312 How a Homesteader Turned Her Side Hustle into a Growing Farm Business

Summary

My Digital Farmer Podcast - Episode 312 Summary

Title: How a Homesteader Turned Her Side Hustle into a Growing Farm Business
Host: Corinna Bench
Guest: Beth Declerk
Release Date: May 14, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 312 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast, host Corinna Bench welcomes Beth Declerk, a former city dweller turned homesteader, who has successfully transformed her side hustle into a thriving small farm business. This episode delves into Beth's journey from urban life to sustainable farming, highlighting the organic growth of her business and the marketing strategies that fueled her success.

---

Beth's Homesteading Journey

From Urban Life to Rural Homesteading

Beth Declerk shares her transition from living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to establishing a homestead in mid-Michigan. Motivated initially by the desire to provide healthier food for her growing family, Beth and her husband Tommy gradually shifted towards financial self-sufficiency through farming.

"[...] during our second pregnancy, I decided I wanted to give birth naturally. We took a childbirth class called the Bradley Method, which emphasized nutrition. This opened our eyes to whole foods and sourcing locally, setting us on the path to homesteading." (08:11)

Growing a Large Family on the Homestead

Beth and Tommy have eight children, ranging from three months to almost fifteen years old. Managing such a large family while expanding their homestead required a steady, incremental approach.

"We are like the slow and steady homesteaders because it was not like an overnight transition. We took it little by little to accommodate our limited time and energy as parents." (11:00)

---

Building a Sustainable Farm Business

Identifying the Need for Financial Independence

As their homestead grew, Beth realized that relying solely on her husband's income was unsustainable. To mitigate financial risks, she sought to generate independent revenue streams from their farming activities.

"I didn't want a scenario where something happened, and we had to sell our milk cows or equipment. I wanted everything to pay for itself to protect our farm from personal financial situations." (19:49)

Launching the Chicken Sales Business

Beth began by selling meat chickens as their first significant income stream. Starting with small batches, she gradually scaled up based on demand.

"We started with raising 50 extra chickens to cover our 50 plus some garden expenses. Last year, we planned to raise 400 but quickly added another 100 due to high demand." (21:49)

---

Marketing Strategies and Customer Acquisition

Leveraging Social Media for Growth

Beth primarily utilized Facebook to reach local customers. By consistently sharing updates about her homestead—both successes and challenges—she built trust and nurtured her audience organically.

"About 80% of our customers came through social media nurturing. Sharing our daily activities helped people buy into what we were doing." (24:07)

Implementing an Email Marketing Campaign

Transitioning from manual deposit tracking to a more streamlined email-based system, Beth successfully executed an early bird pre-launch campaign that significantly boosted her sales.

"I sent out four emails the week before the launch, detailing the offer, FAQs, and reminders. On the first day, we sold around 150 birds within hours." (26:04)

Creating Urgency and Scarcity

Beth employed strategies like limited-time offers and bonuses to encourage quick purchases, further enhancing the effectiveness of her campaigns.

"We offered a tote bag and a $20 coupon for on-farm events, emphasizing the limited availability to create urgency." (34:11)

---

Customer Fulfillment and Retention

Streamlined Pickup Process

Beth established a clear and organized system for fulfilling orders, ensuring a smooth experience for her customers. This included advance notifications, sorting orders efficiently, and assisting customers during pickups.

"We send reminder emails 10 days before butchering, provide clear instructions, and help customers load their chickens to ensure a hassle-free pickup." (38:36)

Identifying Areas for Improvement

While Beth has a robust fulfillment process, she recognizes the need for ongoing customer engagement post-purchase to enhance retention and satisfaction.

"I haven't yet implemented post-purchase follow-ups, which is an area I plan to develop to better nurture our customer relationships." (42:32)

---

Expanding Revenue Streams

Diversifying Offerings

Beyond chicken sales, Beth has developed multiple income streams based on customer demand and minimal upfront investment:

1. Chicken Butchering Services: Offering seasonal butchering services for those who prefer not to handle it themselves.
2. On-Farm Events and Workshops: Hosting classes on meat chicken raising, gardening, and canning.
3. Online Membership ("Intentional Homesteading"): Providing digital content focused on homestead productivity and profitability.

"Our membership generates the highest revenue, offering insights into building a profitable homestead while filling year-round income gaps." (46:34)

Online Membership Success

Beth's digital membership has evolved organically, starting with downloadable PDFs and growing into a comprehensive platform that supports consistent income with minimal ongoing effort.

"Our membership, Intentional Homesteading, began with homestead handouts and has grown into a $20/month offering focused on productivity and profitability." (66:24)

---

Lessons Learned and Future Goals

Consistency is Key

Beth emphasizes the importance of regular engagement and consistency in marketing efforts. Maintaining a steady presence builds trust and fosters a loyal customer base.

"Being consistent in showing up and sharing our journey builds the trust factor, which is crucial for marketing success." (60:49)

Adaptability and Intentional Growth

Balancing business growth with family needs is a central theme in Beth's approach. She advocates for mindful scaling, ensuring that business expansion supports rather than overwhelms family life.

"We aim to sustain our lives comfortably by being intentional with each season, allowing flexibility to adapt to our family's changing needs." (54:20)

Customer-Driven Development

Following customer feedback and demand has been instrumental in shaping Beth's business offerings. She advises other farmers to lean into what customers are willing to pay for, minimizing financial risks.

"If people are giving you money upfront, like with chicken deposits, it gives you the confidence to invest your time effectively without significant financial risk." (58:43)

---

Conclusion

Beth Declerk's story is a testament to the power of organic growth, customer-centric strategies, and consistent marketing efforts in building a successful farm business. Her journey from urban life to a sustainable homestead provides valuable insights for farmers aiming to diversify their income streams and achieve financial independence. Aspiring homesteaders and small farm owners can draw inspiration from Beth's balanced approach, emphasizing intentional growth and adaptability to create a thriving agricultural enterprise.

For more information about Beth Declerk and her homestead business, visit IntentionalHomesteading.com or follow her on Instagram @bethdeclerk.

---

Notable Quotes:

• "We are like the slow and steady homesteaders because it was not like an overnight transition." (11:00)
• "I was like, wow, it worked. It works. It actually works." (32:27)
• "If people are giving you money upfront, like with chicken deposits, it gives you the confidence to invest your time effectively without significant financial risk." (58:43)
• "Consistency in showing up and sharing our journey builds the trust factor, which is crucial for marketing success." (60:49)

---

This summary captures the essence of Episode 312, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of Beth Declerk's journey, strategies, and insights into building a successful homestead-based business.

