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From Homesteading to 6-Figure Farm Business
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Erica Benoit shares how she transitioned from a "bare-bones" lifestyle to building a thriving, six-figure protein operation. Learn how the Benoit family utilized automated systems and rigid budgeting to de-risk their business and achieve the dream of farming full-time.
For more Farm resources, visit: https://www.barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Overview
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer podcast, the go-to podcast for do-it-yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman, and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers.
00:00:20
Speaker
This podcast is hosted by Barn to Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand, and sell online and in person. Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer podcast.
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to the Independent Farmer
Role of Barn to Door with CEO Janelle
00:00:43
Speaker
Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn to Door and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners are aware, Barn to Door has built software for independent farmers all across the country who want to remove the middleman and sell direct under their own brand. This helps them maximize their profits, have a system in place that makes it easy for buyers to order from them online and in person, and helps them automate things like inventory order management and make sure they have effective and efficient marketing to maximize sales. It's a lot, but it's a system to run a business. We help them promote their brand, build up that loyal base of local customers, and automate as much of the busy work as possible.
00:01:19
Speaker
Very excited for today.
Guest Introduction: Erica from Benoit Family Farmstead
00:01:21
Speaker
We're talking to Erica from Benoit Family Farmstead in Missouri. We get to dig into her story, really starting at the life before farming to becoming a farmer to really full-time farming and now even scaling up and growing their farm year over year. It's been an incredible journey and story and I'm very excited to dig in.
Financial Milestones Achieved
00:01:39
Speaker
I think if I'm correct, Erica, 2025 was like the last year. That's so close. But last year you eclipsed six figures. That was a big goal of yours and you achieved that. Yes, which is really crazy to say out loud. Yes.
00:01:53
Speaker
I literally was like, I can say this out loud, right? Like it's a big milestone. It's huge. Yeah. Five years ago, I would have never believed it. But yeah, very exciting. So just for the sake of the audience, and we've had you on the podcast before, which I love and I love having you back because you have so much to talk about and we already have ideas for the next. But today, let's listen to your story.
Farm Operations and Retail Expansion
00:02:14
Speaker
But before we even get started, just tell them a little bit about where you're from and what you are farming, the actual kind of farm today, and then we'll start at the beginning of life before farming.
00:02:25
Speaker
So now we are doing, we have a small herd of Dexter beef that we only sell like whole and halves of those. We do dirt raised fogs. We do pasture raised chicken. We do a little bit of eggs, but the meat is our biggest sellers that we do. 2025, we built a on-farm butcher shop, which is under the 20,000 bird exemption. And so that means we're able to raise 20,000 poultry and butcher them on our farm and sell them through our store. So attached to the butcher shop is a retail shop. So our retail store is only open Saturdays 10 to 2. And that's that's all we do. We completely eliminated all the deliveries. And then if somebody wants to come in during the week or something, they can shoot me an email or something and
Streamlining Farm Business
00:03:08
Speaker
pop in. But we really tried to condense everything to make it as simple as possible this year.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah. It's interesting, though, the story often is you need to cast a wide net to start and then you can start building inefficiencies. And I know a lot of farms that actually are opposite. They use delivery to grow exponentially, right? So it's interesting to learn the various stories.
00:03:29
Speaker
But a lot of them, especially when you're scaling and growing, include... How can I be more efficient? What from my timing week over week, day over day, can I actually consolidate, which is really cool. But I feel like that's on the back end of the conversation. Let's go back now that we know you're having this great success to the very beginning, which was honestly like, what was life
Erica’s Pre-Farming Background
00:03:49
Speaker
before farming? And then what inspired you to be like, hey, let's go this route.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, so it was complete accident, which is crazy. Me and Jared, we got married super young. was 19. was 21. Got married. were both working at a factory full time, just saving as much money as we could. so we got married in 2011, which was the same year I graduated high school. Then in 2013, we had our first kid and and i was a stay at home mom. And then less than two years later, we had another kid. So during that time, I was really getting into like homemaking and homesteading and trying to do as much as I possibly could because we were living on one income. So we had to be as cheap as we could. And I had to learn so many skills to make sure i was able to stay home with my kids. And so right after our second was born, my grandma, she used to live where we are now. She was ready to move to town. So we swapped houses and we bought the farm from her, which was pretty cool. but We started out here wanting to be homesteaders. We wanted to grow our own food. We just wanted to do just a little bit, to have a big garden, chickens, and it just snowballed.
