331 Coaching Call: Advice for a Farmer in their First Year

Summary

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My Digital Farmer Podcast – Episode 331

Coaching Call: Advice for a Farmer in their First Year

Host: Corinna Bench
Guests: Erin and Glenn from Wild Cedar Ranch, Texas
Date: September 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this engaging coaching call, Corinna Bench sits down with Erin and Glenn, first-year farmers running Wild Cedar Ranch in Texas, to discuss the realities, challenges, and joyful discoveries of starting a small-scale, community-oriented farm business. The conversation explores marketing strategies, sustainable growth, product development, customer nurturing, and—importantly—the value of keeping fun and energy at the core of farm life and business.

Whether you’re a new farmer yourself or seasoned but looking for perspective, the episode is packed with actionable insights into starting and growing a direct-to-consumer farm and cultivating both profitability and joy.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Erin and Glenn’s Farm Story & Motivation

• Background: Glenn is retired; Erin is a full-time teacher. Farming is a growing “side hustle” they hope will eventually become Erin’s full-time pursuit, but without urgent income pressure.
• Motivation: Wanting to “keep it sustainable” and fun. The division of labor: Glenn works the property and cares for animals; Erin handles marketing and chores on evenings and weekends.

  “How do we keep it sustainable? ...And how do we grow?” — Erin (10:48)

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2. Sales Funnel and First Year Marketing Tactics

• Initial Challenge: Having marketing “pieces” in place but struggling to get people into the funnel.
• Action Taken:
  • Leveraged Reddit posts (surprisingly effective for local connections and feedback)
  • Collaborated with a local brewery for “Chicken Bingo” events—both a sales venue and fun brand exposure
• Quote:

  “I’ve been posting on Reddit, like once or twice a month...that seems to be actually the most productive, which is odd. I would not have thought.” — Erin (11:44)

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3. Chicken Bingo: Leveraging Local Collaboration & Community

• Event Mechanics: Chicken placed atop a bingo board; first to “poop” on a number wins. Brewery hosts, Erin/Glenn provide the chickens and sell products onsite.
• Community Impact: Effective, memorable community engagement; customers request the event at other locations, expanding network and exposure.
• Brand Building: Cooperative branding, product placement (honey, eggs, syrup at bar’s cashier), asserting connection at events.
• Memorable Moment:

  “They’re cheering on the chicken...It’s pretty funny. That actually sounds entertaining...it’s a win, win collaboration.” — (13:12, 13:35)

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4. Customer Clarity and the Ideal Buyer

• Target Audience: Values animal welfare, nutrition, transparency (“knowing where food comes from”), often from the local Austin “foodie” crowd.
• Product Use: Most buyers start with 1–2 dozen eggs; honey and prickly pear syrup frequent add-ons.
• Insight: Focus efforts on those who want quality and ethical sourcing, not convincing the disinterested.

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5. Product Ladder & Diversification

• Current Challenge: Only a few products (eggs, honey, whole chickens, prickly pear syrup); whole chickens move slowly.
• Education Need: Potential customers aren’t always comfortable or familiar with cooking a whole bird—calls for more education, recipes, and social proof.
• Product Ladder Concept: Introduce intermediate price points and accessible offerings (cuts, bundles, value-added products) between eggs and whole chickens.
• Quote:

  “There’s a huge gap between our highest price product and the lowest. There’s nothing to graduate it from.” — Glenn (22:50)

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6. Marketing & Nurturing Tactics

• Funnels: Social media is building awareness; email signups fuel a nurture sequence (series of introductory emails). Currently manageable at one monthly email.
• Tools: Heavy use of ChatGPT to streamline copy; recipe/demo content planned to educate and add value for customers.
• Action Point:

  “In your weekly or monthly emails, make sure you’re issuing an offer…give them some kind of a call to action…You will not make money unless you ask them to buy from you.” — Corinna (51:40)

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7. Key Strategic Advice from Corinna

1. Refine the Product Ladder and Offers

   • Bundle products, experiment with price points, create signature “gateway” and “premium” products.
   • Explore value-added options: chicken sausage, pickled quail eggs, honey sticks, etc.
   • Test selling chicken cuts or prepared bundles to meet local preferences.

2. Increase Social Proof

   • Gather testimonials and customer photos, even offering free products in return.
   • Use reviews in emails, on the website, and on social.

3. Track Metrics

   • Start tracking order frequency, average order value, and repeat customers.
   • Use numbers to plan, set revenue goals, and assess profitability vs. effort.

• Quote:

  “As you’re thinking about what am I scaling, you probably will need to scale your eggs a little bit, but… the money is being made over here in the protein department.” — Corinna (34:22)

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8. The Importance of Joy & “Fun” as a Guiding Principle

• Staying Energized: Both guests and host aligned on the need to protect the fun, energy, and partnership in building the farm.

• Warning Against Burnout: Corinna shares her own burnout story and lessons learned about aligning business structure with what brings energy and margin, not just chasing profit or growth.

• Quote:

  “What if…one of your goals as you scale is to make sure, whatever you do, you stay in the land of fun?” — Corinna (35:02)

  “We see it from a point of view that this is not a manufacturing plant…this is a place we enjoy.” — Glenn (35:44)

• Memorable Banter:

  “Now we have bougie chickens, little AC unit going up…Let’s put a TV out there!” — Glenn (36:44–36:58)

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9. Managing Scarcity and Waitlists

• Scarcity as Strategy: Don’t fear demand outpacing supply; use waitlists and price increases as strength.
  • “Ride the wave of scarcity and the waitlist and maybe play around with…raising your price on eggs.” — Corinna (41:42)
• Pre-selling and Bundling: Pre-sell turkeys with urgency; use offers like payment/deposit options and value-increasing bundles.

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10. Long-term Goals, Metrics, & Milestones

• Revenue and Lifestyle Milestones: Pick tangible victories to signal progress—e.g., selling all turkeys for Thanksgiving or making enough for a specific purchase or experience.
• Tracking: Use spreadsheets and regular review to avoid “rabbit holes” and ensure real progress, not just activity.
• Manifesting Success:

  “When you hit a target, what does that make you able to do? Or how will you feel? ...That could be the milestone that you’re aiming for.” — Corinna (63:59)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On sustainable growth:

  “We never outsell our demand. We never overpromise and underdeliver. Want to be able to give our customers what they want at a good price.” — Glenn (16:34)

• On differentiation:

  “One thing we’re missing…is the differences between what we have and what is available at the supermarket.” — Glenn (16:56)

• Customer insight:

  “People want the breasts. And then you’ll be stuck with all these other ‘less desirable’ pieces…this is why they often don’t do it that way.” — Corinna (26:04)

• On the education gap:

  “For some people, they honestly don’t know how to cut a chicken. It’s actually sad, but it’s true…” — Corinna (29:51)

• Coaching wisdom:

  “The answers are inside of you, my friends. Sometimes you just need to talk it out with someone.” — Corinna (07:48)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 09:34 — Interview starts: Erin introduces their situation, goals
• 11:47 — Reddit and “Chicken Bingo” marketing strategy
• 13:02 — What is Chicken Bingo? Community impact
• 16:34 — Glenn on sustainable growth and differentiation
• 18:07 — One year in business: current products and customer base
• 22:50 — Product ladder gap: whole chicken isn’t moving
• 25:09 — Brainstorming bundles, education, and chicken sausage
• 32:09 — Eggs as a gateway product, increasing customer value
• 35:02 — The “Land of Fun” philosophy
• 41:32 — Scarcity as a marketing tool
• 45:01 — What to focus on next? Corinna’s top recommendations
• 48:09 — Tracking metrics and planning for profitability
• 54:20 — Value-added ideation: pickled eggs, sausage, honey sticks
• 58:41 — Follow the energy: “pay attention to where there is already energy”
• 63:02 — Thinking about milestones as lifestyle markers
• 65:08 — Pre-selling turkeys: urgency, testing demand
• 66:05 — On setting goals beyond your comfort zone

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Closing Thoughts & Takeaways

Corinna emphasizes that the early stages of the farm journey will feel chaotic, experimental, and full of learning—but that following the energy, leaning into community collaborations, educating customers, and consistently nurturing your audience will set the stage for sustainable, profitable growth. Most importantly, she reminds Erin, Glenn, and all beginning farmers to prioritize the joy and partnership that motivated them in the first place.

“Follow the energy. Stay in the land of fun, and let the universe unfold as it wants to…” — Corinna (67:27)

Action for Listeners: Consider your own “land of fun”—where are you finding energy? Are you tracking metrics, collecting social proof, and nurturing your audience? What milestone (financial or experiential) could help you measure your progress in the months ahead?

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Show notes and resources at: mydigitalfarmer.com/331
Learn more about the Farm Marketing School: mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Transcript

[A]

What happens when you're a brand new farm just dabbling in chickens and eggs and trying to find your way? In today's coaching call, I sit down with Erin and Glenn of Wild Cedar Ranch and we talk about what's working in their sales funnel, where they should focus next, and how keeping the joy front and center can actually guide their business growth. If you're in the early stages of farming or just need a reminder to follow the fun, you'll love this one. Let's get started. 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 gotta 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 and increase your sales and build a strong brand for your farm. Let's start the show. Well, welcome to episode 331 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast. I'm 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 strategies 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 binge listeners. I'm glad you're here and if you're new to the podcast, so glad that you're checking me out. Make sure you subscribe to the show and go listen to my first 10 episodes. Especially if you are new to the marketing space and you need to learn the overall framework. They were designed to be an on ramp into the marketing lingo. It's a great place to start, but you could also just look through all of my back issues, my archives, over 300 episodes now and just whatever tickles your fancy, you can start there. There's a lot of good stuff. Make sure you get onto my email list too, because when you do, I'm going to send you an email into your inbox like every five days for maybe three months. And I'm going to roll out the most important things you need to know first as you're trying to learn how to be a better marketer. So go to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe subscribe and you can start getting that free resource. Today's podcast is sponsored by my friends at 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 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 localline 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. Today is going to be fun. I decided to include a recording of a one to one coaching call that I had with one of my farm marketing school members. This is an option that opens up for my members once they've been in the program for, I want to say it's three months. Then they get this little perk unlocked and I have quite a few people that take me up on it and we get to talk for 30 to 45 minutes over whatever they want to talk about. And so I never quite know what to expect and sometimes the conversations that we have just feel so relevant to other farmers that I know listen to the podcast. And so today I decided that I would share one of these recordings with all of you and I did of course get permission to do that from our two guests today, Erin and Glenn from Wild Cedar Ranch in Texas. And they are still in the very beginning stages stages of their business. Glenn is actually retired. Aaron is a full time school teacher. And so this is kind of a hobby thing on the side that they would like to grow into something more significant, but they don't have a lot of pressure to make that happen quickly. And so this is kind of a unique case. I know some of you who are listening are also in that situation, but even for those of you who are full time farmers, you've just gotten into the business and you really need to make profit fast. I think there are some wise lessons in here that could be relevant to you. I really enjoyed this conversation. We talk a lot about their sales funnel, like where they are starting out in their after one year of business, I kind of listened to some of the things they've tried, some of the things they're innately doing well. Aaron got inside of our marketing school and wanted to put some structure together like an email nurture sequence and just get some real good clarity about some of the elements she needed to have in her sales funnel. And she's been working through that process really well. And so I think she wanted to just get on this call, she and Glenn, and talk out what should we be working on now? Like what is the most important thing for us to be figuring out in the early stages of building a business. And it was a fascinating conversation. I thought there were some really good wisdom gems in here and I just wanted to give you a sense too of the kinds of things that, that you might talk about if you ever got onto a one to one call with BE Anything. But I hope that you'll see how they found their way to their own solution as we talked. It was all from their own ideas and it was just me trying to pull it out of them with some well placed questions and a few prompts. The answers are inside of you, my friends. And you know exactly how to manage your business. Sometimes though, you just need to talk it out with someone. And so that's what I love about being able to offer this to my farmers inside of farm marketing school. So some of you might be thinking about joining my school this fall now that the season is slowly. Well, it's not coming to an end yet, but I know it will be winding down at least here in a month or so. I typically have a lot of farmers that come in in like October and then stay in through most of the winter time. And so maybe you're thinking about doing that too and joining our community. Right now we have about 40, 45 people inside of Farm marketing school and it's a good crowd. It might be something that would really help you this coming winter to spend some time building some of these systems together. We're going to do some fun stuff this winter. I have some cool ideas and I'm going to be updating some of those sessions that are already in there and really focusing a lot more on ChatGPT and how we can be using ChatGPT in all of the projects to make things a whole lot faster. So maybe just be thinking about that as you listen to this call. Just ask yourself, is that something that would be helpful to me? Can I imagine myself in that community, is this the kind of support that I feel like I need? Is this where I want to invest my resources this winter? And maybe that's a heck yes. And if so, I hope so and look forward to spending time with you this winter. You can learn more about farm marketing [e-mail] FMS and of course, I have a little plug for it in the halfway point of the show too, so you can always listen to that as well. All right, so without further ado, we're going to jump right into this recording of a zoom call, and you will notice that my voice is not quite as loud as theirs. I had to do some major adjusting in the editing section of this podcast. I forgot to hook up my. My microphone because I wasn't planning on using this for an episode. And so it was just using the microphone from my laptop instead, a real microphone. So I had to go in and try to raise the volume on all the places where I was talking. And you'll still notice that I'm a little bit softer. I'm sorry about that. I hope you can still hear me. And yeah, sometimes the editing is just what it is. So I hope you get some value from this conversation. I want you to think about if you remember these good old days back when you were starting your business, or maybe that's where you are right now. What can you remember from those times? What wisdom can you glean from this conversation? And I hope you can hear the inspiration and the energy from these two fabulous people, Aaron and Glenn. All right, let's dive into the interview. Here we go.

[B]

Okay, I'm here.

[A]

Hi.

[B]

I also sent the link to my husband because he had some questions and I was like, I don't know.

[A]

Yeah. So you're in Texas, I saw.

[B]

Yes. Living it up.

[A]

Did you know that I grew, that I grew up there?

[B]

Oh, did you? That's awesome.

[A]

I grew up in San Antonio until I was 16. Nice.

[B]

Yeah, it's been fun. Like, we. My husband was in the military and so he retired. We retired here and just kind of landed and bought property and now. Now we're farmers.