Transcript

[Corinna Bench]

Today, I'm interviewing a guest who turned her hobby of homesteading into a side hustle and now a thriving small farm business. How did she do it? Well, as you're going to hear, it was quite an organic process. She followed the energy. She followed what her customers were telling her to do. There are so many beautiful insights in today's episode. Let's dive in and learn them. Hey there. This is Corinna Bench and welcome to the My Digital Farmer Podcast. In today's market, it's not enough to just grow your product, you've got to know how to sell it too. Welcome to the My Digital Farmer Podcast where we reveal online marketing strategies and tips to help farmers like you get better and more confident at marketing. Let's learn how to find more customers, increase your sales, and build a strong brand for your farm. Let's start the show well. Welcome to episode 312 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast. I am your host, Corinna Bench, one of the farmers at Shared Legacy Farms out in Elmore, Ohio. I'm also the founder of mydigitalfarmer.com, which is all about trying to help other farmers get more confident in their marketing and sales strategy so that you can grow a profitable business. How's everyone doing today? Welcome back to the show. Big shout out to all of my regular listeners who tune in faithfully every week or almost every week. I really appreciate you. If you're new to the podcast, I hope you get something out of today's episode. And please make sure you subscribe to the show. Subscribe Go check out my first 10 episodes. If you are new to the marketing space and you really need kind of a A101 primer. Otherwise there's a ton of stuff in the archives. If you just scroll over the 300 plus episodes, I'm sure you will find a title that intrigues you. But I'm really glad that you're here today. You can also get onto my email list because when you do, I'm going to send you a bunch of really helpful information that's going to teach you the ropes of how to do marketing well as a farmer. And you can do that by going to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe. I'll send you an email like every four or five days for about three months and it's going to point to key principles you need to understand. It's going to point to really good podcast episodes. In this podcast, other people you should be following tools you should know about free stuff that I'm going to share with you and templates, so it's really good. I encourage you to subscribe. So again that that link is mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe Today's episode is sponsored by my friends at Localline. If you're like me, winter is your downtime to plan and prep for the upcoming growing season. Set yourself up for success with localline, the best sales platform built for farms. Localline is the most comprehensive software for farmers and food hubs that's out there selling direct to restaurants, schools, wholesale buyers, running a CSA and more. With features like e commerce, automated inventory management, they have subscriptions, a box builder, point of sale, and more. Localline helps you grow sales. It saves you time and streamlines your operations. In fact, on average, this is cool. Farms that use localline grow sales by 23% and they increase their average order size by 9.5% annually. So, ready to switch to sales software that does it all? Logoline has no setup fees, no sales percentages, and your onboarding manager will migrate your storefront for free so you'll be up and running in no time. As a podcast listener, localline is also offering a free premium feature for one year with your subscription when you use my coupon code MDF2025. So to claim it, go to mydigitalfarmer.com localline and then enter that coupon code MDF2025. Don't wait. Start your season strong with Localline today. And now back to the show. Today I have a special guest on the show and the way that we connected for this interview is she reached out to me through an email and this is sometimes the case. I'll get emails at my inbox from random listeners to the show who will tell me things like, hey, I used your format or your framework that you taught on episode xyz and I used it on my own business and I got incredible results. And so that was what this particular email was all about. And I was super excited for her. And I said, you know what, it would be great if you could come onto the show and tell that story of what your, you know, what the framework was, what episode you'd listen to, how you tweaked it to fit your style of business and what exactly happened and what the takeaways were for you. And that's where I thought this interview was going to go. And that definitely comes out in the conversation. Don't worry. So it's a, it's a really strong part of the interview, but There were some other aha moments that we uncovered along the way. And this is one of the things I love about doing interviews. I always tell my guests not to worry. It's my job as the interviewer to ask the questions and find the gem in the story that that can be a practical lesson for our listeners. And I feel like there were several beautiful, wise learnings and teachings that came out of her story, and I'm excited for you to hear them. So no matter where you are in your own journey, whether you are at the beginning or more advanced, or whether you raise meat birds or you're a CSA vegetable farmer or you do agritourism, there is a lesson in this story that you can learn. And I want you to to listen for it and see what is the energy pointing you to. And I have a bonus. As part of today's episode, there's an outtake. We had a side conversation that didn't make the final cut when we were editing the show, but I wanted to include it because I think some of you will be very interested in it. And, and so when you get to the end of the show and you start to hear the music queuing up, don't just turn off and assume the episode's over. There's actually a little bit more of a snippet hanging out after the music. So keep listening and you might find that part of our conversation valuable. My guest today is Beth Declerk. And Beth is a city kid turned homesteader who is raising eight kids, yes, eight. With her husband Tommy on 10 acres in mid Michigan. She originally began homesteading with the desire to provide better food for her family. But eventually their change in lifestyle grew into a longing for financial self sufficiency too. Their small homestead now generates enough revenue to cover all of its own costs and then some. And they are currently on the journey of scaling for from a family homestead to a small farm. Please join me in welcoming Beth to the show. Well, Beth, welcome to the show.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

[Corinna Bench]

Awesome to get started. Why don't you tell my audience a little bit about your backstory, where you live, a little bit about your family, how you got here, wherever you want to start.

[Beth Declerk]

Okay, so. So I am in Michigan, kind of midwestern part of the state, just about an hour north of Grand Rapids. And how we got here, we both my husband and I actually my husband Tommy grew up in Toledo area, so not far from uh, but I'm from Grand Rapids, so two very decent sized cities. We did not have exposure to Agriculture. We did not grow up even fishing or hunting or anything connected to, you know, being a part of the food process. But what happened is that during our second pregnancy, I had decided I wanted to give birth naturally. And we took a childbirth class called the Bradley Method, which, you know, I didn't really know what it was going to be going into it, but it ended up being so much more than childbirth. And a heavy emphasis of that class is about nutrition. And we at that point had lived, you know, with a very standard American diet, as people call them. Our eyes were, like, completely opened to this idea of whole food. You know, I thought that healthy food was counting calories and low fat. I didn't know. I didn't even think about, like, not eating out of a box. And so that kind of snowballed us into really shifting our diets and. And sourcing things locally from other farms, both vegetables and meats. And just the deeper we got into it and the more our family grew and our budget kind of, you know, shrunk. We started, you know, a little garden, and we had a little layer flock of chickens. This is all, by the way, in the city still. We have this going on. And then eventually we moved out of the city to a rural property so that we could just have more control over or more connection, really, to that whole process of growing our food. And that was over 10 years ago now, so.

[Corinna Bench]

And tell my audience how many children you have.

[Beth Declerk]

So we have eight children. Our youngest is three months old. Our oldest is almost 15. And they're pretty much every other year is how they land. So I always say we have. Have a friend for everyone. If you come over with kids, we'll. We'll find somebody to match them up with.

[Corinna Bench]

Wow. So I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. You have all these children, and this is. Happen. You said that happened in the. In the. At the second birth or with the birth of your second child is when you.

[Beth Declerk]

Correct.

[Corinna Bench]

Kind of woke up and began to. Okay, so what was that like? Trying to make this adjustment while being a mom, which I know is really hard, but then you start keep adding more children. Like, what was that like? Juggling all that.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. I always joke that we are like the slow and steady homesteaders because it was not like an overnight transition. I see people, you know, moving from city to country, and within a year, they've got a milk cow and 20 different animals. And all of this going on, like, that was not our pace. Like, we were little by little by little. I mean, we had Started drinking raw milk in. I. I think it was maybe 2013, and it was seven years before we finally bought a milk cow of our own, which we have a couple of now. But it was just little by little, it. I don't rush things. You know, you have capacity when you're a mom. I mean, everybody's got capacity, but especially when you're a mom, your time and your energy are really limited. So I just. We've just been steady, little by little. It's not been anything crazy. But you definitely. I mean, looking back, overall, the transition has been dramatic, but over time.

