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My Digital Farmer Podcast
330 The Farmers Market Sales Script Playbook: Buzzwords, Closes & Conversions
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In this episode, I walk you through specific customer phrases and dialogue strategies that boost confidence, spark curiosity, and increase conversions at your booth. You’ll learn: Buzzwords that create urgency, desire, and trust How to use the...
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What if the words you use at your Farmer's Market booth could double your sales? The truth is, they can. In this episode, I'll share specific buzzwords, phrases and customer dialogue scripts that you and your staff can use that build trust, spark curiosity, and help your customers say yes more often. Let's get started. Hey there. This is Corinna Bench and welcome to the My Digital Farmer podc. 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, 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 330 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast. I'm your host Karina 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 like you get more confident in your marketing and sales strategies so that you can grow a profitable farm business. How's everyone doing today? Welcome back to the show, especially to all of my super fans who tune in every single week. And if you're new to the podcast, I'm really glad you're here today. I hope you get some value out of it and that you too become a binge listener. Make sure you subscribe to the show and check out my first 10 episodes if you are really new to the marketing space, because I designed them to be kind of like an onboarding in the key marketing principles. Another place that you should go though is just to get onto my email list because when you do, I'm going to send you an email about every five days for maybe like three months. And these are really good emails that kind of walk you through the most important things you need to know and they build on each other. You can get on that list by going to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe Today's podcast is sponsored by my friends @localline. If managing orders, customers and inventory feels chaotic this season, it might be time for a better system. Localline is the all in one sales platform built for farms and food hubs. Whether you're selling direct to consumer or managing wholesale buyers or running a CSA with tools like E commerce, automated inventory management, subscriptions, barcode scanning, box builder and pos, localline helps you simplify operations and grow your sales in fact, farmers using Local Line increase their annual sales by 23% and boost their average order size by 9.5%. Switching is easy. No setup fees, no sales commissions, and your onboarding manager will migrate your storefront for free. No joke, so that you can get started without missing a beat. As a podcast listener, you'll also get one premium feature for free for a full year when you use my code MDF2025 at checkout. So head to mydigitalfarmer.com localline use that coupon code and you'll be on your way. Start selling smarter this season with localline. And now back to the show. Well, hello everyone. It is September 5th as I am recording this episode and I am coming off of a long weekend getaway over Labor Day weekend, where I left the farm and went on a three day women's immersive retreat in the Smoky Mountains. So I was kind of like maybe an hour from Gatlinburg and I attended a retreat with my coach and some other women from this area in Ohio. I flew out there and we stayed in this beautiful house and we had all kinds of amazing time to journal and reflect and discuss in groups. We went hiking. One of the best parts actually was the food. They had hired a private chef for us and she made all kinds of delicious lectin free meals, things that I could actually eat. And the cool thing about it was that it didn't feel like I was getting second fiddle at the table. And so I really experienced true community this weekend around food again for the first time in a very, very long time. And not to have to prepare my own meals for three days was such a gift. I'll also say that I have not eaten that much in a year and a half. I would eat two platefuls of food and I thought to myself, oh, I'm going to pay for this later. And I don't know what it was that she was making, but it digested so fast and I actually kind of felt like I had a milestone and a breakthrough moment even just in my healing journey again. And I thought I was pretty much healed and I felt even better. So that was so, so great, so exciting. And I just want to encourage all of you, if you're listening to my story and you're like, what, you got away over Labor Day weekend? You left the farm? And the answer is I did. And I have been working towards this kind of a life for two and a half years now. And it's just so awesome. To test it. I go through These moments where I'm like, there's no way that I could do this. I can't walk away from the farm. You know, Kurt will never be cool with that. And yet we were able to arrange it and make it happen. And my husband was so supportive. I'm really grateful to that. So now my next mission is really to try and help Kurt find this life of margin that I seem to have discovered. And every couple weeks, no, I'm not kidding. Like, I feel like I am testing it yet again for myself. It's still hard for me to believe that I can stop and do things for me. And so I've just kind of practiced doing it anyway and testing it and seeing if