Make More Money with Poultry
Briana Kupelian sits down with Rachel Shenk of Shenk Family Farm to explore practical strategies for running a profitable, high-margin pastured poultry operation.
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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.
Briana Kupelian: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Briana Kupelian, one of the onboarding managers here at Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. Barn2Door helps Independent Farmers get a system in place to easily manage orders, payments, deliveries, and marketing so they can skip the middleman and sell local food directly.
[00:01:00] Serving thousands of Farmers across all 50 states, our goal is to give Farmers the tools, information, and opportunities to maximize profits at any stage, whether you're a hobby Farmer transitioning to full-time Farming or are already a seven-figure Farm. In today's conversation, we'll get into making more money with poultry.
Today, I'm happy to welcome Rachel from Shenk Family Farm, who's part of our Farm advisory network and who has worked with us for a number of years. I'm excited to talk to Rachel about the best ways to price, package, fulfill, and market your poultry products in order to maximize your Farm's profits.
Welcome, Rachel.
Rachel Shenk: Hi, thank you for having me.
Briana Kupelian: Yeah. before we dive in today, would you mind telling us just a little bit about your Farm, your products, where you're located, your customers, and all that good stuff?
Rachel Shenk: Absolutely. Happy to. Um, so I'm Rachel Shenk, and my husband is Joe Shenk, and we started our Farm back in 2017, so almost 10 years ago.
Uh, we've got three kiddos. Mason is eight, Daisy is almost five, and [00:02:00] Lucy is a year old. And we homeschool, so balancing that with the Farm has been quite the challenge. Never a dull moment. Um, but when we started, we just started with chicken. So meat chickens, and we just did whole birds for the first few years.
Um, and then we also did eggs. And we started subscriptions from the very beginning. We did, "How many whole birds do you want per month, and how many dozen eggs do you want per month?" So it was very simple when we started. And it was just on the side. We both had other jobs at the time. And then in 2020, we added pork and beef from a partner Farm because we knew we were gonna start our own beef herd eventually, and we wanted to go ahead and learn how to market beef, learn about the cuts, and start, yeah, learning how to build a profitable beef enterprise.
So we did that, and we just added our own beef, um, last fall. But we still work with a partner Farm as well, 'cause we can't raise enough of our own beef just yet. But we do- we set up in two local spots to sell in person throughout the week, and then we have three other pickup locations for online orders only.
Um, we do about [00:03:00] 30% of our sales through subscriptions. Uh, we have a chicken-only subscription and then a meat package, so chicken, pork, and beef, so a variety pack, and those are both monthly. And that's been a huge, yeah, part of our Farm, the backbone of it really, that income that you can count on.
Most of our customers are just within 30 minutes of us. We're in rural North Carolina. It's a little town called Newport. We're 30 minutes from the beach. Our community, I guess I should say, is definitely growing, c- because the beach is kind of moving closer, moving inland.
Um, so, so I would say our, our area is growing a bit, but I mean, uh, the biggest town around us is maybe 10,000 people. Um, so still pretty small towns. Most of our customers are within half an hour from us, so pick-up locations works well for us. We haven't gotten into home delivery quite yet. But yeah, we're excited to be Farming, and we love helping other Farmers get started, cause we need more small local Farmers because people are wanting to know where their food comes from more and more.
Briana Kupelian: That's for sure. Awesome. I hope you guys do something fun for the 10-year Farm anniversary.
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, I'm [00:04:00] starting to plan that.
Briana Kupelian: Yeah, I bet. awesome. Okay. So, into products and packaging. You said you started with whole birds and you jumped right into subscriptions, which is not something I hear every day, but that's great.
For inventory consistency right now, what are your like core staple products that you offer, and how do you sort of take your customers into consideration when planning that out?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So most of our packages, we try and hit like four ser- roughly four servings per package. So yes, we do have older customers or single people, um, but we just tell them, you know, cook it and then you can eat off of it all week or, or you can...
You know, fresh chicken can last like over a week in the fridge, so you know, you can cook it one day and then wait another two days and cook the rest of it. But for the most part, most of our people are feeding families, or at least a family of two. And so like that four servings has been pretty, a good standard for us to keep.
