well that's okay.

  I just want the 20% that wanna buy from me or whatever percent for it to be easy for them. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, if you're selling out, whether it's 20 or 80 or 43% of the people, it doesn't actually matter if you're selling out. Right. Yeah. I appreciate, I appreciate the math. 

  Phil Bonelli: Like, in my county, I don't know how many people are there are, but there's plenty, you know, and if I sold the animal proteins and now we started doing organic veggies too, if I sold, but just the animal protein piece to 1% of my county, I'd be crushing it.

  It's all I need. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We [00:22:00] talk a lot to farmers and you know this, but we talk to a lot of farmers about that. Like, we have farmers that consider shipping and we're like, you don't become a logistics machine like you already have a farm and a business to run when you add shipping. And it's not, it's not that, like we certainly have some farms that probably about 5% of the farmers using Barn2Door will do shipping of some, usually the shelf stable items. But at the end of the day, it adds a layer of work for the farmer to then have to deal literally with shipping and shipping costs and food waste.

  Often things get damaged along the way, which is a whole other cost at a certain percent of everything that they send. And yet there is some community somewhere near them that has some people that want their product, and sometimes Phil, it's like if you're willing to even drive in once a month or twice a month, that's enough to move all your product.

   It's pretty cool. And you're right, if it's just 1% of the people done drop the mic. You've completed the cycle in terms of the sustainability of your business. I [00:23:00] love that. So I love it, set prices across all of your items because you've figured it out. I love that you figured out per bird, and frankly I was chuckling that you've packaged them that way because.

  When you're thinking about dinner, yeah, I'll just grab one package of two breasts. That's enough. Like I can make that go from anywhere, from like two to six people depending on what I'm making. I used to buy whole birds and cut them up and do that. I would literally put them into those ziplocs of like, here's all the tenders, here's all the drumsticks, here's all the wings. So, I can appreciate that you have moved the needle closer to the buyer in terms of what they want. And then set prices are just brilliant. That's awesome. Okay. Do you do subscriptions? 

  Phil Bonelli: I hundred percent do. And I do not have like a chicken box or a beef box.

  And this has been critical for inventory management too. I have the family meal, but I got, I have three options, I've got a weekly box, which is a dozen eggs and two to three meats. So, we go every Wednesday we deliver to people's door, which is one of the reasons why staying within my [00:24:00] county is important to me because Caleb, the farmhand goes out every Wednesday and he's going door to door dropping these boxes like we're Amazon. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Phil Bonelli: And I need route density. I can't have him bebopping all over tarnation. He's gotta go, boom, boom, boom, door to door to door. So, I think this last week I think we did a pack of drumsticks, a pound of ground beef and a pound of pastured pork sausage. The week before it was like a pack of bacon, and then it was a pack of chicken breasts.

  So, it's Farmer's Choice box, which is absolutely critical because, you know, if everyone was just getting the drumstick or getting the breasts, then now I'm gonna have a whole bunch of drumsticks or thighs. So, I pick what goes in. Now, there's two things which are important for the listeners, I think, and of course I don't have everything figured out, but this is something that's been helpful so far, is you obviously have to only do stuff people, they're gonna want, like, people might order breasts more than drumsticks, but they are gonna like drumsticks and they're gonna be fine with, it's not like I'm [00:25:00] sending out chicken feet, which would have a much more limited audience, you know? 

  Janelle Maiocco: I'll take those. 

  Phil Bonelli: There you go. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That makes the best chicken broth in the world.

  Phil Bonelli: Oh.

  Janelle Maiocco: But no, I know, I know what you mean. I was hoping you were gonna say that. I was gonna ask, because here you have all these carcasses, if you're parsing everything out, anyway, go on with your subscriptions. Finish that first. 

  Phil Bonelli: Well, so the managing the inventory, it's critical for me to pick what goes in the box.

  And so my offering, my value proposition is highest quality and convenience. It's a subscription. It's delivered right to your door, but it is not, my value proposition is not customized. So, I do have where if you order a certain amount, you get free delivery and you could pick whatever you want.

  But my subscription box, it's just what goes in there. Oh, yeah. And then I have to provide empowerment, Janelle, because since they're not picking exactly what goes in their fridge every week, I have to empower them. So, a lot of people, when I do put whole birds in the [00:26:00] box, a lot of people have never cooked a whole bird or they've never cooked a pork shoulder steak or, an eye of round roast.

   And so, we send an email out, which here's what's coming in your box this week. And I, I mean, I think we use ChatGPT, or something to put some recipes in there. Here's how we like to cook, what's going in there? We gotta empower them. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Phil Bonelli: Because, I have had people, before I was doing that they would stop getting the subscription box because they were like, Hey, you know, my freezer's got kind of full and I really don't even know how to cook this.

  So we gotta make life easy for 'em. And it's not hard to do. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, and I feel like what you're providing, honestly, are the items down the middle of the fairway? I mean, everybody eats all parts of the bird anyway, right? They just might have favorites. You're not trying to, even though I see you have cow tongue in your store, which is awesome.

  And I kind of wanna meet the people that also buy that 'cause I bet they're very cool. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: But like most of the product on there, and I love that there really is an audience for [00:27:00] everything. Don't you love that? 

  Phil Bonelli: Oh yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: But for the majority of people, what's showing up on their table every week. Wings, drumsticks, breasts, ground beef. You know, a roast might feel like a little stretch, and yet if you cut it up and make a skewer, it's fine. Right? Like, so it's not, this is not rocket science, so it's not a big hurdle to just make some suggestions to folks. Right? And it's a meat they're already familiar with, and cooks much the same way.

  So, I think that's great. I love the rotating items. I think, for me, that feels like Christmas every week. 

  Phil Bonelli: There you go. That's our plan. Well, and then once you have the clientele and I'm going to their house every week, then you can offer to add on some different things. So for example, I have been turning the carcasses and the necks and the feet into bone broth, which we cook up in package here.

   But, I have a dehydrator that's supposed to arrive next Wednesday, and I'm gonna start dehydrating all those feet and vacuum sealing those and the chicken [00:28:00] organs to sell for like a raw, all natural dog food and.

  Janelle Maiocco: Amazing.

  Phil Bonelli: Any of my customers with dogs. Then I can just say, Hey, we're coming to your house every week.

  Would you like to add on 15 bucks a week and feed your dog too? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Add the subscriptions. Just build them. Stack them. That's really awesome. I love it. We have a whole range of farmers that we work with, Phil, and I think we have one farmer who is crushing it with only pet food. 

  Phil Bonelli: Come on.

  Janelle Maiocco: I kid you not, they just found that the margins were incredible. 

  Phil Bonelli: The regulatory hurdles are a lot less because it's not for humans. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Isn't that funny? Like Yeah. Raw milk you can give as pet food and all these various things. And anyway, so what you're saying is, is our pets eat better than us because there's, there's laws against what we're, what we can and can't consume, which is just so interesting. Or sell, I should say, but yes. No, I appreciate that. Okay. This is awesome. So subscriptions, yay, you have that going on. You've streamlined how you [00:29:00] package and price, to the convenience of the buyer, which is incredible. Do you have any specific things you think about when you're marketing your poultry to buyers?

  Like, is there a certain time period, do you sell your round? Do you create FOMO in any way? 

  Phil Bonelli: Well, you know, I get the first chicks mid-March and I will get my last batch of chicks in August to then have harvested in October. ' Cause then it gets a little too cold after that. I sold out in like December or January this year.

  So, I am thinking of like, I want to provide people with those different animal proteins every week, so I've got to build up a significant inventory if I'm going to continue to have it through the winter. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Yep. 

  Phil Bonelli: Some things of marketing that I utilize though, like for the turkeys, which this year we should do like 500.

   Because I have a plant, then I am able to harvest all the, now this is kind of scary because the logistics are so tight, but I pre-sell the turkeys, which I sell for $8 a pound, and I harvest them the Monday [00:30:00] of Thanksgiving and then people come pick 'em up Tuesday of Thanksgiving week so they're fresh never frozen.

  And that is a powerful tool. It's a crazy couple days, but, it is the best Turkey that you can get. At doing 500, and last year I did like, I dunno, 200 or 250, I was the largest provider of fresh, never frozen Turkey in the whole state, 'cause I'm like the only one. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. Wow.

  That's incredible. And you sold out? 

  Phil Bonelli: Oh yeah. And I, again, I'm doubling this year, which is scary in a way, but I really don't care. I mean, there's a demand. It's on me to get the word out and market all the customers from last year, they keep coming back. So, you gotta go big or go home, Janelle.

  You really do. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, you could do, you could do it. 

  No, I appreciate that. So, do you do set price? You do like a small, medium, large. 

  Phil Bonelli: Not on the Turkey. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You sell those by weight? 

  Phil Bonelli: I sell those by weight. 

   Again, with my mission, if I wanna make it easier for the [00:31:00] customer, I can have a good idea of the weight now that I've done it several seasons by the timing.

  So, I will get them in July, I'll get the poults, that's a baby Turkey, in July for the harvest in late November, and there will basically be two sizes, which are determined by Toms and hens. And I'll know what they are. So, two years ago, I got them maybe three weeks earlier, all the Toms were between 28 and 32 pounds.

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Phil Bonelli: And that is too big. I mean, so I ended up giving a lot of people who wanted like a 15 pound bird, that's all I charge them for. So, I kinda lost out. So, you have to know what you're doing on the operation side to like plan what you'll have to sell. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That makes a ton of sense. I love, well, I'm secretly kind of proud because, you know, the Barn2Door platform enables farmers to do any way you wanna sell.

   Like if you wanna sell set weight and flat pricing for all of the above, which does streamline and save time for farmers, and set very direct expectations [00:32:00] to buyers. But, in cases like turkeys, which can be a whole range of sizes and is a very premium product.

   Farmers can take, I hope you do this, Phil, so you'll have to let me know, but can take deposits early on. Essentially sell out ideally well before the season, and then once all the birds are weighed, they can go back in and literally list the final weight and charge those customers, and then it'll automatically subtract that deposit, so you're still not having to talk about money.

  You could just go complete the sale yourself. 

  Phil Bonelli: Dang. And see, I didn't even know, I am taking the deposit, but then I just have them true up when they come that day. So you're saying I could just go in and hit the card again for the delta? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. It's all in there. All you have to do is you enter in, you can literally decide if you wanna just charge a certain price, you can change it back and forth there too, whether you enter the weight and then it will calculate for you the price and subtract the deposit and charge the customer and send them a receipt.

  Phil Bonelli: [00:33:00] Fantastic. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, so they don't have to worry about it. You just have to write it down, go back in, punch in the numbers, and then again, you're not having to talk about money to customers, which isn't always the most enjoyable thing to talk about. Why not instead ask about their day? Or how are you gonna cook the stuffing that year?

  Phil Bonelli: That's right. You've thought of it all, Janelle, you've thought of it all. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I think farmers like you help me think of it all, which is just awesome. No, our goal is to remove friction for farmers that are trying to sell, right? And all the ways that farmers could, do and need to sell. Nothing makes me happier, honestly, than when we find out that farmers offer subscriptions because most all farmers haven't done that before. Or they're expanding the subscription offers. And to have recurring sales week go over week, month over month is, it's not just a business changer, it's a life changer for farmers and nothing makes me happier. 

  Phil Bonelli: Well, and, on the note of subscriptions and pet food and kind of connecting those things that we talked about a little bit of, yeah, the recurring revenue's [00:34:00] important.

  It's convenient for the customer, but it just, it tethers you and the customer more together because you're bringing the stuff there every week. And so, you can do more value added products, for example, like dried chicken feet dog food. I am taking a further processing step, and I could do all sorts of things that people want, but I have the relationship and I can just offer, Hey, would you like this? Would you like that? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, and you've already pre-sold the basics, right? So now you're like, okay, that's just my foundational business. Now I can actually, instead of worrying about selling all of that, you instead get to think bigger and, you know, you get to think more about your business. Nothing makes me happier. I often describe it to folks. Well, you know, the process of hopefully helping farmers have literally a system to run their entire business end to end and make it easy, including easy for their buyers, but easy for themselves.

   You give them a system, and instead of feeling like sometimes you're drowning, all of a sudden things start to get organized, fall into place, save you [00:35:00] time. Your head goes above water. You then also increasingly have time to start thinking, looking around, and even swimming, right? So, it's like when you can save time and get organized on your business, then you actually can be creative and have information to make decisions.

  And it's just, it's so fun to watch. It's so fun to watch. 

  Phil Bonelli: I love it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Any final tips on poultry? Anything that I have forgotten to ask that I should have asked? Or tips or advice that you would have for farmers who are in the poultry industry, wanting to make it better, wanting to change things, try something new?

  Or get started? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. I'll give a quick thing of advice for people who are thinking about poultry and then something for people who are already in it. So the thing about poultry is you have to look at your business, when I just had cows. And I was selling mostly half cows. That's a lot of revenue at once, but it takes me several years to get a cow to where I can sell it.

   Well, pigs, I have them for, let's see, I mean, I farrow pigs here, so I have their gestation [00:36:00] periods just under four months. I harvest them at eight months, so that's a year that I'm buying feed and everything before I can sell a pound of sausage. Chickens are eight weeks. The turn is so fast. And you need multiple turns, so chickens, every eight weeks I can sell them and get revenue to then help support my farm. Pigs, you know, 12 or eight months depending on how you look at, so you need all of that. So, the diversification of your production time is very helpful. It's important. Also chicken is delicious and the omnivores, the chickens and the pigs, I think they have the biggest difference in taste.

   When people taste your product and you do a pasture raised chicken, it is so much better than what's at the store. Go and do some samples. Go to a farmer's market and just give away chicken wings that you cooked. Give people a wing and let 'em try it. It, so it's a great thing, what I [00:37:00] would say to people who are already doing chicken is that, man, the processing really is a big bottleneck, at least in my area.

  It might not be in your area. And, you know, doing your own processing is a whole other beast. It's really not farming, it's manufacturing, it's converting a squawking chicken to vacuum sealed, you know, boneless, skinless breasts and thighs. But if you really wanna go big on chicken and you don't have a processor in your area, I would really consider it.

   And again, you're gonna have to go big and be prepared. You gotta really wanna sell a lot of chicken. But if you do, I'd build your own plant. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That is some rich advice right there. And it's also like, know your options and opportunities from a processing perspective, right?

  Like that's almost like one of the first couple of check boxes it sounds like. I can't resist one more question before. So, route density you mentioned, which I love and we would love every farmer to have, because you are making your time more efficient. [00:38:00] We also have a lot of farms that actually end up making money on delivery.

   So can you give some, like, do you charge a delivery fee? And also do you make money like a lot of our farmers do because your route is dense enough? And then, I guess my next question to that is, any marketing tips that you would have to increase the density of a route? 

  Phil Bonelli: A hundred percent. You gotta go about all of it with route density in mind. So, I specifically targeted subdivisions. I went, I didn't blast, I didn't do very broad marketing. I went subdivision specific. So, I picked the biggest subdivisions. And that has been helpful. I don't charge for delivery because I do have where you could get a delivery for like $10, but I made it so that you get delivery with the subscription because that's the behavior that I desired, is to sign up for that.

  So, I just factor that into the price of the subscription. So, I'm basically getting paid, ah like $5 for each delivery. Let's say I pay the guy who goes and does it $17.50 an [00:39:00] hour, and I put gas in the delivery vehicle. So, let's say I've got $20 an hour. So, if I've got built in $5 per delivery, I've gotta do at least four deliveries per hour for it to make sense.

  And we probably do, I don't know, eight deliveries an hour. So, yeah, so we should be making money on it. But yeah, you gotta go where people congregate. So, we are starting to do more pickup spots, like at gyms and coffee shops. So, I go to one place. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Offices are a good one too. I think a lot of times people don't think of offices like, at our office actually hosts some Farmer's CSA, and so anybody at the office can, you know, it's instant FOMO when your desk buddy is getting farm food every week.

  I will tell you that right now. 

  Phil Bonelli: I love that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I, I walk around with radishes in my hands and you know, the farm fresh eggs and people, you know, everybody wants it. 

  Phil Bonelli: Well, and that would be like, how can you get food in the hands of the most people with the least effort? You've got to do that. [00:40:00] 

  Janelle Maiocco: But, yeah, exactly.

  But you have to go to them. 

  Phil Bonelli: You've got to go to them. Yeah. Or, and I do a good bit of things to bring people to my farm. So, we do a free farm tour, but that's not like, you know, my goal of that, people always buy meat when they're here. But, really a goal would be to build friends and educate and have fun.

   Because I like to, but from a sales goal, I would want that to lead to a weekly at home delivery. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Not everybody wants people on their farm all day, every day either. 

  Phil Bonelli: No. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You have to actually have time to do other things. 

  Phil Bonelli: That is a rarity. But I will tell you, there has not been better marketing for me than having people out to my farm and, that's just who I am. I enjoy that. But when they see, I mean, that's my value promise. I don't need to be organic because I don't need to prove something to someone as a stranger. They have seen the chickens, they've seen the pigs, they've seen the cows. They feel connected. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love it. I love it. So many good [00:41:00] bits of advice, so many ideas.

   We even mentioned some resources. Hopefully that was helpful for folks. If you do go between set price, and I have to say this, because I'm not sure if you use our POS. 

  Phil Bonelli: I do. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You do? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So, you probably know then if you do sell the all the chicken online so anybody can make a quick decision at a set price.

   You can in person switch to weigh those birds and charge by weight and it will still track all of the inventory precisely across both, which is again, like I will proudly admit like we're building for farmers, right? That's the goal. It's like, what does a farmer need is the question we ask when we build software, to meet the needs of farmers.

  And that's an important piece and you know, it might make sense to charge by wait in person, but online sales, you want the birds to literally fly off the shelf. Set prices are a good idea. 

  Phil Bonelli: I do wanna say too, to the audience, you know, I mentioned that I like having people come to the farm, which sometimes is kind of, not everybody likes that, but we've talked so much about [00:42:00] business and like, you know, I have, again, I have this bracelet run it by the numbers and it's important to make a profit on your farm, but none of us are doing it to get rich. Like I wanna make the best return I can for the farm so I can grow my farm and I can feed more people and impact more land. And my favorite part of the farm is having people that I get to serve. And it's so important to pay attention to your numbers, but it really helps you know, to just have that focus of, I wanna serve the planet, I wanna serve these people and love on people, and I'm just doing it through farming.

  And that is also key. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I, I am so glad you said that. And it's actually a great sort of important note for us to end on because, wow, what a good feeling to know that you're helping people be healthier. And it's so clear across our country today, and everybody, I would suspect everybody would agree, we could move the needle towards health.

   And food is food and then down to the soil, frankly, right? Is where that begins. And so, [00:43:00] it just makes me so happy because you are literally gifting people health when you're handing them what you produce on your farm. Like that's amazing. That's miraculous. 

  Phil Bonelli: It really is. And the more you grow, if you, maybe you just want to have your family working on the farm, that's awesome.

  You're providing a beautiful life for them. If you want to grow beyond that, and then you get to start to have employees, now you can add a very meaningful vocation for those people. You're just touching people in so many ways with your farm. So I think it's incumbent upon all of us to do the best we can to go grow it, feed more folks, feed more soil, build meaningful vocations.

  It's such a beautiful thing we get to do. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love it. Oh, that's so great. Thank you for spending time with me today, Phil, and for digging in on poultry and sharing more about your farm and your heart really. And as you're feeding Georgia at this point and setting such a good example, thank you for everything that you do.

   I wanna extend my thanks to Phil for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Phil and the farm, on their Instagram [00:44:00] @HopewellFarmsGA, so as in Georgia? Yes. So @HopewellFarmsGA is where you'll find him on Instagram. And as mentioned earlier, if you're a Barn2Door farmer, check him out, go check out when his office hours are. You can pop into there and hang out with him directly. At Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase sales and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management, visit Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all [00:45:00] the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week’s episode, Barn2Door and Peter of Bartlett Farms (ND), discuss various instances the government regulations have impacted independent Farm sales, and examples of how Farms can take control of their operations. See how Peter has expanded access to his raw milk and beef.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode.

  As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers, who are cutting out the middleman and taking control of their own business, selling under their own brand. In today's conversation, we're gonna be [00:01:00] getting into the topic of government overreach in the farming industry, specifically as it relates to small, independent farmers.

   Today I am happy to welcome back Peter of Bartlett Farms in North Dakota. Peter is a part of our farm advisor network and has worked with us for five years, and since becoming an advisor has shared many tips on maintaining a dairy operation, pricing and branding your products to make a profit and grow a local customer base.

   I'm excited to welcome Peter back to talk all about government overreach, especially in the dairy industry. Boy, that's a big one. Peter, great to see you again. 

  Peter Bartlett: It's great to be here. Glad to share some of our experience. 

  James Maiocco: Well, before we dive in to talk further on the topic, let's hear a little bit more about your journey specifically as a farmer for those who may not have heard about the Bartlett Farms' journey.

  Why don't you take us back a little bit? How did it get started? 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah, so we started on the homestead track before it was trending and popular. So, my dad is a visionary. He had been a professor at [00:02:00] North Dakota State College and he realized early on as we were being homeschooled that he wanted something outside of this mainstream for his kids to interact with, 'cause there was a lot of ideological shifts going on and kind of this move toward, you know, all these other aspects that weren't healthy for our family. And so, he began studying agrarian philosophy and agrarian ways of life. And we finally decided on a parcel of land in a rural county in our state, and purchased that in 2004. Basically sold everything and moved and started from scratch. So, we had a bare piece of land with no well, no house, nothing. We poured our energy and resources into starting that foundation, and mainly began growing food for ourselves, and some neighbors and friends really pitched in to help us learn those things.

  It was more of a dream and an idea to begin with. And then the [00:03:00] practical things came along. And I was always more of an animal guy and I knew that I liked working with animals. So, we got goats right away, and that was kind of my area of responsibility. So, I milked the goats, we raised gardens, we raised a few chickens, and then read Joel Salatin's books on You Can Farm.

  And that inspired us to say, Hey, there's a lot of potential in the agricultural space to sell healthier options for food that people don't have to rely on the mainstream food chain to depend on big agriculture to source their food. So, we started from a very small size. And that was over 20 years ago now, and we've been doing grass fed beef, pastured poultry, started the raw dairy in 2009 and that was kind of an extension of my interest in livestock.

   My dad helped work with me to establish what has become a cow share operation, or what started as a cow share operation, and now is a [00:04:00] thriving direct market, home delivery, dairy. And you know, the only dairy in our neck of the woods that is still operationing, or operational, because of government shifts in regulation and price fixing and all these areas. So, we're thankful to be in an independent, direct to consumer relationship, and not just at the whims of the markets. You know, whether that's the dairy industry where farmers can't afford to stay in business if they don't have hundreds of cows.

  But, as a 15 cow raw milk dairy, we've been able to be sustainable and profitable, and we're excited for all that we can serve in our community. And now it's cool. It's kind of funny to see, you know, from back 20 years ago, it was sort of a rogue idea that you were a conspiracy theorist and doing something to prepare for a pie in the sky reality.

  Now, you know, 28 years later we see it, it's actually very wise to have roots in agriculture and to be able to support [00:05:00] a community, without relying on commercial feed and all these other areas.

  James Maiocco: It's such a great story. I always love to hear it again, Peter. So, thanks for sharing the background and for our listeners.

  I mean, it's amazing. Like you said, your father wasn't just, you know, an early homesteader before it was cool, he was a pioneer, right? He was out doing kind of what people thought of. 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: You know, a hundred, 200 years ago, going out and buying raw land, and, in his case, in one of the harshest climates in the United States.

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: And, and to be able to thrive and build a business, you guys have been very blessed, but I also know it's been a lot of work, so, well done. Let's dive in, 'cause you guys are doing a lot of great products. They have, again, like you said, not only feed a local community, but there's a lot of hands and fingers that are in those different industries that all have different impacts on what you're doing.

   So, let's start with some of the regulatory environment, what you have seen and observed, especially as it pertains to raw milk. Let's start with that. That's probably one of the most highly contested areas, you know, the Dairy Mafia as it's often referred [00:06:00] to. Share with the folks who may not be familiar, like, first off, why is there such a stigma around raw milk and why has it been so singled out, do you perceive, from a regulatory standpoint? 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah, so the history of milk and milk regulation has gone back, you know, since the Industrial revolution, pretty much. In around 1900, after World War II, there was a big chemical industry that rose up after the war effort. And there was the question of how would we utilize some of these chemicals?

   So, at the turn of the 1900s, with factories becoming more prevalent, there was a need for the workforce to congregate around cities, and a major shift took place in agriculture from, you know, small family farms spread out around the country to more centralized production occurring in larger metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York.

  And, all of these areas that I think [00:07:00] had a lack of understanding about food safety and cleanliness. Louis Pasteur, around the 1900s, discovered pasteurization as a tool to preserve, you know, the wine industry for shipping purposes. And as dairies and the industrial revolution changed the way farms were producing food, the idea of pasteurizing dirty milk to make dirty milk drinkable came to be a thing. So, there was something known as the milk problem, so back in those days, there wasn't a big awareness about sanitation and cleanliness and disease was rampant. Tuberculosis, many infant mortalities, many deaths during childbirth.

  All of these things came as a result of people not understanding why disease and other things spread. Doctors weren't washing their hands famously in the maternity wards. The idea of [00:08:00] using pasteurization to keep dirty milk from killing people was why it began to gain traction and it became mandated as law to prevent as many illnesses from drinking dirty milk. At the same time, there was a medical milk commission that established standards for milk to be used as a therapy, and they would source milk from small family farms in the countryside that were primarily grass-based doing a high quality job of keeping the milk safe and cold, and then bringing that into those areas where they would treat patients.

   Famously, there was the founder of Mayo Clinic, used milk as a diet for cleansing and revitalizing patients from all kinds of different illnesses. So, there was this development of two kinds of milk and the price difference between certified medical milk and cheap commercially produced pasteurized milk was [00:09:00] significant and you began to have an integration of dairy industry influence in government regulation, and that shifted the policy on the government side to mandate pasteurization because they could show that less people got sick from pasteurized milk, but it didn't require the dairy to improve its production of the milk, for cleanliness. 

  James Maiocco: I was gonna say, Peter, I think two other things you mentioned there too, that relate to that one was, the population of cities at that time was booming, like you said, as people migrated to cities after the 1900s. It always reminds me of Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle, right? 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: You know, he wrote about all the meat markets in Chicago where you have millions of people living. And of course the second aspect of that is that there just wasn't refrigeration, right? 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: You know, the majority of Americans didn't even have a refrigerator in their home until the sixties, right? So, we're talking 60 years later. And so, no surprise in these high population dense areas, right? Where there's no refrigeration, there's [00:10:00] not the cleanliness that no surprise, you know, people got sick, right?

  And so, you can see where there's, I think some, probably some good intentions initially, around like, Hey, look, we need to figure out a way to serve these populations. But, you know, fast forward to where we are today, all those things are solved now, right? We've got cleanliness resolved. We've got refrigeration everywhere, even on our truck.

   Right? So, it's really interesting to see how that's evolved. Now, back to you were saying, once these things were put in place, you said they started to gain some momentum then around making this kind of a national standard. Or did that start at the state level first? 

  Peter Bartlett: I believe pasteurization began to be mandated on the state level. I think Michigan was the first state to require pasteurization of all milk, and then eventually the pasteurized milk ordinance was passed as a national standard. And that has been binding on, I believe all the states. There's been various state laws that have exempted certain types of producers from that.

   And if you look on the website of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense, they have a [00:11:00] map that shows where raw milk is available and where it's completely unavailable, based on the differences between each state's laws. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, it varies dramatically. 

  Peter Bartlett: It does. 

  James Maiocco: I know the state of Florida, you have to buy it as pet milk.

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: Here in Tennessee, I have to be a member of a herd share in order to acquire the benefits of raw milk. Whereas, on the West Coast, not uncommon, I mean, you could actually buy raw milk even at Whole Foods. Right? At the market. So yeah, it's a real patchwork, varies pretty dramatically by state. Well, how have you been able to be successful with that, you know, and navigating that kind of patchwork of regulatory environment and how has that evolved here in North Dakota? 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah. Let me kind of give you how we started and where things were at with North Dakota's regulations.

   So, back when we started in 2009, there was basically the pasteurized milk ordinance applied to North Dakota. Milk was required to be pasteurized to be sold, but there was no law specifically addressing raw milk sales direct to consumer. So, by default, it was not legal to sell it to another [00:12:00] person. We copied the model of people that we had known in the blogging world from Virginia that had a cow share contract that was created by the Farm to Consumer legal defense association. And we used that to implement a cow share agreement in our state where it was basically a big gray area.

   So, we just said, well, if we have an agreement that's signed between owners and the farm, then the milk that they're receiving is not a retail sale, and it obviously would be protected under other contract laws in our state. In 2011, we got a letter in the mail on a Wednesday, stating that the following day on Thursday, a bill was going to be heard by the North Dakota legislature to ban cow sharing. And, we were one of two primary dairies publicly advertising that it was available, you know, through the cow share program, and the inspectors [00:13:00] for the dairies were unhappy that someone was getting past their oversight and working around their regulation. And so, that hearing was the committee room was filled with customers, basically. So, we put out the word to our customer base. I think we had over 50 families show up, basically on about 12 hours notice. And the room was full of moms with baby carriers and concerned dads, and that really sent a signal to the department and to the legislators that there is a growing awareness and demand and a need for raw milk to be available. That started a series of hearings and committee things and we were basically the only ones involved. Another dairy that was kind of in the mix backed out 'cause they didn't want to offend 'cause they were selling to the creamery and that was an issue for the inspectors, but we were independent, so we were pushing on a basis of a belief that the government should be limited [00:14:00] in their jurisdiction to issues that are, you know, of concern to public safety.

  And obviously, if someone is signing an agreement between a farm and a consumer that they obviously are entering into a relationship that they are well aware of the dangers of poorly produced milk, and they're doing this voluntarily. So, we stood up for zero government oversight, zero regulation on cow share, and through the process, the state legislature not only said that the department could not even register and regulate or inspect the cow share dairy, they also put restrictions in place. So that local health department jurisdictions could not add additional rules to regulate cow share transactions. So that. 

  James Maiocco: Well, that's a turnaround.

  Peter Bartlett: Yes. Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: What an unexpected turn. Well done. Geez. It goes to show you like the power of bringing, again, real constituents forward to have a conversation and see like the benefits that Raw Milk can offer. It's [00:15:00] wonderful that you guys were able to persuade them to actually protect you, even further, and provide some additional protections in place.

  Well done. 

  Peter Bartlett: It was very intense for a few weeks there because we had multiple times where it went to the floor for a vote and it was just a camel's nose under the tent saying, just register your farm so we know who's doing it. And then we would have somebody go to the sergeant at arms and say, Hey, put this handout on all the legislators desks and tell them to pull it back to committee and then it would go back to committee.

  And then, at the end, the Senate had basically come to us, and I was only, I think 15 at the time, and basically my brothers and I, we were, you know, homeschooled and we had made polo shirts with a brand on 'em, and we were like the representatives for raw milk. And they asked us what would we want, and so we said just repeal everything and don't say anything.

  But they said, well, if we do that, there could still be restrictions added. So, they put clauses in place to protect us in addition to what we were asking for. 

  James Maiocco: It's absolutely [00:16:00] wonderful. I wish every state had these types of protection for raw milk producers. You know, it's unfortunate that that's not the case, that it's so inconsistent, 'cause you would think, you know, and again, not taking any political position here, it's just the fact that consenting adults should be able to make decisions about what they put in their body. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yep. 

  James Maiocco: I think what's good news right now with what's going on currently with HHS and with RFK. 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.

  James Maiocco: It's just really great to see that they're actually trying to come back to a little bit of more autonomy. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: And I want people to be able to make their own decisions. 'Cause you know, the greatest irony to me in all this is that for thousands of years, what did we drink? 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: Raw milk. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yes. 

  James Maiocco: No problem.

  And so, I don't know why and it's been put out the pasture in so many words. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah. I think that in general, government is generally trying to do something to help people, but in doing so, it ends up hurting the free exchange of needs and services.

   So, I would say overreach, in general, hurts consumers. [00:17:00] And you know, I would say that as a free market capitalist, I would look at the invisible hand of Providence directing the markets is only able to properly function when there isn't an overburden of regulation to prevent that.

  So I would say, you know, something that has been characteristic of even my dad and how we've been raised to view government's authority is not absolute. I think that during COVID, a lot of people woke up to the fact that what the CDC says has to be tested by prudence and you know, judgment. And that applies to multiple areas too.

  So, we would agree with Joel Salatin, who basically says there's always a way to do what's right to serve consumers, and you just have to be courageous and do something. And if it's not legal, there's some way that you can still do it. Whether that's using a cow share, so if raw milk sales are illegal, [00:18:00] there's usually a way to do a herd share agreement.

   Or if, in the case of, I think we'll get into this in a little bit about the beef slaughter regulations and all that, contract butchering, you know, there's certain things you can do that they're not circumventing the law. They're using different parts of the law, to make it possible to actually serve real customers and do the right thing, even if the government seems to be in the way. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, and I think to your point, we have to assume the government's trying to come from a good place. You know, and again, it started from a place where, again, we had high degree of population, a lot of spoilage. I mean, my dad used to deliver ice as a kid. He's born in 37, tells me stories about that.

   But now with modern refrigeration, with all the cleanliness that we have, even in big cities, it's very easy. I still drink raw milk 'cause I am lactose intolerant. So, raw milk's perfect for me. The health benefits of it are fantastic. Right? And again, people are gonna dispute that 'cause there's all kinds of people on both sides of the aisle.

  But let consenting adults make their own decisions, ultimately. Right? You mentioned beef, so let's shift our topics there, [00:19:00] 'cause you guys started out as a beef operation, 'cause beef has been treated very differently than milk. You know, it's interesting, milk has such a patchwork state by state and seems to have a strong dairy mafia by whatever group of dairies, you know, at the commercial sector control that state and that state lobby. Beef tends to be much more regional and national in terms of scope.

  Right? So, when you guys got started in beef, what was the regulatory environment at that time versus kind of, have you seen it evolve for your guys' business? 

  Peter Bartlett: I would say, yeah, so we started grass fed beef a little after the dairy. I think that chickens were our first more of the meat enterprise, maybe pork, and then beef came a little bit later.

   But, in general, the butcher shops are the ones who feel the weight of the regulation. And especially during 2020 when Covid was out there, the butcher scheduling window was, you know, 12 to 18 months. You'd have to wait if you didn't have a slot scheduled in advance, you'd have to [00:20:00] wait almost a whole year to get an animal butchered.

   And we realized early on that we couldn't wait for that. So, we were in communication with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal D efense on what are the options out there for farmers. And obviously, you know, covid is not a thing anymore and there has been an explosion in number of butcher shops available now.

   But, during that time we created a contract where we would send it to a consumer on DocuSign, basically have them sign off and then anyone involved in the processing of the cow for another person would sign off. So, I would essentially buy a couple pounds of beef out of this animal and I'm butchering my own animal, shared with a number of others, and that was all signed and we've butchered a number of animals that way during that time where the, uh, processors were not able to, to get our animals in. 

  James Maiocco: Were you guys field dressing? Field dressing the animals, the whole thing? They're right on, [00:21:00] right on farm, huh? 

  Peter Bartlett: Yep. We would shoot the animal and then take 'em with the tractor.

  Cut it down. 

  James Maiocco: Well done. Geez. 

  Peter Bartlett: Set up in the shop in a semi trailer. 

  James Maiocco: A lot of work. I was about to say it's one thing to butcher a deer or, or a chicken. I've done chicken butchering. That's quite easy. But, a cow is a whole nother story. I mean, that's a big animal. You're talking 1200 pounds or more.

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah. Yep. We learned about how to make the sirloin, you know, cut the porterhouse steak and how that affects whether you get Tenderloin and New York strip, or you know, all these various things. We had a few books that we got from I think Acres, USA and those served us well.

   But, that was probably our biggest experience with, you know, on our side dealing with that kind of regulation where the butcher couldn't get to it. In general, we know a lot of butchers because we've tried various ones around the state and they deal with that same level of overreach in areas like USDA inspection.

   So, in North Dakota, and I think around the country, you're allowed [00:22:00] to sell a beef to have it butchered at a custom exempt plant if the animal has been transferred to another person prior to the slaughter. So, the meat will come back saying not for sale, you know, all the packages, and you're not allowed to retail sell it after that.

   If you want to ship your meat and sell it after it's been butchered, you have to have what's called USDA inspected meat, and that means a U-S-D-A representative is on site while the animal is being butchered. So, one example of the problem that we had would be, we brought pigs to a local butcher and we asked for it to be USDA inspected, and then we get a call two weeks later saying, your meat's ready. But we couldn't do it U-S-D-A inspected because the representative couldn't come that day. So, it's not USDA inspected, here's your meat anyway. It's butchered the same, but you're not allowed to sell it. So, that leaves [00:23:00] us in a bind because the consumer just wants the meat.

  You know, these are animals that. 

  James Maiocco: Yep. 

  Peter Bartlett: Are raised on pasture. They're perfectly healthy, they're butchered to the same standards. Everything is the same. It's just that the government fell through and couldn't give us the stamp that we would've paid for. And that puts a monkey wrench in our production plan. 

  James Maiocco: What you're hitting on here is a really difficult challenge, right? Which is, by nature, the USDA's effectively constraining access, simply by the availability and the number of inspectors. And I know just given our position at Barn2Door, working with, again, thousands of farms across every state, there are many, many farms and ranches who literally have come together, and I know in a few states where they've even built, assembled their own processing facility and it's ready to go. They've got their own, it's state inspected, it's ready to go, but the USDA will not assign an inspector to them. So, even despite all their investment and all the effort to come together, the USDA will not give them an inspector.

   And so, it's challenging, right? [00:24:00] Because, now all of a sudden, even the constraint for being able to sell into the wholesale markets or sell across state lines is being constrained by a lack of government either endorsement or, in this case, a lack of government availability. 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: Of an inspector.

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm.

  James Maiocco: Right. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: And I think the Farm to Consumer Defense Fund, they do a pretty good job also of just raising a flag. It's like, well, why do you need an inspector on site? 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: A hundred percent of the time to begin with. Right? I mean, have you ever asked that question or thought about that?

  Peter Bartlett: Yes. Yeah. And I've heard too the, the story of, I believe the term they used was the land grant universities, and this model of agriculture was that you would have an extension of the government, you know, overseeing the operations and it was intended to protect the small producer and the community from, you know, corporate competition.

   But, what it's ended up doing, is it's hurt the small guys and so, I think representative Thomas Massey has introduced legislation, I don't know what the status is. It's called the Prime Act, that was [00:25:00] supposed to repeal some of that to allow more freedom for butchers to, you know, either farmers to butcher their own meat or there to be less restrictions.

   So, we would look at it as a case where, you know, well in good intentions, you know, have a shelf life and you can't just leave things where they were. We really need to repeal old legislation and get back to more freedom like it should be, and trust consumers to make decisions that they can easily make.

   You know, meat is not something that is going to give, you know, masses of people sickness, everybody knows you need to cook your meat. I guess if there was going to be a problem with allowing people more freedom, the biggest person to suffer would be the major food corporations.

   So, I think that the meat industry has more to gain by keeping small farmers out of the market than not, so. 

  James Maiocco: You hit the nail on the head, this goes right into our next topic, which is this [00:26:00] kinda one size fits all approach, right? Which is like should the processors, you know, who are supporting all the very large distributors and large retailers, et cetera, all the restaurateurs, et cetera.

   You know, should those people who are processing 80% of our meat in this country, should those same standards apply to somebody who's just, again, a small producer like yourself. And it seems to be really interesting that there's this push for a one size fits all to say, Hey, look, you know, we need to make sure everyone's safe.

  And so we're gonna take all these extreme measures. Doesn't matter if you're producing a million pounds of beef, even if you're only producing 10,000 pounds. 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: Even one cow. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: A thousand pounds of beef, you're still gonna be held to the same standard. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yep. 

  James Maiocco: I mean, it seems like the compliance cost there is just super disproportionate.

  Peter Bartlett: It is. 

  James Maiocco: Right? I'm not aware of any other industry that does something like that. 

  Peter Bartlett: Yes. I think that is true. The cost of creating, a federally inspected butcher plant is in the millions, you know, if you're going to do a something to scale, you know, even on the [00:27:00] milk side, it was always a matter of get big or get out as regulation was passed on or passed down.

   And I know in our county there used to be 60 plus dairies, just in our, you know, a few hundred square miles. And that was because every farmstead had a few cows. They would milk the cows by hand, send the cream to the local creamery to be shipped off to make butter or, sell the milk locally.

   And as regulations were put in place where you had to have, you know, certain concrete, certain, you know, washable milk house walls, and even restroom facilities and all these things, they began to be standardized. Then, it was a matter of you had to have more animals milking in order to cover those costs.

   And now, even today, just last week, I learned that the one last dairy that was in about a hundred miles from us that had been in going for decades, just closed. And so, we were getting calls from [00:28:00] Hispanic workers looking for dairy work because they were losing their employer and wanting to transition to some other, you know, dairy industry.

  But, our state just doesn't have the ability to support that many dairies because the requirements are there. We bought a few cows from a dairy that closed and they were making about, I think they said $18, a hundred weight on milk, and it was costing them roughly $20 a hundred weight. So, if you think of it, $18 for a hundred pounds of milk, a gallon of milk is about 8.6 pounds.

  So if you're making just a couple dollars a gallon and you're gonna have to have a thousand cows, you know, minimum to make enough economy of scale to support that and keep going. We hear things about these mega dairies milking even 18,000 cows, and then Walmart creating their own creameries to reduce the cost even further.

  And a lot of that goes back to some of the [00:29:00] price fixes that government has put in place. And the idea was that they want every school child to be able to have, you know, milk for their health, for good, strong bones or whatever it is. That's an honorable goal, but when the government starts to fix the price, the farmers that are producing it, like us, as a small scale farmer, you can't produce milk.

   With the government being involved in fixing the price with the intention to make milk affordable for every child in America, what they've done is they've created an artificial price that puts farmers outta business. And if you look at, you know, we always think it's sad when a multi-generational family farm goes outta business.

  You know, the main reason they do is because they're not getting the real value from the price, you know, that they're paid. They're trapped in a price system that favors scale over the true cost of a locally [00:30:00] produced product. So, if somebody was going to pay a farm like ours, we charge $25 a gallon.

   If we look at a consumer, the value of the milk that they're receiving that is raw, unprocessed, tested, produced in a clean way, delivered directly to their door, in their geographical area. The benefit to the consumer is that their kids have less allergies, less asthma. The relationship of the farm and the community boosts the local economy.

  So, now we're paying local people to work for us. Local businesses are benefited because we're doing business with the local general stores. And we're keeping that money locally. And the true cost of cheap milk is farms going outta business. So, government overreach has affected many, many areas of the economy. And if we want to get back to, you know, a stable exchange of goods and services, [00:31:00] we need to make sure that that farm and the consumer have a direct relationship. That the consumer is educated, the farmer is producing high quality products. And I think that Barn2Door plays a part in enabling farmers to bridge the gap to their community so that we can have more percent of the food dollar rather than going through, you know, the conventional route with a co-op and a creamery and a conglomeration that eventually gets owned by six or seven major food corporations. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah, it's amazing the USDA's own data supports your statements, right? I think they say the farmer earns on average eight to 15 cents on the dollar for every food dollar spent. And, so, you know, where's the other 92 cents going, it's not going to the farmer, that's for sure. Right? It's just getting eaten up by everybody in the middle. And, to your point, that's I think one of our biggest ambitions here at Barn2Door, is to be able to work with farmers like yourself and enable farmers across the [00:32:00] entire country to be able to support direct business relationships, not just to consumers, but to wholesale buyers as well. 'cause many restaurants, many grocers, they would love to buy directly from the source as well. Right? And get fresher food. Right? Things that haven't been sitting in a warehouse for 14 days. And that really truly support local economies, as you said.

  What are your thoughts when you think about all this in terms of the threats that independent Farms face, you know, you've been successful in being able to navigate these regulations in your market, and I'm, again, really applaud the work that you guys have done, both, not just working with a farm to consumer legal defense fund, but also working with your state legislator to raise awareness and provide these types of protection.

  But what if you're a farmer in a state where, you know, they're a little bit more on the other side where they're a bit more outcast or they're prohibited from doing certain things, or they're not even allowed to advertise the availability of raw milk, you know? What would be your recommendations to farmers in those scenarios?

  Peter Bartlett: I would say there's always a way to do the right thing. Whether that's creating a [00:33:00] contract that allows you to sell a share of the cow and provide that raw milk. I've even seen Joel Salatin and John Moody, have hosted what they call the Rogue Food Conference, and they talk about in their various forms of membership associations or constitutional buyers clubs, basically ways that the legal structure allows you to go around the retail buying restrictions. So, when it comes to, you know, one example, I believe somebody had created a 5 0 1 C3 religious organization that if you were a part of it, you were not considered the general public. And as such, you were allowed to exchange, you know, products like raw milk and other things in, you know, basically a church setting.

  So, if you were doing something as a part of that organization, the government technically is not allowed to regulate it because [00:34:00] it's not a retail exchange of goods and services. 

  James Maiocco: We have several of those farms, believe it or not. We have several of those farms that have, they have done this and I think it's a fantastic avenue.

  And they oftentimes will set up a private store. 

  Peter Bartlett: Mm-hmm. 

  James Maiocco: That is not publicly visible to anyone either. Right? So they can still conduct business, but with the membership of their church. Right? 

  Peter Bartlett: Sure. Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: And me. Candidly, I would argue in many ways, especially myself as a very strong Christian, that like there is a stewardship principle that to me it is very biblically based, that I am trying to do the right thing and eating food as it's so intended by God, right?

  Peter Bartlett: Yes. 

  James Maiocco: And so I think there's a very strong basis for many of these farmers who also probably have strong faith to be able to take that approach. But, many, many farmers may not. Right? And so, like you said, you probably have to figure out what works best for your farm, as to how to navigate some of these avenues.

  Peter Bartlett: Yeah, and I think too, kind of like you said there, there's a parallel with the homeschooling movement in the eighties. Homeschooling was practically illegal and [00:35:00] it was those who had a religious conviction that God wanted them to raise their children and not the state that those people were willing to put themselves on the line to pave the way for what we now have today.

  And homeschooling is like one of the most obvious choices if you want a quality education that families can choose. So, I think that by standing on the principle that government is there to do good, but they're not an end all in themselves. We can confidently do things that serve our community. So, if we know that kids are healthier when they have access to fresh, raw dairy products, and the government stands in the way, it's not wrong to look for ways to serve those kids in a way that, you know, ideally doesn't violate your local codes. But if it pushes the boundary, you know, we're not afraid to talk to regulators and enforcement officers [00:36:00] because ultimately they also feel bad that the law is where it's at. So, like most recently, you know, thinking of certain things that one time we had a Weston Price association chapter meeting in a public library. And my wife and I are chapter leaders for the Western Price Association, and we got a letter from the state saying that we were advertising on Facebook a public event in a public library where we were giving away cream for people to make butter.

  And that was not allowed because it was a government building, and it was, you know, at risk to the public and it's just, it's not right. And we were just not fazed by it because who's gonna stand in court and argue that you were giving away cream to somebody in a public setting and nobody got sick, nobody reported it.

  It just happened to be somebody with too much time on their hands scrolling Facebook, seeing our farm advertising this [00:37:00] event. It's kind of ridiculous. But because we've been willing to rely on resources like the Farm to consumer legal defense to have our back, various things like when the Cow Share legislation passed in North Dakota, it says Raw milk could be available through the Cow Share Program.

  And then in the, in the language it says, and you may not resell raw milk products in a cow share arrangement. And the lawyers at Farm to Consumer helped clarify to us that the maximum interpretation of the law would be that because it mentions raw milk products, it implies that raw milk products could be obtained in a herd share agreement.

  And so, they would say, we would have permission to make yogurt and butter and, you know, cream and things and offer that to our herd share or cow share members. And so, we did that and we used Barn2Door and you know, put it out there. And then we get letters from the state saying, you're violating the code because it says raw milk and it doesn't say [00:38:00] raw milk products.

  So, you're in violation of the statutes. So, you have farmer lawyers saying it's interpreted this way and you have regulators saying it's interpreted this way. So we ended up, you know, putting it under the private settings on the store. Thankfully, this spring the legislature in North Dakota passed a law that clarifies products are now allowed to be sold retail.

  So, with the momentum that we gained from the cow share legislation, we were able to pass between the last two sessions, the ability for us to sell directly to consumers as a retail transaction, raw milk, and now as of this year, raw milk products. And that includes, you know, chocolate milk and yogurt and ice cream and all these things.

  So, don't be afraid to push the boundary and do what's right and. Like Joel Salatin would say, ask forgiveness rather than permission of the government. 

  James Maiocco: Yep. Spot on. And I think you said it really [00:39:00] well early on when you said good intentions have a shelf life, so don't be afraid to push the boundaries. Well, hey, I wanna extend my thank you to you, Peter, and to Bartlett Farms for all the great work that you guys are doing.

  And thank you for joining us on this week's episode. You can check more out of Peter and Bartlett Farms on the Instagram @NDBartlettFarms. So that's at the letter N, the letter D Bartlett, and that's with two T's, Farms. Here at Barn2Door we're humbled to serve thousands of farms across the country like Bartlett Farms, and we're delighted to offer services and tools to help independent farmers build a great business direct to consumer. If you're an independent farmer is looking to get started or transitioning, or have questions, you can go to Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for joining today's podcast, and we look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, [00:40:00] we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to Barn2Door/Resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week’s episode, Janelle talks to Erica of Benoit Family Farmstead (MO) to discuss selling pork to her community. From cuts to bulk orders, she uncovers how she manages her inventory, builds FOMO for her products and keeps her fulfillments streamlined.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their own brand, and making sure their [00:01:00] customers can purchase from their farm, online and in person.

  In today's conversations, we'll be getting into selling half and whole hogs, directly to your community. I'm happy to welcome back Erica of Benoit Family Farmstead in Missouri. Erica has leveraged Barn2Door for her business for four years, and is part of our Farm Advisor Network. Since becoming an advisor, she has helped inspire other farmers across the country, in part because of her success story where she and her husband left off-farm jobs and are now full-time farming.

   Including her tips and best practices on how to grow your farm business, from diversifying product lines to building a loyal, local customer base. And yes, we did welcome her back. She has prior podcasts, so please go listen to those. It's full of great tips. Today we'll dive in specifically on pork sales.

  Welcome, Erica. 

  Erica Benoit: Thank you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We have to still give people a background 'cause we'll just pretend they didn't listen to all the prior podcasts. All right. So tell us a little bit about your farming journey. Let's just start there. A quick, quick little brief overview and then sort of hole up on the pork side of things.

  Erica Benoit: Okay. [00:02:00] So, we bought our farm about 10 years ago now. Bought it from my grandma, moved here with two kids. We now have four kids. We started out just wanting to homestead. We, we had a garden in town, we knew we wanted to plant a garden and just kind of expand from there and knew how much better it tasted to have homegrown food.

   I would've never guessed it would've turned into all this, but I'm glad it has. Just the more we grew, the more people wanted what we had, and it just. Just kept snowballing from there and we created this whole business. And yeah, we're both able to stay home full time with our kids. We homeschool now, so we've been given a lot more opportunities than we thought we would ever be given with this lifestyle.

  Janelle Maiocco: That's amazing. And so just for folks listening, you are selling poultry, pork, eggs, dairy, right? 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You wanna give a little refresh on what the product mix is, and what order you started them? 'cause you didn't start at all on [00:03:00] day one. 

  Erica Benoit: No. I wish we would've probably spread out a little bit further.

  Knowing now, I would've started just a little bit slower, but we crammed everything in. We started out with like five chickens, like laying hens. We quickly got up to about 200 of those. Started out with just like a boar and a couple of sows started picking those and just kind of expanded from there.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Erica Benoit: We had, I think, five cows and a bull that we started with. We're up to 16 now. Hogs, we have about nine sows now. Yeah, we just started out selling like five hogs, you know, keep a couple to ourselves and sold the rest, and the goal was to just cover our feed costs. So basically we had freed meat through it.

  Janelle Maiocco: Nice. 

  I like that.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Yeah. It just, the word started spreading and people were just coming to us and contacting us wanting pork. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Erica Benoit: Mm-hmm. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's fun to hear that because we so often, in so many of our, of our podcasts and when we're talking to farms, even about what Barn2Door does and why we're so excited about helping [00:04:00] independent farmers.

  Some of it is just, well, you're doing all the hard work really. Like we just wanna facilitate. But, a big part of it is we know how much demand there is. Like nine out of 10 people. I even think that's being conservative, right? But nine out of 10 people prefer local food. They want local food, and they're literally, in your case, coming to you.

  It's a very sort of palpable example of like our homestead grew into a farm business because of our local community wanting to eat meat they trusted that was local from a farmer they trusted with no supply chain and complete transparency and full of nutrients. And of course, everybody's gonna demand that, right?

   But the neat part of working with farms is the goal, the whole reason why Barn2Door is. Can we help you tap into that? Like, let's make sure you're actually really, really tapping into that demand, which is kind of fun and interesting to discuss. And you know, a lot of it comes to building your farm brand, which you've done an incredible job.

   And then, making sure it's really easy for people to shop from you and to get your food, right? Like you [00:05:00] have to get in front of those buyers, and sort of make that happen. I don't know if you wanna add any comment to that. I'm just so excited to hear that you've full on, experienced that demand even coming to you.

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yeah. I'll also say like right before we signed up for Barn2Door, so like right after 2020, obviously it was easy to sell, sell locally, raised meats in 2020 because nobody could find anything else. And then 2021, it started getting harder and I contacted our local grocery store to try to get something sold in there.

  And they just told me, nobody's gonna pay your prices. We can't sell what you're offering because nobody's gonna pay that in this area. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Erica Benoit: And yeah. And then the guy that was in charge of, that would've ordered from me. He's like, you have to go online. He said, everybody's going online.

