*POPULAR* Grassroots Marketing Academy for Farmers
In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres (SC) and host of Barn2Door’s Grassroots Marketing Academy, talks about the priority and lessons of each session, ideal outcomes, and what he has learned as a teacher. See why this class --- helping Farmers tap into local Buyer demand to increase sales --- is always full with a long wait list!
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
-
Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.
Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can [00:01:00] purchase from their farm, both online and in person.
In today's conversation, we'll get into Barn2Door academies and why we host classes for farmers, taught by other farmers and industry experts. We'll also focus on our grassroots marketing academy, taught by Alex Russell, who we have here today. Today I'm happy to welcome back to Alex Russell of Chucktown Acres in South Carolina.
Alex is part of our farm advisory network. Has worked with us for five years and since becoming an advisor has brought his wisdom of brand building, maintaining sustainable operations, and of course, grassroots marketing tactics for the other farmers. Let's dive in. Welcome, Alex.
Alex Russell: Wow, what an intro.
Janelle Maiocco: Woo.
Alex Russell: That was amazing. Hey, I'm so happy to be here. I just need to be honest with you. I'm still just as nervous as the first time I did a Barn2Door podcast. So I'm like...
Janelle Maiocco: Serious? Nobody would ever know. You're such a natural.
Alex Russell: The excitement is still there. I still have butterflies 'cause whatever I say is gonna be recorded for all time and so if I say anything stupid.
Janelle Maiocco: No [00:02:00] pressure.
Alex Russell: I'm like, yeah, I got a lot of pressure on myself.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh. Oh my goodness. Don't they record the academy classes too?. You already get an A plus. It's great. Okay. Just so folks know a little bit about you since, you know, obviously they would care who we're talking to and why. Tell them a little bit about your farm, a little bit about your background.
Maybe you do a little intro when you're kicking off your class.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay. My name is Alex. I'm a farmer in South Carolina, down here on the low country. We're very close to the ocean. So we are attempting to grow grass fed beef, forest raised hogs, pastured poultry of all kinds. And, we do our own farm store and we do field trips and yada, yada, yada.
We do it all, except for vegetables basically. And, I've been doing this for five years, running Chucktown. Because my farm name is Chucktown Acres. I don't know if I said that or not. And I had the pleasure of working under Joel Salatin for three years before [00:03:00] that in Virginia. So, my intro to the grassroots marketing class is like, Hey, I got to learn from like America's number one farmer, but I was just a grower at Polyface Farms. And so when I came to start my own farm, I knew nothing about sales and marketing zero. Like I could run hundreds of cattle and hogs and chickens all at the same time in symbiosis, but I could not sell a chicken breast to anyone.
Janelle Maiocco: I kind of love that.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Because honestly, most farmers, well, it's not even maybe fair for me to say, but it would seem like a lot of farmers start farming because of the farming side.
Not the business side. Right? Which to be frank, if you think of small businesses across America, even if you're a doctor or a dentist or a restaurant owner or a coffee shop owner, I could go... or contractor like you [00:04:00] actually, in all those instances, are a business owner and there's so much more to the business than the trade.
And that's what we here at Barn2Door love to do. And in fact, a brilliant segue into why the heck we do academy classes?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Which is literally not about running hogs.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: It's literally about selling the chicken breast, right? So to your point, all of these academy classes that we put on a Barn2Door as well as our eBooks, this podcast in particular, our blog posts are literally all about the business side of farming and how to be successful and the data and the trends and how to streamline marketing and I mean, avoid unnecessary trappings. Do what you should, but also do what you should, 'cause you do have to actually have customers to sell to. You do have to engage them in order to achieve sales. You have to track your finances, you have to do, you know, you have to manage inventory. All of that's real.
And everybody, the farmers know it. And so, we love to [00:05:00] help in all of that capacity. And on the software side, when people use the Barn2Door platform, we're helping streamline finances, inventory management, order management. Making sure farmers have an online store and a POS to make and transact with all those sales.
So, we help streamline the business side, but a lot of times there's just knowledge that farmers need around all of the needs of a business. And so, yeah, academy classes, that's why we do 'em.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Absolutely. Because we as farmers, you're usually driven by the passion of farming to do it.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: But as any small business owner knows, you have to wear all the hats when you get started.
Janelle Maiocco: Yes.
Alex Russell: So I tell people, like right at the beginning, my first slide of the grassroots marketing class is there's a difference between marketing and sales, and thank god you signed up for Barn2Door because the sales part is pretty much taken care of.
Like you need to make sure your [00:06:00] online store looks good and you have your stuff on there, and you do your work on the back end of the software, but your job is to market. The stuff that you have and the sales will come.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: You have to get out there and introduce yourself to people or else no one's going to know you exist, because guess what?
ButcherBox has a whatever million dollar marketing budget that you're up against and they're getting in front of all your customers. So, you gotta be able to separate yourself from them, but also introduce yourself to customers in a unique way that's not gonna break your bank because you've got, you're a brand new farmer, you're brand new to direct to consumer sales, and you don't have a lot of money to just throw around, you know, and waste on like Facebook ads and Instagram ads and Google ads.