the things fall apart and I end up coming back nourished and refreshed and things seem to be going okay. So, yeah, I just want to encourage all of you to believe that it's possible and just to take a small step of action that feels like you are moving in that direction and that you are putting yourself in your self care first. So that's a little bonus tip today. All right, well, let's get started with the meat of today's topic. I have my chai tea here and I have my script or my notes, my outline. What are we talking about today? Today I want to give you some customer dialogue scripts. You know, when you're at the farmer's market or at the roadside stand and you got a customer that's looking interested in a product, but they haven't quite grabbed it yet, like, how do you have a conversation with them? What kinds of things can we be saying to encourage more people to actually take action and buy? Are there actual phrases and words that we could be utilizing? So I want you to sit back and relax today and just let this all wash over you, because we're going to talk about some of the words and phrases that you can try using when you're selling at the farmer's market or at your roadside stand that may be effective in helping close the deal, in helping your customer feel that trust, reduce that friction, feel the desire, and make them confident. Yeah, confident. Like, so at the farmer's market, you're not just selling your produce or your meat or your flowers. You are selling confidence. And customers want to feel like they are making a smart move, that this is going to be a good choice, and the words that you can use can unlock that feeling. And I wanted to spend an entire podcast talking about this. Sometimes I have farmers asking me, like, do you have a script that you could give me of, like, what, what actually works? To talk a certain way to get a person to want to buy my thing? Or are there certain catchphrases that, that salespeople use that are helpful in moving the customer along the journey? And I remember wanting that list too, when I was first getting started at the farmer's market, wondering if there was such a thing. And so today we're going to talk about some of those core techniques with phrases that you can use. And I've decided to organize them by categories because when I have sales conversations, I'm usually watching for, like, which card am I going to play? Like, I have many different ways that I could approach this conversation and which one of them will probably be the most helpful for my customer. I never want to force my customer to buy a product if it's not going to be good for them. Let me just put that out there right away. Um, often what I find is that I'm coaching the conversion. I'm acting like a coach. I'm helping them decide if it would be good enough for them, if it would fit their life. And so I'm asking questions or I'm phrasing Phra, putting putting words together in a certain way to try and help them figure that out so they feel really good about their decision. That's what we want. We want them to feel good and feel confident about the decision and own it for themselves, not feel manipulated afterwards. Like, oh, I didn't really want that and I, I was forced to do it. We want them to knowingly choose to buy your product. So how do we do that? So I have a feeling some of you are going to really love this episode. And some of you are going to want to get your team around the table, your sales team, and just make them listen to it and say, hey, write some of this stuff down. Here are some different phrases you could try out and just see if they work. And I hope that that's what happens. I, I want you to take in this information and then go test it out. Like, take some of the phrases I'm going to throw at you. Not all of them are going to work for all of you, but some of them might. So use it as sort of a beta test opportunity. Like, oh, we're going to, we're going to train our team on this particular sales phrase or concept this week, and we're going to encourage them to practice it a few times every day until it feels like it's just one of the tools in their toolkit. And then the next week, we're going to teach them this phrase that Karona talked about on this pod, and we're gonna encourage them to try and use that particular strategy in a sales conversation this week. Right. So you're gonna layer on these approaches until your team has a grab bag of, like, 10 different things they could use, depending on the situation, and they're gonna feel really comfortable using some of these dialogue starters. Now to help you out, I've just decided I'm gonna do this. If I were in your shoes, I'd be like, corinna, can you just copy and paste all of these phrases into a doc and give them to me so that I have something to look at and study? That's what I would want. So I'm going to take my podcast outline here, and I'm just going to put it into a document that you can download. So if you go to mydigitalfarmer.com script, let's call it a script, you can subscribe, and then this will get sent to your inbox. And then you just have all these different things that I'm going to be sharing with you in one spot. That way you don't have to sit here and take notes and write them all down. Okay. I think that's going to help some of you. So, mydigitalfarmer.com script, I haven't made that yet, but I will do that for you before this goes live. All right, so let's start out with some of the core techniques with phrases. Okay. And I want you to imagine, as I'm going through these, a scenario in your business world