  If you wanna get your product sold, you have to go online. So, that's when we really looked deeper into Barn2Door and ended up signing up. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome. So, it was that online, I mean, at least in your case you experienced that like, okay, [00:06:00] online, 'cause that's how people buy. And you found out that that's true.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. All right. Let's talk about pork. I guess, I don't know if you sort of explained how or why you even got into pork farming. Like why pork, why pigs, why sows? And then bring us up to how many, you said you have nine sows now, or you started with nine?

  Erica Benoit: We started with just two. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes, we have nine now. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Got it. 

  Erica Benoit: Um, So hogs is kind of my favorite thing because when I was growing up, we would raise a few hogs, we'd butcher 'em. I grew up watching my dad and all of his friends come together and butcher hogs in the garage. And so I, I knew a lot about that and I really enjoyed the process of that.

   So, that was a good start for us to build on that. It was also a more sustainable item to start with. Like beef cost thousands and thousands of dollars in years to really be established, whereas hogs was a lot faster. Yeah, just didn't cost nearly as much to get started for us. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's more practical, isn't it?

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: At least as a starter. As a [00:07:00] starter product potentially. That makes a ton of sense. And then when do you sell, like what's the, I guess that's sort of part of the nuts and bolts of it, right? How do you package it? When do you sell it?

   

  Erica Benoit: So, we started out with just hole in halves. Back in like 20 20, 20 19, we would kind of keep like one or two hogs worth of cuts in the freezer, just to have something to sell. Like if somebody wanted to try the sausage or something, then we were able to sell that to 'em. And there was a handful of people that just wanted a little bit, but my focus was bulk. A lot of that was because that's what I understand, 'cause I like to buy bulk. I wanna stock my freezer, I wanna pull meat from the freezer. We're in a rural community, so pretty much everybody has a deep freezer, so everybody kind of understands that concept of you fill the freezer and you shop from the freezer.

   So, it was a pretty easy, easy sell for people because so many people, you know, buy that way. They knew their parents bought that way. They just understood the concept a lot more than if we were in a bigger city and nobody had deep freezers. But I do subscriptions. I've [00:08:00] been dabbling in subscriptions just a little bit, just like one hog's worth a month and whatever doesn't go through the subscription, then I keep in the freezer to sell.

   I haven't been trying to sell cuts because I don't really have the freezer space to hold a lot of cuts. But with our farm store we're building, then I'm really gonna start pushing cuts and expand on the subscription program. The people that get subscriptions, they absolutely love it.

   I really like the cash flow of it where I know a certain date I'm getting this much money from my subscriptions, so that really helps, helps the cash flow of a farm kind of even out, and it's not just the as much high and lows as it has before. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, i, it's fun to hear you say that because I know you've had a lot of success with the halves and the wholes, and moving larger amounts, which is really great.

  But you also have had so much success with your chicken subscriptions, including, you know, some of that fomo and knowing how to market that really well. So it's fun and interesting to see you also applying that over on the pork side and certainly [00:09:00] offering that. It's interesting because yes, there is a market of people who have deep freezers, but it's actually a smaller market.

   If you're looking at the overall potential customers that most customers don't have deep freezers, right? And so, it's good to think about, well, if they don't have deep freezers, how do I package this to sell in a way that those people will also buy? And it sounds like you've thought that through.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah, yeah. So I do a monthly subscription and I also do a quarterly subscription. So, I don't wanna be running around all the time. I've really tried to condense my deliveries as much as possible, and so instead of doing a smaller delivery of like five pounds a month, I just do 10 pounds every three months for quarterly.

  So, I try to kind of bulk it up as much as possible so I'm not running everywhere and really like conserve my time too, the best I can for people. And you asked too about like the timeline of when we sell whole and halves. We do that all year round. We try to [00:10:00] try to feral year round. We are probably not the best at planning things ahead.

   We have the bore in there and just whenever it happens, it happens. And whenever we have babies, that's when we plan everything else out. Ideally, we'd be a little bit better at that, but we're, we're not. And you can't really. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You can't, you can't do it all. You can't do it all. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Or we'll take care of the part of the business.

  Erica Benoit: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Ah, that's great. That's great.

  Erica Benoit: We try to pre-sell 'em as much as possible, so as soon as we wean 'em, we'll get 'em up to about 50 or 60 pounds, and that's when I will make sure butcher dates are scheduled. I will get 'em listed on Barn2Door and really start hustling 'em as soon as I possibly can. For my aspect too, I wanna make sure they're sold before I go to the locker.

  Janelle Maiocco: Amen. 

  Erica Benoit: On customers aspects. If they're getting 75, you know, over a hundred pounds of meat at a time, they need a plan ahead too. And so, by planning ahead, everybody's able to, you know, have a heads up [00:11:00] when there's that much meat coming in. At the same time, it also splits the cost up for people. So, you have to pay for the entire whole, you know, the whole price that goes to me upfront.

  And then they pay for the processor when they pick it up. And so if somebody, you know, if they order two months ahead of time, then they're able to spread that cost out a little bit further for them, and it's a little bit more manageable for some families that are on tighter budgets too.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. So, you do a deposit in a final charge, or you actually charge a full amount for your halves and wholes? Like a flat rate? 

  Erica Benoit: Yes, A flat rate. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Erica Benoit: I was actually, you guys taught me how to do that. Um, I was really leery. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I mean, there's honestly, there's so many options for how to do it.

  It's just fun to hear. And it sounds like that that's working really well. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yeah. So before, before Barn2Door, we would collect a half payment deposit. Some people didn't have the money at the time to pay the remaining balance or something would happen. And it [00:12:00] was just a lot easier in the end to just charge the full amount.

  And, you know, if somebody doesn't want to pay the full price, like get a half hog, I charge the exact same for like per pound.

  Janelle Maiocco: Right.

  Erica Benoit: For a half hog and a whole hog, you know, half hogs exactly half of a whole hog. That was something that I think you guys recommended to charge a little bit more for a half hog.

  You know, not cut it in exactly in half. But I did find that there was people that they would try to like, get a friend to come together to buy the whole hog. So, they made sure they saved a little bit and it ended up being kind of more of a hassle. Yeah. And I can also, I can also encourage people to just get started with a half, so they can see that it doesn't cost me anymore to just start with a half.

   And then people, some people order twice a year. They'll order, you know, kinda order in the spring for their summer cuts order in the fall for their winter cuts. And it works out pretty good for a lot of people. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I like that. It does create a natural way, again, to sort of spread out their payments, but ultimately [00:13:00] when you are buying in bulk, you do tend to get a little better rates than if you're selling cut by cut by cut.

  Right? So I know a lot of people are very incentivized to do that and to make sure that they can, you know that they are literally making sure that they have that in the freezer as their option, right. Just it's some peace of mind to folks to not all of a sudden be out of, you know, farm food and have to rely on a big box grocer where who knows where that came from, right?

  So.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: There's a lot of peace of mind for folks making sure that they're sort of stocked up on, on quality. So I appreciate that. So, how much do you charge? This is Missouri, I don't know if you have any insights on your particular market or community or state.

   It's so different from state to state all around the country. What folks can charge. But where did you finally land and how's that going for you? 

  Erica Benoit: So, we finally landed at $400 for a whole hog. We try to only get 'em up to about 250 pounds. And then they pay for the processing.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Erica Benoit: Processing is around $250 for a whole hog. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Got it. That makes a ton of [00:14:00] sense. And I don't know if I asked you what breed, what type of hog you're raising. 

  Erica Benoit: So, they are berkshire Hereford crosses. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Okay. So the whole timeframe of getting them up to 250 pounds is how long?

  Erica Benoit: About five months. Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. That's incredible. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Nothing wrong with that. Do you plan to expand? 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. So last year we only sold about 40 hogs. That was a time of us saving back guilts and just kind of transitioning a lot of things. So we sold everything we possibly had, but it was only 40.

   This year I've already sold, I think at least 50 and taken 'em to the locker and.

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Erica Benoit: So, we should have over a hundred this year that we'll be selling. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome. Okay, so you're doing a flat rate for half and whole, which is great. It's interesting, one other thing, some actually, honestly, many of the Farms that use Barn2Door software to sell and manage their half, wholes of hogs and arguably also, you know, whole goat and whole [00:15:00] lamb and quarter, half, whole cow, they will take a deposit, like Barn2Door says, Hey, we'll take like a $200 or $300 deposit.

  So, it's a meaningful amount, right? But then you're already paid that before. And then of course, the beauty of that is, is you can, to your point, have everything reserved before it goes to the butcher. Like, you'll sleep better knowing everything's accounted for, and you're not having to sell after the fact and have become a freezer business, or cold storage business.

   That it's already and therefore after the butcher it has a home to go to. But then the way that our system also works, this is actually, patented technology, which is why I'm mentioning it. But they can then, once they have the final hanging weight and they do wanna sell by weight, if you will, they can then auto charge their customers the remainder and it will subtract that original deposit and give that customer receipt.

  And so, if those customers have a credit card on file, unlike we were talking about earlier, they know that they're gonna get paid and they don't have to keep bugging those customers. When they might, you [00:16:00] know, it's more security for farmers not to get shorted, which makes us happy is sort of the net net of it.

   I love it though, 'cause we do talk through all the proteins. Like chickens is another good example. Some people sell those by weight and other people sell it for a flat price. Right. I'd say that's a good example of a lot of folks are like, Hey, if it's between this and this, it's just gonna be 20 bucks or 25 bucks or 30 bucks or whatever else. So, it's really great to hear the optionality, including what has worked in particular for you, to move those products to Wow already 50 and we're not even through May. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that, like why I started doing bulk instead of going to cuts was just so my input cost wasn't so high.

  Like I'm taking that processing fee that I would've had to pay originally. If I put it in the freezer, I'm passing that on the customer. So they're covering that and they're putting thousands of dollars worth of meat in their freezer instead of me having the responsibility of making sure all my [00:17:00] freezers are working and that inventory is moving quickly.

   So, it puts a lot of my stress on onto the customer. And they're taking on all of that instead of me, and they're getting a better deal too. So overall it works out both for. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: For me as the farmer and the consumer. Like, we're all pretty happy about it.

  Janelle Maiocco: I have a bunch of questions. Let's talk about the half whole first. Okay. So when you're talking about like they're buying half or a whole hog, what do you do in terms of cut sheets? I know most folks buying, I mean, maybe folks, you know, who are around farms a ton, are very comfortable with cut sheets.

  But when we interview customers, most of them are like, Hey, no, I just want the farmer to say, here's what's normal. Or the butcher to say, here's what normal, I don't wanna, I don't wanna make a hundred decisions, just cut them the way that's the most standard. Unless of course you run into a chef, which is a whole different beast, but in a good way.

  Right? 'cause then they really know what they want. But most of the time we find farmers have the greatest success when they're like, here's two or three standard cut sheets, like cut [00:18:00] sheet A, B, and C to choose from. And then if they want custom or something like that, then many of our farmers actually would charge a little more because that accounts for the time required to service that.

  What are your thoughts there?

  Erica Benoit: I didn't know that was an option. The day I take 'em to the locker, everybody gets an email with the number of the locker and I tell them that they're the experts and to talk to the butchers about that.

  Janelle Maiocco: If you can get away with it that way, that's great. Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: I do have blog posts over how to fill out a cut sheet. I do have the cut sheet listed on the blog post. We use two different butchers. One butcher even I cannot understand their cut sheet. And so, I use the other butchers and their cut sheet's on there and you know, they're all the same.

  They're all gonna, you know, you can only cut up a couple of ways, yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Exactly. Yeah. And that's why we often encourage folks to say, here's the two or three standard cut sheets. Whether they're handing that to the butcher directly or whether that just goes with the order saves time for the butcher, trying [00:19:00] to overexplain everything, but also it takes the guesswork out for the buyer.

   Because again, like many times, folks aren't experts, unless they are an avid cook or chef and they have really specific ideas. But, often, you can create cut sheets that are more for the folks who like a lot more ground versus more roasts, and you can kind of optimize two or three different ones that if I'm somebody looking at three options, I'm like, oh, I relate to the, you know, standardized cut sheet B because I prefer more x, Y, Z, right? Like I prefer more ground or I prefer more roasts or whatnot. And you can, you can sort of go that route, which is neat. It takes, again, if you can remove the guesswork and the time required for both the farmer and the buyer. Amen. That's like the perfect scenario.

  And it sounds like you've already figured that out too when you're like, here's the options. Read this blog if you want to. You've got this. And you're able to pass that on, which is just awesome. And that's essentially what happens when we're recommending, hey, just give them these three standard forms for them to use.

  And [00:20:00] then also when I'm buying, I can read those and be very confident and comfortable in my choices when I'm clicking purchase and I don't have to talk to somebody first before I'm comfortable then purchasing that half or whole. And you do a good job on those. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah, that makes sense. I also have like the basic inventory of if you call the locker and say, I just want the basic cuts, you got a little of everything.

  And I have it listed on like how much bacon, how much sausage, like how much everything you should expect. That's really good marketing material too, 'cause a lot of people don't have any idea what's in a half hog, a whole hog, they can't even picture it. But if you have it all listed out, I have the weights that they can expect from it.

  And that has actually helped me sell a lot of bulk.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I've seen some of your posts, and you do a really good job just lining it up. 'cause again, you're taking the guesswork out for the buyer. And you're right. They don't know. This is too many years ago to count, but when I first started buying like a quarter, half, whole cows from a [00:21:00] farmer, I loved it because they would explain, Hey, if you choose a quarter or half or whole, it's X number of full grocery bags of frozen meat. So, I'm like, oh, it's like three full grocery bags full of frozen meat. And for me that was like, okay, I got it. Like, and I know that seems, it's so simplified, but it was so meaningful to me, the buyer.

  Of like, do I have space? Here's the list of what's gonna be, but volume wise, really it's three or four or five, you know, whatever it was in that, however much I was buying. But it was really clear and it was like, oh, that's cool. Right? Right. And I, you know, I can plan for it and yeah, I've got my list and here's what it is.

  And again, there's no guesswork. And it's just all right in front of them. It makes a huge difference for that purchase decision. Okay, so I know you do such a good job marketing your chicken subscriptions 'cause you kind of open up a window and close a window, for people to sign up and make sure that they get to have your subscriptions and then you essentially sell out, which is just awesome.

   How do you do it with pork? Do [00:22:00] you do it the same with pork or do you do it differently? How does that work? How do you think about marketing pork? 

  Erica Benoit: So before, like when we first got started and we had very little to sell, I would let them know when the email was gonna go out, like a couple weeks in advance, Hey, this day at this time, expect your email.

  And people would start ordering, like there was one time in 2020 that I sold 35 hogs in three hours. Just by doing that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome. 

  Erica Benoit: There was a lot of factors and so that doesn't really happen anymore. But a lot of people know that, you know, it's gonna sell out. And I keep a tally on Facebook.

  I have like a pinned to post that says there's half hog left, there's two hogs left or something. And that kind of creates some fomo where they see that number going down and so they're gonna order a lot faster. Since we're faring so many at a time, that there's, sometimes I have 50 hogs and the locker will only take up to 12 hogs at a time.

  So, I have several different butcher dates. At one time I [00:23:00] had them all listed, like, I'm gonna do this huge sales launch. I'm gonna sell 50 hogs all at once. And I was, I was really gung ho about it. That did not happen. So, I learned from that to sell one butcher date at a time. So, I will sell in these two lockers.

  And so, I'll kind of like every other one will be from one locker or another locker. So, I've learned to just focus on one locker date at a time. And when those sell out, then I'm working to the next one. And that has really helped get each of those filled up at a time. And that was a lot easier to market too.

  Janelle Maiocco: And how often do you do that because you're like, you build it up for a few weeks ahead of time for the one date and like, and you lead up and then it's sold out. So, you can't do that too soon again right after that. Right? It's a couple weeks or months later. Like what is the cadence? 

  Erica Benoit: So, I mean, it just depends on the butcher dates and when piglets were born.

  Yeah, so sometimes, like this last time I probably sold, sold about 30 at a time, like within like a month or two, there was probably 30 of 'em that went to the [00:24:00] locker. So, that was pretty, pretty close together. And then towards the end of that I would be like, this is the last butcher date.

   So I kind of, it seems silly, like the marketing, you gotta really like fine tune the marketing. So, if it was like the end of the year, I would be like, these are the last hogs going this year, even though I had more going in January. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that because you have to create the fomo. You have to create literally the fear of missing out.

  Love that December, January. That's a great catch from a marketing perspective. Well, and frankly, even if it's like, if it's even two months in between as a consumer, I'd be like, oh, I wanna make sure to get this time, 'cause what if I missed the newsletter announcements the next time and then I have to wait a whole nother few months.

   Right? So, I think there is some sort of consumer anxiety you can plug into there, to make sure that they are getting, you know, the pastured pork from your farm and not missing out on that quality. 

  Erica Benoit: Right, yeah. Yeah. Just like create, find something. Like if it's close to Memorial Day, [00:25:00] oh, this is the last chance you'll be able to pick it up right before your barbecue weekend.

   Find something that's gonna catch somebody's eye and really focus on that. Tax refund time, try to get 'em to, you know, you got money, Hey, let's invest this into food for your freezer and just grab something and just really go with it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that, it sounds to me like you, you're almost telling people like, look at the calendar.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Because you're trying to create FOMO according to like days and times and weeks and months and season and holiday and whatever it is. Find something, whether it's taxes, holiday, end of year, beginning of year, you know, resolutions, right? You know, get it before Easter, get it before the fourth, those sorts of things.

  Anything that you can leverage. That's awesome. I love that advice. 

  Erica Benoit: Even like the end of the school year, I'm like, everybody's kids are gonna be starving. Make sure your freezer is packed. Make sure you have your bacon and your sausage. 'cause those kids are gonna wake up hungry. And you know, they're gonna, as soon as [00:26:00] kids get outta school, they eat so much during the summer.

  So really focus on that and also like, listen to other moms, like how they talk, just kind of like their struggles like, kids are hungry in the summertime. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: Oh, that's gonna resonate with moms who are, women are gonna be the most likely to buy a lot of foods anyways. So, really kind of pick up on those little key words that you hear 'em talking about.

   Or even like when school starts, Hey, let's get your kids a good breakfast to get 'em started, the day right. Just kind of, I don't know, little things. I try to just grab any little thing I can find just talking to people.

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. And you know, the other one is how many mouths you're gonna be feeding.

  'Cause I think about, like, you're talking about school aged kids, but I also think about if, if anybody, any mom or dad out there has had a college student come home for a summer, you like, you start buying like four times as much food, it's so much food. So, it is definitely like if you have more mouths to feed, you will need to double down on what's in your fridge and freezer.

  That is for sure. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. And [00:27:00] also like, I could grab onto that and be like, make sure your freezer's full. Your kids are gonna come visit you if, you know, give 'em a little bit whenever they come and kind of use that as an enticer to get your grown kids to come home and visit. And. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes, I'm all about food as the food, as the lure, right?

  Absolutely. Yes. It's brilliant. I'd love it. You mentioned, so I know you do some fomo, I think you do email newsletters and social. Maybe talk a little more about social. 'cause you mentioned a countdown, which I thought was brilliant. 

  Erica Benoit: Oh, yes. Yeah.

  So, whenever we start selling a new butcher date, I will have like my main post. So it'll be like hogs going to center locker July 10th, like all the information is right there.

   I also try to make sure that I put all my prices up front. I feel like a lot of farmers kind of like are shy behind their prices. Like they don't really tell people how much they're going to charge for something. And as a consumer, I wanna know [00:28:00] exactly right up front whether or not I can afford this or, you know, they don't wanna click a bunch of buttons just to figure out your prices.

   So, I make sure prices are all upfront. Everything they need to know to buy is gonna be on that one main post. So, at the very top, after we start selling them at the very top of that, I will just keep editing it. I'll make sure that post is pinned to the top of my page, and then I'll just edit it and I'll just do like the asterisk stars, like a couple of those.

  Two hogs left, like asterisk stars, and then I'll just keep updating that so when somebody buys one, I edit that and get it changed. And then, so that's just constantly pinned to the top of my page for that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Ah, got it. That makes a ton of sense. Lovely. So social, you leverage emails, you're sending those out pretty frequently if I recall.

  Erica Benoit: Mhm. And I'll do that for my emails too. I will add like the button on top. I think the way my emails set up, there's like my logo on top, and then directly after that I will do a button and that button will say, only two hogs left [00:29:00] going to Central Locker, July 10th. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Lovely. 

  Erica Benoit: And then they click that button and it goes directly to that link.

  Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's the most important thing. Put it at the top. In the middle with the button. 

  Erica Benoit: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I love that. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Nobody scrolls to the bottom. Nobody clicks any buttons that are at the bottom of the email. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love it so much. So much golden advice. How do you track inventory? I guess I'm partly asking because I, I know we built, at Barn2Door, we had worked for a few years on what we affectionately call combined inventory, helping people really track whole animal sales, which is sort of separate from subscriptions. I think you might leverage that if I'm not incorrect.

  Erica Benoit: Oh, I love the combined inventory.

  Janelle Maiocco: So, you do love inventory. See? 

  Erica Benoit: I love your inventory. I hate my freezer inventory. That is way too hard to keep track of. Don't like it. But your inventory is amazing. It has helped me out so much when it comes to like whole and half hogs. Used to, I had to have two [00:30:00] separate links, now everything is all on one, so I don't have to worry about whenever I go to advertise for my pork that there's a link for whole hogs and a link for half hogs. Like now everything is just all on one, and then they can click back and forth on there between like a whole and half hog and then it, it tells them the cost, it tells them how much meat they're getting. Everything is all in one spot for 'em and easy to compare back and forth. So, that is my favorite. We started selling bulk beef this year and that has been amazing to keep all that straight. Yeah, I talked to other farmers where they don't have Barn2Door and I'm like, you need Barn2Door so bad, 'cause it's gonna help you so much with the bulk inventory, 'cause it can be hard and it can be, it can be really confusing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, it's a lot. 

  I don't envy you managing a freezer, but at least I think part of what we're talking about is the ability to track what's sold or not accurately, right?

   Including with a butcher date in mind. Which I think can be incredibly helpful. I can't help [00:31:00] you with your own freezer though, back there when you're grabbing for your own family. 

  Erica Benoit: Oh, but yeah, used to, I feel like I still have like PTSD from.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes.

  Erica Benoit: From selling whole and half hogs like the old fashioned way.

  Like now, even when I go to write down the names, I'm counting up, like making sure that I did sell as many as I thought I sold and I didn't oversell, and it's always perfect. So, I really appreciate that and that that helps me out so much. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love it. No, that's good. Happy, anytime we can take away PTSD, although that takes a while to come off of, doesn't it?

  Erica Benoit: It does. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I actually, I cracked up, I think I saw a newsletter from you that said like, we have, what was it? It was either cows or pigs. It was like, we have 17.5 something left. And I was like, yes. Because, when you use the inventory, for folks listening, Erica's referring to inventory management on the backend when you're selling.

  So if people on the, if people are shopping and they're clicking between, let's do a cow quarter, half, whole, they can choose one. And on the backend, you're actually adding up, oh, I've now sold 1.75 cows and I've [00:32:00] now sold, you know, 43.5 cows and I have 0.5 cows left. And the cool part is even in that case, if you like almost sell out and you're down to, let's say you, you have less than a cow left, you literally have three quarters or a half and a quarter.

   The way that Barn2Door, the inventory works for the store on the front and back end is, as soon as you go, less than one cow, it will only show your customers the option of quarters or halves. And if somebody buys half. The only thing it will show the quarter, but if somebody buys two quarters it will only show a quarter.

  So, it literally is sort of smart in so much as it won't oversell, but it will also provide the buyer every option as long as there's inventory to cover that option currently. Right? So, it's just, it's a neat way for farms especially like yourself, Erica, who have to line up to specific butcher dates and just know like, okay, I've got 17 cows going in, or I have, you know, 35 hogs, or 35.5, [00:33:00] and we'll just keep the other half for ourselves.

   That's good. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. You need your own separate freezer. I'm sure you've done that already and maybe at this point that's a good idea. 

   Do you have any recommendations for folks? Questions that I haven't asked around pork sales? I guess we talked a lot about bulk. We didn't talk too much about subscriptions. Maybe we can take just a couple minutes here before we wrap up to make sure that if you have tips, recommendations, best practices around selling pork subscriptions, that if you were a farmer listening and curious about that, you would wanna know.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. So I, I called somebody else that uses Barn2Door and they did pork subscriptions. You guys recommended her to me and she was super sweet and like, talked me through how she did hers. And so, I was able to have like a background of how she planned hers, but I was able to plan mine a little bit differently.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Erica Benoit: Whereas she had like one haul going to the locker each month specifically for subscriptions. 

   And so, each of her orders were different. Where I [00:34:00] decided to take, so instead of one every month, I would do like five that would last five months. And so I was able to have a lot more cuts.

  I was able to use the cuts from, you know, if there's like tenderloins, well there's only so many tenderloins in a pork, but I was able to pull from other pork to fill that order and I had a lot more options, a lot more meat to work with than just one at a time. So, that worked a lot better for us.

  I started writing it down. I did work with our butcher shop and I planned out an entire year's worth of what was going to go into each month for the pork. That was a lot of work, but I just kind of lined it all up so I was able to make sure that, you know, like every three months, a certain cut, leg, jowls that you don't get a lot of, but I was able to collect it from several hogs and then like every third month, that's what they get.

  Or, you know, however that lined up where they weren't getting the same thing over and over again. I do have it set up too, where there's six pounds of the exact same thing every single month. So, they get a pound of bacon, two [00:35:00] pounds of sausage, two pounds of ground pork, and a ham steak. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep.

  Erica Benoit: And that's like just the basics. And then everything else, the other four pounds gets switched out. And just kind of seasonally, like in the summertime we'll do more pork steaks or brats, the wintertime we'll have some roast just kind of switch it up and focus too on the seasons and what somebody's gonna be cooking around that time.

  Janelle Maiocco: That makes sense. Yeah, that, that's really interesting. So, a bunch of hogs at once that you're then leveraging to put into boxes. How many subscriptions do you sell at a time and how does that math work for you in terms of how many you're butchering? 

  Erica Benoit: So I stopped, I only advertised it for probably a year.

  And knowing we were gonna build the butcher shop, I tried to condense things down as much as possible. So, I'm only doing eight a month right now, and I just plan on one hog worth and then whatever's left over from that, you know, the subscriptions get filled first, and then everything else just goes as cuts into, you [00:36:00] know, where people can buy one package at a time or however they buy it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: When I planned it all out, I tried to make sure that we were using as much as possible from the hog, so that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Lovely. 

  Erica Benoit: I didn't wanna have a bunch of random something that, you know, it doesn't get ate at all.

  Like if I have 30 roasts, like nobody's gonna eat those. I need to keep everything more at a manageable level that is either gonna get sold or we would eat, or that's gonna go into the subscriptions. I have it on a blog post too. All of my monthly subscriptions, everything they're gonna get that month.

   I just have that on the blog post. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Because you planned a whole year. You planned a whole year, right? 

  Erica Benoit: And that was really helpful because I always lose my paper that has all the, everything written down. So, when I fill orders I just go on my own blog post and that's what I tell the butchers from. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's really funny.

   I did a stint of food blogging years and years and years ago and I still go back and look at recipes that I don't know where else, [00:37:00] you know, like that's just what you use, 'cause you wrote it for yourself too, apparently. Yeah. I appreciate that. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's kind of neat to do quote unquote, a small, I know you condensed things down, but for people just starting, I would think doing kind of a small run, right?

  Like a smaller amount of subscriptions. I think that's how you started your chickens. Before it sort of blew up, which is like, start small so you can get the hang of it and learn all the hard stuff with a smaller amount. This was your wisdom from another podcast. I remember this, where it's like, learn on a smaller project because there might be ramifications.

   But then, when you expand and scale and grow, you have learned those hard lessons. So you don't make as many mistakes with larger quantities essentially. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah, that's how I got started with the pork subscriptions is I only took on probably five people. They knew that when you sign up, like this is a trial period for me, I'm learning.

  I need your feedback from it. This is probably the cheapest that this will ever be, and, well, were learning with me and gave feedback and it [00:38:00] was just one year's worth. And I learned a lot from that. And that's when I learned that I have to plan this out a year in advance.

  I need to be way more organized with it. Yeah. So that's, that was my learning period. I mean, you can even do that for five months or six months or something. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: Like somebody could really condense it down. Yeah. And so the next year I upped my price $15 more. I think all but one person signed back up.

  Janelle Maiocco: Amazing. I love two pieces of advice that you just said. One of which is, hey, you can do a shorter seasonal subscription to learn a little faster. You're still gonna learn a lot of lessons. We have farms that actually do month, three months, six months subscriptions. It is not uncommon.

  You do that actually with your tickets, but like, it's a neat option or opportunity to be able to offer to customers, but also to learn quickly yourself. And I also love that you included, like you set expectations with your customers when you were learning. Like we're learning, we want your feedback.

  You set expectations on prices before you even like got into it. So they wouldn't be disappointed later. They knew it ahead of time, [00:39:00] instead they were like, yeah, we knew we were getting a great deal. Versus, oh no, you're raising prices, which is just awesome marketing. So, lots of good advice and just to say, Hey, we're learning.

  We wanna expand this program, we want your feedback. That's just rich advice. So hope I'm repeating it multiple times so that everybody really hears it. Listen, listen. All these good ideas. Okay. I'm about to sign off. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that's top of mind, I know we've already covered so, so much on pork sales.

  Anything you wish you would've known? 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Oh geez. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh geez. 

  Erica Benoit: I wish I would've known Barn2Door a lot sooner.

  Janelle Maiocco: I did not pay her to say that. If anybody's listening.

  Erica Benoit: No. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Hey, it's good to be organized. 

  Erica Benoit: I still remember being, yeah, I was at a mom's group and we had like just started selling whole and halves and you guys called me and I'm like, yeah, I'm not big enough for that.

  But, I think we would've grown a lot faster. I probably would've had a lot less stress on me if I would've just signed up a lot sooner. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. [00:40:00] I don't know, it's funny 'cause people like. What do you do? It's like, well, in some ways we just help people stay organized and save a lot of time.

  Right? You're running a business. You're in charge of every single operation, like from sales and marketing to inventory and actually farming and you know, veterinarian on the side too. We don't help with that. But, you know, like to help you have your business dashboard to make hopefully everything organized easier, you know, finances, under control, sales, customers, marketing, and it just ideally keeps things organized so that you have brain space, right, and brain space and some time. Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. 

  Erica Benoit: I like how you guys call yourselves a tool, ' cause I feel like that really resonates with me.

  That you guys are, you know, I'm the one running the tool. I'm still in charge of my business. I'm just using you like you're the shovel that I'm putting to work.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Erica Benoit: And you just make it a lot easier. Maybe you're like a tractor because you're way easier than a shovel. 

  Janelle Maiocco: A shovel you have to put some umph. 

  Erica Benoit: Like a really nice tractor! 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, that's awesome. I [00:41:00] love it. Well, and I think it's important to note, you know, the important thing is it's all your brand. We always say to people like, we're under the hood. When you say, I'm putting things on Barn2Door, what you really mean is you're using our software to put it on your online store.

   Right? It's all about your farm, your logo, your connection with your customers, and we just build underneath to make it all go smoothly for you, hopefully. So, we are so fortunate to work with you. I wanna extend my thanks to Erica for joining us on this week's podcast episode.

  You can check out more from Erica by listening to all the former podcasts, which we hinted at. If you wanna find them on Instagram, it's @BenoitFamilyFarmstead. Benoit is B-E-N-O-I-T, @BenoitFamilyFarmstead. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.

  We're delighted to offer services and tools, ha ha, shovels, tractors, all of the above, right? To help farmers access more customers, increase sales and save a ton of time for their business. Hopefully, just empowering farms to have all the controls to just run it well and, and scale and grow if they want.

   If you're an [00:42:00] independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management, visit Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today, we look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door. com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [00:43:00] time.

In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres interviews Janelle, CEO and Founder of Barn2Door, to discuss the history, mission and future of the business. Built to put the power back into Independent Farmers' hands, learn how Barn2Door has expanded its software and services tailored specifically for Farm operations.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Alex Russell: Hello, welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. My name is Alex Russell, and I am so excited to interview Janelle, the CEO of Barn2Door today. But, before we do, let me give you a quick rundown of what Barn2Door is, [00:01:00] who I am, and what my relationship is with the Barn2Door team. First off, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman.

  They're selling directly into local markets under their own farm brand, from an online store and a website to in-person sales, to managing all the parts of the business. From inventory tracking to managing daily deliveries, Barn2Door's software and resources help farmers be successful. Okay. A little bit about me first before we get started.

  I'm Alex Russell, today's podcast host, and I am the owner of Chucktown Acres, a regenerative farm in South Carolina. My farming life started years ago when I interned at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms in 2016. Not long after that, my wife and I, we started a farm [00:02:00] right outside of Charleston, South Carolina.

  We grow forest raised hogs, pastured poultry, and grass fed beef. We offer subscriptions and deliveries to our local community, and we also set up at a couple local farmer's markets. We've leased land, we've built a pretty well known farm brand in our area. We've launched a brick and mortar farm store, and we've partnered with a lot of other local farms.

  It's been a amazing journey, and it's one that I love to share with other independent farmers across the country. I'm also a member of the Farm Advisory Network with Barn2Door. Basically that means that I get to give Barn2Door feedback as one of their users. I get to give them feedback based off of my experience with the software, and I get to host office hours where other farmers get to ask me any kind of questions they want.

  That program is called Connect. And [00:03:00] then I also have the privilege of teaching Barn2Door's Grassroots Marketing Academy every month. I've been working with Barn2Door for five years now, and I've had the privilege of knowing Janelle for four-ish years. We actually had the pleasure of finally meeting in person at the Sustainability conference in North Carolina.

  I think it was 2022. Janelle.

  Janelle Maiocco: I am trying to remember. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, I... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Was that the... yeah, probably when Lucy and I were hanging out talking Spanish words. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. That... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. 

  Alex Russell: That's it. And um, we think it was 2022. Not totally certain on that. But I've been using the Barn2Door software since we started our farming operation.

  So, it's helped me with everything from sales to fulfillments, to my brand, to my social presence. Every aspect of my business has been affected by Barn2Door. They've connected me to [00:04:00] a community of farmers that I would never have met, had I not been part of the community aspect on the platform. They also helped me make my farm website, my farm store.

  I literally don't know what farming life is like without them. So, I am very grateful to Janelle's work with the software and how it's deeply impacted our farming, our business, and then my personal life as a farmer has been made sustainable, as an option that I can keep going on because Barn2Door has helped me so much.

  So, I'm a huge fan and I'm so happy to do anything I can as a farmer to support these guys 'cause they just have made a world of difference for us. And yeah, I've got in here three years ago I got to do a couple conference presentations with Janelle. We did one in Dallas. We did one in North Carolina and [00:05:00] I'm so happy to be a part of this team and so happy to do the podcast today.

  Janelle Maiocco: I love it. We need to put you back on the speaking circuit. You're so good at that. It's just amazing. And also, it's funny, you're gonna ask me why Barn2Door? And I'm like, I think you literally just described why Barn2Door. 

  Alex Russell: And that's the end of the podcast. Thanks for joining. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Um, yeah. If we help you and other farmers like you, be successful and crush it out there.

  Amen. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, I've done a lot of conference calls with other farmers and if they're brand new and they're wondering if it's worth it, you know, I gotta sign up. I do have to pay for this software. I don't know. And I'm just like, dude, you have no idea. Like, I still pay for the software, but I don't even think about paying for the software like... 

  This program has helped me so much. It's not even a second thought about is it willing, is it worth it to pay for it? It's obviously worth it to pay for it, and it's gonna [00:06:00] help you weigh more than what they charge you. So, last piece of the intro, Janelle, I have a thousand questions for you.

  I want to dig into your backstory. I want to know why you started Barn2Door. I wanna know why you want to help farmers. What keeps you motivated? What have the hurdles been, and what advice do you have for farmers on and off the platform? Welcome, Janelle. I just did your job. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, yup. 

  Alex Russell: Of the intro. So how did I do?

  Janelle Maiocco: You did awesome. Well, you know, it's great because, people wanna know who the heck you are when we're having this conversation and I've been asked by folks to do a podcast on why Barn2Door, including other farmers saying, Hey, can you please do that? So, really sweet and it's good to dig in.

  Alex Russell: Alright, let's get into this. I wanna know just more about your story. I know a little bit, but I bet there's a bunch I don't know. Few simple questions right off the bat. So, [00:07:00] if people have never met you, have never listened to you speak before, tell us, where'd you grow up? What did you want to be when you were growing up?

  Did you study software? Did you have a career in software before? All of that stuff. How did you get to this point and what was life like for you before Barn2Door? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness. That was like four or five questions in a row, Alex. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, I've got 'em written down, so if you need help, I can... 

  Janelle Maiocco: You can circle back.

   Okay. I was raised in the Pacific Northwest. I have roots from OG, from Montana, primarily some Nebraska, et cetera. But, ended up in the Pacific Northwest where my grandfather helped found a city and it was all farming and agriculture. So I grew up in this lovely pocket of a ton of dairy farmers and then berries.

  So, if you know anything about the Pacific Northwest, it's seafood, a lot of salmon. A lot of berries, a lot of dairy. And so, my grandfather had a dairy farm and a chicken farm. So spent tons of time in the milk parlor and, you know, [00:08:00] most of my friends had farms and their families had farms and people milked before school and after school.

   My summer jobs were very farm ish. I picked more berries then anybody would care to know. Probably ate that many too. But yes, we used to pick berries all day, every day as our summer jobs. Riding tractor is very normal. My father had a hobby farm then. So, we always had huge gardens, animals, chickens, cows, everything else, out back.

  So, a lot of wonderful exposure. Loved farmers for all of those reasons. Backbone of the country, lovely people, salt of the earth. So, that's where my affection and exposure grew for farming in particular. You asked about food, and what I'm trying to think what I wanted to be when I grew up.

  I'm trying to remember if I have an answer for that. I think it was an evolution, but, I was the kid when little kids played house, I played restaurant. So, I think I always had a great affection for food. Early, early, early on. And I was classic, worked tons of years in restaurants, front and back of house, all through the years [00:09:00] and I dunno if you wanna know beyond that, I actually got my MBA in the Seattle area, so if anybody knows, that's a very thick tech ecosystem.

   So, I got great exposure to technology, to business, to food tech, to all of the above. Also got to know the restaurant community there very well. So, a lot of good exposure to all of the above in terms of tech, in terms of restaurateurs. I also did an OG food blog for years and years. So, a lot of things circling around that ultimately did come together.

  Alex Russell: Okay. That's beautiful. So, did you have a career in tech and software before you started this or was this like, I know people who do software. I think I could do it. Like, walk me through that scenario. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. When I was getting my MBA in Seattle, it was all the.com, everything, right?

  So there was a lot I learned, and I did, I consulted for quite a few years for a number of [00:10:00] businesses. Often food tech related, sometimes just tech. Where I do various kinds of consulting. I also consulted for some really large statewide food commissions, like Northwest Cherry Growers, Texas Grapefruit, California Raisin.

   Just really interesting, and honestly piggybacked on that with my food blog. Before anybody knew what influencers were, they called them blog ambassadors. 

  Alex Russell: Bloggers. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, exactly. So, I got great exposure from that to just a litany of food brands across the country as well. So, a really great mix.

  I think the fun twist to the story is after about 10 years being in food at, well, I should say tech and business, I actually bowed out and went back to culinary school to become a trained chef. I don't know if you knew that or not, but anyway, it was very soon after that that I looked around on, my chef friends were trying to source local food from farmers.

  I was on a consumer like personal level, always trying to source local food directly from farmers. And it was sort of in that pocket of people and it was [00:11:00] so obvious that it was, it needed to be fixed because, all of us were trying to source direct and it was like Google, it was like, Facebook groups, list serves, long, complicated email threads to try to figure out which Farm was gonna maybe come to town.

  And so, it's like pen, paper, cash, check, you know, many touches of email, text, everything just to try to procure food. Anyway, net net of it is, most buyers won't go through all of those hurdles, but the demand was there, and I knew that because nine in 10 people prefer local food. So I'm like, it's not a demand issue.

  And so, everybody wants local food, but at the time, you know, farmers were really struggling. And so, that was really, you know, 10 plus years ago was the light bulb moment of we have to solve, like we have to solve this. It's not even an option. Because these farmers shouldn't be failing. We don't want them to fail.

  We want them to be wildly successful and then to support and grow these farmers where there's all this demand for local food, ensure their success as farms, and then ultimately continue to [00:12:00] grow that as a great option and a viable option from a career perspective. And make it turnkey and easy for farmers to move their product, engage their communities, and sell consistently.

  Alex Russell: Yeah, it's, an unbelievable resource. I still remember when I was in Virginia, working at PolyFace, I decided to start my own duck business. So, I would raise and process meat ducks for like French restaurants. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, awesome. 

  Alex Russell: And the agony of having to try to sell those ducks to restaurants. I still have PTSD from it because I would set aside six hours a week to make cold calls directly to restaurants. And, oh, my personality is not the, like, barge in and be the center of attention kind of guy. I'm a quiet, you know, slipping through the back door kind of guy. And so, I'd have to call these restaurants and try to get through the walls and walls of fireproofing that they had to block people from [00:13:00] getting to the chef.

  But I had to talk to the chef and I remember I would just be in agony. I would force myself for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday. I, and Wednesday, I'd have to call these restaurants and it was so awful. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.

  Alex Russell: And I think I like still remember that innately, whenever I get an email that's like a confirmation email that I sold another $200 on Barn2Door and I never even talked to that person and I don't even know who they are and they're buying my stuff. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Like, oh, what a relief. 'Cause I used to have to make every single sale through phone calls, writing down orders, promising I'll be there at this time. I don't even have the chef's phone number yet, and I mean, what a terrible, terrible... 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's horrible. 

  Alex Russell: Way to do it.

  Janelle Maiocco: And to be honest, the buyers have PTSD too. They don't, that's not how buyers buy. Buyers love farmers, but they don't wanna talk to them every single time they wanna buy something. [00:14:00] And I know that's a rough reality, but buyers today, so the missing link, and you, you've just touched on it, is convenience.

  Like buyers, they wanna go through as few clicks and as little friction as possible to purchase the food. And then have it fulfilled in a convenient way. And if you can build up a group of buyers buying directly from a farm where it's easy to buy, they can just go online, drop it in their cart, hit purchase, you know, choose the pickup or delivery that works best for them, whatever that farm might offer.

  And it's easy? Game over because now all of a sudden, I like to say if you have a hundred customers and you require phone calls and emails, maybe you'll be lucky to get one out of a hundred that are willing to jump through all those hoops. It's probably more like one in 10,000. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: But, you get the point.

   But, if it's easy and all I have to do is go online, drop it in my cart, either hit subscribe or purchase, and I've chosen Wednesday because that's what the farmer offers for either delivery or local pickup, I will do that all day every day because I am the [00:15:00] 99 out of a hundred people who prefer local food.

   But it's the convenience of shopping and fulfillment. That's the game changer. And as you know, a lot of farms will come to us, like, wow, I first have to build up my customer list. It's like, great. We know how to help you do that. Once you have your customer list, you just have to regularly remind them to buy from you.

  And they will, if it's easy. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: If it's easy. If it's easy. 

  Alex Russell: Exactly. And farmers like me know how strenuous it is to try to sell to someone who won't just go on your website and buy it. They're like, your buddy or someone close, close by. They're like, can I just text you my order and then just meet you at this unspecific time when you're probably really busy and you don't have time.

  And like anytime someone comes to the farm and you talk to them, that's 30 minutes to an hour. Guaranteed. That's for one sale. 

  Janelle Maiocco: No. 

  Alex Russell: And so when people do that, I'm like, please just go on the website or just, we have a farm store. So I'm like, just come [00:16:00] during the farm store hours because I don't have just a floppy free hour on a Thursday just to give to you, you know, because you want to spend a hundred dollars on some whatever, some brisket or something.

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, and the reverse is true. The buyers typically don't have time either. Especially those who are like, Hey, I'll pay you 10, 15 bucks to drop it on my front door step. Right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: And everybody will because they're busy. But they want the food and so they will pay for convenience. I have to say one thing that's really, really important to Alex before we move on, and it's the mission and the passion and the grit behind growing Barn2Door because we know and love that when we help farmers remove the middleman and sell direct, we give the power back to farmers, right? Like you get to set your own prices. Now, you know your own end buyer, you're calling the shots. Versus, you know, when you start to get into that aggregation distribution model and all of a sudden somebody else owns the buyer, somebody else is setting the pricing.

  And that's very risky for [00:17:00] business. And so, nothing makes us happier. I literally had a call this morning with somebody who was talking to me about some precision ag, you know, whatever for some big ag commodity mono drop. You know, I tried not to go off on them. I, I admit, but... 

  Alex Russell: You have no idea who you're dealing with here.

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm like, I have, do you want the ethical issues I have with that or do you want anyway? But, but the net net of it is, is that's actually very risky. The reason they, those monocrop farms have to be so massive and have all the subsidies is because they have no pricing control, and they literally put all their eggs in one basket with one crop.

  Like, you know, one thing goes wrong and you're toast. And so it's just, it's funny, but we actually help independent farmers all across the country, de-risk, de-risk their business because now they can sell to wholesale, to retail. They can build up local buyers, many, many, many buyers in their local communities.

   And they can, in many cases offer subscriptions to their [00:18:00] product. Now all of a sudden they have 20, 30, 60, 80% of their sales are recurring revenue every week or month. So, this is a game changer, including when you remove the middleman and remove the supply chain, you can maximize your profit.

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Right? And so for us, nothing truly makes us happier than so many success stories of farmers taking their business by the horns, if you will. And really leaning in and saying, I'm gonna do this, and then having wild success. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. And we have to keep in mind that the margins are so tiny for anyone in the food industry, whether it's restaurants...

  Janelle Maiocco: Fair. 

  Alex Russell: Farmers in this case.

  And, you know, I've got a couple of people that I do a little bit of wholesale work with. But if you're gonna give a food co-op or a grocery store, somebody that you're gonna work with on a wholesale basis, a restaurant, and you're gonna give them a wholesale discount, you just have to be really careful with that because, you [00:19:00] gotta know your margins ahead of time before you go ahead and say, yeah, I'll give you 30% off if you take 200 pounds of ground beef.

  Sure. Because your margin might be 30%. Guess what? You just gave that 30% away to a restaurant and you're farming for free and you're not getting anywhere. And it's one of the most amazing things to be able to sell the full price direct to the consumer. When we cut out that middleman, that's 30% more or whatever your number is, it could be 50% more.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Many times higher. 

  Alex Russell: Income that you're getting to hold onto as a business as profit, to then be able to grow your business. Because it seems like a lot of farmers get into this and we have to have the heart to heart price conversation with them. ' Cause they want their steaks to be the same price as Whole Foods or their ground beef to be the same price as Walmart or something.

  And it's like, guys, you have to understand. You're gonna lose money. That food is artificially [00:20:00] subsidized to be made cheaper than it actually is. Don't match those prices. You're not getting government subsidies as a little farm, right? So, you have got to make sure that you are running your numbers, charging your real price, giving yourself profit to be able to grow your farm and stuff like Barn2Door, farmer's markets, farm stores.

  All of these things allow us to be able to go direct to the customer and make that difference and be able to charge a full retail price, rather than going through someone else and basically giving away all of our profit to someone else to make. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I know it's like we're on our double soap boxes again, on, you know, giving the talk.

  It's good stuff. There's a lot of passion. There's a lot of passion. 

  Alex Russell: Alright, so my next question for you is, why did you choose technology to help farmers instead of other ways?

  I'm sure being in the food [00:21:00] industry yourself, there was probably a hundred different ways, you could have started your own co-op. You could have started your own grocery store, you could have started a business that helps farmers connect with restaurants only. What was the thing? What, like, what happened?

  Was there a conversation you had with somebody where you, you were like, I don't know, I just wanna help these farmers out. And then the idea sparked to have a software. I mean, this is a very specific idea. That is working. When did the spark happen and did this happen as a progression where you tried a few things and then adjusted it?

  Or, like, tell us the story behind building Barn2Door. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both. I understood food hubs and saw a lot of incredible groups trying to be supportive of farms. Many of 'em actually had grants and I also talked to a lot of those same food hubs and groups that would say, Hey, it's great, but then if you don't get the grant, the bottom falls out and, you know, if you don't get the grant [00:22:00] again, I should say, then the bottom falls out. And that impacts farmers who then again, are left holding the bag, they don't have that end buyer relationship, 'cause again, somebody else was doing that aggregation and distribution.

   I played a little in that space enough to figure out that when farmers use an aggregator and distributor of any kind, whether it's a food hub or a small marketplace online or offline, et cetera, that for a farmer, it was good because it moved product like, okay, they could count on, hey, X number of whatever from this large contract would get moved.

  But, as I said earlier, that can be very risky when all of a sudden, the contract falls through. Or in the case of aggregation distribution, they might deliver what was purchased through that aggregator distributor, but they always would continue on and keep selling direct to chefs and friends and family and consumers, because they would make more money.

  So while it was useful, it still counts as a sales [00:23:00] channel to use a grocery store marketplace or food hub or any of those, but it eats away at the profit margin. So, it ends up being expensive channels better than the, I always say it's better than the compost pile, right? 'Cause you wanna move product, but... 

  Alex Russell: Yes.

  Janelle Maiocco: But, that's fine.

  That's neither here nor there. There's a lot of use and value in that. But I saw the value, the brute force effort farmers were making to manually manage direct sales through phone, text, email, pen, paper, cash, check, setting aside to your point hours to try to do cold calls and do all of this manual non-farm effort, you know, to do the marketing and sales, which again, you have to do if you wanna maximize your profit and have the most control over your business. And so, it was very clear to me, and there was certainly light bulb moment. And through that evolution of these farmers prefer to sell direct and or if we give them an opportunity for that to be really turnkey and as easy as possible, even though at the end of the day [00:24:00] they're still the ones that have to do the marketing, 'cause it's your own brand and you have to actually build up your own loyal customers to your farm brand, not any aggregator or distributor. That if we could empower that model, it would change the lives of all those farmers and encourage farming even more so, and basically save the future of, well, provide an incredible option for the future of food in so much as there's actually nutrient dense options and variety. If you can decentralize food essentially and give the power back to the farmers. I mean, if there's anything else that's the mission and the power and the passion, which is to give the business back to the farmers, to give the decisions back to them, to give the farmers the option and the optionality and the information and data to make good decisions about their business and to maximize their profits.

   And of course, if you're growing a business as a farmer, it takes effort upfront. Like you said, you can't not pay for a software, you know, you have to actually invest. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And I saw them doing all this manually and I'm like, okay, software can solve the [00:25:00] manual minutiae and administrative overhang of farmers trying to sell direct brute force with nothing, with no software helping.

   But the second punch, and this is a one two punch, it has to be convenient for buyers. Or they will not buy. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Again, you can do all the right things, even use the software, everything else, but unless you make it easy for them, for the buyer to order and get the food, including without talking to anybody, and with a few clicks of a button and with a credit card, then all of a sudden, now the masses will buy from you.

  You just opened up your whole world. That's why you can say you woke up the next day and you sold a couple hundred more dollars of food to somebody you never met, because it was so easy. They saw a quick description of what you're doing. They love it. They want it, it's done. They make quick decisions.

  Alex Russell: Yes. Yeah. This is all making me remember when we started our farm, it was June of 2020. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Alex Russell: And the COVID pandemic was like, [00:26:00] we were still in the early stages, but everyone was so freaked out that no one was going anywhere. The farmer's markets were shut down. I knew farming friends that were shutting down their operations like they were closing their businesses while I was opening mine.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: And it was crazy because I saw these people, they were like, he raises pigs and chickens and cows. He's shutting his business down. But, those people were all going through distributors. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. Risky. 

  Alex Russell: No one, no distributing companies were doing anything. The grocery store shelves were empty. The supply chain got totally screwed up.

  And so, that was one of the main things that I saw that gave me this huge, like, aha moment where I said, we have to be able to sell direct to these people. And if we can't go anywhere, if we can't go to this farmer's [00:27:00] market, we'll never meet anyone. So, we have to have an online thing like this. This is this whole thing.

  Let's go online. Let's do it. And so, that's when we started looking for a, we were like, Hmm, we need like an online service where they'll build us a website, they'll build us an online store. They'll help us learn how to get in front of customers. People can go on our website, they can like order stuff.

  It'll be really easy and amazing for people. That probably doesn't exist, but let's go, let's Google it anyway. And so we start searching for what Barn2Door is, and we found out there are a couple of options, none of them even close to what Barn2Door offers. And so, even before we launched our own business, we knew we needed this.

  So, we signed up for Barn2Door before we even launched our LLC as a business. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Amazing. 

  Alex Russell: And we were like, we have to do this [00:28:00] because I'm seeing all these other farmers closing their doors and they're good farmers. Like they're... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: They're regenerative, they're sustainable, they have great products, but they all went from probably 90% wholesale through distributors and middlemen.

  And then, covid hits. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: And they tried to switch to like, Hey, I'm gonna post on Instagram that you can come to my farm on Tuesdays and we'll just set up a cooler at the farm. It did not work like that was not nearly convenient enough for people and it was this huge drastic change that these businesses had to make.

  And unfortunately a lot of 'em closed down. And I was able to learn by observing that and be like, we have to have an easy online store, and now I just tell people, if you go to my website, go to the online store and it's basically [00:29:00] the Amazon of meat. Like everything is super easy to click on. We have subscriptions on there, we have bundles, we have some a la carte options.

  You just select what you want. Pick whether you want us to bring it to your house or you wanna meet us at a pickup location, and that's it. And people are like, that's it? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. That's it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: No friction. 

  Alex Russell: They're like, oh, we already do that for like our... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Everything. 

  Alex Russell: Whatever. If I don't have a tool, I'm gonna go buy it online.