Transition to Full-Scale Farming
00:04:52
Speaker
In the moment, it seemed like it snowballed really slow. But looking back, like it just snowballed so quickly. So that was 2015 whenever we bought this farm. It was just, i felt like just a couple of months later that my husband decided he wanted to get some pigs. So he calls up his friend. was like two days later, there's pigs at my house, which led us to like, how can we make money off this farm? How can we make even more money to keep me home, to get the steady income, which we all know now that farming is not a great way to create cash quickly, There was no plans. We just went right into it. So we had, gosh, we had up to like nine or 10 sows. We were getting incredible litters. Like we just had pigs everywhere. We were selling feeder pigs. We started selling a few fat hogs. We had just had our little girl.
00:05:36
Speaker
So this was in 2017. My husband got touched by a boar and he was home alone with the two boys. He ended up having 32 stitches in his leg. It was very dramatic. And so that was pretty scary to see how dangerous all of this was with our young kids. So we completely sold out of pigs. My dad had left full-size herd here. Nothing that was being taken care of or anything. It was just they were here. So we sold all the full-size cows and i really wanted a milk cow. We compromised, meaning that i told Jared what I wanted to do and that's what ended up happening. So we bought a herd of Dexter beef.
00:06:10
Speaker
They're half-sized cows. I was able to manage them myself. They weren't nearly as risky, we felt like. with kids around. And so that's how we pivoted to do the Dexters. We started just buying feeder pigs from a local farmer and reselling
Challenges and Adaptations During 2020
00:06:25
Speaker
them. And that was how we kept in the pigs long-term. And then around 2020, it was hard to find feeder pigs. They were super expensive. Lockers are filling up fast. There wasn't really any control on our end. So that's when we bought the sows and the boar and we got back into the breeding side of it. And then 2019 is when we started doing butcher chickens. We ordered a hundred of them. Again, we were very naive. We're like, we'll butcher 50 for our family and 50 for everybody else. And we'll sell half of them. And that'll cover the cost of our chicken for the year too. I love that along the way, you're like, we thought we knew we were doing and then we didn't. And then we realized we didn't know what we were doing, but we learned so much Yeah. We did. Gosh, we were not prepared at all. And so I think we probably lost 50 chicks overnight just because we didn't know how to care for them in a brooder house. And I'd also started pre-selling them. And so I sold 50 of them overnight. And thankfully, most of those people were friends and people my husband worked with and people that knew what we were doing. And so it wasn't a big deal to be like, Hey, we don't know what we're doing. And we don't have enough chicken. So that was a big learning curve. But we ended up butchering 500 chickens that year in 2019. We were butchering chickens every other weekend all summer long. We didn't have any for us because we sold them all. So in November, we finally got to butcher about 50 chickens for our family so we could have chicken to eat too. But that was a crazy experience. That many people were willing to buy that much chicken.
00:07:51
Speaker
Now, at that point, it was super cheap chicken because we didn't know how to price them. But that really got us going. And I'm like, next year, we're selling a thousand chickens, which was the limit to butcher ourselves. And then 2020 happened. And everything was easy to sell in 2020. It was so easy. We had a thousand chickens sold two months before our last butchering. We didn't even have our last chicks on the farm yet. And they were all sold for So that
Impact of COVID-19 on Farm Demand
00:08:16
Speaker
was pretty cool. And then that next year, 2021, it's like we just ran into a brick wall. Everybody's freezers were full and we couldn't get anything sold. It was so hard, which led us to find you guys that year.
00:08:29
Speaker
Wow. because You're asking yourself what's next. It's so interesting. I wonder, because there are certainly people who are starting farming today and interested. There's a lot of folks that are doing a great job homesteading. I feel like you guys fell into it and figured it out and now it's a thing. But if they were growing their farm... Like you even said in 2019, before COVID, you sold out. And of course, that happened faster during COVID. But I wonder if you'd already discovered demand, that the demand was already there. In the absence of COVID, it would have been maybe less bumpy.