[Corinna Bench]

So how would you define being a homesteader? And I have my own definition of what that means, but how does it manifest in your life? Like, tell me some of the things that you are doing. If someone came into your house and spent a couple days with you, they would be able to say, this is evidence she is a homesteader.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah, there's. There's a lot of different motivators for people. For us, the primary motivations are, number one, the connection. The connection to our food and what it takes to not only produce and grow. We do all of our own butchering of our animals, even from chickens all the way up to beef cows, because it's important for us to really have a perception of, like, number one, the waste that is normally involved in that process and to try to minimize it as much as possible. But also just the amount of work, like, things are so instantly gratifying in our culture today. And choosing to homestead is like the opposite of that. Like, if you need instant gratification, like, do not homestead because everything is slow. You cannot rush nature. You can't rush doing a process by hand. But you also cannot replace the satisfaction that feeling gives you when you know, you planted the seed. And now, nine months later, you're still enjoying meals from that fruit and from those, you know, the labor of your hands. So connection is a really big one for us. But then also, too, just with having so many mouths to feed, the security of having some control over our food source. I see so much right now about grocery prices and just, you know, how people struggle with that. And I haven't been faced, like, I don't even know. I don't even know what things cost in the grocery store because I go so rarely. And when I do, it's for, you know, oh, we want to have a. Like, junk food, you know, like, restocking bulk items. But, like, it's just. It's not a regular expense, even in our budget at this point. So having that security for our family that if my husband couldn't go to work because he was sick or something drastic happened, like we will have food. And that is kind of the minimal requirement. Right. To sustain you. I think just living intentionally. And really we try to focus on being producers versus just consumers and just. Yeah. Being intentional with what we do have to buy if we do.

[Corinna Bench]

So talk to me about your, the community in which you live. Does the fact that you are a homesteader get noticed by other people? Like, do you stand out? Are you known as. Known for that? Is this a. Yeah. Something that you're known for? How did you get discovered? Because I know you're going to kind of share about how you now have this little side business. Where, where does that fit into this story?

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah, I, I would say people know and they recognize. We, we actually just moved to a new property a few months ago, but our older property wasn't far away and both of them are on kind of a, you know, prominent pathway that people would take. So our old property we were on for, for almost six years and, you know, it went through this drastic transformation from being basically just an old farmhouse in the middle of a hundred acre crop field to kind of carving off our five acres and having fencing and having a very diversified amount of animals. Whereas most places around here it's, you know, 200 cows or a whole, you know, barn full of chickens. And you either don't see the animals or it's just a lot of the. And we have cows, we have pigs, we have chickens, like, we have dogs. So it's very different. And yeah, I think we had a neighbor actually that was, we had called about getting some hay and you know, we kind of said our name and where we were and they said, oh yeah, that the homesteaders. Like, that was his. That was how he referred to us, apparently, the label.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah.

[Corinna Bench]

So, yeah, I, I just, it's just making me think about our early years when we started farming and how we also did some different things that most people wouldn't do unconventional things with our land. And I think it made people curious, like, what's going on over there? Who are these people? What are they doing? And I, I was just kind of wondering if you've had that happen at some point in your journey where people began to want to look over here and learn from you or, or say, how do you do that? Have you ever found that to happen?

[Beth Declerk]

For sure, for sure. And I, I mean, we can talk about this more when we get into like our business. Side of our homestead. But I have a Facebook page that I am very consistent with sharing on, and I've gained a lot of people on there that said, hey, I live around the corner. Because, you know, our. Our header photo is our barn. Like, it's very iconic. It's very easy to recognize. If you've driven by and you saw a picture of it, you'd be like, oh, yes, I know where that is. So that also has helped us to kind of connect with people locally so that they can have a little bit more of a full perception of what we're actually doing versus just wondering. And I can actually explain why we do things and why we have certain things.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah, well, let's shift into your business now. Like, how did the. How did this come to be? So maybe explain to my audience what it is that you sell and sort of the birth of that. The origin story of that business.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. So a few years into our homesteading journey, you know, we had, I guess I should say five or six years into it, we had built up quite. Quite a lot as far as, you know, we had a lot of different animals, a lot of different equipment. We were growing a very large portion of our family's food. Probably, you know, 80% of the meat we consume, 50 to 60% of our vegetables and other produce, eggs, all of those things. And that's kind of like the goal with a lot of homesteaders, Right. Is to have that quote, unquote, self sufficiency for your food source. But what I was realizing was that that security was only going to be sustainable as long as my husband's paycheck was still coming in off farm. If he were to get sick or if he were to lose his job for whatever reason, not only would we lose the money that was supporting our house, but we would lose the money that was supporting our farm and therefore our food. And that was very uncomfortable for me. I didn't want to have a scenario where, you know, something happened, and then all of a sudden we have to sell our milk cow and we have to sell our equipment and, you know, have to scale back everything we had worked so hard to build. So that was kind of what birthed the idea of, like, trying to generate income from the homestead with the goal of having it be kind of financially independent from our personal finances. All I wanted was for everything to pay for itself. So that way it alone was protected from any type of personal financial situation. So that was kind of why we started doing things.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so you created a business plan, or you had an idea for an offer. Tell me what happens next.

[Beth Declerk]

No, nothing. Nothing legitimate. Like, oh, I love it. This was not, this was not really like going into it. It wasn't like, my homestead's going to be a business. It was like, how do I make money so that my chickens pay for themselves? You know. And so we started our first real income stream off our homestead was selling meat chickens. And that was really just, you know, it was something we were doing that we were comfortable with. We, it was, you know, it's kind of a one hit thing, like you're not having to do it year round, like selling milk or something like that. You do it once or twice a year and then you're done with it. And so we started with raising, you know, 50 extra chickens to cover our 50, and then we raised 100 extra chickens. So that covered our 50 plus it covered a little bit of, you know, the garden expenses. And we really just slowly by slowly started increasing how many we were raising. Last year we planned to raise 400. And very quickly into the year, I had such high demand that I squeezed in another batch of 100. So we raised 500, kept 100 for ourselves, and sold the other four. And those 500 birds paid for not only the chicken we raised for ourselves, but the pork we raised for ourselves, all of the hay that we needed for our cows for the wintertime. Plus I think I had another twelve hundred dollars or so that I used, you know, for other things. And that was just from the meat chickens. We have multiple income streams now, but that was like one thing covers a lot of it. So we don't necessarily have to have like every part of our homestead covering itself if some of them are covering enough to overflow, if that makes sense.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Okay. I, I, there's so many places we could go here, but I want to, I want to start now just with how did you find these customers? Because this is a marketing podcast. So do you want to chat a little bit about some of the principles that you are using within this model of a homescale kind of operation and a business that spawns off of that? How are these people finding you? How are they becoming aware of you? You said you're selling 400 birds. Like, how does that just happen?