So we do two boneless [00:05:00] breasts or two bone-in breasts per pack, four chicken thighs, two leg quarters, eight drumsticks, eight wings, eight tenders. And then we also do like bone broth kits as well, which just has like bones and feet. And then the whole chickens, we really just do like our smaller birds.
So we try and keep our whole chickens like three to five pounds max. Then the chickens that are bigger than five pounds, we usually cut those into pieces, and everything's vacuum-sealed and frozen Cause we want everything to be, you know, to be able to put it in the freezer for a year if we needed to.
Because for chickens specifically, we really only raise it, April through November. So, we have eight months to raise a year's worth of chicken, so, yeah, we need it to last a long time in the freezer because whenever we're packaging it in July, they might not actually be receiving it until the following February, you know.
So the vacuum seal definitely helps keep everything fresh and nice in the freezer.
Briana Kupelian: Awesome. Yeah. And do you ever get any feedback from your customers on the products that you are offering? Like, not everybody knows what to [00:06:00] do with, like, drumsticks or the bone-in or anything. How do you handle that?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. We, we have recipes. So we have an email list. We're always sending out recipes there. We have a blog we share recipes on, and then specifically for our subscription people, that are getting all of the cuts, we allow them access to our recipe index, which is basically just a hidden page on our website with links to every recipe we've ever shared, organized by cut.
So, like all the chuck roast recipes, all the breast recipes, all the drumstick recipes, kinda all organized on there, so they, um, are never left wondering what to do with something. And then I know not every Farmer does this, but I just-- we really know most of our customers by name, and so everyone has my phone number, and they...
I'm like, "Just text me if you're confused about what to do." And n- I've only ever had like three people that have abused that privilege, and I've just kinda stopped responding to those people. But for the most part, people are genuinely like, "Hey, sorry to bother you. What in the world do I do with this? I bought it thinking I knew what to do with it, and I didn't.
Can you just send me a recipe?" And then, you know, if it's a bad time, I'm just like, "Hey, I [00:07:00] got your message. Tomorrow, when I'm by my computer, I'll respond to your message." So I do try and keep good boundaries even though they do have my cell phone number. Um, and that might not be forever. I might switch to a Google number eventually.
But for right now, at our scale, it works for us, um, and I like having that relationship with our people. I like equipping them and making sure they have what they need to use our products well and to make sure they're not gonna overcook the steaks and all that.
Briana Kupelian: So selling pastured meat outside of the bundle boxes in cuts requires capturing the full value of every pound.
So how are you guys utilizing selling by weight to protect your margins while still keeping checkout simple for your Buyers?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. Well, really, Barn2Door is the only solution that we've found for that because the way y'all have it set up is that I can put my full inventory online, I can put a price per pound, I can do like a minimum weight per package, maximum weight, so they kinda know roughly how much each package is gonna cost.
So, for [00:08:00] instance, chicken breast, they pay 10 bucks to reserve their pack of chicken breast for pickup on whatever day at whatever location, and then once I pack their order, I plug in their final weight through Barn2Door, and it automatically charges their card like the, the remaining balance after they have paid the deposit.
And then they get an email receipt, so then I don't even have to do any paper receipts at pickup, um, or at the market. It just comes to their email, which makes fulfilling orders really simple, and then, yeah, I get to recoup all of that revenue from that chicken breast, whether it's a tiny pack or a huge pack.
So the selling by weight feature has definitely been a blessing to us, um, because I've seen other Farms, you know, chicken breast; they sell them for 20 bucks a pack regardless of size. Our weights are all over the place because in the heat of summer the chickens are small 'cause they're not eating as much, and in the winter the chicken breasts are huge because they're eating more.
And so it's been hard for us to pinpoint, you know, like an average weight 'cause they're always fluctuating. So the sell-by-the-pound feature has, has really been huge for us to make [00:09:00] sure we're getting all the revenue from that piece of meat.
Briana Kupelian: Awesome. Yeah, and still really easy for customers to understand, too.