00:09:01
Speaker
It might have been a little more of a natural growth, but still the demand was there. Yeah. Or even like steady. Yeah. Steady. Yeah. So like 2020 brought everybody out. People that have never supported us beforehand or since then, everybody was trying to find somebody with some sort of food. Yeah. It accelerated in a really neat way. I love that because it helped accelerate opening up consumers' eyes to the fragility of the food system, which I think is incredible. incredibly positive. There was definitely momentum in that direction. And I think that's one of the silver lining for that terrible you know set of years or experiences nationwide. But I think having folks realize that buying local, knowing the source of your food, trusting the independent farmer too, I think there's a lot of that going on, which I think was actually healthy. So you found us, so you had been doing that and you were like, okay, we need to regroup.
00:09:56
Speaker
because that was a weird, some people would call black swan event where it just threw, even in the normal business world. I mean, I run a business too, like everybody. It was just a weird timeframe for everybody to navigate. I think we all learned a ton and there was silver lining, but it was certainly not typical of navigating a new and growing business. So what
Strategic Planning for Full-Time Farming
00:10:16
Speaker
happened then? But that reset, you're coming back down to earth. Life's starting to come back into focus again for everyone in a more routine way. What was next? Because at that point, you really were gunning for, we want to do this full time. We know we can make a business of it. There's clearly demand. And so is it at that point where you're thinking about scale?
00:10:36
Speaker
Yes. So Jared didn't quit his job till 2024. So looking back about around probably the beginning of 2022 is when we realized we might actually be able to make a go at this and do this full time. Oh, also we had a baby in 2020.
00:10:50
Speaker
so I think we're counting. You're at four. I'm at four. Yeah. it's a very crazy life. Our last chicken butchering was two weeks before our youngest was born. Oh my goodness. I bet those photos are amazing. We probably should have took more pictures. No time for that.
00:11:07
Speaker
No time for that. No, that was that was pretty crazy. Actually, I want to point out too, like I was trying to get into our local grocery store, get our chicken into there and try to get some sort of avenue. And so i used to work at that grocery store when I was a teenager. So I knew the guy that was there and he told me, you're not really going to do anything here. Nobody in our town is going to want to pay your price for chicken when it's so much cheaper there in the meat counter. like I was trying to sell out of the frozen area. And And so he's like, you got to go online. And looking back, I think he probably thinks that if you just put something online, it's just going to sell and you don't have to work real hard to sell it. It's really hard to sell online too.
00:11:42
Speaker
You still need buyers. We always tease. Isn't there like some old movie that's built it and they will come. And we say, you can't just put something online. You're still a needle in a haystack. like Think of how many gazillion websites there are aligned. You still need to help your buyers be aware that is a great way for them to buy from you. And then once that starts to catch on, that's great, but you have to help it catch on, right? Really it comes down to an email list. I know you and I could talk about that for hours, but it's, I think, healthy. What a great shift. And a very honest realization that online, there's not really a silver bullet to having customers fall out of the sky, even though that would be amazing. And there is so much demand for food. And so arguably, compared to other things people are selling, everybody eats every day. There's a huge high demand. Nine and two people want local food. And so it's a beautiful opportunity, but you still have to catch those people and push them towards your store to make those purchases online.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I don't think people really realize how much time and effort in the background that I'm doing, making all of our sales and doing the marketing and learning how to do all that. Yeah, there's a lot. So in roughly 2022 is when we're both hitting burnout too. We have worked so hard. He's working a full-time job. I'm home with four kids and we are both just scraping by. Like it was rough. It was very
Financial Advice and Sustainability Planning
00:13:00
Speaker
hard. Yeah. And so we started talking to, so I'm a big Dave Ramsey fan. Most farmers, oh, they hate it when I say that name. But that's the only thing I've ever learned about money was Dave Ramsey. That's all I knew at that point. And so we talked to one of his investors that teaches people how to invest. I walked in and I'm like, all right, we have this farm and I want to make sure that this farm does not fail. I want Jared to come home, but I want to do everything I can to make sure that this business never fails. And he's like, you can't guarantee that a business isn't going to fail. But maybe me being me, I'm like, we're going to do everything we possibly can to get as close to this this business will never fail as possible. And so he really sat down and we made a list of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to feel before Jared made that commitment to stay home.