[A]

Now you're farmers. What else do you like? Is that all you do? Are you trying to be a full time farmer or are you full time farmers?

[B]

My husband is retired, so he's a full time stay at. I call him a house husband. He works the property and makes it, you know, is working on getting it kind of the way he wants his vision. I am a teacher, hence the classroom behind me.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I'm a full time teacher and then obviously like taking care of the chickens and farm stuff on the weekends and at night and everything.

[A]

Okay, so. Well, I did read like the small little note that you left. What, what did you want to get out of this call?

[B]

Yeah, so I think just kind of pick your brain a little bit about kind of like how to keep it, how to keep it sustainable. You know, like, I do have a full time job and I'm taking on the brunt of kind of the marketing piece. My husband does kind of the physical labor side of things. And so how do we keep it sustainable? And then just kind of, how do we, how do we grow? I did, I got on that one monthly phone call a couple months ago when I had asked about, like, how do we get that funnel started? Like, I had all the pieces built, but there was nobody going through the funnel. And so since then I have actually I did several of the things that you. That the team had kind of suggested. I've been posting on like Reddit, like once or twice a month in the different forums and that seems to be actually the most like, productive. Which is odd. Like, I would not have thought.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But yeah, like, I get a lot of like messages and feedback from that. And then through that, we ended up going to their. A bar, a brewery in town is hosting a chicken bingo. And so we bring, we provide the chickens, they provide the bingo board.

[A]

I saw that on your social. I'm like, she has to tell me about that.

[B]

Yeah. And so then, and then we sell our stuff while we're there and we added them as like a pickup point. And so that's, we've done that about four or five weeks now. And like we finally, we got some sales this last Sunday, which was really awesome. And then, yeah, just kind of like refining things and like, you know, where do we go from here? Do we just keep trucking along? Do we need to change anything?

[A]

Okay, can you just really quick explain how the chicken bingo thing works? Because I think, yeah, really cute.

[B]

So they've got a, like, basically like a piece of plywood type of deal with a grid and numbers. And people buy numbers for like, I think they buy them for $3 a piece. And then when the numbers are all purchased, we put the chicken in the little cage on top of the piece of plywood and wherever the chicken poops, that's who wins.

[A]

Okay. So I've heard of this with cows where they're okay just with a chicken.

[B]

It's just with a chicken.

[A]

So you're waiting for it to poop. You're just sitting there watching it. Yes.

[B]

And sometimes it happens, like, really fast. Like, you know, you put the chicken in there, it takes like three steps and then poops. Other times the, like, we're like, oh, my God, like, you know, you've got to, like, coax it over to your number. So, like, they're like, cheering on the chicken and.

[A]

Okay, it's pretty funny. That sounds. That actually sounds entertaining. And so you're getting people to come watch and just have a good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Experience associated with your brand.

[B]

And it's the brewery made the board, and so then we just provide the chickens and, you know, and we get to sell our stuff. And so it's kind of a win, win collaboration there. And then on Sunday, we had people who were like, hey, like, would you bring this to, like, an event? And we were like, oh, I didn't think about that. Like.

[A]

So do they just. Do you just keep having new bingo boards? Hi there. By the way.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So do you just keep putting a new chicken in? So you just keep playing?

[B]

Yeah, they just clean. They just clean the poop off. And then we, you know, people buy numbers for the next round and then, you know.

[A]

And are you put a new chicken, some of that money from buying tickets for the, you know, for the board or is that all going as of like, kind of.

[B]

Our original arrangement was that we would be there to, like, provide the chickens and we would sell our stuff and they give us free, free drinks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then they keep like, half the pot for every round, and then the other half goes to the person who won.

[A]

Okay, cool.

[B]

So we're not making any money directly, but we do get the benefits of, like, you know, free alcohol and like an afternoon away from the farm. Kind of forced relaxation.

[C]

One thing that happened, though, that Aaron didn't mention is we've. We become much more. I don't know about assertive, but just, hey, can you mention Wild Cedar Ranch more often? And so would say, hey, say hello to our chicken handlers. Wild Cedar Ranch. And Aaron actually bought this really cool prop. It's like a little picnic table. And he put up in front of their cashier the cash. Their. Their cash register has our. Has our honey, has our, has our other stuff on it. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so they go, oh, this is, this is. This is their stuff. Go see them.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so, I mean, it's turning into this really cool kind of symbiotic relationship and they're having a good time and. And interesting enough they call it, they call it Chicken Chip. Chicken Chip Bingo.

[A]

I love it.

[C]

Austin Bar called it that. So they got, we got the trademark. Well, it's called Blackbock Bingo.

[A]

There you go.

[C]

And so that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So where, you know, the name could.

[C]

Be trademarked and we're just using a different name. Same thing. You can't, you can't trademark the event. Really.

[A]

Yeah. Now you need to come up with different drink names. That's.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh yeah, there you go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's how they'll make money too. So.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That's great. Well, thank you for sharing that. Did you want to say anything before we get started? I, I know that you just joined us. I actually don't remember your name. Did you tell me your name?

[C]

G L, E N, N. Okay.

[A]

Glenn.

[C]

Yeah. No, I'm looking forward to this call. Aaron told me about like a week, two weeks ago.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I wrote down some notes, but. Excuse me. Just looking forward to really kind of hone in on our ability to market better but also slowly grow our business, which it seems to be doing. And that we never outsell our demand. We never over promise and under deliver. Want to be able to give our customers what they want at a good price. And I think one thing that we're missing probably and Aaron works on all the time with social media is the differences between what we have and what is available for the normal consumer at the supermarket. And so there's, we gotta, we have to differentiate from our competition. And that's what I'm trying, that's what we're trying to accomplish by word of mouth and, and other means.

[A]

Okay, how many years have you been doing this?

[C]

This. Well, early on.

[A]

Okay, so you're still early on.

[C]

Oh yeah. Started with a sick chicken and it turned into chicken math. And now we have 40. 40 birds, you know, and we. How, Aaron, how long we've been doing this year?

[B]

It's like a year, a year and a half maybe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The chickens started laying eggs last August and I was like, we had enough. And I was like here like anybody want some? And then.

[C]

And her, her, her other teachers are really a huge customer base.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But we need to get. We obviously can't put all eggs in one basket, you know, not.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So really trying to be, to get out there and the bar is one way, I think learning things along the way and trying to just be more, not not create a new, you know, not, not build a new wheel. Just retry different things that have worked in the past for other people. They're successful.

[A]

Okay. Who is your ideal customer? Do you think if you had to pick someone that you don't have to, like, beg them to get your eggs?

[B]

Like, yeah.

[A]

Or it should feel easy to sell to them. Who are those people?

[B]

Yeah, so we kind of look for people who kind of care about the animal welfare piece.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

There's a lot of people, like, kind of have that mindset in Austin and then looking for, like, that better nutrition, you know, because the eggs have. Have more nutrition. And then we also do, like, the quail eggs, which are a nutritionally dense food. And so that's kind of where our. That's where a lot of, like, my Reddit posts kind of hit is like that, you know, if you. If you want to, you know, know where your food comes from and kind of know that, like, you're. The animals are living a good life. You know, they're not factory chickens that are crammed together just getting feed. You know, we're harvesting, like, the prickly pear from our property. And, you know, like, we're not planting it just because. And trying to, like, get. Manufacture this, you know, idea. It's just like, what naturally kind of happens on the ranch.

