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My Digital Farmer Podcast
350 Lessons from a Handmade Goat Soap Business - Interview with Hooves and Feathers
01:11:47
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- [00:00]
Corinna Bench
In today's episode, I'm talking with Alan Laird from Hooves and Feathers about how his goat soap business grew from a simple idea into a real direct to consumer brand. We talk about clarifying who his customer is, what he sells, his opening offer, his product ladder, and how he guides people. From first purchase to superfan. This interview is packed with value. Let's get started. Hey there, this is Corinna Bench and welcome to the My Digital Farmer Podcast.
- [00:37]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
In today's market, it's not enough to just grow your product, you've got to
- [00:41]
Corinna Bench
know how to sell it too.
- [00:43]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Welcome to the My Digital Farmer Podcast
- [00:45]
Corinna Bench
where we reveal online marketing strategies and
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Podcast Sponsor Announcer
tips to help farmers like you get better and more confident at marketing, learn
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Corinna Bench
how to find more customers, increase your
- [00:56]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
sales, and build a strong brand for your farm. Let's start the show.
- [01:06]
Corinna Bench
Well, welcome to episode 350 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast. I am your host, Corinna Bench, one of the farmers at Shared Legacy Farms out in Elmore, Ohio. I'm also the founder of mydigitalfarmer.com which is all about trying to help other farmers get more confident in their marketing and sales strategy so that you can grow a profitable business. How's everyone doing today? Welcome back to the show and a big shout out to my regular listeners, my faithful ones who listen every single week. I'm so glad you're here and if you are new to the podcast, glad you're here today. Make sure you subscribe to the show. Go check out my first 10 episodes. I always say that because they are designed to be an on ramp into the marketing lingo. If you need some help learning the ropes, that's where you want to start. You can also get onto my email list because when you do, I'm going to send you an email every five days for like three months. And it's basically a walk through the marketing jungle. I'm going to show you what you need to know, the key fundamentals. I'm going to point you to some of the best podcast episodes so that you're really going to learn the key marketing things you need to know in a very short amount of time. So you can do that by going to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe. It's free. That'll get you on that list.
- [02:23]
Localline Sponsor Announcer
Today's podcast is sponsored by my friends at localline.
- [02:28]
Corinna Bench
A new year is the perfect time
- [02:30]
Localline Sponsor Announcer
to streamline your sales and grow more profitably.
- [02:33]
Corinna Bench
So if you run a CSA or
- [02:35]
Localline Sponsor Announcer
you sell wholesale or manage both, Localline helps You streamline your sales and scale with confidence. In 2025, farms and food hubs that used Localline grew their sales by 33%, building on the 23% growth they saw the year before. Average order values increased by 31%.
- [02:59]
Corinna Bench
I know mine did.
- [03:00]
Localline Sponsor Announcer
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- [04:09]
Corinna Bench
Well, I'm going to jump right into it today because I have an interview with one of my farm marketing school farmers. His name is Alan Laird, he lives in Idaho and he is actually a retiree. I'm going to read his bio for you right now. He has an amazing story that I can't wait to share with you. He returned to his farm roots after retiring from a 46 year career in public safety. And together with his wife sue, they now tend to about 15 acres of land. They raise highland cattle, hogs and poultry, and maintain sustainable pasture lands. Committed to sustainable farming, they now render fat byproducts from their hogs into lard, which they use to craft goat milk soap. And that's what we're going to be talking about primarily today in this episode is this whole new product line and enterprise that is developed from the goat milk. So what began as a hobby for friends and family has now evolved into a promising business venture. We're going to talk through the whole, the whole process, the rise of this business from its small beginnings, the things he's learned along the way, the different pieces he's put into place in his sales funnel and how they're all kind of working together. And this is a great episode to listen to, no matter what stage of business you're in, because it's going to show you the customer value journey. You're going to see how he's addressing all the different pieces to move customers along to turn into regular buyers. And there's so many wonderful marketing lessons in here. Classic marketing lessons in his case study. So I hope you listen with an open heart, take some notes. And let's dive now into my interview with Alan from Hooves and feathers dot com. Well, Alan, welcome to the show.
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Alan Laird
I am very happy to be here.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah, I'm excited to finally get you on. You've been inside of farm marketing school for a while, and I've had my eye on you. And I knew one of these days I'm going to try to convince you to come on the show and share your story because it's such a great one. Why don't you start out by telling us the story behind who's in feathers? I know that's a big generalized question, but just a little bit about who you are, where you're located. Why did you decide to start this business when you did in retirement and. Yeah, just. Just wherever you want to start.
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Alan Laird
Well, hooves and feathers, my wife was a school teacher, and I was in. In law enforcement for about 46 years. And we decided that we wanted to quit working for other people and start having some fun. And so we. We did that. And then as soon as you jump into running your own life, well, you find that other people start controlling it for you, and. And you work harder than you did when you were working. So we ended up starting with a bunch of chickens because the neighbors chicken laid eggs in our hay field or our haystack. And my grandson said, what about the eggs? Can we have them? I want them. And anyway, that turned into 100 head of chickens and eggs. And then my wife said, we need meat. So we bought cows. And then she wanted highland cows. And so we bred our Jersey cows to highland bulls. We got some highland jersey crosses. And then she wanted real highland cows, so we bought a whole herd of them. And then my friend said, I have some hogs. Do you want hogs? And the price is right. So I bought hogs because I'm a sucker. I guess that's how this seems to be working out. And then we had. We butchered the hogs and we needed to do something with all the fat. And you can only eat so many biscuits and so many pie crusts and still stay healthy. And I kind of like you have been working on being healthy and getting off the medicine and the prescriptions and just learning to change my diet and getting away from the doctors, the quack doctors. And so we started figuring out what we could do with the lard. And I had a daughter who had skin issues and we started to research how to take care of them because the medicines that the doctors were giving her were not working. And started researching and found that goat milk is loaded with vitamin E, vitamin a lot of good omegas, and that there was a good, good chance of solving some of the skin problems that she had if we made goat milk soap. So we found some goat milk and mixed it in with our lard and coconut oil and olive oil and started using natural colors and scents to make good soap. It worked for her. She gave it to her friends. Her friends wanted more. You can only give away stuff for a short period of time before you start having to charge a little bit for it. So that's how we got started. We put the feathers and the hooves together, got Hooves and Feathers as our farm name. And then we started marketing soap a little bit at a time. It grew and that's how we got started doing that.
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Corinna Bench
Now when did, when did that pivot happen? I'm trying to get a sense of the timeline here. How quickly did the Hooves and feathers soap line?