00:13:47
Speaker
And so that meant having six months worth of expenses in the savings account. I knew as soon as Jared came home that everything was going to go wrong. So I'm like, if we can plan ahead for everything going wrong, then maybe it'll be fine.
00:13:58
Speaker
You are a contingency planner. I appreciate that. You're like, let's de-risk this as much as possible. And to be fair, we have to just pause for one second because you're saying something really important here that I think is very important for any firm to know, no matter what stage they're at, but including, especially if they're starting small and then going big and making it a viable full-time farm, you have recurring income, et cetera. And we certainly help farmers with that as well, but you certainly need to plan for that and make sure that you do have ways for recurring income. And I know that we help a lot of people with subscriptions, for example. This is one of the ways that our software can help farmers have that recurring income and it's made a big difference. But the important thing is it's a business. We often say farmers run a farm full-time, but they also run a business full-time. It's so important to acknowledge that, right? Because if you're talking to a dentist or even like a brewery or a hairdresser or even a chef, they all are passionate about their craft and whether you're growing food or making food or cutting hair or fixing teeth.
00:15:00
Speaker
Those are small business owners typically, but they're doing their craft out of their heart. But there's also the reality of this is a business. I still have to pay all the bills. There's operating costs. I have to hire employees. I need equipment. the To your point, the tractor is going to fail. I might have to fix something or build something new. And so it's really, I think.
00:15:19
Speaker
productive and positive to just pause on that reality of you're running a farm and that's lovely, but you're also running a business at the same time. So the two full-time jobs that you have, which as working with Barn to Doer is where we get very excited because we love to automate the whole business side of it for farmers as much as we possibly can. That's where we're like, let us help. We'll help save you time and make it easier for those buyers to buy and help with all the business pieces of it that help alleviate some of that stress and pressure.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yes.
Financial Security and Income Management
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. The subscriptions. oh We'll go back to the investor guy. We did six months of expenses, saved up, put in a high yield savings. Do not touch it. I have to make that embarrassing phone call, call the investor be like, hey, I need my money back. So that was helpful for me that I have to go through him in order to get that. And so I haven't made that call. I still haven't made that call. That was very important to me. Another thing was, what if we didn never get to save for retirement after he quits? Which seems like a silly thing, but we really bulked up his retirement account through his job to make sure that my goal was that we have enough in retirement that we can keep it in the 401k. And if we never invest again, we still can retire.
00:16:29
Speaker
I don't think that's silly. I think that's lovely. It's something nobody thinks about. We're in our 30s. But I really wanted that security that stuff can go wrong for the next 10 years and we're still going to be able to retire. And we don't have to count on our farm. Like the value of our farm isn't part of our retirement. It's all separate. So our kids, we can gift this entire farm to my kids and that's okay. We're not banking on the value of our farm. So that was really important to me too.
00:16:56
Speaker
That is important. That's not a reality for all farmers out there. Some are probably getting shivers right now, which I appreciate. And there's still ways to do that, right? It's not too late to keep thinking about these things. It might just be more of a longer term plan or strategy for them to slowly chip away at. Yeah.
00:17:12
Speaker
And like we were in our 30s. So we, I feel like sometimes I feel like our bodies are really wearing out, but we're still so young that we have so much time to create things and change things and and invest later. And so we're at like just a really good spot in our lives right now for everything that we're doing. Another thing was getting my subscriptions that we had enough subscriptions. It got pretty close to paying my feed bill every month. So I knew that feed bill was going to be paid every month. No big deal.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, I remember you and I have talked about this before in a prior podcast, like it's your first, and maybe this isn't your very first milestone, but it's an important milestone, which is this is my operating cost for these animals. And when I clear that, that's like a huge first cost.
00:17:56
Speaker
hurdle. And i think you lined up like you offered subscriptions and then you had what a certain percent of your revenue actually was subscription based to the point where you knew your feed was covered.
Subscriptions for Cost Management
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah. Or it got really close feed costs are it goes up and down every month, but I knew I had pretty darn close to the feed cost and just that security of knowing that I'm a huge budgeter. You have to be in this line of work. If you don't know where your costs are and you just keep losing.