where this might actually happen, what this would look like in your particular business world marketing outlet. And if you can imagine yourself using a phrase like this, where would that happen? Okay, so the first core technique is around the category of scarcity and urgency. Let me give you some examples, and you will totally pick up on it. Okay, here we go. These are some examples of scripts or things that you would say. These will probably sell out by noon, so if you want them, I'd grab them now. Okay. Do you see how that's a power sentence. Just stick that in your grab bag and you can pull out some version of that when you need to pull the scarcity card. Here's another way you could say it. This is the only week we'll have gooseberries. Huh? That's going to make your customers go, alrighty, then, I'm going to buy them. Here's another one. I'm not sure we'll have bacon next week. You might want to stock up. That's going to make a person not only buy, but what? Buy a bunch of them? That's right. Here are a few more that fall into this scarcity urgency card category. These usually sell out by mid morning. We only harvest this a few weeks out of the year. I know I say that about garlic scapes. This is the last batch until fall. Okay. Have you ever caught yourself saying any of those phrases as you're pitching something at the market? Yeah. So you were using a scarcity tactic or an urgency tactic there, and maybe you didn't even realize that you were. But that is a beautiful card to play. It's. It's causing that whole fear of missing out thing to fire in your customer and it increases the desire. People want things that they think they won't be able to have in the future. So those are a few examples. And like I said, I will take those sentences, I'll put them into that Google Doc and I'll share it with you along with all the other things coming up here. In a moment, just go to mydigitalfarmer.com forward/script and all of these sentences will be there and you can kind of review them, highlight different ones, and that way if you want to train your team, you can be either photocopying it and just giving it to them, or you can be pulling these sentences out one, one or two a week and encouraging them to practice them. Okay, here's the second category or card you can play. This is the authority or expertise card. Here's an example. Oh, these carrots are what Chef Nixon is using this week at his restaurant. Okay. Are you catching how there's some authority there? Chef Nixon is a well known chef out here in our woods. This is the variety we grow because it has the highest sweetness rating. I've been using this okra to heal my gut. I have said that so many times on Instagram in the last few weeks. Okay, so any of those kinds of sentences are doing what's called authority bias. And this is kind of pulling on that principle that customers trust experts. And so if you have somehow proven that you are an expert or you point to someone in your community who is an expert, who's using your product. Now there's just like a. Oh, I'm going to take a second look. This must be good. Okay, the next category is somewhat similar to authority and expertise. This one is the social proof wagon. Okay, People, follow the crowd. And so when you can show that other people really like this product, Then they will be much more likely to grab it and put it into their cart. Here are some examples of what that would look like with a script. Okay. Oh, this is our most popular item. Most people grab at least two bags. I love that one. Write that one down. You should have seen the line for this when I first got here today. How many of you have a product like that where people line up for it? Yeah, point to the line. We had three customers come back last week saying this was the best corn they've ever had. Okay. Imagine saying that sentence to someone who's kind of standing in front of the sweet corn area, and they're just not sure if they want it, and they're a new customer, and you say something like that, and now they're like, oh, a lot of people like this. Okay. Oh, everyone's been grabbing these today. That's another one. Okay, so just. You can point to a specific person, or you can just generalize and say, a lot of people like this. Social proof. It totally works. Okay, so that's another card you can play. Here's the next one. Sensory words. I had a hard time trying to figure out what to call this one, but this is where you are. Using words that appeal to the senses, like, how does something taste? How does it smell? What's the texture? How does it feel? Because the. The texture words. I'm sorry. The sensory words are often what sell. This might be a little tricky for you. I'm really good with words. I always have been. In fact, I often tell my boys when we try to have conversations with them, you know, they're in middle school, high school, and sometimes I'll be like, how was your day? And you get this, like, it was good. I'm like, good. Okay. There are so many richer words than good that could be more descriptive to help me understand, like, what it was. The quality of the goodness of your day. Right. So I'm always teasing them about that. But I have a really strong vocabulary, and so this comes easy to me. This may not be easy for you. Let me give you some examples. You're pointing to your strawberries, and you can say something like, these strawberries are sun, sweet and juicy. You should taste one or have a trial here. Okay, so that word sun, sweet, or this one, I've actually said a lot. Our customers call these crack carrots because of