  I'm not gonna go to a store anymore. I'm gonna go online. And so it's such a, I'm just so grateful that you did this because it's such a massive resource for us. And I think that having Barn2Door helped launch our business and we're way further past where we would've been without it, guaranteed.

  For sure. And so, I just love what you did. And is there anything else you wanna tell us about the, the beginnings? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, [00:30:00] the beginnings? The stories of people, like you said, because they were selling with distributors and they were these amazing regenerative farms because they didn't have their own list of, you know, their own loyal customers.

  That's really motivating to us, to what we do here at Barn2Door. We don't want any of those farms to struggle, that's the motivating factor, right? And for us here, that just means we keep making our platform better, more robust. Obviously talking, that's why we have a program with farmers like yourself, of like, tell us what you need, what can we improve?

  You know, we're investing in building what you need from a software and resources perspective. Tons of resources. 

  Alex Russell: Business owners, we need feedback, you know, from the people that use our products. I'm always asking the people on our meat CSA, is this good? Are you liking what you're, because it's a farmer's choice, I literally pick what they get every week.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Like, did you like that? Was that okay? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Streamline it. They don't care. 

  Alex Russell: And most of the people are just like, yeah, [00:31:00] just bring me food. It'll be fine. And then every now and then I'll get someone who's like, I didn't really love that sausage or that cut of meat. I've never used it before and I'm scared of it.

   And so, any kind of feedback we can get is awesome. And that's why I love being part of the Farm Advisor Network because I see how valuable that is to my business. So, if I can offer that to another business that I use and love, like Barn2Door, I'm all in. I love that. Okay. I got another question.

   Can you, I don't wanna put any other software platforms under the bus, but I want you to be able to highlight what makes Barn2Door so special, and what makes Barn2Door different than other platforms. And you know, your favorite special features that Barn2Door has, 'cause there's a lot going on here that you guys do.

  I mean, there's tons of different things. So, I wanna know what sets you guys apart and what are your favorite features that really make you guys [00:32:00] special? 

  Janelle Maiocco: What sets us apart is that we're purpose built for farmers. I mean, at the end of the day other options out there tend to be what we call horizontal platforms, not vertical platforms.

  What that means is they, if you wanna throw up an online store, there's a lot of different places you can go to do that, but it's not built for farmers. It's not built to ensure that a farmer can offer wholesale and retail pricing for the same item or different unit sizes for the same item.

  Or be able to readily put in offer different, like specific cutoff times in order to place your order by. Sometimes farmers need that to be two or three days before, 'cause they're gonna go do a big loop over the weekend. So, every little thing that we're building outside of just the basic, like, hey, people can shop, they can put in their credit card pay, like the basics of commerce.

  You know, we're always considering what does a farmer need across the categories of farms from, you know, dairy, protein, produce, microgreens, like you [00:33:00] name it. What do they need to be successful in selling? How do they sell today? And so, we build for that, which is if a farmer's selling eggs, they can sell a dozen eggs.

  They can sell a case of eggs. They can put different prices, they can have obviously those different unit sizes. And with Barn2Door system, those eggs will actually, the inventory will subtract in real time, including if somebody's buying the farmer market and somebody else is buying online at the same time.

   So, we have a really robust inventory tracking system that considers, or I should say, is agnostic to different prices and unit sizes, because that's what farmers need. So, we look across those farms businesses and we're like, Hey, how do we make sure that we cover all the bases in terms of their needs, selling, and the other one, I mean, I already mentioned different prices. The other one that's a big deal is sell by weight. So, the other systems are not going to build for sell by weight. And the farmers need the ability to do not only that, sell by weight, both online and in person, but make sure that when they do sell [00:34:00] by weight, inventory is still tracked accurately.

   So, there's a lot of those type of nuances that are really critical. Another one we like to mention is subscriptions. So, it's really lovely because it's been a game changer for so many farms using Barn2Door in particular to offer subscriptions to their food. Because it's recurring revenue, like how great to go into the next month and 80% is already pre-sold, like, it's just miraculous.

   And then you can begin to think about growth or what else you want to do with your business. But, farmers might want to offer year round subscriptions to say, grass fed beef or eggs or dairy. But, there's other farmers who offer seasonal subscriptions. Literally it might be May three to October 24.

   And so, with Barn2Door, again, same thing. We built natively, like built it from scratch for farmers to be able to offer seasonal subscriptions or time-based subscriptions according to what they want to offer by the dates you can pre-sell months and months ahead of [00:35:00] time. So, a lot of those considerations, you know, I could go on and on, but we just get really enthusiastic about, this is purpose built for farmers.

  It is why we win, it's why it's turnkey for farmers. They don't have to literally try to duct tape, zip tie and Velcro together, multiple things online and offline to manually do all of this. We want to be essentially the barn or the home for farmers in terms of their business. Like, this is my business system, done.

   I can manage customers, marketing, inventory, orders, finances, logistics, delivery day, with Barn2Door, and it's easy. I think I said all my favorites, but what I think comes across a lot when our success team is talking to farmers is their love of time savings, especially managing delivery day.

   The ease of having a pick list, a pack list, one button, and you're printing your labels one button and you can populate a routing app if that is of interest. So, I think it depends who you talk to, what their favorite piece is, [00:36:00] but we, again, are incredibly enthusiastic and bullish on being purpose built for farmers from our POS to online and to everything in between.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. I think there's so much in there that you mentioned that can be taken for granted that we don't realize, as someone who's been using the software for five years, sometimes I catch myself taking that stuff for granted. Like, I can set a cutoff date, like my cutoff date was yesterday at noon.

  I know the exact time that I can send my delivery list over to my driver and tell him, all right, there's no more orders are gonna come in. I know for a fact that's gonna happen. I can set all this stuff that's really specific fulfillments for if people are gonna be picking up at this pickup location, or if people are ordering Thanksgiving turkeys, or, you know, I have all these things on my store.

  So, my customers just see the items. But on the back end of this thing, I have all these specifics [00:37:00] of when you can order this, when I want you to order that, where this can go, the cutoff for this. And then like you said, those pick and pack lists are an extreme lifesaver. Once you get past like, I don't know, 10 orders a week that you're packing, 10 to 15, think about trying to track every item.

  Like we did 65 deliveries this Wednesday. Like today we had 65 orders go out. If I had to track every single item off of 65 orders that are all anywhere between 75 to $200 each, what a nightmare if I had to actually go in there and physically figure that list out. But, I think the subscriptions have been a financial lifesaver for us.

  And the pick and pack list is an organizational, time saving thing that I literally just click one button and it prints this whole thing out. If you don't have the software, you know [00:38:00] how laborious it is to have to figure those logistics out. So, I just want to give major props to you guys for that because I mean, I can be eating a burrito and the guy that's gonna load my orders for me, his name's Andrew.

  Andrew can text me and say, hi, I need the pick list. I can eat a burrito and print the pick list at the same time and have it to them in a minute and 30 seconds. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And then show up on a podcast, 'cause your deliveries are all handled right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. It, it's like the time saving aspect of just that one feature alone is like so crazy and you guys have so many features that you've really, really thought through.

  What are the struggles that farmers are having with their sales, their online presence, their fulfillments, and how can we, and there's so many little things that can pop up that can be so annoying that cost you 20 minutes here and hour and a half there. And you guys have literally gone [00:39:00] through and thankfully, because we can give you advice, you're like, we can let you guys know as farm advisors, Hey, I was doing this and I got a little hiccup here, and you guys fix it.

  Bam. And we're back to smooth sailing with fulfillments and sales. It's so awesome. I just, I'm a fan boy. So on the subscriptions thing. I mean, we didn't do subscriptions for the first two years, and I sure wish we had because the recurring revenue that you get from those, the guaranteed funds that, you know, literally help you plan out for years to come because you know you're gonna have guaranteed orders if you're just selling bulk beef and you only want people to buy whole cows, you don't know when you're gonna have three orders come in, and then you might not have anything for three months. And then it's so inconsistent and scary. You don't really know exactly what to plan for for the future. So, you're probably gonna play it on the safe side. [00:40:00] And then under order your feeder steers or your piglets or your broiler chicks for the year.

  And because you don't have that recurring revenue set up, you're gonna be a little bit more inconsistent in how you order, what you prepare for, and then you're gonna be insecure about, well, I don't know what next year's gonna look like, but I already know what next year's gonna look like for us, because we have these amazing people that are signed up for our program that don't even think about it anymore.

  Like they put their credit card in one time and for the next, every Wednesday from here on until the future, they just already know they're going to get an amazing package of meat and eggs delivered to their door, and they only had to do it one time. 

  Janelle Maiocco: They're so fortunate. 

  Alex Russell: I know. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And they're healthier.

  I know they're healthier. Exactly. 

  Alex Russell: Exactly. Because when we only have one day a week, or some farmers only do once a month or something like that. Let's say your [00:41:00] customer runs out of food. They're not gonna drive up to your farm for the meat for dinner that night because they're super busy and they forgot to order from you.

  So, they're gonna go to the closest grocery store and they're gonna buy from them instead, unless you are constantly getting in front of them, making yourself known, this is stuff we talk about in the grassroots marketing class and then getting them on subscriptions so they don't have to think about it anymore.

  Their freezer is always full and you are supplying them with this great stuff, and they don't have to go to a grocery store in a pinch. They've already got you loading up their freezer. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Match their eating cycle. How often do they eat? You know? Right. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And you just keep showing every time they need to buy pork or chicken or eggs, just have that be your subscription offer once a week, every other week, once a month. Whatever makes sense, but so that you're literally the choice or delivering, [00:42:00] you know, that product as often as to match their eating, to match their eating of that product, is pretty exciting. I will say it's interesting, I'm, I think next week I'm scheduled to do a podcast with another of our fans who has, she does subscription chickens, so she constantly has that recurring order, but then as another sort of sales item, you know, product line, she offers pork, but she doesn't do too many of them, so she sells those half and whole hogs.

  But, the beauty of that is she has the recurring sales with subscriptions and then the half, whole hogs, with Barn2Door and you know, this, but was one of the first things we actually built on the platform was the ability for farmers to take deposits on their half, whole hogs, on their quarter, half, whole cow.

  And if you've ever talked to a farmer who offers, you know, sells the product that way, getting a genuine like a hundred, 200, 300, $400 deposit is a lot more meaningful than some verbal 'Sure, I'll buy from you six months from now', and then all of a sudden you're bringing your product to the [00:43:00] butcher and the customer isn't showing up.

   So like, how do we solve that? Well, we help farmers, we built this. So farmers can take actual deposits, they can even make 'em non-refundable. A hundred, 200, $400, whatever on any of those half, whole hogs, half, whole cows, whatever. And then, line them up to the butcher date and then when they bring, I loved it 'cause she, I think she had a newsletter out.

  She's like, I've sold, you know, 62.5 hog or something like that. Right. She knew exactly because a Barn2Door, on the inventory, will show you down to the quarter, half what you've sold. But the beauty of it is, is when those hogs go to market and they're weighed, she can go back to the back end of her system, enter in either the final weight or final price.

  It's up to her, and it will auto charge the customer less deposit and send that customer an invoice. So, you're not having that awkward, I'm hunting them down for the check conversation with your customers, which is not what you want. You wanna be saying, Hey, isn't that pork awesome? Like, you know, change the conversation even [00:44:00] because you're letting technology solve a problem. And that's what we're here to do, right, is solve those problems. Remove the friction from a farmer selling to a buyer locally. Make it easy for the farmer, make it easy for the buyer, and create that win-win. And everybody's the better for it. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, and especially if those farmers are getting to the dollar, what they deserve for the weight of the animal that they put on.

  I mean, this is something as farmers that we think about constantly is how much do my animals weigh? And so, if you can have the confidence of knowing I'm gonna get a hanging weight from my butcher, and then I can price my product based off of that exact animal that they're gonna be getting, and I'm gonna get every dollar for that animal that I put the sweat and hard work into, that's just an amazing feature, that they're gonna know, I'm not just gonna charge a flat price and hope that I win [00:45:00] or don't lose that much. You get to actually charge exactly what that animal really weighs. And when you're selling those. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Especially the big animals, right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: There's a lot of Farms, and we actually have some farmers that are accountants in their other life and they're like, you know, three to four pound bird charged, 25 bucks, four to five pound bird charged 30 bucks because by the law of averages is if you sell a hundred birds, you're fine. Right? Like you're net even in terms of how that passes through. And again, that's easier, especially just with birds. But yes, when you're talking like whole half hogs, holy smokes, or cows or lamb or sheep or goat, whatever, yeah. You're gonna care a lot more about just making sure and that's fine.

  That's great. People know that going into that purchase. 

  Alex Russell: These are live beings and, and..

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Even if you have a scale on your farm that you're gonna weigh in beforehand, or even if you can just, eyeball it like me, I, I have hanging weights for steers that could be anywhere from 400 to 600 pounds.

  Janelle Maiocco: [00:46:00] Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: And that's thousands of dollars of difference there.

  Janelle Maiocco: I know. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. It's a drastic difference. Mm-hmm. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Can we do a game show where farmers guess the weight of items. You guys would, you would crush that, wouldn't you? 

  Alex Russell: Oh, well, sometimes I've been very wrong. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Uh, that's good. 

  Alex Russell: I have a lot of practice on being wrong, so maybe I could have a decent guess.

  Janelle Maiocco: Maybe we'll do it when we do an onsite farm conference one day. We'll have some fun with that. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, that would be fun. Okay. Is there a underutilized gem on the Barn2Door platform that a lot of farmers should be using more so that they can get the most out of Barn2Door?

  I have an idea for one. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, I wanna hear, I actually wanna hear your idea. 

  Alex Russell: Well, it's email marketing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Automate. Yeah. Order the automated order reminders. 

  Alex Russell: And automated connecting MailChimp to Barn2Door and, we've talked about the spiel with email [00:47:00] marketing a hundred times. I don't wanna belabor the point.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Listen to any former podcast with Alex from Chucktown Acres. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Including attend his Grassroots Marketing Academy on Barn2Door, and you will learn the importance of email marketing. Yes.

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We have a direct integration with MailChimp. We actually have a pretty high usage rate of that, Alex. But I do think anytime you use something, there's always more there.

  Right? And so, there's a lot of, like, we talk about how important it's to collect emails and grow your email list. And what's cool is once you get your customer list to a threshold where you know, you can consistently sell products, sell out, et cetera, that's awesome. You still have to babysit your customer list.

  Kind of always be adding to it, because there will naturally be attrition or people that, you know, move or do the next thing, but...

  Alex Russell: Get annoyed at your emails and quit. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You must keep engaging them, right? You have to keep engaging that list then. And there's a lot of ways to help yourself get that done efficiently.

  And as you know, with the MailChimp integration, you can automate emails, you [00:48:00] can automate welcome emails, you can automate an email to go after six months if somebody hasn't made a purchase. Through Barn2Door, you can actually set up, I'd have to look at the exact percentages, but automated order reminders, which is not a fancy newsletter.

  All it is, and you can do it separately for wholesale versus retail. I love this feature where you can just set up, hey, once a week at this time, or once a month or once every other week to my wholesale or whatever, you just say, Hey, on a Thursday, 'cause you know, that's when they like to order, every Thursday, just be like, ping, don't forget to order. Here's a big, huge button to click through to my online store. Because that can just go on in the background, like you're doing your touches, your regular order reminders, which everybody expects now, if you've ever seen your email, that just goes on in the background.

  And then any newsletters you're pushing out are just, you know, this beautiful frosting on the cake. Right? Because they're tend to be a little more tuned into like what's happening on the farm now, or what just showed up in the store. They can be a little more real time. But [00:49:00] I would say, that's kind of a fun feature.

   I secretly hope that more and more farms use subscriptions because nothing makes me happier than when a farmer gets recurring revenue. I also love when farmers offer single bundle boxes so people can try it and then subscribe. 

  Alex Russell: So like the same box, just to like a... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Same box. 

  Alex Russell: Trial? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep.

  We're the only POS built for farmers. And so, what happens is the things that we have built that are purpose built for farmers get pulled through to the POS experience. So, the sell by weight, the tracking of inventory across both online in a person, the ability to toggle between wholesale and retail pricing in person. And we added automatic email capture on POS. So on and on and on. In terms of that being unique and yes, so those are all platform, like the investments we've made in the software itself. When you start to unpack the resources and the information and data we have for farms to be successful, it gets really fun and interesting, and you're part of that, [00:50:00] right?

  With the Connect program, which is Farmer-to-farmer Office Hours hosted every single week, multiple times a week. We actually also have office hours hosted by our success team for Farmers to show up literally any day of the week. We have special ones dedicated to POS showcases and Marketing Toolkit, et cetera.

  So, academy classes, I could go on, but there's so many, the Independent Farmer podcasts, what we're doing right now, literally. I recently have been interviewing our account managers because they literally talk to farms all day, every day about best practices. 

  Alex Russell: I love those episodes.

  Janelle Maiocco: I just did another one on building your customer list, you'll have to let me know what you think, but they're just like, go crush it. Here's what to do. I talked to hundreds of other Farms. We have the data, we have millions of transactions going through Barn2Door. Let me tell you what works. Like we don't, this is not like we're not charging for this information.

  People, we just want these farmers to be wildly successful in their respective businesses. And to be honest, Alex, we're fans of farmers. We feel so fortunate to be [00:51:00] able to be in a position to help farmers. It's just, it's such a joy to watch farmers be successful and to be a part of that journey.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. It reminds me a lot of when I get calls from farmers who are not on Barn2Door yet, but they're interested. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, thank you for fielding those calls. 

  Alex Russell: They're like, checking you guys out, right? And they're like, I see that Chucktowns on there. Let me give those guys a call. 

  Janelle Maiocco: They can, they can search you.

  Alex Russell: It's just a Tuesday at noon and I'm packing eggs and I get a call and they're like, Hey, I'm Bill, I'm a farmer and wanna sign up with Barn2Door, but I wanna get your perspective first. And I'll tell them about every, I'm like, you got the online store, they'll build you a website, they'll make you a logo.

  They'll do this, they'll do that. The fulfillments, the pick and pack list. And then I get to the very last point and I'll say, they are building this community of farmers that we do academy classes together. We do these [00:52:00] open hours where we can meet with each other and just literally ask any, like wide open q and a.

  Ask me any question. Imagine how much money it would cost to just call a farmer who is a consultant for 30 minutes, and that's just a feature. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I agree with you. There's so much value that we don't charge for. And you're right. In fact, it's so cool. We just are about to open up office hours for our farmers once a month with the farmer to consumer legal defense fund, which means free legal for an hour.

  Like. 

  Alex Russell: I'm signing up for that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I know. But it's like, go ask about the raw milk, talk about, you know, commerce across state lines and every state's different too, which is just crazy. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: But again, and you're right, a lot of value. A lot of value to be found. Absolutely. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. I just saw North Carolina did something weird with raw milk, where they were like, it's like, happened yesterday.

  Janelle Maiocco: What? Pet food only or something silly? Oh, no. What did they do? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Like you can do herd shares, but you can't sell pet milk anymore. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, no. 

  Alex Russell: Raw milk for pets. [00:53:00] No longer legal. But now you can do herd shares. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You can't make heads and tails of some of this illogical legislation. Anyway. 

  Alex Russell: So, we can still buy cigarettes and soda, and Twinkies.

  All right, great. You guys make a lot of sense. Okay. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Okay. Let's not get too derailed or... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay.

  Alex Russell: Else I'm gonna go on another soapbox. All right. What advice do you have for farmers in these three categories? I have three categories of farmers that I think are using Barn2Door and I tried to put them in these categories kind of based off of annual revenue. Small hobby farmers, the growing, grinding farmers, which I would put myself in. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. 

  Alex Russell: And then seven figure farms. The farms that are big time, they're still family owned, but they're crushing it.

   Just a couple, like a tip or two for each one. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We have all of those using [00:54:00] the platform, where we stop serving farms is when they go, the seven figures keeps going up and up and they, if they fall into the monocrop world, like if they, you know, if they are only doing corn or soy or cows, like if they're only doing one product, it's just an entirely different seller and buyer.

  It's a different system essentially. Right. But, you absolutely have seven figures farmers using Barn2Door that again, are just multi generation like, large family farms, if you will, who are again, still selling, huge amounts of vegetables or mixed proteins or they're still very, you know, God bless 'em.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And we love participating in that because you, we help farmers scale and honestly, that's true of all these. So, it's interesting, we have one farm in particular that comes to mind when I'm looking at your list of farms. And she came to us and her farm is just massive CSA produce farm.

   And they had about 600 customers and I think her mother was spending like five, six hours a day doing all the manual email back and forth, organizing all the [00:55:00] orders. They had two delivery days, like it was a cluster, a nightmare. And they came to us and ultimately she's like, out of the gate, you're saving us 15 hours a week, 'cause they could just click buttons and print things out. They more than doubled. More than doubled and more than doubled the size of their farm. So they went from 600 up to 1400 subscribers and she increased the value of her per ticket. Like every time somebody purchased, they were purchasing more, because she used the add-on feature, the private store where you purchase and then unlocks your Barn2Door.

  That's one feature we should have mentioned. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Like you purchase and you give extra special access to a whole group of items or products, is a really fun feature on Barn2Door meant to create some FOMO and loyal customer opportunities, so. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, if you want bacon, sign up for my subscription first.

  Janelle Maiocco: Exactly. And then. 

  Alex Russell: And then I'll show you the bacon. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Backdoor bacon, right? It's like hooch bacon off the back. So, we love that, but ultimately, I like to say, because they are farmers are running a business and so that means you're an independent business [00:56:00] owner, which has a lot of responsibility, but if you do it well and right, and are efficient and effective, you can make great money and be very successful, but you are in charge of managing your finances, orders, inventory, marketing, sales, you know, that's just part of it.

  We just try to make that as turnkey as possible. And because we provide a software that helps farmers automatically, thank you technology, stay organized, inventory is accurate, orders are right in front of you. You can print out a pick list. You can set your order reminders, you can do all these things.

  We help farmers go from feeling like they're drowning to putting their head above water, to looking around and actually starting to swim. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And so, just to use an analogy, because now you can actually, like you're having a burrito, sending your list to your driver. You have time to think about your business instead of doing kind of the least important part of the business, which is administrative back and forth email, when you don't like it and neither does the buyer. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So, take your time [00:57:00] back and get to the point where you're organized and can actually think about scaling and growing. So, we have stories of, your story's the best 'cause you didn't even hardly get started.

   Oftentimes, we'll have farms come to us. I have another story of a farmer who came to us. They were making about a thousand dollars a month or a thousand dollars a week, I can't even remember. But it doesn't matter because today they're making quarter a million a year.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So, they were able to scale up. Another farmer that comes to mind where it took them, I think two or three years to get organized and now they both quit their off-farm jobs and their full-time farming. So. 

  Alex Russell: Come on, somebody. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. So, if you're a hobby farmer wanting to go to full-time farmer, if you're growing, grinding, and wanna become more efficient because you can't duplicate yourself, so you actually have to take the same amount of time and get better with it.

  So, we can help you do that so that you can truly scale and grow. And then those seven figure farms often are pretty well into their business and we, again, just come in and enable them to save time sometimes, in some cases a couple of headcount. And also give them the ability to try [00:58:00] new and different things with their farms, including learning all the best practices, right, like subscriptions or order cutoffs, or maybe they wanna start delivering it in a new area, et cetera.

  So again, it's just to your point, these different farms, you know, often it comes back to best practices, time savings, getting organized and being able to actually think about your business to take it to the next level. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, that was beautiful. That was so great. I'm thinking about those seven figure farms and they... probably the main goal for them now that they're a really, really well established business, tons of revenue coming in and out, they're probably thinking, how can we save time?

  That's probably. Their number one goal. How can we work on our margins and how can we save time? And that was a great example that you had there. Okay. I know this is my last question, I promise. And I know this one can be kind of tough for me, because when people ask me like, [00:59:00] what's the future for Chucktown?

  It's like, I'm in the future right now because I'm growing my business right now. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: And so it's hard to, it's hard to predict. It's hard to say like, well, we're gonna have whatever, 300 subscribers by whatever year or whatever. But, I do want to ask your vision for Barn2Door. Like, where do you see this going?

  Is it just reaching out to more farmers? Connecting with more farmers? If so, that's an amazing answer. But is there anything else you wanted to add to let people know what's coming on? Anything like that? 

  Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. Well, without giving away everything that we're planning, right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Don't give away the secrets.

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm not gonna give away the secrets, but what I'm gonna tell you that is, have you ever heard of Airbnb? 

  Alex Russell: I have heard of it once or twice. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Have you ever heard of Uber? 

  Alex Russell: I have. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. So, the goal for Barn2Door is to become a household name. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Love it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And recognizable by everybody. [01:00:00] And the reason I say that is because when nine in 10 people want to buy food, the local food demand is palpable. It's beautiful, it's incredible. And increasingly so, I think people are waking up. When I watch your social media feeds, I'm like, go, Alex, keep telling, you know, keep preaching it to your buyers because they need to know that they don't have to be part of the big ag commodity system of centralized agriculture.

  They can choose with their dollars and their health, to be buying directly from local farms. And I want that to be normal. I want anyone, anywhere, any buyer, anywhere, to have ready access to farms, no matter where they live all over in the country. Our first piece with Barn2Door, when we've been building it now for a decade is farmers are our customers.

  So, our goal is to make a turnkey for a farmer to run their business. By giving them all the tools to run their business effectively, but also at the same time getting in front of buyers. The way buyers [01:01:00] buy today, want to buy, expect convenience. So, it's just full circle. So, the sales just literally quote unquote fly off the shelf.

   And so, that's funnier when I'm talking about poultry, by the way. And so ul ultimately, ultimately, I can't help it. There's so many puns in this world, but.

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Ultimately, the first item of business for Barn2Door is to make it easy for farmers to be successful and to grow and scale in this most profitable model.

  And then the second order of business as we continue to build that out. And by the way, there's. You know, over half a million farmers that we're aiming at in terms of helping be successful. So, that will never stop, that hunger to get in front of all those farms will never stop here. But, the next order of business, Alex, is to make sure all those buyers are aware of and ready and readily buying from, regularly buying from, and knowledgeable that that's an easy option for any buyer anywhere all across the country, no matter where they live, that they can always [01:02:00] just go buy from a local farmer instead of, you know.

  Alex Russell: Yes.

  Janelle Maiocco: And, and preferred. 

  Alex Russell: Ah!

  Janelle Maiocco: You know, preferred instead, and like it becomes a no-brainer. And so we want that to be normal in the same way everybody considers hotel or Airbnb.

  Right? Or, you know, that's just an example, but you understand what I'm saying in terms of household name and just making this just not only normal, but awesome and, continue to grow the success of farmers and local food and local eaters. 

  Alex Russell: I love that. I, I ended up coming across a very popular Facebook post that some farm to table think group had done.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: You know, if you ever see something that has like 10,000 comments on it, you, you, what is this? 

  Janelle Maiocco: What is it? 

  Alex Russell: It's just a post, right? It's just a question. The question on the post was, what is keeping you from buying from your local farmer? And it had 10,000 comments on it. From all these people across the globe, and I was like glued, I was scrolling the answers forever was like, [01:03:00] what is it?

  What is it? And the number one thing by far was they don't know where they are. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: And they're too hard to find and like too hard to get to. Like I have to go to their farm to get the stuff and it's just too difficult for me as a busy mom. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: Or busy dad to get there and physically do it. I was like.. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.

  Alex Russell: These people need to know Barn2Door, what are they doing?

  Janelle Maiocco: And Alex, you literally just came full circle because that is why I started Barn2Door. I was trying to be that person. You know, 999 out of a thousand won't bother if it's not easy. Nobody knows who the farmers are, where they are, how to get the food, and how do I not just order it, but how do I get it, get it right, does it come to me?

   But as soon as you fix that by helping the farmers be successful, first and foremost, and giving them the tools for it to be efficient and effective, but then also convenient to the buyers, game over all of those people with the 10,000 comments all in, clearly passionate enough to leave a comment.

  [01:04:00] And like hoping that somebody somewhere will see it, right? And fix it. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. Yep. Absolutely. All right. You nailed it. Let's wrap it up. 

  Great. Thank you. Thank you Janelle, so much for doing this, this.

  Janelle Maiocco: Thank you always. 

  Alex Russell: I know it's probably weird to give me your seat at the table and let me interview you.

  Janelle Maiocco: It's great. 

  Alex Russell: It's so much fun for me. I wanna extend my thanks to Janelle for joining us on today's podcast, her podcast. Barn2Door supports thousands of independent farmers across the country. My farm and other farms across the country benefit from partnering with Barn2Door, not only for the software to run our business without a middleman and make it easy for local buyers to shop, but because of the many farmer specific resources from one-on-one coaching to best practices, and even this podcast. If you're an independent farmer who is just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or you simply wanna [01:05:00] streamline your business management, you can check out Barn2Door.com/learn-more. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [01:06:00] time.

Ryan Grace, an Account Manager at Barn2Door, shares the who, what, when, where, why and how of building a Loyal Base of Local Customers for your Farm. Learn the best practices for identifying Buyers in your community, maintaining consistent communications and leading them to make a purchase.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers all across the country who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making [00:01:00] sure their customers can purchase from their farm, both online and in person. 

   In today's conversation, we'll be discussing building your Farm's customer list. We know that if your farm business is selling direct or wants to move in the direction of selling direct, a great move to maximize your profits and stabilize your income, you need customers, which means you need to have a list of customers.

  How many customers do you need? How do you build it and keep your list current? We'll discuss all that and more with Ryan Grace, an account manager on Barn2Door's Success Team. Ryan works with hundreds of farms, literally his job is to talk to farms all day, every day to consult on their farm business, telling them tactics and best practices to ensure recurring sales, save time and running their business. You guessed it. How to build a loyal customer base for your farm. Welcome Ryan. 

  Ryan Grace: Thanks Janelle. It's great to be back. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Awesome. Yes. I know we keep bringing you back 'cause you get all this great advice and you talk to so many farms and it's great because you see trends and you see what works [00:02:00] too, which is really important. So today we wanna learn the what, why, how, who, and where, when it comes to building a customer list. It probably goes without saying, but is quite like if a farmer's selling direct, you can't just farm you literally have to have active buying customers and a certain number of them in order to be successful. I'll just state the obvious of what is a customer list? It's a list of individuals who currently and potentially buy from your farm. So it could be a blend of a lot of people who are already buying from your farm or people who you hope will buy from your farm and you're engaging them from a marketing perspective in order for them to hopefully buy. So that's the, what is it? But, digging in Ryan, why is it important for independent farmers to build a loyal list of customers? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, it's crucial, honestly for farms who are getting started to be able to build this list and to start early.

  So, one of the main reasons is for that direct access to the customers. You don't have to fight the algorithms that you would in social media, [00:03:00] so you get direct access to the customers that you're trying to reach, that you've built up. You get higher engagement, so we see a really great return, especially with farmer content in inboxes do really well, according to industry standards.

   Then better at turning those first time buyers into loyal, continuing customers that are coming back from you over and over again. And on top of that, this is now an asset to your business. This is your list that no platform can take away. You own it. So, those are just a few of the whys, but definitely really important for farms to grasp that concept early and often throughout the process.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I feel like most of our success team, whether it's an onboarding manager, an account manager, or during any of the office hours that we provide or, in our connect program talking to other farmers. So often the conversation comes back to marketing for the purpose of sales and having a customer list, a growing customer list, and then always be looking to add to it and then engaging them often for sales.

   I [00:04:00] love what you said, that you own it. I think this is one of the biggest passions behind Barn2Door, which is if we can help independent farmers all across the country sell directly into their local communities to their own buyers and buyers that they own, because there's not a middleman, there's not an aggregator.

  There's not somebody else who's doing all the promotions. It's your buyer, you're going direct to that buyer, and those are your relationships for your farm. That is just gold. The list is sort of the, the vehicle or the exercise. But the reality of it is, is farms having relationships with buyers, that are buying from them directly and mostly typically locally.

  And so, it's a great way to de-risk your business, let's put it that way. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: So, so we love supporting farms doing that any way, shape or form we can. Now I do know that when you're talking to farms about that customer list, just to get down to the nitty gritty, how many customers do I need?

   If I'm thinking, hey, I need a list of emails, or I need a list of [00:05:00] customers, which are synonymous, by the way, this should be a list of emails. That's you, you, you will need to be able to email all of your customers. Ideally also phone numbers. But ultimately, how many do I need, right? To be successful as a farm?

  And is it a range? And if so, why? Yeah, go ahead. 

  Ryan Grace: Definitely. It's a question we get often in account management working with these farms who come in and.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Ryan Grace: I would say before even jumping into the numbers, it's really important to understand the quality over quantity. So, just 'cause you have a massive email list, doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be super successful.

  So, you wanna make sure you're building a quality email list with buyers who are interested in your products. So, as you're growing that, you want to think about who you're trying to target to, who that customer is that's already supporting local businesses. Those are great quality customers that you can start building a list with.

  And then just from a numbers standpoint, as far as goals that I've seen, if you're looking at a hundred to 200 subscribers, that's a great point for consistent engagement. You're gonna have some repeat [00:06:00] buyers and sales with that number once you get up into the 500 to a thousand, it's a really strong customer list for some of these small farms.

   With regular offerings, you can start driving your CSAs, your signups, weekly produce sales. And once you pass that thousand subscriber mark, you're really putting yourself in a strong position to be a local resource for your community, not just for your farm products, but being able to introduce other producers and expand your offerings.

   So, those are a brief number breakdown. But again, the important part is to remember that, that quality over quantity when you're building that list. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I was talking, I think it was to another account manager now that I think about it, and they were saying, you know, it depends where you're starting, right?

  Like if you, you certainly, I know we have farm that come to us and some literally are like, I don't have a list yet. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And there are others that come to us with a thousand, 2000. And, you know, even add zeros to that. So, there's a whole range of how many [00:07:00] emails and customers do you have on a list, when you're starting.

  Because I feel like, you know, not to be overwhelmed with, you have to grow it to a thousand overnight. Right. I mean, what's the type of advice you give to folks who are maybe starting with a lower number? Does the handful or, less than 50, et cetera. I feel like on the success team, that becomes a priority focus in that case.

  Ryan Grace: Definitely. Yeah. 'cause you have to think about, some of the attrition where people may be moving away or, yeah, just moving outta your area so you won't be able to sell them again. So, you constantly wanna be growing that list, so if you come in with big numbers, you want to keep adding to that.

   And if you come in with zero, that's okay. That's a great starting point. I think it was Phil, on the podcast a few weeks back that talked about the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is today. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. 

  Ryan Grace: Take that same concept here with the emails. Start with your friends, family, people in your existing network.

  So, when you really take time and I. I tell my farmers, write it down. Write out a list of people you know, who own businesses. Write a list of [00:08:00] people you know, your friends, family. If you're a part of a church community, those contacts, other work contacts that you may have, and start developing a list of people that you could reach out to.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Ryan Grace: To ask for help, to incentivize them to join your customer list. Get 'em excited about why you're doing it, what you have in the works, and let them be a part of that journey with you. So you can start with a handful. I think if you can come in with trying to get one email a day, you're putting yourself in a good spot.

  So, whether you're coming in with a lot or, or a little, you're still in a good position here. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I love that you have folks write it down. Everybody they can contact and ask for help. I think there's a lot of people that are incredibly motivated to be helpful to farmers, and to see that local food be successful and more importantly to know that if that farmer, and don't hesitate, I would say if that farmer's business model is I'm gonna sell direct because I don't want a middleman and I need to maximize my profit.

  So, I have to have loyal local customers that buy direct. People will appreciate that they're trying to set that farm up [00:09:00] for success in the long run. And there's a lot of people who wanna participate in that success. Like that feels good to people to be helpful. And guess what? They're not just helping the farm, they're actually helping all their friends and family eat better. 

  So there's a lot of really good carrots out there, no pun intended, but there's a lot of good carrots that you can give. You know, just even with goodwill and healthy eating, in addition to like any referral incentives, like if you wanna give, you know, coupons or promos or whatnot, but you know, don't be afraid to ask.

  Especially those local businesses and friends and family, and think who they know. That's really good. And then you said, a key thing there at the end, Ryan, you're like one email a day. I was gonna ask you what's reasonable if I'm like, I really wanna grow my email list. Are there certain times of year that are easier to grow it?

  Like, what's reasonable? What if I wanna grow it really fast? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Getting out in person, it tends to be a lot of farms coming in are like, I need to get this thing rolling. So, when you think about your farmer's market, such a great opportunity to get face to [00:10:00] face with so many customers.

  And going in with the mindset. Not necessarily that I need to sell out of all the products I have, but I wanna make as many meaningful connections as I can. Make those connections, get those emails, and start building up a reward system for that customer base to reward them if they send you a referral, if they bring in a friend.

  So, start getting comfortable asking the question of, Hey, how did you hear about us? That's gonna give you good insight to what avenues are working for you as far as your marketing efforts go. And then as you get those customers that are raving about you, they're telling their friends and family, sit down and interview 'em.

  Ask 'em why. Ask 'em what they love about shopping with you. What other products would they be interested in? These are dream customers or ideal customers that you'd call 'em. They're gonna have a lot of great information for you to build your marketing efforts around, so your email templates that you're sending out to those customers, you can craft based off that feedback.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that and I really love what you just said, and I wanna double click on it because you're, like, if you're at a farmer's market, maybe half of it is [00:11:00] about selling your product and literally the other half from an importance perspective is gathering emails and building those customer relationships.

   That's really key. I love that. Because I know there's many times when farmers will sign up for Barn2Door when we start getting them set up and we discover they do go to farmer's markets, but they haven't been collecting emails. And we get so excited because we're like, you're not even gonna believe this huge opportunity.

   Put out a clipboard, get out a QR code. They use the Barn2Door POS in person. It automatically will collect emails directly from folks transacting in person at the farmer's market. So, it's just such a rich opportunity to collect emails and just, I feel like rapid fire building your email list at farmer's markets in particular, or to your point in person. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: Can certainly help with that. Online too, I think we might get into that later in this conversation. So.

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I know there's some online opportunity too, but we will get into that shortly. Before we get into that, you started to sort of tease us with who are you marketing [00:12:00] to?

   Who should farmers be marketing to in terms of building, I mean to not all customers are created equal, right? So, if I'm a farmer, I don't wanna just cast a net so wide that I don't know if those people are either gonna buy or not. So, how do I identify who I should be going after to make sure that they are the right type of customer to become that loyal, repeat buyer? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. So if the why is where we're starting off, which most farms, knowing your why is gonna be really important, 'cause that's gonna share some of those core values, it's gonna share why you got into farming. 'Cause it's not easy, it's hard. And once you develop what that why story is, then you're trying to figure out, okay, well who am I gonna sell this to?

  A lot of that breaks down to what your goals are for the business. Like, that customer, is it somebody, again, who's gonna talk you up to their friends and family, who's going to prioritize health for their family? So, if health is one part of your why, then that's the customer that you wanna start targeting and marketing to.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Ryan Grace: If it's the convenience. So [00:13:00] if it's, I wanna make this really easy for people, and then that's the customer you want to target. So, you wanna think about setting up deliveries, you want to think about a customer who's gonna prioritize those. And once you have an idea of who that customer is that you're trying to target, you can start setting up really effective marketing campaigns for partnering with businesses that may be servicing that customer as well.

  So, we think our fitness centers, chiropractic offices, coffee shops, places that people are already going to support a local business. They're already spending their dollars there. They want to invest in local businesses. Those are great starting points for building partnerships and getting your name out there and getting your brand out there.

   And just start that messaging going to that customer that's hitting on your why. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I would say it's the why of the buyer as well. Buyers today are going to buy local food from farmers because they care about health. Nutritious food and they care about it being easy. We've done many surveys to [00:14:00] buyers and the reason they don't buy is 'cause it's not easy to get food.

   And price is typically not actually an issue. So again, like I said, we've done buyer surveys. Price is not the issue. It's just they buy because things are healthy. They love to support local farmers, they like to know where their food comes from. It's good to know why are buyers buying from you?

  That is why. But, it has to be easy to get a farmer's food. So, it has to be local pickup, a site in my neighborhood or door to door delivery. The more convenient it is to get a farmer's food, the greater likelihood of a buyer to buy often and become a loyal customer. And I think that's important to point out because, while this whole podcast is about, Hey, you must have an email list, you must be growing your customer email list. It's actually not enough to just email people and say, buy the food if it, I mean, if they can shop online, they love it, 'cause it's easy to shop anytime and they can add it to their car and make an easy purchase.

  It's important for it to be an easy purchase and shop [00:15:00] experience, but it's equally important for it to be an easy fulfillment option. So again, that local pickup, local delivery, is a game changer. It's the difference between having a hundred customers willing to buy from you versus five customers out of that a hundred.

   I mean, literally that's how many more customers are willing to buy. So, it's kind of a double-edged sword like you market, but then it must be easy. And those two things in tandem are what give you the ability to attract local buyers who will buy regularly because it's easy enough for them to get that food compared to the alternatives.

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. And I'll steal this from Alex at Chucktown Acres. He brought this up in one of our Connect series, which for everyone listening, one of my favorite resources we have as a company. Awesome. Can't speak highly enough of it. But one of the things he brought it up in that is, his deliveries early on, making it convenient early on for his customers was an investment.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Ryan Grace: So he viewed that if he was doing two or three of 'em, [00:16:00] this is an investment in my future because I know I'm building the trust and the loyalty with this customer base that's gonna grow and scale. And then I can always bring in someone to run that side of things for me and offload some of that workload.

  But early on, view it as an investment. It's an investment in your future. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It is, it's true. Like again, that one, two punch, like I can have a list of a thousand customers, but if it's not easy for them to get the food regularly, again, local pickup, door to door delivery, those thousand people aren't going to buy.

  Right. Only a tiny percent of those might buy. From time to time, but convenience for buyers literally is the earmark buying decision. So healthy and convenient. Just remember that, like gather the list and then invest in making it easy for those buyers wherever they may be. Can't emphasize that enough, but that's great that, Alex was mentioning that as well.

   And that's worth it. And I think you're right. I think he actually, a lot of people will hire a local kid or a college student or even work with some local delivery service if [00:17:00] they have to, just to make sure that that piece gets done. We also have tons of farms who do it themselves.

   They just do like a local loop and they target specific neighborhoods or churches or gyms or what may be, and it's just been gold for them. And in fact, they typically are making money if they're doing door to door delivery, right? 'cause they can charge that fee for delivery. So, there's a lot of good options, but you need a customer list.

  You need to market to them regularly and it has to be easy to get your food. Online shopping, drop it in the cart, then have fulfillment be near them is just gold. Yeah, so really important. Okay, let's get back to the customer list, which is checklist number one. And making sure that you can, engage those folks and get them buying regularly.

   When should I build my customer list? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Like we said, going back to when's the best time to build a tree? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh yeah. I love that. 

  Ryan Grace: I would say today. So do it now. Start today, and then always. So, those two themes, it's a consistent process.

  Your customers, again, they're gonna be moving. They may grow their families, they may be adding [00:18:00] into other community groups and things like that. So, you always want to be focused on growing that list. You wanna be consistent with your emails. So, as you are building this list, build that consistency early. Start inviting them to give feedback, get that conversation going, that's gonna be really valuable as you scale into this, getting feedback on, like we talked about just a few minutes ago. Your pickup locations. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Ryan Grace: Your delivery zones. What works for your customers. You wanna be a good resource to those customers and you wanna get that feedback. And having a healthy email list with engaged buyers is a great resource from all standpoints of your business. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that.

  I was just thinking of a fun question. Can I have too many customers? Can my email list be too long, Ryan? 

  Ryan Grace: I think going back to the quality over quantity. If you have a massive email list with no engagement, then it may be time to do some refinement. So, similar to the store audits, we recommend go through and see who's engaging with you.

  Send out some interest. Maybe you build a group within your email list of your VIP [00:19:00] buyers. Those customers that are really loyal, it doesn't mean you ignore the other ones, but now you can start marketing to two different segments within your email marketing campaigns. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I do feel like you hit on such an exciting, important point, which is, once you begin building that list, and once it's large enough to essentially ensure your product is always moving, and purchases are consistently being made, you can start to look at your customers, and sort of segment them around like VIP, you can make sure that they get the best products first, right? Because, if you have enough customers on that list, now you're, you know, the product's gonna move.

   Now you can start building in fomo. You can build urgency into purchasing before it sells out, which is also really exciting. You'll have the ability to, like you said, reward those VIP customers. Give them first dibs, when new things are listed in the store, online. Or you can give them access to a private section of your store online.

  That's just a feature that Barn2Door has that a lot of [00:20:00] Farms will lean into, for their most valued customers. And so, ultimately it gives you a lot more leverage to reward people, build an urgency for purchases and sell out, which is a great feeling. I feel like I would sleep better at night. I know our farms do when that's the case.

  And, having a bigger and an always growing list can give you that leverage, which is really exciting. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, definitely. And you hit on another good point there with that customer list. As you're growing and you're getting more feedback from them again, you're gonna be able to now, use that towards those marketing strategies as far as bringing in new products, new offerings for them.

  So, it's something that really does grow and scale with your business. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Ryan, share with the folks that Barn2Door is a direct integration with MailChimp, which is essentially, a great solution or tool for farmers to manage customer lists, but send out regular emails and newsletters. The beauty of it being integrated is that customer list literally is shared between Barn2Door and MailChimp. And so, there's just a lot more [00:21:00] capabilities that farmers have, including the ability to even set up some automation. Do you wanna share the strength of this once you have a customer list?

  Because you get to be even more sort of intuitive in terms of purchasing behavior and encouraging more frequent sales. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. As you grow that list, you get more data on what your customers are doing, where they're spending their money. That integration, with Barn2Door, MailChimp is huge. You can really dive in as deep as you want as setting that stuff up, with what's called customer journeys.

  So, these are great automation, where you can put in, when somebody signs up for your newsletter, it will automatically send them a nice little welcome email introducing your farm, a little story about who you are, links to your shop, links to your social, links to your website. And then from there, if they purchase with you, you can send them leave us a review email and have these campaigns kind of trickle down based off of what their behaviors are. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Ryan Grace: And be very targeted in how you set that up. You can have it tag your audience group, which is a good way to stay organized. It's another thing that I would [00:22:00] recommend as you are growing this list, get organized early, it's gonna help you out in the long run as you are getting these customers. You meet a bunch of great people at an event or a popup, tag that customer from that event. 'cause maybe you're doing another event down the road a year from now at that place, and you wanna let all those customers know, Hey, we're back.

  Come see us at this pop-up event we're doing each year. So, it's good to stay organized early. I would start getting those tags. You can make that automatic with the journeys, which is really cool. You can have it send your customers surveys. This is all within MailChimp, so you can have it send them surveys, get great insight again on what products they love. What other products would they wanna see you have in your store? What new pickup locations would work for 'em or be more convenient or are there other delivery times that would help out? So, powerful tool. You'll see all their sales, you'll see their orders, you'll see what they're doing in the Barn2Door platform. So, I can't speak enough to how powerful that email platform is. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. It's a good note to just write notes [00:23:00] on your customers, keep notes, tag them, et cetera. And when Ryan said behaviors, a good example of that would be their frequency of shopping. You can set up an automated email if somebody hasn't purchased something in three months or six months, you can literally send up an automated email that will go out while you're busy doing other things on the farm that says, Hey, we miss you, you know, and gives them a promo or something like that.

  So again, we love customer lists. We also love segmenting them in a way that makes sense for that customer's journey or experience of your farm. And also we're also huge fans of automation when it can work, right? That's one thing that technology can do for you as a Farmer. It can automate some things, activities or tasks or emails, et cetera, to make sure they're getting done.

   And to not take more time, but actually to continue to engage those customers. So, very exciting. Where should farmers store this list? 

  Ryan Grace: We make it really easy, within the platform through Barn2Door to add those customers, get 'em synced in there.

  That's one of the other benefits with the new updates to the POS, being [00:24:00] able to, as you're getting those email receipts, grow your customer list. And it's an important note here when you are asking for emails, whether you're doing it via clipboard signup form, or for the email, the receipt that's gonna grow your customer list. Assume that your customers want to get added to that list. I wouldn't ask for the email. I would say, what's a good email address for you? Have some inflection in there. Make it positive, 'cause you're assuming, why wouldn't you wanna be on this list where you're gonna get promos, discounts? You're gonna see my offerings when I have 'em first available.

   And you could even dangle the carrot of if you're selling out, so you're at the farmer's market, maybe you sell outta your bacon and you're running outta that. Someone comes up and asks for it. You say, well, if you wanna get ahead, you can join our newsletter. That's when we have our products listed.

   That's the best way to know and to pre-order even before the farmer's market. And you can use your merch, you can use your cups, your hats, your stickers. It doesn't take much to incentivize people. People love free things. So, if you can offer those as a way to incentivize those signups, that could only help you out.

  Janelle Maiocco: [00:25:00] Yeah. Great recommendations. I appreciate that. So, that online list of emails very important and that's when you can essentially start to leverage it to make sure you're engaging those customers. The last one is, where do I find them? And this is, there's sort of an in-person and then there's an online aspect of finding buyers.

  What do you recommend to farmers Ryan, sort of in a nutshell? I think we've said some of these already, but, good to just put the bullets here. I'm trying to find customers and get their emails. Where would I do that? Offline and in person. 

  Ryan Grace: Yep. So, we hit on the farmer's market. That is a great place.

  People that are going there, they're looking for locally sourced good products. So, that would be one of the top places we'd recommend going into. And then, when we go back to thinking about who our ideal customer is, so when we have an idea of that.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Ryan Grace: Think what does that local loop look like for that customer?

  What would their day to day look like? What other businesses are they investing their money and their time with? And then how could we set up partnerships with those? Or maybe you do a, I had a [00:26:00] farm that set up a parking lot party with a couple other vendors in this nice parking lot, had a coffee shop, some boutiques, and then they put their farm table out and just brought in the humane shelter to do a little adoption with the puppies.

  And it just brought in a crowd, a couple food trucks. And that wasn't a farmer's market. That was something that they just reached out to that plaza and said, Hey, who'd be interested?

  Janelle Maiocco: Nice. 

  Ryan Grace: This is what we're thinking about doing. And it worked out. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Nice, 'cause then somebody else is helping with the marketing.

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Every vendor there is gonna be promoting it and the plaza. That's a great idea. 

  Ryan Grace: Exactly. So, you wanna be thinking strategically about those things. Your local fitness centers another great partnership to put up a signup form, put up some mailers with your QR code and your website.

  So, I think having those boots on the ground, having those in-person connections really do make a big difference. And it's crucial to helping with this customer list. And then for online, it's being active. If you have a social following, get busy posting about it. You wanna make sure that you're enticing those customers to go on there and [00:27:00] purchase from you.

  So, put in some special offers. I have a farm who is doing a really great, creative referral program. So, when you refer a friend, you're gonna get a promo just for you, for your next order. And so, it was a great campaign for them to help grow their customer list. But you wanna be thinking about ways you can, again, you're enticing that customer and then rewarding them for when they do help you out. So, when you get a customer who's sharing your name, building these referrals, you wanna build that ecosystem that rewards them. That's a personal touch. A thank you. Hey, this means so much to our business. We appreciate you. Here's 5% off your next order, 20% off your next order.

  Whatever you can do. So, ask for help early and often. Your friends and family, your customers, they want to help you. They want to be a part of that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That can be an offline or an online activity. I think a lot of folks don't appreciate that social media is like, word of mouth on fire, right?

  Like you can have rapid fire sharing and likes and opportunities online, that [00:28:00] will be even faster on the uptick than maybe sometimes organically offline. If you have an existing email list, ask those customers to share, even give them the words or a picture, and your store link online.

  Ask them to share to their friends and family and people in their neighborhoods or neighbor groups on Next Door. Like have them share. I think there's sometimes Facebook neighborhood groups or different things like that. Like ask your existing customers to share in their same local communities where you already have those pickup locations and potentially delivery.

   And that online sharing is powerful because they each, they all have friends and literally online friends, and who are watching those Facebook, Instagram, et cetera. And that can be just really powerful, from a sharing perspective. I love that. Another one would be, if there's any digital email marketing letters that you can get into.

  I think Ryan said earlier, if you belong to a church, if you know people [00:29:00] who run a gym or if there's any other online newsletters that you think you could get into, ask, a lot of people will do it in kind, gyms, we've had farmers have great relationships with gyms where they'll post it.

   Today at Barn2Door had a farmer deliver CSA boxes. And a bunch of us here at the office are subscribing to the CSA, like offices and maybe there's nearby offices or hospitals, or doctors' offices or et cetera that would gladly want to promote healthy, nutritious local food to be delivered to an office.

  So, I think there's a lot of, like, again, they have newsletters. They're all sending out newsletters online. They're all sending out digital newsletters. So, if you can ask and get into those, that is huge. And so, I think there's just any online collection then, it's even easier because in many cases that they're gonna just sign up directly or shop directly, and if they're signing up directly or shopping directly, their emails are automatically getting added to your list.

   And that's, you know, one of the things that we made sure was [00:30:00] true, right? When people, they create an account, or even if they shop as a guest on Barn2Door, we're collecting that email for you. And so, really important to just like keep gathering those emails both online and offline. I think there's some natural ways.

  Oh, one other thing on the, when our designers build websites for farmers, we always have a popup form that collects, you know, farmers can say, yes, please put up the form to capture emails from anybody who visits our website. And then, if you just push people to your website, they're gonna see that pop up and maybe enter their email.

  So again, very rich opportunities to be collecting emails, offline and online. Like if any of those works start anywhere, right? Like start with any of those. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. I break it down into you have your passive email collection techniques, and then you're proactive. So, you have some that you can kind of set in the background, a wide net that you can come back and check later on that you just have working for you in the back.

  So, local directories to get your name, your website on, like you said, other local businesses that are trying to promote local, [00:31:00] that they're looking for a farm like yours to be able to list as a local resource. Real estate agents, as a new welcome home gift. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, good one. 

  Ryan Grace: And you, you move in. That's a nice beef bundle or a produce bundle to welcome you into your new home. Is a great way to connect with the local community. So, those are just some ideas. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Schools are probably a good one too, right? I think there's a lot of farms that actually do tours, like have schools do tours and you know, collect emails of all the parents, right?

