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1 Year in Review Using Barn2Door with Daphne, Agricola Family Farm
135 Plays4 years ago
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're excited to host Daphne of Agricola Family Farm in Cleveland, Texas. Listen as she shares her Farm's story as a second-generation Farmer and experience with using Barn2Door over the past year.
Show Notes:
https://www.agricolafamilyfarm.com/
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Four Levers for Farm Success
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the weekly listen for farm selling direct. We'll talk about the four levers for farm success, which are quality, brand, price, and convenience. We'll hear from outside industry experts and producers like you to delight your customers, save time and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the direct farm podcast.
Introducing Daphne from Agricola Family Farms
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm Rory, your host. We've got a great conversation for you today with one of our farm advisors, Daphne, because of Agricola family farms. Welcome Daphne. It's great to have you on about a year since we last talked to you. For those who haven't heard about your farm, could you maybe talk about your farm story, your family story, and how you started Agricola family farms?
Farming Journey from Congo to Houston
00:00:49
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me today. And I hope that this will be helpful to a lot of people. It's super exciting, especially like to kind of have like that one year check-in. So my family, we're actually originally from the Republic of Congo. We moved here in 2010 and my parents have always formed. So this is nothing new to me. I even went to school and I studied agriculture. So I do have a bachelor of science in agriculture in agronomy, hoping to go for a master's sometime down the line.
00:01:15
Speaker
I have a couple of siblings, I'm the oldest of five. We've always loved doing agriculture. It's just a way for us to give back to the community, but it's also a way for us to get to make a living. That's how my parents pay their bills. Even I too, the fact that I am a stay-at-home mom, I'm having to even develop a microgreens business. So it's a means to just living and also being able to share a passion with other people.
00:01:43
Speaker
and everything we grow is organic. We believe in strictly sharing the food that we grow as natural as possible as organic as possible. You know, I think that's how all the healthy tips and all the healthy benefits comes through and are shared with our customers as
Connecting with Community through Social Media
00:02:00
Speaker
well.
00:02:00
Speaker
You guys have done a really great job of connecting with your local community and I think that a lot of times can be a challenge for farmers but that is a huge market. A lot of times farms can sell out of all their products just by serving their local small towns or local rural areas and so could you maybe talk about how you guys have tackled that challenge of connecting with your community and establishing your farm within the community?
00:02:24
Speaker
So, too, we had to change the community which is the Houston community where we originally moved to back in 2010, and then also the Cleveland community which is about.
00:02:36
Speaker
almost an hour and a half drive from Houston. So you have two different people. Cleveland, where we are right now, it's very much more country. So you kind of have to come back to the Houston area to do your business. But one thing is social media, especially attending farmers markets, that is a good way for you to know who your customers can be, what those people in a specific area buy.
00:02:59
Speaker
and then in Houston it's such a big community so it was really easy for people to support us because once we tell them this is what we're doing and we try to be as honest as possible we love to grow vegetables we want to be able to offer fresh food to your table to where you don't have to go to the store perhaps even drop it off in front of your door
00:03:19
Speaker
That's really cool here. That's definitely a very unique way to utilize social media to build that relationship and get your name out there. So I was kind of curious if a customer isn't familiar with a product that maybe you've decided to grow, how do you get them to try new things and not be discouraged by ingredients or products that they aren't used to?
CSA and Unfamiliar Produce Exploration
00:03:36
Speaker
So three things I do, one is a CSA. Sometimes like if I'm sending out an email and I say, Hey, this is what we're having on the list this week. And I might just drop like into our parenthesis, like, this is how you can cook it. Don't be too afraid to try it. And I might even drop a link to a recipe I find online, something that people here are more accustomed to. I'm still learning too. So I think it's like kind of meeting each other halfway. If I'm at the pharmacy market, I might just offer it to someone and let them go home and try it.
00:04:06
Speaker
Let me know how you like it next time. And if you did send me a message, send me a video or even post it online. Say, Hey, I got this from this farmer and I really like it. Just something fun. The other thing is I cook at home a lot. So I am always sharing recipes with people. And because most people know we're not from the US or from the Congo, they're always curious to know what we eat back home, how I will
00:04:31
Speaker
culture is different from here or how similar it is. And most of the time the vegetables might look different, but they always almost taste the same, but it's awesome. So far, I haven't really had any bad reviews on that. So it's been good. That's good to hear. And something you touched on there that I think is really cool, using those unique ingredients to be a branding or a marketing opportunity, telling the customer, Hey, post about this, maybe send us a video and we can post it. And that's,
00:04:57
Speaker
either more content for your farm or if they're tagging you in the post that they post, then that's a good opportunity to continue to get your name out there. So it has been about a year since you last came on the podcast. Could you maybe talk about some of the biggest lessons you've learned through beginning to sell direct online over the course of the last year?