Janelle Maiocco: No, and you don't need to. I mean, you like grassroots marketing, and in fact, I would say probably 90 [00:07:00] plus percent of the marketing tactics that we share to farms across eBooks, podcasts, Academy classes is unpaid marketing. It's just best practices. To your point, if you're set up for the transaction, like they can go up to your online store to buy, you've got your POS for the in person, they can click through social media to go to your store. If everything leads to your store, great. Now you just need marketing for the sake of sales, right? You just need to drive them, make them aware, and keep driving them to the store, to the store, to the store, which can be done with some pretty practical tactics.
And it's very exciting, I think. And by the way, people prefer and love independent local farmers over any big.
Alex Russell: Oh yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Something something.
Alex Russell: Absolutely.
Janelle Maiocco: Anyway.
Alex Russell: They would much rather buy from us than some big conglomerate. It's just that the conglomerates are experts at getting in front of people, and so we have some pretty stiff competition that we want to take seriously when we're marketing our farms.
You [00:08:00] know, we really do have to put effort out there. And I, I do a little graph on like, effort. You gotta try to succeed, you know, and I remember when we launched our farm, it was during Covid.
Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm.
Alex Russell: And I had this thought that if I just have meat to sell that like really good high quality meat to sell, they will come to me and they will find me and the suction cup of justice will bring them to me. And it did not happen that way.
Janelle Maiocco: I wish it worked that way. I wish the customers fell from the sky. I really do. I say that so often. But they don't.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: But. But you are the preferred choice.
And so there's local demand, there's massive demand. Even in the national conversation, they're bringing to light how awful Big Ag is. And so, you have even more tailwinds, like people wanna buy local food direct from farmers that they know and love, and they know the quality is there. So you just have to get in the way.
You just have to [00:09:00] tap in.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Okay. Wait. Alex, before we dive into all the fun stuff, I have to at least tell folks what an academy class is.
Alex Russell: Okay, go ahead.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. So, we started academy classes in January of 2021. So we've been doing it since then. Barn2Door offers classes to existing Barn2Door farmers, on social media, Facebook and Instagram, email marketing, specifically MailChimp, 'cause we actually have a direct integration. So, it's really easy for farmers to send out newsletters with items to buy right in those newsletters. Finance, we actually have a QuickBooks Pro financial advisor who works specifically with farmers who teaches that.
We did a farm legal one, which was really cool. We worked with a farm to consumer legal defense fund. If you haven't heard about it and you're a farmer listening, please check it out. It's literally, you know, just a little over a hundred bucks for an annual membership, which if you've ever used an attorney for anything, bless all the attorneys out there. You know, they charge you in six minute increments, and I think that's less than six min. Well, maybe that is like worth 12 minutes of time, but you get my point, which is, buy the membership. They will give you brilliant advice [00:10:00] regardless of what state you're in, who you're selling to, if you're selling anything from, you know, raw milk to whole hogs.
We do that farm legal academy twice a year. And then we have, what else do we have? Grassroots marketing, which is hosted by you.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And always popular and always bursting at the seams. We try to limit it to 25 farms each time, but that's...
Alex Russell: 35 every time.
Janelle Maiocco: I know. It's like, it's so cool though.
And so each month we host two or three of those classes, so we're doing roughly 24 plus classes throughout the year, or academies, I should say.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: So, if you do an academy, like you're gonna learn from Alex today, it's basically if you're doing an academy in April, you will show up for three one hour classes.
With Alex and 34 other farmers, even though it's supposed to be 25, which is awesome. And it's taught by highly successful farmers who yes, are using Barn2Door to just crush it with their businesses and keep everything organized. [00:11:00] But they're just like incredibly smart business folks doing, uh, many best practices that they can then share.
And then we help give them also data that we know from working with thousands of farmers and having millions of transactions going their platform. So, it's just this great, confluence of information to help independent farmers be highly successful, and we get very excited about it. So, there you go.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: So, Alex, when did you first learn about academy classes before you even, 'cause you learned about them before you started teaching?
Alex Russell: Yeah. Gosh, I don't know. Probably three years ago.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: It was probably 2022. And I remember I did, it was probably the finance class that I did first, and then I think MailChimp was next.
Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm.
Alex Russell: And I'm pretty sure I've done all the academies by now.
That's awesome.
They're so great, man. It's like, God, it's such valuable information.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. What do you get out of 'em? I mean, tell the [00:12:00] farmers who are listening, like why bother? What do you get out of 'em?
Alex Russell: Oh gosh. I mean, you're gonna spend one hour of your week, which you, I know farmers are really busy, but you can spare an hour, like my class is on Thursdays, so you can spare an hour on a Thursday, if it's gonna give you information that's gonna get you another a hundred thousand dollars in sales this year.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, beautiful.
Alex Russell: Can you justify one hour? I mean the, the stuff I learned in the MailChimp Academy, all the academies, but MailChimp stuck out to me a lot because my newsletters were like really sketchy at the beginning.
And so I learned how to make ' em look nice, which is, it's very impressive for a caveman like myself to be able to design a newsletter that doesn't look like someone just scratched on a piece of white paper, some, like a website. So, the information you learn in those three total hours, [00:13:00] I mean, I learned this stuff three years ago and I'm still applying it.
Janelle Maiocco: I love that.
Alex Russell: So, I don't know what the value ratio is there, but the three hours are well worth it and, I can't suggest signing up enough 'cause they're really, really valuable. So.
Janelle Maiocco: I love it. Oh, and if folks are listening and they were to look up, or a list of academy classes, I think the MailChimp one is now called email marketing just to avoid any confusion.