  Like, you know, you certainly, why not? Their kids are gonna go home now with maybe a sample of a product or a good farm story or some photos and you know, give those parents an opportunity in the school newsletter, you know, as a follow up. To have all those kids take flyers home. So there's, yeah, lots of great ideas. If anything from this podcast, if you can go away with some good ideas to build your email list, then awesome. I mean, that's why we're here is to help you be successful and build those relationships. Ryan, any final word? Any final bits of advice on customer list building, maintaining that list, that sort of thing that we haven't got?

  We've covered a lot. [00:32:00] 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. I would say consistency is so important. I can't understate that enough that it's really need to be consistent with this process of adding people to your customer list and being consistent with the communication you're sending out. So, just 'cause you have that fantastic list doesn't necessarily mean that's gonna be highly successful if it's just sitting there.

  So, and put it to work. And it doesn't have to be in your face with sales every time. Add some educational content, something that's entertaining, talk about, maybe it's calving season, you got some cute calfs out there. So, and just kind of try to hit those three E's of the education, entertainment and e-commerce.

  So, try to get a good balance of those as you are putting your content out. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I am so glad you just said that because it reminded me of something I was gonna say earlier, because you were talking about the integration with MailChimp and now you're talking about the three E's, which is a really good social media strategy.

  Barn2Door has academies. You know, email list building is a part of many academies because if it ever has to do with marketing, you [00:33:00] have to have the customers who you are emailing, that you're trying to grow those relationships and recurring sales with. But we do have academies, at Barn2Door taught by other farmers who are highly successful, in many regards, and are teaching them classes on literally grassroots marketing is one of our most popular.

  If we're sold out, like, it's standing room only if you can even make that joke for virtual class. But, every single month, that one is filled to the brim. We have classes on social media, email marketing, including walking through the integration. And then Barn2Door offers a marketing toolkit that farmers subscribe to monthly.

   So, we're walking farmers through. It's really like, get your list. We'll help with marketing, whether it's automated or just getting into the habit with the basics. And we'll give you all the tools to do that successfully, with minimal time. But, you do need to communicate with the customers that you want to buy from you.

  And then, ultimately to make sure that it's convenient, if it's convenient for those buyers to get your food by with local pickup or delivery. I think one of our other favorite farmers that we [00:34:00] work with closely always is like, there's no reason for them to say no. Like if you've removed all the friction in the buying process, you've got the email, you market and you're delivering on their doorstep, the only thing left is yes, I'm buying.

   Because it's such a better option than any of the other food and grocery stores, et cetera, right? It's just such a better option. And nine in 10 people want local food. They want the nutritious food. But to tap into that nine in 10 people, you have to have them on a list. You need to email them, and you have to make it easy.

  Ryan Grace: Exactly. Yep. And that's one of the other benefits of what we get to do in our role here. I know you probably hear it from all of us, as we share, but we get to meet with farms every day, so hundreds of farms that we get insight to what's working, what's not. You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

  We have a great resource, great network, with the farms that we can share some of these success stories and we have proven data that says this is what works. And so, that's one of the more fun things to be able to share with our farms as they're getting onboarded. It may be overwhelming at first, but [00:35:00] we got you.

  We'll walk you through it. We work with plenty of farms and have seen them be very successful, so. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's fair. Who have started with zero and now are just off to the races. Awesome. I wanna extend my thanks to Ryan for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Barn2Door on our team on Instagram @Barn2Door, or on our website, Barn2Door.com.

  Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers all across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools, classes and resources to help farmers access more, customers increase sales and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business management or grow your customer list, visit Barn2Door.com/Learn-More.

   Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  [00:36:00] Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to Barn2Door.com/Resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

Tom of Bennett Farms (MI) shares the challenges tackled (and overcome!) as he doubled his Farm sales… then doubled again in just 4 years. In this latest episode, hear Tom’s advice for Scaling your Farm Business.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all in one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman and taking control of their own business, selling under their brand, and [00:01:00] making sure their customers can access them anytime online and in person.

   In today's conversation, we're gonna be jumping into some of the hurdles of growing your farm business, right? And today I am happy to welcome back Tom Bennett of Bennett Farms in Michigan. Tom is a part of our farm advisory network, and he is worked with us for more than five years. Since becoming an advisor, he has shared many best practices for growing your business, and marketing in person and growing a full-time farm business while increasing average order sizes. Tom's been incredibly successful and he's also a family man. I'm excited to talk to Tom today about the various steps he's taken to grow his farm business, some of the struggles he's encountered along the way, and some advice for new farmers.

   Welcome back, Tom. It's great to see you. 

  Tom Bennett: Hey, thanks James. Good to be back. 

  James Maiocco: Well, I'm really excited to dive into this given, you know, watching the maturation of your farm over the years, you guys have really built a great business. But for some of the listeners perhaps who may be unfamiliar with Bennett Farms and your story, let's rewind a little bit and maybe give a little bio on your background, how you got into [00:02:00] farming to begin with.

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, so did not grow up farming. Had no background in farming. You know, the neighbors had a farm when I was a kid and we'd throw apples at their cows and stuff, but that was about the extent of it. So, I joined the Marines in 2001, right outta high school. Spent 10 years in the Marines and when I got towards, like year seven, I started thinking about what I would be doing after the military service, and I knew I wanted to get some land and live in the country. And so we went that route, bought some land and then, when I transitioned to civilian life, started producing food for ourselves just as more of a homestead type of deal. And then we had seen demand from people we knew around us that started asking us if we would raise hogs for them and do things for them. And then we kind of said, well, maybe there's something here. Maybe we should formalize this a little more. Started selling bulk animals that way. By 2012, I was raising livestock mostly, you know, starting out with chicken and pig, things like that. And then by 2016 I did my first farmer's market, still working an off-farm job. Had some success with [00:03:00] that and saw the potential to replicate that and, you know, just to do more of those, to provide more income. And then by 2018 we had grown that big enough that I had to decide between scaling back on farming or going all in on it and quitting my day job, 'cause we just ran outta hours in a day, you know, to do everything. So, went all in on farming in 2018. That would've been about the same time we started with Barn2Door. I believe that was like the same. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Tom Bennett: Quarter of the year, when I said, okay, if I'm gonna do this for a living though, I definitely need an online avenue as well, to capture more customers.

  So, yeah, it's been great. It's been a ride. I mean, it exceeded my hopes and dreams from the beginning when this started and I was just laying in bed with my wife saying, you know, I think I can do this. Like if we just raised this many animals and you know, she brushed it off just kind of like, yeah, yeah.

  Right, right. You know? Okay. And then here we are, you know, surpassing all those goals. You know, less than 10 years later, so. 

  James Maiocco: Wow, that's amazing. I have to tell you, I remember [00:04:00] talking to you, I think we met at the Farmer's Veteran Coalition Conference, actually. And, at the time, like you said, you were working an off-farm job and for the listeners who don't know this, you also have six kids, right?

  Like, so you got a lot of mouths to feed, right? You still have a heavy load, but at that point you had a very heavy load on your plate in trying to make this decision, especially as a, you know, providing for your family. Talk about making that transition, 'cause I know a lot of people still working off farm job and try to make that switch and that's really tough. 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. And I got some great advice on, you know, I've tried to, on that question that I get sometimes I try to distill it into an easy answer for people on how do I know when it's time to make the switch.

  And I haven't said this on a podcast yet, because it kind of just came to me a month or so ago. There came a point when I was working my off-farm job and farming where by going to work at my off-farm job, I, in effect, lost money that day because I missed out on opportunities with the farm. Like I would go to work to make 300 bucks, but lose 500 because I wasn't able to [00:05:00] do a delivery route that day. Or maybe, you know, I had six pigs farrowing that day and I had to walk away from it because I gotta go to work and I lose thousands of dollars worth of pigs, you know?

  When you start to see that you could make more money by staying home than you would've if you went to work today, that's when it's definitely a time that you need to, you know, take a look at that about stepping away. And that starts happening consistently more and more as you grow.

  So, that was the tipping point for me was where I was just tired of losing livestock, you know, death losses. I've had thousands of birds on pasture, gotta leave for work during a thunderstorm and couldn't take care of, you know, what I needed to there. So I go to work to make my wage for the day, but I lose thousands of dollars in birds that I could have prevented if I'd have been home or, you know, missed opportunities with, I couldn't do a Thursday delivery route because, you know, I had to work on Thursdays, and the restaurants that we deliver to, you know, they don't want an evening delivery. They want a morning delivery. So just things like that. It [00:06:00] was a hard transition, like the risk is all financial, right? I mean, that's what it really comes down to. And my wife had said to me when I left my employer that I was with, like, you can do this.

  She didn't fully support it. All right, so. 'cause we had a comfortable thing going, you know, life was easy. And she said, you can do this, but your paycheck next week better not be less than it was last week. You know what I mean? Like, so from day one, we had an understanding that I could do this, as long as my family did not suffer for it.

  You know, I don't want my kids to go without, I don't want us to have less because I want to chase my selfish, you know, thing in life that I want to see us do. So, and we succeeded at that. Life's changed a lot since then. It's nice because, I mean, with the success that's came now, it's like the financial obligations in my real life are laughable compared to the financial obligations that the farm [00:07:00] has. I mean, we spend $2,000 a week on milk just from an Amish dairy that we resell. You know, I mean, like, that's more than my mortgage. You know what I mean? 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Tom Bennett: And that's just one side item that we carry in our online store and we offer for delivery.

  So, and that's not even a product that we produce, that's just we an add-on from another farm. So, we're in a lot better place now financially, because we were able to take the risk early on, you know? 

  James Maiocco: Yep. No, no risk, no reward, right? Like it is a transition and I know many farmers who are listening to this podcast right now

  want to get into that position that, that enviable position, like you said, where you can begin, where you've built loyalty, built brand, you've got a customer base big enough now that you're now acquiring additional products, which is add on margin, add on revenue, to even add more value for your customers.

  And that's a really great position. Took a lot of hard work for you to get there. 

  Tom Bennett: Yes. 

  James Maiocco: Well, let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about some of the steps it takes to get there. So first off, your core products. You mentioned pork [00:08:00] and chicken. Talk to us a little bit about how you chose those items initially, and you know, kind of a little bit about your commitment there in terms of your practices and the types of products you're raising.

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. Pork and chicken was our go-to from the beginning. We knew we had to differentiate ourself like in the market, right? Because if I'm gonna sell the same confinement CAFO operation Meat that Walmart's selling, why would they wanna buy it from me? I'd be local, but it would be a similar product. So in order for us to get a premium on our product, we needed to be able to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.

  So we are pasture based, non GMO and antibiotic free. To this day, even with everything, we don't have a barn on our farm. We've got some brooders, but aside from that, we have no barn. So everything's, you know, the pigs, the chickens are actually, we're running them all the way into January now, and then starting 'em in March. So we started out with pork and chicken mostly because it's a quick turnover, right? We need to be able to turn over that cash to get money back in as quick as possible. Chicken's got an eight [00:09:00] week life cycle. It's very fast.

  And if you need to grow with chicken, you know, you can do that quickly, you don't have to wait for another season to start to do more. You can always add that on. It's only eight weeks away from being in stock. Pigs are the same way. We saw them as being a pretty quick return as well. You're looking at six to eight months depending on if you're buying feeder pigs or breeding them.

  And the margins were good. So we started out with that and we grew the pig and the chicken thing to substantially large numbers. We wanted to get into beef, but frankly we just couldn't afford to make that long-term investment in beef in the early years because all of our capital was going back into raising more and more pigs and chickens, 'cause we were doubling every year for the first, at least four years, four or five years. We're not quite doubling anymore. We're growing at about 30%. And that's because doubling, a lot of people don't realize it, it is financially burdensome because you're taking, if you, let's say you make a [00:10:00] 50% profit margin, okay, let's just use that as a example number.

   It would take all of your profit to double if you just reinvest that back in next year, just in the livestock inputs, right? So, the first several years, it's like we're doubling, we're doing more and more volume, but we didn't really get to capture a lot of those profits because we were growing.

  So now, it finally feels good to be able to grow at like 30% instead of doubling, because then we still have, you know, a 20% margin to work with on, you know, getting more delivery vans. We finally got our first tractor on our farm, like a loader, ever about two months ago. So, that's been real nice.

  So, it was pig's, chicken, started out with that. Then we went into turkeys, obviously started doing turkeys mostly for Thanksgiving. Still once a year. We'll do about 700 of those for Thanksgiving. And now we're growing a beef herd. And beef is awesome 'cause there's no input cost on that. I mean, I spend, you know, a thousand dollars a day on pig and chicken feed.

  But I spend $0 a day on beef feed. 

  James Maiocco: Well, [00:11:00] gotta manage your grass and pastures well. Right? So, I assume that you're in a good rotational grazing plan. 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, we're management intensive grazing. So we small cells moving 'em every day. I mean, in the winter that goes out the window, 'cause we eventually run out.

  So right now, we're waiting for the spring green up to start. So, right now they're on hay that we just buy in hay, but they'll be out on rotational pastures again soon. But beef's a time thing, you know, it's a time investment, not so much a input cost. 

  James Maiocco: Now you mentioned early on, you know, why would people wanna buy from you versus Walmart if you're selling locally, right?

   A confinement product. So, you're not doing that, you're selling a premium product, grass fed, pasture raised non GMO as you mentioned. But let's talk a little bit about the channels that you're selling to. Are you still trying to focus in on locally? Like I know you're also at farmer's markets.

  You sell, you mentioned some restaurants too, like what's your customer mix and what's your kind of target radius that you're looking at? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, our customer mix is 97% direct to [00:12:00] consumer, either via our online store or through one of the 29 farmer's markets a week we do. We did 29 a week last season, and we're also gonna stick with that again this year and do 29 again this season. And that's where a bulk of our product goes. We do do some wholesale, to restaurants and independent, like organic grocery stores. We don't aggressively pursue them still. Those are just ones that have reached out to us via, like Instagram, wanted to carry our product. So, we just add that those stops into our Tuesday and Thursday delivery routes.

  So it's just like a residential stop for us. It just gets added on. So, yeah, we're not too heavy into wholesale yet. There's so much more room to grow there. I mean, I know guys that built their entire farm just on wholesale accounts, you know, that's not us, right now. You need lots of volume, small margins.

  And then, you know, you get stuck with some big wholesale accounts and all they gotta do is, you know, miss an order for one week and it kind of throws your world upside down. So it's like, [00:13:00] during the whole covid issue, when everything shut down, I was doing just fine. You know, it was some of the farms that were like all in on wholesale, they were up a creek.

  Because they had no market to sell to, they didn't have, I mean, I've got 60,000 individual customers per year. I might lose a few here and there, but I'm always gaining more than I'm losing. You know, if people move, things like that, stuff happens. It's really hard to lose 60,000 customers at once. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah.

  The resilience you have in your business by having such a diversified and wide customer base is just, again, versus a few wholesale contracts, right. Again, you're not putting yourself in any form of jeopardy, plus you have full control on your pricing. Right. Which is fantastic. Let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned delivery routes a couple times. So, you have farmer's markets, I assume, can people pre-order for pickup at the farmer's markets? And then, talk to me about delivery, 'cause I'm very curious about that as well. 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, so they can pre-order for pickup at the farmer's markets. And then they can also choose [00:14:00] from delivery.

  So, when they add an item to their cart, the first thing you'll ask 'em is this for delivery or pickup? They just pick which fork they want to go down. And they could do it either way. So, we have to constantly update our farmer's market pickup availability on our online store, because markets changed throughout the season.

  So, we need to keep that up to date. You know, I had people call me yesterday, Hey, I'm trying to pick up for Wicker Park tomorrow. I don't see it on the website. I'm like, that's because there is no wicker park tomorrow. It's a skip week market. It's not. They're like, oh, you know, so our pickups on our site are that accurate.

  That if they tell me that they're not seeing it on there, I can tell them with confidence. It's because that market doesn't exist tomorrow. So, they can do it that way. Or home delivery. We've got home deliveries going out tomorrow. I just printed off 162 pack list orders for tomorrow's deliveries.

  James Maiocco: Wow. 

  Tom Bennett: And so, that's what we're doing today is building those routes. My barn office manager is building the routes. I'm kind of, it's funny you said, you were talking earlier about how hard work it was. I actually within like the last six months, so we are busier than we've [00:15:00] ever been.

  But by hiring key people, like livestock managers and office people, I've actually never felt like I had less on my plate than I do right now. You know? 'cause I'm able to delegate so much of this once we've grown enough that I can afford to pay people to do these specific, you know, areas of our farm.

  And it frees me up for a lot more mental capacity to like look at the big picture instead of just like, and nothing burns me more than me out there feeding chickens when like, this could be done by someone that doesn't need, you know, it's good to do that once in a while because you learn a lot and like, I'm the master of chicken health.

  I've seen it all, I've done it all. But, I'm at a point now where I can't get bogged down doing $15 an hour jobs because I need to be doing hundreds of dollars an hour jobs, you know, in my head, in the office. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. You need to be working on the business, not in the business.

  Right?

  Tom Bennett: Exactly. And we finally reached that point and it's really nice. 

  James Maiocco: I was gonna say, with respect to delivery, do you guys charge a fee for that or is there a threshold [00:16:00] which delivery fee free, or like, how do you structure your delivery route. 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, on our subscriptions, we do a free delivery.

  So, any of our subscriptions that we offer, that's free delivery, that's kind of like the bonus for them to sign up for that is that they get free delivery and then we make sure they know that, like, Hey, also if you want to add on things, like just make sure that you select the same delivery date as your subscription and you'll receive free delivery on those ala carte items, as well.

  'Cause we're already coming there with free delivery for your subscription. So, we do charge a delivery fee on our normal orders, up to a certain threshold. I think we still have it at $75. And I know a lot of farms are like, that's crazy. You know, we charge whatever, like customers would pay the delivery fee.

   Our delivery zones are so dense. I guess I could put it that like it's really, it's not a lot. We're going three houses down, in some cases. Like in Chicago, you can deliver multiple stops from one parked spot, you know, or there's three customers in the same condo. So, our deliveries are dense [00:17:00] enough that we're not driving long distances for single stops.

  And typically even the people who get free delivery, there's a tipping option on there for the farm. And I mean, they'll get the free delivery or use their $5 coupon code, 'cause they're a first time customer and then they'll leave a $20 tip and it's like, well obviously they don't care about the, you know, saving five bucks.

  So, that's cool. But, yeah, our delivery fee is $6.95 if it's under $75, unless you have a subscription going with it. 

  James Maiocco: I know here in Nashville, I pay $15 for our subscription box to get delivered once a month. Right? But like you said, I don't really care. Like I'm more interested in supporting the farmer and making sure that they can pay a wage to their delivery driver.

  Right? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. And I mean, I don't like paying delivery fees. If I go to a website for Best Buy and they want to charge me a $20 delivery fee for a tv, I'll just go to Amazon and buy the same TV for the same price and get free delivery. You know what I mean? It's psychologically, a lot of people are looking for that expectation of free delivery nowadays, and we're not making [00:18:00] our money on delivery fees.

  You could even go as far as just price your meat a little bit more and build it into the cost of the meat, and then give a free delivery at a lower threshold. I don't know, I'm not saying that everyone should do that, charge as much as you want for delivery, but we were more concerned with volume and we wanted to get the volume up and build a bigger customer base faster.

  And I felt like, you know, making delivery more accessible was a good way to do that. 

  James Maiocco: Yep. And I love the incentive for, hey, if you're making a one time purchase, yeah, it's $6.95, but if you sign up for a subscription, you know, we're gonna bring it to your house for free. And as you said, there's just this beautiful add-on capability.

  Just be able to, hey, great, let's add some milk to that order. Right? 

  Tom Bennett: Yep. And they do too. Yeah. They flood in with orders, right? A couple days before the subscription day, adding on stuff, so. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. That's great. What do you feel like has been one of the biggest hurdles you've had from moving from a hobby to a full-time farmer?

  Right. Like, how are you managing your time? Right? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. I kind of have a list of some hurdles that I think people will [00:19:00] encounter with growth in a farm. So, one of the most important things that I think is a huge hurdle to people's growth of their farm is that, you know, they'll spend 90% of their time planning and never taking action. You know, sometimes you can't wait to be a hundred percent ready to do something before you do it.

  You just gotta jump in and learn how to swim while you're drowning. That's how I go at things and I get way more accomplished than people I know because I'm not afraid to just learn as I'm doing it. You know, you can read as many books as you want, but people plan, plan, plan, and they never actually get around to doing before the idea dies.

  So I would say one of the biggest hurdles to growth is yourself. 

  James Maiocco: That sounds a little bit like getting married or having children. Right? Like nothing can prepare you for it. Right. You just have to jump in and trust God's gotta plan in it ultimately, right? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. Yeah. I'm 41 years old now, and I still can't believe that I'm a parent and I've been a parent for 20 something, you know, I've been a parent for 20 years.

  So, it's like I, this shouldn't [00:20:00] be allowed, you know? I still don't feel like a grownup. So another, another big hurdle that people will face, kind of the nuts and bolts of it. You're gonna face cold storage issues, right? Like if you're a meat farmer, that's gonna be one of the first things that slaps you in your face, is that I wanna produce all these pigs and chickens, but I have nowhere to put them. So what people end up doing is, is that they're just producing as much as they can hold in their chest freezers, and then they're selling it, and then they're out, and then they're selling. You need cold storage capacity, right?

  Because then you can produce more when the weather's good, you know, and put that away for the off season, like to carry us through the winter, you know? A lot of my savings is actually in the form of pallets and pallets and pallets of meat that's ready to be sold, you know, going into the winter.

  So, cold storage, you're gonna wanna find a regional cold storage facility near you. If you start getting into like, you know, you're doing thousands of chickens at a time, we have three walk-in freezers here on the farm. And [00:21:00] we keep those stock with what we'll need each month. And then as we start to run outta stuff, we can just go to cold storage and pick up pallets of chicken or whatever to restock that.

  But cold storage is pretty affordable. That'll get rid of one of your big bottlenecks in the beginning. Yeah, I think that'll help people. And oh, mean, we got up to like 18 chest freezers at one point and it just wasn't manageable. Like it's, it's silly. So, get some walk-ins, off Facebook marketplace or Craigslist.

  You can get used walk-ins all the time, especially when the economy has a downturn and restaurants start going outta business, walk-ins are cheap. Like a thousand dollars for a 12 by 12 walk-in. Yeah, you can get a pretty good deal on 'em if you watch for it. So, another one of the, the things that I would see is that, one of your hurdles to growth is always gonna be your time too, right?

  Like, we've only got 24 hours in a day. So, no matter how rich you are, how poor you are, no matter where you're at in life, me and you both get the same 24 hours. So, it's how you manage that 24 hours that'll [00:22:00] decide, the course of the rest of your life? So, when it comes to growing the farm, I did it almost all myself in the beginning.

   Because one, I needed to provide that wage to me. And two, I didn't trust anyone else to be able to do it as good as I was doing it. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep 'em employed, you know, through the slow part of the season, things like that, and have the burden of that payroll on me then.

  But, one of the things that you can do is hire salespeople, right? Like salespeople are free hires because they are expected to generate more profit for your farm than you're having to pay them, right? So, market staff is how we grew our farmer's markets. Up until last year, I was still doing markets during the week just because I was the fill in for if somebody didn't show up to work that day, 'cause on some days we have nine farmers' markets going at the same time. So, it's a lot of people. But, hire people to represent you at, you know, markets or if whatever your sales channel are, [00:23:00] maybe you got one person that you're paying 'em a commission to go out and get restaurant accounts, you know, and they earn a set amount of that commission off that reoccurring restaurant sale every week while that person works for you.

  You know? So, you could do incentive based salespeople to work for your farm. That maybe wanna do it, you know, freelance part-time or whatever they could be. So salespeople, they're always gonna make more money for you than they cost you. So those are easy hires and that's pretty much what we hired in the first few years I wasn't hiring.

  James Maiocco: Was that the first hire was salespeople to man the booth for you? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, those were the first hires for like five years. Like I didn't get my full-time like livestock managers until about two years ago. That's when I started releasing some of that to other people. So now we have three, one Livestock Manager, two Farm Hands, and a barn office, we call her like a market sales manager. She basically just works in the office and packs orders and schedules, you know, markets and everything. So, vehicle [00:24:00] utilization's gonna be huge. So, if you, at first when you start out, just use your own vehicles. Don't be embarrassed to deliver in your minivan or your Toyota Corolla.

  I did it. I was delivering a Nissan Altima at in the beginning. You know, people, they kind of expect it from a small farm, really. I mean, they're not expecting you to pull up in a box truck or a transit van, they know they're buying from a little farm. So, it kind of has some wholesomeness to it as well, you know?

   But once you do start bringing on vehicles, we make sure that we fully utilize those vehicles, right? Because they're expensive and you don't wanna have 'em just, you know, paying insurance and things on 'em every month and not keeping 'em moving. So, with farmer's markets, we'll load up to three markets in one van, and they'll drop a trailer at the first one.

  They'll drop another market set up at the second one, and then the driver goes on and does the third one and then picks 'em up in reverse order. Those same vans are used on Tuesdays and Thursdays for deliveries and things like that. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. And do you have signage on your vans, QR codes, all that good stuff?

  Tom Bennett: I don't, you know, I wanted to, but [00:25:00] to wrap all our vans would've been like $10,000 and it would've been really good advertising. I mean, it was many miles as we put, I bought a transit van last June and it's already got 75,000 miles on it, and that's only one of our four delivery vehicles. Like it would be a really good utilization of billboard space, but two things, one, it was expensive and I could spend that $10,000 on beef like stocker calf, you know, there's always something else that seemed like it was more important than vehicle wraps and two, quite frankly, sometimes I'm glad that these vans don't have my name on 'em because I got staff driving in Chicago and like if they cut somebody off, I don't want 'em to like piss people off or anything.

  So, it's kind of like we're in incognito mode out there on the road. So, no, they're just plain white delivery vans right now. I do wanna put Bennett Farm's stuff on 'em, but I don't want to go halfway either and just stick on some lettering. I would like to do something that's like a full representation, of our graphics and everything. So, we will get to that. But, when we do get to that, we're gonna [00:26:00] have a big conversation with all of our staff about, hey, like this is customer service. Now when you're driving, like, you know, like you, you're letting people in, you're not running red lights, you're not being a jerk, you know?

  So it's, uh. 

  James Maiocco: You're representing the brand now. 

  Tom Bennett: Right. Yeah. So, we haven't wrapped 'em yet, but we do want to, but still, I mean, we're always finding other things. I like to spend money on things that are gonna make us more money. And I do think that that would be one of those classifications of items.

  James Maiocco: I just asked that question 'cause I know many of our farms who do delivery find that they'll get, you know, 5, 6, 10 signups just off of QR codes in neighborhoods, like you said, when they're doing deliveries 'cause they're stopping the van and everyone else has seen the van. It's like, oh, that's a local farmer.

  If they're getting food, man, maybe I can get on that pickup route. Right. Quite simple. Right. So. 

  Tom Bennett: I agree and maybe that'll be my takeaway from this today is putting that back towards the top of my list. It has been on my list. There's just always something else that seems more important. 

  James Maiocco: You should talk to Laci.

  I know they do quite well over at Tagge's, you know. 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. 

  James Maiocco: She's another [00:27:00] farm advisor. I know they do that quite well. Talk to me a little bit about how you got your initial customers. You know, you talk about the 60,000 you have now. What have been the best avenues to attracting, but more importantly, keeping those customers engaged?

  Like how do you capture the information and stay in touch with them? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, so our primary, you know, I'm a one trick pony and that is farmer's markets, so it's like, that's where we built our farm. I'm sure there's other ways to do it, but that is how we met and meet and continue to meet all those customers and build new customers.

   I think that's where bulk of 'em come from. That's where we collect emails. That's where we're able to hand out our flyers to tell people to go shop online. So, every single customer that we talk to at a farmer's market, we're giving 'em a flyer to our online store and explain it to 'em that we have subscription options and things like that.

  So, even if they don't buy anything from us, it was not a lost opportunity on, you know, letting them know what we can provide them. And so, we've built a lot of that through the farmer's markets. And then, that's [00:28:00] huge for us because that builds the traffic to our online store and the awareness of it.

  So, that way in the winter when everything shuts down, 'cause we're in Michigan, we still have that reoccurring revenue throughout the winter, to get us back to the summer market season again. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. So you're using the markets effectively as a funnel to acquire new customers and then market to them on an ongoing basis?

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, it would've been a lot slower growth for us had we not done that. I'm pretty sure. 

  James Maiocco: Yeah. I'm certain of it. Talk to me a little bit about streamlining your processes, right? Like you started working with us over five years ago and what are one or two of the things that you found most helpful?

  I mean, you mentioned subscriptions a couple times. I know I've heard this from other farmers too. Just the recurring revenue. Has that kind of been one of the big things for you? 

  Tom Bennett: Yeah, the recurring revenue is huge. Especially coming out winter, like this is probably this month and last month are probably the two hardest months as a direct to consumer farm in the north when you're doing meats, because you have huge outlays of capital for production.

  Like we're [00:29:00] at full production right now, like feed, livestock, like chicks, all that stuff, but yet we don't have the income yet from those things until, you know, May and June. So, the online stores is really big 'cause it cash flows all that, you know, it gets us through those leaner times. As far as streamlining, we've just gotten better at processes as far as, you know, packing orders, managing inventory.

  James Maiocco: You said you have an office manager. What is she helping to do to help make it simpler, easier for your pick your pack crew or for just being able to manage all your inventory? 

  Tom Bennett: I mean, she's doing everything I used to do, so she didn't like invent anything new.

  You really, you just go to your online store, you download, you know, the upcoming orders for right now she's doing Thursdays, so we switched our cutoff time. We used to have our cutoff up until 6:00 PM the night before the delivery day.

   And that worked when we were smaller, 'cause I could just come out and pack three orders, you know, that came in after the cutoff, before the morning. But [00:30:00] now, the route is so big that it takes a large portion of the day just to do the routing, 'cause we have to build four different routes and balance 'em and then, you know, lay out all the invoice, staple customers who got multiple invoices together.

  And so, we finally pushed that back a couple months ago to two days before the cutoff, and that's been huge, 'cause now we have all day Wednesday to build those routes instead of trying to do it on Wednesday night after 6:00 PM. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. 

  Tom Bennett: So, 

  James Maiocco: that helped streamline some things.

  Now, with the size of your business, you know, it's one thing to double when you're small, but now given your size, growing 30% is even probably, you know, proportionally, well, it sounds smaller.

  The realistically, it's actually a much bigger amount of growth versus when you were small. So, how are you handling that ongoing growth, as a business, right? Because like you said, there's no additional hours to gain in the day. How are you scaling? What are you finding are the most beneficial investments you're making between people and or prep software to help you [00:31:00] scale your time?

  Tom Bennett: So yeah, a couple things. One, you know, when people think of scaling, they think of like, you know, making bigger, when I think of growing this, I look at it more as a replicating, right? Instead of scaling. So, we're taking things that work in small batches, and instead of making them big batches, we're just doing a whole bunch of small batches still, like with growing chicken and things like that.

  So, it's more of a replication of what worked when it was small. We're still just doing the same thing, just times 10, you know, 10 more people to do 10 more things to do just 'cause we made profit, you know, with that unit being like it was. So, now we just do a lot more of those units, you know, whether that be farmer's markets or animals. People are the best money I spend all week, right? They're like, I tell my livestock manager, like you are the most expensive tool that I own, like that I buy, you know what I mean? Like, like so they've gotta be productive, you know, you guys have gotta generate more value for me [00:32:00] than you cost me to be here.

  You know? And they know that. And we do things with them, like our livestock managers, like we have a profit. It's not even a profit sharing, it's a revenue sharing with our full-time farm staff that have been here for more than a year. So, like Owen, he's my livestock manager. He is amazing.

  And he knows that the salespeople, the sales staff that come in, you know, to go out and do markets, they get all the glory and they're nice and clean. They're not doing the hard work in the trenches like he is. But I wanted him to also have some ownership of the farm, like some buy-in, you know, so that way he can feel good when he sees that we're loading up all these cattle to go to the butcher or the chickens or whatever.

  So, I give him a gross revenue percentage. It's very small. It's one quarter of 1% is what we started it at because I'm like, man, if this could get outta control fast, like with the way we've been growing. So, we did it as a test, gave him one quarter, 1%, and now we have multiple people that get that.

   And so, that way it really gives some buy-in from him, right? So he cares. Our sales staff at the markets, they get a base [00:33:00] hourly wage, plus a 5% sales commission on their gross sales for the day. That kind of buys their buy-in on the whole thing. 

  James Maiocco: At the very beginning of this podcast you mentioned you're selling milk now from another farm. Right? So, you own the customer base. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, making money off of other products now that you can just source and just pass through and make margin on it given you've got the customers.

  Tom Bennett: Yeah. So as Bennett Farms, we produce and raise all of our meats. Like that's all us, that's what we do. So, with the pork, chicken, beef, Turkey, you know, those things, that's all on us. So, one of the best things we were able to do to capitalize on like our success and the growth of our farm, right? Once you get to a certain size and you have this huge customer base, it is like free money to sell them other products from other farms that we didn't have to do anything to produce, right?

  So, we're already going out on these delivery routes. We've already got this huge customer base. And so, we partnered with Amish Country Dairy years ago, and now we [00:34:00] buy like from them, as I said earlier, about $2,000 a week worth of milk in the winter, like this isn't even the summer. And we're making, you know, 35% margin on that.

  But all of that's free because we were already going to these places and frankly, sometimes some of these customers may have came to us because they could get the milk delivered to their door, and now they're buying meats, so we can't even see what the real net positive is of that 'cause it's hard to fish out.

   But it's just, it's super easy. And so we do that. We don't offer lamb, we have no intentions of producing lamb ourselves, I should say. So, we partnered with another farm, Tiger Valley Ranch outta southwest Michigan, and we're selling their lamb now for 'em. There's really good margins on lamb and self-admittedly, they are not great salespeople, but they're great at raising lamb. So, I'm carrying their lamb with their label on it, and that's, you know, helping their farm. And it helps us just because it puts more stuff in our store for our customers to have options. 

  James Maiocco: What a blessing.

  That's just great because ultimately, you know, you're just increasing [00:35:00] your share of the wallet. It's not like the families you're selling to aren't gonna buy milk. They're still gonna buy milk, so why not make it easier? You run a delivery to 'em. Now you just made yourself stickier.

  Right? So they're gonna wanna stay with you, because of the convenience of all those things. And the margin's gotta be attractive, like you said as well, right? It's just additional money. 

  Tom Bennett: Yep. Yeah, it works out really good. Anytime you can create, you know, more profit from something that, like you didn't have to exert any time into, with the exception of the delivery, like it's a no brainer, you know?

  So, look at maybe partnering with other farms around you that compliment something that you're not selling, you know? It can make sense. So. 

  James Maiocco: That's great. Well, looking back, over the last 10 years, is there anything you wish you knew or anything you would've done differently knowing what you know now? 

  Tom Bennett: Don't be afraid in the beginning, if you feel an imposter syndrome creeping up on you because, you know, in your heart that like you've never been a farmer and now you're farmer Tom, you know? You may feel that for the first couple years. I felt it, because here I am, like never been a [00:36:00] farmer before trying to sell people chicken.

  And now I've only been a farmer for a year, you know, at that point. And so, I think the imposter syndrome where you feel like maybe I don't belong, like am I really a farmer? In the beginning like, don't worry, that goes away. I think we all felt it, especially when you start to feel success in the beginning and it's kind of like, just keep going and eventually you'll fill that role that people visualize you as, I guess.

   I would say another thing is, you know, I touched on the beginning. Don't be afraid or scared to try something before you're completely ready for it. That's how you gotta go about these things, especially in farming, I think you can't study stuff to death. You just gotta, you know, make sure the numbers work, make sure that you've proven it out, you know, on a small scale.

  And then you can grow with that. Schedule all of your butchering a year in advance. I hear people on connect calls, they're like, oh, I just can't get any butchering spots. Well, it's because I probably took 'em all back in December, you know, so use your off season time to call and set up all your butchering for the year, right?

  For your [00:37:00] chickens, your pigs, your beef, and then produce to fill those slots, right? Don't just produce the animal and then worry when it's time for slaughter, about finding butchering dates like you're putting yourself in a bad spot. I schedule all of my 2025 livestock have been scheduled since December of 2024.

  So, now I just have to make sure that I have enough animals to fill those and we always do. But yeah, schedule your butchering stuff a year in advance. Cash flow will kill you. That will be the death of your farm. If you have problems on a small scale, you better fix 'em before they become problems on a big scale, because you can't just grow your way out of a bad situation.

  Right? If it's a bad situation at a thousand, it's gonna be something that sinks your life at a million. You know? So, figure out your margins, figure out what's profitable, what works. Cut the stuff that doesn't, don't be afraid to say no [00:38:00] to customers on things. They will eat up your day with their special requests and odd stuff that just, it's like I ain't got time for that. I mean, learning to say no is probably one of the most liberating things you'll ever do in life. And I'm a people pleaser. Like I wanted to say yes to everything and everyone, especially in the beginning, 'cause every customer like, gosh, I was just fighting for every one of 'em.

  So, they would ask me off the wall stuff like, can you just bring half my subscription this week and then half next week?, 'cause I don't. No. And now I have no problem saying, no, we don't do that. It comes once a month, you know. Sorry. I can't hold that mental space in my head for five minutes a month to give to you, so that way you don't get any medium eggs in your dozen when it comes. Like's not doing that. Like it people, they'll text or they'll message me about, Hey, I have a delivery scheduled for tomorrow. Or I'll have a delivery schedule for next Tuesday, but I was wondering if instead you can just bring it to the [00:39:00] market tomorrow or whatever.

  And I'm just like, because they think they're saving me time and I'm just like, no, not really. I would rather not, you know, sometimes I can change stuff like that, but it would be like calling Amazon and saying, Hey, I just want to pick up my order at the fulfillment hub.

  I know you guys were gonna bring it anyways, but I'm gonna save your driver, you know, a trip to my house. Let me just get it from the fulfillment center. Like, that would screw up Amazon's world. Right? Well, it doesn't screw up my world, but I've got a lot going on and like you just robbed me of 10 minutes of mental capacity for something that you thought you were helping me on, but you're not like, let us just deliver it. You know? Because we're already there. There's a software and a process that puts all this stuff in order. That's how we mess stuff up, you know, is when we pull stuff off from what was supposed to be a delivery and then just hand it to somebody instead somewhere else.

  And so, I say no to that stuff too. 

  James Maiocco: That's great. You run the business that works for you, right? For you as a farmer. Yeah. You can't placate all these individual [00:40:00] requests. Well, hey, I wanna be respectful of your time, farmer Tom, I like calling you farmer Tom. Now you, you coined it. That's great.

   Let's wrap up with a little bit of an outlook. What does the future hold for Bennett Farms? You know, you guys been at this for some time. What are you hoping to accomplish this coming year? 

  Tom Bennett: This coming year, the future is big on beef for us.

  So, that's gonna be the next growth phase of our farm. Keep in mind, like we got to where we're at right now with, I mean, we've done beef a little bit, but we haven't even scratched the surface on beef. I mean, I'm harvesting two beefs a month right now. That's it. And so we're growing our beef herd.

   There's so much potential with beef, so, I think we can get, you know, another 60% growth of our farm just with that one product alone, at least. But once we get this all, I'm putting everything in place right now. The people, the team, the staff, my goal for 2025 is for if I died tomorrow or stepped away from something here, the farm [00:41:00] wouldn't miss a beat without me.

  I'm trying to make it bigger than me, you know, and that would be awesome. Not that I want to do any of that. I'm still gonna be here micromanaging everybody's stuff, but I don't wanna have to be, you know, and it is getting to that point. We just came back from a 10 day vacation last week, and the farm ran smoothly and excellently.

  I didn't have to do anything, like they proved that they could do it, so that's awesome. So, we'll just continue to hone that. 

  James Maiocco: Well, well done. You are not just a fantastic farmer, you're also a fantastic businessman, making again, good hard decisions and so, well done, and thanks for sharing your advice.

   So, I wanna extend my thanks to Tom for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can check out more of Tom and Bennett Farms on the Instagram @BennettFarmsMichigan. So, that's @BennettFarmsMichigan with two Ns and two T's. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to serve thousands of farms all across the country, and delighted offer services and tools help farmers access more, customers, [00:42:00] increase sales and save time.

   If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or looking to save time in a large growing business, you can go to barndoor.com/learn-more. Thank you for tuning in today, and we look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [00:43:00] time.

In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres (SC) and host of Barn2Door’s Grassroots Marketing Academy, talks about the priority and lessons of each session, ideal outcomes, and what he has learned as a teacher. See why this class --- helping Farmers tap into local Buyer demand to increase sales --- is always full with a long wait list!

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can [00:01:00] purchase from their farm, both online and in person. 

  In today's conversation, we'll get into Barn2Door academies and why we host classes for farmers, taught by other farmers and industry experts. We'll also focus on our grassroots marketing academy, taught by Alex Russell, who we have here today. Today I'm happy to welcome back to Alex Russell of Chucktown Acres in South Carolina. 

  Alex is part of our farm advisory network. Has worked with us for five years and since becoming an advisor has brought his wisdom of brand building, maintaining sustainable operations, and of course, grassroots marketing tactics for the other farmers. Let's dive in. Welcome, Alex. 

  Alex Russell: Wow, what an intro.

  Janelle Maiocco: Woo. 

  Alex Russell: That was amazing. Hey, I'm so happy to be here. I just need to be honest with you. I'm still just as nervous as the first time I did a Barn2Door podcast. So I'm like...

  Janelle Maiocco: Serious? Nobody would ever know. You're such a natural. 

  Alex Russell: The excitement is still there. I still have butterflies 'cause whatever I say is gonna be recorded for all time and so if I say anything stupid.

  Janelle Maiocco: No [00:02:00] pressure.

  Alex Russell: I'm like, yeah, I got a lot of pressure on myself. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh. Oh my goodness. Don't they record the academy classes too?. You already get an A plus. It's great. Okay. Just so folks know a little bit about you since, you know, obviously they would care who we're talking to and why. Tell them a little bit about your farm, a little bit about your background.

  Maybe you do a little intro when you're kicking off your class. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. My name is Alex. I'm a farmer in South Carolina, down here on the low country. We're very close to the ocean. So we are attempting to grow grass fed beef, forest raised hogs, pastured poultry of all kinds. And, we do our own farm store and we do field trips and yada, yada, yada.

  We do it all, except for vegetables basically. And, I've been doing this for five years, running Chucktown. Because my farm name is Chucktown Acres. I don't know if I said that or not. And I had the pleasure of working under Joel Salatin for three years before [00:03:00] that in Virginia. So, my intro to the grassroots marketing class is like, Hey, I got to learn from like America's number one farmer, but I was just a grower at Polyface Farms. And so when I came to start my own farm, I knew nothing about sales and marketing zero. Like I could run hundreds of cattle and hogs and chickens all at the same time in symbiosis, but I could not sell a chicken breast to anyone. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I kind of love that. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Because honestly, most farmers, well, it's not even maybe fair for me to say, but it would seem like a lot of farmers start farming because of the farming side.

  Not the business side. Right? Which to be frank, if you think of small businesses across America, even if you're a doctor or a dentist or a restaurant owner or a coffee shop owner, I could go... or contractor like you [00:04:00] actually, in all those instances, are a business owner and there's so much more to the business than the trade.

  And that's what we here at Barn2Door love to do. And in fact, a brilliant segue into why the heck we do academy classes? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Which is literally not about running hogs. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: It's literally about selling the chicken breast, right? So to your point, all of these academy classes that we put on a Barn2Door as well as our eBooks, this podcast in particular, our blog posts are literally all about the business side of farming and how to be successful and the data and the trends and how to streamline marketing and I mean, avoid unnecessary trappings. Do what you should, but also do what you should, 'cause you do have to actually have customers to sell to. You do have to engage them in order to achieve sales. You have to track your finances, you have to do, you know, you have to manage inventory. All of that's real.

  And everybody, the farmers know it. And so, we love to [00:05:00] help in all of that capacity. And on the software side, when people use the Barn2Door platform, we're helping streamline finances, inventory management, order management. Making sure farmers have an online store and a POS to make and transact with all those sales.

  So, we help streamline the business side, but a lot of times there's just knowledge that farmers need around all of the needs of a business. And so, yeah, academy classes, that's why we do 'em. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Absolutely. Because we as farmers, you're usually driven by the passion of farming to do it.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: But as any small business owner knows, you have to wear all the hats when you get started. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. 

  Alex Russell: So I tell people, like right at the beginning, my first slide of the grassroots marketing class is there's a difference between marketing and sales, and thank god you signed up for Barn2Door because the sales part is pretty much taken care of.

  Like you need to make sure your [00:06:00] online store looks good and you have your stuff on there, and you do your work on the back end of the software, but your job is to market. The stuff that you have and the sales will come. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.

  Alex Russell: You have to get out there and introduce yourself to people or else no one's going to know you exist, because guess what?

  ButcherBox has a whatever million dollar marketing budget that you're up against and they're getting in front of all your customers. So, you gotta be able to separate yourself from them, but also introduce yourself to customers in a unique way that's not gonna break your bank because you've got, you're a brand new farmer, you're brand new to direct to consumer sales, and you don't have a lot of money to just throw around, you know, and waste on like Facebook ads and Instagram ads and Google ads.

  Janelle Maiocco: No, and you don't need to. I mean, you like grassroots marketing, and in fact, I would say probably 90 [00:07:00] plus percent of the marketing tactics that we share to farms across eBooks, podcasts, Academy classes is unpaid marketing. It's just best practices. To your point, if you're set up for the transaction, like they can go up to your online store to buy, you've got your POS for the in person, they can click through social media to go to your store. If everything leads to your store, great. Now you just need marketing for the sake of sales, right? You just need to drive them, make them aware, and keep driving them to the store, to the store, to the store, which can be done with some pretty practical tactics.

  And it's very exciting, I think. And by the way, people prefer and love independent local farmers over any big. 

  Alex Russell: Oh yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Something something. 

  Alex Russell: Absolutely. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Anyway. 

  Alex Russell: They would much rather buy from us than some big conglomerate. It's just that the conglomerates are experts at getting in front of people, and so we have some pretty stiff competition that we want to take seriously when we're marketing our farms.

  You [00:08:00] know, we really do have to put effort out there. And I, I do a little graph on like, effort. You gotta try to succeed, you know, and I remember when we launched our farm, it was during Covid. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Alex Russell: And I had this thought that if I just have meat to sell that like really good high quality meat to sell, they will come to me and they will find me and the suction cup of justice will bring them to me. And it did not happen that way. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I wish it worked that way. I wish the customers fell from the sky. I really do. I say that so often. But they don't. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: But. But you are the preferred choice.

  And so there's local demand, there's massive demand. Even in the national conversation, they're bringing to light how awful Big Ag is. And so, you have even more tailwinds, like people wanna buy local food direct from farmers that they know and love, and they know the quality is there. So you just have to get in the way.

  You just have to [00:09:00] tap in. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Okay. Wait. Alex, before we dive into all the fun stuff, I have to at least tell folks what an academy class is. 

  Alex Russell: Okay, go ahead. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay. So, we started academy classes in January of 2021. So we've been doing it since then. Barn2Door offers classes to existing Barn2Door farmers, on social media, Facebook and Instagram, email marketing, specifically MailChimp, 'cause we actually have a direct integration. So, it's really easy for farmers to send out newsletters with items to buy right in those newsletters. Finance, we actually have a QuickBooks Pro financial advisor who works specifically with farmers who teaches that. 

  We did a farm legal one, which was really cool. We worked with a farm to consumer legal defense fund. If you haven't heard about it and you're a farmer listening, please check it out. It's literally, you know, just a little over a hundred bucks for an annual membership, which if you've ever used an attorney for anything, bless all the attorneys out there. You know, they charge you in six minute increments, and I think that's less than six min. Well, maybe that is like worth 12 minutes of time, but you get my point, which is, buy the membership. They will give you brilliant advice [00:10:00] regardless of what state you're in, who you're selling to, if you're selling anything from, you know, raw milk to whole hogs. 

  We do that farm legal academy twice a year. And then we have, what else do we have? Grassroots marketing, which is hosted by you. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: And always popular and always bursting at the seams. We try to limit it to 25 farms each time, but that's... 

  Alex Russell: 35 every time. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I know. It's like, it's so cool though.

  And so each month we host two or three of those classes, so we're doing roughly 24 plus classes throughout the year, or academies, I should say. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So, if you do an academy, like you're gonna learn from Alex today, it's basically if you're doing an academy in April, you will show up for three one hour classes.

  With Alex and 34 other farmers, even though it's supposed to be 25, which is awesome. And it's taught by highly successful farmers who yes, are using Barn2Door to just crush it with their businesses and keep everything organized. [00:11:00] But they're just like incredibly smart business folks doing, uh, many best practices that they can then share. 

  And then we help give them also data that we know from working with thousands of farmers and having millions of transactions going their platform. So, it's just this great, confluence of information to help independent farmers be highly successful, and we get very excited about it. So, there you go.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So, Alex, when did you first learn about academy classes before you even, 'cause you learned about them before you started teaching? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Gosh, I don't know. Probably three years ago. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: It was probably 2022. And I remember I did, it was probably the finance class that I did first, and then I think MailChimp was next.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Alex Russell: And I'm pretty sure I've done all the academies by now. 

  That's awesome.  

  They're so great, man. It's like, God, it's such valuable information. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. What do you get out of 'em? I mean, tell the [00:12:00] farmers who are listening, like why bother? What do you get out of 'em? 

  Alex Russell: Oh gosh. I mean, you're gonna spend one hour of your week, which you, I know farmers are really busy, but you can spare an hour, like my class is on Thursdays, so you can spare an hour on a Thursday, if it's gonna give you information that's gonna get you another a hundred thousand dollars in sales this year.

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, beautiful. 

  Alex Russell: Can you justify one hour? I mean the, the stuff I learned in the MailChimp Academy, all the academies, but MailChimp stuck out to me a lot because my newsletters were like really sketchy at the beginning.

  And so I learned how to make ' em look nice, which is, it's very impressive for a caveman like myself to be able to design a newsletter that doesn't look like someone just scratched on a piece of white paper, some, like a website. So, the information you learn in those three total hours, [00:13:00] I mean, I learned this stuff three years ago and I'm still applying it.

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. 

  Alex Russell: So, I don't know what the value ratio is there, but the three hours are well worth it and, I can't suggest signing up enough 'cause they're really, really valuable. So. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love it. Oh, and if folks are listening and they were to look up, or a list of academy classes, I think the MailChimp one is now called email marketing just to avoid any confusion. 

  But we also pull in, 'cause we have marketing toolkit that we offer monthly for farmers and we design beautiful templates for farmers to use. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And so, I think we showcase how to do that in that academy now, which is kind of neat. But, yes, glad to hear that those were helpful and useful.

  And again, you're running a business. I mean, yes, you're running a farm, but yes, if it is your livelihood and it's how you pay the bills, then you're also running a business. And we wanna make sure you're armed and dangerous, in as efficient way that we can. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: But with a big, you know, bang for your buck.

  So, I really do appreciate that. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. If people signed up to become farmers and they wanted [00:14:00] to sell direct to consumer, but they thought they could just be curmudgeons in the corner that never have to do any marketing or any social media or any finances or anything like that, they are in the wrong group.

  Okay? You like gotta go back to the commodity crops where you sell everything to one person, okay? If you're a direct to consumer, you're gonna be selling to thousands of people. So, there's a lot of skills that come in that category of farmers if we're gonna sell direct. So, I just tell people, just buckle your seatbelt 'cause there's a lot to learn and might as well learn from an expert, and help yourself skip ahead of a lot of stupid mistakes that you'll make along the way because you watched one YouTube video one time on something, you know.

  Janelle Maiocco: That is true. If you can learn, you can skip some of the potholes, right? Yeah. You just, and also, not to be overwhelmed, like, yes, if you're selling to thousands of people, there's a square one and a square two, like you can break it into small steps, slowly build up your habits, build up your customer [00:15:00] list, put it into a habit of how often you reach out each week, et cetera.

  And, it can be done and I feel like it's not rocket science, we do know, and Alex, you know so well that there are absolutely proven best practices. So, just do that. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, just do it. Just send the email once a week, guys. Don't argue, just do it. I did the once a month emails for so long and it just doesn't, it's just not nearly as good as once a week.

  So just, just do it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I think every Farm I've talked to on a podcast and I ask them how often they email or like, well, I started it at once a month. And it didn't work. And so now I do it once a week and it works like a charm. 

  Alex Russell: And it works. It's a magic number .

  Janelle Maiocco: And people kind of expect it, actually. And if they're gonna not open it one week, fine, they'll open it the next week. 

  But you just reminded them who you are and you popped up as a nice little hand wave at the top of their inbox. Even if they don't open it, which they don't always. 

  Alex Russell: [00:16:00] Yep. Yep. It's, you know, a lot of marketing is just making sure that you're getting in front of these people because they are really busy and they're gonna forget about you, and that's okay.

  You can't get offended by that, because they got soccer practice and they got date night and they gotta pick up the kids from school and they got ballet and they got a thousand other things going on, and they do want to support you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: They do. 

  Alex Russell: But you are not two minutes down the road like Publix is.

  You're 45 minutes to an hour, to two hours to three hours away, and their order cutoffs. And there are a lot of things to get that food from your farm to their freezer. And so you gotta be constantly popping back up at the top of their mind because, if you just think like, oh, I sent them one email two months ago, why aren't they ordering?

  Well, there's your answer right there. They forgot about you the next day. [00:17:00] They forgot about you 59 days ago. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Five minutes after you sent it. No, but if they see it at the right time in the right place, they'll order. But to be fair, I have to tell you, yes, you might live two hours away, but if the food shows up in their community, on their doorstep or at a local pickup, they will gladly make that purchase.