Challenges of Online Direct Selling
00:05:14
Speaker
Sending emails, I know that was like one of my biggest struggle, but also I think it's helped a lot to really know who's reading the message. Especially like when we use MailChimp, you can see who exactly opens your emails every time you send it out. So that's been something new that I definitely like. And just being able to keep up with the inventory and see what people like to buy more of.
00:05:37
Speaker
I also want to say really making sure that you know what you're selling inventory wise because sometimes we've had people that will order things and we didn't have it or it sold out quickly or something happened at the farm and all the vegetables died, you know, especially because of the freeze we had back in February. So keeping up with the sales and keeping up with the orders, but just doing it through bunch of directly that's helped me just kind of keep up with everything.
00:06:04
Speaker
Something else you guys do and have been doing for some time now is maintaining a pretty successful CSA.
CSA Education through Netflix Analogy
00:06:10
Speaker
Could you maybe talk about how you go about advertising your CSA to buyers and overcoming that challenge of buyers maybe not knowing what a CSA is and how you've kind of been able to push through that and make that program a success?
00:06:21
Speaker
One thing first with CSA is you have to teach your customers about it, telling them exactly that. I like to use that it's like a Netflix subscription. You can cancel it anytime you want and just kind of educating people and making it feel super special that whatever comes at the farm, you get to try first before anyone else do. That's always like what we talk about, at least in the email and also letting them kind of getting them excited about what's coming on in the season.
00:06:50
Speaker
We didn't have some tomatoes or we added some heirlooms like I did this summer. We haven't done heirlooms in a very long time. So that's nice too. I'm just kind of giving them something excited to look forward to for the season. Awesome. That's really cool to hear. And you're able to connect with customers through that and almost make it in exchange. You know, you're supporting the farm, but we're going to give you some really good, high quality, healthy food products as well in exchange. And so that's, that's cool to hear that you've been able to brand it that way and establish it within your community that way.
00:07:20
Speaker
It's a learning experience every day. I mean, you know, we have to take stuff around. Even sometimes we have to make sure that it's also affordable for the people that, you know, we're going to stuff with. We don't want to overdo it. It's like, Oh no, they did all the bugs and you know, no one wants to buy. So it's always a challenge for me to make sure that I'm understanding the market to see what people can afford so that we continue to have to see if they sign up.
00:07:42
Speaker
I know without having to have like any downsides to that. So in kind of, in addition to that, you guys also offer a few different variations of your subscription in different sizes as well as on different schedules.
Subscription Offerings to Meet Customer Needs
00:07:55
Speaker
I believe it's biweekly and weekly, and then you have different size of the subscription. Cause you made me talk about how that's allowed you to reach a wider audience through that and kind of accommodate more potential customers.
00:08:07
Speaker
So my goal there is to try to be as convenient as possible to people with, without also making us too stressful. The bi-weekly has always been with us for a very long time. I have at least one or two customers that just love to strictly do that. So I offer like the bi-weekly and the weekly is like for people who eat more vegetables. So I'll be perhaps eggs, like people like to have eggs for breakfast. So I do offer Venice description for eggs too. So if you want your eggs every week, then you can do that.
00:08:35
Speaker
and the sizes for example some people have smaller family sometimes it could be just a single person who wants to eat although most people who actually are our customers are mostly families but we don't also want to forget those people that still want to eat fresh food or farm fresh food but can't afford to buy a bigger box or
00:08:56
Speaker
don't have that much space or don't eat as much. So we want to also be able to make that possible for those people, you know, who don't want to eat too much, but still want to be able to support the farm. We're also careful not to overdo because once you give too much choices to your customer at stake, they are overwhelmed. So I try to make it to a bare minimum. Last year when we started with Bunch, it was a small, medium, and a large. It just wasn't making sense and it was too much for me to work on. So
00:09:24
Speaker
I just made it easy for me and a customer. If you want a small box and you have this in front of a large box, you have the other one. But with those two sizes, you can still manage whether or not you want them weekly or you want them biweekly. So that kind of gave you an idea of how much you're going to consume for that whole month or so. So I think so far it's worked out. There is a lot of things I'm still doing differently.
00:09:45
Speaker
and trying to plan, but doing it slowly. No, that's great to hear. And also just that, you know, convenience kind of comes in a lot of different ways and that sometimes convenience is how a product is packaged or how often they can receive that product.