But we also pull in, 'cause we have marketing toolkit that we offer monthly for farmers and we design beautiful templates for farmers to use.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Janelle Maiocco: And so, I think we showcase how to do that in that academy now, which is kind of neat. But, yes, glad to hear that those were helpful and useful.
And again, you're running a business. I mean, yes, you're running a farm, but yes, if it is your livelihood and it's how you pay the bills, then you're also running a business. And we wanna make sure you're armed and dangerous, in as efficient way that we can.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: But with a big, you know, bang for your buck.
So, I really do appreciate that.
Alex Russell: Yeah. If people signed up to become farmers and they wanted [00:14:00] to sell direct to consumer, but they thought they could just be curmudgeons in the corner that never have to do any marketing or any social media or any finances or anything like that, they are in the wrong group.
Okay? You like gotta go back to the commodity crops where you sell everything to one person, okay? If you're a direct to consumer, you're gonna be selling to thousands of people. So, there's a lot of skills that come in that category of farmers if we're gonna sell direct. So, I just tell people, just buckle your seatbelt 'cause there's a lot to learn and might as well learn from an expert, and help yourself skip ahead of a lot of stupid mistakes that you'll make along the way because you watched one YouTube video one time on something, you know.
Janelle Maiocco: That is true. If you can learn, you can skip some of the potholes, right? Yeah. You just, and also, not to be overwhelmed, like, yes, if you're selling to thousands of people, there's a square one and a square two, like you can break it into small steps, slowly build up your habits, build up your customer [00:15:00] list, put it into a habit of how often you reach out each week, et cetera.
And, it can be done and I feel like it's not rocket science, we do know, and Alex, you know so well that there are absolutely proven best practices. So, just do that.
Alex Russell: Yeah, just do it. Just send the email once a week, guys. Don't argue, just do it. I did the once a month emails for so long and it just doesn't, it's just not nearly as good as once a week.
So just, just do it.
Janelle Maiocco: I think every Farm I've talked to on a podcast and I ask them how often they email or like, well, I started it at once a month. And it didn't work. And so now I do it once a week and it works like a charm.
Alex Russell: And it works. It's a magic number .
Janelle Maiocco: And people kind of expect it, actually. And if they're gonna not open it one week, fine, they'll open it the next week.
But you just reminded them who you are and you popped up as a nice little hand wave at the top of their inbox. Even if they don't open it, which they don't always.
Alex Russell: [00:16:00] Yep. Yep. It's, you know, a lot of marketing is just making sure that you're getting in front of these people because they are really busy and they're gonna forget about you, and that's okay.
You can't get offended by that, because they got soccer practice and they got date night and they gotta pick up the kids from school and they got ballet and they got a thousand other things going on, and they do want to support you.
Janelle Maiocco: They do.
Alex Russell: But you are not two minutes down the road like Publix is.
You're 45 minutes to an hour, to two hours to three hours away, and their order cutoffs. And there are a lot of things to get that food from your farm to their freezer. And so you gotta be constantly popping back up at the top of their mind because, if you just think like, oh, I sent them one email two months ago, why aren't they ordering?
Well, there's your answer right there. They forgot about you the next day. [00:17:00] They forgot about you 59 days ago.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Five minutes after you sent it. No, but if they see it at the right time in the right place, they'll order. But to be fair, I have to tell you, yes, you might live two hours away, but if the food shows up in their community, on their doorstep or at a local pickup, they will gladly make that purchase.
If you've brought the food into their vicinity, it's a no-brainer for that purchase.
Alex Russell: Absolutely. That's why we have so many people sign up for our subscriptions, and they stay on forever. They stay on for years and years. Once they sign up one time.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Love it. Love it. Okay, so in terms of the grassroots marketing academy that you teach, can you walk us through the process of first of all, if you can remember, 'cause it's been a minute, how the class originated. And sort of how that evolved, in terms of it getting in the water, do you remember first teaching it? How many times have you taught it so far?
Alex Russell: I think I've been doing it for two years now. So.
Janelle Maiocco: Every [00:18:00] month?
Alex Russell: Every month, except for December, we take off, so.
Janelle Maiocco: That's crazy.
Alex Russell: That's like 20 plus times I've done the class.
Janelle Maiocco: I bet it's different every time.
Alex Russell: Yeah. I get a brand new crop of farmers every time. It's so crazy. Like last month, the March group, they were like a hundred percent new. Farmers never sold anything in their life.
Janelle Maiocco: Wow.
Alex Russell: I just went, I could not believe it.
'cause usually I go in thinking these people have been.
Janelle Maiocco: That's kind of encouraging. I feel like that's actually very encouraging.
Alex Russell: Yeah. They knew at the beginning that they needed marketing. That wasn't me. I was not that smart.
Janelle Maiocco: You had to try a few things the wrong way first, and then you.
Alex Russell: Yeah. I was my own Guinea pig for sure.
I remember you guys asking me to do the class and I just laughed out loud. 'cause I was like, you want me to teach the marketing class? [00:19:00] I don't even know how to do an Instagram reel. Okay. Like, you guys are crazy. But, I did learn how to make an Instagram reel and I put one up like almost every day now.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Yeah. You're kind of the expert on that now too.
Alex Russell: Thank you. That's crazy for people to say, but like I was kind of that curmudgeony type when I first got in, I did not want to have a camera in my face. I didn't want people to really even know my name or where I lived. And, wanted to be secretive for some reason.
