Building Recurring Cash Flow For Your Farm
Janelle Maiocco sits down with Tom from Bennett Farms to discuss best practices for securing predictable, year-round cash flow through online subscriptions and home delivery.
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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 consumers 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.
Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to "The Independent Farmer Podcast." I'm Janelle Maiocco, CEO of Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. As you may be aware, Barn2Door is all about helping Independent Farmers make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro. By getting a system in place to sell direct, market under your own brand, and manage orders, [00:01:00] Farmers can skip the middleman and build a strong local business with recurring sales.
And we even recently debuted helping Farmers with local delivery. In today's conversation, we're gonna discuss best practices for securing recurring cash flow, year-round cash flow from your Farm.
Today, I'm happy to welcome Tom from Bennett Farms, who is part of our Farm Advisory Network, which means he's been helping advise Barn2Door for a few years. He actually hosts office hours with other Farmers. It's been great to work with Tom over the years, and also just see his Farm explode and his business explode.
He is a wealth of wisdom. Tom, thank you for joining us today.
Tom Bennett: Hey, good to speak with you again, Janelle. Thanks for having me.
Janelle Maiocco: Before we dive into today's topic, can you share a little bit about your Farm, what you're Farming, where are you Farming, and then potentially the size of your Farm?
Tom Bennett: Yeah. So it started in 2000, um, I would say '16 would be when I first started, um, going a little bit past just hobby Farming and providing meats for our own [00:02:00] family.
Um, started doing some Farmers markets as a, a side thing. and in 2018, I was able to quit my off-Farm job. That was the same year I started using the Barn2Door software, and I do it now full-time. We produce meats, uh, pasture-raised pork, chicken, turkey, beef, sometimes duck. Our primary outlets are Farmers markets.
We do 33 Farmers markets a week across Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. Chicago being one of our main, you know, centers of business. We have a lot of home delivery and online subscriptions. We've really... utilize our Farmers markets to build those out, um, so that way we get reoccurring revenue throughout the entire season, because even with all those Farmers markets we do, if I didn't have a way to get product to the customers consistently throughout the off-season, we wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to be a full-time Farm.
Janelle Maiocco: Did you start out being year-round? 'Cause Farmers markets are often seasonal.
Tom Bennett: No. Yeah, up until we had our online store, we weren't year-round. I mean, we were producing [00:03:00] animals year-round to some extent, but in the winter it was definitely Farming, you know, was only 10% or 5% of my life 'cause there wasn't...
There was still some Farmers markets in the winter, but not a lot. Like in the winter currently, we go from 33 in the summer, a week to maybe 10 in the winter, and the winter ones are, like, not the best Farmers markets. You know, in the winter you don't get the same crowd, even at that market's winter version.
Could be the same location, just the winter version of it somewhere indoors. You have a significant revenue drop-off, just because there's not a lot of produce there that time of year, um, things like that, so.
Janelle Maiocco: When was it, like when did the light bulb go off and you're like, "I need year-round sales"?
Like, was it more like, "I want year-round sales because I want my business to be more consistent"? Or was it more Hey, these people keep eating year-round, and I'm only half of that"? Like, at what point did you, did the lights go off, and you're like, [00:04:00] "I need to make some changes"?
Tom Bennett: Yeah. So it kind of was, I knew from even before I knew that Barn2Door existed, I knew I wanted to have an online store with home delivery.
Like that was, I had that in my mind since 2016. Um, I didn't know that there was already people out there doing that, uh, with software in place because I thought I was gonna have to build my own website, you know, and order a web designer to do all this stuff. And so when I found you guys, that was great 'cause it was just plug and play.
So I knew from the start that I wanted to make access to our food super convenient for customers because as a previous customer of, you know, things like this, I just knew that convenience was pretty much one of the biggest factors as to why people don't buy from people like me year-round. So I wanted to remove all barriers to why they would, you know, could say no to buying from us.
So, I wanted to do home delivery. When I started using the software, there was the option for subscriptions, and I think I was one of the [00:05:00] first people to utilize it and, um, it's just grown and grown and grown ever since. So we started out with meat box subscriptions that took off really well.
You know, what we thought was really well back then is now like a slow week for us now 'cause so our subscriptions, our monthly subscriptions, we got to a point where we had so many that every quarter or so we would switch the fulfillment to a different week to spread them across the month. You know, does that make sense?