[A]

And the average person, when they buy from you, how many are they buying? One dozen.

[B]

One or two dozen chicken eggs, usually.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

At least. At least.

[B]

And then frequently, probably once every couple of sales, they'll add on, like, a honey or a prickly pear. Syrup.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

So one thing we. I came up with was developing a honey chicken recipe. So buy the whole chicken and get honey. Half price, possibly. Yeah, Here's a recipe, too. And we're actually going to do it. We're going to actually defrost some chickens and go through the process of doing two or three recipes and see which one we like. So it's. It's kind of that. It's really kind of this cool little homegrown homestead type of business that we don't want to get 6,20,000 chickens out there just roaming around. You know, we want to have a really cool place. And for me, personally, for Aaron to finally set or at one point say, you know what? I'm done with school, I'm done with your. I can walk out of here anytime I want to and come to the farm and do our business. Yeah.

[A]

So you want to replace her. Her income.

[C]

What's that again?

[A]

You don't need to deal with yours because he's retired.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Right.

[A]

So right now you have the freedom to have it be a side hustle because A lot of people are like, oh, my God, I need to make money. I need to make money next month, Corinna. And you don't necessarily have that pressure.

[C]

No, not at all.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Because I'm retired.

[B]

No, it's. It's still. We're still in, like, the, like, it's fun and, like, good. You know, like, we're at that point where, like, chicken chores in the afternoon to take care of all the birds takes us about 30 minutes. Really, like 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon of, like, you know, real outside, sweaty, you know, like, feeding, watering, all that kind of stuff. Obviously, we know, like, if we get more animals and stuff like that, it's gonna get more. I think our big thing right now is I think we're doing really well with, like, the eggs and the honey. People are interested in the prickly pear syrup. A lot of people are like, ooh, what's that about? Like, what is that? Like, how do you make it all that stuff? But it's the whole chickens. I really thought, like, when we had done the whole chickens, that those would be like a big seller and people just haven't purchased them. We've only had a couple of sales.

[C]

And so one thing that Aaron mentioned before was there's really no. There's a huge gap between our highest price product over here and the lowest price chicken over here. There's nothing to graduate it from.

[A]

Yeah, it's called the product ladder.

[B]

Yeah. So I had listened to your thing. It was like, we're missing a product.

[C]

Right, Right.

[A]

Well, and. And maybe how does your customer want to use chicken? Like, think about the average person, where you live, when they're like, let's have chicken tonight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What does that mean? Like, you tell me right now, what does that mean I'm gonna have.

[B]

It's usually, I think it's going to be like the broken down chicken pieces, not a whole chicken.

[A]

I think you're right. So you either need to educate people. If you don't want to do that and you're like, sorry, you take the bird or you don't take anything at all, then you've got to do a lot more work on the other side of, like, educating people on how to okay different ways to get to cook with a whole bird before they're going to feel like they want to try it. You may also want to start collecting social proof. Whether that's. I mean, testimonials is actually thinking social proof is like when a c. Like a review a testimonial A photo of something that a customer took using your food that says, this worked, this is really good. And it's coming from someone else, not your mouth. So if you have other people, social proof, right. They're saying, yes, this works. If you get a whole bunch of other people saying that it, people will just jump on, on the bandwagon and want to give it a try. They're waiting to see that other people like it. So I don't remember seeing that necessarily on your website.

[B]

No.

[A]

But I don't know if I was.

[C]

One thing, though, here to interrupt you is just with the, with the recipe, we're talking about the honey chicken. We could actually videotape that and show that you throw the whole bird in these different things, components into instapot. And then, you know, five hours later, three hours later, all of a sudden, you open it up and there's your meal and already kind of broken up and, you know, easy to take it.

[A]

Right. So teaching people how to cook a whole bird, there's many different ways you could show them how to do it on a grill. You could show them how to make chicken bone broth.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Done with the bird. Right. But you also may want to consider and I don't know legalities here, but like, Ken, are you open to selling meat by the cuts and to see if even just to beta test it. I'm a big fan of beta testing. Like, don't change your whole operation. Go that route, like, and commit. But try, try it. Be like, you know what, let's just see for this month, let's try like tearing apart some birds. Just selling, just selling, you know, either you could just sell it where you've already, that they still buy the whole bird, but you've done the work of separating the pieces.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Yeah, that or you could say, I'm only selling the breasts and the drums. You'll, you'll. If you follow the path of most people that I coach, you'll notice that people just want the rests.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you'll be stuck with all these other quote unquote, less desirable pieces. And this is why they often don't do it that way. Or they have to come up with other offers to incentivize, like bundling certain things or whatever to try and incentivize.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

To get the other parts if that's the way you choose to go. So. But you could even end up creating subscriptions. Right. If you start to sense that, oh, people, a lot of people, you know, want to have breasts on a regular basis. And I can, I can get them like subscribed once every two months or once every month. I don't know what your schedule could be, but yeah, you could actually package it that way. We do what's called a monthly chicken share. We don't actually do it. Another farm does it and they go process the chicken somewhere. They get it frozen, but they're processed in different pieces. And so in the bag there is one whole chicken, there is a. Two different packages of chicken breasts, there's two packages of drums, two packages of wings and a chicken sausage, which is what everybody is loving by the way. Oh, the value added sausage. Yeah. So experimenting with that too. Anyway, they all come together all frozen and it's enough to last for a month. And I love it. Every time I get it, I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. So even just thinking about like how does a customer want to acquire? Like how would they use your product if you sold them chicken? What's the ideal cuts they want? And maybe even, maybe even trying to sell them a large amount that they would go through in a month and then they would come back and replenish. Those are just some just, just, just be trying to figure out how like that customer use chicken like and how could I, in terms of frequency per purchase or the types of cuts they would prefer. But the sausage, I've heard that from so many people that the sausage is the, is where it's at and you can, we've actually charge a lot more for it too.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, talked about it. Aaron and I talked about it. We're like, well we can't. And she told me we can't go back and defrost it and cut it and then freeze again. But I said you might have to.

[A]

Have your process if you have a processor, they would have to do it for you.

[C]

Yeah. Or we could create, we could do actually Aaron, chicken sausage from the ones that we've already frozen. Right?

[B]

Yeah, we can, yeah, we can definitely.

[C]

Sausage look into that and then just refrigerate those.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It would have a shorter legality is. But there, there are some like, like legal laws about.

[B]

There are rules around all of that.

[A]

Yeah. I'm not a chicken farmer, so I don't know what they are. I just buy in that, you know, I buy a product from another farmer which. Yeah, yeah, think about that might be a way to scale too is to locate some other businesses and say I have product, would you like to buy it from me? And you can sell it to your customer base and so that's another way.

[C]

That the other thing I was thinking about, a couple things I'm thinking about, as you saw talked about, was one, the subscription, which is huge, I think too. Also collaborating with other farmers in the area. They might have a lot. We're surrounded by other Spanish farmers and things, they may have things to sell, but they don't know how to sell. They don't want to or they don't. You know, there's not our website.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

But the other piece of it is, I think you're right in regard to bundling is hey, here's a, again, a cut up chicken ready to go.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You buy it, bring it home, put in the, put in the fridge, next night, that night, whatever. You're throwing things together and you don't, you don't have to go through the process of actually cutting it up.