[Beth Declerk]

Okay, so the first year, it was definitely, I had a lot of like that initial lowest hanging fruit sales, you know, where friends and family bought it. And it wasn't until really year two or three that we had pushed to the amount where it was like, okay, all of my People that I know don't want chicken anymore. Like, I have to find new customers beyond just friends and neighbors and stuff. So I mentioned I, I use social media, specifically Facebook, because I feel like it is easier to target local people on Facebook than it is on other platforms like Instagram. So I started sharing on Facebook and this is all before I've had any type of like, business knowledge or reading. Like, I, I basically what I was doing though is I was nurturing my audience regularly just by sharing what we were doing. I wasn't selling, I was just sharing. Hey, we got baby chicks. Here's a tour of our brooder. This is our chicken tractor that we use in the field when we move into pasture. This is what happens when it rains the first, you know, night when you put them in the chicken tractor and they all die. And it's like, you know, sharing the good and the bad. It's something that I think is, is natural for me. But now looking back, I can see how that really helped buy people into what we were doing. And I would say probably 80% of our customers that we get came through kind of that social media, you know, nurturing type marketing. And then of course, we do have people that refer friends too. So the rest of them are just word of mouth. Someone's getting chicken and then their mom starts buying chicken.

[Corinna Bench]

Do you collect an email list at any point? Like in the traditional model that I teach, there is like this step where you're gathering a list so that you can continue to nurture them. Was that ever a part of this process?

[Beth Declerk]

So yes, and I would say a few years into it, I was originally our method for selling was that we took deposits. So we pre sold almost all of our products. Like if I was going to sell 200 chickens, I would take deposits for 75% of them. I wanted to leave a little bit of a buffer in case there was, you know, loss or something. So around January or February, I would do kind of a pre launch or a launch for deposits for the year. And that was honestly necessary because that was our seed money to buy chicks and to pay for feed and all of that stuff. So I was taking deposits though, for the first few years, like through PayPal or through checks in the mail or through that. It wasn't even Venmo at that point, but, you know, all of these kind of disconnected ways. And then I'd have to make a spreadsheet with everybody's name. And eventually I got to the point where I was like, okay, I need a website. So People can place their deposits through the website and then I have all of their contact information and, you know, they can opt into being on the email list as a customer. And, and yeah, so I. But I haven't really utilized that email list for selling chicken until last fall when we were kind of getting to the end of our season. And you gave me the idea to try to basically use all of the energy I had from people that still wanted to buy and we were sold out for the year to funnel them into being customers for 2025 with the, with the early bird launch idea. That was awesome.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so tell me. Yeah, tell me about, about how you used that, that promotion. And as you tell the story, there might be people listening who don't even know how that process works. So maybe you can kind of point out some of the parts of it. Today's podcast is sponsored by Farm Marketing School. All right, farmer, let me ask you something. Is marketing your farm something you actually enjoy or does it feel like a constant struggle? If you are like most farmers that I talk to, you are wearing all the hats and marketing always seems to slip through the cracks. Can I get an amen? That's exactly why I created Farm Marketing School. It's an online membership designed to help farmers like you build a simple, repeatable marketing system that actually works inside. You'll get bite sized, step by step, projects that make marketing easier. Each month you pick what to work on, like writing better sales emails or improving your website copy, or setting up your online store. And I walk you through exactly how you should be doing it. And you're not doing this alone. Every month we have a live Zoom meetup where you can ask me questions, meet other members of Farm Marketing School, get coaching, and hear what's working for other farmers. It's like having a farm marketing mentor in your back pocket. This isn't some long, overwhelming course. The projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days. So you're making steady progress without it taking over your life. So if you're ready to stop winging it and finally build a marketing system that brings in steady sales, come join Farm Marketing School today. Sign up for your first month and see what a difference it makes. Go to mydigitalfarmer.com fms to get started. And now back to the show.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah, so I don't remember what episode it is, but your episode on the early bird pre launch. Basically, you know how for you CSA customers, you can finish their season when they're, you know, most excited and kind of sad about it ending and lock them in for the next year. And even though we don't have a vegetable csa, we had people that wanted chicken that and we were sold out. And it was kind of like, I can add them to a list and really hope they have the same excitement to buy in the spring, or I can kind of tweak what you do to lock them in and have them place their deposit now. So I had to tweak it because it was not as elaborate. I mean, you had a lot of like, you know, you have a group that, a Facebook group, a lot of giveaways. I did not have that. It was such a simple, such a simple version. But and honestly, it was kind of an experiment to see does email marketing work. Like, I've never tried to sell my chickens solely through email. It's just been kind of on social media or word of mouth. But I do have these emails. So will it work? So here is how I set it up. I had the goal of, of having 200 of this year. We're doing 650 chickens to sell. My goal was to sell 200 of them at kind of an early bird pricing that was a little bit lower than what it would be for this year. I was willing to sell up to 400, but 200 would pay for our chicks. And that would have been nice to not have to do out of pocket. I had 256 emails of people that, not necessarily all people that had bought chicken from us, but people that had bought something from us and lived in the area. So they, some of them were repeat customers, but not all of them were. And my format for my launch was that the week before, I sent out four different emails. One of them was just saying, hey, this is happening next week. One of them was all of the details and pricing, because there is different ways that you can buy whether you want to pick up every single month or you want to just pick up one time, whether you want whole birds or parted birds, like there are options. The third email was some, like, FAQs. So I had a few friends go through like my first two emails and kind of asked me questions of like, what needs clarity? And created some FAQs. And then the fourth email was just, hey, remember this is happening tomorrow. So that was it. Just four emails one week beforehand. And the first day when we opened, it was open for seven days. The first day we opened, I think we sold over 150 or right around 150 birds. And the first few hours, and I was shocked. And what was so Funny is I had a text from one of my repeat customers that was like a screenshot of her and her friend who are both customers of us. And they're like, are you ready? This is like Black Friday for crunchy moms. Like they were waiting at their computers, you know, at 6:30 in the morning. And it was so funny. Like they were, they were there, they were ready and it was, it was very encouraging. So we ended up having over. It was 389 birds that were reserved. So almost like my maximum almost goals. Yeah. Which was, I mean it was over $3,000 which is just such a blessing again as someone super small scale to have that to set ourselves up for the next season and not have to kind of worry about it over winter. And the other blessing about it was that this was all in the first week of November that I did this and I was due to have my baby in the beginning of the year. So kind of the time where I would have normally been trying to get those deposits, I just, I didn't have to worry about it. It was already done, it was already taken care of. And honestly a lot of the chicks were sold, sold out by that point. Because it's been so crazy this year that I was glad I ordered them in November and locked them in. But yeah, huge success.

[Corinna Bench]

Wow. What, what were you feeling as you were watching the numbers come in? What can you remember? Some of the emotions.

[Beth Declerk]

I mean, not that I like didn't believe you, but I was like, wow, it worked. It works. It actually works. So I think excitement that just like, you know, I, I'm not somebody who tries to reinvent the wheel. As much as I love to be creative, I'm also a busy mom and I only have so much mental energy. So if somebody gives me a format and a plan to follow with proven success, like I'm very trusting of like just follow that process. You don't have to try to, you know, make it fancier. You can put your own spin on it if you need to. But yeah, I was just, you know, it was, it was affirming that like even I, without any business or farming experience can do this. So very encouraging.