Like, you know, they used to all go on the first week of the month. Well, that whole week got so busy we couldn't physically deliver all the subscriptions in that one week. So the following quarter we would switch it to now the fulfillment is fulfilled on the second week of the month, so all new customers coming in for that subscription will go on the second week.
And each week, day of the week we go to a different region. Like Monday is, is suburban Chicago, the suburbs. Tuesdays, Southwest Michigan. Wednesdays, Metro Chicago. [00:06:00] So we go through the days of the weeks for our five regions and it-- but we just started spreading. That's probably a little too deep in the weeds for some people who are, who aren't already utilizing the software to know what I'm talking about.
But, I guess I say that to where the subscriptions grew enough that we couldn't handle it all in the time given in that one given week per month. So, um, now we do monthly subscriptions every week. And during the winter, that's a huge, huge, uh, lifeboat for us, so.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. That is very interesting. I don't know that it's getting too into the weeds. I think what happens is, first of all, I wanna say hooray for you that when you started in 2016, you very quickly recognized, A, your food and quality was far above and beyond anything else people can buy in the conventional capacity or at a store.
And so that convenience became what you needed to do, and you looked around and saw, you know, online, online purchasing and home delivery was the key to, [00:07:00] to, um, bring that to your customers and give them no excuses to buy from you. and it's really neat to hear you say that because that's a lot of the conversations we have with Farmers today every day, um, when both my sales or success team or support teams, anyone are on the phones with Farmers, is talking about Buyer convenience and how we make it easier for their Buyers to buy from them, which absolutely will increase frequency of order, size of order value, loyalty of the customer.
It's very good to keep in mind. And as a business then to make it, I think, as easy as possible for you, the Farmer. And one of the things that I love about this is it worked. So when you were having all your subscriptions line up in the first week of each month, it got too busy, and you do what you do when you're scaling as a Farm, is you then look at that and adjust.
Um, so it sounds like do you sell, year-round subscriptions, Tom, or is it seasonal? 'Cause it sounds like you said you changed up like you started [00:08:00] making week two of every month, subscriptions, and then you started offering week three of every month, the third week, and you started to basically build your customer base, sort of per week over time.
Does that sound accurate?
Tom Bennett: Yeah. So it is year-round. None of our subscriptions have an end date, so if a customer wants to cancel or skip, they can do that at any time, but it'll run forever until they do that. So it doesn't shut off. A- and because we're selling frozen meats for the, you know, and eggs and dairy, uh, we, we do have a supply year-round.
So, you know, some other Farms may have some limitations with vegetables and stuff like that, but we don't, so we can do it year-round. We produce enough pasture-raised chicken in the summer to stockpile in cold storage, enough chicken to hopefully carry us through the winter. We're pretty good about that.
And if we do see in, like, the last month of the late spring before our first chicken's coming in from the next season, we'll go ahead and pre-fill hundreds of chicken subscription boxes ahead of time with the remaining chicken we have, so [00:09:00] that way we have that for those customers. Yeah.
Well, I was doing a connect call, a couple weeks ago, and, and a person had asked me, "You know, I have subscriptions. They're working well, but the problem is that I don't have... I only have enough product to fill the subscriptions, and I'm missing out on being able to sell this stuff retail. Like, should I get rid of my subscriptions?"
I'm like, "Absolutely not." The subscriptions are, like, the cash cow golden g- that's like, you wanna protect those customers at all cost. Once you get a subscriber, like, keep them happy, keep them there. We've had some of them there for, you know, it's been s- almost eight years now, that have been subscribers ever since we first started offering subscriptions.
So, I would say protect your subscriptions, even if it means that you're not gonna have as much for retail, because those subscribers will go, you know, year-round, and they're long-term valuable customers. And that's a good problem to have, because now that are gonna be with you year-round, and it's not just a one-time purchase.
So I would take care of them first. You're really gonna appreciate those people in January, you know, when, uh, you're trying to... looking at [00:10:00] payroll and there was no markets 'cause it's a holiday week and there's no markets, you know, from December 20th through January 14th. And so you're relying 100% on your online sales to cash flow your Farm during those two weeks.
And Farms like us, we have a full-time staff now of six, W2 employees that are full-time on the Farm. And then we have about 16 part-time people that work markets and, but they're just seasonal, so they just come and go as we need them. We are now to a point where we have to carry payroll year-round.