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Alan Laird
I'm thinking that. Well, we. We started with the, the livestock for the first couple of years and then once we started butchering hogs and having the lard, that's when we started looking into the soap business. And that was probably about two years ago.
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Corinna Bench
Okay.
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Alan Laird
Is. Is when it first started.
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Corinna Bench
Now, I really only know you within the context of the soap business. That's what you sort of talk about inside of farm marketing school. And I'm just curious now, were you cultivating customers before that with your highland cattle and your pork, or was it a totally different ball game?
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Alan Laird
No, we really weren't. We were just supplying the. Supplying the, the friends and family with. With meat and eggs.
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Corinna Bench
Okay.
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Alan Laird
Eggs. I built a customer base when I was still working at the college, so I still have some. But eggs are not a high.
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Corinna Bench
Right.
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Alan Laird
High volume deal. Yeah. You don't make a lot on that and I don't. That's one of the things about being retired is you don't necessarily need to make a lot of money because you have income. Is that. And it's already coming in. So.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah. That really allows you to come from a different place, doesn't it? Paint a picture. Let's focus on kind of your. Where you are now with the goat soap enterprise and just help paint a picture of the early days of you beginning to develop that. Because I'm hoping with this episode to show people the trajectory and, like, some of the steps you think through as you're building the marketing plan for a new business and some of the roadblocks that come up and what you have to do to deal with them. So the early days, what. What did you sell first or where did you sell first? What were you making? Like, how did it all come to be?
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Alan Laird
Well, we started with. We started with just simple bars that didn't have color, didn't have designs, didn't have extra sense with them. Because when you're working on trying to solve people's problems, you need to not add a whole bunch of extra things into it.
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Corinna Bench
The minimum viable product concept.
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Alan Laird
Exactly. And so we started with just what we call plain Jane. Plain Jane has nothing in it. It is goat milk. So period. So we use the coconut oil for the antibacterial product, the animal fat, because it works right into our skin. The olive oil is just a good carrier. And if you mix that with goat milk and your sodium hydroxide or your lye, when you get done, you have plain old goat milk soap and nothing else.
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Corinna Bench
And you learned this rest. This recipe from. From where? Just asking.
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Alan Laird
I. No, I. I joined. I joined a. A how to make goat milk soap club.
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Corinna Bench
Oh, okay, cool. So you learned from some thought leaders and experts.
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Alan Laird
Yes, and then I. I learned from them and. Or learned from the. From the gal that. That was the main guru on that. Yeah.
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Corinna Bench
Okay.
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Alan Laird
And started from that. And then she said. She also told us to start with. She says, don't be getting complicated right off the bat or you're going to fall flat on your face. And so I probably took it. Or at her word, because if. If she knew that and she told us that there was a reason for that.
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Corinna Bench
So I want to just pause here and say that that was really wise because so many people, when they first start trying a new thing, they waste a lot of time and money figuring it out when they could have just spent. You probably had to pay for that class a little bit, but, like, the time savings. And she just basically handed you the framework. Right. Like here. Right. That's just brilliant. Okay, so you made the plane, Jane. You've got the basics. Keep going.
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Alan Laird
And then we. Then we gave it to family members, started trying it out first and being sure that things would work so that we weren't just saying, hey, or try this, it's wonderful. And then, yeah, finding out that it really wasn't. But once we did. And then word of mouth is probably the first thing that started. And it was friends and Family or friends of family who came back in and said, hey, we want some more of that. We want it. It works. We like it. We want to give it to our kids because our teenage kids have acne. And if they use the. If they use this, it seems to work. So then we started to design facial bars because as soon as people started saying, you know, this works and it's great, then the facial bars are made of activated charcoal, and we use Navajo healing clay, which is bentonite clay, which are what you use for, you know, mud packs and, and cleaning things out of your pores. So that. That starts making a facial bar that you can use. And, and that turned into a. It satisfied the demand for the facials. And then we had to make men's facial bars because the women said, my husband wants one, but he doesn't want one that says Aztec mud. That looks like it's mine. He wants one of his own. So then we had to make man stuff, which. Man stuff.
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Corinna Bench
That's crazy.
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Alan Laird
And it's a facial bar for men. And I mean, as the, as the demand or as the customer base said, hey, it would be nice if you had. Then we, we tried new things and went slow and provided it for. And when we found out that this is what they want, this is what they ask for, this is what we made, it satisfies the market. So going to, you know, that then it allows. Then the next thing is, people are. People are saying, hey, we try something else. I smelled something somewhere and I really like that.
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Corinna Bench
And, and could you make it so now you're. Now you can even like, riff on scents, different kinds of scents and smells and colors.
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Alan Laird
Because a lot of times men do not like floral, oceany, hibiscus type stuff, magnolias and things like the women do. But. So we made. So we use one that's called a leather shop. It smells like saddles and bridles. We've got, you know, some that are. Are more like Old Spice, you know, the old brands of. Of that. So.
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Corinna Bench
So your customers were driving. Were driving the product development, really.
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Alan Laird
Exactly. And, and we listened to them and I know. Talk about that later on or. That was one of your prompts that you sent me was how did. How does your customers work? And, yeah, and our good customers have been with us, you know, steady. That. Those are my VIP people. They're the ones that got a coffee cup this Christmas. And, And. And they're the ones that say, you know, if you would try marketing this a little bit differently or if you would. If you would make this, I'm sure that other people would buy it and they're the ones that are also word of mouth advertising for me. So I don't pay for anything as advertising, but I don't, I don't really need to. I don't remember one of our, one of our farm marketing school meetings that we had online, our zoom classes. We were, or maybe it was the one on one with, with you. We were talking about getting how do you get started? How do you build your customer base? How do you. And I said something about that I really didn't want to go to farmers markets or, or bazaars. And I recall that the, the advice that you gave me was that that might build, help me build my customer base a little quicker. I still don't like going to farmers markets and bazaars. But when you go and you, the frustration was that the first bazaar that we went to, I took our entire inventory and I sold our entire inventory at the very first shot and I came home with nothing. It takes six weeks to cure a bar of soap. So when you make it today, you cut it tonight and you put those bricks, those bars onto the rack. Six weeks later is when you can market them. So you have no market or no, no product to market for the next six weeks. That was the frustration that I had to start with is because it actually sold and it sold fast, which gave me some satisfaction. It gave me some encouragement. But it gave me some okay, now I need to figure out how am I making soap and how do I keep it on the racks on the curing rack so that it will inventory line.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah.
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Alan Laird
Into the end of the manufacturing pipeline. So it's kind of like planting the seeds in your, in your garden, in your right. Your fields.
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Corinna Bench
Right.