00:18:23
Speaker
I have a question for you because that is a skill and a talent of yours and you're not afraid to go there. But what if you're a farmer where it's like that numbers aren't your thing and you want to know the cost and you you know, you need to know them, but to some people that just feels like a black box or like a big overwhelm, what would you recommend for those folks? Yeah. Gosh. I just use a spreadsheet or I am just looking at the bank account pretty much every single day. I'm in there. I know what's going on. Even my schedule, like I have a calendar and each one of our bills that come out, it's written down on the calendar. And so I can look at the calendar and be like, okay, I need to make sure that i start selling my bulk hogs at this time. So the money is deposited by this day. So this bill gets paid.
00:19:02
Speaker
so and you have your bills due on your calendar for what lee you would say the year in front of you. Is that a good guess? I just have a schedule, just like a book. And there's a calendar, like a full month's view. Every month I go through there and write when the electric bill, the insurance, all those things that are set, I have that all written down. And then I just know like when I need to make sure, oh, we're low on money now. I need to make sure I get these hogs that are going in two months. Let's go ahead and start getting those sold. So we have enough to pay those bills. in in advance of of what's going on and not just looking at, this is how much I have right now. Because tomorrow and or a week from now, that's totally different. So just not looking at just today, but really looking at the full picture. Another thing is if you did your books and you realize that there was a time that I realized I was paying people to buy my stuff. but Like I was losing money on bulk hogs for probably a year. and I looked at it and I'm like, i might as well be handing them all the $50 bill right now. So that's a really hard reality. That wasn't a good day, was it? When you just never heard that? No. It was maybe not a great realization, but also at the same time, amazing information for you to make changes to make sure that you weren't paying to be a farmer at that point, right? You're like, no. No. This must be profitable. That's one of the reasons we love the subscriptions. We've had so many farms share stories about just knowing I have X dollars coming in weekly or monthly. And some people it's 20%, some people it's 40, 50, even up to 80% of their sales. And it's just, it's such a relief, a stress relief to know that they have that kind of baseline of their operating costs and their business covered in an ongoing capacity. It's like the ongoing revenue matching the ongoing operating costs in parallel. So that's, there's so much power in that. There's freedom in that.
00:20:45
Speaker
Oh yes. Which speaking of freedom, I forgot to add to one of my things is we paid our farm off. I think it was maybe 2020. I think we made the last payment. So that was another big thing was to keep all of our expenses as low as we possibly could. We didn't even have internet here until probably 2022. I was using my phone hotspot. That's 10 bucks. And we didn't have any streaming services. We were bare bones on everything.
00:21:08
Speaker
That's amazing. Yeah. Very
Exploring New Income Streams
00:21:10
Speaker
disciplined. but It's hard because you also, to your point, you're also anticipating hard lessons and things gone wrong. So even if you're the best planner in the world, sometimes it still goes sideways, right? Yes.
00:21:24
Speaker
I appreciate that. Another thing that was really helpful is it seems like around that time of 2022, we know we can make the transition, but we just don't have everything quite lined up yet. I remember talking to Tom Bennett in our connect calls and he was talking about how he's got so many revenue streams. He's doing fantastic. So I really look up to him. And one of the things was he was like renting out his trailer and making extra cash with that. So I was like, What are all these other little... Tell me more. You can do, yeah. But my trailer doesn't have lights on it. It doesn't even have jack on it. Like you got to use a super dangerous jack to jack it up. It is not something you want to rent out. And so I had to really focus like...
00:22:07
Speaker
I can make enough on our farm and stop adding in things like quit trying to go here and there. And that wasn't focused on what we should be focused on. We have enough things here.
00:22:17
Speaker
We can make a living on what we have. Let's really make sure what we're doing is profitable. I love that you shared that because there are sometimes so many good ideas. And by the way,
00:22:29
Speaker
For all of you listening, Tom Bennett is, in addition to Erica, they are both farm advisors to Barn-to-Door and they host office hours for other farmers, which is called the Connect program. which is what Erica was just referring to. So Erica also hosts them. And that's just part of when farms are part of the barn to door ecosystem, using the software to run their business that they have access to. And sometimes you're, you get great ideas, but at 10 out of 10 times, they don't fit your farm.