Now I wanna dive in a little bit more to subscriptions. You mentioned earlier, uh, that about 30% of your sales are from subscriptions, and it sounds like you started them super early on. How was it getting your customers to sort of adopt subscriptions, and how has it helped with the predictability of your cash flow?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So we did the whole chicken s- subscriptions for the first few years, and then once we started doing cuts and then adding pork and the partner Farm beef, we started... We kept the whole chicken subscription, and then we also added a 10-pound chicken cut subscription. So that's roughly two packs of chicken breast, a pack of thighs, a pack of drumsticks or wings, and then a pack of broth bones.
And, um, then we also did the 12-pound, which is four pounds of chicken, four pounds of pork, four pounds of beef. And the way that we kind of made that transition was we just set what it was gonna be. Like, the chicken one is pretty predictable, but with the 12 [00:10:00] pound, you know, we just gave people a list of cuts that they could expect.
We said that there would be a few surprises thrown in here and there. From the beginning, we said we were not able to customize just 'cause we knew we wanted to grow this and we wanted to scale this, and we knew we were not gonna be able to do that if we were making custom orders. Some people are really organized and can do it.
We knew that we're not that good at organizing to keep up with that for so many people. So from the get-go, we just did Farmer's Choice. And then yeah, we just talked about it everywhere. We talked about it on our email list, on social media. We shared videos and pictures of what they get in their monthly box whenever we're packing them.
We will talk about it at the market. And I think because we started our Farm with that subscription model, we always had that monthly subscription. I think people were just from the beginning, if they were a customer of our Farm, they knew that we offered monthly subscriptions. So for us, when we did transition to those different kind of subscriptions, it was an easier transition 'cause people were already used to that model.
Like, "I'm gonna get charged automatically every month. This is my pickup schedule that I can count [00:11:00] on." So, it's good for them. I mean, it was good for us 'cause we had the peace of mind we could count on that revenue, but it was also good for them because, especially in the beginning, we were selling out all the time.
So the perk of the subscription was your meat gets set aside, and if we sell out of something, like- you're still gonna get product, you know, ' cause we set stuff aside for you. So that was huge for people, and especially the young families that are so, so busy. They don't wanna go on their computer and order by the cut.
They just want something automatic they didn't have to think about, and they're like, "Okay, we'll get the box, and then I'll figure out what I'm gonna cook later." Um, so people that do the subscriptions really like that they make this decision one time, they put in their info, and then they don't have to think about it again until they get their email that, uh, it's pickup week, you know?
So people have really loved that subscription model.
Briana Kupelian: Totally. One less thing to think about for the customer, peace of mind knowing that no matter what, they at least, even if they don't get to the grocery store, they at least have your meat coming. That's great. Now you've expanded into quite a bit [00:12:00] of add-ons also.
You've mentioned the broth-making kits and things like that. How has that helped bump up your average order size, and just as far as, like, using the whole bird, how was that process for you?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I'll just kinda go through all of, like, the, the extra things we've added as we have really just been convicted, like, "Hey, we don't wanna throw anything away.
We don't wanna waste anything, and maybe this could be something that can kinda cushion, um, and add a little bit of extra revenue, even if it's not a huge portion," you know? So, we do the broth kits, but we also, for those extra bones, we have started grinding those into pet grind. So it's ground chicken meat, skin, and bone.
People have loved that, especially the people that do, like, feeding raw. And then we do the livers and hearts. We always have sold those by the pound, um, but if we have extra- really not extra hearts- those kinda sell out, but we do have extra livers. We've started freeze-drying those, um, and those have sold [00:13:00] extremely well, because it's room temperature.
It's shelf-stable. It's not as messy, um, to feed them. They can, you know, they can pick it out with their hand and feed it and not feel like they have to wash their hands immediately, you know? Um, it's not as juicy as, like, raw liver. What else? We've, we've done the feet. We've done those freeze-dried as, like, a dog chew.
People have really liked that. Yeah, those are pretty much it. Oh, one other one: the necks. We, we do freeze-dry the necks. Those haven't sold as well yet, but it's still, like, that's been within the last year. We're still kinda growing that. But yeah, people, people love their animals, and sometimes they're willing to spend more on their animals than they are on themselves.
The people that buy this stuff the most from us don't buy anything else from us. They just buy stuff for n- for their pets. So yeah, it just kinda opens up a new customer base for you.
Briana Kupelian: We've been talking about that a lot here, and what you're saying has been repeated by many, many Farmers. Um, it's, I think, like a low price point.