[Corinna Bench]

And now tell me how you created urgency in your offer. What were some of the things you did? So you said you limited to seven days and you lowered the price. You. So you communicated that. Did you start, did you tell them the doors open at a certain time? Did you? I did okay.

[Beth Declerk]

Yep. There was a, there was a. So they opened at 7am on a Sunday and that was, you know, the text I got, it was like 7, 6:30 in the morning. They were waiting to. To do it. Yep. They only had seven days. They had a lower price and they did get a free. We have like a tote that's just like a, you know, like a market tote that they can use for not really chicken, but, you know, you can always use another bag. So that was kind of a bonus. And then I also gave a Coupon code for $20 off. Any on farm events is another income stream that we have. So any on farm event, they get $20 off in 2025. So there. But that was it. It was just a tote.

[Corinna Bench]

Did you tell them that you only had so many? Did you kind of make it sound like you were expecting them to move fast?

[Beth Declerk]

So I did. In the week of the launch, there was the initial day email, of course, and then on day two, I actually ended up sending an email saying that we were, you know, 40% sold out or whatever that percentage was like after the first day. And other than that, though, I only sent two other emails that week. So four emails in total, I think the first day, the second day, and then the last day I sent two. And you know, like, with a lot of launches, it's like the first day and the last day or where the bulk of the orders come in. But yeah, I just, I didn't, I. I could definitely now looking at it for next year now that I've done it, you know, and I don't have to start completely from scratch. I can see how I could ramp it up during the week if I wanted to. But I'm so happy with, with what we sold that it wasn't, it wasn't something I needed to press and do a lot.

[Corinna Bench]

And this is an audience that was already warm. They had, in some cases purchased before. Or was it all just a wait list that was waiting to buy for the first time.

[Beth Declerk]

So most of it was actually just either completely new buyers or somebody that had bought something else from us before but not ever bought chicken. The orders we got, I actually wrote down about 40% of them were new buyers. So, yeah, so that was exciting to see, you know, of course, you know the names of your customers. So when I'm seeing things come through, I'm like, whoa, who just got 500? Like, I don't even know who they are. And they spent 500 with us. Like, wow. So. But yeah, all of the emails had been, you know, collected from somebody choosing to, you know, obviously give it to us. Or coming to something else, either an event or buying something else from us.

[Corinna Bench]

So, yeah, that's awesome. I love hearing stories like this and I love that you simplified it. You didn't need to make it complicated for sure.

[Beth Declerk]

Well, and part of like our talks the last few years have been, do we scale this, do we scale this beyond being just a little homestead that makes money to cover its cost? Because we are now tipping into kind of the excess profits, you know, is what we're experiencing. And both my husband and I are kind of like, yeah, like if you could be home full time with us because we're making enough, like, that would be, that would be awesome. But in order to scale, I can't just rely on, you know, the algorithm to show everybody on social media that I'm selling chicken. Like, I need, I, I recognize that I need a better way to have contact with my customers and, you know, that I have control over. So that was another. Again, I say part of, kind of the experiment of doing that whole email launch was I didn't, I posted on social media about it one time during that early bird special. I didn't post out about it at all. So this was a hundred percent emails, which was, you know, it was very affirming of like, okay, this can work. Which is much more, you know, easy to manage as a busy mom because, you know, social media requires, you can schedule out posts, but like, you still have to circle back to engage to get the most of it. And, and it's just different versus email is like, I could schedule it all out, then I don't even have to think about it.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah, well, and that's an internal launch, right? So you're, you're focusing on the people that are in your, in your clan, in your community that you've collected and nurtured. There still needs to be a strategy for the top of the funnel. So social media still needs to be there. But like, you don't necessarily have to be posting about your actual offer there. Maybe you don't deliver the offer until they're in the clan right inside.

[Beth Declerk]

So.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering, first of all, if you could talk a little bit about the fulfillment side of your chicken shares, because that is a part of the customer journey when they come and get the product, like, what are you doing to ensure that they have success? Especially like a first timer. Is, is there some kind of a system? Do you communicate with them a certain way to make sure they know how to use it so that they are like, wow, this was amazing. In case they don't know what to do with it for sure.

[Beth Declerk]

So we have when, when people initially place their deposits. So before our season starts, our first pickup for chicken isn't until June. So if anybody reserves chicken before then, they have an email that they get, you know, confirming their order and letting them know that if they're subscribed for monthly pickup, it starts in June and it goes through September. If they order just for like a one time fill your freezer situation, then pickups start in June and they will be done in kind of a first come first serve basis because we only have a certain amount each month. So they get probably two emails throughout the spring just being like, hey, first batch of meat chicks are here. Hey look, they're out on the field. Here's a picture. And then I know for the most part what our processing dates are going to be. We process one batch a month, which is this year going to be 150 birds per batch. And but I don't tell them the date until about 10 days before just to make sure, you know, you don't know how things are going to grow 100%. So 10 days before we are going to butcher, they get an email that says this is the date we are butchering. Pickup is typically the next day after we butcher to give us time to get things packaged and weighed and sorted out. Because for the most part every time we do, you know, a butchering, that's like 15 to 20 different people that are going to be coming. So I gotta sort those out. They'll get a reminder the oh, and in that 10 day before email there is our address. There is, you know, these are this time slots for pickup time. And then there's a reminder that you will get an email with your total balance the night before pickup. When I'm calculating things and I have the weights, so those are kind of the common questions that I've gotten over time. So that now I know, like these are what people are wondering.

[Corinna Bench]

Awesome.

[Beth Declerk]

So then the night before they get a reminder email saying, hey, just a reminder, pick up tomorrow's from this time to this time, you know, when you pull in, you go here, it's, it's very clear. On our property, this is your total balance that you can pay with cash or check or Venmo or PayPal or like credit card, you know, all of the options, you know, very excited to see you. And depending on how many they have or if I know where they're coming from, I'll say, you know, you may want to Bring a cooler of this size. The chickens will be in bags, but you might want, you know, to have something else for your car. And so then the day they come and pick up, the way that we organize birds is that everything, like I said, whether a customer is picking up five birds or 20 birds, everything has been sorted out. Their invoice has been calculated so that it's quick and they don't have to sit there while I'm doing things back end wise. So all of their birds, depending on how many they get, either get put just in bags, like a. Like a plastic bag that has their name on it. And if there's multiple bags, it'll be like one of two, two of two. And they're in all of our freezers. And so on their invoice it says which freezer that customers pick up is in. And then anybody that's here, whether it's me or my husband or my daughter, whoever sees them first can help them get their chickens loaded. We help them bring them to their cars just because it's a lot and it's awkward and it's not directly, you know, off of the driveway. And yeah, then they get their invoice. So it's. It's been streamlined over time through trial and error. Right. Like, that's how you learn what you.

[Corinna Bench]

Now, are you talking to them? Are you talking to them again after, after they've gone home, do you check in again and be like, hey, how you doing with those chickens?

[Beth Declerk]

You know, I haven't. That's. That's definitely an area of opportunity. And one thing I need to work through is just having some type of, like, ongoing nurture sequence. I don't know that, like, we're really at the point where it's like, we have a membership Facebook group or something where people can share, but I don't have any type of an intentional outreach to them. And until later on, where I'm like, oh, I should probably. Yeah, talk about next year.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, all right. You talked about wanting to branch off into that. You have other marketing. Excuse me, income streams. Now, did you want to say anything else about that? Like, are they other products that a customer can, like, ascend through, or is it. Or is that a totally different customer base that you're talking about?