And we're able to keep all of these people busy year-round because of our online store. So we started out with the meat subscriptions. Once we got that established, it was real easy to add on other subscriptions for products that we sell because we're already going to these regions and these neighborhoods every week and every month anyways.
So now the initial miles kind of already paid for with those first customers. Essentially, like we've gotta go there anyways. The cost is kind of fixed to get to that neighborhood. [00:11:00] Um, so we started offering even more unique and like small dollar subscriptions. Subscriptions that out of the gate probably would not make sense for you to do because they're so low revenue.
But at that point, what we were trying to do is fill every van that's going out. And so we started offering, uh, egg subscriptions. So it's two dozen eggs delivered once a month to your doorstep. So we have 300 dozen eggs a week going out sometimes for these egg subscriptions. That helps keep us too. With chickens, we'll produce 1,500 dozen eggs a week in the summer for layers.
And they don't stop when the markets stop. They'll keep producing eggs. So we wanted to be able to consistently be able to move these eggs outside of market season. And a lot of people will sign up for three or four egg subscriptions. They'll tell their neighbor. And it does make it worth it for us, and it helps fill our van because like I said, we're already in their neighborhood anyways.
So it's just a, another 30-second stop, four houses [00:12:00] over.
Janelle Maiocco: Awesome. First of all, I wanna say that is incredible to say that some of your customers have had subscriptions nonstop for up to eight years. And I love your emphasis on keeping and treating those subscription customers as your, like, number one, right?
They are your recurring revenue. They are the persistent income. It's already sold. You don't have to go try to get somebody to buy. It's already sold. It's done. They're gonna keep buying it, sounds like weekly or biweekly, depending on the product that you sell, from dairy all the way to all the meats, which is just incredible.
I love that. So I have a couple questions. First of all, what percentage of your overall sales are subscriptions? Number two, is it all door-to-door delivery, or do you use Farmer markets as a pickup location for subscriptions, or is that just where you're getting your subscribers?
Tom Bennett: I would say of our overall weekly or monthly revenue [00:13:00] subscriptions, they used to be like a huge percentage when we first started because we didn't have as many a la carte customers.
Now our subscriptions have increased exponentially, but so has the rest of our online sales, right? For just one-time purchasers. So I would say our subscribers are about 30% of our... maybe a little more, maybe around 30% of our online, you know, sales revenue each week or each month. It's about the same, 30%.
As far as the fulfillments, yes, we just do, you know, from our Farm to their doorstep delivery. We will not make Farmers' markets pickup points for subscriptions because it gets too complicated with software. Like they may have been a home... Because the markets end, right?
Like they don't go year-round. Our subscriptions do, and that would create a problem when that market ends in October, that now how am I gonna get them their subscription next month? Because it's not an easy switch, so we just tell them no. And we have some people that are like, "Well, the Farmers market's in season now. I just wanna get my eggs at the market. Can you [00:14:00] send them there?" And I s- I have to tell them... I explain to them why, um, but I'm like, "No, we can't do that." Like we have 700 subscriptions a month sometimes going or, or, you know, it's getting close to that.
Janelle Maiocco: So if there's a Farmer out there who's thinking about year-round revenue, it sounds like subscriptions, which you power with your online, 'cause people can do online ordering and you manage obviously the subscription and deliveries through your online, you know, tools and store and everything else.
But it sounds like subscriptions you would say is probably the key to year-round sales. Am I correct in saying that?
Tom Bennett: Yeah. I would say so. We do have quite a few customers that do just order a la carte weekly. Like they're, they're-- I know their names. I see them every week, um, ordering or every couple weeks.
They're pretty regular. But most of them also have subscriptions of some kind. We did a couple of things with our subscribers to make them stickier. One of those things was we [00:15:00] advertised a no price increase guarantee as long as you're subscribed. And hopefully 30 years from now, that'll be a, a money loser, right?
'Cause that means I've had subscribers for 30 years, and they're getting eggs for cheaper than it costs me to produce them. But that's one way that we get subscribers to not just cancel, you know, willy-nilly whenever they feel like it. That they can, but if they cancel and then restart again in six months, there's probably gonna be a price increase on that subscription because some of them, they're, you know, they're locked in from 2018.
We've raised the prices on our subscriptions like three times since then, but not on theirs. So they're kind of grandfathered in at that price that they, that they subscribe at. So that also helps us keep them subscribed. also, so we have a lady that she has a butter and a milk subscription, and every week she goes on and she'll order, you know, a box of a la carte items like meats or additional flavored milks or just random stuff, you know, [00:16:00] 70, $80, $100 worth of stuff to add on to her butter and milk subscription.