00:10:02
Speaker
it makes it more convenient or easy for a customer to sign up. Another kind of area of convenience that you guys were just starting to hit on last time you were on the podcast, I believe, was your delivery program.
Development and Expansion of Delivery Program
00:10:13
Speaker
So could you maybe kind of update us on how that program has been evolving in the last year and where you guys are with that?
00:10:19
Speaker
So the delivery, it's still there. I had to take, and this is just me super honest because farming can be very difficult sometimes. I took a break to take up my baby, but I'm still catching up on the numbers. So I think we're almost a little bit over the level that we were last year.
00:10:37
Speaker
so it's increased although not too largely because again we're going to a really rough time so with COVID and all like a lot of people going to financial hardship so we've had to hit a few hiccups in there so I've been back to Promise Market maybe sometimes like me need to march I think so we're picking up again which is really good and
00:11:00
Speaker
I think the micro grains as an extra product is also bringing more people so because so I'm trying to also see whether or not we can add that as, you know, just a single subscription, or just kind of something people can pick up weekly, so that project is still underway but I am hoping to at least increase our numbers at least up to like
00:11:19
Speaker
I want to see another extra 10 people before the end of the year. So because winter people are going to be home and most of the kids, especially during school time are going to be going to school and coming back home. So they want to be able to eat something fresh and parents just want to focus on their kids. So I think it's going to come back up. What are some of the other changes you're kind of hoping to make with your delivery program moving forward?
00:11:43
Speaker
Okay. So one thing is I'm trying to change the packaging and wanting to go, I want to say green. So right now we use like the program bags, which is okay, but I want to be able to do something reusable. So for our customer, maybe like add one or two bags for each people so that they can all have their own like back that I can just reuse every other week or every week or so and adding the new products of the microgrants. There's one other thing. So right now I have one day of delivery.
00:12:09
Speaker
I had somebody who was working with me not too long ago, however I'm trying to hire another person who can help out with doing the delivery so that we can do twice a week. Another thing is I want to try to grow new things like I mentioned before. So kind of see what people really like to eat and focus more on that because this year was really a test run for me.
00:12:32
Speaker
And since I didn't go to work, I stayed home kind of to look at what my parents were doing and what we can do differently to bring more customers. And so changing some of the crops that we're growing, how we harvest them and like adding extra delivery route.
00:12:47
Speaker
Do you guys utilize any kind of delivery fee or like a minimum purchase amount that allows you to receive delivery? We do a five dollar delivery if you are over an hour away from the farm. So if you are near the farm, it's a free delivery charge.
00:13:04
Speaker
Anyone going forward, and I started that a couple of months ago, if you're a new customer, you are getting your first free delivery. So that's like free of charge. You kind of just get it for free. And then we start you on the next delivery. And most of the time, people don't really mind it, you know, especially if we're coming from a really long drive and the prices are pretty much the same, really. I just, again, like I mentioned, just kind of giving them an incentive to come back so that, you know, the next time they can sign up again and get something else.
00:13:33
Speaker
But if you can have your groceries dropped off in front of your home, that's going to be awesome. So I know I love it. So hopefully other people too will.
Honesty and Customer Loyalty
00:13:42
Speaker
Another part of your guys's brand that you touched on last time you were on the podcast was kind of being honest with your audience about kind of just the ups and downs of farming. You know, there's good days and there's bad days. And I think that's really cool and definitely unique to your brand. Cause you made me just talk about how that authenticity helps you connect with your audience and stay top of mind with your customers.
00:14:03
Speaker
One thing, it all comes really to, like you mentioned, you have to be as honest as possible. Every time, at least since the baby was born, I've been taking him to the market every time with me. He hasn't missed the market really, unless if we're all sick, then we all come home. People love that. They love to see
00:14:22
Speaker
your whole family there. It's a sense of, you know, a respect, but also admiration, you know, being able to just be open about it. And sometimes if they don't see the baby, it's like, where's the baby today? Oh, he's coming. He's just taking a little nap. But also, you know, if things are not going too well at the fun, like, you know, some dogs perhaps broke into the fence and ate the chicken and things like that, you know, what's happening. Hey, this is what's happening right now. You know, there's not much we can do, but you know, if you want to help us, you can either come in and
00:14:52
Speaker
help us fix the plans so you know we're gonna have to take a break a little bit and order more chicken and things like that especially if we have people who stand up for the csa trying to be as honest as possible to them like what can we do to fix it because we don't want to know those customers we still want them to come back so either we move over the deliveries but most of the time they're like oh it's okay you know just not too much dollars they're okay we're just kind of waiting over but
00:15:17
Speaker
You know, I always tell them, even when I was pregnant, when a baby was born, as soon as he was three months old, I was already at the farm farming. I like to see some of the pictures, but I used to carry him while I was like making the bed, you know, the vegetable bed and things like that. And, you know, I was tired. However, when people see that, oh my God, you know, if
00:15:37
Speaker
she can do it, I can do it, or I want to support them because they're not hiding anything. They're doing the most they can because that's their livelihood. So just kind of be honest about who we are, trying to be as, what's the word, transparent, you know? Obviously, there's some secrets you can't really put out there for the whole world to know, but most of it, that's for the benefit of the customers, I think.