[Beth Declerk]

So that's a great question. A lot of our income streams have been based off of, number one, what people ask of us, and number two, what can we realistically offer at, you know, very, very minimal, like, upfront cost? Like, we are not going into building a farm. With, you know, $50,000 to invest into infrastructure or startup or anything like that. So we basically have four income streams and that's it. I know it's not exciting. There's no fancy farm store. Like there's nothing that, you know, people, I think dream about. But these are just income streams that have happen. People have asked for them and they profit. So one of our income streams, which is very much a sister income stream to raising chickens, is that we also offer chicken butchering services because we already had all the equipment, we do it all ourselves. And there were a lot of people that wanted to raise chickens but didn't want to do the butchering or just didn't want to invest in it. So we do chicken butchering seasonally of course, and that is probably, you know, five to $10,000 a year is what we make. Doing that one day a week is all we do. Another income stream we have is on farm events and workshops. So we do both, just, both just like social events. But then we also have a lot of hands on learning. So again, people, they may not want to buy chicken from us, but they want to learn how to raise chickens. So we teach a class on how to raise meat chickens and I teach a class on how to garden and I do canning and we've got multiple classes that we do. And a lot of times, you know, people will take a meat chicken class and then use us for chicken butchering. So there are ways to kind of have them cross over. But obviously somebody that buys chicken isn't going to use us for chicken butchering. So it's not, it's not a perfect kind of like, you know, offer to get the most from the same customer. And then the last major income stream we have, which is where I feel very connected to you because I think it's kind of similar, is that, you know, I, I share a lot about our homestead, I share a lot about our homestead generating income. And so over time, of course I had people that wanted to know, how do you do that? How are you doing that? So I do have online based income, I have a membership where I talk all about building a profitable homestead and it talks about, you know, productivity and efficiency and that kind of thing too. But that kind of digital based income stream is wonderful because it, it fills in year round. You know, meat, chickens and butchering are very seasonal events for the most part are pretty seasonal because they're often outside. So that kind of fills in the year round income and there's always little things here and there that you Know, you make money from, but those are like our four primary streams.

[Corinna Bench]

So which one is the one that brings the greatest revenue right now? Is it the chickens?

[Beth Declerk]

Nope, it's online.

[Corinna Bench]

Really?

[Beth Declerk]

Yes. So. And I. I mean, I'm okay sharing numbers, too. I. I do. I share numbers. So just to give you a breakdown, in 2024, we. Our revenue was pretty much exactly 60,000 from our homestead. 23 of that was online, and I think 15 to 18 was chickens. So chickens is close. And then the other two are. Are the rest of it. So.

[Corinna Bench]

Well done. Well, what's nice about the online one, too, is that there isn't as much labor and overhead going into it. Yeah.

[Beth Declerk]

Yep.

[Corinna Bench]

And you can repeat it and you find these systems that. That work well. Yeah, I love that.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. I think at this point, kind of our goal, we definitely are passionate about growing actual products and, you know, offering in person. Like, we will never lean 100% to online just because, you know, our heart is in the actual doing and helping and equipping people to do things. However, if we could get the online to the point where my husband doesn't have to work off farm, then we can obviously scale things in person a lot faster. So that's kind of what the direction that we're going in, the goal that we have right now. So.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah.

[Corinna Bench]

It's interesting how your shift to becoming a homesteader has created who you. So many elements now of who you are. I'm just imagining if you're. If you're teaching and equipping other people with an online program or membership, like how empowering that is for you as a woman, too, just to know that you're making a difference in people's lives and you're helping other people. I know that's a big thing for me and what drives me. I love that I'm inspiring people. And it's just so rewarding and that the thing that you're actually teaching is coming from is easy because it. It's who you are. It's just, well, this is my life. I'm going to share what I do. So it's not even like, it probably doesn't even feel like work well.

[Beth Declerk]

And I think too, coming from. And not that they're to discredit somebody, you know, that grew up doing something and then taught it. But like, when I say that I was like, so at the bottom of, you know, like, you would have. If you would have met me at 19, like, the amount of skills that I had to qualify me to be a future home Sitter were nothing. I mean, I. I would light a fire making grilled cheese because I didn't know broilers needed to be open. Like, I had no, like, domestic skills at all. And so that, you know, when I am teaching, I. I need people to know. Like, I. I promise you, you can do this. Like, if I can do this, you absolutely can do this. You just got to give yourself time, and you just got to do it one thing at a time. But it's absolutely possible.

[Corinna Bench]

So that is such an important part of the story and the pitch. I guess if you want to help a person kind of come into that membership, I would agree, because you. You speak with more authority, then if you can say, this was what I was like, and now I'm here, and they can imagine that that divide and that transformation happening to them. It suddenly makes it more possible. Yeah. And so if you never said that, if you just never told them your backstory, it might feel more impossible for them to get to the level that you're at. So I do think that's really powerful. I love that I have this. I have a very similar story where I was a suburb girl and I didn't know how to boil a potato when I was in my 20s. Like, I remember having to call my mom when I was on my own and being like, how many minutes? Like, what? You have to what?

[Beth Declerk]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Corinna Bench]

So I can totally resonate. And it's just ironic now that I'm married to a farmer, that I'm teaching people how to cook food, that I'm teaching farmers now how to market, which is also, like, blowing my mind. None of this stuff is stuff that I knew 15 years ago. So you can change.

[Beth Declerk]

I always. I tell people, like, when we're. Especially when we're teaching a butchering class, like, I couldn't. I didn't even know how to cook meat with bones in it. Like, everything came from the freezer or from a can. Like, I literally. Or it was boneless or ground. Like, I couldn't even cook food with meat in it or with bones in it. So. And now we can take it from a live animal to a usable, delicious product. So.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah. Do you think that part of your allure as a brand is that you are inspiring? Does a customer become attracted to your farm business? Find out about you, become aware of you, start following you, begin to imagine that could be me? Is. Do you think part of the power that you have in being so successful at this is because they hear your story or they see just how what your life is like and what you have become where you were before. And they're like, man, what a cool woman. Like, how cool is that? I want that. What if that could happen to me? Like, I just. I just wonder if in your storytelling process, if this is somehow being subtly communicated. Maybe not intentionally, but it. That that's coming out and a person is perhaps attracted to the. The future story or the vision, what their life could be like. Like in your face. You know what I mean?

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. Yeah, I get what you mean. I. I do. I think so. I think, you know, something that's really important to me is. Is sharing the good and the bad. And I get comments all the time about, like, relatability, you know, and just there's. There's definitely a necessary element, I think, in homesteading, but also in motherhood and really in any part of life that you have to be able to romanticize things to get through the mundane or to get through the messy days, you know, And I'm not afraid to do that. I'm not afraid to, you know, have a grasp of reality of, like, some days are just awful as a. As a homesteader, as a mom, like, as a business owner. Some days are really hard. I will share that. But I'll also tunnel vision to what I want to, you know, remind myself, you know, what a lot of people I feel like online, especially, like, they only share the beauty, they only share the picture perfect, the highlight reel or whatever. But it's super important to me that people see, you know, and feel kind of transparency in that. Like, if you want to do this, like, you absolutely can. It will be hard, but it will be worth it. And, you know, I think you'll be more successful if you have that realistic expectation. So that's what I want to. I want to. I want to portray. I want to give you that realistic.