For people who can't necessarily buy everything for themselves at the Farmers market, they can at least buy some dog [00:14:00] treats, which is really fun. Awesome. Okay. Well, what I wanna talk about next is some things around pricing. As an onboarding manager, I get questions around pricing a lot. So with you guys, you know, feed, labor, processing costs, commodities- things are constantly changing and usually moving up.
And there comes a point where, at some point, you have to raise prices, right? So what do you guys kind of take into consideration when you talk about raising your prices? Um, how do you calculate everything out, and how do you communicate that out to your Buyers too?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So we have like a spreadsheet, and we have split our business into two businesses really.
So we have like the Farm side, um, that produces an eight-week live chicken ready to butcher. So that's my husband's side of the business, and then he sells that live chicken to me. And then I have all of the processing costs, um, [00:15:00] and marketing costs and freezer overheads, all that built into my side, like the sales side of the business.
So we split it into two just so we can, you know, if we're not profitable, we can look at the numbers and be like, "Okay, is it that Joe is not charging me enough, or am I not, like, adding enough profit margin to my side?" Um, so we've split it up. And so for the Farm care side, you know, feed, baby chicks, any kind of supplies, uh, overhead- like, do they require- yeah, electricity for the brooder.
Is there a water cost? Is there a vet cost? Any of that. All of the labor it costs to raise them. Obviously, if you're small scale, that labor per bird is gonna be less. If you scale up, the labor per bird goes down. And then he also adds a loss percentage because things happen: weather, flooding, like whatever, extreme heat, extreme cold when we're not expecting it.
Um, so we do add a loss percentage. We add a 10% loss percentage, and then we also add a [00:16:00] 10% profit percentage. And then he sells the bird to me, and then I add in all my costs: all the processing costs, freezer costs, my overheads for our freezer trailer that we take to sell. And then I also add a 5% loss for packages that get damaged, and then a 20% profit margin.
So across the board, that's roughly 45% that's built in for loss and profit. And so that comes out to about 750 per pound, per bird, for a cut-up for us. So 650 a pound for a whole bird. And so we keep that spreadsheet, and if we have a cost go up significantly, like if gas goes up significantly or feed- one of those like major, you know, costs- then we immediately will go in and see if we need to raise our price.
And then at least once a year, we try and go in and just kind of fine-tune those numbers based off of our expenses the previous year and see if we need to raise our price. If it becomes clear that we need to [00:17:00] raise it, so our subscriptions we do on a yearly basis. So every May we do signups, and it goes through the following April to give me that, uh, flexibility to raise my price if I need to, rather than just having it be ongoing and then being like, "Oh no, we need to raise our price.
Cancel everybody's subscription. Now you gotta sign up again." So we just say like, "Hey, your pri- your... If you do a subscription, your price is locked in for the year, and then the following May we'll do signups again. The price may go up; it might not." So obviously I will communicate if the price is going up, like, "Hey, your subscription's coming to an end.
We're doing signups again. This is the new price, um, to continue to serve you well and be sustainable for our family. This is the price." Um, and if I have to raise the prices, like, by the cut in the middle of the year, I, I don't communicate that. Um, unless it's gonna be like huge, like a 25% increase, you know?
But usually I'm just doing like 10% at a time maybe, and people don't really... That's maybe a dollar a pound. People don't even notice. I used to tell people [00:18:00] that we were-- especially when we just did whole birds, you know, if we had to go up a little bit, I would tell people when it was just one product.
But now that we have like 100 products in the store, usually I'm not having to raise every price. Usually if beef prices go up, I raise some steaks and I raise some ground beef and, but I usually don't raise roasts, I don't raise bones, um, the things that don't move that well. And with chicken.
If I need to raise chicken prices, I'm usually only raising the price of the whole birds, the breasts, and the thighs, and I usually kind of keep everything around the same, just because that's what we sell out of the most. Um, so the last time we raised our price, literally no one noticed. I guess when we've raised egg prices, we do let people know, um, about that, just because it's really noticeable when we raise our egg prices.