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Alan Laird
Knowing that you're going to get tomatoes in down the road. So I had to figure out how to make that work. And that wasn't, that wasn't something that I knew how to do. I mean I can, I know when you breed a cow, you have nine months until you have a calf and then you have another two years before you have meat. It's the same process. It's just now we're doing it in soap and it's a six week turnaround.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah. So, and that I, I, that's a great example of bumping up against an edge as you're growing and scaling. You discover, oh, if I'm playing at this level, at this table, I need to have a workflow that looks more like this. And, and you don't just you just don't know that when you're first growing and there will be another edge that you bump up against, you bump right into.
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Alan Laird
Yeah. Well, I, so I started. I mean, I've got a grandson right across the. That lives next to us and, and I thought, okay, he needs to learn how to make soap. So on Saturdays and Sundays we make a lot of soap. And he's now 14 and he's smart enough to, I can say we need to make soap and he makes the soap and I just kind of watch. Which is good. Except when he gets ready to go to college or gets ready to do something different or, or this is not his thing anymore, then I'm going to bump up against another edge. Oh, it's like, where's my labor?
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Corinna Bench
Right. Well, you still have four years to figure that out.
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Alan Laird
I do.
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Corinna Bench
And I like to believe that God will provide when I've got more grandkids too. Yes.
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Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Today's podcast is sponsored by my friends@citizensalmonalaska.com if you run a CSA and you're always looking for value added products that feel aligned with your farm but don't
- [22:07]
Corinna Bench
create more work for you, I want
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Podcast Sponsor Announcer
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- [23:27]
Corinna Bench
So if you're curious whether this could
- [23:29]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
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- [23:50]
Corinna Bench
So what problem were you originally trying to solve for customers? You mentioned the skin issues. Was there anything else that you began to notice people were coming to this product for that maybe surprised you that you didn't realize was a thing?
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Alan Laird
Well, it did because the first thing, I mean, you know, when you, when we, when we started farm marketing school and you, you introduced crap. What's his name? The guy that tells us how to write the book.
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Corinna Bench
Don Miller.
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Alan Laird
Don Miller. Yes. And he talks about. Thank you. He talks. I've got two copies of it in the bookshelf.
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Corinna Bench
Building a story brand.
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Alan Laird
Yeah, yeah, story brand. And we're talking about how to, how to build your story brand. And it talks about what are your, what are your problems that you're solving for your, your customers, what you, what do you want to do? And that was the first thing that I started with was the skin. But everybody doesn't have skin problems. Yeah, but everybody wants nice soap laying on their bathroom counter when their customers come. Everybody wants something that moisturizes their skin. Everybody wants things that they can use for gifts when it's Valentine's Day. When it's Christmas. I mean, our biggest season so far in the last two years has been, has been the pre Christmas sale. So between November and Christmas.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah, makes sense.
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Alan Laird
It is a, it is a go fast.
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Corinna Bench
A lucrative time for you.
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Alan Laird
Very lucrative time. Yes. January goes back to our standbys. You know, it's going to be the people that, that are just buying their one box a month. And, and that's good. There also isn't any, any Christmas bazaars in January there. Sometimes there's a Valentine bazaars that we can go get up on. But there's, I mean right now is, it's a little slow. But we also talk in the farm marketing school about having seasons.
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Corinna Bench
Yep.
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Alan Laird
And. And you suggest that we have at least four of them and marketing peaks.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah, yeah.
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Alan Laird
Mark the peaks that we're doing dealing with. And, and so that's where I came back with after listening to your podcast on the 12 Days of Christmas. It goes back to. I need to, I need to go back to my library and see what we've got. What can we do? And how am I going to work there? Because even though I know that we're supposed to do it, I don't have time to do all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I have to build my calendar and then I have to build my to do list and.
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Corinna Bench
Right.
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Alan Laird
And if I was suggesting to somebody that's listening, I would suggest building a to do list and a calendar and having a library of things to go back to research when, you know, when they, when they run up against that wall or they're saying, what do I do now? Or this isn't working. The, the benefits of farm marketing school is you have your library to. And I, I know I'm selling like a sales pitch, but I think I
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Corinna Bench
did not tell him to do this.
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Alan Laird
No, he didn't. She didn't. But. But, you know, thank you. One of the things that Karina, that you tell us is that, you know, you can do this for a month, you can do it for two months, you can back off, you can come back in. I've stayed, you know, I've stayed there for the last couple years because it's a, It's a benefit.
- [27:47]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
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Alan Laird
And it's not. It's not something that I. It's an investment that I believe in. So.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah. All right. So what you're kind of describing here is that you first became aware of, like, I'm going to start this product because I'm solving this one problem. But then as you moved forward, you uncovered that there were actually many other potential ways or problems that this, this product could solve or desires, you know, and it's not always a problem. Sometimes it's just something people want. As you were describing, the, the smelly soap and having something nice for, you know, for people that come to the house, you know, and you have a nice bar of soap there in the bathroom instead of just like dial
- [28:34]
Localline Sponsor Announcer
there.
- [28:34]
Corinna Bench
There's an elevated, like an elevated feeling about goat soap. And it says something about you as a person. If someone sees that you're buying goat soap. Oh, wow.
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Alan Laird
Correct.
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Corinna Bench
And that's what people are going for. I don't know what you call that, but it's this. Yeah. Elevated status or I know something you don't know. Or I value quality. I value taking care of, you know, going a little extra mile to take care of myself. Like, those are all things that you're also selling.
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Alan Laird
Right.
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Corinna Bench
So you start out with this customer base that you're almost like you're trying to get a subscription going. Right. Is that the goal that you want people? So let's talk about your core customer today. And I'm also just kind of curious about your best selling products and like, how that's sort of morphed over time. Like, what typically happens. Let me start out, Let me back up. How does a person first, like, discover you? Let's just start at the top of
- [29:31]
Alan Laird
the
- [29:34]
Corinna Bench
sales funnel and then what turns them into a first time buyer with you?
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Alan Laird
I think we have, we've got a couple of them, a couple corrections or a couple flows. The ones that start with the health issues. Somebody always knows somebody that has eczema or somebody knows somebody that has kids that have acne or. And when that happens and they're, and they're, they're a person who has already tried it, already believes in the, in the product, then it's, then it's a word of mouth and it's like, you should try this. You're, you know, I've got some stuff that will work and that, that is, that's that customer base. Then they just, they just drift in sometimes because we pass out business cards. Every bar of soap has, or every order has a business card in it and usually I throw in two with a, with a website on it so that somebody, you know, it's like, I'm not giving you my card, but I've got an extra one here.
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Corinna Bench
Brilliant.