[Corinna Bench]

Expectation, that authenticity piece, I think, is what you're getting at here.

[Beth Declerk]

Too true. Yeah, you.

[Corinna Bench]

You come off as more authentic and trustable, relatable, because you aren't just talking about the good stuff. It actually ends up giving you credibility. What are you trying to accomplish with this business now? So you did mention you're trying to get your husband maybe to become full time. I guess the question is coming up for me as you're talking, like, how much is enough? Like, when do you know that you can stop and just coast and keep doing the same thing that you're doing? Don't have to strive anymore? Like, what. What are you trying to get to? What is the thing that drives you at this point as you're developing this side hustle.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah, I, I'm very much like a. A go getter, a doer, somebody that is, you know, willing to, to always scale things to the next. But we do have a vision for our family of what, like, the goal is. And besides just having kind of the comfort financially of what we need to live without having off farm income, I think there's balance, right? That's. That's the golden word that everybody wants. And our property, the reality is, is that it can only grow so much. We're on 10 acres now. We just moved here from five. And you can grow a lot on 10 acres. But when you're doing it in a mindful way, that has limitations. Now, the nice thing about doing events is that there's no, you don't have to have a limitation of, you know, how many of those you can do. But I think, I think ultimately it's just what do we need to sustain our lives, you know, comfortably and really just being intentional about looking at each season on its own. Like, there are seasons where we got to scale back because we got an infant, we got a newborn, we're not going to be doing as much. Or we might have a season where our oldest is now getting married and, and she's transitioning into adulthood, and that's going to require more from us. So I don't know, I guess I can't give, like, a specific goal, but we want to continue to steward things and to grow things so that we can be together as a family and have the flexibility to kind of adapt to what our family needs with the business supporting that versus, you know, the other way.

[Corinna Bench]

So I love that you said that, because I. This is one of the things that every business owner, not just a farmer, has to watch out for. You know, that the business takes over your life. The business owns you, you don't own the business. And I, I guess I wanted to ask this question because not every, not everyone who listens to this show is necessarily a homesteader. Right? Many of them are perhaps trying to actually farm for profit, like in a big way and like, scale it huge. And some of them might just be doing it as a side hustle. And they're all valid like it. It really is just asking the question, what is my goal? What is. What am I trying to accomplish? Am I chasing the dollar constantly? Am I chasing the. The thrill of growing? Do I like being creative? Do I want to just get to a point where I can have My family here. Do I want to be able to sleep eight hours a night? You're like, oh, there's. There's these certain things I think that you have to ask your. Yeah. You have to ask yourself. And so I'm just encouraging everyone, like, be inspired by the story that you just get some clarity about what you want. And your business doesn't have to look like everyone else's version of a farm business. You get to design it however you want to design it, and you can change it in two months, like, because the season of your life changes, and that's okay. Like, so thank you for bringing that into the space. It's important to say.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah, I know. I. I agree with you. I think. I mean, we're not going to be Joel Salatin. That's wonderful. Like, obviously, he provides a lot for a lot of people, but that isn't our goal. That isn't. That isn't the goal at this point. We're in a young. We're a young family. That's the primary focus. So how can we, you know, best do that but still have money, you know, to pay for things?

[Corinna Bench]

So I also heard a theme earlier on when you were talking about how your. Your side hustle, your little business has. Has grown. Has grown very organically. You didn't necessarily start out with this idea of what it would become and that you followed the clues.

[Beth Declerk]

Yes.

[Corinna Bench]

That were being given to you and you followed the customer. Like, the customer basically told you what they wanted. And that is a really great marketing principle in general, too, that just let the customer guide you. Now, sometimes you. You get to say, no, I don't want to go that way because I have a boundary.

[Beth Declerk]

Right.

[Corinna Bench]

But.

[Beth Declerk]

Right for sure.

[Corinna Bench]

But I want to point that out, too. Is there anything else you want to say about that?

[Beth Declerk]

Well, I think it might be relatable for some people to hear, like, a lot of our motivation and our process or direction has been based solely on the fact that, like, we were bootstrapping this. Like, we are not. Like, we don't have money. So it's like, it has to be something that is going to be very proven and, like, there's a demand for it for us to invest time into it. As much as I am creative and I have lots of ideas for things we could offer, like, I'm not willing to take that financial risk. So if somebody says, we want chickens, here's our deposit, I have a lot more confidence doing that. Even though chicken's not the most exciting thing in the world to raise it's not as pretty as vegetables. Like, it's not as pretty as flowers. But if people want it and they're giving me money for it, that gives me a lot more confidence going in that direction. And so, yeah, like, it's just. I guess my encouragement is that if you are working very minimally financially, like, just lean into. Not the experiments, but lean into what people are asking you for and willing to pay for up front because, I mean, you've probably done it, but you could do a whole episode on pre selling things just to kind of ensure your product's gonna sell and minimize the.

[Corinna Bench]

Risk before you start making it. Sometimes. Yeah. Make this. Make the plane as you fly it.

[Beth Declerk]

Yes.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah. Are there any other marketing lessons or life lessons that. That was kind of a question I wanted to ask from. From this whole story. It's such a beautiful story of how you've built this thing very organically from the ground up. And it's still going somewhere, yet to be named. Right. Like, it's. Who knows what the final iteration will be? This is a marketing show. Have there been any other key marketing lessons. Aha. Moments for you that you haven't already brought up in our conversation?

[Beth Declerk]

I haven't said it specifically, but I. I will say I think a lot of our success has been due to just, number one, my consistency in showing up to sell things. And that's not always directly saying, hey, you know, chicken for sale, but just consistency and sharing. You know, if you ghost your Facebook page for six months and then you show up in the spring when you have chicken to sell, it's not going to be received as well. It's not going to be shown as well either. But I'm just very. I've been very consistent with kind of nurturing my audience year round in whatever way I can. And that kind of builds that, you know, the know, like, trust factor. Like, people see, see, they know me, and so they have that connection that's like. I think that is like the best marketing tip you can take because it doesn't cost anything other than just you choosing to be intentional.

[Corinna Bench]

So that's. That's some self discipline too. And that's slow. There's sort of a slow and steady wins the race kind of thing going on here too. As you're. You just. You have this pace. Even as you're talking, you're just like, yep, you just get up every day and you do this thing and you trust that by pushing the wheel every day a little bit, it's going to work. But you have to push the wheel.

[Beth Declerk]

Well, I. I tell my members, I'm like, you're building a muscle. It's like going to the gym. It's hard and it's awkward at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets and. And it becomes more natural. So you just have to find some type of system, whether it's from you or from me. Like, find a system that somebody that you trust says, this works, and follow it until you've established that habit and it gets easier. So that's what I've done. That's why. That's why I tell other people to do.