But I've never lost a customer because we've raised our price. People, most of our customers, they wanna support us; they want us to stay in business long term. If we can't pay ourselves, then we're gonna not be able to provide food for them. So they understand that, you know, prices go up, and yeah, we've never had anybody be upset about [00:19:00] that.
Briana Kupelian: That's great. That will be comforting to hear for a lot of Farmers. It's definitely, you know, a point of conversation in a lot of the meetings that we're having, especially as people are starting to scale. I imagine it took you guys a little bit to... Like, the spreadsheet that you have sounds amazing, but it probably took a little bit to get there and kind of figure out exactly what you need to be doing and levers to pull and all of that.
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. We, in the beginning, we, we were not good at tracking expenses. We had no spreadsheets. We were flying by the seat of our pants, just charging what we thought we should charge. We really didn't get a good grasp o- on our numbers probably until three or four years in, and that's around the time when, like, it became our full-time job.
Like, okay, the Farm has to pay for itself, and we have to turn a profit, or else we're not gonna be able to keep Farming. So that's really when w- it was kind of like the kick in the butt that we needed to get serious about our numbers. And, and that spreadsheet has grown over time, and we did not create that by ourselves.
Like we've... It's really a conglomeration of other Farms that have kind of [00:20:00] mentored us, and shared things with us, and we, we've kind of tweaked it and adjusted it over time to fit, like, our Farm's needs and our Farm's scale. So yeah, that was not original to us. We didn't-- we're not like super smart spreadsheet people.
That's just... It's been, uh, yeah, a little bit from this Farm, a little bit from that Farm, uh, a little bit of learning lots of lessons the hard way, and finally 10 year, almost 10 years in, we feel pretty confident in our numbers.
Briana Kupelian: Nice. Well, pretty confident works most of the time.
Okay, awesome. Let's talk about fulfillments a little bit 'cause you guys do quite a bit here. You turned your mobile Farm store into an online pickup location during peak season. You're doing Farmers markets. How did you originally map out sort of your local loop to meet your Buyers' convenience? It sounds like it's a relatively small town, but you still have a lot of different pockets of people.
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, we have five local pickups, and they're all in different small towns 15 to 30 minutes [00:21:00] away from us. So for our Thursday mobile Farm store location, we just set up for two hours in a gym parking lot that we know the owners. They let us set up there. And then the other one is a Farmers market on Saturday.
We used to do three markets every week, and for us, it was just too much. We got burned out. So we ended up taking a whole year off of markets. And then we added the other one back. So yeah, we have those two, and then we have a self-serve pickup from our garage. It's a self-serve freezer, and we just put people's order names on there.
but that's actually our biggest pickup because it's, it's time flexible. They can literally come in within three days, anytime during daylight hours, and get their order. So that's our biggest pickup, and then we do a pickup at a local market. So they, ha- they sell, like, local food inside their shop, um, and they let us use their parking lot as a pickup.
So we'll just go and meet people in the parking lot there. And then we have one other shop that lets us do that as well. So I just, I kinda chose those pickups based off of, well, we used to do Farmer's [00:22:00] markets in both of those towns, so I wanted to continue to keep a presence there because we had built that customer base, and I wanted to keep, um, making it easy for them to get our product.
So that's why we chose those. And we a- we used to have a third pickup, but, um, once we started raising more chickens, that was like our processing day, and it was hard to do both in the same day, so we actually took a step back from that. But our sales have continued to grow regardless of us taking a s- step back from that, 'cause we still do the pickup location there.
We just don't do in-person sales. But so that's been cool to see, like people continue to support you even though you have to change your schedule around a little bit to make it more sustainable for your family. 'Cause we just have one part-time person that helps us, um, fulfill orders and, um, he manages our poultry processing team.
So Joe and I can kind of just show up as workers and not have to be in charge, which has been awesome. But we don't have any help, like, on the Farm or any like in-person market help, other than a friend covers every now and then, but it's, it's [00:23:00] nothing like official. So yeah, we kind of have to work with what we got for now, so we needed to kind of scale back.
But even though we scaled back, sales continued to grow, which was a huge blessing ' cause of that email marketing.