I don't even know why. But, when you guys asked me to teach the class, I couldn't believe I was honored and shocked and baffled all at the same time. Thankfully you guys made the slide deck for me, because if I had to come up with three hours of stuff from my muffin of a brain, I would've been like, ah, I don't know guys.
Maybe get someone else to do it. But you guys said, all right, we'll do the slides just present. And people know me, they know I love to present. I love when I'm, I have a microphone in my hand. If I have the attention of an audience, I'm [00:20:00] so in.
Janelle Maiocco: We knew that.
We knew that. We love that. I love that about you.
Alex Russell: There's the very few farmers. I'm like a weirdo, you know, very few farmers will want to speak in public, but it's like one of my favorite things ever to do. So, I looked through the slides, I was like, oh yeah, I've been through all this.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: This is very attainable stuff we're talking about here.
This is not complex algorithms and scheduled social media posts and editing videos. Like that's what I thought it was gonna be.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: But it's like, Hey, have you thought about going into a coffee shop to see if you could put up some flyers? It's like, oh yeah, I've done that. I've, I've called restaurants and I've, you know, been to these local businesses and talked to these people about pickups.
Yeah, I can do this for sure. So, I agreed to do the class, and then the very first time I had so much fun, I was like, when can we do this again? And you guys said, well, you're gonna do it every month from here on out. So.
Janelle Maiocco: Honestly, I don't know [00:21:00] that we knew it was gonna be that successful. I mean, you try, you find the right cadence with each academy class based on the demand and the need. Like I think marketing is super top of mind for farmers. Grassroots really, meaning it's really unpaid, right?
Like it's grassroots marketing. It's the basics of just get it done and do it well with the time that you are applying to it. Finance, I think we do every two or three months, legals twice a year, et cetera. Email and social, I think we do every other month. Same thing, social media, but grassroots marketing, man, that is every month.
And, you know, standing room only.
Alex Russell: Yeah. It's encouraging because you see how many new farmers there are. It's a reminder that I get that there's so many people who are waking up to the evils of the industrial food system and wanting to grow sustainable food
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: Themselves, and realizing other people are so hungry for real food that
they're like, [00:22:00] I could start a business with this. I've just, you know, a lot of people start being a homesteader and then all their neighbors want their food, and then the people beyond their neighbors want their food, and the people in the church want their food and the people at the coffee shop want their food, and then they think, I could do a business with this.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: And then they start doing a thousand broilers a year and then it's like, oh, the freezer's very full. I had 30 people that really wanted my stuff. Now I need about 200.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: And then they sign up for Grassroots Marketing.
Janelle Maiocco: And Barn2Door. Yes. They sign up for Barn2Door. They get organized.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, they get their store online. So people can self-serve order.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Collect your email lists automatically.
Alex Russell: I have a beautiful website. I have a beautiful online store. Where are the people? And then it's like, all right, we're gonna help you find them.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep, yep.
Alex Russell: Because they're out there. The suburban Sally's are plentiful out there and we are gonna help you find them.
Janelle Maiocco: [00:23:00] Yes.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Absolutely true. And we set up a lot for Farms to automatically, so we always talk about email list being gold, right? Because it's literally your customer list. Your email list is your customer list because that is how you are keeping track and engaging them, tracking their orders, everything.
It's how they get their reminders for pickup, et cetera. But there are ways that we put in place for them to automatically be growing that list. Like if somebody orders from them, they're automatically added. We make sure to put up a popup thing that says collects emails if people are shopping or going to their website.
Different things like that. And on POS we automatically capture emails, when people have a POS device. So again, be collecting it. We want farmers to be successful. We want that to be as easy as possible. But to your point, there is an effort level required to.
And some pretty creative and even low hanging fruit ways to be collecting emails and just grow that list. So when you send out the email once a week about your broilers, they literally quote unquote, fly off the shelf. Since we're now using all of the, since we're [00:24:00] using all the puns that are appropriate, they fly, they flock.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: It's good.
Alex Russell: That's what we spend a lot of time on in the class is...
Janelle Maiocco: Can you break it into the three hours? If I am gonna go to the first class, the second and the third, do you have a focus area for each? Where do you start and where do you end?
And then what is the ideal outcome for a farmer attending? If a farmer went to the class and six months later, what's the outcome? Like, wow, that was a success for that farmer.
Alex Russell: Yeah. The outcome is revolutionary success and amazing revenue that pushes your farm so far that you have to double your production next year.
That's the goal that we're at.
Janelle Maiocco: Beautiful.
Alex Russell: So, we come up with a lot of creative ideas, basically to get in front of people and ways that don't cost a lot. The, I think the only thing that we suggest people do that cost them anything is making [00:25:00] flyers. And their flyers are super cheap, and I always have my flyer close by that I can show them.
I'm like, it looks like this. It's got a QR code, it's got our logo. Get some nice pretty pictures of cows websites at the bottom. I even, I redid this one, added my email down at the bottom too, 'cause everyone was asking for my email. And so, that's like the only thing we say this is gonna cost you.
Gotta have a QR code. So it's easy to scan, don't jumble it up with a ton of words. Quick description of your farm. So, we did our first week of the three weeks yesterday, so I'm fresh off of week one with a brand new crop of farmers that we talked to yesterday.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: And. We talked about magic words for like 30 minutes and they said, 'cause we first talked about ideal customers. Who's our ideal customer and we break down all the different types of best customers, and then we break down the type [00:26:00] of customers that you wanna let go and just let them float off into the sea and never to be seen again.