[A]

Yeah, well, because for some people, they honestly don't know how to cut a chicken. And it's actually sad, but it's true, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they don't even.

[B]

That was one of the educational things I was kind of planning on putting in motion, was like having like a how to maybe series about how to process a chicken.

[A]

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, 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 you've identified that you, your product ladder is something that probably needs work. I want to just point out to you that the eggs are a great gateway product. I mean, it's. Yeah, everybody loves eggs, everybody needs eggs. And now once you're. Once they're in your environment.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They be. They can at that point begin to learn that you even have chickens. So I want you to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Although I'm sure you're putting pictures of, of your chickens on. You're doing the chicken bingo and whatever. Just know that, like, eggs may function as your gateway into your brand. And then once they're in your brand, you need to have. It's like that, that vision of the baton, like running a race. And you're passing the baton. Like you need to have a, a moment in your communication where a customer who's bought the eggs now finds out you have chickens. And they can kind of sit on that for a little while. And then you're occasionally giving them offers to buy the next thing in your product ladder, which might be chicken breasts or, you know, whatever bundle you come up with.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And then, then what is the next step? Oh, well, I. We always want to encourage three things. We're trying to, first of all, just get new customers in all the time through the gateway.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Number one, Number two, you want to increase the average cart value. So how. Every time they do buy from me, how can I get them to put a little bit more in? And you'll find that it, it tends to max out at some point. You know, whatever that number is, maybe it's. For me, it's seems to be like 40 bucks. I cannot get people to buy more than that. And vegetables. I'm trying, though. I keep trying. And then the other thing is that you're looking at order frequency.

[C]

Right.

[A]

How many times can I get this customer to come back and buy? And that number is going to be reflected in the average customer value. Right. So in one year, what does an average customer spend with you? And we're trying to get that number to go up as well. So if you only ever sell eggs, you will be limited in the average customer value. Do you see that? Because your eggs are only, what, five, six. I don't know what you're charging.

[B]

Bucks are $6 a dozen.

[A]

Dollars a dozen. That's. That's a pretty low dollar amount. Right. And it's also doesn't probably have A huge profit margin. So you want to try and get them into products that have a higher profit margin and get them to become habitual buyers of these higher margin products. So as you're thinking about what. What am I scaling? You know, you. You probably will need to scale your eggs a little bit, but I think there comes a point when you can say, you know what, I can stop trying to scale the egg operation because it's really just supposed to function as my doorway into my business because the money is being made over here in the protein department or, you know, some collaborations that you. You could create where you're basically just buying in stuff and getting that to, you know, be added to the cart or whatever. So that's some stuff to think about as you move forward. Yeah, yeah. I also wanted to say you mentioned the word it's still. It's still fun right now working on the chickens. And I just thought that was an interesting sentence because you use the word still as if you expect it to one day not be fun.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And I just want to point that out to you. What if that didn't have to be true? You know, what if. What if one of your goals as you scale is to make sure that whatever you do, you stay in the land of fun?

[C]

Well, that's why I just said a bit ago, I don't want to have 20,000 chickens out there.

[A]

You did say that.

[C]

That's the reason why we want to keep it in this. Like, Aaron wants to get goats or sheep, and we're looking at rabbits.

[B]

Ultimately, it's a mini cow.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Purely for fun.

[A]

You go into the world of goat soap, Watch out if you go there. Like, that's crazy good money. Yeah.

[C]

So it's, It's. We see it from a point of view of this is not a manufacturing plant or backyard or our property. This is a place that we enjoy being in and we enjoy working with. And we don't want to become a. Okay, gotta get up. The employees are gonna be here. They gotta start packing up all the 6,000 eggs we have that's been laid last night. Right. Yeah. I don't mind employees or contractors or whatever, but it's more of like, Aaron's. Aaron. Aaron is absolutely correct. I love the fact that her and I get to work together and be together when we do these things. And we want. We don't want to have this crisis of, oh, my God, we've got to produce 6,000 eggs this week.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

If we. And because summer comes along, all of a sudden, the Eggs start to drop off because of the heat. We have actually oscillating fan out there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I know.

[C]

Keep on producing. And I get.

[B]

Now we have bougie chickens, little AC unit going up.

[C]

You know, they're getting a misting fan from Aaron. And these guys are living. Let's put a TV out there for you to watch other.

[A]

Watch some soap opera.

[C]

Yeah. So it's. And Aaron is on. On point. We. We want it to be fun and still be fine and not lose that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Kind of. I don't know about innocence, but more of just enjoyment.

[A]

Yeah. You know, a lot of farmers have lost that.

[C]

Right.

[A]

That I coach and. And it breaks my heart, actually. We were there once too. I'll just admit it. And. And so I think it is hard. It is hard to stay. How did you find.

[C]

How do you pull back from that, though? What'd you do to pull back from that place where it became from a char back to enjoy?

[A]

Yeah. I think we had to look at. We. We had to look at our numbers. We first just got started wanting to just farm for fun too. Like her just loves to have his hands in the dirt. But we didn't really think about how we also have to make money.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And make profit. And I think when we started feeling ourselves really burning out was sort of. Then when we were looking at, well, we need to. Where are we actually making the money and where are we losing the money.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And that's when we started to realize what we needed to stop doing. So we pulled away from several pickup sites in our csa. We stopped carrying certain products in our store because they weren't making any margin really for us at all. And they were creating a lot of extra work. So we got some of our time back. And I pulled out of two market locations because the farmers. We were making like, I don't know, 600. $600 for an entire day sitting there. And that. That's just the income coming in. That doesn't count all the time we took the day before to get the stuff ready and the time of sitting there. Right, Right. All of a sudden, we had two days back in our lives that we could stay on the farm. Yeah. So we just. We just sort of realized that we were trading time for money, but the money wasn't really enough.

[C]

Right. Exactly.

[A]

But, you know, it's. It's. It's a common problem. And we. I just want to encourage you to make sure that you stay in the land of fun, that you're doing things that bring you energy.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I also say follow the energy. So this whole chicken bingo thing, like you looks like you think it's amazing and it's a blast and people are enjoying it. So stay in that energy until it's run its course. Right. It's doing something for you right now. And just let it do what it's doing. Build that brand awareness.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And don't feel like you have to rush this process of building a business.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Super strong, super fast. It sounds like it's, it wants to, it wants to grow and you just need to let it find its pace and, you know, follow its. Its energy and its pace.

[C]

Yeah, I think, Yeah, I think from, I think from Aaron and I point of view, it's. We're, we. We understand that process and we, and we're very cautious to make sure we don't have a huge jump in demand right now. All of a sudden. We have to, you know, we're pushing stuff out all the time.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So that becomes like, that got these, you know, we got to do it. We got to do it. We got to do it. Like you were talking about, right. You're getting ready the day before for the next day, and then all that time that day before. And then the next day you're like, I'm making money.