Briana Kupelian: Nice. That's next on my list here. Um, so good transition. So for email marketing, um, I subscribe to your newsletter. I love seeing what you guys have going on. How do you use email marketing, whether it's the weekly emails, the newsletters, recipes, to actually drive traffic to your online store?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So in the beginning, we sent a monthly email, then it became bi-weekly, and now the last... Since we went full time, I have sent an email every week, if not more than one email.
So I always send an email every Tuesday morning because that's our order deadline for our Thursday pickups, which are four of our five locations. And then if I have to send another random email like, "Hey, just a reminder about this," or, "Hey, there's a reminder about our Farm tours coming up.
Don't forget to sign up." Like, I usually [00:24:00] do those as like another email. I try and keep those Tuesday emails as like a relational, trust-building email, whether I share a Farm story, a recipe, a blog post, um, explain a new product, and build excitement for that, um, whatever it is. But I try and do 75% of my emails purely relational, like connection, building trust, and then, uh, the other 25%, like strictly sales related, like promoting a specific subscription or specific product or a Farm tour or Thanksgiving turkeys, whatever it might be.
'Cause I have found that when we have done too many sales emails back to back, the open rates go down, um, and the order rates go down just because people start they get so many sales emails already, you know? And so they, they just kinda start to ignore them subconsciously is what I found in our experience.
So I try and do more of, like, the relational emails, and I try and keep them being able to be read within two minutes, if not one minute, because people's attention span is not great these days 'cause people [00:25:00] are so busy. Um, and they, they need to be able to read it quickly. So I, I try and keep 'em short and sweet and to the point and, and just focus on one thing, you know?
But I, I know other Farms that do it differently. This is just what works for us, and what has got, got us the best open rate and click rate. 'Cause probably 70% of our orders come through on Tuesdays because I send those emails. So, um, they're definitely working, but it took time. It took time to get there.
Um, and at, yeah, I always say at markets too, when I'm getting people on our email list, I always tell myself, "Relationships over sales." I would rather connect with this person, get them on my email list so that we can stay in touch because that means sales for years versus like, "Hey, buy this thing right now."
You know? Like, I would rather them get on my email list and then just walk away and buy nothing than like spend $100- that's great- but then walk away, and I can never be in touch with them again, you know? Because some people that come to the markets, they're not coming all the time. That might be your only opportunity to meet somebody, so I try and, yeah, connect with them, get 'em on my email list, or give them a card [00:26:00] with a QR code to get on the email list.
And we also offer a free gift, um, when they sign up. They get a recipe book download. It just comes in a link in their welcome email with 10 of our favorite recipes. So I don't feel like... I don't feel gross asking for their email. Like, "Hey, you're getting something in return. You're getting this free gift."
And especially if they're your ideal customer, they're gonna be excited to be on it anyway. They're not gonna think, "Ugh, another email." Some people will think that, and they're probably not your ideal customer, and that's okay. But yeah, email- the emails have been huge for us.
Briana Kupelian: Yeah, 70% of your orders coming in from an email send is huge.
When do you find the time? Are these emails that you're writing weekly, or do you plan them out further in advance? How do you dedicate time to marketing?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. In an ideal world, I would love to, like, the month before, plan out all of my next month's, uh, emails. In this season of life with three kids, it has not happened yet.
I've tried my best. Even when I was pregnant, I think I planned three [00:27:00] emails. So like three weeks postpartum, I'm like, "Ah, I gotta write an email," 'cause I didn't plan ahead well enough. So in an ideal world, I would love to plan ahead, but right now it really looks like writing them on Mondays and sending them, and scheduling them to go out Tuesday morning first thing.
But that's better than it used to be. It used to be literally writing it and sending it immediately, but now at least I write them like half a day in advance. But that's, that's what works for us, and I do have that time set aside every Monday morning to write those emails.
Briana Kupelian: Awesome. Okay. And then what about social media?
'Cause you guys do a good job on Facebook and Instagram as well. Has that been successful for you?
Rachel Shenk: So yes, in the beginning, um, as we were growing our business, it was good to, like, connect with people and engage with people. You know, people could go on there and read our previous posts, see our stories, and kind of feel like they were getting to know us a bit.
As far as getting orders, we don't get a ton of orders through social media. It's really, I try and point people to the website, to the online store, and to our email list from social media. And we're kind of at the point where I used to be really intentional trying to do three posts a week and [00:28:00] be in stories every day and lots of videos.