[Corinna Bench]

Such wise words. Well, I've really enjoyed this conversation with you. Where can people go if they want to learn more about your farm?

[Beth Declerk]

Sure. I am most active on Instagram, for sure, which is just at Beth Declerk. And that is where I share all the things behind the scenes of our homestead. And like I mentioned, I talk a lot about just monetizing your homestead, but productivity and efficiency and all of those things, too, that have just been necessary for us to maintain this, while also homeschooling and raising eight kids. You know, making the most of the limited time you have. And if you happen to be in West Michigan and be a customer or want to come to an event on Facebook, we're under the Declerc homestead. That is what we go by there. So.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, I'll put those links in the show notes because your last name is spelled Very crazy. Very crazy. Yes. Yes. It's like my first name. I have to spell it all the time when I introduce myself. Well, thank you for being on the show, Beth. It was really awesome meeting you.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. Thank you for all that you do. I so appreciate all of. All of what you share.

[Corinna Bench]

You can find all of the links that Beth mentioned in today's show [e-mail] 3 1, 2. If you like today's episode, please share it with a farmer friend. You can go grab the URL link and just text it over to them. Or even better, go and leave me a rating or a review. I'm slowly collecting more and more and I really appreciate getting that feedback. It helps more people find out about the show. So head up to Apple Podcasts and just go right into the interface there for my show and leave me a rating or a review. I'd love that. Don't forget, if you want to get more marketing tips, get on my email list. You can [e-mail] subscribe and I'm also on Instagram, ydigitalfarmer. I show up there mostly in stories. I like to share marketing wisdom as it comes to me throughout the week. So I'd love to connect with you there. Thank you so much for joining me today. Have a wonderful week and I will catch you next time. Remember, I believe in you. Bye. Bye. The other question that came up because I did not know you had an online membership. That's super cool. I know there are people that listen who dream of creating a digital product for themselves, but it feels overwhelming. They have this information that they could be selling. And so I'm curious how. Well, first of all, what platform are you putting this information on? Because that's a question I get a lot. Do you have a specific platform you recommend?

[Beth Declerk]

Yes, I. So my. When I initially set up our website, I did it on Squarespace. And so my membership is also on Squarespace solely because I. I'm actually, despite my age, I am not tech savvy. Like, part of that is a resistance to wanting to be tech savvy. But I kept it on Squarespace just because I had kind of figured out how to use that platform. And it's been great. It's. I mean, it's been over two years and it's been no major issues with what I can do on it.

[Corinna Bench]

So cool. And so how did you develop that concept? Was it. Did that also just sort of happen organically? People started asking you and you realized, maybe I could turn this into a little course. And you just tested something and then it grew from there.

[Beth Declerk]

Very much so. Very, very much so. So I, When I started it, I really didn't know what it was going to be. But what I wanted is I wanted to, number one, cover, like, my website fees and my email platform fees each month, which wasn't much, but it was still something. And I also had developed, you know, a following of people that didn't live nearby, but that did want to support me. And I didn't want to do like a Patreon or something like that, but they had vocalized that they would like to support our farm. And so it really just started out as like, hey, if you want to Support us, it's $5 a month and I'll send you at. At the time, what I was doing actually let me backtrack a bit because this actually does probably help. Before I even started my membership, I was creating PDFs every other week. They were basically lead magnets and. But they were, I call them homestead handouts. And they were just helpful guides. Like, I had a list of tools you need to butcher chickens at home, you know, and all of the things that you need at a bare minimum. And then kind of bonus items. I had a garden planning summary of, like, how I map out my garden to make sure I'm growing enough to preserve things like that. And I had set the goal for myself to make a new one every other week. And then I had them on a page where people submitted their emails in order to get them. So after two months of doing that and kind of proving to myself, okay, I can create something consistently for people, because prior to that, I had done nothing online digital, like, income wise. So I kind of proved to myself first before I asked people to give me money for it. But then at that point I had developed up an email list as well of, you know, probably several hundred people just by offering those. So I continued initially in my membership to offer those every other. Every other week. And if people wanted to get a new one that I was making, they had like 24 hours to download it. Otherwise, it was only in my membership. So there was kind of like urgency. But that's how it started. And it has completely evolved now. Now it is, like I said, primarily focused on homestead productivity and profitability. Not that we don't cover other stuff in there as well, but that's the main focus of it. And it's $20 a month at this point. It's kind of gradually increased as I've added more to it and built my confidence in what it is. But yeah, it's. It's such a blessing to have that reoccurring income. And it's just. It's just great people that are in there. So.

[Corinna Bench]

And are you at the point now where you're recycling content or is it like, oh, you have to make one new video a month or what is the workflow like for you?

[Beth Declerk]

So that. That's a good question. It is not a membership that is like, every month has a theme. Like, there are things that come up that are new from time to time, but otherwise everything that's there and is accessible from the past is, you know, mainly what they're paying for. Even though I do add new things. It's just as a mom, I don't have the ability to be like, every month we're going to have this grand lesson on this grand thing because someone said just can't. And so if I, if I can re, you know, show them other things that they may have not seen, that gives them something the other part of my membership, too, though, is that they have close friends stories on Instagram, which is where I share a lot more behind the scenes, a lot more personal things than, you know, I would share in my public stories. And honestly, the amount of people that say I pay just. Just for your Instagram stories, it's a little. I, like, try not to be offended because it's like, I work so hard at this amazing PDF for you, and all you want to do is just be entertained by my stories. But, you know, that's fine. If they want to pay me for entertainment other than Netflix, then I appreciate that. But that is definitely an element of the membership that does really well. Funny enough.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah. Well, that's cool. I just wanted give some of my listeners a chance to hear, like, how something like this can evolve over time. It doesn't have to come racing out of the gate right away. And that you sort of, again, followed the energy of what your customers seem to be interested in, what they were asking for. And it sounds like you have gotten off the content train, which is when I first started my membership, like, it was. It was exhausting. Like, I felt like I had to put a project out every month. And now we've kind of gotten to the point where I'm like, I have the main modules, like, I can just sort of highlight things or amend things or add a little bonus thing from time to time. And it's really nice to get to that point where you feel like you have a rhythm and you can just be a support and a guide.

[Beth Declerk]

Right? Yeah.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah.

[Beth Declerk]

I mean. Cause, yeah, content overload is definitely.

[Corinna Bench]

It's a thing that's a problem in membership.

[Beth Declerk]

It's a thing for me. If you feel like they're getting something new every month and they're not utilizing it. So I don't want to make them feel like, hey, you didn't. You didn't do my class this month.

[Corinna Bench]

You failed.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. Are you a member or not? Like, you're not even trying?

[Corinna Bench]

Love it. Okay, well, cool. I. I'm. I'm glad you got a chance to share that. What it. What's the name of that membership in case they want to go look that up? Is that also linked up somewhere on your.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah. So my website is Intentional Homesteading.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay.

[Beth Declerk]

And that's what the membership is.

[Corinna Bench]

Intentional homesteading.com.

[Beth Declerk]

Yeah.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay.

[Beth Declerk]

Yep.

[Corinna Bench]

All right.

[Beth Declerk]

Thank you.

[Corinna Bench]

Yeah.