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Alan Laird
Will work. The other, the other stream is the, is the bazaars and the, we haven't done any farmers markets yet but I think I'm going to do one this, this summer because we've got one that you can go to or you can't go to. I mean you can, you can turn it on and off if you want to. And so I don't want to be, I don't want to be stuck to not being able to go fishing.
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Corinna Bench
Yep.
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Alan Laird
Or going on a trip or something. So. But we're going to try that. But the bazaars are the ones that I've been dealing with most because that is people that are looking for, looking for us or looking for whatever they're going to bazaars for or they look for other things.
- [31:30]
Corinna Bench
You match that. Yeah, customer big time.
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Alan Laird
That little niche. And what I found is that some people, some people go by, you know, with their hands in their pockets so that you don't, you're not at the auction buying something with your hand up in the air. But they go by and they look at what you got and, and they think, well, I don't want any goat milk soap. And all you got to do as a salesman is say smells are free. And they're alphabetized, alphabetical from A to Z and they stop and they look at you and then they go to A because you gave them that direction. And that is apple pie. And if you smell apple pie, it smells like apple pie. And the next one you hand to them, if you can get it in their hand you got a sale. And they'll buy at least one bar soap.
- [32:33]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Interesting.
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Corinna Bench
You've noticed that if you can get them to touch a second bar.
- [32:36]
Alan Laird
Yep. As they get them to touch it. So the first one's a smell, the second one is a touch. And once they have it in their hand and then they say, I don't know that I like that as well. What's this one smell like?
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Corinna Bench
And they go through the whole list
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Alan Laird
and they will go down from A to Z until they pick what they want. Which sometimes it's like, well, make up your mind and go, yeah, but you can't do that.
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Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [32:59]
Alan Laird
And a lot of times people will come to me with the same question that you just asked as we're there, and they'll say, what is your best seller? Because they don't know overwhelmed what to do. And we have a jar of coffee grounds there. It's kind of like, like if you're tasting wine, you have to rinse your palate. Well, if you're smelling soap, you have to rinse your palate as well. So the coffee grounds will kind of clean out your, your nasal passage just a little bit. So where you can start smelling again.
- [33:32]
Corinna Bench
So that's the, the, the value bomb in this episode right there. That's cool. Okay, cool.
- [33:40]
Alan Laird
We have, we have some deals so when they start gathering up so that this goes back to building your, building your customer. Because the one who comes to the bazaar came today, but I need them to come tomorrow and next week and next month. I need to get their email addresses. I need to be able to send them emails. I need to tell them, hey, we're having a special. I need them to come back for that lifelong customer that I.
- [34:15]
Corinna Bench
Customer.
- [34:16]
Alan Laird
Yeah, value. That's there. And so we have them buying a bar today. And that's a, that's, that's five bucks. I charge them five bucks. It cost me a dollar thirty. I'm turning a profit. That's big deal. But I want them to come back. And so if I can, if there's, if they gather up six bars of soap, we have a six bar box that actually lowers the price a little bit. And as they're sitting here thinking, $5, $5, $5, that's $30. And I give them a deal that says, hey, it's only going to cost you 25 because this is the price that we sell five or six bars of soap at. Then that you should see the look in their eyes, the twinkle that says, hey, I just got a deal. And then we have a box down at the end which is our starter box, which is what I sent you.
- [35:12]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, we're going to talk.
- [35:13]
Alan Laird
And that one is. I mean, that's a loss leader, but it's a starter box. It's like, I don't know what I want. Well, I've got something for. To let you try it out.
- [35:26]
Corinna Bench
And you call it the starter box.
- [35:27]
Alan Laird
I call it a starter box.
- [35:28]
Corinna Bench
It's pretty obvious. It's like, okay, just start here and
- [35:32]
Alan Laird
at the start of our store with local line, the start of our store says, don't know what you're doing. Here's a starter box.
- [35:38]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [35:39]
Alan Laird
Here's the steps. And if you want a gift for somebody, here's a gift box. And if you want to. You want to buy six bars of soap, because you don't want to buy them one at a time. Here's the. Here's the variety box. So.
- [35:55]
Corinna Bench
Okay, well, let's talk about this starter box, because I have it right here still.
- [36:01]
Alan Laird
Okay.
- [36:02]
Corinna Bench
Allan sent this to me a few months ago, actually, and it was a surprise. I didn't know what would be in it. And it's. It's cute. I'm. I wish I could show the video. It's a little. What's the dimensions of this box? Maybe like 5 by 7? Yeah, I was just gonna say it's like a 5x7 photo frame. It has your hooves and feathers logo, which is super cute, stamped on the outside, and that already elevates the experience. And then when I opened it up there, I want to just explain what's in a starter box because it's not just soap. Right. So do you want to talk through. Do you want me to talk through what I see or do you want to describe it?
- [36:48]
Alan Laird
You talk through. You talk through what you see and then I'll.
- [36:51]
Corinna Bench
All right.
- [36:53]
Alan Laird
And if you got a question about why, I'll. I'll jump in. So.
- [36:56]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, so I. I open, open up the lid. And inside, first of all, there's a little letter on the top. That's probably not for everyone, but it was a nice little thank you note or personal note. Do you give a note to everyone in the box?
- [37:09]
Alan Laird
They usually get one sometimes. Oftentimes they're handwritten.
- [37:12]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, well, that was. That was sweet. So a nice personal touch. And then over on the left hand side, there's the cedarwood swirl. So it's a. A bar of soap that doesn't. It's not perfectly rectangular either. It's kind of got like a little. I don't know. What do you call that? That the edge is which I like. That makes it feel artisanal, right?
- [37:39]
Alan Laird
I call them waves.
- [37:41]
Corinna Bench
Waves. So a wavy top.
- [37:42]
Alan Laird
It's wavy. It's wavy, yes.
- [37:44]
Corinna Bench
Yeah. And so that makes it feel. It's almost like a mountain. A mountain, you know, is what it reminds me of. So that just makes it feel special. Like this isn't just something that was cut in a factory, but it's hand cut or something. And then there's this beautiful wrapping around it that explains what it is. That it's handmade, small batch. And the smells that are coming out of the box when you open it are palpable. And you just want to. Like I'm doing it right now. You just want to stick it up to your nose and just keep smelling it. Okay. So underneath that one was a second bar and this one was spring flowers. I was going to ask you are, do you put the two the same two bars or do you switch them out?
- [38:26]
Alan Laird
They get switched out.
- [38:27]
Corinna Bench
Okay, so you're. You knew. You decided what you thought I would like?
- [38:33]
Alan Laird
I took a wild guess.
- [38:34]
Corinna Bench
Okay. But if you were sending it to a man, you might have chosen some different ones. Perhaps, I think.