We don't wanna waste our time with them.
Janelle Maiocco: Empowering.
Alex Russell: Yeah. We talk about the 80 /20 rule. Don't let 20% of your customers take up 80% of your time. And then we talk about the 80% of amazing, wonderful customers that want to spend a lot of money with you.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: And those people use magic words, and those magic words, and I always have the farmers go into the chat and type in the magic words, pasture raised, antibiotic free, local, fresh, regenerative, sustainable, family farm, chemical free, all the things that people who are looking for local farms, they look for very specific things. So, we wanna make sure that on your website you have these magical words that people are gonna be searching for so they can find you. And I said, you're gonna use these magic words everywhere, your flyers, your website, your [00:27:00] social media, your newsletter.
Find out the words that describe your farm that your customers are going to be using to find you. And so on this flyer, I just put grass fed, grass finished beef, forest raised pork, pasture raised chicken and eggs, chemical free, all regenerative meats.
Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm.
Alex Russell: And those are my magical words for my farm.
Every farm's gonna be a little bit different. But, we spend a lot of time on that, 'cause I have to hammer this point home because as farmers we see our farms differently than our customers do. Like, I could spend two hours describing how I do rotational amp grazing with the cows and what different types of foliage I'm looking for in my pastures to make sure that it's time to move them in and how often to move them and mobile water lines and yada, yada, yada. Guess what? My customers don't really care about that. I've got maybe one or 2% of the really hardcore ones, yes, do it [00:28:00] on a reel, because that's interesting for about 60 seconds.
But, when they're searching for you, they're not looking for that particular, they're looking for, let's say grass fed, grass finished beef. They're looking for the food because they're thinking about their children and what they're gonna feed their children, and they are starting to make the connections that the food at the grocery store is like a low grade poison that we've all been.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Do you, I don't even call it food. Do you call it food?
Alex Russell: No, it's fake. It's fake food. There's wax on all the vegetables. They're injecting the fruits with all these kind of crazy things to make a shelf stable forever. The meat's terrible. And the entire middle of the grocery store is all poisonous stuff in a box.
Janelle Maiocco: No. Might as well put a spray nozzle on it. High demand for farmers' food and like, already the statistics where people would, nine and 10, they would shop from farmers.
And so it's just, it's there. It's like literally dripping demand. And so our [00:29:00] job as farmers or for us at Barn2Door to help farmers tap into that. It's there. Just gotta tap in, and get in front of those buyers. Let 'em know you exist and then make it easy to get the food. So, you do have to have self-serve ordering, 'cause people don't like phone, text, email, just to get eggs. They wanna just...
Alex Russell: No.
Janelle Maiocco: Put a credit card. Oh, and hit subscribe or hit buy and then it shows up and they like habits too. So it's interesting, you can't just offer a pickup once randomly. Like you have to be like weekly or monthly or whatever's normal for your product, right?
And people need to trust the habit of getting the chicken or the eggs or the beef regularly because guess what? They eat regularly.
Alex Russell: They are. Turns out people eat like every day. It's crazy.
Janelle Maiocco: Turns out. They like the same thing on their plate.
Alex Russell: They shop once or twice per week where we think like we're farmers, right?
So we are, we live way out in the country. We probably have a Costco membership that we go once a month and [00:30:00] like buy like $400 worth of stuff and that's enough. We grow most of our own meat, so we have like enough stuff for a month at a time minimum.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: As farmers, that's not how our customers shop.
That is so insane to customers that we're not going to the grocery store every week or twice a week.
Janelle Maiocco: It is true that you are not your own customer, which is a really great myth. I actually just, you'll love this 'cause you know our account managers, who are amazing. I just did a podcast with Corey, and he was talking about how you aren't your own customers. We did a whole thing.
You'll love it. On the myths of marketing, we did myth busting.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Like, who is your customer? Your customer buys differently than you do, and that's okay.
You just have to know that, because if you know that it's not you. Then who is it? Then who is your customer and how do they buy? Who are they feeding? What do they care about? Like it can break you outta the mode of just assuming customers think and buy and eat like you, and they don't.
And so, then you can start asking [00:31:00] really awesome questions about, well then what do they want? And then Corey's like, they'll pay $15 for you to put it on their doorstep. They don't even care. He's like, money doesn't matter, which doesn't seem normal to you, does it?
Alex Russell: No. As a farmer, we're like, you want to charge me $15 to bring a couch to my house, forget about it. I'll go pick it up myself.
Janelle Maiocco: Go pick it up. Yeah. So kind of myth busting. But yes, people buy every single week. They want the consistency. They want it ideally on their doorstep or somewhere very proximate to their home or their routine.
And then they'll pay for it. It's pretty cool.
Alex Russell: Yeah. God forbid, during one of the classes, I go on a rant about beef cut sheets. Because...
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, yeah.
Alex Russell: Because I consider that part of your marketing, if you're gonna have a bunch of cuts of meat that suburban moms aren't used to cooking, like, forget about it.
Just grind it because we are, we are so, like the picnic roast off of a [00:32:00] hog. No one's cooked a picnic roast in a hundred years, but every hog butcher still has it on their cut sheets. You want that picnic roast? You know, it's right next to the Boston butt. It'll take four hours longer to cook than a Boston butt.