[A]

Yeah, let's, let's chat about that because Aaron brought that up at the beginning of the call to you before you got on again, this assumption of like, I don't want to oversell or over promise.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And I, I agree. But I also want to just share you another way of looking at that. Anytime you have higher demand than what you can supply, that is a good thing for you. You are in your strength zone. So don't look at that as a bad thing. I feel like you were sort of interpreting that as something to be avoided at all costs. If you can get to the point where, where people want your stuff and you cannot keep up, that doesn't have to make you feel frantic, but it puts you in a position of strength because now you can decide to raise your price. You can decide to. Because you have scarcity built in. Right. You can create a wait list. And now there's again this sense of like, you can only get their stuff if you're on a wait list.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it gives you then time to methodically scale. Like, you can kind of see what's the pattern of the wait list. It's like, seems like I have always have 20 or whatever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then you can kind of know, all right, looks like we need to if we want to, if we still, you know, if this still fits our definition of fun, we could grow to accommodate them about by this much and then kind of resettle and then see if the wait list builds again. Right. So you just, you'll have that ability to do that. So don't be afraid of pushing the edge. So figure out where your edge is. It's going to feel a little uncomfortable there. And then stay there for a little while, recalibrate, create that, ride that wave of scarcity and the wait list and maybe even play around with, oh, I'm going to raise my price on my eggs.

[C]

I talked to Karina, I talked to Aaron the other day and I said, you know, we, we need more chickens. And so we just were incubating some right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So the coolest part is we already have the, the raw materials to have eggs incubate, you know, brought to incubate to make more chickens. Right. Either roosters for the, for the meat processing or the hens for the laying. Right. So now we've gone that route and we're doing that route. And so I think once we get those 16 depending behind me, roosters and hens and all that stuff. But once that happens, then we'll kind of resettle and say, okay, where are we right now? And But I love the idea about the, the wave of scarcity and demand from that point of view and just knocking stressed out and just saying, listen, this is all we have. We're going to give you some as soon as we get some more. But we have a way.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or you can even take a pre sale. Right. Especially when it comes to chickens. He'd be like, put a deposit down.

[C]

You know, I don't know if Aaron told you we, she was actually off. She said, if we give you money, can you go buy chickens to lay them and we'll buy those eggs? And I said, I don't want to get in that process. I want to go, it's a good, good idea. But then all of a sudden we have some real issues there from, well, we bought the chickens, we put the money in for the chickens. We should have this. We're the first customers that should get some. And all of a sudden we have summer come along and we have three eggs versus 20 that becomes this, this thing.

[A]

So you could also look into finding another supplier that does chickens the way you do. And if you run short occasionally, just be like, hey, can you help me out? And you know, you won't make a lot of profit There obviously, but won't meet the demand. But you'd be able just having. It's almost like a plan B. We have those, I mean we have wholesale suppliers that have our backs. If we need something for our CSA box, we go like, hey, we need potatoes. Like can you just sell us some potatoes for this week? And we put that into our budget every year. To be able to do that like four or five times. We don't expect ourselves to do everything.

[B]

That'S. That's smart.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To kind of give yourself that like trapdoor of.

[A]

Yeah. As you expand like when you bump up against those edges and then you can kind of get more, more clear about well, how much, what is the supply now? What is the demand? Looks like I need to try and get a few more dozen every week or whatever. And you'll. Then you'll calibrate.

[C]

So Korean thing I want to ask is from what Aaron has talked to you about and what you know about us is there are there top two or three things that you think that we really need to concentrate and focus on right now for the next six months, three months, year that you've. You kind of hear in our voices and listen and see our website and, and know what's going on with us?

[A]

Yeah. It sounds like you are developing a good top of funnel strategy. I don't think that's going to be so much of the initial focus or you seem to have ideas that are floating.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I want to double check here and like find out what is the middle of the funnel look like. So once they come into your world, are, are you emailing them? Are you capturing their email? Are you. Yeah, to them and develop them. Because I feel like there's a nurture opportunity here that if you build that middle section.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They'll sit, maybe sit in that for two months and then they're going to turn into buyers. So like what is that? What does that look like?

[B]

So right now it's, I have it set up like when I first kind of got into some of your stuff, I did make like a, a nurture sequence. Looking back on it like now, even a couple months later, I'm like, I need to go back and like rework that at some point in the not so distant future just to make it a little bit more tight, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But yeah, so we do have like when they first sign up, I've got like a weekly email that kind of goes out to them and I think there's four or five of them that go out and just Kind of like, kind of highlight the different products and, you know, talk about the farm and how it benefits them, you know, putting them like, you know, using that story brand idea. And then I try to send out an email. Well, I don't try. The last couple of months, I do a monthly email just because that's kind of what I can handle right now to keep it fun. And I'm utilizing a lot of like chat GPT to like help with that and then refining it. I've kind of got it like narrowed down to where it really sounds kind of what, like what we.

[A]

We do.

[B]

Yeah, it's streamlined, a whole bunch of stuff. And so keeping that monthly email pattern and then that kind of nurture sequence. I post to like the social media. We're posting daily, a couple of times a day in different formats on Facebook and Instagram. And so that's kind of where like we are encouraging people to like, sign up for the, sign up for the email and then follow us online.

[A]

Okay. So I have, based on that, I have a few, I guess, suggestions.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That I would focus on then the next few months. Number the most, probably the most important one is figuring out your product ladder. It sounds like I want to make sure that you have products in your product ladder that have a good profit margin because you're not going to make a lot of money from eggs. I hate to tell you that.

[B]

No.

[A]

So figure out what you want your customer to become. Like what as they quote, unquote, graduate. What are you hoping your ideal customer is buying from you on a, let's say, monthly basis? And you should have a dollar figure attached to that dream customer. I want you to be tracking numbers because it ultimately, if you know a business is. If you want to be able to leave your teaching job someday, you're going to have to know these numbers. It's okay that you don't know that now. You've only been doing it for a year. But start tracking like, what. How many times does a person buy eggs from me in a typical year? Like one customer, find the average. How many times are they buying chickens? What is my average order value? And you may find that right now it's not really great, but that's probably because you just haven't built amazing packages yet. Right. You have to make.

[B]

We have, we don't have any, like, bundles or anything like that quite yet.

[A]

So. So you're going to play around in the, in the world of offers. Okay. Creating that kind of includes creating products, how you bundle products, how you position the Products, what order you put them in, like as you move people through them. Pricing, Play with pricing. Yeah. And then. Oh, and then offers are also like the deals, like how you choose to message it. So, you know, buy this bundle at this price or spend $50 and you'll get a coupon code for your next offers. $5 off, whatever. Like that kind of thing is an offer. Or get a free. Blah, blah, blah. When you spend $75 or so, there is an offer for a class in the farm marketing school that might be worth even just.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Downloading the offer sheet that's in there to give you ideas of offer styles that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you don't want to watch the class. Okay. So that's like the first thing. I would also say collecting social proof is another thing that you should focus on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anywhere that I go in any other industry where they teach marketing, they're always talking about as, as you're starting out your business, one of the first things you want to do is collect testimonials. And one thing you could do even is be willing to give away product for free in return for. So it's not really free because you're like, hey, I'm giving this to you, but only because you're going to write me a testimonial.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's, that's the transaction they pay a trans. A testimonial to you or that you say you need to take. I want a testimonial on my Google reviews and I want you to send me a picture of the thing you made with this and post sending me a picture and then also post it and talk about how it was, how awesome it was, and tag me like, that might be your cost of giving them the free bundle. You don't do that forever. You just do it like, I don't know, five, six times so that you have these testimonials and then you can use those on your website homepage. You can put it in your product description. You can be posting that in your social media on a rotation. Just use those same five testimonials over and over and over again until you start collecting more and then you kind of move them in. Right. Social proof is in the early parts of the business important because customers won't come in or try the next thing in the. In the ladder unless they kind of see, oh, wow, that, that looks really good. I can imagine myself making that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that would be the second thing that comes to mind as you're talking about. What do we focus on? I Feel like you're probably doing okay with social media right now. In your weekly emails or your monthly emails, make sure that you are issuing an offer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it could be in the PS doesn't have to be the whole point of the email, but it could just be a. Give them something to give them some kind of a call to action, something they can click on.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Because they need to know, like, you're a business. They are expecting you to like sell them something eventually. So don't be afraid to put that out there. You will not make money unless you ask them to buy from you. So that's why I want you to figure out what is my offer? Like, what is. What does my ladder look like? What, what can I play around in the sandbox for a few months? You'll find your sweet spots. You'll find your ideal gateways, gateway offers. You'll find your ideal like signature offer that will eventually come together. But you just gotta play beta test things. Yeah, those are the two.