- [38:41]
Alan Laird
Yeah, I don't remember. I don't. I don't remember for sure what was in there, but I think that cedarwood is a. Is a more of a male smell.
- [38:48]
Corinna Bench
It is smell of a male smell. Yeah.
- [38:49]
Alan Laird
Yeah.
- [38:50]
Corinna Bench
Okay, so underneath that you have these two bracelets. What are these called? They have a name.
- [38:57]
Alan Laird
Wristbands.
- [38:58]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, the wristbands, like the live strong ones. Right. But it has your. Your brand name on it to the right. Then there's a stack of items. The first item is a marshmallow lotion bar, which is in a little tin underneath. That was a coupon code, actually, I'm not sure. This might have been somewhere else, but that's where it is now. There's a coupon code in here that says, thank you for joining the Hooves and Feathers family. Enjoy 10% off your next purchase with this coupon code. And it gives the coupon code that's like. That's right out of the playbook in farm marketing school. You want to talk about why that's important in case people haven't picked that up?
- [39:40]
Alan Laird
That's where it came from. Was right out of the playbook from farm marketing school. And local line has the ability to make coupons. And so I thought, I'm gonna see what happens. And it works.
- [39:51]
Corinna Bench
Yeah. So what is it? Design? What is it supposed to do for you.
- [39:54]
Alan Laird
It is designed to get you to come back for the next bar. Next box, next order, next, whatever you want.
- [40:03]
Corinna Bench
Right. So we have to incentivize that behavior sometimes to turn them into a richer,
- [40:08]
Alan Laird
to start that habit. Because it is a habit. Because they can go buy another bar of soap at the grocery store and it'll be dial or dove or something else. I want them to come back to our soap.
- [40:18]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [40:19]
Alan Laird
And so this is the. This is the incentive to. To take 10 off and. And come back. So.
- [40:27]
Corinna Bench
Yeah. Now, underneath that, there's two more things in the starter box that are not soap. And so the first one is a soap dish made out of wood with, like, grooves in it. So it collects the. The moisture.
- [40:44]
Alan Laird
Yep.
- [40:44]
Corinna Bench
That is one problem that I've noticed in general with goat soaps is that they tend to dissolve faster. And so if you don't have those little groove kinds of things, then that can become a sopping mess real fast. And then underneath that is this little netted, meshy, mesh bag. I know. It's soap saver. Is that what they're called? I don't know.
- [41:02]
Alan Laird
Soap savers. Yeah.
- [41:03]
Corinna Bench
So it's a way for you to put in those smaller bits of soap that once they get real small and tiny and start to break apart, and you can still use this as a form of soap because it doesn't fall all over your bathtub when you hang those up.
- [41:19]
Alan Laird
When you hang those up, they dry out. So that they dry out, but they still have soap in the material. So as soon as it gets wet, you're lathered up and you can use it again.
- [41:30]
Corinna Bench
So you probably sell these little items individually in your online store too, right?
- [41:35]
Alan Laird
We do.
- [41:35]
Corinna Bench
But in the starter box, they're all in there. It's sort of like everything you need to get started and have a good experience is included. Right. Because if you just start with the soap, you're going to run into that problem of it's dissolving on me. Right. And so you're already mitigating that problem by giving them these items.
- [41:54]
Alan Laird
So we gave them something to stop it with.
- [41:56]
Corinna Bench
Yeah. Okay. I'm excited because now I can actually use this because I've been waiting to do this episode.
- [42:03]
Alan Laird
I was going to tell you you need to be using that stuff. And so, you know, I'm so excited now.
- [42:07]
Corinna Bench
I'm like, it's been two months. Like, I gotta get him on the show before I can use this.
- [42:12]
Alan Laird
Or you could just. Or you could just call me and say, I Need some more stuff.
- [42:15]
Corinna Bench
I need another one. I'm order one. Yeah, yeah.
- [42:19]
Alan Laird
You have a 10 coupon.
- [42:20]
Corinna Bench
I do. I could come back. I've actually been thinking about if this is something I could offer to my CSA members in my own store. So this sort of thinking you could become a wholesaler for me. All right.
- [42:35]
Alan Laird
I have a wholesale price list and a wholesale.
- [42:39]
Corinna Bench
Do you really? Oh, we're going to talk. This is good.
- [42:42]
Alan Laird
So I have some, I have some other stores that have, that are putting soap in their stores, so.
- [42:47]
Corinna Bench
Oh, nice. Well, I did have a question about the, so the, the amount of soap that a person typically gets from you on their first visit. Like what, what is, what do you want it to be? Because there's a part of me that would be worried if they get 10 bars of soap, they're not coming back for a long time. How do I establish that ritual? So what does that look like?
- [43:11]
Alan Laird
We talked about that a year ago, I think it was. Or whenever we did that is, and you asked me how many, how many bars of soap does a person go through and that I should survey my customer base to see how often they use it. And guess what? I still haven't done that.
- [43:30]
Corinna Bench
Okay.
- [43:31]
Alan Laird
I, I can go back through my order reports on people who are my solid customers and I can tell you that they usually go through about six bars in a month.
- [43:50]
Corinna Bench
Okay.
- [43:50]
Alan Laird
Because my, my VIP customers buy a six bar box about once a month.
- [43:59]
Corinna Bench
Okay.
- [44:00]
Alan Laird
So. And that's with, and that's with, that's with a family of, of three to four.
- [44:10]
Corinna Bench
Okay, well, and they probably have multiple bathrooms and they might be using it, you know, in the mudroom and in the wherever. Right. Okay.
- [44:18]
Alan Laird
And, and as it gets low, then they say, well, we need to order some more. And, and so I get an order and it has little comments down in the comment section that says, you know, we're get running a little low, so we need some. So I, I've kind of looked at it. I haven't done the, I haven't done the interview questions yet. And I probably, I don't know if
- [44:39]
Corinna Bench
you need to now, I mean, if, you know, if you can look at the data and see that that's, that's probably all you need. But it does help you see what is.
- [44:47]
Alan Laird
And, and I, I can't con, I can't build that on the people who buy it at the, you know, in the public settings because until they get into the queue and respond back, because I don't, I, One of the other things I do at the bazaars is I. I give away a box of four bars of soap every. Every eventful day. So, like, we're going to have one on Valentine's Day. We had one on Christmas Eve. We had one on Thanksgiving. And in exchange for that, you can throw your little tag into the.
- [45:28]
Corinna Bench
Yes, it's a.
- [45:29]
Alan Laird
It's a little. It's a little. If you want to get on our mailing list.
- [45:32]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [45:33]
Alan Laird
And. And I tell them you're going to be on our mailing list in exchange for your email address in exchange for
- [45:40]
Corinna Bench
a chance to get Enter to win.