So it does help bring people back to your store each week also, 'cause they know their subscription's coming soon, so they'll add that pack of bacon to go on the same delivery date and, uh, we just put those invoices together.
Janelle Maiocco: I love doing that. I have a number of subscriptions from Farmers, and I always, um, try to remember, or even better, if they send order reminders, I can be reminded to click the button and add on some items because I'm already getting a delivery, right? So I habitually am always checking, which, um, we talk about our Farmers very frequently who are interested in subscriptions, in sort of that add-on opportunity for people to make their cart size bigger or their order bigger than a subscription because you're already delivering.
So it's a real boon for Farmers who have subscriptions in place. You can think of it as a bit of a baseline, and then hopefully with some additional marketing or automated order reminders, et cetera, you [00:17:00] can get people to increase the size of that already, you know, the order they've essentially already placed, which is pretty exciting.
How do you think about Tom, because I know you've had a lot of success growing, in a pretty short timeframe, frankly, over a couple of years, to quite a significant operation. How did you convert people from "I don't know you" to "You're now a subscriber that I..."
That, you know, you get weekly, biweekly, or monthly deliveries from Bennett Farms?
Tom Bennett: I would say it's almost always them coming to the Farmers market a- and either talking to me or talking to my staff. You know, I tell all of our staff people, like, by the time everyone's done shopping here each day, they should know about our online store.
And usually we segue into that just naturally through, they'll come up and say, "Oh, you don't have any pineapple teriyaki brats." And it's like, "No, we're kind of limited on how much variety we can bring to the Farmers market, but we do have them in stock. You just go to our online store, you can, you know, order for market pickup next week.
They'll be here with your name on them. Or better yet, just get them delivered to your [00:18:00] house anytime." And so we kind of just segue into our online store with every customer that way. They also get a flyer in their bag whether they want it or not. It's going in there. We just shove it in there real fast when we're putting their stuff in their bag or putting it in a bag for them.
Um, and that has a QR code to our online store. And then we also have our online store, web address on every package of meat we sell. So I highly recommend that too. You know, we go through, I don't even know how many hundreds of thousands of pounds of meat, and it's all roughly, most of it's in one-pound packages.
Every single one of those labels is an advertisement for me that I got to place in their kitchen, in their refrigerator. Like, I just got my advertisement into the, most used a- and, and visited spot in their household, you know? So spend the money, get private labels made. You know, that's pretty easy to do.
And I'm not talking private label where it says, Jake's Butcher Shop produced," or, processed for such and such Farm." I mean, like, your butcher's name isn't even on your label. It's just a [00:19:00] USDA inspected label that gets approved by the USDA. It's got to be able to fit in your processor's printing equipment, so the best thing to do is find out who your processor has their labels made with, because that person's gonna know all the specs for your processor's label machines.
And then get your labels made straight from that person as well. And obviously, your processor has to agree to it. But I would do that, 'cause then you can get a really nice custom label and that, that's gonna advertise you every time they open their fridge
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I love that. custom labels, you know, magnets for fridges, all the flyers that you're putting into every single bag at every single market, that's great marketing. Um, and I also like what you said, which is it's the conversation of you can pre-purchase for pickup at the Farmer market, or you can just subscribe directly and pointing everybody to your store.
You've been very, good at that marketing lens for long enough, and clearly, we're seeing the results. I mean, you just, y- very significant operation. Like, [00:20:00] it's really neat to watch. It works so well, in practice and at scale. The fact that you're also serving three different states is, just crazy, but in a great way.
Two more things I wanna chat about. One is inventory management, because I do know, like I've talked to a number of, uh, poultry producers who do what you said early on in order to meet the needs of subscriptions and ensure year-round recurring revenue. They will, you know, produce chickens as long as the seasonality of their geography allows, and then they will lean into freezers to make sure that they can service their customers and be the one providing poultry year-round to all of their customers.
But it's different with different categories, right? Like when you're talking about pork or beef, you also mentioned dairy. How are those different? Like if I'm a Farm and I don't do poultry, but I do do eggs, or I do beef, et cetera, like how would you help them be successful from a subscription perspective?