You still want it, and you're like, well, I can't let anything go to waste. So, you end up with chest freezers full of picnic roasts and I'm like, guys just grind it because these people eat sausage every day of their life, it seems like. And chicken, like if you're only doing whole chickens, you gotta cut the breast out because you could almost charge the same price for two breasts as you could for the whole chicken itself.
They will pay for it. I'm like, please trust me guys. I've been doing this for five years and they've been paying the price that I put at chicken breast that equals if they bought the whole chicken, and guess what? I'm selling out of chicken breast all the time.
Janelle Maiocco: That is so true. It's what [00:33:00] they eat and what's fast and easy and familiar.
'Cause they're busy. They're busy. Okay. We have to talk about session number two and three. So, what do you talk about in the second of three classes in a given month?
Alex Russell: I have to finish week one first.
Janelle Maiocco: Do it, do it.
Alex Russell: We end week one. If I'm on time and I get through all the slides, which never happens, but we're supposed to get at the end of week one partnering with local businesses.
And so, we talk about finding a local business that's in the same groove as you. That wouldn't mind being a pickup location. And maybe you can hand them some free hats and t-shirts and flyers and stuff that they could hand out. Find someone who's really, really into what you're doing as a local business and find partners in that world.
So, that's the end of week one. Then week two, and I'm going off of memory here, so don't hold me to it.
Janelle Maiocco: Well, I can't let you tell everybody everything that's in these classes. They have to show up, Alex.
Alex Russell: Good point. All right, I'll skim [00:34:00] by.
Janelle Maiocco: Give them a great, give them a teaser.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Okay, so week three we talk about your brand.
Why your brand is different than your business and why knowing your brand is so important. Then, we talk about fulfillments, subscriptions, packaging, pricing, and why all of that is so crucial. This is where I usually go on my beef cut sheet rant.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: And. And then we finish that session with, partnering with local churches and religious centers and how there's a lot of opportunity there that no one's ever really thought of.
Then the last week we talk about educating your customers and why a continual education of the customer is so important because, we know way more than we think we know, and our customers are fascinated by almost anything we have to say about [00:35:00] what we do. And all we have to do is just talk about what we do as farmers and maybe put some cows in the back or some chickens in the back and of your Instagram video.
Janelle Maiocco: I love the cows and chickens in the back.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: That is, it works. It works on everybody. And I mean that in the nicest way.
Alex Russell: You're showing everyone the way your animals are raised, you're showing them your husbandry without having to say it out loud. And so, you're knocking out two birds with one stone.
I'll do videos where I'm talking about high fructose corn syrup, but I have cows in the background. And I'm doing two things at once and it's engaging to the people 'cause they're like, wow, look at those cows over there. That's pretty cool. And wow, what is he saying about soda and corn syrup?
This is crazy. And it just adds another level of excitement and engagement because, when I use my social media, I'm usually trying to teach people something, so you'd need more than like six seconds, which I know is the average [00:36:00] attention span. So, I have to do some extra stuff to try to keep it a little more engaging.
So we'll talk about tips.
Janelle Maiocco: You have to deal with the short attention span, consumer type all of us are today. Yes. I appreciate that. I do. I do. And you're passionate about it, right? And that comes through.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And I think that's so important, so important that, that comes through in those reels or short videos.
And do you ever talk a little bit about that in your classes too?
Alex Russell: Yeah, I did. I went on a rant yesterday about enthusiasm sells. And this is something that was told to me, by a business mentor of mine that's very successful, and he said, it doesn't matter really what you're selling as long as you're enthusiastic about it.
So I've taken that to heart and I see it totally true. If I'm talking to a customer, I've got like a hundred interactions in my mind right now of talking to customers who are on the fence about something. Maybe it's buying a quarter cow, or maybe [00:37:00] it's trying raw milk for the first time. Or maybe it's, you know, buying eggs from us instead of the grocery store for the first time.
And when I tell people about what we do and why it's different from what they're used to and why I'm so excited about being able to provide food for people. And if I bring my energy up, that's usually the deal breaker for them. That's what's gonna turn the tide from them being on the fence and then switching to, I'm totally in.
I love what you do. Let me grab my checkbook. So, yeah, enthusiasm sells. It's one of those things where it's like.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Just do it. I do, I do have a spot for farmer's markets. So we talk about, we have one slide for farmer's markets.
Janelle Maiocco: Uhhuh.
Alex Russell: And sometimes I'll take a while on that 'cause I love farmer's markets.
I have one tomorrow and, I'll talk about being nice and engaging. And that's when I'll [00:38:00] see, I'll be looking on the Zoom class and I'll see some people put their heads down or like, oh God.
Janelle Maiocco: You, you have like a curmudgeon radar because you've mentioned that word like three times.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Hey, we all like to be the curmudgeon sometimes, Alex, even I do.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Well, I was there. So I know, like I know real recognizes real, like I was the curmudgeon who didn't want to ever see anyone. And then, now I've been doing this one Farmer's Market for five years now and I love, I was so exci, I showed up an hour earlier than I was supposed to this week on Tuesday 'cause it was the first opening day and I was so pumped.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh fun.
Alex Russell: And I get to see all my favorite customers and interact with them and show them all the new stuff we've got this year. And so, I love it and I'll know it's usually the ladies in the class will like smile and nod when I say like, you need to be nice and engaging and, and, you know, ask them how they're gonna cook the chicken and how, you know, ask them how many kids [00:39:00] they have or whatever, and talk about their shoes or anything.