00:16:02
Speaker
will try to do that. So I think it's a win-win situation here because the more truthful you are about it, the more people are willing to support you and get to know who you are and always want to come back and buy from you.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's great to hear too that just being honest with some of the challenges that you're facing on the farm and, and letting customers kind of have a glimpse into that, or a look behind the curtain, at least, and it does kind of build some loyalty with you and the customer, they kind of see the length that you're going to provide them healthy, locally sourced food definitely kind of helps them be more loyal to you and your farm, which is great.
00:16:35
Speaker
We have another farmers market which is like quite a bit for it's in Galveston like around the coast. It takes at least almost two hours drive but you know every time we have a conversation with a customer, they always ask how do you, why do you come all the way here and say well we love you guys you know do you always here to support us and
00:16:54
Speaker
We love coming out to meet you and I know it's difficult for you guys here to get fresh food especially because you know it could be too much salt in the water and things like that so being able to know what the environment is over there and trying to accommodate those people too.
00:17:09
Speaker
That's always the
Using MailChimp for Marketing Success
00:17:10
Speaker
goal. You kind of touched on earlier how you've been using MailChimp to connect with customers and also some of the tools that that gives you to be able to analyze how your email marketing is working. Could you maybe talk about how you've been able to connect with your audience and maybe save some time as well by leveraging MailChimp?
00:17:27
Speaker
So I'm melting, you know, funny story and truthful story. It took me, it could be the easiest thing for somebody who has a bachelor degree and knows her way around computers. I felt like a dummy using melting, but you know, I got lots of help for sure. At first it was very difficult, but we had to do a few trainings. So sending an email once a month or so, like a newsletter.
00:17:50
Speaker
helped out because I didn't want to like overwhelm them with too much information. I think that's what I did like the first two times or so. And then after that, I was gonna like, okay, trying to make it really simple as much as possible. And I was also able to know, like I mentioned earlier, who was opening the emails. And I know I had a few people who like them subscribe, but it took
00:18:10
Speaker
I took it to heart a few times, but it's business. You can't just be sad about it. So you just have to figure out a way to get more people. One thing I did love with non chip was that once people go into the online store.
00:18:25
Speaker
there is another pop-up box that comes in. So instead of just having them pop up on the website, now we can pop up also on the online store. So, you know, they can just put their emails in. And one thing I developed especially to help us also target CSA was to have them put the zip code in. So I know who is signing up from what area and perhaps
00:18:46
Speaker
I can also target those people to, you know, ask them whether or not they want a delivery or something like that. I'm still working on it for me. Mailchimp is, it's easy, but for me, it's taking me a little bit of time to move toward it. However, I think it's helped me just sending all the information all at once and kind of seeing like what people like. I think I had one or two people actually purchase through that email, but it's still like a work in progress.
00:19:11
Speaker
That's great to hear. I think to MailChimp, they do such a great job of providing so many great tools to reach your audience and then building. Cause they're always, they have more and more things and they're always updating their platform to give you more ways to connect. And so starting somewhere and then building from there is definitely the key. So, and that sounds like what you're doing. So that's great. Do you guys utilize any other of the Barnador integrations with, with QuickBooks or Rotific or anything like that?
00:19:37
Speaker
I did use QuickBooks. I'm still trying to put stuff in for, because my parents, especially my dad, he doesn't speak English too much. You know, most of the time, like he might have some receipts and then they might get lost in a way. So I am trying to teach him to like take a picture, snap it right away and send it to me. And then I enter it to QuickBooks. So that's helped. And I was, Oh, I can link it to point to those. So that's being awesome. Just being able to like see what we're doing. So QuickBooks has definitely helped. And it's funny.
00:20:08
Speaker
I'm learning so much about farming I'm learning so much about a business, you know, before you see my parents will handle all of this but they always like to look down everything. So that's like one challenge is to be able to do everything digitally now, and then seeing how much I'm spending per month also.