Tom Bennett: Well, I would say it's just, [00:21:00] it's easier. I mean, it's, it because you, you know, you can harvest animals 12 months a year with those, with those two other species. I would say you have to aggressively produce for more than you need today n- in order to grow tomorrow, right?
'Cause it's a long game. You have to set yourself up. I have to forecast in a lot of circumstances, like a year and a half in advance. What I think I'm gonna need next spring, that's what I'm breeding for right now, like, you know, for pigs and things like that. So, cause that's the life cycle that it's gonna take for them to get all the way there to finished.
And because of our growth, and we've always just had our foot kind of on the pedal with that, um, not really, I don't really even know why, honestly. I mean, it's just, I enjoy it. I enjoy the game of it, the serving the customers, the challenge, it's just, it's fun to me. And that's how I think that's like my mental hack for avoiding burnout is just constantly creating new problems to solve.
So that keeps me from, you know, falling into like the same old, same old trap. So we're always getting better or [00:22:00] improving that's what makes it exciting. But because we're always growing, I've been producing as much as I could, more and more without really planning how much I'm gonna need because I've never not been able to sell everything I've produced, like, as soon as I produce it.
So, I don't really have to worry about overproducing. Now, some people do. I've gotten calls from people before that are like, "Hey, I was-- I thought I was gonna sell pigs, and it seemed like a good idea, and I raised 200 of them, and they're all finished. They're like 300, 400 pounds, and I haven't-- I've only sold two pigs."
And I'm like, "You're screwed." You know? Like, "You didn't even think about how you were gonna sell these?" The hard part of this game is building relationships with customers and creating those connections and those recurring revenue customers and establishing relations...
This is a relationships thing more than it is a Farming thing. Um, you can, and I've said it many a times, but it's so true. Like, there's-- You could be the best Farmer in [00:23:00] agriculture and fail and go bankrupt and not make it as a Farmer because you couldn't market or sell your stuff, you know? And if you don't choose a direct consumer route like we do here, and mostly everyone listening to this probably is, um, you're just at the mercy of the commodity markets, which means you're gonna lose money most of the t- especially on pork and chicken.
I mean, you're just, it's just a slow burn to bankruptcy. At least it has been for the last 30, 40 years. So you could be a great Farmer. You could come from the greatest ag institute and be the greatest animal nutritionist, but if you can't sell it, you are gon- are not gonna make it. So I would say that, your communication skills with people, customer service, and loving building those relationships is more important than if you're the world's best chicken producer.
You know? And not, not as far as quality or taste, 'cause you need that, but I mean as far as, like, you might not know how many calories your chicken burns in a day, or something, and some other guy does. [00:24:00] Well, it really doesn't matter, 'cause i- if you can sell it and he can't, it didn't matter that he knew that, random fact about the chicken that you didn't.
Janelle Maiocco: I love hearing that. It's so true. At the end of the day, growing it isn't, enough, right? You need to sell it. and that takes marketing and relationships and effort, of which you're very good. Now listen to me, Tom.
We have Farms listening to this who don't love to send emails or necessarily collect them. Sending emails seems like a chore on a to-do list. So, what sort of advice would you give them?
Tom Bennett: I'm on that list as well. I hate emails also. I d- I, I very much don't like doing it, but I have to grit my teeth and do it just like, you know, the other things in life that you don't wanna do that you have to 'cause it's, it's important, you know?
I would say that I used to put it off and just think that it was the last, it was the last thing on my to-do list in a given week. So they're not alone. And, you can be on that list and feel that way and still be successful as long as you do it anyway, okay? I-- for the first couple years, I was, you know, the [00:25:00] emails would be the bottom of my list each week or every other week. And i- if I didn't get to it because I was too busy, oh well, I didn't worry about it.
But if you prioritize that and put it towards the top of your list, your Farm will grow faster than you thought it would have, you know, otherwise. The marketing thing's gotta be as important as the Farming thing, really. And a lot of people, they have, uh, you know, a spouse duo where maybe he does the marketing, she does the Farming, or vice versa.
And that's a pretty potent combo. I love seeing that. Like, we don't have that here. Um, my wife's never been in... She's a city girl. She's never was really, like, into agriculture. This was kind of my thing. And when I quit my job in 2018, she was horrified. I had her support with the agreement that our lives would not change in our quality of life.