And the guys would be like, uh, geez. All right. Guys, you sign up to be a direct to consumer farmer, you have to be engaging. You need like a thousand amazing customers. Okay. You gotta get to this point where like people love you.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: And there was another farmer that I know that I'm gonna leave unnamed, that people around our area says it's not very nice guy and they told me that they shop with me because I'm nicer than the other guy. And I was like, we have like the same product.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I, I believe it.
Alex Russell: It's really important.
Janelle Maiocco: I will say a couple things. I will say we do have farms that aren't at farmer's markets and are highly successful. They crush it from email marketing.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Janelle Maiocco: Which is really great if you happen to be more introverted. Whereas like you then just [00:40:00] get really good at collecting emails and sending out emails and you can send photos. Right? And that is engagement, even though it's not direct engagement and it works and it's amazing.
And we have, like I said, farmers that do it without going to farmer's markets or we have farmers that are trying to get out of farmer's markets or get out of many of them, right? Reduce it, reduce their footprint. And when you build up your email list and are consistent and it's easy to shop and easy to get your food, it can completely work. I will say you can't just email and it works. You have to have the ability for people to shop from you online and it has to show up at their doorstep or near their home. The convenience factor has to happen or people will not buy, or only a few will.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And so it is possible.
But yes, engaging is good.
Alex Russell: Too many farmer's markets is a bad thing.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, yeah.
Alex Russell: If you can't handle it unless you're Tom Bennett.
Janelle Maiocco: Unless that's your plan and you're really trying to, there are farms that are taking over one state after another.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Veterans Liberty Ranch is the same thing down in Texas, but it works and they have it [00:41:00] organized and coordinated and, at Barn2Door, we love that. Because they will say time and again, and this is kind of tooting my horn I guess, but like, they couldn't have done it without Barn2Door, 'cause you you have to stay organized if you're gonna grow, like, if you're gonna scale, if you're gonna double your business, triple your business, go to yet another community, et cetera, you have to be organized with your orders and your pick and pack list and your finances and all your customers and everything else.
And you know, don't spend six hours a day on email, let the system handle it so you only have to spend 10 minutes a day. So, there is something to be said for being organized if you wanna grow. And so, yeah, there's so much good out there, isn't there? But yes. Farmer's markets are actually, if you are there, spectacular opportunity to engage your community.
Alex Russell: Yeah. And you get a lot of email addresses at farmer's markets.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep. Bingo.
Alex Russell: That's what I tell people in the class. Is if you're just going to Farmer's Market and you're getting 20 to 30 emails a week, you don't even have to sell anything there. Just go get the email addresses.
Janelle Maiocco: I know [00:42:00] it's actually about email addresses.
Nice. If you sell some stuff.
Alex Russell: I keep my clipboard right next to me during class 'cause I'm like, guys, it's this simple. It's got my logo, it's got, please put your name and email here. And that's it. It is not complex. But if you don't have this out at the market.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: Then you're not gonna get any new emails.
And guess what? Emails are gonna sustain you in the long run.
Janelle Maiocco: Yes. Have a clipboard. Have a clipboard. Our team makes a QR code for farmers if they need it. And then on the POS device that Barn2Door powers, it collects emails automatically, which is really cool. Yeah. So there's a lot of opportunity, to collect emails.
Okay. I have to tell you, I was talking to a farmer the other day, and reverse stereotype, by the way, was a female farmer who was more introverted. And her husband's the extroverted one and she's like, oh, I have to talk to people. And I mean that in the nicest way, 'cause again, sometimes that wears half the population out, right? [00:43:00] And she's like, my husband just says well, to the customer, well, what did you have for dinner last night? And she's like, wow, that's brilliant, 'cause everybody ate dinner last night.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And it's about food. And it's about food. So I think if I think, Alex, you should add this to your grassroots marketing class.
Like, okay. If you don't, they don't know the questions, just give them three questions to ask.
Alex Russell: Oh, that's great.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. What did you have for dinner last night?
Alex Russell: Easy questions.
Janelle Maiocco: Right? I'm sure you have plenty. You can tell them.
Alex Russell: I like the one where you just ask, what are you gonna do with this stuff you're buying?
You know, how are you gonna prepare it? What are you gonna put it in? Even if it's like sausage, there's gonna be something exciting and they'll tell you something and it'll spark a memory that you had when your mom cooked it the same way.
Janelle Maiocco: Ooh, I like that.
Alex Russell: This is one reason I still love these farmer's markets, is that you make connections with customers on a person to person level that, it builds a loyalty with the customer that they're just like, man, I just really love [00:44:00] getting my food from these guys and they're so nice and engaging and they're real people.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Because we've been buying food from.
Janelle Maiocco: I don't even wanna know.
Alex Russell: These giant corporations for so long that we don't even know who it is.
And you have the opportunity now to connect with a real farmer that actually grew the food that you're feeding your family. Like, it's just a really amazing concept for people that they're like, I can actually finally trust the food now. How amazing is that?
Janelle Maiocco: How amazing is that? Drop a mic.
Thank you. Thank you for all you do. It's so funny. Passion wise, that's like literally that's what we're passionate about, is helping farmers just crush it.