00:20:23
Speaker
And again, there too is still a learning curve for me, but I'm just, I'm trying to soak in everything for like my parents and myself too. So I'm just like everywhere, but I'm able to save time just so I can take care of myself more and then focus on, you know, the crops and also my little ones. So I don't have to at least be crazy and just like, you know, move all over the place. So yeah, that's nice.
00:20:45
Speaker
Taking some of that extra work off your plate is always. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I used to create like Excel documents and you know, sometimes you have to figure it out, like how to write down, you know, okay, am I putting receipts here? Am I putting, you know, like, uh, figuring out what columns go where, but now everything is in one place. Everything is already there for you. So what can you share about your experience as a farm advisor this far?
Becoming a Farm Advisor
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah. One thing I want to say first is thank you for even considering me to be on my advisor. You know, when I first, I was asked to do that, I honestly didn't know what I was going to do. You know, I feel like it's kind of, it feels almost like being a VIP in some ways, like, you know, being to know whatever is behind the scene and before everyone else get to know it, but being able to know some of the integrations that were being done, like the QuickBooks and the super exciting part to working with FFA. That is awesome. And.
00:21:39
Speaker
One other thing is learning what other farmers are doing out there and the last four meetings we've had when you get to see what other farmers are going through, you know, like it could be across the state, you know, also what they're doing differently that I could bring into my farm into our family's farm that's been super helpful.
00:21:57
Speaker
So that is great to hear, though, that it's been a good experience that you're continuing to kind of learn and develop as Barnadore does as well. Just kind of as the last question, it has been a year since you talked
Future Expansion Plans
00:22:08
Speaker
with us. Looking forward to the next year, what do you see as the next things Agricola Farms is looking to tackle in the year to come?
00:22:14
Speaker
So man, I have so many projects. One thing was adding the microprints. So that was one thing that I wanted to do this year. So that has done pretty good so far. And it's like the CSA program. I want to be able to get that going and moving. I don't want it to stop. So.
00:22:38
Speaker
And with that, we've had our struggles and things like that. And I know when I talked to Eliza, I think at first was that I wanted to even get a tiller and stuff like that. So I'm still working on it. We had a few hit clubs here and there. So I'm having to take a step back and wait perhaps until the end of the year to have that going on. We are working with someone else, another lady, to use another part of her farmland. So that means the operation will be
00:23:04
Speaker
increasing. So we're going to be growing more stuff, like adding more products that people like and do farmers market, but I don't want to rely too much on that. So I definitely feel like our CSA program is what I need to work toward, but I want to be able to make sure that it's not just a subscription that, you know, even people just want to buy weekly that they can also do that.
00:23:25
Speaker
instead of just having to push them to think that it's a commitment that they have to do it. And just making people understand that all that they're doing, we're always grateful for that it's helping us. So definitely like increasing or expanding the farm, adding more products and increasing sales online, definitely. I think that's always like everyone's goal to be able to do that. And teach my parents more about it. And perhaps my sister, Jill, that in case something,
00:23:53
Speaker
we are to either expand or you know that I need help that someone else would know how to use front door just as much as I am doing so.
00:24:02
Speaker
That's great to hear that you guys are expanding the farm and continuing. I think the important part is just always being able to learn and adapt and kind of continue to grow with, as your farm grows. You know, it's a learning progress plan. I am truly grateful that you guys are here. So like you should do an awesome job for a lot of farmers like that. Thanks. Well, that's what we're always striving for. And it's glad to hear that it's working for you and your farm. That's really awesome. Is there anything else you wanted to cover?
00:24:28
Speaker
I know there's like lots of farmers out there that don't know sometimes what to do in order to increase their sales. And I like having someone who I can talk to weekly or once a month. I know, you know, just for me to Liza, like I truly love that she takes the time. I know it's our job, but just still being able to sit down and talk with me and tell me, Hey, you know, this is what we can do differently to help. So you're not just selling the product that you're making sure that.
00:24:54
Speaker
the farmers are successful and I think that's also it comes back to being a fan advisor as well just being able to have like that one-on-one relationship also just to know like all that's going on and like the success pretty much like making sure that all farmers are successful so thank you and I hope that you know toward the future that we can continue to touch more people and make sure that farming is kind of like not an abnormal thing but just a normal way of life
00:25:19
Speaker
I want to extend my thanks to Daphne for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barnador, we are humbled to support thousands of farmers across the country, including farmers like Daphne who implement sustainable agriculture practices and support their local community.
00:25:34
Speaker
For more information on Agricola Farms, visit AgricolaFamilyFarm.com. To learn more about Barn to Door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm, go to Barn to Door.com slash resources. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week.