- [45:43]
Alan Laird
Yeah, enter, Enter to win. And I think They've got almost 700 and some people on our, on our mailing list through. Through kit. So.
- [45:55]
Corinna Bench
And that's how you grow. I was going to ask, how are you growing your. Your list?
- [45:58]
Alan Laird
Is it predominantly typically this way?
- [46:00]
Corinna Bench
And then word of mouth.
- [46:01]
Alan Laird
I grow it this way. Some people. I've got a. I've got a. I've got some things on our website that says if you're interested, click here. Drew a blank. What do we call those?
- [46:17]
Corinna Bench
Lead magnets.
- [46:18]
Alan Laird
Yeah, lead magnet. Thank you. That you're supposed to have like two of or four of or something. Anyway, I put those out there. I get some. I mean, every now and then you get somebody that pops up that says, you know, local line, sends me a. Sends me an email that says, you got a new customer. And then they don't buy anything, which.
- [46:40]
Corinna Bench
So they register for your store.
- [46:43]
Alan Laird
Yeah, but it cues them over into. I'd use Zapier. And I moved them over into if, if they come in as a new customer, they're going to go to Kit. They're going to get. To start getting a email trickle.
- [46:53]
Corinna Bench
So that's right. You're using Zapier. You're one of my brave farmers. I love it. Okay.
- [46:58]
Alan Laird
I'm learning slow.
- [46:59]
Corinna Bench
How are you communicating your offers then? Like if you. You're predominantly going to bazaars and that's
- [47:05]
Alan Laird
just, you know, people that walk by. Yeah, right.
- [47:08]
Corinna Bench
But if. For people who are on your email list or people who are subscribers, what's your. You're obviously emailing them. So tell me what that. What is your communication and your marketing look like there? What's the frequency and the cadence?
- [47:21]
Alan Laird
So I have a, I have a, A trickle program.
- [47:29]
Corinna Bench
That sequence.
- [47:31]
Alan Laird
Yeah. Yep. That they get. They get to. Nothing says buy soap right now. It says, welcome to our farm, welcome to our family. Here's a picture of my wife and I. This is what we do. This is what we, here's our cows, here's our chickens, here's our pigs. In fact, we set it up as. And it's like that on our website. It's set up as a, as a novel. And I use that as the, the introduction is welcome to the novel, to the. Welcome to the next chapter of our lives. And here is a novel that explains what we've got. And then each of our chapters is, you know, we have tales about the, the chickens and we have the cows. And each one of them has a different title, but it's related to a novel, a chapter in the novel. And so we don't talk about it about soap until we get down to we have pigs and we have. And they make lard and the lard turns into soap. Oh, and now we have the ability to sell you soap if you need soap. So it's that that sequence is, is welcome to us. And every one of them has a unsubscribe button at the bottom. So if they're tired of it or they don't want to hear about it.
- [48:50]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [48:51]
Alan Laird
And I tell them up front that I, I'm not going to give them a daily or a weekly pitch. So some people can. And I know that's part of our marketing is that they need to get a, a regular one. But we give them regular. But it's not as often as, as, I mean, I get some that are like every day I get a. I, I signed up for a, for another person who sells soap in another state over and I get a you should buy soap every day email. And I know what I do with those. I don't look at them. So I don't want them to be an everyday thing. And I don't know, I don't know if she sent one out every week. If I would review it every week either. I might. Every two weeks I would look at it and say, hey, that's pretty neat. I think I'll try that. Or, you know, or I might be willing to buy something.
- [49:47]
Corinna Bench
It's smart for you to actually subscribe to some other people that do what you do because you can see how are they marketing. And our. You'll get some ideas of what not to do, as in this case, but also.
- [49:58]
Alan Laird
Or what to do. Yeah.
- [50:00]
Corinna Bench
Yeah. So that's a little nugget of wisdom. Super smart there. All right, farmers, let me ask you something. As we step into a brand new year, do you actually feel ready for the marketing side of your farm business or are you quietly hoping you'll figure it out as you go like last season. How'd that work out for you? If marketing your farm feels like a constant scramble, something you know matters but never quite gets the time or clarity it deserves, you are not alone. I hear this from farmers every single week. And that's exactly why I created Farm Marketing School to help you. Farm Marketing School is my monthly membership designed to help farmers build a simple, repeatable marketing system that actually fits into your real farm life. Inside, you will find, bite sized, step by step, do it yourself. Marketing projects that take the overwhelm out of things like writing sales emails or how to plan your promotions, how to build your social media strategy, how to update the homepage of your website, how to write an email nurture sequence, or setting up systems that work on autopilot even when you're busy in the field. Each month you choose what to focus on and I walk you through exactly how to do it with my on demand video trainings and my bonus resources. And you're not alone doing this. Each month we meet live on Zoom where you can ask questions, get group coaching and hear what's working for other farmers. It's like having a farm marketing mentor and a room full of peers in your corner. This is not a massive, overwhelming course. The projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days so that you're making real progress without marketing taking over your life. So if this is the year you want to stop winging it and finally feel confident in a marketing system that brings in steady sales, I'd love to welcome you into Farm Marketing School. Join today at mydigitalfarmer.com FMS that's mydigitalfarmer.com FMs and now back to the show. Okay, so you're doing, you're doing like a monthly, at least a monthly email to the, to the list to try and just poke them and say, hey, it's time.
- [52:21]
Alan Laird
Yeah. And then I do broadcasts. So if I'm going to be at a bazaar for all the local people, because I have, I got people scattered all over the United States. Yeah, I mean, I ship soap to Florida and California and I've got some in Alaska and I've got customers moving, but, but if they live in Alaska, they're not going to come to the bazaar over in Homedale, which is the next town over. So I preface the broadcast that goes out and says if you're local and you're wanting to come get a, you know, see what new things we have and we're going to be there on this Weekend or this day or whatever. I also send out broadcasts for the winners of the. Of the.
- [53:08]
Corinna Bench
Right.
- [53:09]
Alan Laird
The raffle box, which always. Somebody. Somebody wins the raffle box. And then five more people say, oh, crap, I need to order soap.
- [53:21]
Corinna Bench
Yes. Becomes an excuse. Right.
- [53:24]
Alan Laird
It's a reminder. It's an excuse. It's like, I didn't win, but I need to order. Yeah, I.
- [53:32]
Corinna Bench
Let's just stop there for a second because that's, that's just a good tip for everyone listening. I do that, too. Sometimes my emails don't have, like an overtly promotional angle. I'm just telling them something cool that happened on the farm or I'm sharing a funny picture of, you know, the boys with their snowmobiles or whatever. And then in the ps, I'm like, I give them a link if they want to, you know, go to the store. And there's always, always at least one or two people that buy. So like you just said, it just triggers. Oh, I, I meant to do that. And here, it's easy. Here's the link. I don't have to go find it. So that's something that you can all be leveraging. There's value and sometimes just sharing an email that is just connecting, but it's going to cause some people to buy. Yeah.