their addictive sweet flavor. No joke. Actually, a customer named them that, and then I started using it. And people just want to, like, see if they're going to Be addicted to them, too. I think it's like a challenge. Here's another one. This beef cut is tender, buttery, melt in your mouth. Good, right? Are you thinking of those. Those commercials right now where you see foods on the screen and like, the words that are being used to talk about it just make you want to. To dive in and try it and go to the store right now and buy it, Right. Salivating at the. At the picture. That's what we're trying to create here. Sweet and crunchy, fragrant, fresh picked this morning. Rich, creamy, melt in your mouth. I'm not coming up a good word right now, but we want to be, like, thinking about what are some strong descriptive adjectives. So depending on which product you're trying to feature that day, it might be worth it to go to ChatGPT to an AI tool and ask it for some help to give you some different sensory words or descriptor words or adjectives to help you describe this product. And you might get a few ideas there. And then that can just be something you hand to your team and say, hey, here's some words to play around with as you're describing the mushrooms or the tomatoes or the melons, whatever the product is that's special for the week or whatever. Okay? So sensory words, that's another technique that you can use. Okay, my next category is where you frame the product for its use case. Here are some examples. Perfect for grilling tonight. Makes a quick weeknight meal. Oh, this pairs beautifully with eggs, cheese, and meat. This is so great for freezing so you can enjoy it later. Okay, so giving people a suggestion for how they could be using it, and you may have to suggest a new meal habit. So, oh, this would be great for Fish Friday. Oh, I've never even thought of doing Fish Fridays or, oh, Taco Tuesdays. These are a big hit with people on Taco Tuesdays. Well, now I know that people, other people love this product, so I've just had the social proof card play. But I'm also now thinking about, oh, I could be doing Taco Tuesdays and using this product on a regular basis. Right. So we're giving suggestions for how the product could be used. A lot of times when I was at the farmer's market and we had some kind of unusual vegetables there, like a kohlrabi or I remember we had some dragon tongue beans. They, you know, a type of pole bean that they're not the traditional green bean. And so people would stop and look at them with curiosity and not really, like, know if they should grab some, Because I. I could just tell they were hesitant. Like, what do these taste like? What do these even do? And so I would have to tell them how I use them. Or I would have to say, oh, these are like green beans, but actually better. Or if you're a green bean fan, you will love, love, love these because they're better, right? And so now a person's like, well, I'm a green bean fan now. It's like, I have to try these. So I would often either compare it to something very similar or pair it with something that I knew they were already doing, or I would make flat out a suggestion for how they should use this type of product. Like, there were certain tomatoes, for example, certain heirloom tomatoes. And I would just say, okay, if you've never made a tomato pie, you have to use this tomato for a tomato pie. Like, don't use a globe tomato. It's just not the same. You want these ones, it's going to be blow your mind orgasmically. Good, right? So I want you to just think about again as you go to the market next time, like, target a few products that you want to try this kind of stuff out with and say, well, what. What are the use cases? What are the ways that I think this product is best enjoyed and have that ready to talk about to try and encourage them to imagine themselves doing that thing in their kitchen. Because now they're future pacing. It's called future pacing in the marketing world. They're imagining themselves in the future doing the thing you've requested. And if they can picture it and they get excited about it and they like the transformation that's happening that they're becoming, then they see this as the vehicle that will get them to that future version of themselves that they like, and they will grab it. Okay, all right. I'm sure you can think of a bunch of more examples for that one, but let's move on to the next one. Number six is where we are framing for value. This is where we use words to frame for value as opposed to framing for the use case. Now we're talking about how it's a good value. And this is where we're. We're getting into the price sometimes or we're pointing out the deal aspect of it. So it's $5 a bunch or three for 12 if you want to stock up. Okay. That would be an example of framing for value. So you are catering to the side of them that's looking to feel like they got a deal. Now I know some of you are bristling because you're like, I don't want to, like, give my product away. I understand that. Totally do. So this is just one card you have to play. And I'm not saying that you should play it a ton, but just know that it is there. And I think that sometimes it's a good one to play because it causes the person to turn from a non buyer to a buyer. And that first transaction of money, when money changes hands for the first time with a customer, is a powerful moment that is like the hump you have to overcome. Once you can get someone to buy and spend money with you for the first time, it is a lot easier for them to spend