[C]

I think one, one thing.

[A]

And, and tracking your metrics. So like just really like getting clear.

[B]

I have not been great about that.

[A]

Yeah. Like why, if I want to like go. I'm even going backwards. Like if I want to make. Let's not even start at your salary to replace your salary. Be like, I want to make $10,000 this year.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like what are, what are the. There are many different ways to get to $10,000. You could either sell 6,000 eggs. Right. At six.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's not true. But whatever the number is.

[B]

Right, Whatever the number is. Yeah.

[A]

You could sell this many eggs and this many chickens.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or you could sell this many bundles of XYZ plus this many eggs plus this many chicken breasts. Right. Like to kind of figure out like, what are the different ways I could get to that number. And maybe 10,000 is the wrong. The wrong number for the first year. But then that's going to help you see. Oh, I've got to sell 50 packages of chicken breasts.

[C]

Well, it's one thing I'm looking at though, Karina, is the consumables. So if you sell honey, honey doesn't go right away. Somebody doesn't use honey in a month there, it's going to be there for two, three months.

[A]

But it also lasts for that long as opposed to some things that, that go. That are perishable.

[C]

Right, exactly. So you'll sit there and say, okay, quail eggs. And so the other day we're at the bar and this woman's quail eggs. I go My wife just pickled those. Pickled them. They go, oh, what? And the bar person, Leah, who's one of the managers there, she goes, oh, my God, we pickled those two. And they were so good. And so now that becomes kind of That a. What do I call that? It's a. After. It's a. There's a term for it.

[B]

I got nothing.

[A]

Like a magnet or. No, like a lure pulls you in.

[C]

It's a term where you have an egg and then you do something with it, and then you sell that.

[A]

Oh, value added.

[C]

So the value added is, hey, we have quail eggs. And while you add it, by the way, we have these pickled quail eggs.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And you, too, can have pickled quail eggs.

[A]

Yeah. Right.

[C]

If you, you know. Right.

[A]

Or the sauce, the sausage idea. I just know you're gonna. You could turn things into jerky.

[C]

Right. Even. Even. Even bringing the honey into the sausage or honey sticks. Yeah.

[A]

There's just. There's a lot of value added. The value added is so rich. Like, you can start playing in that sandbox. That would be.

[C]

That's huge.

[A]

That would be huge. Yeah. So ultimately, you want to have a product suite that has, you know, more than just three items in it. The more. There is such a thing as having too many things in your product suite, but we're not there yet. You're nowhere near that. Because the more more you have in there, the higher your average order value can be.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I like the. I like the honey stick idea, though, too. That's kind of. That for your kids. You know, here's something.

[A]

Yeah. It's a snack.

[C]

Snack on and after school or in your lunchbox or whatever.

[A]

Yeah. You know what? This is making me realize it might be helpful for you guys to do a little bit of research of other farms that do honey that you. Who've been more established and just go see, what are they doing? Like, what are they selling? Yeah, Like, Stacy Edwards is coming to mind. She's in farm marketing school. I did a podcast with her. But if you Even to her website.

[C]

Who's that?

[A]

I'm gonna. I'm trying to remember Edwards family Farms. I think I'll look up her website and I'll. I'll email it to you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But just go look at her store.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She's got so much in there. And. And it'll just give you ideas like, oh, I never thought of that. Or even how I name the product. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. I saw that. You have a. It's not local line. What's the other store in the door? Barn to door. You have the barn to door platform.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so, you know, even creating different. You could have the same exact product in there. It's just in a different category.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To suggest a different way that you would use it. And if you go look at Stacy's website, she does that brilliantly. So she has like barbecue favorites and so the chicken might show up in there too. And she has another category called like. Well, she has one called your farmers bestsellers and it shows up in there too. And then she's got like 20 categories and you see that same product show up different times and it, sometimes it, it switches someone, the consumer goes, oh, now I want that chicken. Because that category is like making me think of how I could use it. But she also has other like value added products in there. So you can kind of see. Yeah, I never thought I could make that. I could use my chicken to make that or dog food. Like raw dog food line is crazy.

[C]

Right, right. So I talked about that the other day. About.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

How are things. You know, we're talking about rabbits and, and vegetables and creating our own. We say, Aaron, the chicken feed or the dog food or whatever.

[B]

It was dog food. Yeah. I was like, you know, just to, just for personal, like, you know, get off of the store bought stuff and you know, make our own.

[C]

No, and we know how it's, we know how it's grown and how it's built and all these other things. So now you have this real confidence in knowing. I know what was fed into this chicken. I know, you know, these put into the soil for the, for the plants.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I know it's all good nutrients. I know it's not some chemical that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

But the value added is, is definitely, I mean you could go a myriad this, It's a, it's a, it's cornucopia, all kinds of.

[A]

I think you should explore that. Just you guys are in a really strong spot. Okay. In the early stages, it's supposed to feel very like chaotic and you're throwing a lot of things against the wall and you're trying to figure out what does my customer want? You're following the energy. Pay attention to where, where there is already energy. Where is a customer turning their head to look at you?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What are they asking for? What do they get excited about? And you already have a few flares. I can see them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So just kind of stay there for a while and watch for the next one. And when you see Another flare. Go experiment and play there for a little bit. But just keep in mind, I've seen some people do that and then they follow all these rabbit trails and they're not profitable at all. Right.

[C]

Right.

[A]

So just be mindful of that always, like, does the money. That's why I wanted you to make sure you're tracking your metrics. That's kind of that third thing. Right? Like, really get clear about, like, what is the. What is my. Look at your books. What are my customers spending with me every month and every year you can track that. The metrics class is really good in for marketing school. Okay. I give you an actual spreadsheet that you can use to be tracking those three key metrics. It's not hard. Just copy and paste the spreadsheet and you just gotta spend 20 minutes every month going, putting the numbers in from your. From your platform. But yeah, it'll help you see, that's the number I need to get to. And it kind of. It just keeps you. Keeps your eye on the right targets.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Instead of getting off in, in these rabbit trails. But like, no, no, I gotta, I gotta hit that number.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And that means I have to focus on this. Not that I think the one thing.