- [54:19]
Alan Laird
I also send out, like, if we come up with new products. And I'm also coming up. I tried it last year with some monthly boxes because I wanted to. I wanted to advertise for January. I want to do one for February, want to do one for March eight. They didn't go over really good. They were okay, but I was making. I was making new soaps for each month's box. And so I was having to stay six weeks, you know, ahead. And what I've done, I talked my administrative assistant, commonly known as Chat GPT, into coming up with utilizing the. I think I got 78 different smells, brands, colors, bars of soap, and coming up with utilizing our current inventory and making them into a monthly box. I'm gonna see how that works this year.
- [55:26]
Corinna Bench
Okay. So it's like you decide what goes in the box. It's a surprise box.
- [55:30]
Alan Laird
Yep, it'll be. And then. And that way, I mean, they're gonna know that it's going to have these four bars of soap in it. And if they haven't tried it before, maybe it'll give them an option to, you know, say, hey, I haven't tried that one. Maybe it's. Maybe it smells good.
- [55:46]
Corinna Bench
Or I wonder if you could do like a Smaller sized like thing little mini ones that are, that are positioned as bonus gifts in boxes that hit a certain average order value just to expose them to a scent, to a different one tried yet that would, that's a different, you know, production.
- [56:05]
Alan Laird
Yeah. We also do.
- [56:07]
Corinna Bench
It feels like a freebie, which is generous. Right.
- [56:10]
Alan Laird
Well, and we do that. I trade in because I also, I teach CPR in my spare time. And so I have, every week I have a class and at each class they get a sample bar. So. And they get an opportunity.
- [56:24]
Corinna Bench
Oh, you can see that. Yeah.
- [56:25]
Alan Laird
To fill out one of those things again in exchange for. Which goes on my list.
- [56:30]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [56:31]
Alan Laird
So I keep a coat pocket full of sample bars that I pass out when we're there that has a QR code on the back of it and a website on the, on the front. So take the QR code takes you to the store. The website takes you to our website.
- [56:44]
Corinna Bench
Yeah. You're bringing up though an issue of like, as you're developing new product and new sense and new, like, how do you, how do you get people to adopt it? And that, that's probably a challenge that you'll. You face as a producer.
- [56:59]
Alan Laird
Right.
- [57:00]
Corinna Bench
Well.
- [57:00]
Alan Laird
And so I do send those out on broadcast. If we develop new ones, I'll send them out a note and say, hey, we just made. I'll send them a picture. Here's. Here's 10 new bars of soap that we just cut out of a brick.
- [57:11]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [57:12]
Alan Laird
And this is a new, new scent, new new color, new design, whatever. I've also had a customer, one of them that came back and said, I would like some little, a little dish to put on my bathroom counter. So like guest soaps, I guess you might call them. And I, so I can make those. That's not a problem. You just pour them in a different mold and pop them out. I, I'm keeping thinking, how am I going to inventory those and where am I, how am I going to keep them on the shelf so that I know that I have. And I'm probably not going to make 78 of those.
- [57:51]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [57:52]
Alan Laird
So which ones do I.
- [57:55]
Corinna Bench
Right.
- [57:55]
Alan Laird
Which One of the 78 do I make into those little stars or you know.
- [57:59]
Corinna Bench
Right.
- [58:00]
Alan Laird
Shellfish or whatever.
- [58:01]
Corinna Bench
Right.
- [58:02]
Alan Laird
And then, and I haven't, haven't done this. This is just in the process, I'm trying to figure out how to, how we're going to, how we're going to do it, develop that and if it will work. I mean this is just one person that said, hey, I would like this, but but that's how things have developed, right?
- [58:18]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [58:19]
Alan Laird
And if I can. Do I. Do I find little dishes on Amazon that are cheap? Or do I go to the dollar store? Or do I go to the, you know, the Salvation army store and just pick up other people's casts offs and. Or do I just make them a Ziploc bag that has.
- [58:40]
Corinna Bench
How does it get packaged?
- [58:41]
Alan Laird
10 bars, 10 little bricks of soap in it? Little. Little thing. I don't know. But again, I mean, that's the fun. We'll play.
- [58:48]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, you'll figure it out, see where it goes. Let me, let me ask you, when you, when you go to your store, your local line store, is there just like tons of inventory there? And like with, with all these different options and permutations, variations, how are you organizing what. Like that seems like that would be a little overwhelming as so on your end to decide make those decisions.
- [59:10]
Alan Laird
It does. So we had a, we had a farm marketing school class on websites and how to set up. I drew a blank. What do we call them?
- [59:30]
Corinna Bench
The homepage or the online store part
- [59:32]
Alan Laird
in the, in the cabinet. It was in the store because we looked at it. Yeah. Groups.
- [59:38]
Corinna Bench
How to set up the categories.
- [59:40]
Alan Laird
Thank you. Categories. Yeah, it was a groups. So you can look at, you can look at the gifts, you can look at women's scents, you can look at men's scents, you can look at facial bars, you can look at lotions, the lotion bars. And we put them. You can. And then if you, if you don't like, if you don't like flowers, well, then why don't you go to the wood scents? Because I've got a category of wood scent. I've got a category of flower scent. I got a category of food scents, spices. So that. And you can go to the bottom and look through all of them if you want to. Yes.
- [60:26]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [60:27]
Alan Laird
But if you, if you're jumping in and you say, well, I don't like this and I do like that.
- [60:33]
Corinna Bench
Right. Or best sellers or here's art. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's smart. So you become, and this is important for all of you who have huge inventories, it's so imperative that you become the curator of those items. You have to help, you have to help your customer organize it. You'll see greater sales as a result. Because people, you know, they need to find, they need to find the product. And if it's hard to find because it's just all randomly just jumbled in there with no sense of order, that's more difficult for their brain to waddle through.