money with you a second time and then a third time and then a fourth time. So I'm often willing to grease the wheels a little bit, take a little bit of a hit and push the value angle for those brand new folks, because I know I just need to get them to spend some kind of money with me and then the next time that trust is going to be there and they'll be okay with doing it again at, you know, a price that isn't necessarily focused on value. Here's another example. This bouquet is going to last you like seven days. Some of our flower bouquets from our farmer, like, they. I've had customers come and tell me this. This bouquet is lasting me like 12 days. It's unreal. Like, when I go buy flower bouquets from other places, I maybe have two or three days. And so they're seeing that as a value. And so I can kind of push that in my, in my sales process. Right. Most bouquets usually only last two or three days. This one you're gonna notice is good in your vase for like seven to 10 days. This is also the place where you might be pushing the different offers that you have. Like, hey, if you spend $25 with us today, you get a free XYZ. Or you might say, hey, our special today is if you spend, it's a tiered discount. If you spend $20, you get $5 off. If you spend $50, you get, I don't know, $15 off. I don't know what the actual percentages are, but you see what I mean? Like, each time they spend more and more, the discount is a little bit higher. That is also kind of a framing for value type of pitch. So any of those offers, if you come into farm marketing school, there's a whole project all about build a better offer. And you learn the different offer formulas, and there are a lot of offer formulas that kind of fall into this category of framing for value. Again, the whole purpose of them is hopefully not to create a customer that's only going to buy from you when you've got these deals, but it's designed to get that first timer to buy for the first time so they turn into a paying customer and overcome that initial hump. That is a real thing. I mean, you learn about this in marketing. That first customer transaction of getting them to spend money with you is the hardest one. And then after that, it's easier to get them to buy again. 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. So those were my general. Like, I think there were six categories that I could think of. I'm going to review them real quickly. So the scarcity card, the authority or expertise card, the social proof, using your words, your sensory words, framing for use case and then framing for value. Okay. In the sales and marketing space, there is this concept called the close. Have you heard of like the closer? Right. The closer is the person that sent in to get the customer to sign on the dotted line and, like, nail down the negotiation or nail down the offer and get them to agree and get the signature. Okay? So the close is that moment when your potential customer makes a decision to buy and you guide them across the line. Okay? So it's the finish line. Everything you say before is warming them up, explaining the benefits. You're building trust. You're having a conversation there at the farmer's market, answering their questions, overcoming their objections. The close is when you invite them to take action. The close is not a pushy moment. It should not feel pushy. If it does feel pushy to the customer, then you moved in too quickly, right? Sales is so much about building a relationship, building trust. And you go through these stages of intimacy. At first, you know, you just kind of look at someone from across the room and you make eye contact, and then you get a little closer to them and you say hi, and then you ask them for their number. And then you might go out for coffee, and then you might go out for dinner, and then you might meet their parents. Right? This is how it works. The stages of intimacy in a relationship, it's very similar in the sales world that we have to allow the customer to wiggle a little bit closer. And the moment it feels icky is the moment that we've jumped over one of those stages of intimacy too fast. Right? Or if we just, like, leapfrogged and skipped one, that's when it feels icky. So the closing moment shouldn't feel pushy if you've done a good job in your interactions with them, in that conversation, helping them edge closer to the line. It just feels very natural. And I also want to say that the moment of the close is an ask. Right? It's a clear ask. You can talk all you want about your products, but if you never ask someone to buy, they could walk away from your booth. It's okay to get a no. So in order to deliver the clothes, you have to be willing to hear a no. It's possible that the person might say, no, I actually, I don't think I want it. And that's okay. But you've got to give them that opportunity. And that's what, you know, why I want to stress here that, like, it's important for you to make the ask. Just put it out there and have a. Have a part of your sentence where you actually say, do you want it or not? Okay? So there are several different ways that you can build a close. And that's what we're going to spend the Rest of this time, talking about this is also going to go into that document if you want to get my little script cheat sheet. So in this section, I'm going to walk through each of the different categories of closes, and I'm basically going to read the script. And I want you to notice the part of the script that is the close. Let me start out with this example. This is called the suggestive close. Here's