Like, as far as you better bring home the same amount of money next week as you did last week, you know, before you quit your job. So from day one, when I quit my [00:26:00] off-Farm job to do this for a full-time living, like, I couldn't just not feel like doing emails, or I couldn't just, you know, not market today.
Like, I knew that if I didn't succeed, like, I was gonna be letting a lot of people down. And we had six kids, you know, and we go on vacation every year. We have nice lives. And for me to chase this selfish dream that I wanted to chase, I knew that I had to hold up my end of the bargain, which was, " I won't make you guys go without because I wanna be a full-time Farmer."
And I think that that really pushed me into being successful just because I didn't want the shame of failing, probably, with my kids and my wife and things like that. So that really drove me to work in those early years, you know, 20 hours a day. I say that like I'm not working that much anymore.
I've been up since 3:00 this morning, and I'll probably be working until 11:00 tonight, but I love it. It's fun. Like, working for myself, like it, it's a game, and I enjoy it. I have a lot of people, like I said. We've [00:27:00] got full-time staff now. But I still find myself, as we grow, staying super busy as the, like, ultimate problem solver.
So everyone comes to me with things that they can't figure out, and then I figure them out and help them with it, or I just jump in where needed. But I still deal with a lot of the customer service stuff and, uh, the phone calls. So especially while our middle daughter, Alyssa's, away with the Marines right now.
So she'll be back this fall. I'm doing her job while she's gone. So, when she gets back, I'll have a little more leisure time. But I don't use that leisure time to, like, go to the beach or relax. I use that leisure time to figure out what the next step is, you know, on growth or what, direction we wanna go next. So if I do end up freeing up my time with another employee, I use it to create more work for everybody.
Janelle Maiocco: I love that. Well, to be fair, as a business owner growing and scaling and considering what's around the corner, what are more opportunities, what could I be doing except... Like, it actually takes thinking space. So, the slow down [00:28:00] to speed up, um, even though often doesn't feel like slowing down, is actually-- it is important for your brain to have time to marinate on ideas or work through problems and, so that, that honestly is a piece of it too.
And think about your business, right? You're thinking about marketing, you're thinking about your business. It's important to have mental space. Yeah.
Tom Bennett: It's funny you say that 'cause we have to, um, we have to go on like a mandatory spring break every year. I'm made to go, and I love it. I love spending time with them.
It's just, it's tough to leave in the spring with all the markets getting ready to start up. So I'll take my laptop, and I'll make a list of stuff that I feel like I don't have time to work on, like mentally on the Farm, but like big, big picture goals. And while we're, you know, on the cruise or on the beach or wherever for spring break, I'll be on my laptop like working through these hard problems that I need these heavy lift things that require a lot of mental time and energy, but not me physically being somewhere.
And some of our biggest, growth has came while I was on vacation figuring out how to do it, I guess, is the point of that. I, [00:29:00] I like that. It does free me up
Janelle Maiocco: I mean, It's arguably some of the most important work. And you have all the information in your head, but you have to literally have the space to work through it. So it's really neat that you naturally are doing that, and I totally believe that some of your big moves and ideas come from that time that you spend, quote-unquote, "not on the Farm working," you know, the typical routine, but taking a minute to catch your breath and actually think things through.
It's really, really important. I know I have to clear my calendar sometimes to do the same. And it's good for everybody, right? 'Cause you're thinking through all the moving parts and the pieces and all the information that you have up until this very moment in time, right? Which is always changing.
Tom Bennett: Yeah. I was gonna say I do that on a smaller scale too with like our livestock manager, Owen. Um, sometimes we'll need to figure out a new way to do something or something needs done, and before we do it, I'll just stand there for a couple minutes, and I'm like, "We're thinking it through."
'Cause like, you know, if we take two minutes right now and think about like the four ways we could do this and really pick the best one that [00:30:00] has less wasted movements than the others, like it'll save us 10 minutes by thinking about it for two. So sometimes, yes, slowing down and taking a second to think something through instead of just jumping into it can save you half the time, and a lot of headache if you just, really think it through before you just do it.
So that helps from a practical standpoint, like just on chores and things like that or objectives,
Janelle Maiocco: That's smart. Yeah, even on a small daily scale versus like I'm actually trying to now think quarterly and yearly, right? Um, in terms of planning and ideas and changes, or what needs to happen. So two things.
One, again, I think you've had so much success with subscriptions and home delivery, and email is such a big power to that. Maybe just for the audience quick, you can tell them, you know, how you think about growing your email list. Is it ever big enough? And how often you send emails.