- [61:08]
Alan Laird
Yeah, that's also the same thing that we do at our bazaars is our racks are set up so that. And everybody comes in here and they look at this and there's 75 or whatever bars of soap. And it's like, where do I start? That's why they're alphabetical. So alphabetical is easier for me to know where they are. So that when they say, I would like something that smells like a fruit, I can point to this one, that one, that one and that one. So they can smell watermelon or they can smell peaches or they can smell cherries. If I could put, I mean, if we had more room at the bazaar, we could put them in groups so that all the cherries are here and all the watermelons are there. And we might try that and see how it works one day. Yeah, but the alphabetical thing seems to be working again, though. But you just mentioned something about having to be the curator and having to be there when they say, and it's nice to ask them or what do you like? Because if they tell me, oh, I don't like flowers, then we're not going to point them into the flower bin. We're going to talk about things that they do like. Well, then maybe you ask them, well, do you like the smell of wood? If you have wood, I've got cedarwood, sandalwood, cedarwood, swirls. We got some different varieties. We've got mahogany and all these different types of things that we can go into the wood category. If you like spices, we've got a whole lot of them. And so we can lead them to the direction, get one in their hand, get two in their hand. Now they've got a choice. Right now they might want to just buy both of them. And if they say, well, I don't really know which one of these two I like, then I tell them, well, we do have a box that you can put four of those in. Or if they get up and they've got five in their hand and they're ready to spend, five times five is $25. I can say, you know, for $25, you can actually get another bar. So, and here's the, here's our or variety box. So again, it goes back to marketing. Face to face marketing when you're talking to it and solving a problem. Because again, if they've only got 20, 30 bucks, how can I give them something that will benefit them?
- [63:45]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, I'm, I'm just wondering too, do you have to do A lot of explaining of the goat, the health benefits and the, you know, the manufacturing process or do you find that most people have already done that research before they've come to your online store? Most educated of a buyer. Are they?
- [64:06]
Alan Laird
Yeah. Most of them have heard that goat milk soap is good for you. That is kind of the, that's the. Do they, have they done the research? Have they read the, have they read my white paper that's in my website? No, but if I explain to them the benefits of vitamin A and E and Omegas 3 and 6 as far as their skin and their health. If I explain the benefits of coconut oil being an antibacterial and that the activated charcoal and the, and the Navajo clay is a good facial.
- [64:45]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [64:45]
Alan Laird
In using good facial ingredients. That's usually it.
- [64:50]
Corinna Bench
Okay.
- [64:51]
Alan Laird
And, and if you've got three people there looking and you're explaining it to one, the other two are listening.
- [64:56]
Corinna Bench
Right.
- [64:57]
Alan Laird
So I mean you, there is a repetitiveness of. Especially at a, at a in person bazaar. You're going to say it a lot. On our website and on our, on our emails that go out, we do explain that.
- [65:13]
Corinna Bench
Yes.
- [65:14]
Alan Laird
It's part of the process. Once we get into the soap angle, it's like here is the benefits of it. And if you really want to dig in deeper, here's a link that will take you to a white paper that explains why it, why it has beneficial value to your, to your health.
- [65:31]
Corinna Bench
You have been inside of our marketing school. I think you're one of my longest members, actually 17 months is what my tick marks say. When did you realize that you needed more structure around your marketing and messaging or what was the reason that you decided to come in? That might not even be the reason.
- [65:55]
Alan Laird
So. My degree at college is in business and administration and we had a lot of classes about marketing and all the things that go along with business administration. But there's a difference in marketing. When I went to college and they're marketing now, I mean we have a lot of digital stuff. There's a lot of online things. There's a lot of changes have happened in that period of time. And I've always been an entrepreneur, had had that mindset. It's like, you know, I'll do something if I, if it works, great. If it doesn't, we should have, we should start a business which kind of, sometimes you jump in without knowing how to swim. But when I started, I mean I mentioned up front that the reason that I started on this was because I, I needed to figure out how I was going to sell beef to individual people rather than selling them at the sales yard for half the money that they're worth. And that was the main goal. And I don't remember for sure how, how it popped up on my, probably on my Facebook page that said, you need to, you need to be interested in our marketing school and Corinne events and listening to her podcasts and all that stuff. I didn't do the podcast to start with. I, I, I think I just jumped in. And if it was 17 months ago, that's when it probably happened. But I looked at it as an opportunity for me to add to the things that I already knew and then fulfill the, the gaps of the things that I didn't. And about the first, you know, it was a, it was a cheap investment. I paid a lot more money than that to go to college. And even if I pay you every month until I'm no longer here, it's still going to be less than I paid to go to college. But it gives me a, it gave me, it gave me that library.
- [68:23]
Corinna Bench
Yeah.
- [68:23]
Alan Laird
The ability to go back and, and look and say, okay, here's, here's that 30 day project and am I doing it? Am I doing it right? What do I need to do to fix it?
- [68:36]
Corinna Bench
What is. As we wrap up here, why don't you talk to my audience about what is one lesson or two lessons from your journey that you think other small producers need to hear. You can repeat yourself if you've already said it or maybe it's just something you haven't had a chance to communicate yet.
- [68:55]
Alan Laird
Well, I think I've said it, but I think it's important to, to have a library of resources that you can go to when you need to, when you have a question, when you have the feel and need and don't know for sure where to go. I think it's important to. I know you said one lesson, but I got two.
- [69:19]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, go for it.
- [69:20]
Alan Laird
Don't give up. You know, and know that we don't have time to, we don't have time to do everything, but you need to prioritize what you are doing so that you can be in charge of marketing your product. Because I think you need to know, you need to be in charge of your product and your business. If you just wait for people to come to your door, they're probably going to go somewhere else.
- [69:49]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, you'll be waiting a long time.
- [69:53]
Alan Laird
Yeah.
- [69:54]
Corinna Bench
Well, we could go on and on. There's, we didn't even get to your website. Your website is so beautiful. It has come a long way. I love it so much and I Where can people go to learn more about hooves and feathers if they want to study what you're doing, you just
- [70:09]
Alan Laird
got to take the take the spaces out from between the words and just type in hoovesandfeathers.com and it will take you right straight to our website.
- [70:19]
Corinna Bench
Yeah, you want to see a beautiful store, go check it out. If you want to purchase his soaps, check it out. Apparently he's also willing to wholesale to you, so you might get some business. Watch out from this podcast.
- [70:32]
Alan Laird
You're right, it's a business.
- [70:33]
Corinna Bench
Thank you so so much for taking all this time this morning to hang out with me and share your story. I really, really appreciate you so much.
- [70:43]
Alan Laird
Thank you for, for everything that you've done and having the library to go look at. So I appreciate you. Thank you.
- [70:55]
Corinna Bench
Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview. You can find today's show notes@mydigitalfarmer.com 350 and if you liked this episode, please share it with a farmer. You can grab the link, text it to them, email it to them, help the word get out that this podcast exists. If you want to get onto my email list and get better at your marketing, please go subscribe@mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe. I got some free stuff to send your way and it's really good. I'm also on Instagram ydigitalfarmer. I would love to connect with you there. Thank you so much for joining me today everyone. Have an amazing week and remember, I believe in you.
- [71:36]
Alan Laird
Sam.