[C]

That we have in our favor is there's, there's. We're not at a financial crisis ever.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

We're not just selling whatever we can. Whatever we can, you know, make the mortgage every month. We're. We're fine. We're good. We're flush. We have all that we need. And we're. This is just really, as Aaron said, fun. And we just want to have that. Carry that through so that if she does, it won't. Because at one point say, you know what, I'm going to the farm Brother ranch.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Peace out. You know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Come on by if you want to meet me and see me. But, but a lot, A lot of. I'll tell you, there's people that just say. The other day, woman said, oh, my God, I love watching you, Aaron. I love what you say. I love the videos. I love how things.

[A]

That's a good sign.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Not because she's a friend, but I think because she's interested in it, you know?

[A]

Yeah. Well, you're a natural teacher. And so that's going to help you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Automatically.

[C]

Yeah. Well, with that on that side.

[B]

So.

[A]

So what's your next milestone, do you think, before we wrap up? What do you like? I want, as your coach, I want to encourage you to, to, to imagine some kind of A milestone so that when you hit it, you can celebrate it.

[C]

Sell our. Sell all of our chicken meat by when? That's the question. I don't know.

[B]

We do have. I would. I would say for me, it would be. We've got turkeys that we're growing and going to process before Thanksgiving. And so I've got, like, kind of a plan of how we're going to. You know, because turkey is something that people usually buy the whole bird and they cook the whole thing. And so I would say probably, if we can sell. We've got 13 turkeys, so if we could sell at least 10 of them.

[C]

You know, in your mind, Korean, maybe eight. What would be a milestone that you would throw out for us to just consider that we're not considering. Because I. I know that we think from a certain point of view.

[A]

Yeah. Let me. Let me give you an example of one that I had that is not related to farming.

[C]

There you go.

[A]

But it's a different way of thinking about it. So when I was sick a year and a half ago and I had really bad digestive issues, I couldn't eat. I couldn't even imagine being healthy again. Like, I just. I just couldn't even go there. But one of the things that I. That I created as a milestone for myself, that I would journal every day was I. I would say, I'm lying in my lawn chair outside in the sun, in my swimsuit in the summer, fully inclined, and I'm just feeling so much energy and joy. I'm feeling the sun, like, beating into me. Now, that might sound like a weird thing to be a milestone, but at the time, I could not lie down flat. I could only sit up. I had to sleep sitting up in the lazy.

[C]

That point.

[A]

Right. And so this whole idea of, like, my life changing again, like, to me that. That being able to lie back again and enjoy sitting in the sun would be an indication that I had healed. So I could have just written, I am symptom free of reflux and blah, blah, blah. But I wanted there to be like, what would I be doing if I were symptom free? So that might be a milestone for you. Like, I take a vacation to so and so because I have made the money. I'm like, you could say we made $10,000 and that's our goal. Or you could say, my husband and I go to such and such location on a vacation that costs $4,000. Right. You know that. But that's. Taking the vacation is going to be evidence that you hit the Milestone. Because only a person in financial security who hit this target would be doing that.

[C]

Right.

[A]

That makes sense. So, like, I guess that's what I want to challenge you to think in terms of. When you hit a target, what does that make you able to do? Or how will you feel? Or what's something you could go have access to that you will go take that, take advantage of? You will manifest something in your life. What is that thing you will manifest? And that could be the milestone that you're aiming for.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

That's another way to think about it. But I liked your idea of just, I'm gonna sell. You could have multiple milestones. Okay. But like, yeah, if to you, 10 chicken or 10 turkeys feels like a stretch right now, then make that be your milestone. It should feel a little bit over the edge. It shouldn't be, like, too far over, but a little bit over to push your edge farther. And then as your coach, I'm going to challenge you to pre sell those turkeys.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What is it? It's. You should pre sell them now.

[B]

Yeah, that's the weeks, like the plan, I think in like late mid September. Yeah. Kind of in. In like a couple weeks.

[A]

Next few weeks. Because all of start pre selling my accelerator members who are like the. The upper tier people, like, they. That's. They're. They're actually selling them in August. They're pre selling them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I said. And they sell out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you. It's. Don't be afraid to sell out early.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Even you could try this. Be like, I only have five turkeys available, even though you know you have 13.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You only say, I'm only pre selling five. I'm making available five to pre sell Now. You've just created urgency in your offer. And they might, you know, probably all going to sell out. You know that you still have potentially six or seven.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you can sell those as you get closer, and people are like, oh, my God, it's Thanksgiving in four weeks. I need a turkey. And now you're like, well, I've only got four, Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's all how you position it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. You're going to hit that number easily.

[B]

Yeah, I think so.

[A]

And then you're going to be like, I didn't set a high enough goal for myself usually. That's how it usually goes, though. At first you can't quite believe that we can do it. And then we're like, oh, well, that was. I did that in one email. Okay. What else is possible? Making things harder Than they are.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, well, thank you.

[A]

Final questions before we go. This was great, you guys.

[B]

I'm good. Yeah, no, this has been awesome. Thank you so much.

[A]

I'm wondering if I could use this as a podcast episode. I don't always ask this, but I just feel like this was really a beautiful back and forth and like. Yeah, especially your whole like, live in the land of fun thing. I think a lot of need to hear that.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. Do I have your permission? Yes.

[C]

Yeah. Cool.

[B]

Well, if you need any follow up stuff for the podcast, let me know.

[A]

We ask you to send me a bio or something thing and.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

A photo or if you have one that we can. We got several graphic.

[B]

Yeah, sounds great.

[A]

This was so great. And I believe in you guys. You have so much energy and you're, you're. You're coming from a place where there isn't fear, no desperation. Like, I have to do this by such and such day. That's always a really. That's a hard place to live.

[B]

It's a hard place to be in.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would not be in a place of fun if. If that was the case.

[A]

Follow the energy. Stay in the land of fun and. And let the universe unfold as it wants to. It will.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It will show you exactly what to do. Okay, awesome.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

Take care. Bye. Thank you so much, Aaron and Glenn, for sharing that episode with the rest of my audience. I hope that you guys could hear how by the end of that call, they had some confirmation that they were on a good path. They had some validation, encouragement, inspiration, and direction. And I always love it when I can end my calls. That way. I can see that there's energy, there's excitement, there's a sense of this is where I need to go and what I need to do next in a resolve. So I encourage you to glean some wisdom from that conversation. Maybe there was one little nugget of truth or wisdom that really spoke to you today and you can take action on it or lean into that principle and test it out over the next few weeks and come inside for our marketing school and be a part of this amazingly supportive community. There's so many people in there with brilliant ideas and we are so stronger together. So I'd love to hang out with you this coming winter. Think about it. Okay. My digital farmer.comfms even if you just try it out for a month and see what you think, today's show notes can be [e-mail] 331 and if you liked this episode, you want to share it with someone, go grab the link, text it to someone, or go and leave me a rating or a review for the show on whatever podcast player you're on. And if you want to get onto my email list, I have some free stuff to send your way to make your marketing better. It's really good. I'm a natural teacher, so you can subscribe by going to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe and I will hold your hand for the next three months and walk you through some of the key principles that will help you become a better marketer. I promise. I'm also on Instagram ydigitalfarmer. I'd love to connect with you there and otherwise. Thanks for joining me today. Have an amazing week and remember, I believe in you. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.