Tom Bennett: It's-- there's no such thing as an email list that's too big, I would say.
But you do want it to be quality emails, you know. So [00:31:00] all of our people on our email list are people who we've usually spoke with in person and signed up for it at a market, or they, you know, purchase something in our online store, and their email gets put into our order reminders and things like that, that way.
best way for us, I mean, honestly, I don't know how... I'm a kind of a one-trick pony on emails, and that is Farmers market collection. So we've done it several different ways over the years. Right now we're using QR code. But for years, for the first five years, we did paper and clipboards, and people would just write their emails down on that.
We would pay our Farm market staff a dollar per email, so that incentivized them to ask for the email and collect them. So it was just a bonus every day on their paycheck. Every email that they collected, they got a dollar. so that way they would, you know, ask for them.
And some people really took advantage of that and did a great job with it, and they would collect 100 emails a day, and then there was other people that got three. So you could easily see who was really trying and who wasn't. Um, but you're more likely to have people not ask for them if you're not [00:32:00] incentivizing them to do so in some way.
At least if you have as many people as we do work in Farmers markets for you, and it's no longer like just your wife or daughter or aunt. You know, those people will probably, do their best for you. But once you get outside of family and close friends, you kinda gotta give them some, a carrot to chase, as to why they should go that extra step to ask for the email.
'Cause actually, you know, our Farmers market staff, they are commissioned based on top of an hourly base pay, so they get an hourly base pay plus a sales commission on their gross sales for the day. And so actually every time they convert someone to an online customer, it kind of is shooting themselves in the foot.
So, we incentivize them for the email collection. But like I tell them, we had a meeting last week, and I'm like, "Look, guys, like if, if we don't have a robust online store, there won't... Th- think of it this way, there might not be a job for you next summer, you know, because the Farm's gotta survive the winter, and we will not, absolutely will not survive the [00:33:00] six-month off-season without our online store like, you know, rocking at its full potential."
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I appreciate that. We've heard so many great tactics for Farmers, collecting emails at Farmers markets, through like clipboards or incentivizing folks that are there through QR codes. A quick plug 'cause Barn2Door has a POS as well that syncs with your online store and, I know not all POS services do this, but ours actually collects emails at checkout for Farmers and automatically adds it to their email list, um, in their account at Barn2Door where they can then, of course send out order reminders and everything else.
So it's automated collection of emails, um, at markets with the Barn2Door POS, which is another great thing, right? Just make sure that you're taking every chance to collect those emails. In fact, I would also do a clipboard and a QR code like all of the above. It's just gold when people are coming to your booth at the Farmer market.
You wanna convert them into subscribing customers or very loyal [00:34:00] customers. So really appreciate that. Okay, Tom, before we sign off, 'cause I know you've got a Farm to get back to and you're super busy, do you have one or two final pieces of advice or words of wisdom, that you would give to any Farmer out there who's like, you know, maybe bonking their head against the wall when it comes to year-round sales?
They're like, "I am trying to do this. How do I do it? How do I get started?"
Tom Bennett: Yeah, that's a good question. See what you can do with your product variety and offerings, right? Like, w-we can sell 30,000 plus chickens a year because we're selling stuff besides just breast, thighs, drumsticks, and wings, okay?
We're doing value-added cheddar jalapeno chicken brats, ground chicken chorizo, all kinds of things that are fun and exciting, and it really helps you move your volume of meat because now you can grind all those breast and drumsticks and make different things with them, and that get even a more premium price, and people get hooked on those things.
So I would say expand your product offering to have some unique things. I would [00:35:00] also say that everyone bumps their head against the wall. The thing that's gonna determine if you make it or not is if you keep pushing, 'cause I mean, uh, you know, a lot of people turn back at that point or they just, they say, "You know what?
I was gonna give this a go, but it's just not working for me," and then you just tuck your tail and go back to your full-time job and kinda give up on that dream. That's what happens to a lot of people because that wall exists for everyone. The thing that separates people are the ones who are too stubborn to be bothered by the wall, and they just keep bumping their head against it.
Like, if you don't give up, you can't lose, but too many people give up. But yeah, you gotta get out there and meet the people, you know, and tell them about your online store. If you're not telling people what you have available or what you can offer them, who's going to, right? Like, you're your biggest spokesperson.