  If you've brought the food into their vicinity, it's a no-brainer for that purchase. 

  Alex Russell: Absolutely. That's why we have so many people sign up for our subscriptions, and they stay on forever. They stay on for years and years. Once they sign up one time. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Love it. Love it. Okay, so in terms of the grassroots marketing academy that you teach, can you walk us through the process of first of all, if you can remember, 'cause it's been a minute, how the class originated. And sort of how that evolved, in terms of it getting in the water, do you remember first teaching it? How many times have you taught it so far? 

  Alex Russell: I think I've been doing it for two years now. So. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Every [00:18:00] month? 

  Alex Russell: Every month, except for December, we take off, so. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's crazy.

  Alex Russell: That's like 20 plus times I've done the class. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I bet it's different every time. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. I get a brand new crop of farmers every time. It's so crazy. Like last month, the March group, they were like a hundred percent new. Farmers never sold anything in their life. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. 

  Alex Russell: I just went, I could not believe it.

  'cause usually I go in thinking these people have been. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's kind of encouraging. I feel like that's actually very encouraging. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. They knew at the beginning that they needed marketing. That wasn't me. I was not that smart. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You had to try a few things the wrong way first, and then you. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. I was my own Guinea pig for sure.

  I remember you guys asking me to do the class and I just laughed out loud. 'cause I was like, you want me to teach the marketing class? [00:19:00] I don't even know how to do an Instagram reel. Okay. Like, you guys are crazy. But, I did learn how to make an Instagram reel and I put one up like almost every day now.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Yeah. You're kind of the expert on that now too. 

  Alex Russell: Thank you. That's crazy for people to say, but like I was kind of that curmudgeony type when I first got in, I did not want to have a camera in my face. I didn't want people to really even know my name or where I lived. And, wanted to be secretive for some reason.

  I don't even know why. But, when you guys asked me to teach the class, I couldn't believe I was honored and shocked and baffled all at the same time. Thankfully you guys made the slide deck for me, because if I had to come up with three hours of stuff from my muffin of a brain, I would've been like, ah, I don't know guys.

  Maybe get someone else to do it. But you guys said, all right, we'll do the slides just present. And people know me, they know I love to present. I love when I'm, I have a microphone in my hand. If I have the attention of an audience, I'm [00:20:00] so in. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We knew that. 

  We knew that. We love that. I love that about you.

  Alex Russell: There's the very few farmers. I'm like a weirdo, you know, very few farmers will want to speak in public, but it's like one of my favorite things ever to do. So, I looked through the slides, I was like, oh yeah, I've been through all this. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: This is very attainable stuff we're talking about here.

  This is not complex algorithms and scheduled social media posts and editing videos. Like that's what I thought it was gonna be. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: But it's like, Hey, have you thought about going into a coffee shop to see if you could put up some flyers? It's like, oh yeah, I've done that. I've, I've called restaurants and I've, you know, been to these local businesses and talked to these people about pickups.

  Yeah, I can do this for sure. So, I agreed to do the class, and then the very first time I had so much fun, I was like, when can we do this again? And you guys said, well, you're gonna do it every month from here on out. So.

  Janelle Maiocco: Honestly, I don't know [00:21:00] that we knew it was gonna be that successful. I mean, you try, you find the right cadence with each academy class based on the demand and the need. Like I think marketing is super top of mind for farmers. Grassroots really, meaning it's really unpaid, right?

  Like it's grassroots marketing. It's the basics of just get it done and do it well with the time that you are applying to it. Finance, I think we do every two or three months, legals twice a year, et cetera. Email and social, I think we do every other month. Same thing, social media, but grassroots marketing, man, that is every month.

  And, you know, standing room only. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. It's encouraging because you see how many new farmers there are. It's a reminder that I get that there's so many people who are waking up to the evils of the industrial food system and wanting to grow sustainable food 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: Themselves, and realizing other people are so hungry for real food that

  they're like, [00:22:00] I could start a business with this. I've just, you know, a lot of people start being a homesteader and then all their neighbors want their food, and then the people beyond their neighbors want their food, and the people in the church want their food and the people at the coffee shop want their food, and then they think, I could do a business with this.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: And then they start doing a thousand broilers a year and then it's like, oh, the freezer's very full. I had 30 people that really wanted my stuff. Now I need about 200. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: And then they sign up for Grassroots Marketing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And Barn2Door. Yes. They sign up for Barn2Door. They get organized. 

  Alex Russell: Yep.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, they get their store online. So people can self-serve order. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Collect your email lists automatically. 

  Alex Russell: I have a beautiful website. I have a beautiful online store. Where are the people? And then it's like, all right, we're gonna help you find them. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep, yep. 

  Alex Russell: Because they're out there. The suburban Sally's are plentiful out there and we are gonna help you find them. 

  Janelle Maiocco: [00:23:00] Yes. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Absolutely true. And we set up a lot for Farms to automatically, so we always talk about email list being gold, right? Because it's literally your customer list. Your email list is your customer list because that is how you are keeping track and engaging them, tracking their orders, everything. 

   It's how they get their reminders for pickup, et cetera. But there are ways that we put in place for them to automatically be growing that list. Like if somebody orders from them, they're automatically added. We make sure to put up a popup thing that says collects emails if people are shopping or going to their website. 

  Different things like that. And on POS we automatically capture emails, when people have a POS device. So again, be collecting it. We want farmers to be successful. We want that to be as easy as possible. But to your point, there is an effort level required to.

  And some pretty creative and even low hanging fruit ways to be collecting emails and just grow that list. So when you send out the email once a week about your broilers, they literally quote unquote, fly off the shelf. Since we're now using all of the, since we're [00:24:00] using all the puns that are appropriate, they fly, they flock.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Yep. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's good. 

  Alex Russell: That's what we spend a lot of time on in the class is... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Can you break it into the three hours? If I am gonna go to the first class, the second and the third, do you have a focus area for each? Where do you start and where do you end?

  And then what is the ideal outcome for a farmer attending? If a farmer went to the class and six months later, what's the outcome? Like, wow, that was a success for that farmer. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. The outcome is revolutionary success and amazing revenue that pushes your farm so far that you have to double your production next year.

  That's the goal that we're at. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Beautiful. 

  Alex Russell: So, we come up with a lot of creative ideas, basically to get in front of people and ways that don't cost a lot. The, I think the only thing that we suggest people do that cost them anything is making [00:25:00] flyers. And their flyers are super cheap, and I always have my flyer close by that I can show them.

  I'm like, it looks like this. It's got a QR code, it's got our logo. Get some nice pretty pictures of cows websites at the bottom. I even, I redid this one, added my email down at the bottom too, 'cause everyone was asking for my email. And so, that's like the only thing we say this is gonna cost you.

  Gotta have a QR code. So it's easy to scan, don't jumble it up with a ton of words. Quick description of your farm. So, we did our first week of the three weeks yesterday, so I'm fresh off of week one with a brand new crop of farmers that we talked to yesterday. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep.

  Alex Russell: And. We talked about magic words for like 30 minutes and they said, 'cause we first talked about ideal customers. Who's our ideal customer and we break down all the different types of best customers, and then we break down the type [00:26:00] of customers that you wanna let go and just let them float off into the sea and never to be seen again.

  We don't wanna waste our time with them. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Empowering. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. We talk about the 80 /20 rule. Don't let 20% of your customers take up 80% of your time. And then we talk about the 80% of amazing, wonderful customers that want to spend a lot of money with you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: And those people use magic words, and those magic words, and I always have the farmers go into the chat and type in the magic words, pasture raised, antibiotic free, local, fresh, regenerative, sustainable, family farm, chemical free, all the things that people who are looking for local farms, they look for very specific things. So, we wanna make sure that on your website you have these magical words that people are gonna be searching for so they can find you. And I said, you're gonna use these magic words everywhere, your flyers, your website, your [00:27:00] social media, your newsletter.

  Find out the words that describe your farm that your customers are going to be using to find you. And so on this flyer, I just put grass fed, grass finished beef, forest raised pork, pasture raised chicken and eggs, chemical free, all regenerative meats. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm.

  Alex Russell: And those are my magical words for my farm.

  Every farm's gonna be a little bit different. But, we spend a lot of time on that, 'cause I have to hammer this point home because as farmers we see our farms differently than our customers do. Like, I could spend two hours describing how I do rotational amp grazing with the cows and what different types of foliage I'm looking for in my pastures to make sure that it's time to move them in and how often to move them and mobile water lines and yada, yada, yada. Guess what? My customers don't really care about that. I've got maybe one or 2% of the really hardcore ones, yes, do it [00:28:00] on a reel, because that's interesting for about 60 seconds. 

  But, when they're searching for you, they're not looking for that particular, they're looking for, let's say grass fed, grass finished beef. They're looking for the food because they're thinking about their children and what they're gonna feed their children, and they are starting to make the connections that the food at the grocery store is like a low grade poison that we've all been. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.

  Do you, I don't even call it food. Do you call it food? 

  Alex Russell: No, it's fake. It's fake food. There's wax on all the vegetables. They're injecting the fruits with all these kind of crazy things to make a shelf stable forever. The meat's terrible. And the entire middle of the grocery store is all poisonous stuff in a box.

  Janelle Maiocco: No. Might as well put a spray nozzle on it. High demand for farmers' food and like, already the statistics where people would, nine and 10, they would shop from farmers.

  And so it's just, it's there. It's like literally dripping demand. And so our [00:29:00] job as farmers or for us at Barn2Door to help farmers tap into that. It's there. Just gotta tap in, and get in front of those buyers. Let 'em know you exist and then make it easy to get the food. So, you do have to have self-serve ordering, 'cause people don't like phone, text, email, just to get eggs. They wanna just...

  Alex Russell: No. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Put a credit card. Oh, and hit subscribe or hit buy and then it shows up and they like habits too. So it's interesting, you can't just offer a pickup once randomly. Like you have to be like weekly or monthly or whatever's normal for your product, right? 

  And people need to trust the habit of getting the chicken or the eggs or the beef regularly because guess what? They eat regularly. 

  Alex Russell: They are. Turns out people eat like every day. It's crazy. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Turns out. They like the same thing on their plate. 

  Alex Russell: They shop once or twice per week where we think like we're farmers, right?

  So we are, we live way out in the country. We probably have a Costco membership that we go once a month and [00:30:00] like buy like $400 worth of stuff and that's enough. We grow most of our own meat, so we have like enough stuff for a month at a time minimum. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: As farmers, that's not how our customers shop.

   That is so insane to customers that we're not going to the grocery store every week or twice a week. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It is true that you are not your own customer, which is a really great myth. I actually just, you'll love this 'cause you know our account managers, who are amazing. I just did a podcast with Corey, and he was talking about how you aren't your own customers. We did a whole thing.

  You'll love it. On the myths of marketing, we did myth busting. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Like, who is your customer? Your customer buys differently than you do, and that's okay.

  You just have to know that, because if you know that it's not you. Then who is it? Then who is your customer and how do they buy? Who are they feeding? What do they care about? Like it can break you outta the mode of just assuming customers think and buy and eat like you, and they don't. 

  And so, then you can start asking [00:31:00] really awesome questions about, well then what do they want? And then Corey's like, they'll pay $15 for you to put it on their doorstep. They don't even care. He's like, money doesn't matter, which doesn't seem normal to you, does it? 

  Alex Russell: No. As a farmer, we're like, you want to charge me $15 to bring a couch to my house, forget about it. I'll go pick it up myself. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Go pick it up. Yeah. So kind of myth busting. But yes, people buy every single week. They want the consistency. They want it ideally on their doorstep or somewhere very proximate to their home or their routine.

  And then they'll pay for it. It's pretty cool. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. God forbid, during one of the classes, I go on a rant about beef cut sheets. Because... 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Because I consider that part of your marketing, if you're gonna have a bunch of cuts of meat that suburban moms aren't used to cooking, like, forget about it.

  Just grind it because we are, we are so, like the picnic roast off of a [00:32:00] hog. No one's cooked a picnic roast in a hundred years, but every hog butcher still has it on their cut sheets. You want that picnic roast? You know, it's right next to the Boston butt. It'll take four hours longer to cook than a Boston butt.

  You still want it, and you're like, well, I can't let anything go to waste. So, you end up with chest freezers full of picnic roasts and I'm like, guys just grind it because these people eat sausage every day of their life, it seems like. And chicken, like if you're only doing whole chickens, you gotta cut the breast out because you could almost charge the same price for two breasts as you could for the whole chicken itself.

  They will pay for it. I'm like, please trust me guys. I've been doing this for five years and they've been paying the price that I put at chicken breast that equals if they bought the whole chicken, and guess what? I'm selling out of chicken breast all the time. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That is so true. It's what [00:33:00] they eat and what's fast and easy and familiar.

  'Cause they're busy. They're busy. Okay. We have to talk about session number two and three. So, what do you talk about in the second of three classes in a given month? 

  Alex Russell: I have to finish week one first. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Do it, do it. 

  Alex Russell: We end week one. If I'm on time and I get through all the slides, which never happens, but we're supposed to get at the end of week one partnering with local businesses. 

  And so, we talk about finding a local business that's in the same groove as you. That wouldn't mind being a pickup location. And maybe you can hand them some free hats and t-shirts and flyers and stuff that they could hand out. Find someone who's really, really into what you're doing as a local business and find partners in that world. 

  So, that's the end of week one. Then week two, and I'm going off of memory here, so don't hold me to it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, I can't let you tell everybody everything that's in these classes. They have to show up, Alex. 

  Alex Russell: Good point. All right, I'll skim [00:34:00] by. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Give them a great, give them a teaser. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay, so week three we talk about your brand.

  Why your brand is different than your business and why knowing your brand is so important. Then, we talk about fulfillments, subscriptions, packaging, pricing, and why all of that is so crucial. This is where I usually go on my beef cut sheet rant. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: And. And then we finish that session with, partnering with local churches and religious centers and how there's a lot of opportunity there that no one's ever really thought of.

  Then the last week we talk about educating your customers and why a continual education of the customer is so important because, we know way more than we think we know, and our customers are fascinated by almost anything we have to say about [00:35:00] what we do. And all we have to do is just talk about what we do as farmers and maybe put some cows in the back or some chickens in the back and of your Instagram video.

  Janelle Maiocco: I love the cows and chickens in the back. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Janelle Maiocco: That is, it works. It works on everybody. And I mean that in the nicest way.

  Alex Russell: You're showing everyone the way your animals are raised, you're showing them your husbandry without having to say it out loud. And so, you're knocking out two birds with one stone.

   I'll do videos where I'm talking about high fructose corn syrup, but I have cows in the background. And I'm doing two things at once and it's engaging to the people 'cause they're like, wow, look at those cows over there. That's pretty cool. And wow, what is he saying about soda and corn syrup?

  This is crazy. And it just adds another level of excitement and engagement because, when I use my social media, I'm usually trying to teach people something, so you'd need more than like six seconds, which I know is the average [00:36:00] attention span. So, I have to do some extra stuff to try to keep it a little more engaging.

  So we'll talk about tips. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You have to deal with the short attention span, consumer type all of us are today. Yes. I appreciate that. I do. I do. And you're passionate about it, right? And that comes through. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And I think that's so important, so important that, that comes through in those reels or short videos.

  And do you ever talk a little bit about that in your classes too? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, I did. I went on a rant yesterday about enthusiasm sells. And this is something that was told to me, by a business mentor of mine that's very successful, and he said, it doesn't matter really what you're selling as long as you're enthusiastic about it.

  So I've taken that to heart and I see it totally true. If I'm talking to a customer, I've got like a hundred interactions in my mind right now of talking to customers who are on the fence about something. Maybe it's buying a quarter cow, or maybe [00:37:00] it's trying raw milk for the first time. Or maybe it's, you know, buying eggs from us instead of the grocery store for the first time.

  And when I tell people about what we do and why it's different from what they're used to and why I'm so excited about being able to provide food for people. And if I bring my energy up, that's usually the deal breaker for them. That's what's gonna turn the tide from them being on the fence and then switching to, I'm totally in.

  I love what you do. Let me grab my checkbook. So, yeah, enthusiasm sells. It's one of those things where it's like.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Just do it. I do, I do have a spot for farmer's markets. So we talk about, we have one slide for farmer's markets. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Uhhuh. 

  Alex Russell: And sometimes I'll take a while on that 'cause I love farmer's markets.

  I have one tomorrow and, I'll talk about being nice and engaging. And that's when I'll [00:38:00] see, I'll be looking on the Zoom class and I'll see some people put their heads down or like, oh God. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You, you have like a curmudgeon radar because you've mentioned that word like three times. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Hey, we all like to be the curmudgeon sometimes, Alex, even I do.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Well, I was there. So I know, like I know real recognizes real, like I was the curmudgeon who didn't want to ever see anyone. And then, now I've been doing this one Farmer's Market for five years now and I love, I was so exci, I showed up an hour earlier than I was supposed to this week on Tuesday 'cause it was the first opening day and I was so pumped.

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh fun. 

  Alex Russell: And I get to see all my favorite customers and interact with them and show them all the new stuff we've got this year. And so, I love it and I'll know it's usually the ladies in the class will like smile and nod when I say like, you need to be nice and engaging and, and, you know, ask them how they're gonna cook the chicken and how, you know, ask them how many kids [00:39:00] they have or whatever, and talk about their shoes or anything. 

  And the guys would be like, uh, geez. All right. Guys, you sign up to be a direct to consumer farmer, you have to be engaging. You need like a thousand amazing customers. Okay. You gotta get to this point where like people love you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: And there was another farmer that I know that I'm gonna leave unnamed, that people around our area says it's not very nice guy and they told me that they shop with me because I'm nicer than the other guy. And I was like, we have like the same product. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I, I believe it. 

  Alex Russell: It's really important. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I will say a couple things. I will say we do have farms that aren't at farmer's markets and are highly successful. They crush it from email marketing.

  Alex Russell: Yes.

  Janelle Maiocco: Which is really great if you happen to be more introverted. Whereas like you then just [00:40:00] get really good at collecting emails and sending out emails and you can send photos. Right? And that is engagement, even though it's not direct engagement and it works and it's amazing.

   And we have, like I said, farmers that do it without going to farmer's markets or we have farmers that are trying to get out of farmer's markets or get out of many of them, right? Reduce it, reduce their footprint. And when you build up your email list and are consistent and it's easy to shop and easy to get your food, it can completely work. I will say you can't just email and it works. You have to have the ability for people to shop from you online and it has to show up at their doorstep or near their home. The convenience factor has to happen or people will not buy, or only a few will. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And so it is possible.

  But yes, engaging is good. 

  Alex Russell: Too many farmer's markets is a bad thing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, yeah.  

  Alex Russell: If you can't handle it unless you're Tom Bennett. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Unless that's your plan and you're really trying to, there are farms that are taking over one state after another. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Veterans Liberty Ranch is the same thing down in Texas, but it works and they have it [00:41:00] organized and coordinated and, at Barn2Door, we love that. Because they will say time and again, and this is kind of tooting my horn I guess, but like, they couldn't have done it without Barn2Door, 'cause you you have to stay organized if you're gonna grow, like, if you're gonna scale, if you're gonna double your business, triple your business, go to yet another community, et cetera, you have to be organized with your orders and your pick and pack list and your finances and all your customers and everything else.

  And you know, don't spend six hours a day on email, let the system handle it so you only have to spend 10 minutes a day. So, there is something to be said for being organized if you wanna grow. And so, yeah, there's so much good out there, isn't there? But yes. Farmer's markets are actually, if you are there, spectacular opportunity to engage your community.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. And you get a lot of email addresses at farmer's markets. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. Bingo. 

  Alex Russell: That's what I tell people in the class. Is if you're just going to Farmer's Market and you're getting 20 to 30 emails a week, you don't even have to sell anything there. Just go get the email addresses. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I know [00:42:00] it's actually about email addresses.

  Nice. If you sell some stuff. 

  Alex Russell: I keep my clipboard right next to me during class 'cause I'm like, guys, it's this simple. It's got my logo, it's got, please put your name and email here. And that's it. It is not complex. But if you don't have this out at the market. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Alex Russell: Then you're not gonna get any new emails.

  And guess what? Emails are gonna sustain you in the long run. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. Have a clipboard. Have a clipboard. Our team makes a QR code for farmers if they need it. And then on the POS device that Barn2Door powers, it collects emails automatically, which is really cool. Yeah. So there's a lot of opportunity, to collect emails.

  Okay. I have to tell you, I was talking to a farmer the other day, and reverse stereotype, by the way, was a female farmer who was more introverted. And her husband's the extroverted one and she's like, oh, I have to talk to people. And I mean that in the nicest way, 'cause again, sometimes that wears half the population out, right? [00:43:00] And she's like, my husband just says well, to the customer, well, what did you have for dinner last night? And she's like, wow, that's brilliant, 'cause everybody ate dinner last night. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And it's about food. And it's about food. So I think if I think, Alex, you should add this to your grassroots marketing class.

  Like, okay. If you don't, they don't know the questions, just give them three questions to ask. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, that's great. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. What did you have for dinner last night? 

  Alex Russell: Easy questions. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Right? I'm sure you have plenty. You can tell them. 

  Alex Russell: I like the one where you just ask, what are you gonna do with this stuff you're buying?

  You know, how are you gonna prepare it? What are you gonna put it in? Even if it's like sausage, there's gonna be something exciting and they'll tell you something and it'll spark a memory that you had when your mom cooked it the same way. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Ooh, I like that. 

  Alex Russell: This is one reason I still love these farmer's markets, is that you make connections with customers on a person to person level that, it builds a loyalty with the customer that they're just like, man, I just really love [00:44:00] getting my food from these guys and they're so nice and engaging and they're real people. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Because we've been buying food from. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I don't even wanna know. 

  Alex Russell: These giant corporations for so long that we don't even know who it is.

  And you have the opportunity now to connect with a real farmer that actually grew the food that you're feeding your family. Like, it's just a really amazing concept for people that they're like, I can actually finally trust the food now. How amazing is that? 

  Janelle Maiocco: How amazing is that? Drop a mic.

  Thank you. Thank you for all you do. It's so funny. Passion wise, that's like literally that's what we're passionate about, is helping farmers just crush it.  

  Alex Russell: We finish with the opportunities for people to come to your farm and we talk about a lot of ideas in the farm store, field trip, farm tours, realm and opportunities there, 'cause there's endless opportunities there. And then, we finish with partnering [00:45:00] with schools. And a bunch of different ideas that you could interact with schools in a way with your farm that people haven't thought of before. So. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You know, Alex, I love the idea of when you say partnering too.

  There's so many good examples, of what that could look like. But the neat part about it is, is if you think about partnering with a school or a church or a gym, like you're thinking of like many pockets, like little pockets of communities who. Once a couple of them are buying from you, guess what?

  Everybody else is gonna hear about it. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: In that little pocket. So, it's like you're concentrating the word of mouth in a beautiful -offices are the same, by the way. Our office at Barn2Door, I think like two thirds of us now order like grass fed beef and poultry from the same farm.

  Alex Russell: They love you guys. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We literally on the track her route of delivery by who's getting like what next. And you know, it's kind of awesome. But like offices honestly are also like if you have a friend working at an office downtown and they're already [00:46:00] buying your food, you have customers. 

  Figure out where their office is. Right? And they could put it in a newsletter or flyer inside their office and be a drop location and all of a sudden, who knows? You have 30 or 300 new potential customers in one little drop. , So anyway, just some food for thought, which we love to include on the podcast.

  Lots of food for thought. Right? Okay, one final question, Alex. What have you learned from teaching the class? 

  Alex Russell: Oh, I didn't know you were gonna drop this one on me. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I saved the best for last. There you go. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. You know what, the main thing that I've, it's hard to pick. Okay.

  There's tons of stuff that was actually new to me in the slides that I didn't, that I never thought about, that I now apply to us as a farm. But, the thing that I'm thinking of right now, that might be the most important thing, is the accountability that [00:47:00] comes with telling people to send an email every week.

  And if I don't send an email this week, I'm gonna feel like such a bum because I just told 30 other farmers to do it. And because you never feel like sending a newsletter, I don't. I bet 90% of farmers don't ever feel like doing it. So, it's just one of those things like. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm glad you said that. 

  Alex Russell: Waking up early in the morning and exercising, you don't, you're never gonna feel like doing it.

  But for me, I just told 30 new farmers yesterday, you gotta send out an email every week. And guess what? I sent one this morning. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm so proud of you. 

  Alex Russell: And I was like, I have to do it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I did it. 

  Alex Russell: Or else I'm gonna like, be a liar. I can't do it. I can't face these guys next Thursday if I haven't sent an email between now and then.

  Janelle Maiocco: Uhhuh, good job. 

  Alex Russell: So, I love it. It really keeps me accountable and, it keeps our [00:48:00] sales up because sending out emails is like printing money. I remember Tom Bennett said that years ago and on the podcast. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Famous quote from Mr. Tom Bennett. 

  Alex Russell: It's still true, Tom. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's like sending an email is like going to the ATM.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. It's amazing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: It's really amazing. So, I try to keep my emails engaging and fun and don't repeat the same thing over and over and over again. But you don't really have to snaz it up that much if you're gonna be sending it out every week. So. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Correct. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Take some pressure off. Be nice to yourself.

  It doesn't have to be a book. It can be, 3, 4, 5 sentences, 'cause guess what? Also, people don't scroll a whole lot. So, you should mix it up and have some be short. 

  Alex Russell: That was one of the worst things about monthly newsletters was that I felt so much pressure to make it this freaking essay of all these thoughts and pictures and opinions and when I realized people weren't even scrolling past the first page, I was like, oh man, I gotta stop [00:49:00] wasting all this time trying to make this big deal newsletter.

  Janelle Maiocco: No. 

  Alex Russell: Let's just send it out once a week and keep it simple. And that's working so much better for us. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, you don't wanna give thumb cramps when they're scrolling on their mobile phone. Also, a lot of people are reading and shopping on mobile phones, so keep that in mind too.

  But, good. Well, thank you. Wow. How fun is that? I love chatting with you. For all of you out there, there's more podcast to come. In fact, Alex will be hosting a podcast in the next few weeks here with one of our new fans. By the way, in case we mention that, and don't say it out loud, FAN stands for Farm Advisory Network. 

   So, we have a group of farmers like Alex and some of the others that teach our academy classes or maybe mentioned in an ebook, et cetera, that we work quite closely with. There our farm advisory network and give us advice, feedback, fill us with great ideas and work very closely with us, and we feel very spoiled.

  So, appreciate that. But he's gonna be hosting a podcast. 

  Alex Russell: I'm so nervous and so excited. All at the same time. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You're gonna do great. It'll be fantastic. 

  Alex Russell: [00:50:00] Gonna be so much fun. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Thank you for doing that in advance. I can't wait to hear it.

  I wanna extend my thanks to Alex for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Alex and his farm on their Instagram @ChucktownAcres. Please go check it out @ChucktownAcres on Instagram. Also, he's epic at reels, so you must do that. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.

  We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more, customers increase sales and save time, tons of time, for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started, like Alex just had a class of 30, which is incredible, or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business, skip some of those potholes, frankly, visit us at barn2door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the independent Farmer podcast.

  [00:51:00] Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

What happens when you have 2 Independent Farmers --- one from each coast --- talk shop? In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres (SC) chats w/ Shauna of Sasquatch Family Farms (WA) about growing a business from scratch, community support in clutch moments, and why and how Farmers can attract local Buyers to ensure ongoing sales.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

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• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Alex Russell: Hi, and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. My name is Alex Russell. I'm the owner of Chucktown Acres in South Carolina. Once upon a time I was a intern at Joel Salatin's Farm, Polyface [00:01:00] Farms in Virginia, and I had the honor of working under him for about three years. And after about three years in 2019, my wife and I decided to start our own farm.

  We moved to South Carolina and we started Chucktown Acres five years ago. We raise our own, cattle, pastured poultry and forest raised hogs, and we offer subscriptions to all of our customers. We do home delivery, farmer's markets, you name it, we do it. We've leased a lot of land and built a brand and we've started our own farm store, partnered with a lot of other local farms, and it's been an amazing journey over the last five years. 

  And I love getting to share my story with farmers across the country, especially farmers that are really interested in switching to selling direct to their [00:02:00] consumers farmers that wanna switch to regenerative agriculture and sustainable agriculture. So, it's a real honor for me to be able to host the podcast today and get to have this amazing conversation with Shauna. 

  And, I am also a member of the Farm Advisory Network for Barn2Door. So, what that means is I get to give Barn2Door feedback as a farmer, someone using their software, and I get to tell them, Hey, this is working out really good. This needs to be tweaked a little bit. And so, I, I can feed them my preferences and the more of us farm advisors that they have, the more common feedback they get so they can improve the software.

  It's a really fun feature. It's really fun to be a part of. And, I'm honored to do that. I also get to teach the Grassroots Marketing Academy every month. So, I take a new group of about 20 to 30 farmers through a marketing [00:03:00] academy. We do three sessions together that are all an hour long and we get to go through a bunch of new marketing ideas, helping new farmers get into selling direct to consumer, figuring out who their best customers are and how to get in front of them and how to sell to them. 

  So, that's what I do and I'm honored to be a part of Barn2Door and be someone who uses their software every single day. And I've used their software for the last five years every single day. As a reminder, Barn2Door offers a all in one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business and selling under their own brand, online and in person. I love getting to have conversations with farmers. You know, when you go to like a farm conference, you end up spending more time in the hallway talking with other farmers and getting to [00:04:00] swap stories about all the crazy things that are happening in your world. You end up spending more time in the hallways than you do in the actual sessions where you're supposed to be learning stuff. 

   So, for me, whenever I get to have a conversation with another farmer, it kind of feels like that, that conference comradery that you have. And so, I'm really excited to be talking with Shauna from Sasquatch Family Farms today, all the way out in Washington State. So excited to dig in with you today, Shauna.

  She recently started her farm and has built a successful direct to consumer pork operation and is expanding their operation. I'm excited to talk to her about her farm story, their success in selling pork to their community, and learning a little bit about what kind of advice that she has for other farms.

  Shauna, how'd I do? 

  Shauna Perez: You did awesome. 

  Alex Russell: All right. 

  Shauna Perez: I'm so excited to chat with you today and get to share our journey out with everyone. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, it's gonna be so [00:05:00] fun. I'm honored to be here, so it's gonna be a good time. Can you just, we've never talked before, so I wanna know about you and about your operation.

  How the heck did you get into farming? Did you grow up farming? Let's hear the story of Shauna and how you got to 2025. 

  Shauna Perez: I'll give you the unedited story and, you just let me know what you want. So, I was an elementary school principal, had been in education for 20 years and absolutely love helping kids and changing systems and cultures, and just loved my job more than anything I could tell you about such a cool career and path to be on.

  And, we kind of had a whirlwind of things that happened and I came out of a surgery, not able to walk or talk or take a shower or anything, and they kept saying, oh, you'll get better next week. And, I couldn't get better and I was needing really frequent naps and it really became apparent to us that I wasn't gonna be able to go back to working [00:06:00] full-time in a traditional like educator setting again.

  And my kids are just amazing. And they were like, they're such great motivational coaches and they see the cans in life and not the can'ts. And they said, mom, we're gonna drive you and we're gonna go pick blueberries today. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: And I said, I don't know if I can do that. That's like a really big thing. And they said, you know, if you can't do it, you can take a nap in the car.

  It's outside, it'll be great. Come with us to go blueberry picking you love it. It'll be just a good adventure. And I said, okay. So they loaded me up in the car and they drove us to the blueberry farm and we got there and there's a for sale sign at the blueberry farm. And I was like, oh. And so the kids and I you picking, and it was the best day I'd had in like three months. And I came home and I was. I said to my husband, Justin, I said, I had the best day. I love it. Can we go back? They have another up pick open Saturday, will you go with me? So our whole family went to the U pick and we had this great outing and I said, it's for sale, can we talk about it?

  And he [00:07:00] said, uh...

  Alex Russell: Oh boy. What? 

  Shauna Perez: You're really on the struggle bus. I'm not sure. Like we're just trying to figure out how we make, how we're gonna make the ends meet without your educator salary. And at that point, my daughter's still braiding my hair when I get out of the shower, 'cause I can't like even like do those basic life things.

  And the kids and my husband were like, you know what? This would like give us a new beginning. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. What year? What year are you in at this point? When you go, you pick. 

  Shauna Perez: It's like 2022, 21, 22. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. Three years ago. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. Okay. So fresh. 

  Shauna Perez: So fresh. So an amazing family who's selling this blueberry farm and they share everything about it and everything about being farmers. 

  And I think probably one of the things that I love about farming in general, Alex, is just that sense of collaborations, and willingness to share. We hadn't been farming, my son's in high school and does FFA, but farming's not our, [00:08:00] like, we don't have any experience. And every bank said no.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. You guys were suburban. Suburbanite or... 

  Shauna Perez: Suburbanites. We had this great porch box delivery from another farm that we got our pigs and our pork, and they came every week and dropped it off.

  Alex Russell: That's amazing. 

  Shauna Perez: Anyway, so we're going down this road and that farm's Makarios Acres. They also use Barn2Door.

  Alex Russell: Sweet. 

  Shauna Perez: And so we just started doing all this research and we took a class called Cultivating Success from WSU. And every week you get to meet different farmers. So one of the farms was, in Washington, but quite a distance from us. It's called Alluvial Farms. And they laid out their whole pork operation and they were also new to farming.

  And I said, Justin, let's farm pigs. And he said, hard no. I said, well, look, they have an open house. It's like three, it's like three hours from us. But let's go to the open house and learn how they're doing this aerating composting, and check it out and talk to them. And we went to their open house [00:09:00] about aerating compost and at their aerated compost facility.

  And their farm was gorgeous. And we did the numbers and Justin's a finance guy and he was like, well, if you really think you can do this, let's try it. And so, we talked to our friend who's a real estate agent, and he was like, okay, what do I have to find you? Like, let's figure out the house. What can we find?

  So, we said we need a farm that has 20 acres. Ideally, I'd like it to be someplace I could do a agritourism and draw a 80 mile circle around our current house. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, nice. Okay. 

  Shauna Perez: Okay. So those are the parameters. So... 

  Alex Russell: So, you're gonna be an hour and a half from... 

  Shauna Perez: Max. Like, I don't want. Max. I, I, I want an hour and a half.

  Like I'm comfortable with that commute distance. Find me something within that radius for me. 

  Alex Russell: Can we talk about this for a second? When you decide to leave city life or suburban life and you're like, I'm gonna go to the country. Usually the, the land [00:10:00] around the city is in like insanely expensive and usually very, very wealthy people can buy it, but they don't even do anything with it.

  And so, then you get to these outer layers of land that are much more affordable, but you gotta move an hour and a half away and you have to decide, like you've got friends, schools, churches, like you have all this stuff, and you have to decide, am I gonna be willing to give up, or at least hinder these relationships somewhat because I'm gonna now be 90 minutes.

  How hard of a decision was that for you guys to make?  

  Shauna Perez: Okay, well this piece of property is like everything we wanted and then some. When we first got here, I couldn't even walk from the main house to the barn, like... 

  Alex Russell: You're in a wheelchair, or crutches? 

  Not 

  Shauna Perez: in a wheelchair, just, not crutches.

   Just really still struggling. And we looked at it and it's 76 acres. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. 

  Shauna Perez: And it was an estate sale and overgrown and we just saw nothing but [00:11:00] potential. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Did it have a house on it? 

  Shauna Perez: Has a house. 

  Alex Russell: Sweet. 

  Shauna Perez: Had 200 feral cats. 

  Alex Russell: Oh God.

  Good luck getting rid of those. 

  Shauna Perez: You know what, the real estate agent did a great job. They left us with about a dozen and....

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: They control our rodent population. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. You probably don't have any rats at all for miles. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, like I have to say, they're like, it's fantastic. Like they're a fantastic rodent abatement.

  Alex Russell: We have one cat and I wish that she would work a little harder. 

  Shauna Perez: Okay. I feed them every morning like a small amount and I'm like, good morning cat. And they, they've yet to warm up to us. Every morning I feed 'em, we make sure they're taken care of. I'm grateful they take care of our rodents.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. So you were looking for 20 acres and you ended up with 76. 

  Shauna Perez: 76. And we bought it and it had been freshly hayed and it was just, it's [00:12:00] gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's everything we would ever want. It borders at a private airstrip, public airstrip, the Toledo field, and it was my son's first flight a million years ago.

   It feels like he's... 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. 

  Shauna Perez: He just got his private pilot's license. But his dad's a pilot. Justin's a private pilot and it was his first, the first place we flew in for Mother's Day when he was a newborn baby was here to visit my parents. 

  Alex Russell: No way. 

  Shauna Perez: There's skydive Toledo is our neighbor, so we have skydivers all day long.

  Skydiving over the farm. It is just like there's all these general aviation small aircraft that circle all day long. 

  Alex Russell: Has anyone ever landed in the pigs? 

  Shauna Perez: We had a sky diver who came real close and sort of freaked us out, but... right? 

  Alex Russell: Man, that could have been on the news. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? 

  Alex Russell: It would've been so exciting.

  Yeah. Some guy fell out of an airplane and landed in the pigs today. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Okay, so what [00:13:00] year do you end up buying? Did you end up getting the loan for this farm? Like, how did that end up shaking out?  

  Shauna Perez: Our real estate agent was amazing. His name is also Alex, Alex Hong, he's an amazing guy. And he walked alongside me and went to like a bunch of banks and a bunch of business banks and he said, let's figure out how we package this up. I'll walk alongside you. We believe in you guys. And we figured out that we could buy a residence, but it needed to just be a residence.

  It couldn't have anything else. So, we bought a second home. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. No way. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. That's fancy. But it's zoned agricultural. Was that an issue at all? 

  Shauna Perez: It's zoned residential. 

  Alex Russell: Ah. Nice. 

  Shauna Perez: But it fits in the agriculture. The county would really like us to flip the zoning over to agriculture.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And the farm is so cool, Alex, like, it has so much. We worked really closely with farm services and NRCS and all we've had, we have people out all the time and we've learned, we have eight rare and [00:14:00] endangered species. We have a cultural waypoint tree that if you were part of the Chehalis tribe, it would've been where you were wrapped.

  And, like we have so many significant cultural artifacts. We had this really cool pole barn that I was like, when we toured the farm, it was locked. We couldn't get in it. I was like, that barn's amazing. I wonder what's in it. And we got the keys and we opened it up and there's this community event called the Threshing Bee down here. Every year after everyone hays, they bring their tractors and they do these tractor pulls. Well, that's the farm we bought. 

  Alex Russell: Whoa. No way. 

  Shauna Perez: And the whole barn was an event venue with a bar inside, ready to serve. 

  Alex Russell: And you didn't even get to open the doors until you bought it? 

  Shauna Perez: No. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. That must've been the craziest surprise.

  Shauna Perez: And you opened these doors and all of a sudden you're like, we bought a legit event venue. Like that was our bucket list, but it was never, and then we have an RC airfield for little tiny [00:15:00] airports. And so, they had previously been here and it's our nonprofit work, so they use, we don't charge them. And they've just been here forever and people come out and fly their RC airplanes if they're part of the club.

  And... 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh, you guys are very generous. 

  Shauna Perez: I think I'm telling you way too more about this. Like... 

  Alex Russell: I love this. No, it, because, you are giving us all the details of like what it means to be a farmer. If we were to just talk about like selling bacon to people, we would not be even scratching the surface of like, what actually happens on a farm for real is a lot of crazy random stuff.

  Like, someone's gonna show up to your farm and you're gonna be really busy and they're gonna eat up 45 minutes of your time. And that is not in the schedule, but that's what happens on a farm. Like really wild random stuff happens on farms, especially when they're really aesthetically pleasing to people.

  It's really attractive. We were very [00:16:00] lucky to be leasing this farm. That's just very, it's just a really beautiful, it's rustic, but it's beautiful. And there's a big lake right in the middle, and people wanna do their senior photos and stuff here and it's, you just get a bunch of random people that end up coming down your driveway asking you, can I buy your chickens?

  Or like, what kind of tractor is that? Or like, how long you been here? And you start the longer you stick around, the more country kind of questions you get from random people. So, you're giving us a taste of like, there's a lot of things you can do with a property like this and it's like an endless list.

  Shauna Perez: We're hoping to put it into conservation, so it never becomes a housing development. 

  Alex Russell: Love it. 

  Shauna Perez: So like that's one of those back burner. It's one of those projects that you just kind of slowly work on. And we've learned there's so much of cultural significance here that that's our bucket list goal is to get it put into conservation so that it can be used by the community long term and never be [00:17:00] houses.

  So...

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Yeah. The one we're on is under conservation easement right now. So we don't ever, like, developers don't even bother knocking on our door. It's a really nice, really nice situation. So, okay. I wanna bring us back. Did you end up buying this place in 2023 or 2022? 

  Shauna Perez: We bought it at the end of August of 23, and September 1st we bought our first bred sow, so like less than two weeks later. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. 

  Shauna Perez: And then our, our business strategy was buy a bred sow a month for the next year. 

  Alex Russell: Oh. 

  Shauna Perez: And then the farms that kind of lifted us up along the way, Alluvial and Makarios Acres, they had said, Hey, you're gonna need some income, buy some feeders initially from us and you can grow those out.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And so they did a great job helping us get some feeder pigs, initially from their farms to kind of be our business starter. And then we bought 12 bred sows... 

  Alex Russell: Over the course of a year. Did you stick with the one per month? 

  Shauna Perez: Over the course of a year. One per month. 

  Alex Russell: And how many, about how many feeder pigs did you start?[00:18:00] 

  Did you get like 10 or? 

  Shauna Perez: We got 15, we got 15 littles that were just weaned and then we got five that were ready to harvest in November. 

  Alex Russell: Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, they were mostly grown. 

  Shauna Perez: Yep.

  Alex Russell: Okay. That's great.  

  Shauna Perez: We had had three more months to go, but they were like, Hey, you're gonna need some product, like, I think that we really appreciate the farm community.

  Makarios was like, Hey, you're gonna need some product to hit the door so that people understand you have good quality local pork. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: We'll sell you the baby feeders, but let's give you some to get you started. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. 

  Shauna Perez: So...  

  Alex Russell: Were you able to handle getting kill dates and processing dates for everything?

  Or was that kind of a disaster? 

  Shauna Perez: We had harvest dates actually back in July. We made a reservation before we even bought the farm, because we had been a part of this farm community asking, okay, what's the biggest struggles? And everybody was like, Hey, it's like more than getting your kid into a prestigious preschool or daycare, you better call nine months ahead of time before those piglets pop.

  Right? 

  Alex Russell: You gotta know somebody who knows somebody [00:19:00] to get your pigs in here. 

  Shauna Perez: So we, we wanted to be animal welfare certified. So, in December of 23, we became animal welfare certified. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: And then that really narrowed our harvest places down a lot because, there are just a few. And then we also process USDA, so then our circle just got smaller because we needed an animal welfare certified USDA.

  Then we are working on our organic certification. So then... 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: That just became even harder to say. Okay, if we're gonna line this up...

  Alex Russell: Is there a single organic processor? 

  Shauna Perez: There is only one in Washington state and they're working on it. And what happened was we got this harvest date for November.

  The processing plant is about 30 minutes from the farm. We had to haul there. So Alex, not a farm family. We have no budget. We own... 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: No trailer to put these pigs in. 

  Alex Russell: You have, I was gonna ask you probably don't even have a livestock trailer at this time. 

  Shauna Perez: You're right. And uh, Barn2Door had said like, you guys were great with [00:20:00] us at the Barn2Door Connects, 'cause you were like the worst thing you could do is take on a bunch of debt for equipment, figure out how to scrap it by without anything. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Borrow.

  Shauna Perez: Beg, borrow, rent. So, we rented a livestock trailer. We put these five pigs in the back and they cancel our processing date. 

  Alex Russell: Oh. 

  Shauna Perez: And I'm sweating it, right?

  We've pre-sold some pigs. We're counting on the income I wanted to do. 

  Alex Russell: Had you already loaded the pigs or did they cancel before you loaded? 

  Shauna Perez: They, they canceled before and ...

  Alex Russell: Thank God. 

  Shauna Perez: Right. And these pigs, by the way though, are escaping constantly. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, yeah. I want to ask about that next. Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Okay. So no, but our harvesting date got pushed back twice.

  And then they, eventually get them harvested for us, in January. And we get our cuts and we're super thrilled. Like it all comes back. It feels like the biggest success, right? Like I didn't realize, I think when we started this journey that the hardest part of it, literally, I thought it would be the baby piglets dying [00:21:00] or chasing the pigs or any of the million other things.

  The hardest part for us of being a farm to this day is getting the pigs from the time we drop them off back, like the processing, getting the bacon back, right? So we end up, those 15 feeders we bought, that processing date ends up getting canceled. And by this point I'm panicking because with five hogs it wasn't much of a feed bill.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: But by the time we get down for this next processing date, I've got 15 on the ground. They're eating us out of house and home. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. I mean, we're talking, 150 to 200 pounds a day. 

  Shauna Perez: 200 pounds a day. And I'm like, we can't hold them. We can't hold 'em. What am I gonna do? So I start making phone calls.

  Alex Russell: They're like, yeah, you can pay 60 more dollars every day, no problem. Right? Every day.

  Shauna Perez: Every day. 

  Alex Russell: Sunday's included. Yep. Mm-hmm. 

  Shauna Perez: Right. 

  Alex Russell: Uhhuh. Mm-hmm.

  Shauna Perez: So, we start calling around and Eastern Washington is about a three hour drive from us. There had been this small farm that was on a Farm Talk podcast that we listened [00:22:00] to from WSDA, and they were called Windy N Ranch, and they were this small family operation and they talked about how in covid they couldn't get processing dates, so they'd gone through the process to become A-U-S-D-A processor.

  So, I called them and I tell them my sob story and I'm like, Greg and Bradley, is there any way you can help us? We're this new farm, this is gonna bankrupt us. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: And I said, and we're renting a trailer. And I like, it's so super hard. And they said, bring 'em Ellensburg. We'll take care of it for you. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, thank God for those guys.

  Shauna Perez: It's turned into this, Bradley and Greg, Windy N Ranch I'd like to give, they're also a Barn2Door customer. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, props. 

  Shauna Perez: Props to Barn2Door. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And they have this amazing, animal welfare certified, but they have a USDA cut and wrap shop because I think that's the other... 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: You have a have to have a harvest facility. And you have to have a cut and wrap. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: So they have a cut and wrap shop on site. 

  Alex Russell: Good. 

  Shauna Perez: And they let us drop the hogs off and then they transport them on to the harvest facility. [00:23:00] 

  Alex Russell: Love it. Okay. And they're animal welfare certified? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. And organic.

  Alex Russell: Oh, and they're organic.

  Shauna Perez: Yeah.

  Alex Russell: Wow. And they're the only ones in the state. 

  Shauna Perez: And yeah. And fingers crossed. I mean, more people are coming online. I think they've just really helped us out. Like, I didn't know we're new. Like, okay. What do you order for cuts? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If anybody's listening to this and they've been through my grassroots marketing class, they know if I start talking about cut sheets, it's gonna be 30 minutes later that I'm done.

  'cause I am very passionate about cut sheets. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, but Bradley's like this amazing butcher. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And he does things like, we have some restaurant clients and they said, can we get a Norwegian Ribbe? And I was like, what's a Norwegian Ribbe? 

  Alex Russell: Never heard of that. 

  Shauna Perez: And he was like, I'll cut it for you. No problem.

  Alex Russell: Sweet. 

  Shauna Perez: Or we have another restaurant who said, Hey, we want double cut pork chops. And I was like, I get one shot at this. And if we get it right, I get to be the featured farm to Mountain restaurant. [00:24:00] Like in our first year, I get to be the featured farm at Crystal Mountain, which is like this incredible resort.

  And they're gonna have us as their featured farm for pork chops, for summer mountain to farm dinners. And Bradley's like, Hey, do you want me to, I could have the butcher, the chef come zoom in with me and the rest the shop to make sure I get your meat cut right. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. That's crazy.

  I've never heard of a butcher doing that before. That is so rare. 

  Shauna Perez: Their level of attention to detail and like the packaging that they turn out of their shop is just incredible. And to have them partner with us has been like one of the greatest gifts. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. That's amazing. So, you're talking about restaurants a lot.

   If you had to put a percentage on this, how much of your, let's just take pork for now, how much of your pork are you moving to restaurants versus, whatever home delivery or farmer's markets or whatever else you do? 

  Shauna Perez: Uh, well I think it's fluctuated in our journey and I think it fluctuates too, a bit by season.

  So, we try to say we have [00:25:00] three buckets of pork sales. We have the retail who buy direct from our website. And there's just a really great group of people who've been really loyal and they find us and their kids come out and do farm tours. Clark's four, is one of my favorite stories, and Clark was his family was like, we wanna show Clark where his bacon comes from.

  And we're like, we'll have Clark, come visit us. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So, they came and Clark's four, and we feed the pigs traditional hog food. They could eat as much as they want. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: But then we have a partnership with Cascadia Produce, and we bring in the produce from Cascadia Produce every week that isn't good enough to go to hunger relief or to get sold out in a traditional sales channel.

  Alex Russell: Nice. Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So like, Costco rejects bananas. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: Nothing wrong with the bananas, but they're not at the right temp. So, we have a ton of produce. So Clark came and he fed out the pigs, their cantaloupe, and their papayas and their watermelons. And then Clark went to the freezer and he helped pick out what do I want for my whole pig order?[00:26:00] 

  And he loaded up their coolers. He gets home and sends us this incredible picture of 4-year-old Clark chewing on his sausage, his breakfast sausage. And Clark's a really picky eater. And he is like, no, the pigs eat fruit just like me and I love the pigs. And mom, get me some more breakfast sausage. 

  Alex Russell: Man.

  That's so awesome. I thought Clark was like a 20-year-old guy. Makes He's four years old. 

  Shauna Perez: Four. And Clark is probably like our biggest farm promoter. Clark tells all of his preschool friends, kindergarten friends about how they've gotta get their pork from us. 

  Alex Russell: Man, let's get Clark a medal. 

  Shauna Perez: Right. And then, so like Clark, he's an example of great retail customers.

  And then we have wholesale, we sell, I think Barn2Door. Your marketing 1 0 1 class. You really helped me with that. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, thank you. That's very sweet of you. 

  Shauna Perez: You said, call and get into food hubs. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So we have a great relationship with the Southwest Washington Food Hub, and they currently are a very big distributor for us, but they distribute out to schools and restaurants.

  And, what I [00:27:00] love about the food hub, Alex, is like, they call, they pre-order and say, here's what we need, and I drop it off to one place and they do all the delivery driving for me. 

  Alex Russell: Oh yeah, how far is that food hub from your farm? 

  Shauna Perez: 15 minutes. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, that's awesome. 

  Shauna Perez: And they have cold storage. 

  Alex Russell: All right.

  Keeps getting better. And they, I'm guessing they put in pretty big orders? 

  Shauna Perez: They do put in really big orders. In fact, they're the reason we're currently sold out of pork because we're a small farm. 

  Yeah. 

   I also misjudged Alex. I misjudged, the actual supply chain from the time we breed a sow until I have bacon ready to sell to our customer is 13 months.

  Alex Russell: Yeah, I was gonna say it's over a year. You're crossing a year. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And you're raising Berks, right? 

  Shauna Perez: We bought our breeding stock from Shipley Swine and Genetics trucked them in from Ohio. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: We researched it and said, we want progeny tested, like the best you can find for us.

  And... 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Randy and his [00:28:00] team at Shipley were amazing. We had a hard time figuring out where do you source really good Berkshire pigs from? And I can't even begin to tell you how much we love the pork they produce. 

  Alex Russell: I, I don't wanna mansplain to any of our listeners, but if you don't know about Berkshire Hogs, they're my favorite as well.

  Like some of the best pork chops you'll ever have. Some of the best demeanor out of a pig that you can have. And great mothers. They're my favorite pig of all time. I just really love raising Berkshires and harvesting them, and they do so good outdoors. They're tough as nails and then the product that you get off of Berkshire is just incredible. 

  Shauna Perez: We started with the good Berkshire base and then our hogs are eating out about 10,000 pounds of produce a week, 10 to 20,000 pounds of produce a week. 

  Alex Russell: What? 

  Shauna Perez: So, Cascadia Produce is shipping us. Del Monte is a frequent, like they rejected banana. We got 20,000 pounds of bananas last [00:29:00] week.

  They were too cold. So, but right after Christmas we got, that shipment was, that was 20,000 pounds of pink rose gold pineapple. 

  Alex Russell: What? Pink roast gold pineapples. Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: Gotta Google that. So the pigs ate pink rose gold pineapples for a month. I didn't realize a month. A month worth. And all they're eating, I'm like, okay.

  Alex Russell: They never wanna see a pineapple again for the rest of their life. 

  Shauna Perez: They love pineapple. I mean, they love, I didn't realize they're a natural dewormer. 

  Alex Russell: I didn't know that either. I've only heard of, you know, you always hear about pumpkins. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. Our pigs eat a lot of fruit.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. That's amazing. So. On a logistical side, are they dropping off bags? Like it's gotta be a really good way, efficient way to load that. This has kept us from like taking restaurant scraps and stuff because I've never been able to figure out the logistics of like how to make spent produce work [00:30:00] for your operation.

  So, please educate us. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, I think I wanna give a huge shout out to Jeremy at Cascadia Produce and say like, follow along. He's been a real huge farm supporter for us all along. And he has this huge commercial warehouse and he sets aside for us every week things that have been rejected that can't go on.

  And I would tell you that the produce he sends me is better than what I can actually buy in the grocery store in my rural grocery store. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: Like the pigs, the kids tease me every day that...

  Alex Russell: You're like, I might take a couple of these, bananas in the house. 

  Shauna Perez: So, he works really hard to make sure that food's not wasted.

  And he's just this amazing guy who, and I think just like the food he sends us is top shelf quality. So there's not, it's not, in general, it's not molded. It's been rejected for being outside of temperature. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Yep. Got it. 