00:22:53
Speaker
And so it's so good to flush out all the ideas, but then try to distill it down to if it makes sense for your farm or not. And you might try it and be like, no, it doesn't. Or you might try it and be like, yes, it does. But I love that you recognized all these great ideas, but also that they might not all, there might be too much. You might be trying to quote unquote boil the ocean, which in business is a real way to think. It really truly is. If you try to do things shallow and wide versus deep and well, sometimes you can burn out or you can spread yourself too thin in in any capacity, whether it's from a time perspective, revenue perspective, et cetera. So that's a powerful lesson. Thank you for sharing that.
00:23:35
Speaker
I feel like farmers, we do that all the time. Like you see somebody on social media, they're doing pasture-raised chicken and the pastured eggs and they have raw milk and they got this whole long list of stuff and they're probably not making money either. We really need to focus on what we're good at and not seeing ourselves so thin everywhere. And what works on other farms isn't going to work on our own farm.
00:23:56
Speaker
So in roughly 2023 is when i was like, all right, we're going to sit down and the farm is going
Paying from Farm Profits
00:24:02
Speaker
to pay us. And the farm is going to pay for all the things that are farm related. And so the book Profit First, which was recommended by Tom Bennett, excellent book. So we started paying ourselves. It wasn't much. It was probably like $100 a week or something, something really small. But it was the intention that we are going to pay ourselves and the farm is going to pay for itself. And we're not going to dump any more money of our own into the farm. And so we had to be very intentional. It paid for all of my gas and just for my deliveries, all the things. And so it worked out.
00:24:34
Speaker
It was like the craziest year that, hey, that actually worked out. And so that was really when we could really see in the books, Jerry can be home. I love that. You might not believe this, but that's part of my story at Barn to Door as well. I worked for three years starting Barn to Door as a volunteer, and my husband actually works with me too. And he's like, we've got to figure out that you get paid too, right? We have to pay ourselves as we're growing Barn to Door because that's part it. partly sometimes how you build a company. You're like, I will volunteer because I believe in this so much. And in this case, wanting to help folks like you all across the country have success, right? But you don't make profit on day one, right? You have to build the product first. You have to get the oars in the water and everything else. So I remember that too. We paid ourselves. I had an intern who I paid $11 an hour for some time. He was the only one paid until there was a point where we too started to pay ourselves very nominally as well. But
00:25:26
Speaker
Absolutely.
Family Involvement in Farming
00:25:27
Speaker
Relating to so much of what you're saying, and people might not think that's true in a non-farming situation, but it is when you're starting a company in other instances as well. It's just a constant learning curve when staying organized with your time and being smart. And to your point, and trying to continue to make good decisions based on all the lessons that you're handed day after day.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So I guess we can pass forward a little bit to 2024. You're tracking your timeline. You're doing such a good job. I can't even believe it. And I love that because you've learned so much and here we are. You're paying yourselves, even if it's nominally at first, but you did it. And that was 2024.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah. Now the fun begins, right? Your children are helping with chores, I hope at this point. Yes. We homeschool too. So they don't leave the house much. Like they are just stacking cash left and right.
00:26:12
Speaker
No kidding. It's so neat. And then they get to learn to budget. And those are such beautiful lessons. And they would learn responsibility. We could digress on that all day long. But i I think the world would be such a better place if every kid worked on a farm. I'm just going to say that once.
00:26:28
Speaker
But I'm such a big believer that the responsibility and the confidence and just the air outside and caring for other animals, are there's just so many layers of goodness.
00:26:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That's a whole nother podcast. I know. I was just like, we'll digress on that one later. But, oh, okay. Yeah, I had just had a mom in one of the connect calls asking about how to get and kids involved. Oh, we're definitely doing a podcast on that. Okay, we'll put a feather in that one. So this is fun, because now you've taken us through the whole journey. And here you are 2024 turning a corner. 2025.
00:27:01
Speaker
so tell us about twenty twenty five So 2024 is when Jared
Overcoming Setbacks with Planning
00:27:05
Speaker
quit his job. And just as I predicted, everything was going to go wrong. So he quit about a month before we started butchering chickens. And our first chicken butchering, we had 200 chickens. They were in the freezer, just like we do every single year. And the freezer didn't keep up. So we lost over $4,000 worth of chicken. And most of it was pre-sold.