how it might work. These tomatoes go perfectly with fresh basil. Want me to grab a bunch for you? Do you hear it? That second part of the sentence is the actual close. Want me to grab a bunch for you? You're going for it. They can either say yes or no, but you need to put the offer out there. Here's one called the assumptive close. Instead of asking, do you want some? You would say, how many would you like? Here's another way you could do it. Would you like one bag or two? Oh, that's so good. Do you see how you're not asking them, do they want it? Yes or no? You're assuming they want it and you're just asking them how many. It's a very. Like a subtle difference, but very effective. So that's called the assumptive close. Write that one down. You're probably doing these things, but you just didn't know they had names. Okay, so some of you are like, oh, I do that. Yeah, that means you're probably a good salesperson. Okay. The next one is called the comparison close. This is where you are comparing the product you want to sell to something they already know about. For example, oh, these are sweeter than the carrots you get in the store. You'll taste the difference immediately. Can I grab you some? All right, next one. This is where we offer them a choice instead of asking for a yes or no. I think people find it easier to choose between options sometimes than having to say hard yes, hard no to a decision. For example, do you want the small steak bundle or the larger family pack? So you show them the two options, and there is no option to not get a stake at all. Right. In both cases, you win. In both cases, they buy something from you. You just give them the choices. This might be a helpful thing for some of you who have a lot of products and your customers are struggling with decision fatigue. They just are overwhelmed and they don't know where to start. And so you can tell them, you know, give them, shrink the options for them and say, how about we start here or here? Which one would you like? And that can really clear the waters for people. The next category is the upsell, down sell, cross sell, close. Your, your market team should definitely be ready with a few very casual, non pushy lines around this category. Because this, the thing about the, the downsell upsell, cross sell is that it dramatically increases your average order value. And that is one of the ways to increase your revenue. Right? The three primary ways to re increase your revenue are increase the number of customers, new customers you have every week, to increase the average order value of everyone's cart, or to increase the order frequency, the average number of purchases that people make in a given month or year or whatever. If, if you can get all three of those to go up by 30%, you will double your revenue. So I try to keep my eyes on those three metrics in order to increase my revenue. And so with the down sell, the upsell, the cross sell, conversation and script, we can get the customer to increase their average cart value by 30% if we know kind of the right way to get there. So here's an example of an upsell. Now an upsell is when you're encouraging a larger option than the one they're currently exploring or maybe a more premium version of that product. So you might say, oh, these cherries tomatoes are amazing. Do you want to add on though a quart of those heirloom slicers too? Because they make a perfect caprese salad together, right? So you would try to get them to add on, like enhance their tomato experience by pointing them to the heirlooms. Or if you have someone who's looking at your just your ground beef to make burgers, maybe you would say something like, yeah, a lot of customers, that's a great choice. A lot of our customers like the premium sirloin or, or a lot of our customers also grab the burger patties because it saves you time when you're grilling, right? So you're making a, a suggestion for how they can get the more expensive version of that cut of meat. And that would be considered an upsell, a downsell. This is where you offer a smaller option if you see hesitation on the part of the customer where they're like, I don't know if I want that. After you've already kind of tried to pitch something, have a down sell offer ready. You know, I'm thinking about like the CSA is not really a great example because you don't do that at the farmer's market. But I'm going to use it anyway. So if someone isn't ready for the CSA, because that's a big 18 week commitment. I could say something, well, how about just trying our four week trial membership? Or sometimes I'm like, you know what, do you like fruit? Because our fruit share is really good and it's not as much. And then some people will come in through the fruit door and then decide that they want to upgrade to vegetables with a meat producer. Like, I'm just thinking if, if you're at the market and you could say something like if, if a full roast feels like too much, I'd suggest a half portion. That's perfect for two people. Oh, okay. So now they don't feel so bad walking away from you. That feels like a better fit. It's, it's like diminishing or diminuendoing the, the ask. Right? It's like, okay, I'm comfortable with that. I know that you guys have done this before, maybe you just didn't know was called a downsell. But if someone seems hesitant, then just splinter off a part of that offer, make the package smaller, a little less expensive, or fit it to a different use case so they can imagine themselves using it that way. And now they're like comfortable buying it. And you still win