  Shauna Perez: It's really high quality produce and for like the bananas. I learned like, I I could go on like a [00:31:00] tangent about the things I've learned about produce, I think.

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: Another like podcast we gotta talk about that I really want other farmers to know is Jeremy taught me about PACA law, and I didn't know about PACA before Jeremy told me about it. And he was really insistent with me as a farmer that I needed to put the PACA blurb from the 1930s on every invoice.

  And it guarantees me the PACA law, it guarantees me that I, you're giving me this quizzical look that I get paid before it gets resold. 

  Alex Russell: You get paid before it gets resold.

  Shauna Perez: And they have to pay me within 10 days. And as you scale your business and you start working with a lot of restaurants and grocery stores. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Billables become sort of an issue in cash flow. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. Yep. You're like, all right guys, you could go ahead and pay up now. That would be nice. Can you spell PACA for us?

  Shauna Perez: You know, I should just read it right off my invoice, shouldn't I? 

  Alex Russell: That's wild. I never knew this, but I don't work with a lot of [00:32:00] restaurants, so anytime I do send something to a restaurant, I do COD and I'm like, I'm not leaving here without a check.

  I'm sorry. I know it's annoying, but I rarely do this so you guys can, and I just make them, I just stand there until they write me a check. 

  Shauna Perez: I think that's probably one of the things about Barn2Door that I didn't appreciate on the front end, 'cause we're new to business, we're new to farming. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: And all of my Barn2Door people like our customers from there, they pay on Barn2Door.

  And I actually get paid before I deliver in most cases. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Yep. I love that. 

  Shauna Perez: I think I, that was like, that wasn't such a big deal until we bought our second farm, that's produce. So.

  Alex Russell: Oh, you have a second farm now? 

  Shauna Perez: So, we bought a second farm. 

  Alex Russell: Oh my God. You've been farming for a year and a half.

  Already onto number two. 

  Shauna Perez: We're on number two. Well, okay, so we got the pigs right, and they're eating all this great produce and. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And we're part of the farm bureau and we go on the Farm Bureau, the Lewis County Farm Bureau down here is [00:33:00] incredible, and once a year they host a tour of the five Best Farms in Lewis County. 

  We have not made the list yet. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, come on. They're missing out. 

  Shauna Perez: We go on the tour in August of this last year. We go on the tour and we toured five exceptional farms that I cannot stop talking about. One of them was a microgreen farm, and I was like.

  Man, that's so cool. And we're birthing a lot of piglets here. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And that's really intense. 

  Alex Russell: Yes, it is. 

  Shauna Perez: And as much as I love the pigs, my friend from Cohen Family Farm said they're gonna reach a teenage point stage and you're gonna know they're ready to go to processing because they start tearing everything apart.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Not only are they eating you out of house and home, like worse than a teenage boy, but they start destroying stuff and they start running and you're doing the pig fit. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, yeah. Nope. I've chased way too many pigs in my day. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? You know, you know, you missed the harvest date. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh yeah. They know. They're like, man, I think I'm a week out.

  I better get outta here. 

  Shauna Perez: Right, right. You know, [00:34:00] they know. 

  Alex Russell: Shauna keeps looking at me funny when she comes out to feed me. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? You're giving extra mangoes, extra papayas that week. Like the fruit bowls increasing. 'cause I want 'em to be extra good when they hang and anyway. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I bet your, I bet your pork tastes different than anything like anyone's ever eaten before with all that fruit in their diet. 

  Shauna Perez: We had a school who buys our breakfast links and they called and said, are the breakfast links precooked? And I was like, no. 

  Alex Russell: No. 

  Shauna Perez: And they were like, they gotta be precooked. We're not getting any fat back. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And I was like, what do you mean? And so, I put 'em in the oven and I was like, oh, you're right.

  There's no fat back on our breakfast links. That's kind of weird. 

  Alex Russell: Okay. Go on. 

  Shauna Perez: So our pork, I think taste has a different flavor profile because like people tell me they pay a lot for pork that's Apple and Acorn finished in the fall, right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. 

  Shauna Perez: Except our pigs are eating that quantity of produce from the time they're born.

  Like at day two, I'm making them [00:35:00] their little chef bowl of hand cut. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: Like every mama sow gets her own little bowl. Like the pictures of it are online, but like they all get their own bowl and from, I mean, they have the commercial hogs. 

  Alex Russell: You've gotta make an Instagram. You could be sending, you could do an Instagram about this like once a week.

  Shauna Perez: Okay, I gotta get better at that. 

  Alex Russell: Here's Susie's smoothie in a bowl today. 

  Shauna Perez: We should. 

  Alex Russell: Do a video of you chopping it all up, giving it to her. They would love it. People would eat that up. Absolutely. 

  Shauna Perez: Right, because now we own the microgreen business. So after the microgreen, like they get all the microgreen mats.

  Alex Russell: Wow. That's like after you cut the microgreens off the top. 

  Shauna Perez: After we cut the microgreens off the top, then there's these mats left, and we do 50 acres of traditional seed in a month at mom's micro garden. I'll give a like shameless plug there. 

  Alex Russell: Mom's Micro garden. 

  Shauna Perez: Micro garden, and there's 50 [00:36:00] acres of seed.

  We plant a month there. 

  Alex Russell: 50 acres. 

  Shauna Perez: 50 acres of traditional seed. 

  Alex Russell: Now are you in a container or are you literally out there? I mean, how are you doing it? 

  Shauna Perez: How are we doing the microgreens? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: Well we bought the microgreens and partnered with this really cool farm called DeGoede Farms, and they have a hydroponic lettuce grow and they're in the Puyallup Valley.

  And they're renting us a cold frame to grow our microgreens in. But we wanted to rent from this cool farm because they have a cold storage facility and they have a loading day for cross docking and all the things. 

  Alex Russell: Oh yeah. All the conveniences. 

  Shauna Perez: Right. 

  Alex Russell: That's awesome. And you're selling microgreens to who? Restaurants and like grocery stores and? 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. That's like a whole nother podcast, but yes. That's a whole nother like, I'm gonna run out of time. 

  Alex Russell: That's crazy.

  Shauna Perez: And that, that farm had a different way. And I think what I wanna tell you is Barn2Door. I love my connection with Barn2Door.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And before [00:37:00] we bought the microgreens farm, we signed on with Barn2Door for the second farm, three months ahead of actually closing the deal because our experience with Barn2Door had been so great. They've really like between the personalized farm accountant that meets with me once to twice a week and make sure I stay on tack.

  We took the marketing 1 0 1 class, we've taken the finance class, we go to the Barn2Door Connect. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Twice a week to meet farmers all over the nation who are doing like the best in farm. Like we didn't have time to learn how to scale. We had to learn from the best. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, right. Oh, that's a huge, I want, I desperately want other farms to hear that. You can skip ahead of a lot of mistakes by listening to other farmers who have recently gone through what you're gonna attempt to do now. And the podcasts and the books and the eBooks, and I mean, all of [00:38:00] that is gonna help you leap across years of frustration. Like I still have friends that are in the farming world that are taking orders over text. 

  Shauna Perez: No. 

  Alex Russell: And I'm just like, guys, you've gotta stop doing this. Like, there is such a better way and you're limiting yourself to the amount of business you can do because you're only one person and you're trying to do this archaic version of taking in sales where I'm getting sales in my sleep.

  I'm like literally woke up this morning to like orders that came in overnight. Because we have Barn2Door. 

  Shauna Perez: It, it's because we have Barn2Door. But it's more than just like, someone was like, oh. Barn2Door is such a complete package. It's the farm account manager who says, Shauna, let me help you do your MailChimp.

  And every time I send a MailChimp, we get seven more orders that night while I'm sleeping at night. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: Right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: I get seven more orders because the farm manager, 'cause I said, oh, I don't have time to do it. No, I'm gonna walk you through it. I'm gonna call you at two o'clock on Tuesday and we're [00:39:00] gonna walk through your MailChimp.

  Alex Russell: That's so awesome. 

  Shauna Perez: It's like a built-in accountability partner for me and somebody who doesn't let me forget about my business side of things. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. So, I have two questions about MailChimp. One, how often have you chosen to send your emails? And two, no judgment. No judgment. We're all on a journey.

  I just wanna know what's working for you. 

  Shauna Perez: What would be working for me, Alex was if I was staying on the plan. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Staying on the plan is a email a week. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: Because when I send the email a week, we get consistent sales. People consistently show up to the farm and email a week and three to four posts a week are the goal.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. The goals don't always happen, but, if you don't have any goals at all, you're just gonna not do anything. 

  Shauna Perez: I think the Farm account manager from Barn2Door, was what's important about that. 'Cause like there's no shame or blame that I didn't make the goal, but [00:40:00] they're always there.

  Like, hey, okay, minimum, what's the monthly email? Recently they've like, convinced me that it would be okay to buy the marketing toolkit that comes out every month. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Since I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

  Alex Russell: Just do it. 

  Shauna Perez: And that was also like the best add-on I've ever bought. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. Oh yeah.

  They're pre packing all this stuff to make your MailChimp look really awesome. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. 

  Alex Russell: I want to encourage you, because we started doing weekly emails like three years ago, and I've taken, first of all, it's worked a million times better than once a month emails. Like, it's not even close, but I've taken a lot of pressure off of myself and given myself a lot of grace to not have the most professional, extraordinary emails you've ever seen.

  I try to keep them very simple. I still try to make sure they look good. And I have other people read them for me before I send them out. So, it's [00:41:00] usually my wife, I also have my mom does admin for me, so I'll send her stuff too, and we just keep them very simple. Not a lot of complex stuff because I know as soon as I try to start writing a bunch, posting, like putting up a ton of pictures on this thing, making elaborate emails. I get really overwhelmed and I'm just like, screw this. I'm going back on the tractor. I'm can't do this computer thing anymore. I'm outta here. And I get overwhelmed. So, if I can just do a simple one section on my email and then I can have like a second section that's just gonna have, like, stuff that we have for sale and making sure that they have stuff to click on.

  And then my third section is literally like, Hey, don't forget we have a farm store. And that thing just stays on there pretty consistently. So, I'm really only adjusting a little bit of that section, that second one. And then the first one, I'm either gonna write something about [00:42:00] regenerative, I'm gonna write something about what's going on in food today.

  Or I might just say like, Hey, don't forget the farmer's markets this week. I'll just put a little blurb on there. Keep it really sweet and simple, because most of the time your customers just need to be reminded that you're here and you have the product for them that they love. We just all are of the understanding that they are really busy and they've got a lot of stuff going on.

  They've got soccer practice and ballet and school pickups and drop offs and carpools and all this stuff, and they gotta cook dinner and all this stuff. If we can just simply tap them on the shoulder once a week with like a, woo-hoo, we're still here. Here's some easy stuff for you to click on to order, then that seems to go way longer than like a once a month elaborate ordeal. You know? 

  Shauna Perez: Right. We went to this Good Eat Seattle conference and they said, don't you think like we're [00:43:00] competitors? And I said, I don't see it that way. Like my biggest competitor is a grocery store chain. Another farmer is only gonna lift me up. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: My biggest competitor is the next housing development that's buying out the farm down the road.

  And my biggest competitor is a grocery store chain where it's super easy to roll into the Kroger's and get everything you need. And it's a little bit hard to buy from the independent farmer. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? Like it takes an extra step for our customers and I appreciate that. They take that extra step for us.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: But it's harder for them and they do need that gentle nudge. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. So, we have grace for ourselves to understand that farming is a very, very difficult profession to sustain. And like only the strong survive. But if we are of among the strong that do survive, we're gonna make it because we can get through the difficulties of farming, the difficulties of the marketing to get to those people. 

  And we can just find out [00:44:00] rhythms that work for us. And for me, this rhythm of like an email every Thursday, I'm like, I can do it. I can do an email every Thursday. I can do two or three posts per week on social media. I'm never going to feel like it, but I can do it. And if I've got all my eggs in this basket of farming and regenerative agriculture, I gotta make this work.

  So, I'm gonna find out what works best for my customers and what works best for me. And I'm gonna do that together. And that's been working for us for every, like literally that popped into my head three years ago when I decided it was all about weekly emails for some reason, for me. It was like, okay, I get it.

  My customers usually shop once a week, so I should remind them once a week that we're here. And that's really got us going in a really nice groove with like with most of our customers. 

  Shauna Perez: So, we work with Good Roots [00:45:00] Northwest, who does a lot of really great things about learning about what do customers do and how often do people shop. 

  And their recent research says that people are going to the grocery store. The average American household in Washington state needs groceries every three days. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, that's so crazy. As a farmer that like doesn't make any sense to us because we're like, we have a year's worth of food.

  Shauna Perez: I think that Marketing 1 0 1 class though it was important, like our customers aren't primarily in the county that we are farming in. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: They're three counties away where people pay more. 

  Alex Russell: Yep, yep. Because the people in your county, they, a lot of 'em grow their own food too. 

  Shauna Perez: They do. And they know how to can. 

  Alex Russell: You know, so it's like they don't need you.

  The people in the neighborhoods need you. And that's one of the best things about, are you guys doing home deliveries? 

  Shauna Perez: We are. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Well, I have teenage kids. You know what, it's great teenage drivers, they love to go for a drive. 

  Alex Russell: Oh yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So they do all of our [00:46:00] home porch box delivery and they snap the picture and send it to our customers so that they know their delivery's there.

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: Barn2Door's been great with that, 'cause the pick sheet comes out and it has all the information they need. 

  Alex Russell: Amazing. That's one of the very first things I tell people when they're on the fence about signing up with Barn2Door. I end up getting a lot of calls from, people are like, Hey, I'm thinking about Barn2Door.

  What do you think? And I'm like. Dude, just for the pick and pack sheet alone, I would do, let alone they designed my entire website. They can make logos for you. They can do one-on-one calls and coaching with you and they're gonna build you. I mean, just the pick and pack sheet alone saves me so much time and keeps me, I'm a very unorganized caveman when it comes to these things and they keep me organized and on track and I just, the ability to just print off a pick sheet that has everything that was ordered that week and is going out on Wednesday, I was just like, ah, I feel a weight coming off [00:47:00] my shoulders every time I print that thing off, 'cause I'm like, thank God I don't have to go through every order and add it all up and figure it all out. It's a huge time saver, that's for sure. 

  Shauna Perez: It's a giant time saver. 

  Alex Russell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. What about subscriptions? Have you guys got any subscriptions going on?

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. Shout out to Barn2Door on that again. Can we talk about how much I love my farm account manager. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Again, didn't quite know what to put together and they said, Shauna, you gotta put up a bundle box and subscriptions. Versus selling whole or half or quarter, or eighth of a hog, right?

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: We process USDA and they said, you need to do a Farmer's Choice bundle box. And I said...

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: Okay. You need to do a farmer's choice. They said, you need 10 things in your store. I want you to think about what are the 10 things you're gonna put. And of those 10 things you need a breakfast bundle, a farmer's choice bundle.

  Those are like non-negotiables. And I was like, uh, I'm not sure anybody's gonna buy that. You know what, everybody buys? 

  Alex Russell: The breakfast bundle or the Farmer's Choice. 

  Shauna Perez: The [00:48:00] Farmer's Choice bundle or a breakfast bundle. They don't buy any of my other choices. I should have just gone with bundles. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: And we have a ranch CSA subscription box that's coming out because a couple of other farms have been doing that with really great success.

  And so... 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: We're now doing the quarterly ranch bundle box, which I'm super excited about launching. 

  Alex Russell: What's in that? 

  Shauna Perez: Well, everybody that has come to the farm to pick up, I always like if we order those double cut pork chops, for example, right? I needed 400 of those, but you don't just get 400 when you go to the butcher shop, you get a few extras.

  And so, those top end chef cuts in the farmer's choice bundle box. That's always what I'm throwing in. And they were like, no, you need to do that in a subscription like, we would just buy those all the time. Those pork chops are like the best we've ever had. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And I was like, well the double cut pork chop is the baby back rib and a pork chop.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: They were like, yeah, but I want [00:49:00] the foodie cut. Like you need a foodie box. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, right. 

  Shauna Perez: It's not extra and surplus. It's the foodie box. So. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. So, the breakfast bundle and the farmer's choice bundle, are those subscriptions as well or one time? 

  Shauna Perez: You can do them as subscriptions, if you do as a subscription, we give you a little bonus.

   We take some money off 'cause that helps us know that you're gonna be consistently buying. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So, if you're buying it for just one time, 'cause you wanna know what are all the breakfast choices. I mean, who knew there were so many breakfast choices? Let me like load your bag up with 10 pounds of delicious bacon and chorizo and breakfast links and all the things, right?

  Alex Russell: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. 

  Shauna Perez: I think we've also seen consumers have that consumer fatigue. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? Like they don't scroll past page one of my Barn2Door store. 

  Alex Russell: No. 

  Shauna Perez: I could have 10 breakfast choices, but they're never gonna. 

  Alex Russell: They would much rather say like, gimme 10 of variety.

  Shauna Perez: Yes. 

  Alex Russell: Of these things. There's a small portion of them that [00:50:00] will, they won't like sage or they won't like, whatever. Those people aside, the vast majority of people are just gonna be like, I just love all breakfast things. Please gimme a box full of breakfast stuff. 

  Shauna Perez: Right. And my kids love jalapeno bacon breakfast sausages.

  Like, that's the thing they order every, they're like, mom, we'll load hogs for you if you promise when we go pick up the meat for you that the jalapeno bacon breakfast sausages come back. 

  Alex Russell: Jalapeno bacon break... Is this a link or a... 

  Shauna Perez: It's a link. It's a link. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. I bet that's amazing. I have never, we have jalapeno cheddar, but we've never done jalapeno bacon.

  Shauna Perez: Right, okay. I would just say like, but that's probably our most popular thing that you didn't know that you wanted it until you got the breakfast bundle. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. So it takes 'em a little while to try it and then they try it and they're like addicted to it. 

  Shauna Perez: Right. Okay. And I'm also Alex, I'm not a big fan of breakfast sausage.

  I'll just. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? But the jalapeno bacon breakfast [00:51:00] sausage, I'm like, I'm gonna cook that up while everyone's gone. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. Technical question there. Is your butcher actually putting cured bacon in there? Or is it just pork belly, like extra pork belly into that? Do you know? Because when we get our bacon cut, we get all these bacon ends on the side and I'm like. 

  Shauna Perez: Yes.

  Alex Russell: Desperate to find something to do with the bacon ends, you know? 'Cause nobody wants to buy 'em. 

  Shauna Perez: Yes, that's what we do. 

  Alex Russell: Oh, that's it.

  Shauna Perez: That's it. Yes. That's what we do with the bacon scraps that Bradley, so along my journey, I don't have a lot of expertise in this and I think that's where finding experts to help you is so important.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Bradley's an expert at packaging high-end cuts and Bradley was like, Hey, don't waste your bacon scraps. Make it into these bacon breakfast sausages. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And hey, let me throw some jalapeno in. People will love it. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh man. That's a brilliant, I would eat those for breakfast every day. Okay, but I have one question that's been burning in [00:52:00] my mind basically since we started that.

  I have to ask you. If you can tell us why you wanna do organic pork, because, that's something you mentioned early on, right? Am I remembering that correctly? 

  Shauna Perez: You are. 

  Alex Russell: Sell us on the idea, 'cause a lot of pork farmers are like, I'm not doing organic. Get outta here. 

  Shauna Perez: Okay.

  Well, so far we are following organic practices. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: So we, we're all the way to the point we're ready to certify organic. And the reason why we are following those organic grow practices is our family has some allergies. And when my son was little, his grandparents were super sweet.

  They fed him some Costco grapes that weren't organic and he ended up in the hospital. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: He has this huge allergies. So we're really committed to having nothing on the farm that would make our family sick. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And so for us, organic is really because things that aren't organic make my family really sick.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. 

  Shauna Perez: And so we don't feed the pigs anything that [00:53:00] I wouldn't eat. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: But I can't certify organic unless I give up their 10 to 20,000 pounds of produce a week. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, that was my next question. I mean like. 

  Shauna Perez: That's the only thing holding us back from certifying the pigs organic is this produce connection.

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: And so part of our wonder is, we're hopeful that our microgreens are certified organic. Like we started growing cantaloupe last week in the compost pile because the microgreens we grow cantaloupe for and they sprout it out of the compost heap. And so our wonder is if we get a hoop house going for the compost from the microgreens, am I able to grow enough fresh fruit and veg for the pigs?

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. That's a lot of veg to replace. 

  Shauna Perez: It's a lot of veg to replace. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. Okay. Awesome. Thank you for explaining that to us. I was so, so curious, 'cause you know, organic pork is so rare to find, but people will pay extraordinary amounts of money for an organic pork [00:54:00] product because it's like next impossible to find. 

  Shauna Perez: It's also like double the cost to produce, right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: The difference between the regular hog food and the organic, I'm paying like double the cost on that. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Oh yeah, I know, I know, 'cause we've done, we've gone through a journey on our farm of organic feed, non GMO, corn free, soy free, and we've landed at non GMO, corn free, soy free for the egg layers and we can charge a premium for that.

  But when we would try the organic feed, the cost became to where I would have to charge like $18 to $20 a dozen for eggs. I'm at $13 right now on corn free, soy free, non GMO. And they're willing to do it. 

  Shauna Perez: I think this is where I'm gonna have to shout out to you have to stay connected to your network of farmers. Again, Windy N Ranch in Ellensburg keeps pushing on us, right, about [00:55:00] let us help you cut costs. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And you need that supportive farmer friend that's been doing it a while, who can help you. So they, for example, gave us a giant silo so that we can start grinding our own food, and at economy of scale, if I can truck in my own organic and we grind it here.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: The double, the cost difference kind of comes down a little bit. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. I've seen a lot of farms switching to grinding their own, even if they just, just buying the whole grains and the minerals and everything on the side and mixing it their own, they can make some pretty significant benefits to their margins.

  And I haven't made that leap yet, but I've seen a lot of farms doing it, and they seem to really, really enjoy it too. The feed seems like way fresher and the animals seem to be that much more excited about it when you feed it out too. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah. I think that there's a definite benefit for us.

   I just appreciate that Windy N Ranch is mentoring us through that journey because to be animal welfare certified, we have to have a certified nutritionist sign off on what the hog [00:56:00] fuel the food is for the animals. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And they're helping us with, Hey, here's our certified nutritionist formula.

  And then the Southwest Washington Food hub is also a grain hub. And so, we're gonna be able to source everything within the state for the food, which I think for us is like we're farrow to harvest already. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: But being able to source our food from the state as well. 

  Alex Russell: That's amazing. That's next level.

  I love that. 

  Shauna Perez: That's our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint, right? Like.

  Alex Russell: Yep.

  Shauna Perez: Source everything as hyper-local as we can. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. I know I've said last question like four times, but I really do have one last question. Farmer's markets, yay or nay. 

  Shauna Perez: I love the idea of the farmer's market. We are pro farmer's market.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: So we have the four of us running the farm, and we have I would say the most incredible network, my parents volunteer to help. We have no paid employees. We haven't [00:57:00] paid ourselves yet from the farm. We've collected zero paycheck. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: And to commit to go to a farmer's market, I think it would be amazing public relations for us.

  It'd be a great marketing. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: I think it'd be a great next sales channel, but we...

  Alex Russell: You can only do so much. 

  Shauna Perez: We have put that on my next things list. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And for folks listening, and hearing Shauna say she hasn't paid herself yet. If you are shocked, just realize I didn't pay myself for the first three years.

  So, that's very normal and that's one of the things that makes farming the most difficult is that getting into the game of direct to consumer farming is very intense the first couple years and it's like a gauntlet. It's going to knock off the people who were not meant to do it, but thought it'd be a fun thing to try and you will see at the end of 3, 4, [00:58:00] 5 years who's really dedicated to this, but can also survive without taking a paycheck for a couple years.

  It's really hard. 

  Shauna Perez: Like the farm pays all of its bills, which is exciting. Right? But. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. Wonderful. 

  Shauna Perez: Yeah, I think I came to Barn2Door and listened to a podcast and when we were first doing this and they said, you'll know you're there when the farm bills far exceeds your home bills. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And they, the kids go to pick up feed for us every Saturday at the feed store.

  And they pay the bill for me every week. And they said, mom, dude. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Do you know how much the feed bill was today? They also have to go do all the grocery shopping. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: Because mom doesn't have time to leave the farm. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: So they, the kids also do all the grocery shopping, and they said, mom, that was like the whole month of grocery budget that we just spent in a week of hog food.

  And I said, I know. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: And they said, those pigs eat so good. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. I know. And that was a really hard roadblock for me, when my feed [00:59:00] bills would get so high and buying cattle, it is so... I mean, you're looking at, you know $15,000 for like six to eight cows and your brain just starts to melt. 

  Shauna Perez: We will have spent more in processing than I spent in an entire year making as an educator. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And I think what's hard, we have the two businesses, right? Microgreens takes me seven days to correct a problem and we get paid on day eight.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Love it. 

  Shauna Perez: Hogs take 13 months and we get paid on month 14. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Hopefully. 

  Shauna Perez: And I think the two businesses like strike contrast there. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: And it's a hard go and I think it's a hard season of farming right now because we had a pork contract through the hub we were really excited about in January that started for us. And we shifted and we told our customers, we are sold out as we make the shift, we're scaling. So it came at a perfect time for us. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: Right? Because we [01:00:00] bought the hogs at one a month. Now they're having two litters a year. We're scaling at the right time to say yes to it, but we put all of our pork in this contract for January and the cuts for it were very specific and cut in a way that I can't sell 'em out anywhere else.

  Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. 

  Shauna Perez: But it's a three year contract for us. It gives us a lot of stability. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: And then, with the change in the federal government, the grant money got frozen. And I think another piece of the puzzle was Barn2Door said, you're not a cold storage facility.

  Because I said it's expensive to go buy a chest freezer. Right? 

  Alex Russell: Yep. 

  Shauna Perez: It's exp... and Barn2Door, my farm consultant said, Shauna, you're not a cold storage facility. Your problem is in distribution. You need to figure out how to get your hogs through the distribution channel and the day they're done needs to be the day you deliver.

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Wow. Love that. 

  Shauna Perez: And so we have this great relationship, worked out with Windy N Ranch, and they have just enough cold storage to get it all processed and ready to go for me, for this [01:01:00] court contract we took. And it's sitting in their freezer and the contract gets shut down and I've put my entire month, until I get paid for that pork in January, we can't make a mortgage. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: We can't buy hog food.

  Alex Russell: Feed bill. 

  Shauna Perez: I can't pay the cut and wrap bill. It backs up because then I can't pay the USDA harvest facility. And until you pay your harvest facility bill, you can't schedule your next harvest date. Right? So, all of a sudden my world comes to a screeching halt because we gave up, like you said earlier in the podcast, you said, who are your customers?

  And I would tell you we had a, a really like, nice. 

  Alex Russell: Now I understand why that was such a complicated question to answer. 

  Shauna Perez: We had this nice setup, like my retail customers pay us before they pick up, so I can pay my, like, their bill for them, right? 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Their bill pays my processing fee. Well, we took a gamble and said, you know, a three year contract would be great.

  And it wasn't because we couldn't pay any bill in January. And we are way overextended as a first year farmer and [01:02:00] I've had to say thank you to everybody this month who has like gotten us through because the USDA facility said, you've never been late. If your issue is this grant, we're gonna go ahead and say, okay, we'll extend you credit for 15 days.

  Alex Russell: Wow. Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: But like, I think it's made us really think about farming and like, do you say yes to that contract? 

  Alex Russell: Right? Tough. Tough because that's a very tantalizing offer. To have a three year contract and you kind of just have, all you gotta do is grow the food now. 

  Shauna Perez: Well, we grow the food and then we still worry.

  Like I said earlier to you, like, if I'm doing 200 cuts, I know I'm gonna have a little bit extra. And the little bit extra allowed us to keep our loyal customers, right? 

  Alex Russell: Yes. Right, right. 

  Shauna Perez: But it didn't allow us to keep, like we had to give up some things. Like we gave up, we have a retail co-op that we were doing some really great business through, or we have a farm stand store that we were doing great business through. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Through another farm. And we had to give some of that up [01:03:00] to say yes. And we'll see how it pans out. 

  Alex Russell: So, you're still in the middle of it right now?

  Shauna Perez: We're recovering from it. 

  Yeah. 

  Because it delayed everything. So, it got us behind for the first time in 25 years of marriage that we've ever been behind on a bill. 

  Alex Russell: Yep. Right. Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: And because we're behind. Then that takes you a bit. And we also qualify for no farm help.

  Like we don't qualify for a farm loan. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: We've maxed out all of our personal loans... Like any personal way I had, it's all max. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: And thank goodness our kids are teenagers who are like super understanding and. 

  Alex Russell: Yes. 

  Shauna Perez: We have a network of great people, but farming's hard and. 

  Alex Russell: Absolutely, absolutely.

  Shauna Perez: Farming's hard.

  Alex Russell: You're in the testing grounds right now in the thick of it. 

  Shauna Perez: I mean, farming's so hard that my mom, who's 70 is driving 600 miles for me today to make deliveries so that.

  Alex Russell: Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: We don't have to pay somebody. But she's dropping off pork, she's picking up [01:04:00] pork. She's going to the walk-in cooler tonight that we've rented because we don't have any of that here 'cause of the regulations.

  So we rent a walk-in when we need one. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah. Right. 

  Shauna Perez: But my 70-year-old mom's helping us out 'cause we literally can't afford to hire anybody yet. 

  Alex Russell: What a saint. Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: Like, bless her, like it's her third trip this month. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. What a savior. That's amazing. 

  Shauna Perez: Without our network of people who've stepped up that I wouldn't have asked to step up, we wouldn't be successful today.

  Alex Russell: Yeah, absolutely. So you're still waiting for this contract to go through? Or have you given it up and you're gonna try to sell the pork somewhere else?  

  Shauna Perez: They've said, whatever the grant comes and goes, we're gonna go ahead and fund it.

   There's 35 other farmers in the same boat with me. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. Yeah. 

  Shauna Perez: From the hub. And props to the organization that's buying from us as farmers and they've just said, we're not gonna make you ride this rollercoaster. We're gonna just make sure we fund it. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah.

  Shauna Perez: And we actually don't drop off pork for 10 more days. And they called today to say, go ahead and invoice us. We'll make sure you get paid. We know you're in a [01:05:00] tight spot. 

  Alex Russell: Wow. Oh, that's amazing. Wow. 

  Shauna Perez: So, I didn't realize when I was at the bank, like trying to deposit the check from the last time that they were there.

  Like hearing my farmer, like, because we were late, the bank put a 15 day hold on my deposit. 

  Alex Russell: Thank you for your honesty and your openness and giving people a view into real farm life, real farm experience, being an entrepreneur, going out on your own, taking the risk.

  This is the kind of stuff that we've all run into. Not exactly your case and my situations are different than yours. You have no idea what kind of curve balls farming is gonna throw at you, but it will throw curve balls that you can be sure of. And there will be challenges. I mean, my cows were out this morning, like they were all over the place.

   Wherever they weren't supposed to be, they all decided to scatter in different directions and go there. And [01:06:00] that's farm life. Like, this is what's gonna happen. You can prepare as best as possible, but crazy stuff is gonna happen. And, I think your sharing your story is gonna give a lot of courage to other people who are like, feel like they're trudging through the mud right now because farming is a challenge, but the reward of getting to live this life and getting to grow, that's what we have to think of, right?

  When we're in the thick of it. It's like I always have this view, I have a pretend friend and I pretend that, let's call him Steve. Steve is in a cubicle right now working for a marketing agency that he doesn't care about. And that could be me, or I could be here doing what I love, connecting with the passion, connecting with my calling. And even though today sucks, I'm still happy that I'm [01:07:00] here and not there. 

  Shauna Perez: I completely agree with you. I would not trade the life we had before we bought the farm for the farm life we have now. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, that's beautiful. 

  Shauna Perez: Even given anything, any struggle we have, this life is the probably the most incredible gift I could ever be given.

  Alex Russell: Yep. Absolutely. It's, it is a lifestyle worth fighting for. Even in its worst days and its toughest days, you'll have some days that you just are like euphoric. I had such a fun time talking with you and it was so great to meet you and I just really appreciate the time that you took to do this podcast with me today.

  Shauna Perez: I am humbled that you took the time to have a Farm moment and connect. Thanks. 

  Alex Russell: Yeah, you're welcome. I love it. I wanna extend my thanks to Shauna for joining me on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of what she's doing on her farm at Sasquatch Family Farms on [01:08:00] Instagram. Barn2Door is humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country to help them access more customers, increase their sales, and save time on their business.

  Sasquatch Family Farms in Washington and my farm, Chucktown Acres in South Carolina both benefit from partnering with Barn2Door, not only from the software and not only being able to cut out the middleman, but also making it very, very easy for our customers to shop with us. It Barn2Door takes the friction out of the relationship with shopping for your customers, being able to offer home delivery and pickup locations within like a click or two on their computer or their phone makes a huge difference. And also, Barn2Door offers one-on-one coaching with your account manager. And so, if you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or you are transitioning to [01:09:00] selling direct, or you simply wanna streamline your business management, you can check out Barn2Door today. 

  Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to seeing you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [01:10:00] time.

In this week’s episode, Janelle (Barn2Door CEO) and Cory (Farmer Success Team) discuss marketing myths (misconceptions) that can negatively impact Farmers' sales outcomes. If you are an Independent Farmer selling direct --- this is a must listen, to avoid and/or overcome marketing pitfalls! And discover GREAT tips for Farmers on successful marketing for successful, recurring sales.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their own brand, and making sure [00:01:00] their customers can purchase from them online and in person. 

  In today's conversations, we're tackling marketing. As independent farmers and business owners know, if you're cutting out the middleman and selling direct, you cannot just grow food or have a farm, you need customers who regularly buy your products. Just like other business owners, from hairdressers to dentists to nail salons to gyms and restaurants, it isn't enough to build it.

  You need to find customers and keep them engaged so they keep returning. While marketing may not be an independent business owner's favorite thing, it is necessary for the business to be successful. Having worked with thousands of farms across the country for over 10 years, who successfully have cut out the middleman and marketed and sold directly to retail and wholesale customers, we've watched, learned, and now recommend best practices for farmers who are marketing their brand well and products to the communities near their farms.

  Today, I'm happy to welcome back Cory from our success team, an account manager. Cory has worked with hundreds of farmers, helping them implement best practices to run a successful farm [00:02:00] business, including successfully marketing their farms to grow sales and grow their customer base. Today he's gonna help us break it down.

  Welcome, Cory. 

  Cory Hutsen: Thank you. Very excited to be back here. I love doing the podcast and love sharing our podcast with some of our farmers, so. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I feel like it's a cheat bringing you on because you talk to hundreds of farms and help all these farms, and now we can cut to the chase and sort of get best practices and everything that you've learned or give advice on. 

  So, eager to dig into it today. 

  Cory Hutsen: Exactly.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay, so, in terms of marketing, I think we should probably start way back at the beginning. Obviously we want to dig into some of the myths of marketing, the challenges, you and I discussed earlier, some of the overwhelm, sometimes farmers experience, but then dig into obtainable goals and small habits that can then lead to success.

  But, let's start with really what is marketing? When you think about it from a general sense of when you're talking to your farmers, if you're to [00:03:00] break it down, what is it? What are sort of the basic elements of marketing? 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, it's a great question. Good place to start. Because, you know, again, we're gonna discuss this a lot, but the word marketing can be very overwhelming.

  But if we're, just to break it down to the basics, marketing, especially for farms, is gonna be building your customer list, which is collecting customer information, especially email addresses. It's going to be consistency. So, whether that's posting on social media, that's sending emails, whatever course of action you take, consistency is probably the most important thing or high on that list.

  It's branding, which I know the word branding, especially in today's age with social media and everybody trying to have their own brand can also be a little, uh, scary to some farms that I've spoken to, but you are building your own brand. And then, it's also convenience. So, [00:04:00] making your farm food readily available, building awareness to your customer base and letting them know that, the end of the day, you exist, and how they can access you.

  Janelle Maiocco: You exist. That's fair. I appreciate that I was speaking to a farmer the other day and he was like, oh, I'm terrible at marketing. And, and then we talked about what he did. He was like, oh, you have an email list. And I email everybody regularly. I'm like, well, you're crushing it. Right? It's just you're sort of separating out the word of maybe that word is a bit of a faux pa, but, the activities are, you have to have a list of customers and their emails so that you can communicate regularly.

  And I love that. I do think sometimes people miss that last point that you said, which is convenience. I mean, we can send emails and engage customers all day long. But if it's not easy for them to get your food, there has to be an element of, it's sort of like a one-two punch. Like, you have customers that email, but it also actually has to be easy to get their food, or to get your farm products.

  So, does that mean a local pickup or delivery or [00:05:00] something because, consumers, interesting, and Cory, you know, this nine in 10 consumers want local food. Like the demand is just palpable. But, sometimes the missing factor, even if you have a great brand, is it's not easy enough to get your food or your product.

  And so, then people just don't bother. And so, convenience to shop and get your food is actually, truly an element of marketing, right? It's access and convenience, and sort of meeting the customers where they're at. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, that's extremely true. And it's probably the biggest challenge facing most of the farms I speak with. You know, a lot of farms, that convenience factor may be something they haven't put a ton of thought into, or maybe it's just they're at the first point in their business where they're trying to expand their reach and access more customers. Well, if you are looking to access more customers, making that convenience outside of just pickup on your farm is essential.

  Like, unless you're [00:06:00] looking to specifically just market to your neighbors, you're probably gonna need to look at some different fulfillment options than just on farm pickup.

  Janelle Maiocco: I was gonna say, that reminds me because we did a survey once, we sent it out to I think 30,000 buyers, and we were asking, Hey, how far would you drive for farm food? And, the more proximate that the food was to the person, the more likely they were to buy. And so, if it was delivered to their door, they would buy, right?

  And then, you know, still maybe eight out of 10, if it was within five miles, like they had to pick it up, and then the further the buyer had to travel, the less likely they were to purchase. It was a really interesting survey, so I do appreciate that. Okay. I wanna dig into a little bit of your experience talking to so many farms. 

  You did mention that in some cases it feels like farmers might be allergic to a marketing, or overwhelmed at that concept. What does that look like? I mean, are they overwhelmed to find customers? And you, you mentioned convenience too, but what about the whole, like where do I begin piece?

  Cory Hutsen: [00:07:00] Yeah, I mean, I think the word marketing, can just mean so many different things. Like for a farm, it just may not mean the same thing as it would to, you know, like another major corporation. Right? Because a lot of times, and for the majority of times, our farms are most successful concentrating on their local loop on, you know, areas within an hour, maybe two hours of driving distance.

  Right? Most of our farms are not trying to cast nationwide nets, because at the end of the day, the buzzword is local. That's the whole deal with the people who want to buy from farms. The benefits is knowing where your food came from. So, I mean, that's just the huge part of it is not getting overwhelmed by just the word marketing and knowing that there's some very basic tactics that you can take to expand your reach.

  But, you know, this is gonna be the theme for me and the theme of so many of my conversations with farmers is, the best news for you and the great [00:08:00] news is, especially where we're at today, people want your products and what you're providing. People want to purchase directly from farms. There's a growing education as to all the benefits that come with buying from a farm.

  And, you know, if all things were the same, 99 out of a hundred people, if you ask them, would you rather purchase from a farm than a grocery store? Those people are gonna say, well, yeah, I would rather purchase from a farm. I'd rather go to a farm to table restaurant. Right? The issue is, they just don't know how to access that food.

  If you ask them the same question of, Hey, where would you go to get that farm food? 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, and if you're a farmer, Cory, how do I tap into all that demand? If I'm near a city, even if it's 20 minutes or an hour away, clearly there's an untapped market opportunity. If nine plus outta 10 people want to buy farm food, then if I'm a farmer, how do I tap into that?

  Cory Hutsen: So, there's a number of ways, and if you ask some of our farm advisors and [00:09:00] connect, which is a very common question, and even Alex who leads our Grassroots Marketing Academy, he will always start at, you know, the simplest option is the farmer's market, right? The farmer's market allows you an opportunity not just to generate sales, of course, but the farmer's market allows you to meet people face to face.

  It allows you the ability to collect email addresses, educate people to the fact that you do have a farm store, and, you know, continually grow that email list and build your brand. Like people are able to see that you exist. They're able to meet you, interact, and get a sampling of your farm food.

  Janelle Maiocco: That's a great piece of advice. Start at the farmer's market. It's just sort of a low hanging fruit in terms of engaging a local community, gathering their emails. I know we hound that whenever you're at a farmer's market, don't waste the time that you're there. Double up, make sure you're gathering email the entire time.

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Because that email list is gold. It [00:10:00] literally becomes your customer list. And then, Cory, I know that you also work with farmers who don't go to a farmer's markets, and you have had some great recommendations around partner opportunities. Can you share a little bit about that? Again, tapping into that massive demand for local food in nearby cities, how a farmer might go about that if they're not going to a farmer market.

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And there's a lot of farms who come to us who are working full-time jobs. You know, outside they have families, they have little kids, they're busy with sports on the weekends, they're working full-time jobs. Committing to eight hours of a farmer's market on a Saturday might not be in the cards, even if they're absolutely, they wanna do it.

  They understand the benefits, but maybe that's not in the cards. Okay. Let's look at other ways to collect email addresses, which Janelle, you mentioned, email addresses are like gold, right? And if you start thinking out about it, that there's a monetary value. Like Tom Bennett, another one of our farm advisors will pay his employees at farmer's markets, a dollar for every email [00:11:00] address they've collected, which I've had a number of farms start to...

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.

  Cory Hutsen: Starting to implement. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So worth it. 

  Cory Hutsen: But, so farmer's market's off the table for you, maybe in the future, but right now you're juggling other things. So, one thing I've talked to a number of farms about, let's identify businesses that could be great partnerships, but more specifically businesses where you would have the best chance of identifying customers who would be ideal customers for your farm food. 

  One huge example of that that I talk about quite a bit is gyms. Gyms where, and specifically, I want to be clear here, there's a big difference between like your big chain gyms or local gyms, independently owned, where you have a better chance of actually talking to the decision maker. You have that point of contact, but also a place where you have a consistent customer base who, you know, are spending a lot because they care about taking care of their bodies [00:12:00] and in turn, they're probably more likely to want to spend extra dollars than your average customer on the food. So, I've had farms that as simple as putting your QR code, making a nice flyer, just a little outline of who you are, what you guys do, maybe some of your products available. Have a QR code to go to your signup form, within MailChimp, which, you know, sign up form, ask to enter name and email address, which will immediately go into your Barn2Door account.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Cory Hutsen: But even, I've had farms reach for deeper opportunities within those gyms as well, where they're all of a sudden they're talking to that point of contact and they get equally excited. That gym owner, they're excited to be able to offer this new partnership to their customers. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. You just had a farmer the other day you were telling me about, tell us a little bit about that fun, very recent story.

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. I brought up the gym conversation with one of my farms and he was intrigued, which a lot of farms. Oh, you know, start to think about that and we'll even [00:13:00] pull up Google Maps in my meeting and start to look at, you know, all the gyms in your area, 'cause you'll be shocked at how many gyms generally there are.

  But, he ended up meeting with a local gym owner and this guy was so excited to have this farm who is supplying farm fresh, grass fed beef. And, he got so excited. Not only did he offer to have the gym as a pickup location, but he's even going to install refrigerator space, so the farmer can leave their bundle box orders.

  So, there's gonna be a shop online button, included in that gym's newsletters, on their website. So, when you're going in, 'cause you know those customers are already making if not daily, at least weekly trips to that gym. They can pick up their order, knock out, eliminate a trip to the grocery store, and now they've got the best quality protein that their money can buy.

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I have so many questions, but in that same vein, when you and I were talking before, you talked a bit about what we call here at Barn2Door, ICPs, which is your ideal [00:14:00] customer profile. Really what we're talking about is, when you're talking about a gym, you've just locked in on a pretty obvious buyer example of somebody who wants to eat healthy local meat, right?

  And so, tapping into g like farmer's markets are the same thing, right? You know that people go to a farmer's market 'cause they really want to support local farmers and eat healthy. Gyms, same thing. People are trying to work out. They're being sensitive about what they're putting in their body. 

   So, that's just another great example of, hey, these are pretty likely buyers. So, it's a good target audience. You wanna add to that in terms of farmers thinking about where are my buyers that I can then tap into?  

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And it's a really powerful exercise to take the time to go through that ideal customer profile. Who has been historically my best customer, who do I think would be my best customer. And so, the gym person, that's a very obvious example that we've already hit on. Another one that's very [00:15:00] common is what we refer to as your suburban Sally, your mom with kids who enjoys cooking and providing the best possible nutrition for her family, is willing to spend, you know, maybe that extra dollars to buy directly from a farm.

  But, most importantly with that is that's the kind of customer who wants to share with other people that they're purchasing from a farm, which, that word of mouth can be the strongest marketing a farm can have. If you have other people who have experienced your products and really enjoyed it, they're gonna be excited.

  I mean, I know from my own conversations with friends, family, if people buy food directly from a farm, like no one, you know, says they got great steaks from the grocery store. Right. But, if they get great steaks from a farmer's market or directly from a farm, they want to tell everyone about that.

  Janelle Maiocco: Agreed. 

  Cory Hutsen: Right? So, that can just be an awesome exercise. Okay. Or maybe I'm going after allergy Allen, right? You know, the folks who have to [00:16:00] eat a certain way, you know, they're on a high protein carnivore diet, keto, which is becoming increasingly more common. So, they want the best quality of protein available to them.

  How do I identify them? So, it's not just gyms, but you know, where does Suburban Sally go? Schools, churches, coffee shops, bakeries. These are all businesses kind of in your local loop, that you can start to identify.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, and I think, well, you've said so many rich things there. I think, you mentioned, if there are particular trends or buzzwords in sort of the dietary health conscious eating realm, whether it's keto, paleo, whether people want non GMO or whether they are soy free, corn free. We definitely have farmers that are promoting soy free, corn free eggs, and being able to charge a premium for that. So, thinking of trends is kind of a whole other layer. 

  But, when we're getting back to, you said, sort of the profiles of people, we have people who go to the farmer market. We have people who go to the [00:17:00] gym. I loved your local loop, you know, people that are going to the bakery, the coffee shop, the school. Can you say a little more about what you mean when you say the word local loop in terms of accessing local buyers?

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, so local loop meaning places where customers who again, would be ideal customers for you would likely also visit, right? And so, identifying those and what we talked about, getting a QR code, a signup form, and again, by QR code. This is a QR code that will go directly to a signup form. So, all someone would have to do is pull out their phone, scan that QR code, they're entering in their name and email address, and you are immediately getting notified that you have that information.

  And then you can, you know, follow up with marketing emails. But yes, like your local loop, I named those examples, schools, churches. Another big one is, all right, who else would be a sufficient partner? Local grocery stores and not, you know, chain grocery [00:18:00] stores, but we have a lot of farms who have identified like independently owned grocery stores that maybe have a bigger focus on health or organic products or sustainably raised and produced products that have a similar customer base. So, there is a partnership there where we've had farms who have used refrigerator space that may be an independent grocery store for drop-offs of their bundle boxes or CSAs and exchange for that refrigerator space, you're bringing in customers and foot traffic through the door, that already making this decision to buy from you, they're probably more likely to want to shop at that grocery store than versus, you know, your big chain Walmart or something like that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that's a really good reminder if you're thinking through potential local partnerships to have as pick up locations or drop sites or meet up locations to think about the smaller businesses that are similar to a farm running a business, but who can make a more [00:19:00] thoughtful, quick decision to support and partner. 

  Sometimes if you're doing the big box, like huge national gyms or national chains or whatnot, there's so many hoops to go through for them to even potentially get permission for something like that. And, you know, in many cases, sometimes they'll have different priorities as well. So, it's good to be thinking about those ideal partners. 

  It's funny you say that, Cory, you just made me remember, but, probably a decade or two ago, I used to pick up farm boxes, bundle boxes at a local urban farm store. Because, I had backyard chickens and I bought my feed there. But that didn't mean I had grass fed beef or pork or produce, et cetera.

  So, I was happy to pick up additional farm food from an eating perspective beyond my own backyard chicken. So yeah, all of those are great opportunities. And, we sometimes say local loop when we're hanging around talking about marketing and farmers at Barn2Door, because it's sort of synonymous with, hey, if you were gonna go drive a loop in your neighborhood, you know, or in a neighborhood in a [00:20:00] city near you, in order to deliver and offer pickups, et cetera, where could that loop be that works for you as a farmer, and create some efficiency from a delivery and pickup perspective, but that is made up of these ideal partners to meet your ideal customers.

  So really, really powerful. I have to double click on, you mentioned Suburban Sally. It's kind of a way to help farmers. I know in many of our academy classes, or if you're meeting with Cory or one of our other account managers, they might speak about, you know, who are your ideal customers?

  Is it, you know, the mom that lives in the suburb, you know, a suburban enclave? Is it people in a high rise in a city? Is it the folks who are going to the jam or church, et cetera. But in the case of Suburban Sally, Cory's, right. If you have moms with children, who are often the decision maker when it comes to food in a family, you can hook into their school sometimes.

  Or if you hook into deliveries in a really tight, specific neighborhood, you can be really efficient with your deliveries and [00:21:00] they will talk about food. I mean, if you go to Instagram. What are you gonna see pictures of? People are taking photos of food. Like if food is the most, I think pictured or photographed or shared item through social media, like talk about an advantage for an industry and sharing to other friends in the neighborhood, et cetera, like there's a real opportunity for that sort of online word of mouth that can be really rapid fire.

  Do you see some of that, Cory? 

  Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. Absolutely. Those are my interests. I'm involved in that world. I'm, you know, huge on looking at food content. But again, and that word of mouth is probably the most powerful marketing tactic you have because it's one thing for me to just read a flyer or you know, see an advertisement.

  But, if someone I trust is directly telling me, you have to try this. I ordered this bundle box I got, it was the freshest, you know, most tender steaks or the best chicken or man, you buy eggs [00:22:00] directly from a farm, you can tell the difference. I'm telling you, right? When you hear that directly from someone you trust, that's a much more powerful marketing tactic, and way more persuasive than any other form of advertising.

  And so, that's something I also encourage farms to do is, you know, 'cause all this comes down to like, especially a lot of the newer farms, like I'm not giving you all these tactics where you're gonna have to spend, you know, thousands of dollars on marketing. So let's look at some low cost or even free ways we can spread that word. So, when someone does order from you, ask them, you know, Hey, it would mean a ton if you posted your order on social media. Or, you know, maybe if you cooked with it and shared that content. 'Cause again, people wanna support you as a farmer. No one has a negative perception of farmers.

   They're purchasing from you because they value all those things we've talked about, the sustainability, the care for animals, the quality. So, it's not gonna hurt, [00:23:00] like asking for that support. Hey, it means so much that you order from us, if you could tell a friend or post your order on social media, it'd mean the world, and people generally respond to that.

  I've seen farms have a lot of success with just asking things from their customers and those customers showing their appreciation for their farmer and responding in that way. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, totally agree. And then, tagging the farmer when they're doing that, and then people do that naturally. And I know when farmers get set up on Barn2Door, the onboarding manager makes sure that they have their Instagram like, so you can click and go shop from them, whether they're going to Instagram or Facebook or through a newsletter. You even mentioned, uh, MailChimp once. So, Barn2Door, for those of those who might not know who are listening, Barn2Door has a full integration with MailChimp, which means, to Cory's point, if you have a QR code or you're gathering emails online, that's both populating into MailChimp and to your Barn2Door account. 

  Which also includes every customer who's ever purchased from you. ,So, really powerful to just you. If you [00:24:00] just set these things up once, then sort of all roads lead to Rome, right? They all lead to that farm store, including through all those digital pathways. So, really important to do that. 

  Yeah, those moms, those suburban moms wanna feed their kids chemical free food last I checked. And so, they get excited and guess what? Then they have their neighbors over for dinner, and then they're putting a steak on the grill and they're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then what are they gonna say every single time? 

  It's from the farmer, right? Because it's so good. And so, it just is a natural part of sharing and conversation. And really, once you start with those door to door deliveries or local pickups, and people start to share, that's where we have farmers come in all the time. Like, wow, you know, I got this going. 

  You know, it takes a minute. You have to keep edit from a consistency and a habit perspective, but over time you'll hear farmers saying, wow, I had like three new people or 10 new people buy from me this week that I didn't even know. And so, you have to kind of give time for that word of mouth, but it's pretty incredible to see that build up. 

  Cory, in [00:25:00] terms of building up emails. So, we talked about gathering emails at farmer's markets. 'Cause again, that email list is your customer list. So, you wanna be building it at all times and then sending emails to communicate. So, you can get in farmer's markets, you're gonna have your QR codes or sign up sheets at the gym or anywhere where you're partnering online.

  How are we gathering emails online? Right? That's another place like, so maybe I'm just getting started and I need to start getting emails online. How do I do that? 

  Cory Hutsen: So, I referenced several times a QR code, which is a physical form of marketing, right? That's something you're putting on a flyer and I'm scanning on my cell phone and that's going to a signup form.

  Same thing in MailChimp, there's a way to share that form via online. And so, in your MailChimp account, you can work with your farm account manager to access that, but being able to post that link directly on like your Facebook or putting it in your Instagram bio and using a LinkTree on Instagram since it only lets you have [00:26:00] one link, and we want to have your website store and sign up form in there. 

  But, people click on that, enter their name and email address. Now, going a little bit deeper, getting creative with marketing, I have seen a ton of success with farms doing fun, entertaining things to incentivize people to sign up for their email list. 'Cause we all get asked to subscribe to various email lists.

   But, I've had farms that'll post their signup form on their Facebook and do, hey, by the end of the month, we're gonna be giving away 10 pounds of farm fresh ground beef, and a couple of steaks to two new signups by the end of the month. And so, doing little giveaways or raffle, I mean, I've even had farms that do bulk beef, do big giveaways, like freezer giveaways, in exchange for email addresses.

