How to Minimize Effort and Maximize Profit every Delivery Day
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.
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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.
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.
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