So do things that you know, we would go to campgrounds and sell up front just bratwurst, like 15 flavors of brats at the entrance to a [00:36:00] campground on a Labor Day weekend at just flat price per pack brats the sales would be robust, but we would also meet a ton of people and they would, then be looking for us next time they went camping and maybe weren't, we weren't there, so now they order, you know, will order from us.
Just things, just get out there, you gotta get out there and market yourself. You can't sit on your Farm, feel sorry for yourself 'cause your sales are low, but you didn't do anything to improve it today, just constantly try and do one thing a day that either works towards marketing your Farm or, um, you know, is gonna help you sell product.
I would do that. Even if it's just like, I'm gonna make three cold calls today to local Independent organic grocery stores and see if they can, they wanna carry my stuff, even if that means maybe you spend some time and learn how to make some cool reels. You know, I don't, I don't advertise our meats on our social media really.
I'm not, I don't use the social media as a selling point, but it does in a roundabout way equate to that. We've got some huge wholesale accounts that came to us [00:37:00] because of our social media they reach out, you know, some restaurants in Chicago that get few thousand dollars worth of stuff per week, every week.
And that was just because they saw one of my reels that they thought was funny and DM'd me, and we put together a plan for them, and now they're worth 120,000 a year, as a customer, and that was because I made a reel. So you could even do something like that. It's hard to calculate the return on those things like social media, but if you can build a big enough social media brand, that almost gives you a little bit of credibility with people when they check you out, 'cause they're like, "Oh, well, this guy's got 12,000 followers. This guy's got 11 followers.
Bennett Farms must have something good 'cause there's a lot of people following them." or Farm markets, it's competitive to get into some of these Farmers markets. So the, whole reason I wanted to grow our social media presence I thought in my head, I reasoned that the Farm market managers who go and review these applications each year, I assume that they go to your [00:38:00] social media and take a look at it when they're reviewing those applications and deciding between two meat vendors on who they're gonna bring in, right?
Well, the Farm markets also have social media, and they share stuff about their vendors and things like that. So my theory was, if I had a big enough social media presence, they would like to have me to help promote their Farmers market, you know, because we have more followers than most Farmers markets that we attend.
So they share something about us to their story, we repost it or do a collab with them. Now, you know, thousands of more people are, gonna see that Farmers market promotion than they would have if it was a different Farm that maybe didn't have social media. That was kind of why I wasted my time doing that, with the social media stuff.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I love all of that rich advice. That is awesome. Thank you for that. I know that's gonna be very helpful to a lot of Farms. I think that, one of the nuggets too is it's hard, it's, it's work. Like it's hard work. You have to get started [00:39:00] and to keep, you know, bumping your head against the wall and not taking no for an answer and not, and just expecting the wall but just to keep going.
Um, we talk to a lot of Farms who are starting out with door-to-door delivery and haven't done it before, or starting out with subscriptions or are small and trying to grow. It's sometimes you just have to keep pushing and keep at something like delivery and subscriptions. You don't snap your fingers, and it's, you know, thousands of people overnight.
Same with your email list. You have to keep pushing hard on all of those every single day. And then yes, they will grow, um, as long as you're making it that easy to buy from your Farm. 'Cause we all know the quality's already there. Such rich advice. Thank you too for joining us today. I know you're super busy on the Farm.
Excited for this podcast to roll because I know so many people will benefit from it and many Farms looking for year-round recurring sales. plenty to take from here, no, no doubt at all. I wanna extend my thanks to Tom for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Please check him out. Follow Bennett Farms on their [00:40:00] Instagram @bennettFarmsmichigan.That's @bennettFarmsmichigan. That's two Ns and two Ts, @bennettFarmsmichigan.
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 make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro. We literally talk all day, every day to Farmers, which is amazing. And Farmers working with Barn2Door can go to office hours every single day.
They can schedule one-on-one meetings with team members. You can also go to what Tom mentioned earlier, which is our connect sessions, which is essentially office hours held by other Farmers. Tom himself holds those office hours for us. We have plenty of Farms across the country in different categories at different sizes and stages that host office hours on behalf of Barn2Door to help other Farmers be successful.
It's very cool program. We are over the moon that we get to support Farmers like Tom, and any of you out there who are already with us. If you're an Independent Farmer just getting started, interested in selling direct, want support, want resources, want [00:41:00] software, wanna be more efficient, wanna grow, all of the above, check out barn2door.com/learnmore.
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.
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