  And so yes, you're giving away essentially product, right? Which has value to it. But, we already referenced email addresses. And [00:27:00] if you start to view those email addresses as having dollar values to them, you know, that exchange, for the product is gonna be more than worth it if you're, you know, setting goals and starting to achieve that consistent email collection.

  Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome. I love all the examples of collecting emails. And there's so much to talk about here. First, I wanna talk about some of the myths. 'Cause I know that that's an interesting piece when farmers come to you and there's things that are like, Hey, this is what I think is true and the answer's like, actually it might not be exactly like that.

  Let's think about that differently. I kind of wanna run through some quote unquote myths. And then, I wanna make sure at the end before we sort of quote unquote hang up the phone, that we talk about consistency. 'Cause I know that you talk a lot about consistency with farmers as well in terms of really building that crescendo of customer loyalty, regular purchasing, and marketing for success. 

   But first, let's dig into myths. I'll throw some outta you and you can give me your commentary because I know you have all these conversations daily. [00:28:00] Is the website enough? Myth number one, if I have a website, they will come. 

  Cory Hutsen: Unfortunately not. I wish it was. It's a great place for people to learn about you, but in today's world, especially where AI has kind of taken the place of SEO, just having a website out there, not always enough. Much more success just actually driving people to your store and promoting your store and trying to directly tell people where to go. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. A website is literally a needle in a haystack if you think about how many websites are online and how would somebody even know it was there. 

  It's sort of like, if you want them to find the needle, you need a bright red thread that you hang out of the haystack that somebody grabs onto. And that might be through an email or through social media comment or post, and then they follow it and do find your needle. But it's there for them to go to, but you have to put the work in to get them there. 

  And what are some of the ways that, sort of top of mind, Cory, if I have a website built, how [00:29:00] am I gonna drive people there? 

  Cory Hutsen: So, including your website on pretty much everything. Going back to the branding conversation. I mean, you want all your online channels to drive people, whether back to your Facebook or your website, but all of them interconnected.

  So, I'm gonna have a link to my website and store on my Facebook, on my Instagram. If I do TikTok or any other social channels, I'm gonna have my Facebook on my website so everything's kind of circling back to each other. But you know, going from your packaging to business cards, to postcards, having your website there, if you are a farmer that's doing a farmer's market, you have your QR code to your signup form.

  You have it very clear that you have a website where customers can go. So yeah, getting your website out in as many places as possible, 'cause again, it's gonna be very difficult for people to just find it on their own. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Randomly find it. Yeah. And I think the important thing [00:30:00] to shout out here is when we say quote unquote website, we really mean store.

  Cory Hutsen: Right. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Right. I mean, the whole point of marketing is to drive sales. So, the whole point of marketing, we used to say, 'cause a lot of times, farmers will come to us knowing and being told by friends, like, get a website. And it's like, but if there's no way to buy from you, what's the point? I think internally we sometimes call that the billboard to nowhere.

  Like, I have a big billboard, but I can't shop from you. So then, you've lost that engaged customer 'cause there's no call to action. There's no way to actually transact. And so, the whole point of driving everybody to your website is actually to drive them to your store to then make a purchase right when they're hot and interested and looking and reading and learning about your farm. That's the ideal time for them to make that first transaction or to find you or to get added to the email list so they can buy. 

  Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. And people have very short attention spans online. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. 

  Cory Hutsen: So, posting directly to the store link and getting them there, again, there's a reason Amazon [00:31:00] doesn't have a ton of other things going on on their website.

  Like it's very focused on going there, making it easy to purchase byproducts because people have a very short attention span and can exit out and get buyer fatigue pretty quickly. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. It's interesting you say that, when you go to Amazon, you're not going through a landing page to then go click to their store.

  You're just going straight to the store every time. Right? And I think when farmers are sending out newsletters, especially 'cause we have that integration with MailChimp, is they are adding items from their store right into those newsletters. They're not going to the website first. They're just gonna go shop, right?

  So, they're literally skipping the website and just going straight to the store in many, many cases, especially once they know you as a farm, it's just like, I'm going straight to the store. And if I wanna see lovely pictures of your farm, they'll probably see that on social media. But it is important to have that branding landing page or billboard, if you will, for especially first timers who are showing interest in your farm.

  Okay, I have another myth. Okay. Website is enough. Was myth number [00:32:00] one. Myth number two. On-farm pickup is enough. 

  Cory Hutsen: Again, unfortunately, going to say that is a myth as well, unless again, unless you're totally cool and you live in an amazing neighborhood and your farm smack dab in the middle of a bustling metropolitan area with a lot of neighbors.

  But yeah, for most farmers, your buyers are out there, but a lot of 'em just don't even have the ability or the time to get to your farm to pick up their food. They want it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Even if they are good intentioned. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, exactly. Like maybe they would love to come to your farm and they probably would, but they just do not have the time.

  I'm a perfect example, as are you, Janelle. We work full-time jobs. I would love to spend more time at farms and going to pick up food, I want that food. But, I'm at a desk all day. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I will pay you money to bring it to me because I want the food so bad, I will pay you $10 or $15 or $20 to deliver it, all day, every day.

  'Cause I know how valuable it is. And unfortunately, a lot of times too, you talk about [00:33:00] frequency, right? Like if on-farm pickup is the only option, I probably, even when I was a young mother with little kids running around, you know, maybe once or twice a month I would do that, right? Whereas if it's weekly delivery, I'm buying every single week, right?

  Or I'm subscribing to the eggs or the milk or the beef or the pork because, it's consistent. I need it that often. I'd rather buy from you than the grocery store. I don't wanna backfill at the grocery store. I want to buy from the farmer every single time. Not just on the rare occasion I can go to the farm.

  So interestingly statistically, it absolutely increases sales when you are offering pickup or delivery directly in communities, versus only on farm as the option. 

  Cory Hutsen: Well, and also gives you the ability to get more brand awareness out there. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's fair. 

  Cory Hutsen: Right? And you know, you leave the farm whether you're doing deliveries and maybe even have your farm logo on your truck.

  A lot of our farms will even have their QR on their truck or you're leaving boxes on doorsteps or doing pickups and people are seeing those boxes being like, oh, what's my neighbor getting? That [00:34:00] looks awesome.

  Janelle Maiocco: It is awesome. 

  Cory Hutsen: Get a box of food on their doorstep. So yeah, not just the convenience factor, but it's a great opportunity to just, you know, get some brand visibility out there.

  Janelle Maiocco: You are so spot on. Yes. Neighbors can create fomo. When I see somebody else getting farm eggs or getting chickens from a farmer, I want that too. Okay. I have another, myth if you will, just 'cause we run into these a lot and it's good to discuss. And so, I guess really when it comes to fulfillments in some cases, I know you talk a lot about this, but, farmers saying, Hey, customers are just like me. I know you have sort of that opposite conversation at times, like, you know, customers want what I want. 

  Cory Hutsen: Right. Yeah. It's a very common thing I share with some of my farmers that you're not your own ideal customer. So, when it comes to convenience, you know, I will have this conversation with farmers quite a bit.

  Hey, how often are you ordering food? A lot of times for those farmers, it's almost never. For myself, who lives in a city, I have neighbors who order food every single night and they're [00:35:00] paying 50% of their total check in delivery fees and tips. So, a meal that would cost them $15 to pick up, even if it's right around the corner, they're paying $30 to get it directly to their door.

   , So that's a huge example. Like, I promise you, there's people out there who want your products, who will pay increased price. The reason they're not buying from you is not because of price. I can assure you that, they are willing to pay that charge. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Can we say that again? Say that again. 

  Cory Hutsen: The reason people are not purchasing from you is not because price.

  Janelle Maiocco: I think that's astonishing to a lot of farmers, to be fair. And I agree in some ways, right? Like it's ridiculous that we would pay $15, including delivery and tip to get my $15 dinner delivered, which is the example you gave. But, to your point, quote unquote, money's not the issue for folks. 

  And these are the people that want to buy farm food. 

  Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And we've talked about emails and MailChimp where so many industries are [00:36:00] driven by click now 50% off flash sale, buy one, get one free. That is not the marketing I've seen be successful with farms, 'cause again, it's not a price driven decision for customers. They're buying. They are consciously knowing that if they purchase from a farm, they're probably going to be spending more and wanna spend more than they would if they were going directly to the grocery store, because they're paying for quality, they're paying for products that were su stainably raised, where the animals were cared for. 

   You know, and has all these beneficial impacts on the environment and the nutrition aspects of it. So, there's a reason the nicest, most renowned restaurants in this country are farm to table restaurants and people are wanting that product and it's not because of price. So, that's not influencing their buying decisions as much as we may think.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Happy to pay, just has to be easy, right? 

  Cory Hutsen: Yep, exactly. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Okay, next myth. Wow, we had a list of these, Cory, going into this conversation. I have to ship because there aren't enough customers near me. I think we're on myth [00:37:00] number four, that I have to ship. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, I can breeze through this one.

  It is not the case. Not the case. A lot of times you farms can look into shipping and find out pretty quickly. It just not the best solution for their farm. One, unless you're ready to market, you know, marketing on a local level is difficult enough and we've shared some of the things you can do, but you may need to be prepared to market on a nationwide level if you're looking to. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Where do you even start?

  Cory Hutsen: Exactly. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. From a shipping perspective, that's just a whole nut to crack. There are whole companies that are still trying to figure out how to market nationally. That is just crazy to think about. So yeah, start small, start local. But I think importantly, and it's not that shipping's bad, I mean, we have farms that certainly ship in addition to local delivery pickup. And frankly, a lot of those people who do ship, they already know the buyer on the other end. So, that's just sort of an extension of what they already do. But there are true costs associated with shipping that are [00:38:00] worth considering.

  And that's probably a different podcast for another time in terms of, you know, what it means to be in the shipping business. But, if we pull it back to, I have to ship because there's not enough customers near me. I think you were given an example the other day of Will Harris. What was that?  

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And the Will Harris example resonated with me and just hit me very hard when I was listening to his book.

  And you know, at this point, Will Harris is one of the most recognizable independent farms in this country. Right? He has been a major influencer for regenerative farming. And he used the example that if he were to dedicate all of his production, which is huge. Huge. I mean, his ground beef is in the Publix here in Nashville.

  He's had partnerships with Whole Foods. And if all his production went to a set group of people, he could sustain about 16,000 families, right? 16,000 families. That's a lot. But at the [00:39:00] end of the day, like if you think about a town of 16,000 considered a, you know, relatively small or maybe midsize town, not even considered a city.

  So again, I think a lot of farms can look at the fact like, well, I don't live near a major city, or I'm three hours away from the nearest major city. I can assure you everybody eats, your town of, you know, even 10,000 or 50,000 is more than enough customers. You can be extremely successful, you know, sectioning off just a little portion of that.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. It's really good to think about, like the customers are there locally. And whether you're trying to market locally or nationally, it's all, it's a marketing exercise. And actually starting by focusing local, you're actually, quote unquote, starting small.

  You're actually starting very focused in terms of where you're gonna market, where you might do pickups or deliveries, or where your partnerships may be. So, it can be a pretty focused exercise to get started [00:40:00] for farmers. Let's talk a little bit then about consistency and small steps, 'cause I know, you often speak to this in terms of farms, like, Hey, let's just, you know, move the overwhelm aside. Let's start small. I think we had a conversation the other day and the word consistency came up multiple times. So, speak to that and how you're talking to farms, especially if they're, exercising that muscle for the first time or getting comfortable with marketing locally and how to begin and then grow that.

  Cory Hutsen: Consistency is such a key thing, and it's the simplest thing you could do, but also one of the most important things you could do, whether that's consistently posting on Facebook or social media, or sending out that weekly email. I use the example, I could be on Facebook and be on a page that has 50,000 followers.

  If they haven't posted in a year and a half, I'm not even going to be positive, they're still in business. I'm gonna be extremely hesitant to place an order. I'm probably not going to. If I go to a page that [00:41:00] has 50 followers, they're posting every day or every other day, they're posting pictures. It's clearly written by someone, I can tell there's someone behind it and they're clearly directing me where I can place my order and how I'm gonna get my order. I'm much more likely to purchase from that business than the one with 50,000 followers and not posting. But same thing, consistency with emails. I have farms that will tell me, like, they'll ask, well, how often do you send these newsletters?

  And I'll tell 'em, well, you know, we recommend our farms that see the best results send weekly newsletters. And for them, which is, I understand, like, they feel like that can be their inundating customers. That's too much. Again, goes back to you're not your own ideal customer.

  I understand as a farmer, you're out all day. You may only check your email once in the morning or once in the evening. But again, there's a lot of customers like myself who are on a computer. They have their email inbox open all day. The best way to communicate with them is via [00:42:00] email address or sending emails. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm just, I'm laughing because I, at some point along the way, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think email inboxes became like a Twitter feed, right? If a farmer's emailing their customer list once a week and they don't see it that day or within a couple days, they're not gonna ever see that one.

  But if you email again the week later, maybe they'll happen to check their inbox at the right time and see the email. Right? It's sort of like, what's at the top of the inbox? 'Cause if it's a hundred emails below, it's not getting looked at, right? I mean, it's like if you are emailing them the once a week, they're not gonna open every single one.

  It's just being up in front of them and staying top of mind for that time that they will go check it. It's just like Instagram or Twitter, you know, when you open it up, you're just seeing what's at the top. 

  Cory Hutsen: A hundred percent and it's also important on that note, Janelle, for farmers not to get discouraged.

  Consistency also means that, you know, if you're not seeing that immediate results, doesn't mean you give up. Right? And I'll use this example, 'cause on top of MailChimp, in [00:43:00] Barn2Door, you have the ability to set automated order reminders. So, set it and forget it. Weekly reminder with just a button and a little message to drive your customers into the store.

  'Cause again, average American shops twice a week for groceries, so I promise you're not inundating them with that. But, order reminders, MailChimp, if you don't have lines in the water, you're not gonna get a bite. So, it's extremely important to be consistent with that.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. Consistency's important.

  I remember a few years back, talking with a farmer and like we kind of pulled teeth actually to have him do a pickup drop or like a meetup drop. And he did it one time and he is like, Nope, there weren't enough people. I'm not gonna do it again. And I just wanted to kind of beat my head against a wall because.

  He's right, like one time isn't enough when you're offering a pickup or a delivery. And part of that is because you have to build the consistency for people to then lock, hook into that habit, right? So if, a neighbor's buying from you, it might take the next neighbor a couple weeks and the next neighbor [00:44:00] a couple weeks, but pretty soon it builds up over time and then they're like, oh yeah, once a month, I get my poultry from my farmer. 

   And it becomes their routine. But, you have to provide the routine for the customers to then sort of hook into. I don't know if you speak to that with farmers, but I know that consistency is a big deal. 

  Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and that's a tough thing when it comes to like deliveries where farms, it's kind of the chicken and the egg. Do I offer delivery first or can I get 20 customers to commit to before I offer delivery? 'Cause I don't wanna just do one delivery. And I get it, that's a really tough challenge, but, you know, it's not foreign to other businesses.

  Well, sometimes you gotta start small and really build up that routine and habit and it'll come, but it may take some time.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And I think the important thing to note there is, you know, start with the pickup location. It might only be three people. But, with the goal of, Hey, I wanna grow to 10 and then I wanna grow to 20. 

  And if you're leaning into that and you're [00:45:00] asking those three people to share, or you're, you know, collecting emails in that area or whatever else, then you're growing it. So, yes, it might not quote unquote, feel worth it the first few times, right? Or the first couple weeks or deliveries or whatever else, but it is because you're actually investing in the long-term goal.

  Cory Hutsen: Exactly. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Awesome. Okay, so what does success look like across, like if I'm a farmer, I come into you and you're like, okay, here's the best practices across a variety of marketing mechanisms. If I'm a farmer, what does success look like on social? What would you recommend? Like how often do I post? Do I have to post? 

  Cory Hutsen: My baseline for success on social media is posting three to four times per week. We use something and it's especially talked about in our actual Social Media Academy that we offer. But the three Es: entertain, educate, e-commerce. So, you have a really great blend of providing social media content just about the farm, 'cause people love seeing [00:46:00] pictures of just the animals or the day to day. People are interested in what goes on at farms, most people are very interested in seeing that. So, having that content with a mixture of actually promoting your store. But, if a farm is doing consistently three to four posts, per week, and I have some farms that are posting every single day, sometimes even twice a day, which is awesome.

  But if you can just set yourself a little goal, like three to four posts a week, I think that's a great baseline to start seeing some results.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, and you don't have to be a design specialist or a media specialist or a marketing guru to just snap a photo on your farm. The interesting thing is, I don't know if many listeners know if you're one of our farmers, you probably do.

  But we offer a marketing toolkit, which is essentially a monthly marketing packet for farmers that includes 50 plus graphic designs that are beautifully done by our design team for social media. It includes four to six pre-made seasonal MailChimp newsletters and [00:47:00] draft content for the newsletters and for social media posts.

  So, it's sort of like it's the marketing kit, but at the end of the day, even with that kit, and we try to do like 90% of it, we can't be there to take a picture of when the cow was born, right? Or when you're starting a brand new project or literally creating a new greenhouse or starting a new plant, like trying to grow a new variety of something. 

  Those are the pieces that draw your local customers to you and make it about you and your farm and your brand. That's unique. That's so important and people love it and can delight in it, but it doesn't have to be fancy. It can be casual. And even if it's once or twice a week, just make sure your social media has a heartbeat, right?

  Or, you know, get our toolkit 'cause it's amazing. And that can just help you get there in terms of minimizing the time required to do that. But yeah, social media is good. Did you have a final word on that?  

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, just that you don't need to stress yourself out trying to come up, you know, no one's expecting you to be this incredible social media marketer doing [00:48:00] all your own design content. Like, I have so many farmers who are saving so much time posting the stuff off the marketing toolkit as well as just, you know, taking a fun video of what's going on with the cows or the baby lambs.

  Janelle Maiocco: Mix it up. 

  Cory Hutsen: You know, I have farms that like some of my favorite posts are just when farms spread out all the packaged meat, what would be in a quarter cow. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's such a good post. You're educating buyers, letting 'em know exactly how much beef's in a quarter.

  It's fun to look at. It gets 'em excited, encourages people to buy. So, some simple things like that can be so effective. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Absolutely. I love it when people lay out the CSA box, Dirty Girl in California does such a good job of that with his produce. It's beautiful. Okay, and then emails, you said once a week.

  Do they need to be long? 

  Cory Hutsen: No. No, email length can be totally at your own discretion. Like we have some farms that will send lengthy emails and they'll almost use it as a journal to build a brand connection or just a connection with their [00:49:00] customers where they'll lay out what's going on with their family on the farm, what they did.

  They'll share the great things and they'll also share the hardships of being a farmer, so people can start to connect with them, 'cause there are a lot of challenges that go on with the farm and some farms are super transparent. And then, we have some farms that, you know, can be equally successful. Hey, here's a couple fun facts that happened on the farm, or here's a couple cool nutritional facts, or this is how much proteins in a pack of my primal ground beef.

  And then they'll include, you know, they bank two or three photos from that week and then they're including, two products or so to link in with a couple store buttons. So, if you're spending hours upon hours doing your one email a week, I would encourage you to meet with us, or take a look at the marketing toolkit or come to office hours.

  'Cause you know, you don't have the time being a farmer to be spending, you know, four or five hours a week on one email.  

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I love that. And no, it shouldn't take that much time. So, shorter and sweeter can [00:50:00] be fine if you wanna throw in a longer one and every so often, great. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with farms who started with once a month newsletters, and then quickly shifted to once a week.

  And that consistency again, in communicating with the buyers has been a game changer. They refuse to even miss once a week because it literally brings in sales every single time. I think two other best practices, have an online store and have some local pickup or delivery options. Any thought on that?

  Cory Hutsen: Online store. Absolutely. At the end of the day, we want a place to direct all our marketing efforts, right? All our marketing efforts are pointing people to go to the online store. That's the end goal. Whether it's all the things we've talked about, flyers, posting on social media and newsletters, the finish line is the online store and getting all these efforts are to get people to go into your store, add stuff to the cart and check out.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. It's a game changer. We've seen it change so many farm businesses for the better. It's incredible. [00:51:00] Awesome. Okay. Anything else, Cory, before we peel off? I know we've talked about so many good things. 

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah. I mean, I think if there's one big takeaway for me, you know, it is the consistency, social media, newsletters, every farm's gonna have different results. But if you're not doing anything, you know, you're not gonna see the results. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's fair. 

  Cory Hutsen: You know, again, it's not enough to have a website and store. Having a Barn2Door store is an incredible thing, but, you know, you have to take the tactics to let people know that you do have that online store. 

  So, just being consistent with it and persevering, and, you know, relying on all these tools that are here for you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I, I love what you're saying. There is a little bit of what you put into it is what you get out of it. And we didn't even brush by a sort of paid social, you and I talked about that earlier, but, if you just look back on the entire podcast, we didn't even talk about paid social.

  We literally talked [00:52:00] about all of the marketing efforts through social media, email, newsletter, local partners, you know, local business partners, QR codes, farmers' markets, et cetera. All of which are primarily free organic, you know, grassroots marketing truly. Which is really exciting. And the majority of farms don't do paid. 

   And are having thriving great success if they're just putting many of these tactics in place.  

  Cory Hutsen: Yeah, it's a great point, but I just wanted to say like, I know a lot of this is a lot of information.

  It can be a little overwhelming, but start where you can start. I talk to farms all the time. Hey, set a benchmark for yourself that you can achieve. Like, even if that's five emails, 10 emails a month, that's awesome. That's gonna accumulate over time. Don't put all this pressure on yourself that you have to have a thousand followers in a month.

  Or, if you don't have 250 emails in a couple weeks, you're not doing well. You're a busy farmer. Celebrate the wins. Like, you get five email addresses in a week. That's [00:53:00] awesome. That's five potential customers. So, give yourself some credit. There's places you can start, and start building the foundation. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I love it when you say celebrate the wins because it is make small, achievable goals and then celebrate. Right? It's a long game. It's not a short game. Right? I guess is another way to think about it. But start putting that one foot in front of the other. 

  The other thing you mentioned, and I just wanna say right before we peel off, is you did mention academy, and frankly, office hours. So, for farmers who are using Barn2Door or even thinking about using Barn2Door, it's good to know from a resource perspective, you can meet with Cory and other account managers similar to him in office hours.

  We literally offer twice a day any day of the week, so that you can meet directly with folks who, like Cory, talk to farms all day every day, and are literally swapping ideas with farmers to help with the whole goal of helping farmers be successful, driving sales and building loyalty in their local communities.

  So really powerful. Again, that's one-on-one office hours. And [00:54:00] then, separately, we mentioned a few times, academy classes. Yes, Barn2Door offers academy classes for everything from grassroots marketing to social media, email marketing and more. Interestingly, we're gonna have a podcast on that in the next couple weeks with Alex from Chucktown Acres who teaches our Grassroots Academy class. 

  So, listen to that one. If you wanna learn more information on the academy classes, they're short and sweet, but really high value, with typically 25 plus other farmers and just very rich conversations. So, with that in mind, I wanna extend my thanks to Cory for joining us on this week's podcast episode, and for sharing what he's learned and coached across hundreds of now very successful farmers. Again, if you wanna meet with members of the Barn2Door Success team like Cory, daily office hours twice a day, Monday through Friday, any day of the week. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.

  We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase sales, crush marketing, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer just getting started transitioning to selling direct, [00:55:00] or if you've been at a while and wanna simplify your business, check out Barn2Door.com/Learn-More.

  Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [00:56:00] time.

In this week’s episode, Ryan from the Barn2Door Success Team (who talks all day everyday with Independent Farmers!) discusses tips for Farmers' online store(s). Hear what he recommends for Farmers selling direct into their local communities.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.

  James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners are aware, Barn2Door offers an all in one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman and taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can [00:01:00] purchase easily online and in person. 

  In today's conversation, we're going to be getting into the best practices for your farm storefront. How do you make it easy for buyers to purchase from your farm? And today I'm happy to welcome Ryan Grace, one of our account managers on the success team. Ryan works with farms all across the country to ensure that they have a successful business, and implement the best practices to spur growth while streamlining their operations. 

  So, we're going to dive in real quickly here and get started with Ryan and talk about auditing farm storefronts to ensure that they're convenient. Welcome back, Ryan. It's great to see you.  

  Ryan Grace: Thanks so much, James. It's a pleasure to be here. 

  James Maiocco: Well, before we dive in on this topic, Ryan, let's hear a little bit more about yourself. You've been at Barn2Door now almost for one year, I think. Two weeks from now is your one year anniversary. Congratulations. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, it's coming up. It's been awesome. It's definitely been a great learning lesson.

  And man, it's been really rewarding seeing some of the farms I started off with, and where they're at today. So, I love it. 

  James Maiocco: That's awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about your experience working at Barn2Door [00:02:00] culturally, like how have you enjoyed working with your team? I know you've got a great team over there and success team. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. I mean, I've worked in a lot of industries and being able to come in here, Barn2Door has been incredible. The team have been great friends to me, and even with the farmers, I mean, there's a few better things than being able to work with the farm and watch what we do really helped change their life has been one of the more fulfilling jobs I've had.

  So it's something that I know a lot of us here at Barn2Door are passionate about, when you get to see it firsthand and see some of these life changing things that take place. It's, it's really special. 

  James Maiocco: It is a really special experience. Like you said, you know, there's a lot of ways to make money, but to do something that's so tangible, like you said, and life changing, that's a really great way to describe it, to hear the impacts that this can have for farmers. 

  It's a big deal. Well, for listeners who don't know what your role is at Barn2Door, why don't you share a little bit more about what an account manager does at Barn2Door? After a farm gets onboarded, what's it look like?  

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, we like to describe ourselves as a guide per se. So, being able to work with [00:03:00] hundreds of farmers across the country, we get a lot of really great insight.

  And data on what works well for our farms, what consumers are looking for, so part of our job is to share some of those resources, right? Be a guiding hand to those farms who are looking for best practice recommendations, to be able to give some case studies and showcase, hey, this is a farm I have in your area in a similar circumstance. 

  This is how we're able to scale their business. This is how we're able to get them from a hobby farm into a full time farm. So, that's a lot of what we do. And then on top of it, like on today's topic, it's a lot of store auditing. I think there's always room for growth. There's always room for reflection and looking back and seeing, are there ways that we can streamline things or are there ways that we can grow our business?

  James Maiocco: Well, let's dive in. Cause you've worked with, like you said, hundreds of farms now at this point. And I'm sure you've really, not only been able to look at the data, but really get to see the tangible outcomes for many of the farms that you support. Let's start with the customer store itself.

  [00:04:00] Like when we talk about the customer facing store experience that a farm offers their buyers, you know, I think many times people think about their experience shopping on Amazon, which is, you know, true. That's a one type of experience, but that's a very different experience. It's a huge multi billion dollar, I should say that you should say a trillion dollar brand. 

  We're talking about a small business, right? A very different set of expectations that buyers have. So, when you're talking with farmers about setting up their storefront, what are some of the best practices that you recommend to communicate, you know, a realistic set of expectations, both in terms of the experience, but also in terms of the purchase expectations of the buyer?

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. One of the first things I'm doing before meeting with the farm for these audits is just taking a look at the inventory items they have, right? You want to make sure you're focusing on your top revenue drivers. You want those to be up front and center. That's where 60 percent of your sales are going to come from on that first page.

  So, really making sure that you highlight those, that those are very easy for the customers to purchase, so they don't have to scroll too far. [00:05:00] Decision fatigue is a real thing. Buyers want things to be simple. And for you, you want to focus on those revenue drivers because you don't want the first thing people see when they look at your store to be chicken feet.

  So we really focus in on some of those top items. So putting together some bundles and boxes, making sure that those are highlighted up front and center, pinned as priority items. That's one of the first steps I'm doing when I'm looking at a store.  

  James Maiocco: Well, I will say, you know, I love chicken feet because I know they make really good stock, but the vast majority of consumers and buyers really have no understanding of what use of chicken feet or chicken necks have on the store.

  Doesn't mean you can't offer them. Like you said, maybe offer them in a stock pocket or something like that. But, very, very different experience for 95 percent of buyers who are looking to just buy a whole chicken or what have you. Well, a lot of our farms, you know, have a whole variety of different products, but, you know, I imagine they drive most of the revenue for a shorter list, right?

  How should a farm manage the vast inventory that they may have to offer? I mean, should they put everything up on their [00:06:00] storefront or should they narrow down to a short list? What's a good number that you see?  

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Uh, what we shoot for is you're looking for five to 10 items pinned to the top of your store and then less than a hundred items total.

  Again, going back to that decision fatigue and just for yourself as a farm to be able to manage your inventory well, a farmer's choice bundle box or a farmer's choice subscription is going to be your best friend. It helps you move some of those harder to move items, helps you move more items at once, and it makes it a little more worth it when you are going to do a pickup or a drop off for those customers to where you're not dropping off one pound of ground beef.

  So, if you can build that into a bundle and make it a little more worthwhile, the consumer is going to appreciate that.  

  James Maiocco: And tell me a little bit about some like look and feel what expectations are, should farmers be offering promos and all these other types of things?

  Like, you know, what other types of announcements should people be thinking about in terms of trying to drive buyers to their storefront? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, there are a lot of great tools within the Barn2Door platform that can help with [00:07:00] that. So, the banner at the top of your store is a great way to announce new products.

  It's a great way to engage with your customer base, highlight some of the promos that you've built out, get that to where people can see that front and center. Take advantage of those, cause you're really just trying to entice them into that first purchase. You're getting them hooked into the products you have.

  So, there's consistency there. Another major part, James is building in the photos. You want those to be professional. You want them to look really nice. I have a few farms I work with that will even, they ordered some cutting boards with their brand on it. So they have their brand, their logo, with their nice products listed on top of that.

  People are visual. They want to see a nice representation of what they're going to get. So those go a long way as opposed to just using stock images or things like that with their site. 

  James Maiocco: Well, and I know we, we offer a litany of beautiful stock images that many farmers do use and conversion still looks fantastic there. 

  But the more personalized, like you said, I love the cutting board examples where people put a steak, you know, or some produce in a box [00:08:00] with their farm brand on it or eggs that are, you know, with their branded egg carton, all those things just make it that much more, again, brand reaffirming, right?

  And I know many of our top performing farmers, that's kind of like, like you said, it's a worthwhile investment to either hire somebody to come and do it or just take some time yourself. I mean, do you see many farmers taking some of these photos themselves? I mean, I know a lot of the cameras on the new iPhones and Android devices are quite good. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, I mean, that's a beautiful part with these new phones as a photographer myself, you can do a lot of great things. So, giving some best pointers when it comes to shooting those images using good lighting is important, but it doesn't take a lot of work to get really, really great quality photos. And to your point with the cutting boards too, that's also another great selling point.

  So, if you're selling a meat bundle and you can build into that cost one of those cutting boards, now you have a branded item in that person's home as they're cutting up the nice steaks that they got from you. So, it's just another way to build in some of that brand [00:09:00] consistency.  

  James Maiocco: Well, let's, let's shift gears a little bit.

  So, let's say I go on to the store, I find an item, I'm, like you said, I don't get exhausted because I'm not looking through hundreds of items. Let's say I'm looking through 25 to 50 items. Now I want to make a purchase. How easy does it need to be for me as a buyer to have a high degree of conversion, right?

  Because, I know all farmers would probably just love to have it be simple and easy for them, right? At the same time, you know, every buyer would probably like everything to show up on their doorstep or frankly right on their kitchen countertop, right? So there's kind of a degree of convenience of what works for the farmer versus what works for the buyer.

  Like, where do you see success, you know, when you think about fulfillment expectations that farmers should set up?  

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. Convenience is king. Amazon's made this more relevant than ever. It's the most important piece, in my opinion, in getting your products to your customer base. In the last podcast we hosted with Phil, if y'all get the chance to listen to that one, he brought up a [00:10:00] great point, just talking about how nine out of 10 consumers, they want to buy from local farms.

  So, part of your job is removing any of those barriers to purchase, which is the biggest part is that convenience factor. So, you want to take that into consideration when you're setting up your pickup locations when you're setting up your delivery zones. So, think about that everyday consumer.

  Think about who your ideal customer is and how can you get your products in front of them without all those barriers, without the distractions, without them having to come go out of their way or lose time. So, that's something we're taking a look at when we're diving into the fulfillments, we want to make sure that the schedules are taking into consideration that ideal customer. You're thinking about that mom that works a nine to five and you're putting that in place. Maybe it's a school pickup after school pickup or after church pickup, partnering with local gyms and fitness centers we've seen be highly successful. So, these are all things you want to take into consideration when you are building these fulfillments and these ways for your customers to get their products. 

  James Maiocco: So, when you think about [00:11:00] schedules, let's use a few examples like you just said so if you're thinking if you're selling to a group of school moms, right? Then you're thinking about like after school pickups or locations that are convenient for them and you know picking the kids up or dropping kids off to school or to practice that type of thing, right?

  And then, I would assume also too for, like you said, if you're going to do the gyms, you know, are people doing like super early morning or are they doing kind of the evening gym workout crowd? How do they handle pickups at gyms and CrossFit studios, that type of thing? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. With the gyms you're seeing, I mean, you got to think about the customer who's going to go home after that, if they're going to work out in the morning and then go into their workplace, probably not gonna want to carry a monthly meat box with him. So, you're thinking about those later afternoon slots where they can pick that up, take it home. So, that's where I've seen the most success with those.

  And it's a win win for both. The gyms love it. It's a great way for them to sell and to advertise to their customer base saying, Hey, we actually partner with a local farm who brings us locally sourced protein, the best protein you're going to [00:12:00] get, and they drop it off right here at the gym.

  James Maiocco: That's awesome. What I imagine too, you have expectations on the wholesale side of the business too, right? Like talk to me a little bit about farmers who are delivering to restaurants, right? Or to grocers, like what are the expectations you see there in terms of fulfillment? Because I assume they expect delivery directly to the door, correct?

  Ryan Grace: Yep. Yep. so again, making it easy for them, but also making sure you're protecting yourself as the farm too. So putting in clear expectations on when those orders need to be placed, when you can go and deliver those. So, having order cutoff date is really crucial for a lot of our farms and managing their time, but also making it convenient for the wholesaler.

  And it couldn't be easier for them to go in, see what products you have, place their order, know when they can expect it. So you're setting in very clear, consistent parameters for them, which helps the farmer and helps the restaurant or the wholesaler. 

  James Maiocco: That's a really great point, right? The more consistency you have for the purchaser also can lead to more consistency in terms of your farm operations as well. Like, [00:13:00] hey, all right, my pit crew always goes out on this day and I run my deliveries to restaurants on these two days, right? But, that consistency is really key, right? Save yourself time and streamline your labor costs. 

  If I'm a farmer that's only done pickups or markets, and I'm thinking about getting into delivery, what are, you know, one or two best practices you see there in terms of getting started with that as a fulfillment option, because that can be pretty intimidating, I would think for a lot of farmers to think about.

  Ryan Grace: Definitely. I think start local. So start in places that you know you're visiting frequently already. If you're making a trip into town once a week, build a delivery route around that. So, find some zip codes that are near there that you'd be comfortable delivering out to. Build in, which is one of the great features within our platform, is being able to add in a delivery fee.

  So you have a delivery fee, so you're getting paid for that time, and then as you scale, so if you're doing $10 per delivery, well now you can outsource that, you can hire a farmhand who can help with those deliveries, pay them out using the delivery fee, they're doing 20 of those [00:14:00] deliveries, they're making 200 bucks, that's a really great earning for, I mean that's more than I made in the restaurant industry, serving at a restaurant, so it's a great value add and helps you scale your operations.

  James Maiocco: I know that's a fantastic way that many of our farmers hire a lot of local high school and college students too, who are like, man, they're happy to go run deliveries in the evenings, right? 

  Ryan Grace: That would have been my dream job. 

  James Maiocco: Absolutely. Well, it's funny you say that because, Janelle and myself, I mean, we have, I think, five different Farmbox subscriptions here in Nashville. 

  And I know our protein box is delivered once a month, and we pay $15 for that to be delivered. But, to your point like convenience is king, right? Like I don't want to go to a pickup. I'm willing to pay 15 bucks for a $200 meat box. So laying on my doorstep once a month. And sure enough, it's a high school kid that drops it off, right?

  So, every once in a while, we'll see the farmer and maybe, but usually it's a high school kid, right? Which is great. But like I said, that's a lot of money for a high school kid to get paid. So, let's go back to the topic of inventory. Cause you made a mention of a farmer's choice bundle box, right? For [00:15:00] farmers who are unaware of what that might mean, or for people who have been thinking about a farmer's choice on the box, can you describe for our listeners kind of like what that should entail and maybe just use an example of both of meat and maybe like produce as just maybe two options.

  Ryan Grace: Yeah. So, farmer's choice is what it sounds like. It's you putting together a box. So, you're setting the parameters. Maybe you're doing a 10 pound bundle where you're putting in various cuts. So, if we're talking about the protein farm, one that I see do really well, you can do a meat and eggs subscription or bundle. Think about the cuts that are really easy to prepare, because who you're trying to target, you want to think about that person who's trying to save time. They don't need some really difficult cuts like your oxtail or some of those that are still really great, still very valuable.

   They want something that's going to be easier to prepare. So, you think about two to three pounds of ground beef, maybe a couple other various cuts, Chuck roast or two, with some eggs. That's a great protein bundle and you can just switch that up each month, it's actually a selling point to be able to have it a farmer's choice.

  When [00:16:00] you can communicate like this is handpicked by me, the farmer. Each week it adds a personal touch, allows you to move inventory the way you need to, like I said earlier. And for produce, similar thing, it's not always going to have the same things in season. So, you want something that's seasonal, that's fresh, that's the best way to eat.

  It's the healthiest for our bodies, it's what we crave, and so being able to offer that in a box where you get a variety of what's freshest, what's most in season is a great way to move the inventory that you need to.  

  James Maiocco: Now, talk to me about how much I should put into a box, right? Like, I mentioned earlier that I get a 20 pound box once a month.

  You mentioned a 10 pound box. If I'm a farmer, how do I know what size box I should be preparing? 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 40 pounds. What's the optimal size or should I offer a range of sizes? What do you see as a good best practice?  

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, I would say you want to think about each consumer type, right? So you have different family styles.

  You have larger families. I grew up in a very large family where we would crush a 10 pound box. In a day, [00:17:00] it would not last long in my family growing up. So, having different options for those households. So you think of your one to two household, have a box that could feed them for the month.

  And then, expanding that out to maybe, four to six family household. And starting there, and if you have families that are even bigger, they can always just double up on those subscriptions. And that's a good way to have it simplified in your inventory where you don't have too many items, but you still have a nice variety of product sizes for the different consumer types.

  James Maiocco: Got it. And so, for buyers who haven't bought a bundle box before what's, you know, I know we encourage a lot of farmers to offer subscriptions, but should they only offer subscriptions? Should they offer like a one time purchase option as well? Like what's the mix that you should offer there, right? I mean, or do you only offer things as one time purchase?

  What do you typically see? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, I mean, subscriptions are great. They bring consistent revenue. Having a one time purchase sampler bundle is one of the best ways to get [00:18:00] people introduced to the idea of those subscription boxes. So, I recommend anybody who's going to farmer's markets put together a little $50 farmer market bundle that you can advertise to introduce people to the idea of what you offer as far as subscriptions go. 

  Have that at your farm store as well, where they can come pick it up at the farm. So if they're trying to get an idea of what they can expect, if they want to know what your products are like. You can have that bundle ready to go as a one time purchase as well as the subscription. 

  James Maiocco: Well, I know for myself that was definitely a selling point because I buy my beef from a different producer than produces my pork, right?

  Ironically, both of those farms offer beef and pork. However, I found one of them has much better beef and the other one has much better pork. And, and of course, with my wife being a chef, we're going to buy the best product period, right? But we did sign up for a subscription from both of them, but on a single product. 

  I do know though, many farms offer like mixed meat bundle boxes as well. Kind of like the same thing you see with mixed [00:19:00] produce, right? Do you see that be successful as well for some farms?  

  Ryan Grace: We do, yeah. Especially like when you're thinking about what your goal is, which is to be the source, the local source for your community, being able to save them those trips to the grocery store.

  And if you can provide all those grocery list items for them, you're really putting yourself in a great spot for your community and for yourself. So, those are things you're going to want to take a look at, so if you can add in chicken, you can add in beef. Those varieties do really well. I have some farms that have learned over time that their customer base, cause every customer base is going to be a little bit different, they've learned that maybe there's more demand for just a chicken only box, or just a pork only in their area. So, that is something you have the flexibility of doing, but I think a variety boxes is great. Those are awesome. 

  James Maiocco: One last question before moving on to the next topic here. Tell me a little bit about value add, right?

  Because I've seen some people will have a bundle box, but they'll also throw the seasoning in or maybe they throw some thyme in or some herbs, et cetera. Do you see that that adds value? I mean, will [00:20:00] people opt into that, almost like a, a meal ready kit in a box type of thing?

  Ryan Grace: Yes, exactly. It's a great way to move some of those additional products you carry. Right now, even with like tallow on the rise, people are all about tallow. So, being able to offer that into your boxes as a way to cook the meats that you got, or even just as soaps or conditioners. So, being able to do those value adds in addition to your bundles is a great way to one, increase that average order value, and two, move a lot of those additional products. 

  James Maiocco: Got it. Well, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about management, right? Because, you know, assuming that you've got these best practices implemented, you've got your inventory set up, you've got a variety of different types of one time purchase and subscription items available. 

  And, maybe you start offering pickups and you step into deliveries, because I know farmers who do deliveries tend to make twice as much more as farmers that don't offer delivery, right? Delivery works. So, let's say I take the plunge and I try to do that and I start getting, you know, a [00:21:00] ton of new sales. 

   What are some of the best practices that you see in terms of being able to manage the volume of sales that come from some of these best practices? 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, your Pick and Pack lists are such a great resource within the Barn2Door platform. It saves, I know Tagge or Laci at Tagge's Famous Fruits talks all the time about how that saved her hours and hours within her management of getting her CSAs ready. 

   So, being able to go in, you can filter it by your pickup location. You can filter it by the delivery zone you're doing, and you can see exactly what orders you have to get ready, what days they need to be ready for, and you can even break it down by the pick list. So you can go through, filter your pick list, see what days, what items you need to pick, how many of them you need in total.

  And so it's just a really great, efficient way for our farmers to manage those orders as they're coming in. With the contact details on there, so if you need to reach out to the customer, you can do that easily as well. 

  James Maiocco: What about order reminders? I know this is a topic that a lot of farmers will use from [00:22:00] time to time as well. 

  Some farmers use them extensively, other farmers don't use them at all, right? What do you see as like, a general best practice? You know, I'm sure many farmers don't want to be perceived as quote, unquote, nagging customers to place an order.  

  Ryan Grace: Well, that's where the customer, I mean, they want to see farmer content in their inbox.

   You're helping them out. Those who are living very busy lives, sometimes need those additional reminders. Hey, don't forget, we're doing deliveries on this Saturday. Get your add ons in ahead of time if you want some fresh sourdough bread or some of our local honey that we have, that we're promoting this week. So, it's a great way to stay consistent without having to go in and continually try to remember yourself as a farm when you're already managing so much, what you need to get sent out.

  So, some of the best practices, one of the things I do when I'm looking at a store audit, I'm going through to see with all their customer emails, do they have order reminders turned on? Are they using their groups to set those order reminders? Cause you can have it going to anybody who's [00:23:00] ordered at the farmer's market, you can tag them a farmer market customer and send the order reminders out. If you're doing that on Saturday, maybe you're sending that out on Thursday, letting them know, Hey, we're going to be there Saturday. Get your orders in today. If you want any add ons to make sure you're getting the products that we have available before we sell out, cause we're going to sell out, place your order today.

  James Maiocco: I love that. So, you're creating a little bit of FOMO, fear of missing out with that order reminder, and to your point too, it's like, it's only going to help the buyer, right? Because we're all busy and I hate to say, but I think sometimes farmers get a little too concerned that they're going to, quote unquote, be perceived as spam to the customers, but that's nothing further from the truth. Like you said, we all need that nudge. Many people treat their email inbox like a social feed almost like today, right? So you just, you're looking for that reminder. Whatever's at the top of the inbox is what's going to be top of mind. 

  Ryan Grace: Yep. And you can make it fun for your customers, too.

   If you're mixing it up. I have a farm who uses their dog, who's kind of their mascot of their farm. And so when they were doing their order reminders, it's all coming from Piper [00:24:00] at this farm. And so, it's just a fun way to engage the customer base. And it's, kind of breaks some of those barriers down too.

  James Maiocco: That's fantastic. What a great suggestion. Let's wrap things up because I want to be respectful of your time, and I know our farmers are busy, too, who are listening to this podcast today. Are there any other tips that you see that, you know, helped farmers really, again, take their business to the next level when thinking about setting up the best practices to grow their customer base?

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, at the end of the day, we provide all kinds of great online resources and can guide you with all of the things that we've seen work for farms. But, one of the most important things is getting boots on the ground. So, it's getting in front of your community, finding a way to get face to face with some of these customers, whether it's at the farmer's market, and that's where one of the things to look at, it's a huge tool for a lot of my farms is the POS. So, they have the ability to do cash card transactions on the go that sync with your inventory, that add customers to your customer list, that are checking off all these other time saving boxes that help you sell down the [00:25:00] road.

   So, those are other things that I would highly recommend taking a look at, thinking about the businesses in your area, your existing network, your friends and family. What do they do for work? Would you be able to partner with them? Are there other local businesses that service your ideal customer that you could partner with?

   So, those farms that are utilizing those practices and are putting those boots on the ground and having those conversations, find a lot more success and they see the traction start to build over time. So, it's really rewarding when I just got off the call right before this with one of my farms that's doing just this, and it's just really cool to see his progress, him living out his dream, getting to the point where he's going to be able to do this full time pretty soon.

  So. I love it. 

  James Maiocco: That's awesome. Well, I know many of our farmers too have really kind of leaned into making sure they're building a strong brand, right? Putting that QR code on everything that they touch, on their signage, on their car, on their business card, make it easy for you to just hand out to people to scan and sign up for your email [00:26:00] newsletter or go directly to your store. 

  Just make it easy. Right? You know, because buyers are like you said, I think you said at the beginning, convenience is king, right? And we just had to make it easy for buyers. One last question before we shift gears and sign off. I'd love to hear from you like how often should a farmer be revisiting and examining how they've got their store set up?

  I mean, I imagine you can't be tweaking it all the time, right? You gotta kind of set it, measure, and improve it over time. 

  Ryan Grace: Yeah, I mean, I would recommend a quarterly audit, I think is a healthy way to take a step back, examine things, see what's working well. See what your customer base is really driving towards and even invite your customers to be a part of that journey with you.

  I think that's a great way to build that community, to ask them like, Hey, what other products would you like to see us have or, if we were able to deliver out to this area, would anyone be interested in that? And so, bring them in to be a part of your community, I think is really helpful. And then the other piece of the audit that we didn't [00:27:00] talk in here as far as inventory or fulfillment, but it's just going through and seeing if your why messaging is coming across in what you're posting, in what's on your social media, in what's in your newsletters. 

  Your why is one of the most important parts of what you do. And so, being able to take a step back and say, Hey, did I communicate this to my customers? Why I wake up every day and do the hard work that a farmer does. Can that messaging and branding be seen in my website, in my post, in my emails? So, I think when you can do that quarterly and have that reflection to be able to go back and be like, all right, let's reevaluate, see what works, and dive in from there.

  James Maiocco: That's awesome. Great feedback from Ryan here at Barn2Door. Thank you so much for your time. I know you're super busy. So, again, really appreciate all your hands on attention that you give to our farmers. And for those listening to us, you can talk to Ryan and other account managers like him anytime, Monday through Friday at Barn2Door.com/Office-Hours, where you can ask Ryan open ended Q and A questions, and his colleagues as well, and learn other tips [00:28:00] and tricks that they've seen work for farmers like yourself. Here at Barn2Door, we are humbled to support thousands of farmers all across the country and delighted to offer software and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase sales, and save time. 

  If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it for a while, just simply looking to save time and streamline your business, please visit Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door. [00:29:00] com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week's episode, Janelle and Erica of Benoit Family Farmstead (MO) discuss how to successfully sell out of Summer Chicken Subscriptions. Erica shares her tips for building FOMO around Subscription sign ups, marketing to local Buyers and packaging meat to move her inventory. 

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers, who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers [00:01:00] can purchase from their farm, both online and in person.

  In today's conversation, we'll get into selling summer chicken subscriptions. Today, I'm happy to welcome back Erica of Benoit Family Farmstead in Missouri. Erica is part of our farm advisory network and has worked with us for four years. Wow. And since becoming an advisor has helped other farmers learn to connect with their local community and scale their business to become their primary source of income.

  I'm excited to talk to Erica about their summer chicken subscriptions and how they build hype to sell out of their product. Welcome, Erica.  

  Erica Benoit: Hi. Thanks for having me. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So excited. There's so much to dig in on. Alright, so a big goal of growing a Farm, I remember you had a goal early on of, we wanna become full-time farmers.

  We want to quit our off-farm jobs. But part of that was just building the momentum around a business. Can you tell us a little bit about that progression? Maybe a quick little synopsis on your farm, and then how you got to where you are today in terms of just being a full-time farmers. 

  Erica Benoit: [00:02:00] It's felt like a very, very long journey.

  We started almost 10 years ago now that we moved to this farm. We bought this farm from my grandma. And, we started out with just a handful of chickens. My husband knew a friend that had hogs. He called up his friend and all of a sudden we have hogs here. Our goal was to homestead. I feel like a lot of farms start that way where you just homestead and then everybody wants your products because you're talking about how great the food is all the time.

   So that quickly expanded to our friends and our neighbors. We started looking into pastured poultry. So, we started raising our own, butchering our own. We started out butchering like 30 of 'em a year with my parents. And it was a whole all day event, just doing 30 chickens. We were hand plucking them.

  It was, it was a lot. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Is there some of that that was like the good old days? Like you just remember back to getting started? 

  Erica Benoit: I guess you'd call it the good old days. Looking back, I'm like, thank gosh we're not doing that anymore. Hand plucking a [00:03:00] chicken is not fun. Once you know there's a machine that does it in like five seconds.

  Like it's hard to wanna go back to hand plucking chickens. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.

  Erica Benoit: But it's kind of nostalgia a little bit. Like it's a skill we know we have. Yeah. So, you know, 10 years ago I had, we moved here with a 2-year-old and a two month old. And now we have four kids, the oldest is almost 12, so four kids between four and about 12. 

  So, just tagging them along the entire way. Just baby carriers, strollers, wagons, they're always right there, right there somewhere. So that's been, that's been an adventure. And sometimes I wonder if I would recommend people to have kids while they start the farm or after, after they get going. And right now the older two are really good help.  

  Janelle Maiocco: We work with a lot of young people and I'm always like, look, there's no convenient time to have children, but, you know, the sooner you have them, the more time you get with them. Right? 

  Erica Benoit: That's true. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I mean, it's hard work no matter when you do [00:04:00] it. That's just the net net. But okay, so approximately 10 years ago, poultry, it was great.

  You really only meant to homestead. I love that your community, everybody wanted more. That was, that's kind of an amazing segue into farming and I guess you really ended up liking it. Right. And then you had hogs were added to that. And then you're fast forwarding now, like sort of that's a 10 year progression. 

  So, how did you get to the point where you were able to, and I think it was just, what was it two years ago now, Erica, where you both had quit your off-farm jobs and done full-time farming.  

  Erica Benoit: Yep. So I've always been a stay-at-home mom since we had our oldest. And then my husband quit his job last April, so it's almost been a full year now. 

   That's pretty exciting. So kind of like, it was probably about a three year journey, of making the switch from knowing we wanted him to be full-time kind of realizing that this actually could be a full-time job for both of us. So [00:05:00] we did, I think to our, to our family, they thought that we, George just went into work one day and was like, I'm done, and came home and we didn't have a clue what we were doing. 

  But we did a lot of backend work. We tried to make sure we had enough saved in his 401k that if we didn't contribute to it for a few years, that we would still be able to retire one day and have enough to live off of. Not an extraordinary life when we retire, but bills are gonna be paid and we're gonna have something to retire with. 

   So, that was a big goal, is to just have that peace of mind that if we took a few years to really figure things out, that it was gonna be okay. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Good for you.

  Erica Benoit: We had enough, like in the savings that we could go like six months without sales and we would still be fine. We were very, very conservative in our planning and we wanted to make sure that there was little chance of failure. We tried to kind of get everything worked out as much as we could, that [00:06:00] if everything went wrong, then we'd still barely squeeze by, but it would still be fine. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You'd be okay. I love that. It's like, hope for the best, plan for the worst. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes, yes. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You know, but then like lean heavily into that success and I think that there's some comfort in that, that you've...

  Erica Benoit: Right.

  Janelle Maiocco: Thought through and did all of that planning. Good for you. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Even little things like stocking up on toothpaste and laundry soap. Like I didn't want the fact that I didn't have toothpaste to, you know, to break us or something, you know, like not to have to worry about all those little expenses here and there. 

  And then another thing on like the business side was to get our subscription sales up to where we knew that our farm bills are gonna be paid, you know, like the feed bill, our biggest bill of the month. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm. 

  Erica Benoit: That was gonna get paid no problem, just through subscriptions. And then we do like our bulk sales throughout the year and that covered like all of our other costs too. So, just really understanding our costs and where our income was gonna come [00:07:00] from and yeah, just planning for the worst and hoping for the best. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. 

  Erica Benoit: Which was great because the first month he was home, we butchered all of our chickens and our freezer went out, and so we lost over $4,000 worth of chicken.

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, no. 

  Erica Benoit: It worked out. 

  Janelle Maiocco: No. Oh, no. 

  Erica Benoit: It worked out. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. You know that, that's real life, right? Especially I feel like, in farming, you've never met a farmer without a story like that. Right. And that's just part of it is trying to truly lay the groundwork for a successful business and assume some mishaps or some miscalculations, or you forecast one thing and another thing happens, and things just do come up. And so good for you for planning and coordinating, including around a transition to full-time farming, which I'm sure a lot of people are very enthusiastic about, and we should probably talk about that even more another time. 