because you've gotten them to spend money with you for the first time. The cross sell is where you pair related products that go well together. So, oh, those cucumbers, those will be perfect for a salad. We've also got fresh dill this week. You want to add a bunch or sometimes when people are shopping for cucumbers in a certain part of the season, I'll always suggest, do you want any dill flowers with that? Are you going to be pickling? Because we've got dill flowers over here that are gorgeous and if they didn't know that, they're like, oh yeah, let me get those meat producers. That brisket's going to be amazing on the smoker. Want to add our house made dry rub? It's a popular combo. Okay. Do you see how we've gotten them to now buy something else that would go along with that? Okay. So your staff should always frame these as helpful suggestions, not sales pressure. So want to think about it as like giving your customers permission to enjoy your products even more. Okay. And then finally I wanted to end today with just a conversation around how to build rapport through conversation. And this is where you're really focusing more on the relational element instead of the transactional piece of the sale. Because people buy more when they feel a personal connection with you. And this May take several weeks, several reps before the customer really starts to feel this with you strongly. But I remember noticing this, learning about it formally from my marketing mentors, but then noticing it especially when we had to buy a car from a car salesman and they were totally doing some of this stuff that I'm about to talk about. When you go in to buy a car, they usually, they sit down with you at their desk and they, they strike up a conversation or when you, even when you first walk in, they ask some pointed questions. And those questions are designed to try and find rapport or create rapport and trust with you as quickly as possible. And so we want to kind of learn from that and say, how can we use some of those tricks of the trade to help our customers feel trust with us faster? So one of the things that car salesman's will do, and now you're going to watch for this when you go buy your next car. But they try to find common ground quickly. They're actually coached to do this. I saw this happen when I was buying a car. They asked, you know, where, where we lived. And then he mentioned a restaurant in our town of Elmore that he's eaten at. And I was like, oh, I thought about it later. I'm like, I wonder if that, you know, if he's actually been there or if he was kind of using that as a way to make me feel like we're connected in some way. So if they mention where they're from, your customers mention where they're from, you can say something like, oh, I love that town. Do you ever go to xyz? Or I go to watch football games at such and such stadium. Right. If they're wearing a sports shirt or their kids have some gear, you could say, oh, are your kids in such and such team? Do they play soccer? So do my kids, or whatever. Or I grew up in that district. Right. Trying to find something that you're also interested in to show that, hey, I like that hobby too, or I'm from that area, or I like that food. Asking food related questions is also something that can build rapport. So how are you planning to use the zucchini? Oh, I can't tell you how often I hear that. Like when I go into the hobby lobby or a craft store and I'm buying fabric, that's often a question I get asked by the cutter. She's like, what are you going to be making with this? Right. So how are you planning to use the zucchini? Have you tried roasting garlic Before. Oh, no, I haven't. How does that work? Well, let me explain it to you. The third thing that I wrote down here was to mirror enthusiasm, Actually just mirroring in general. I did a whole podcast episode on the topic of mirroring. And mirroring refers to, like, your body language should be mirroring that of your customer. And so, you know, if this. There's like a whole science behind this. But, like, their stance, how they're holding their arms, where they're pointing, like we want to be. How they're touching their face, we want to be mirroring it. Exactly. But even just mirroring their enthusiasm. So if they gush on and on about tomatoes, your staff can respond, yes, that's my favorite tomato, too. You should try them with such and such spice. Right. So mirroring. If they're excited about something, you show the same amount of excitement, because now you're just going to fuel that fire and then using their name, if possible. Now, I know you don't always know people's names, especially if they're a brand new person. You might not be able to figure that out. But if they've been coming a few times and you've learned their names and you say something like, hi, Sarah, welcome back. Did you try that soup recipe we talked about last week? Like, that's going to make them feel like you noticed them, and now they feel even closer to you, and it makes them want to just keep coming back. So the using the power of names, I think, is really powerful. Try to learn people's names if you can. So remember, rapport is building trust. It's building loyalty. Customers who feel seen by you or your team are far more likely to buy again. They're far more likely to recommend you to friends, and they're far more likely to forgive a little hiccup from time to time. But remember, one of the ways we make revenue is by pulling the frequency lever. So if you can get a person to come back again and again and again, we make a lot more money. So