Alex Russell: We finish with the opportunities for people to come to your farm and we talk about a lot of ideas in the farm store, field trip, farm tours, realm and opportunities there, 'cause there's endless opportunities there. And then, we finish with partnering [00:45:00] with schools. And a bunch of different ideas that you could interact with schools in a way with your farm that people haven't thought of before. So.
Janelle Maiocco: You know, Alex, I love the idea of when you say partnering too.
There's so many good examples, of what that could look like. But the neat part about it is, is if you think about partnering with a school or a church or a gym, like you're thinking of like many pockets, like little pockets of communities who. Once a couple of them are buying from you, guess what?
Everybody else is gonna hear about it.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: In that little pocket. So, it's like you're concentrating the word of mouth in a beautiful -offices are the same, by the way. Our office at Barn2Door, I think like two thirds of us now order like grass fed beef and poultry from the same farm.
Alex Russell: They love you guys.
Janelle Maiocco: We literally on the track her route of delivery by who's getting like what next. And you know, it's kind of awesome. But like offices honestly are also like if you have a friend working at an office downtown and they're already [00:46:00] buying your food, you have customers.
Figure out where their office is. Right? And they could put it in a newsletter or flyer inside their office and be a drop location and all of a sudden, who knows? You have 30 or 300 new potential customers in one little drop. , So anyway, just some food for thought, which we love to include on the podcast.
Lots of food for thought. Right? Okay, one final question, Alex. What have you learned from teaching the class?
Alex Russell: Oh, I didn't know you were gonna drop this one on me.
Janelle Maiocco: I saved the best for last. There you go.
Alex Russell: Oh my gosh. You know what, the main thing that I've, it's hard to pick. Okay.
There's tons of stuff that was actually new to me in the slides that I didn't, that I never thought about, that I now apply to us as a farm. But, the thing that I'm thinking of right now, that might be the most important thing, is the accountability that [00:47:00] comes with telling people to send an email every week.
And if I don't send an email this week, I'm gonna feel like such a bum because I just told 30 other farmers to do it. And because you never feel like sending a newsletter, I don't. I bet 90% of farmers don't ever feel like doing it. So, it's just one of those things like.
Janelle Maiocco: I'm glad you said that.
Alex Russell: Waking up early in the morning and exercising, you don't, you're never gonna feel like doing it.
But for me, I just told 30 new farmers yesterday, you gotta send out an email every week. And guess what? I sent one this morning.
Janelle Maiocco: I'm so proud of you.
Alex Russell: And I was like, I have to do it.
Janelle Maiocco: I did it.
Alex Russell: Or else I'm gonna like, be a liar. I can't do it. I can't face these guys next Thursday if I haven't sent an email between now and then.
Janelle Maiocco: Uhhuh, good job.
Alex Russell: So, I love it. It really keeps me accountable and, it keeps our [00:48:00] sales up because sending out emails is like printing money. I remember Tom Bennett said that years ago and on the podcast.
Janelle Maiocco: Famous quote from Mr. Tom Bennett.
Alex Russell: It's still true, Tom.
Janelle Maiocco: It's like sending an email is like going to the ATM.
Alex Russell: Yeah. It's amazing.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: It's really amazing. So, I try to keep my emails engaging and fun and don't repeat the same thing over and over and over again. But you don't really have to snaz it up that much if you're gonna be sending it out every week. So.
Janelle Maiocco: Correct.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Take some pressure off. Be nice to yourself.
It doesn't have to be a book. It can be, 3, 4, 5 sentences, 'cause guess what? Also, people don't scroll a whole lot. So, you should mix it up and have some be short.
Alex Russell: That was one of the worst things about monthly newsletters was that I felt so much pressure to make it this freaking essay of all these thoughts and pictures and opinions and when I realized people weren't even scrolling past the first page, I was like, oh man, I gotta stop [00:49:00] wasting all this time trying to make this big deal newsletter.
Janelle Maiocco: No.
Alex Russell: Let's just send it out once a week and keep it simple. And that's working so much better for us.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, you don't wanna give thumb cramps when they're scrolling on their mobile phone. Also, a lot of people are reading and shopping on mobile phones, so keep that in mind too.
But, good. Well, thank you. Wow. How fun is that? I love chatting with you. For all of you out there, there's more podcast to come. In fact, Alex will be hosting a podcast in the next few weeks here with one of our new fans. By the way, in case we mention that, and don't say it out loud, FAN stands for Farm Advisory Network.
So, we have a group of farmers like Alex and some of the others that teach our academy classes or maybe mentioned in an ebook, et cetera, that we work quite closely with. There our farm advisory network and give us advice, feedback, fill us with great ideas and work very closely with us, and we feel very spoiled.
So, appreciate that. But he's gonna be hosting a podcast.
Alex Russell: I'm so nervous and so excited. All at the same time.
Janelle Maiocco: You're gonna do great. It'll be fantastic.
Alex Russell: [00:50:00] Gonna be so much fun.
Janelle Maiocco: Thank you for doing that in advance. I can't wait to hear it.
I wanna extend my thanks to Alex for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Alex and his farm on their Instagram @ChucktownAcres. Please go check it out @ChucktownAcres on Instagram. Also, he's epic at reels, so you must do that. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.
We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more, customers increase sales and save time, tons of time, for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started, like Alex just had a class of 30, which is incredible, or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and wanna simplify your business, skip some of those potholes, frankly, visit us at barn2door.com/Learn-More. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the independent Farmer podcast.
[00:51:00] Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.