  But in addition to sort of planning for adjusting, you know, to full-time farming, [00:08:00] from a cost perspective, I mean, 'cause that's the beauty of business, right? On the one hand, you have to manage costs and operating costs, and on the other hand, you need to generate revenue, right? And so there's sort of those two that you're always in tandem, always in balance, and making sure that the revenues out do the cost, basically. Right. And so, you thought a lot about the revenue from your farm. You mentioned bulk sales and you mentioned chicken subscriptions, we'll talk about deeper. So, tell people quickly about bulk sales, so they have the greater context to how you're managing your revenue coming through the business. 

  And then we'll dig in on chicken subscription. So, what do you mean by bulk sales? 

  Erica Benoit: So whole and half hogs are our biggest bulk sale right now. We're getting more into the beef, like the whole half quarter beefs. We have a really small herd of Dexter cattle, so we have about eight to 10 calves we sell a year and the same people buy 'em year after year. And so, we haven't really had to learn to market those. We haven't really had to push those much, 'cause they just [00:09:00] kind of sell themselves. So, whole and half hogs have been our biggest bulk sales for the past probably eight years now. 

  I like bulk sales. Some farmers don't really like 'em as much as I do, but to me, as soon as it goes to the locker, I don't have thousands of dollars worth of cuts in my freezer that I'm trying to get sold before it goes bad or before, like the next round comes in, and I'm selling 'em 2, 3, 4 months in advance.

  Janelle Maiocco: Love it. I love that. Versus last minute, right. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes, yes. So I'm planning ahead. I'm several months ahead and then I'm always sold out too because I'm planning so much ahead. So, that's really created like a fomo, like the fear of missing out. Like if you don't order this month, then it might be six months before you get your pork. So, that's been good. But really even just like teaching people how to buy bulk, a lot of people don't know. So I've, you know, broke down [00:10:00] all of that down to just taking a half hog and doing the inventory. And that's part of my blog. I have a blog post of the inventory of a Half Hog, which includes like the poundage plus exactly how many cuts are in a package, how many packages are those? Just breaks everything down as much as possible for people. But yeah, just making the sales, being done. They pay for the entire hog front or half hog. And then, they pay the processor. So, that is sales being made. I'm taking care of it. I'm feeding it, and then it goes to the locker and it goes to their freezer, and I don't have to worry about it after that. 

  And I don't have to worry about my freezer going out.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, exactly. Because you've been there, done that. You're like, no. 

  Erica Benoit: Exactly. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So, then when it comes to the hog, is that the primary way that you sell the hogs?

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yes. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, it's kind of nice. It's, it keeps it easy to manage.

  And then on the poultry side, is it primarily subscriptions or is it a mixture?  

  Erica Benoit: It's mostly subscriptions that [00:11:00] we do. So we do our summer chicken subscriptions, so that's June through October. And then there's, we probably sell like 25 chickens a month in year round subscriptions. But, I had to make that to where I wasn't adding in more people because we were selling so much in the summertime that I didn't have enough chickens throughout the winter to, to fulfill all those yearly subscriptions.

  So, we've been running under the thousand bird limit. So, in Missouri there's like a thousand bird exemption where we were able to process a thousand poultry on our farm with very little regulations, and selling those directly from the farm. Which led us to, so last year I completely sold out in a week of sales, pushing our sales...

  Janelle Maiocco: Of a thousand chicken.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. So I had, so I had, so now we're building our chicken butcher shop, which would get us to the 20,000 limit. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Wow. That's exciting. [00:12:00] 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 20,000 chickens seems like an unbelievable number that I don't know. I might get to it. I, I hope I get to it. But right now that going from yeah, 1000 to 20,000 feels like a huge number. 

  But if we do get to the 20,000 and need to grow, then we can use our same building, have a meat inspector come in. There'd be like a few shifts. We'll have to add in more things, but at that point our meat inspector can come in and we can be USDA or state inspected or something. So, we still have a lot of room to grow with our building.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Erica, walk us through the chicken subscription. Just the like basic, like the semantics logistics of it, you mentioned, what did you say, June through October subscriptions. And you also mentioned year round. So break it down. If I was a customer going to your site, what would my options be? 

  Erica Benoit: So right now you have no options because we're sold out.

  But, I tell everybody to watch out for our [00:13:00] summer subscriptions. I have already told people when I'm going to open up the date to open it. So, I'm planning on May 12th through the 17th. That week is the only time you can sign up for my summer chicken subscriptions. So, that will be about two weeks before we start butchering our chickens. 

  On the consumer end, I do like a small discount if you order them, because the way we set up our butchering is we're butchering once a month. And so, the chicken subscriptions coincide with that, where you are emptying my freezer month after month and I'm not having to hold these chickens and I'm not having to like, you know, hustle them and make room for the next batch of chickens come in because, I did all of that sales in one week. So, that just kind of keeps cleaning out my freezer. And so they get a small discount because they're helping me out a ton, by doing that. It's helpful for me and it's helpful for the consumers too. 

  Janelle Maiocco: We love win-win.

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yes. And the consumers do too. They like helping us [00:14:00] out. You know, they like to be felt like they're getting helped out too from us. 

  Janelle Maiocco: So are people subscribing? If somebody shows up and purchases in that, and I love fomo, we have to dig in on that 'cause you're masterful at the marketing side of your subscriptions, which is so cool. But, in terms of the actual, product itself, so am I subscribing to one bird, to four birds and is it just June through October or is it like literally, is it 12 months?

  Is it a year round subscription? 

  Erica Benoit: Okay, so the summer chicken subscriptions is the same length as our butchering schedule, so we butcher from June to October. So that's when they're getting their birds. I have several different options, but I think I'm gonna kind of condense it down to probably three different options this year. 

  Another thing I'm doing this year is everything's gonna be packaged the same. So like chicken breasts are all gonna be two in a package, thighs, four in a package. Everything's gonna be the exact same. So how I sell my [00:15:00] chickens are going to be based on that. So I will do what we call a two cut chicken, which is just two chickens cut up and then we package it based on. 

  So like all thighs are in a package, all legs are in a package, you know, based on the cuts. So I'll do a two cut, I'll do a four cut, and then I do a savings bundle, which is four cut chickens and two whole chickens. Yeah, so the savings bundle is, so last year was $115. I'll have to raise my prices this year because of all of our new equipment, you know, all the new stuff we have going on.

  So, I haven't decided my prices just yet on that, but we'll just say 115 and so I really push that one the most. I want people to buy the six chickens at a time, 'cause that's the more customers that get that, the more chickens I'm rolling through and the less orders or people that I'm dealing with that time.

  Yeah, so I really try to push that for people the most. Most people do order that. So like six chickens over [00:16:00] five months, I'm getting rid of, you know, each family's eating 30 of my chickens a year. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I mean, it depends on the size of the family and that's what I love about your three options are look, a two cut chicken, your smaller box, you know, there's a lot of people who they're a single or a couple and that's perfect, right?

   So, a smaller bundle's a nice option, but there's also people who love the savings and that's also a win-win for you. So, it's really neat to see the options 'cause you capture more customers that would want to buy because you offer packages that fit them. 

  Yeah. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. And it seems like in my area at least, people like the idea of buying bulk, you know, I'm pushing bulk sales with my hogs and so I'm kind of able to like, use that same marketing of fill your freezer. But they're able to break that cost down between five months, and it's not so much, you know, if I were to ask somebody, Hey, can you buy $600 worth of chicken at one time?

  That seems like a huge number for people, but if I'm [00:17:00] like, spend a hundred dollars with me over five months or whatever, then it doesn't seem like that much. It really breaks it down for people and makes it affordable for them to stock their freezer all summer long and all year long they're from their freezer, directly from me. So again, it's a win-win. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That makes a ton of sense. So, you sell out in May and then they're subscribing to whatever package they're gonna get once a month for five or six months, essentially June through October. But at the end of October, presumably your freezer's empty of birds, your customer freezers are full. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes, yes. Now I have like, you know, the 25 chickens per month for the people that have been on my year round subscription. So, you know, there's only like a handful of people, but that still feels like three of my freezers full of chicken. But, knowing those three freezers are full of sold chicken is pretty exciting.

  Janelle Maiocco: Pre-sold. 

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That is awesome. And you're keeping those customers happy. I think there's such a [00:18:00] relief in the many farmers I've spoken to when it comes to subscriptions, there's such a relief in it's pre-sold, it's recurring revenue for the farm that you can essentially depend on month over month and sleep better at night because it's, you're selling your hog ahead of time, you know, in bulk sales you're selling chickens on subscriptions, either for, you know, five, six months period or for year round. And in all those instances, you're pre-selling. And you know, what a gift to know that and to have that confidence versus the stress of my freezers are full and I haven't sold these items. I've heard about that stress too. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. I've been in that situation too, and going and buying a freezer somewhere last minute is not what I enjoy doing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: No. No. Well, that's awesome. Well, good for you. And I'm excited to follow the story of the new processing and scaling up from a thousand birds to at least the official cutoff is 20,000 birds, but we'll see how that goes over time.

  Right. In terms of that [00:19:00] growth. But it'll be great. Great to see, great to watch. Okay. I want to, now that we kind of know the logistics of what you're selling, from a chicken perspective, I wanna get a little bit into the marketing because I know that you even mentioned FOMO at the beginning of our call.

  Like, you know, the fear of missing out. People don't wanna miss out on their connection to buying amazing proteins from you. So, let's talk a little bit about marketing and how you think about it. You've already sort of tipped us off to like the frenzy around you can buy during this one week in May, for my summer subscriptions.

  But maybe we back up just a little bit more, 'cause we need to talk about the who. Like you have customer list, right? So tell us a little bit about how you think about your customers. You're selling direct. The beauty of that is, is you can have those relationships with the customers, you can cut out the middleman, and have them appreciate your brand directly, et cetera. But, that means that you do need to have a customer list and customer base that you've continued to work on and grow and engage. So, how do you think about that at a broad level? And then how do you sort [00:20:00] of tackle it when it comes to selling a specific product like a chicken subscription? 

  Erica Benoit: So that was probably one of the first things we started working on was building our email list. My first couple emails really made me realize how important that email list was. Like the first time I had my email list, I think I had like 50 people on my list, we just got a batch of a hundred chickens in and we were planning on, this is how naive we were. We had a hundred butchered chickens. We were going to eat 50, we were gonna sell 50. Now we all know that because you order a hundred doesn't mean you're gonna butcher a hundred chickens. So, of course, like the heat lamps weren't working right.

  Like everything was dying. It was a whole, a whole mess that time. And we ended up selling 50 chickens in like 30 minutes to our email list of 50 people. And I don't even think we butchered 50 chicks at that time, at that time. So, you know, we had to tell our new customers that we have no idea what we're doing, and we're, you know, we're still learning [00:21:00] and we're just gonna order another batch of chickens and try again. And so, we filled as many orders as we could and then we just kept doing it and we kept selling out. And so our first year that we thought we were gonna sell 50 chickens, we sold 500 chickens that year. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness.

  That makes me so happy. 

  Erica Benoit: Yes. Yeah. So that was 2019, 2020. Of course, super easy to sell anything food wise because there's no food anywhere. 2021, that's when we joined you guys because sales, like plummeted, you know, everybody has their freezer full. You know, everybody stocked up as much as they could from us in 2020. 

  And then, 2021 I realized we're up to make a change 'cause what we're doing was not working. So, that's when we signed up with you guys. Actually a guy at a grocery store that I actually used to work at in high school, he was like, you gotta go online. He said, that's, that's the only way to grow right now. And everybody is going online. So, I talked to you guys and signed up. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's [00:22:00] awesome. 

  Erica Benoit: But, engaging with my customer... I still send email once a week. I like to ask the customers a lot of questions. I feel like that's how we grew our farm, how I've learned anything is just asking a ton of questions, to anybody that would, that would answer 'em for me. 

  So, you know, like the mom that's buying a handful of chickens, I ask her how she's cooking 'em, how she found us. You know, if she found us on our website, if she found us on Facebook, if I posted on a local group on Facebook, like I need to know those things so that I know what's working on my end.

   And then, like asking her how she's cooking it, why she's buying it. Little questions like that kind help me with my marketing, and how to get other people to buy too. So, the mom that really just wants to cook better food for her family. So, I'm able to use that in my marketing and, I feel like I gain a lot of just moms because that's who relates to me. That's who I relate to the most, to just a [00:23:00] mom that, I don't know, hot mess, mom. I guess I have no idea what I'm doing. 

  Janelle Maiocco: And statistically, moms are often the decision maker when it comes to buying food in a family.

  So, it makes a lot of sense. And you really hit on an important point there, which is you talk to your customers and part of that is, you know, engaging them and building loyalty and rapport. But the other part of it is to your point, is to learn about how they're engaging with your product or what you're selling. 

   And that's, in a funny way, it's kind of market research because you're learning how they think about and engage your food. And marketing really boils down to, many times, knowing your customers and what they want and need and expect. And even how to delight them. Right. That's really sort of that marketing 1 0 1, but it could be done in such a natural way, which I just love.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. Yeah, I think I learned this from my husband. But my husband, he's like, he can talk to anybody. And I'm like, how do you come up to somebody and talk to 'em? And he said, everybody ate last night. Just ask 'em what they ate for supper last [00:24:00] night. And that's such like a genius way to like open a conversation up.

  But it also helps me on my end, too. So, that's a fun little thing to just ask people that I learned from him. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That might be the best tip of the whole podcast. Erica, you'll have to thank your husband. 

  Erica Benoit: I will. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's just awesome. I love it. Just everybody ate last night. It's so practical and it's exactly your product too, isn't it?

  That's perfect. Okay, one quick question. In terms of email, we talked about email, you realized how important those were, was collecting emails. Can you give us a quick bullet list of the ways that you would recommend to somebody else out there who's trying to grow their email list and then grow their local community of buyers? 

  Couple bullets on how you collect those emails. 

  Erica Benoit: I need to get better at collecting emails. I will say that, I have hid behind a screen for basically this entire time. Very few people see me out in the world. I'm always in my overalls and so I do get stopped at the grocery store. 

  So [00:25:00] right now, because I'm behind the screen, I don't have time to be, you know, I don't do any farmer's markets, none of that stuff. So, like right before I start my summer chicken subscription, I am all over anywhere on Facebook that will, you know, any of those little local groups that will let me post, I'm posting on there, Hey, next week is my summer chicken subscription.

  Erica Benoit: You need to be on my email list if you wanna know what's happening, 'cause you know, if you don't buy from me, you're the only one in the neighborhood not buying from me. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Nice.

  Erica Benoit: So just kind of creating that hype. If I'm getting ready to do like whole and half hogs, I will do the same thing, kind of, you know, post around, you need to be on my email list.

  You're gonna find out way more information on my email list than you are on social media. I learned that we were gonna build our building, we kind of did the same thing. You need to join our email list, stay up to date with our building. We have a lot going on. Just kind of making them feel like they are missing out if they're not on our email list. 

  And I also push like that I educate people, you know, I'm not just selling to [00:26:00] people. I'm teaching them too. But once we get our farm store going, then I will have a signup list there where people can, you know, they can sign up whenever they're there, whether they buy something or not. It's also helpful that they automatically get on my email list when they buy through our website. 

  That's extremely helpful on my end, that if, you know, if they buy anything, they saw my posts somewhere and they buy it, then they're getting on my email list. And that was, you know, just an easy way for them to be on my email list. So, I'm gonna try harder when I'm in front of people, which is gonna be a whole new skillset for me to learn, is to actually in person, ask people.

  It's, you know, it's different when you're hiding behind a screen. So, my social anxiety is gonna really be tested a lot whenever I am actually out, in front of people 

  Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that to no end. I really do. We have another farmer that often recommends, especially if you have, I think you have a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old at this point, if they're with you at the market, you know, give them a dollar per email.

  That they collect. Or if somebody [00:27:00] else is in the booth and it's not you and it's, you know, some high schooler or some, somebody who is volunteering to help you, or we have other farmers that, you know, swap people out, food who help them at the markets, et cetera. But you can have that person collect emails and give them a dollar an email that are collected. Right. And a lot of people have forms. Other people use QR codes so that even while they're waiting in line, they'll be signing up for your emails. So, there's some workarounds there, I promise you, in terms of collecting those emails. But, it is great to catch them.

  Erica Benoit: Yeah. The QR codes, maybe I can put those like on my freezers or like, you know, just kind of random spots in there. That's a good idea to be able to do that. Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, it is important, and it sounds to me like you're emailing folks. So, Erica, just to wrap up, I know we've covered a lot today in terms of your subscriptions, how you build fomo, how you have your email list, how you create that fomo, they have a certain timeframe and then you sell out.

  So all very, very exciting. And the cadence that that has with your freezer management [00:28:00] too has been just golden nuggets all the way through in terms of advice. Are there any other pieces of advice that you would give to folks who are thinking about doing a chicken subscription? I mean, you were mentioning 2019, 2020, like you learned so much about raising and selling chickens.

  I don't think you did subscriptions right away. So, if somebody's starting to raise and sell chickens, do you have like two pieces of advice that you would just leave them with? Like, here's what I wish that I knew. 

  Erica Benoit: So, that first year is when I got the idea for the subscriptions because people were asking to buy the same thing once a month. So, that's when I realized that, hey, just doing a subscription that would save me a lot of time in the long run. And then, keeping an eye on how they were buying and asking them more questions about how they were buying, how they were using it. Some people would buy a whole chicken and go home and cut it up themselves and, you know, repackage it based on how they wanted it [00:29:00] packaged. So, just kinda learning how people are wanting to buy your product, how they're cooking it, and just kind of finding that middle ground of what is sustainable for you to provide, and what do they like? 'cause sometimes what they like and what is feasible to the farmer, it may not even mash up. So just, I try to simplify everything I possibly can. Which is why, you know, we're gonna be packaging everything the exact same. Just kind of making everything simple, but what the customer wants. 

  And sometimes you might just have to kinda ease them into the direction that makes it easier for us too, and show them that it makes it easier for them too. So, just kind of trying to find a middle ground of what your customer wants, how they cook, and you know, what's feasible for us.

  Janelle Maiocco: Thank you. That is just rich words of advice. I love that. It's the win-win. We do talk about, you do have to meet buyers where they're at in terms of [00:30:00] how they cook, what some of their expectations are. They want subscriptions. And for you to find that win-win where it's not so outlandish that it doesn't also make sense for you in terms of streamlining and simplifying your business.

  All very, very important. One thing we didn't hit on that I have to ask, is fulfillments, because I know we talk a lot here and talk tons daily to farms about making sure that they understand what sort of convenience customers expect in terms of fulfillments or logistics for them to get the product. 

   And that, if you're in a local community, giving them some options in that community can be a game changer in terms of selling out, because, not everybody can drive out to the farm every single time, but if they know, if it's showing up at a nearby pickup or on their doorstep, that can just be the decision making factor for that consumer to say, yeah, I'm, I'm in.

  That's so easy. And you know, I know they already know they love the product. It's so much better than where what they can get anywhere else. And so, [00:31:00] so often it's that tiny little convenience factor of getting it, that makes all the difference for them when they're making that purchase decision.

  Erica Benoit: Yes. So currently, we've been doing deliveries and then once a month we have two separate, like where we go to a bigger town and they can do like a pickup location there. 

  Janelle Maiocco: It's just lovely to hear that you're giving the options for delivery to the folks that are gonna, that's the only way they're gonna buy, right? 'cause they're may be busy and they can't make it to your farm store. And then others will be totally delighted to come to your farm store and be able to buy even more local, you know, nutrient dense, amazing products.

  So it's just great to, I mean, and truly for scaling up is thinking about the variety of customers and sort of meeting them and their needs, which is really, really exciting. Just tons of great advice. Really have appreciated your time and get a good sense of your farm, from its beginnings till now, which is just incredible to see how far you've come. 

  [00:32:00] And so again, I wanna extend my thanks to Erica for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Erica and the farm on their Instagram @ BenoitFamilyFarmstead. That's at Benoit Family Farmstead. Benoit is spelled B-E-N-O-I-T Family Farmstead. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.

  We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more, customers increase sales and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it for a while and wanna simplify your business management, please visit Barn2Door.com/learn-more.

  Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you the next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent [00:33:00] farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door. com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.

In this week's episode, Janelle meets with Phil of Hopewell Farms to discuss becoming a Farmer, marketing to local Buyers and making healthy food convenient. Phil shares his best practices for reaching Buyers in his community and making a plan for his sales.

For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources

• Expand for the Podcast Transcript

  Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.

  Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all in one business solution for independent farmers, who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and [00:01:00] making sure their customers can purchase from their farm both online and in person.

  In today's conversation, we'll meet one of our newest fans, Phil from Hopewell Farms. When I say fans, what I mean is a farm advisory network. We work very closely with a number of farms, specifically to get their feedback and to engage them more regularly. Today, I'm happy to welcome Phil. Hopewell Farms has worked with us since 2021, has built a successful direct to consumer protein operation in Georgia.

  I'm excited to talk to you today about your farm story, and your success and advice you have for other farms. Welcome. 

  Phil Bonelli: Thank you, Janelle. Well, I'm glad you clarified that because I have been a fan of Barn2Door for quite a long time. It's crazy, it's been since 2021. And I can't even imagine having started selling to consumers without it.

  Truly. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, you know, that's music to our ears. And it's funny when we named it the Farm Advisory Network. Again, we work with about a dozen farmers really closely. We didn't realize until we looked at the acronym that it actually was FAN, which was quite [00:02:00] a fun moment of aha. But we appreciate that. I mean, we're equally fans of farmers we're working with.

  So I guess it works both ways. 

  Phil Bonelli: Thank you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, 2021. That is a minute or two, isn't it? I'm so glad to hear that we've been, obviously a partner, but a help to your farm. And that's just, I mean, that's why we exist, frankly, is to help farmers like you be successful.

  But before we dive in on that, let's learn just for the folks listening, I want to make sure they understand your operation. I mean, everybody sort of has a farm story, right? Like, how did you get started? Why did you start and what does your farm look like today? So maybe we can hop in and just get to know you a bit.

  Phil Bonelli: Sure. Well. I became a farmer by accident and now it's just an all consuming passion, but I was a, commercial banker. I was a finance major at UGA, Go Dawgs, and I was a banker for businesses. And in 2019, my wife and I, we have four kids, and depending on when this airs, we might have five because, May 2nd, [00:03:00] 2025.

  Janelle Maiocco: Congratulations! 

  Phil Bonelli: Thank you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's amazing. 

  Phil Bonelli: It's all that grass fed beef, Janelle. It's just 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, that's so great. I didn't realize. That's great. Congratulations. That's wonderful. 

  Phil Bonelli: Thank you. And we, uh, we wanted to just live on a couple acres. And we found a house on 10 acres that we liked, but it was part of a 43 acre farm, and they were going to sell the other 33 separate.

  And we didn't want to have a subdivision around us. And so I was like, well, if I rent out the basement of this house, I can buy the whole thing. And the guy, he had a cow calf operation and I was just told him, Hey, you can just keep your cows here. Cause I just want to play on this land.

  So, we did that in 2019, but then over the winter, I don't know, my parents had given me a, folks, This Just Ain't Normal by Joel Salatin, which is a great book.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes. Yes. Yep. This Just Ain't Normal. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah, and I was like, well, there's cows out here. I want to start doing grass fed beef. So in the spring of [00:04:00] 2020, I purchased half of his herd.

  So I got 15 mama cows and a bull, and a donkey named Madea and started with daily rotations right away. I knew I wanted to do all grass fed and mob grazing and you know, it was a beautiful lesson and that I knew enough just to keep the cows alive, but you can't really learn till you do. So then I just kept reading and watching YouTube videos and learning.

  And, we had kept kind of the whole thing from, from birth to harvesting. So, you know, it takes a couple of years, you know, 24 to 30 months for us to finish out a grass fed steer. So, in late 2021, we started selling and then we expanded to broilers and egg layers and pork and turkey, not at first as much of a, like a sales and business diversification thing, but just because we were focused on regenerating the soil and the environment and nature is very diverse.

  So we want to be [00:05:00] more diverse in our animals to have more of a full ecosystem to regenerate the land faster. But now it's a crucial part of our business that we provide basically all popular Western animal proteins outside of lamb. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's incredible. And I would suspect to you, if you look back, you're shocked and surprised at how much you've learned.

  Phil Bonelli: Oh my gosh. And it's. You learn so much and then last year we built an on farm USD exempt poultry processing plant. So, you think you learn so much about raising pastured broilers and everything, but then, I mean, that's really not even farming, that's manufacturing. And learning all the regulations of that and lean concepts and all that stuff, so the learning never stops.

  Which I like. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yes, well, I hope you like it because it sounds like it's been a firehose literally for a number of years now, across, to your point, so many proteins and including expanding your business in many ways, dimensionally expanding your business, which [00:06:00] is really exciting. Awesome.

  Okay. And then just so folks know, you're in Georgia, who are you selling to? How does that function work for your farm? 

  Phil Bonelli: Great question. So we're in Northeast Georgia, Gainesville, Georgia, which is actually the birthplace of like industrial, fully integrated poultry production. So it's the poultry capital of the world.

  And so, there's a lot of industrial operations around us. So it's fun to be doing some completely different. 

  Janelle Maiocco: You're literally redefining the poultry capital of the world in a way that it should be. 

  Phil Bonelli: Working on it. Yep. And just a quick side note, I mean our marketing and who we truly are and what we talk about is like so different than putting 20, 000 birds in a warehouse, but it is quite the blessing that we are surrounded by that because like for example, we're building out a much bigger brooder, because we're scaling up the birds.

  Well, there's all sorts of expertise around here on brooders and I can get used grain bins with [00:07:00] silos and I can get used brooder lamps. So, having the industry that I'm so against here is handy from an infrastructure standpoint. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Well, and, I think repurposing in a purposeful manner, just to be cheeky with words.

  Phil Bonelli: I like that. Repurposing in a purposeful manner. We do a lot of that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Oh, that's so good to hear. I'm excited. Good. Well, you've come so far in a few years. Do I dare ask what you want the next five years to look, usually I wait till the end, but I'm too curious because of this trajectory that you're on.

  Phil Bonelli: Well, boy, we have so much we're looking to accomplish this year, it's tough to even think about five years, but I definitely I would say in five years, I would love it if we were five days a week if I had two delivery drivers going full-time, eight hours a day delivering to people's doors.

  And you asked about who our customers are. That's the bulk of it is just direct individuals. We sell to a couple restaurants, 'cause they're my buddies, [00:08:00] but we have weekly subscriptions that we are looking to continually expand and right now it takes us the better part of Wednesday to go do all those deliveries. 

  We just sell to people. And, I'm very thankful that I live in an area where I can do that. We don't go anywhere more than 45 minutes away. Most of it's within 25 minutes. And, we target, we're very specific in our marketing to target specific neighborhoods because we want route density when we go, but that we just sell to people and love feeding families.

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I want to circle back later in this conversation actually about route density because it's so incredible, so many farmers that we work with that have picked up the door to door delivery and in many cases uncovered a it's efficient. B. you actually, in many cases, our farmers are actually making money off delivery because there's a delivery fee per drop.

  Plus, to your point, if there's a density, you create this efficiency and then you're [00:09:00] literally, people are like afraid of it, but you can have somebody else do it and you can literally make money off door to door delivery. And then consumers, sorry, I get excited here. Consumers have no excuse, because they're all like you know, convenience, convenience, convenience driven. And yet, nine in ten consumers prefer local food. And so, if you take convenience off the table, if you will, as there's no more friction, they will choose a farmer's food nine out of ten times. Like, for your future, five days, you know, every day of the week.

  That's exactly what they'll choose. 

  Phil Bonelli: A hundred percent, Janelle, that is what we want to every day be more of is we want to be all natural, the most nutrients dense, delicious, nutritious, local foods with the convenience of Amazon. And that's what people need. Now there's ways to do that.

  So, I exclusively do local. Right now, I was doing two counties, but now it's just like my county. That's my whole focus for this year is the county that I live in, which is pretty densely populated. [00:10:00] Thank God. So if it wasn't, I might have to adjust, but blow out the larger subdivisions, first of all, and have that be my foothold. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yep. 

  Phil Bonelli: Then, with that, as we're driving to these big subdivisions, Well now it's easy to stop off some places directly on the route, but we want to be the convenience of Amazon, With local all natural food and so we have to just sell local so we control the delivery. I'm not shipping and I'm sure some, I'm sure there's Barn2Door customers out there who are having great success shipping meat, but I just don't want to play that game.

  I want to deliver to people's doors. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I would say the majority of farmers who have tried it have veered away from it because then you end up being in the shipping business and that's an expensive business and because of all the packaging and especially if you're trying to ship proteins. I mean, we could digress on this for a long time, but a lot of farmers have just learned that because you add in variables called, you know, UPS and delivery [00:11:00] services, you sort of lose control of that supply chain. And then what happens is many times you know, there's a hurricane or there's a snowstorm somewhere and it doesn't get delivered or it's on a doorstep and it's too hot somewhere.

  And, the meat goes bad and then the waste and they're just out money. Like it's just so costly. And yet, and it's so much work. It's costly. It's so much work and there's too many variables. And so I would say, you know, frankly, 95 percent of the farmers we work with are delivering and serving their local communities all across the country.

  And I can't tell you how excited that makes us because to your point within 25 or 45 minutes. Typically, and some farms go further because they're even more rural, but in that case, they consolidate, they don't go like you're going, Hey, I'm going to go five days a week. For them it makes more sense to be like, I'm going to go, you know, four times a month, or I'm going to go maybe up to eight times a month and just cram all of my deliveries into those services and the towns and the people and the buyers are there. And so concentrated, route density and concentrated marketing, you know, from a [00:12:00] geo or a location, you know, localized marketing essentially, has just become a game changer and you have so much more control.

  Like, you have so much more control over the product, the delivery, the quality, the experience of your buyers, and so, so we get, we're, I think I share clearly the passion that you are sharing, in terms of serving your local communities and frankly, honey is a great example, right?

  If you have honey that's in your community, you're getting all the right nutrients, you know, based on where you live, and, and, and, and, and. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah, I agree. And I, when I think of my avatar, like my ideal customer health and quality of food is number one driver. And then convenience, that might be second local is probably third, but if they can get local, they would prefer local.

  So then, I'm not really competing against the grocery store, but I might be competing against like a national shipping stuff all over the [00:13:00] place, like a butcher box or something. But they would prefer local if they can get it right to their door, so. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And they don't, and the shipping cost alone for somebody to get something delivered when they can actually source it local and not pay a huge shipping fee.

  Is and also know their farmer, right? I mean, to be fair, you know, those companies that are shipping typically are folks that are aggregating across a couple of large farms, not necessarily a local farm that's growing and serving their local community. And I think just the transparency and the transportation and there's people out there who care about that carbon footprint too, right, where it's like, I don't need to involve lots of big trucks and, you know, to get food delivered when Phil's going to give it to me on Tuesday.

  Phil Bonelli: You bring up a great point. That's another benefit of focusing on local is that I can do in person marketing. I mean, I like people. So, like I go speak at the Rotary Club. I opened my farm, I used to do a farm [00:14:00] tour every single Saturday. Now I do it the last Saturday of the month and make it a bigger deal. 

  But we do a lot to bring people to the farm. I bring the farm out. So, that is the most powerful marketing I could do as far as like a conversion rate. And I can't do that if I'm selling across the country. So, that's helpful. I will say also on the marketing. So, you know, I do Social media which kind of draws people in and I'm getting their email addresses and sending weekly emails I do face to face but one thing that I don't know if it's as popular but it's been very helpful to me is, there was a lady that was shopping at the farm store and she's all into organic meat and everything and I started chatting with her. And, her name is Joy, and it just so happens she owns this company postcard mania and they do mailers and that sounds kind of old school, and they do a lot of other stuff too, but if you want a geographically specific, mailers are the best, I can say this exact neighborhood of a thousand [00:15:00] homes. I'm sending my mailers there. And it's been very productive. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, and I know we already went straight to talking about density in terms of your door to door delivery, which I love. 

  That is just a juicy piece of information for any farmers listening. If you are trying to drive local awareness, focusing on specific neighborhoods or households, or a delivery zip code, what Phil just said here is gold, right? Which is to market to them. One way to do that is through mailers to a specific zip code.

   I'm hoping that wasn't too expensive to contract with somebody locally to do that. 

  Phil Bonelli: Not at all. And I'm wearing a bracelet on my wrist, run it by the numbers, which I try to live by on the farm. And, yeah, I just looked at what the return was and at the time, I was just doing one subscription, which was $50 a week.

  So, that's $200 a month, $2, 400 a year. And then you can look at what my gross margin is on that. But it didn't take [00:16:00] a whole lot of new customers to make that pay for itself. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome, I actually would love a couple of bullet points around now that we're talking a little bit about driving density for your door to door delivery and doing that from a marketing lens. 

  But before I say that, I have to say 1 thing about your farm tours. We work with a number of farms, obviously, the majority of who are delivering either door to door or with local pickups, you know, going into communities to provide that convenience for people to pick up, or have that delivery service.

  And that's just been a game changer, and then they will do in many cases, you know, farm tours or show up at things, but, frankly, we have farmers that don't prefer the social side, right? And they too are having great success. Like, I just want to make sure people know that it is great if you love it, but you can also have great success if that's not your thing, having a booming local business, even by just using and highly leveraging, especially email marketing, or having local partners that sort of champion your farm for you. Right. And so, [00:17:00] there's a lot of that that can go on too. And frankly, even to your point, those mailers, great example, like you're not talking to each of those folks individually, but you're putting some of those activities in place to ensure that you have a booming local business. 

  On the scale of I'm introverted all the way to extroverted, you know, this can be done, 100 percent and leaning into whoever you are as a farmer and a business owner, and what that means is also great because you will be energized by those activities, if you're choosing the right ones for yourself and your farm, yeah.

   So, I want to dig into so many things, but one of them is, you talked a lot about making sure that you have concentrated marketing and areas, for the purpose of that route density from a door to door delivery, you know, you said the flyers focused, you know, sending out mailer flyers, literally, which I love because it's sort of counterintuitive to the digital world and people actually pay attention to what comes in the mail now, because guess what?

  They don't get a lot of mail, so they get your mail and they, they're loving that. What [00:18:00] would two other suggestions be Phil, before we move on to other beefy topics that you would say, Hey, if you're trying to increase local marketing door to door delivery density, what are two or three other, top tips you would give?

  I mean, I'm wondering, do you give promos? Do you have local businesses that support you? What is it that you feel is really working? You did mention email too. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah, I definitely, the emails 100 percent working and, I get so many compliments on my emails and I do not write them. I have a great friend, that is what he does. His name is Alan Drago. I'm gonna give Alan a shout out. He's awesome at it. That's what he does. And he was a customer of the farm and I give him, through Barn2Door, I have him set up with an account and I basically give him a credit every week. for, he does an email every week, he gets a credit.

  So, he just shops through my store and he's on my delivery route and we just barter it and...

  Janelle Maiocco: Love it. 

  Phil Bonelli: You know, we get together, I just tell him [00:19:00] stories. Cause the emails are not salesy. They are stories, education. And it's like, Hey, if you want to support us, boom. Click this link.

  Janelle Maiocco: I actually, I'm really, really glad you said that because, we do a lot for farmers at Barn2Door with regard to marketing help, many farmers like you can schedule, automated order reminders, you can capture emails automatically, both through people who are shopping or who visit your website.

  We send, the order reminders. We also, a lot of farmers subscribe to our monthly marketing toolkit, which is like 50 graphic media designs that they can post on social media. We give them sample content. We develop four to six seasonal marketing templates that they can use in MailChimp, and give them sample content for that.

  So like we do a lot of that, but we always are like, we can do all this. But at the end of the day, the stories and your brand are you, we can't superimpose that on all of the marketing materials, we can get you like 80, 90 [00:20:00] percent of the way there, but at the end of the day, you have to insert yourself, your brand, your farm.

  Like, I don't know that there was a calf just born or that you're getting a new breed of chicken or that you're starting to sell turkey or a funny anecdote about, you know, chickens crack me up all day long. So, you know, there's always stories, right, that you can share from your farm. And I think that is the brand, like your brand has to actually come through on top of that marketing exercise.

  Phil Bonelli: A hundred percent in, in tying that in with something you said earlier about being the authentic you. I am an excited, peppy individual. I'm definitely, there's probably a lot of happy farmers that work with Barn2Door because they're doing real good food product, but I'll tell you. I'm the happiest farmer in North Georgia and that's me and that shows through on all my Instagrams and everything.

  But if you're not, you don't have to be me, be you on your thing. Just share who you are. People will love you that you are doing [00:21:00] real food, be you, and don't feel like you have to know it all. I barter food for this guy to write emails. I am in, and I tell him the stories, and that's it. I record reels of myself for, it's funny you talk about the calf being born, or it's time for turkeys.

  That's all on my Instagram, and I like that, but I don't like sitting there and making Instagram posts. So, I just record the reels, and then my friend helps me do that. You don't have to be extroverted like me, and you don't have to be out in front of a million people, but you have to partner with people.

  And maybe that's your spouse or your child, but you can't grow your farm if you're not going to partner with people and love doing it.  

  Janelle Maiocco: I think 10 out of 10 farmers that are successful that I speak with, you know, especially through a podcast or everything else, or our fans that are also hosting Connect, our office hour program for other farmers, farmer to farmer, and also some of our farmers teach Academy classes through Barn2Door. 

  And I feel [00:22:00] like they all come like email marketing, email marketing. And some of them will say we started once a month. But once a week is gold, like once a month wasn't enough. So, it's just interesting to hear that reverberating theme through every conversation. And they don't have to be long.

  I think it's untrue that they have to be big, long newsletters every time, frankly people don't, they get thumb cramps that they have to scroll too much. Right. So, like just a little love in a short email of like, Hey, I'm here or don't forget to order this week, has been a game changer for farms that we've seen literally double their business year over year over year. It's just incredible to watch. 

  Phil Bonelli: 100 percent, nobody's reading a long email. And so, it's gotta be short and sweet. And you gotta do it and it's just, people love hearing your stories and they love hearing about food and connecting with it, your customer does, and just be you in the email. Every week, let's say I add 10 people on my email list. [00:23:00] And two people drop off my email list good because those two people aren't my customers, so I got to be me in my emails and my customer will like it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I'm so glad I was literally going to ask that next, which was, look, you've said for buyer density, you sent out flyers and then regular email marketing, but you must collect those emails.

  And that's something we could sort of beat our chest when we're talking to farmers and our farmers are talking to other farmers, which is collect emails, collect emails, collect emails, and it doesn't have to be like, you're going to go knock on every door. There are some really easy ways to collect emails, but you do need to collect emails because that is your, that's your customer list.

  Phil Bonelli: Yes, you've got to do it. So, we do go to three farmers markets, which we, of course, want to sell and make a profit off of. But, if I just broke even at the farmer's markets and collected 20 emails each time, that's a win.

  Janelle Maiocco: Love it. 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Love it. Love it. 

  Phil Bonelli: The longterm, my plans for my farm, [00:24:00] I'm going to sell through multiple things, but like it's going to be direct to door subscription, or that's what I want to do. That is what is the best for my business. And email is the tool for that. So, all my social media marketing is for building up awareness of who we are and connecting us to customers and wanting to get emails.

  And then, we go to farmer's markets or whatever, and really, it's so funny. You always beat yourself up about the things you didn't do well, or the missed opportunities. And I think of how many folks I've spoken in front of, and I didn't have a sheet to say, sign up with your email, you know, but the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today, just start collecting email and make it, make it your thing.

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yep. Yes, I could not agree with you more. I know that our success team, who talked to farms all day, every day, literally to help them win, are always telling folks, if you're at a farmer market, always [00:25:00] have out a sheet, farmers that use our POS, we built it so that it will automatically capture that customer's email at checkout, which is just a game changer. 

  And so, those sorts of things, it's like helping farmers be successful, but collecting emails and doing it in places where you already are showing up is just great, right? Because it's not meant to create a lot of extra work so definitely ways that we help folks. My team will beat me up if I don't ask you, A, why you decided to work with Barn2Door, and then I want to know your favorite feature. 

  Phil Bonelli: Okay. I decide to work with ,Barn2Door, let's see, it was so long ago. And now I have so much context since I have worked with Barn2Door. I knew I wanted to sell to individuals and I was like, I want to have a website. So, I think I just started digging around and Barn2Door looked like the best one. I loved, and it's hard to tell if I knew this much going in, but I would say the thing I love the most now is like all the resources.

  So. [00:26:00] You know, obviously the platform is great. I love using it. There's a lot of great features, but I love that. I mean, there's so many unknowns. So many of this is scary. Before, I had never sold a dozen eggs, let alone for three times as much as a grocery store. And there's so many, you got to be a marketer.

  You got to do accounting and you know what? I just want a plan so I can follow the plan. And when I get on the phone with like Ryan, you know, there's the videos that are very empowering. But man, I get to talk to people who are working with other farms I want to emulate, and I get to listen to those farmers and talk to them.

  So I just love that resource, man. I'm not out on an Island trying to figure out, cause when you don't have a clear plan, you procrastinate and you just go do what you know to do. And guess what? You're not growing your business. Yeah. It's scary. Change is scary. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I think it's a consistent bit of feedback we get.

  And I think [00:27:00] that because we are a business solution built for independent farmers, right? What that means is, when farmers are using our platform, we just learn information. Just like you learn, we learn information on, we're watching across thousands of farms for years. And we're like, Oh, the most successful farms are doing X, Y, Z. 

  And oh, if they do this and this and this, you know, they sell twice as much. We have the data, we have the information and we push that back into our resources, whether it's podcasts or ebooks, academy classes, office hours, best practices when we're onboarding farmers, to get their store set up in a way that, you know, is most convenient and easy for their buyers. So, there's a lot, you know, and if you hit chat, you're talking to people who, know about farming and they know about how to help farmers be successful. And so, we're domain experts, if you will, or from a thought leadership and not just from an information perspective, but also from a platform perspective, right?

  I think a lot of folks might come and be like, Oh, I need a website, [00:28:00] but, you know, what did they used to say? Any Tom, Dick or Harry could build a website, but the important part is a website's a brand that we say it's a billboard to nowhere if people can see it, but not shop and so, it's like marketing is there for the purpose of sales and, so you need to have your sales channel open up where buyers want to buy. So, we make sure people get hooked up on social. They have, you know, their store is like it's proprietary. That's what we've built so that farmers can sell, you know, quarter, half, a whole cows or half or whole hogs or subscription to four chickens every month. 

  And so, we've built subscriptions from the ground up for farmers. Whether that's ongoing, whether it's seasonal subscriptions, whether they want people to pay up front or pay as they go. So, when we're building things like subscriptions, we're like, but what do farmers need when we build subscriptions, right? 

   Versus any generic solution out there that's not purpose built for farmers. And so, we get excited about not just the platform, but the fact that [00:29:00] we help farmers like we're business owners too at Barn2Door, right? So farmers, just like us as a business, well, you have to have your finances squared away. 

   You have to think about marketing. You have to think about your brand. You have to think about sales. How do you make sure that sales occur? You have to manage inventory, right? And we have the leading solution in inventory management for farmers, just by virtue of how it works, you know, whether you're selling cows and you have to map to your butcher dates or whether, you're selling online or in person.

  You know, you can sell chicken in person at the same time somebody buys it online and that inventory is seamless. There's so much that goes into not just the business management, but the business expertise. And it's, you know, it's fun that people come in for, hey, maybe I need a website.

  But what they're getting is a team, you know, expertise, the platform and everything to be successful. And, clearly you can tell I'm over the moon passionate about this. 

  Phil Bonelli: It's funny you said that because when I went to Barn2Door, that's what I was like, Hey, I need a website and I knew I was at the right place when the team was like, Okay, well, we build your [00:30:00] store.

  The first step is building the store and then the site. I'm like, wow, this is what I'm talking about. Cause yeah, that's why you have it to sell. You got to get after it on the sales because I am in it, I'm never going to become a millionaire. I don't think, nor do I really care just from farming, but I can make a good, healthy living and do something I am passionate about.

  I'm so full of purpose. And if I don't sell product, then I can't do that. And I sell product for an appropriate margin. We got to get after it. 

  Janelle Maiocco: I think we've mentioned before, like your goal, and we love this because we have a lot of Farms that have never sold subscriptions before, and then they come to Barn2Door and we're like, Hey, look, this can really be nice. 

  You know, you get consistent sales. You can count on those sales week over week, month over month when somebody just bought it once at the beginning. And so, subscriptions can be just a beautiful thing so that you know going into every single week or month you already have x percent of items sold. And for many farms that [00:31:00] consistent revenue has been gold, in terms of saving them time even from a marketing side, having a really streamlined fulfillment and logistics around that and it's just been a game changer and we find that many farms who start offering subscriptions end up with the ability to sort of think bigger about their business and think about scale and think about that consistency that helps frankly build any business, right? But you have some goals. I mean, you, I think you caught onto that pretty early on and you're pushing for a pretty high percent of your product to be subscriptions.

  Do you want to talk a little bit about that? 

  Phil Bonelli: Yeah. Well, it is key for sure. And I definitely want to scale because the more that I grow my farm, the more that I can protect land from being developed and feed people real food and have a good time. The things that are good about subscription for me, definitely consistent sales because people come in and they would just get random stuff and you know, I sell predominantly frozen meat.

  So, what [00:32:00] I did was I want to sell more frozen meat at a good cadence and people want eggs and eggs. You have to tie in if you can, and it's good to tie in your subscriptions, more perishable weekly staples. So, eggs are that for us. Our eggs are like, and we started doing this before egg prices got crazy with the bird flu stuff, but every weekly subscription box comes with a dozen eggs and then some frozen meat items.

  So, we have that to keep them getting it on the weekly cadence, which of course you could do a monthly if you didn't have a weekly, you know, if I were to sell raw milk, that would also be a great thing to have in the weekly. And certainly veggies. But, it's key for cashflow. Also, it's key for my inventory management, which you mentioned because, I have a poultry processing plant. I do pastured poultry. Everybody wants boneless, skinless breasts. Thighs are my favorite. Drumsticks are also delicious. But, if I just had [00:33:00] people a la carte order what they wanted, I'd be sitting on a bunch of drumsticks. I do a weekly box. And I say, Hey, you're going to get some of, let's say these 12 items.

  You're going to get a couple of them every week, but it's farmer's choice. So, if I'm getting high on drumsticks, boom, drumsticks are going in. If I'm sold out of hot sausage, but I have chorizo, which by the way, chorizo sells like crazy. So this wouldn't be the case, but chorizo is going in that week. So, I can manage my inventory, so I can sell the whole animal. 

  Janelle Maiocco: That is just gold. I need to like pull out that whole section and then put it on the billboard, but I agree. We have so many conversations with farmers about farmers choice boxes and how that is literally actually a win, win, win a lot of farmers think, Oh, I have to give buyers choice down to the cut.

  But to your point, you end up with only drumsticks and you also end up with, forgive me for saying this, picky customers, like line yourself up with people that are like easy to please throw it in the box. They don't want to think about it. [00:34:00] They don't want to choose all the individual cuts.

  They trust you. They know that it's you know, it takes them no time to shop. Right. And buyers love that too. 

  Phil Bonelli: One thing I'm lacking at that's in the growth plan this year is that, you know, I want people to be eating healthy, nutritious food. And I was actually blown away at how many people like they had never cooked a whole chicken or they're like, Oh, what do I do with the, like this ham steak?

  And so, empowering them by sending recipe cards or including some recipes or a quick video of you preparing it. You want to prioritize cuts that are easy to cook, but empower them. This is how we love to do a chuck roast so that they feel comfortable using all that. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And it's healthy to mix it up.

  I'll take the chicken feet all day long, by the way, for my broth. Start making my own stock. I love it. It's my favorite. 

  Phil Bonelli: We just did our first big batch of, I think we made 45 gallons of broth the other day at which then we threw in the, [00:35:00] in the box, I'll say one quick thing too, on inventory management is, you know, the box went, since it's farmer's choice, it allows me to distribute across how I want to, but I would really encourage farmers also to make sure they're getting the cuts that people want.

  For example, I mentioned ham steaks and ham. Ham does it for me. It has never sold the way that sausage does. And I actually get more per pound for sausage. So I just stopped getting most of my pigs cut up with ham and I turned it into sausage. You don't have to get every cut. You don't have to do everything.

  If for whatever reason, your customers don't like drumsticks, figure out how to get a grinder and make chicken sausage and sell that for a premium. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I love that. I'm getting so tempted to invite you to start teaching Academy classes on pricing and packaging. So we'll talk about that later. But I mean, I think you're right It's actually very similar to how you think about if you're gardening like just grow what you want to eat, [00:36:00] you know, versus all the cool things you could grow, and then you don't eat them, to your point, I think you have to pay attention as a farmer to what people buy, and people do love, while farmer's choice is great for farmers, actually, buyers love it too, again, they don't like decision fatigue. They want shopping to be quick and easy. They know it's good for them. They love learning new things. It's very empowering. It's just a streamlined experience across the board for the farmer, for the buyer, for everybody. So we're really big fans, but yeah, like pay attention to the various cuts and things that are selling.

  We're putting out a lot of content on that recently, so we'll have to dig into that one another time for sure. Okay, we've covered so much and I feel like we could double click and talk about so many things so much deeper, but I want to be respectful of your time and the listeners time and we can maybe give them a teaser for future conversations as for sure. In terms of tips that you might give to people like what do you wish you knew or is there anything that you wish you knew or would tell yourself from when you've just first started farming?

  Like what do you wish that you had known [00:37:00] going into it?

  Phil Bonelli: I wish I'd known the importance of making a plan and a budget. Because again, there's so many unknowns with a direct to consumer business. You're not just in production. You know, I went to this workshop regenerating land through lifestyle. I was with all these farmers and we're all getting jazzed up about Being organic in daily mob graze and moving your chickens every day.

  But I looked around this room and I was like, we're all pumped about production, but if we can't sell a $25 or $30 chicken, or, you know, whatever, then we're gonna be out of business. So, you gotta be marketing, accounting, sales, everything. So, have a plan and use resources. You don't have to do everything.

  But you need to have a plan and know what you want to accomplish so that you could find the resources to help you. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I'm not meaning to just take advantage of putting a plug in here, but literally that's exactly what Barn2Door does, right? We help farmers. 

  You're so spot on that farmers love production and I do too. Geez, I love, I mean, I, [00:38:00] greenhouses and I've always had chickens and everything else and, and grew up on farms. But ultimately, it's a business. You are an independent farm business and we love helping independent farmers because again, they're cutting out the middleman and maximizing those profits, but we help with finance, inventory management, orders, customer growth, and running your online store and in person sales, right?

   We are the framework for that plan, right? And help, to your point, with our resources, try to help people get through, but you do have to be aware that it's more than just production, for better or for worse. I mean, any business owner probably doesn't love doing all parts of the business.

  Like they're probably not like, wow, I have to deal with finances again, you know, but at the end of the day, you're a business owner, right? And so you do have to give a nod to the various quote unquote departments of your business, and have them work in concert for a successful business. Even beyond the fun parts, right? 

  Which I totally appreciate. 

  Phil Bonelli: And I would say that you should be bold in your pricing. It used to be so tough for me to communicate pricing, which of [00:39:00] course, if you have a website, you don't have to communicate it, people look at it, but, I am more expensive than the store, although the store is certainly catching up with me on a lot of, a lot of things.

  And, I am so comfortable with what I cost. I cost what real food should cost. And the stuff that's cheap is cheap for a reason. So, I'm not expensive. They're cheap and I don't... 

  Janelle Maiocco: I love that. 

  Phil Bonelli: You got to be so comfortable with rejection. Look of my area, if I sell to 1 percent of the population, I mean, I'm crushing it.

  So, I don't need everyone to be my customer. And a bunch of people can tell me they think that $8 a dozen for eggs is too expensive or whatever. I don't care. They're not my customer and I love them. God bless them, but I'm not worried about keeping them happy. 

  Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, which I feel like that piece is something we need to double click on, even in another podcast, what that means, because if you're not being afraid of your customers, and knowing that there's always going to be a [00:40:00] little bit of attrition and that you're looking for your right customers, and it's very empowering, we love that, let's empower independent farmers all across the country to be wildly successful, like yourself, which is so great. 

   Phil, because he so graciously, said yes to working closer with Barn2Door, and as part of one of our fans, or one of our farm advisors, he now actually starts hosting Connect sessions. And if I can get 'em to probably some academy classes as well.

   But connect is office hours hosted by farmers for farmers. And what that means is if you join Barn2Door or if you're at Barn2Door, and a farmer using Barn2Door, you can go to an office hour where Phil is the host and can just ask him and pile on the questions, 'cause clearly such a rich resource. 

  Many of the farmers who join us go to so many of the Connect sessions, but just go, you know. By farmers for farmers office hours has been such a winning program for the farmers, that we work with. And I'm so excited for you to host those classes go forward.

  That'll be great. [00:41:00] 

  Phil Bonelli: Well, thank you. I'm flattered to be a part of this. I love being a part of Barn2Door and I so appreciate, when in speaking with you, like I could just see the greater mission and purpose that you are driven by empowering farmers that do real whole, foods. And I thank you for that.

  Janelle Maiocco: Amen. I appreciate that. Good. Well, I'm going to quick wrap up, but listen for this podcast, more podcasts with Phil and great farmers like him, join office hours to talk to him more. And hopefully in the future we'll have him teaching some of our Academy classes as well. I want to extend my thanks to Phil for joining us on this week's podcast episode.

  You can check out more of Phil and the farm on their Instagram @HopewellFarmsGA. So, Hopewell Farms GA. Check it out. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services, tools, data, support, you name it, to farmers to access more customers, increase sales, scale their business, save tons of time, especially save tons of time. 

   If you're an independent [00:42:00] farmer who is just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and want to simplify your business management, please visit Barn2Door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you the next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast. 

  Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.

  For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door. com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [00:43:00] time.