we just really want to build that rapport so that that happens. All right, so how do you train your team? If you have a larger group of people that you can send as your representatives to the market, I want to encourage you to teach them this kind of stuff. First of all, before they go to the market, I would give your team three talking points every week. So they should know, like, what's new or what's the offer of the week. That should be, like, trained into them, what's most popular. They should all know that, so that they can pull that card about, you know, the social proof card and point that out to people. What's the special upsell? And that can be a strategic thing. If you have a certain kind of offer and you can tell them, hey, a lot of people are probably going to want to buy this. This is the upsell. Try to get them to also get this. Or the cross sell is another option. I also think it's a good idea every week to pull out one of these sentences or strategies that I've just taught you in this episode and, you know, hand it to your team and be like, okay, here's the. The tool that we're going to put into our toolkit this week. And I want you to practice using this particular sales strategy or dialogue strategy today at the market. Try to do it at least five times. Hopefully, the more they do this, they'll begin to layer on these different approaches and they'll get more and more comfortable using all of them interchangeably. But at first, I think you have to, especially with some of them, you have to really think about it, be like, oh, yeah, there's a social proof thing. I can. I can do that more often. And then they'll just practice it, practice it until it becomes almost second nature. And you'll be surprised at how quickly you can get pretty good at the, like, three or four of the main categories of them. And it'll make a big difference. All right, so I wanted to end with a couple of examples, different scenarios where a customer might come up to you, and then what would the staff person say? Okay, so that's how we're going to finish off. The first one is for a vegetable farmer. The customer shows up and says, what's good today? Has that ever happened to you? What's good today? And the staff person would say, oh, the carrots. The carrots are incredible, super sweet. We call them our crack carrots. Most customers grab two bags because they disappear so fast. Okay? So you should always have an answer to that question. What's good today? What are you going to recommend to people? Don't be stunned or surprised by that question. Decide on an answer ahead of time so that you know what to say when that trigger sentence happens. That trigger question. Okay, here's another trigger question. What do you recommend? Oh, I use this all the time at restaurants, and I'm always surprised when the server looks at me like deer in headlights, like, I don't know what I recommend. And I'm like, oh, man. Because I'm totally going to get the thing you recommend is what I'm thinking in my mind. So if they don't have something ready, I'm like, opportunity loss. So you need to have an answer ready for that. Okay, here's a sample of what you might say. Well, if you want something quick for dinner tonight, I'd go with the sausage. It cooks in, like, 10 minutes. But if you're looking for more of, like, a wow factor meal, the ribeyes are our most popular cut. Oh, there were so many different cards being played in that answer. Did you hear them? Yeah. Here's another scenario. Customer comes and says, what cuts are your favorite? Oh, my friends, please have an answer to this. Be ready. Okay, here's an answer. Honestly, the pork chops are hard to beat. Most of my customers tell me they wish they'd bought an extra pack after trying them once. All right, and then the final scenario. This is for all you flower farmers. Which bouquet should I get? All right, someone asks you that. Have an answer ready. Here's a sample. This medium bouquet is our best seller. It's just the right size for a dining room table, and customers tell us it lasts a full week. Yeah, now that's going to make me say, okay, that's the one I want. That's a decision fatigue question. Right. Which. Which bouquet should I pick? And you don't go for the small one. Maybe you don't go for the large one, but you pick the one that's just right in the middle. Right. The medium bouquet. And you. You tell them why it's our best seller. All right, well, my friends, I hope this was helpful. My challenge for you this week is to pick three phrases from this episode that you liked and either use them yourself or go teach them to your staff. And then watch what happens at your farmer's market booth or at your roadside stand. See if you notice customers leaning in or nodding or being more curious or hopefully saying yes more often. And don't forget, if you want to get the list of all the different ideas, basically my script or my outline of the podcast episode, you can grab that@mydigitalfarmer.com script my show notes today will be at mydigitalfarmer.com 330. If you liked this episode, please go leave me a rating or review or go tell another farmer about this and say, you got to listen to this podcast and send them the link. And if you want to get onto my email list, remember, I have some really great stuff to send your way. It's free. It's going to turn you into a better farm marketer. Go to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe. I'd love to be a mentor to you. Thank you so much for joining me today, everyone. Have an amazing week and remember, I believe in you. Bye. Bye.