Um, at this season of our life, just at full capacity, I really have just been focusing on the email marketing 'cause I know that that works. And we're not trying to grow super big right now, so we're kind of like just kind of coasting a bit. And so really I've just been showing up in stories. Like I'll, I'll just take videos as I think about it, and then every couple of days I'll have a, have a chance to, to put those videos up.
So I really haven't been as consistent, um, as I used to be on there. But I would say, especially if you're just starting out, social media is a great companion to email marketing to kind of build that trust with people. They can see your face, they can hear your voice, they can get to know your family, your Farm, why you do what you do, what needs your Farm are gonna meet for them, because that's really what they care about the most.
Most people are busy and there are some people that really do care about your Farming practices, but for the most part, customers just wanna know that, uh, that Farm is gonna meet their need for healthy food that they can feel good about [00:29:00] feeding their family, and they wanna know where it's coming from.
And that's really what's important to them.
Briana Kupelian: Yeah. That's great advice. Awesome. Okay, well, with the last few minutes we have left, are there any bits of advice for Farmers looking to start offering poultry, or maybe they're already offering poultry and just want to start making more money off of it?
Anything you got for those Farmers?
Rachel Shenk: Just track your numbers as best as you can, as soon as possible. So, like, when we were first just starting out winging it, we were like, "Oh, we don't really need to track anything because we're so inefficient. It doesn't matter. Like, w- we're just gonna get more efficient, and we'll be able to make up these costs later."
Well, that didn't really happen for a while. So I would say even if you're just starting out, it might feel silly to write, like, track all of your time, all of your expenses. It might feel silly, but it's gonna give you really good information, and it's gonna give you a baseline. So as you do get more efficient and you do grow and, and you figure out how to do things better, then you, you can continue to track and kind of see, like, how far you've come, and then you can adjust your prices as you go.
But I, I would [00:30:00] just... I would've... If I could do it again, I would've tracked stuff from the beginning so we could have started out with a profitable price instead of just guessing for the first couple years and not... And really making negative money, to be honest. Um, we, we were working to lose money, cause we were just not charging enough.
Um, so definitely make sure your price is good and profitable before you even think about scaling up, um, because there's just gonna be more work and more lost money if you're not charging the right price. And then get really good at marketing, whether it's just listening to Barn2Door podcast. They have amazing resources.
They have an academy on how to do email marketing. There's blogs, podcasts, all that stuff. Um, or maybe a paid course. There's lots of paid marketing courses out there. Maybe choose one that really connects with you or speaks to you and go in on that. That's what we did in the beginning. Like, I guess it was year two I, I started doing that to learn marketing, um, to start building my email list and start figuring out how to serve my customer well, who my ideal customer even is, how do I find them, how do I, [00:31:00] um, connect with them, all those things.
'Cause, yeah, as a small local Farm, people, they're not just buying a product; they're buying the whole package. Like, they, they wanna, yeah, they wanna support your family, really. So once you build that loyal customer base, they'll kind of just buy whatever you have, which is why we continued to add products and different enterprises because we were like, "We already have these amazing customers.
Like, what else can we offer them?" Um, but we didn't add everything at once. I would definitely say start with one thing, get that profitable, and then add, instead of trying to start with, like, four different things, and then you're just putting out fires all the time. You're trying to figure out how to get all of them profitable all at once, and it's just not gonna be realistic, at least for us.
I, I... There's probably some Farms out there that did start with a bunch of things and they got them all profitable, but for us we could, we couldn't do that. So yeah, start small, get profitable, and then scale from there is what I would say.
Briana Kupelian: Awesome. Great advice. All right. Well, I wanna extend my thanks to Rachel for joining us on this week's podcast episode.
You can check out more and follow Shank Family Farm on their Instagram [00:32:00] @shankfamilyfarm. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of Independent Farmers across the country. We are delighted to offer services and to- 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, and Farmers working with Barn2Door can go to office hours daily or schedule one-on-one meetings with team members for consulting on their business. We exist to support Farmers like Rachel. If you're an Independent Farmer just getting started or interested in selling direct, or if you wanna simplify your business or build up your local customer base, please visit Barn2Door.com/learnmore.
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