00:27:25
Speaker
So we had at least probably over half of that was already pre-sold. I took a day to absorb everything was going on. I was not going email everybody whenever I was distraught. I didn't have a plan. So I waited till I had an exact plan. I knew exactly what to do. I had called like our meat inspector.
00:27:41
Speaker
Everything was working. I knew exactly what we were going to do to fix the problem. And so like the next day I emailed everybody, let them know, hey, I promised you guys i was going to have this chicken. The freezer did not keep up with cooling the chicken. and so we just set everything back a month.
00:27:54
Speaker
and They were supposed to get their chicken June through October. They got their chicken July through November. And nobody cared. and I love that so much. Nothing happened. It was just fine. I think that was the biggest thing that's happened since then. But we knew something was going to happen. We prepared for it.
00:28:14
Speaker
It didn't set us back. It was just fine. Yeah, I appreciate that. don't know. my goodness. Way to roll with it and way to take a moment. I read a book once where it was a business book of like when everything goes wrong, take an hour, take a day, just like you said, and just either be mad about it or be frustrated or whatever it is let that happen and then be done with that and then make a plan and go forward because you can't go backwards. And so there's just, there is certainly value in that as well, but.
00:28:39
Speaker
I think you and I shared the love of planning too. So it's helpful to have a plan go forward
Automation in Order and Inventory Management
00:28:44
Speaker
in that regard. So now that you're getting larger in this regard, maybe just a quick segue into managing orders and inventory customers, because when we're talking about farm business, and you know, this is a little bit of a plug for Brantador because that's very much a passion area, right? it's making sure that it's easy for farmers to stay organized and not spend more time than needed in the office. We often talk about trying to help farmers ditch the office work by automating different things like that and making it simple. And I know that was important to you.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was spending so much time just sending reminders out that we had a load of hogs go in. That was bay before we were taking deposits. And then we would take the final price before it went to the locker. Then I had to contact everybody. and i had to figure out, did they text me? Did they email me? Did they message me on Facebook? Like, how did I communicate with them? It was, it would take me almost two weeks to get everybody contacted. And people are mailing checks.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, just make sure you get paid. And most firms I've talked to, I mean, it's in the nicest way, but have been stiffed from time to time as well. Like you're trying to get that check and it's not getting to you. That's one of the things that like we, and I think you use that part of Barnes Door where people can place their deposits directly to you on the online store with their credit card or whatever else, but then you can later auto charge them the difference or invoice them the difference for cash check, whatever you want.
00:30:06
Speaker
But just, so you're not doing that. Like you're not trying to track them down. you can get paid and have certainty of getting paid. And then it just automatically subtracts the deposit and gives them a receipt.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And also you guys taught me to collect the entire payment for the hogs up front. And that has been fantastic. fantasticistic Yeah. That's awesome. I'm glad you do that.
00:30:27
Speaker
I was like, I was really skeptical. Yeah, no, I appreciate that you were skeptical. When people are just getting to know a farmer, they might be less inclined just to do a deposit versus the whole hog. But if your customers have money in the bank and they know you as a farmer, then it sounds like it did work for you where they are like, yeah, I'll pay for the whole hog, which is lovely.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, and we keep raising our prices and they keep selling out. I have yet to take anything to the sale bar because I couldn't get it sold. I feel like we should repeat that statement because we talk about that a lot actually here because the sale barn, any farmer who's done that I think knows that there's good years and bad years. And when we talk to farmers about like, great, if you want to bring your proteins to the sale barn, but the beauty of selling direct and at least having that customer list is if the sale barn isn't in your favor, because you do not set the prices, you have de-risked your business and have a sales channel directly to consumers where you know you can command
00:31:22
Speaker
high prices and ensure you have profit. That conversation we have with farmers is all about de-risking the business, even if they're still going to the sale barn. And we hear that story too, which is there's so much demand on the consumer side. And if you give it love and attention and build those relationships, you sometimes are selling more and more directly versus the sale barn.
00:31:40
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So like, even since we started our farm, we've never taken anything to the sale barn, which is i don't know, like, I really pride myself in that I'm so proud of myself to be able to say that I got super close one time that I had 12 hogs to sell I had 11 sold, I took them to the locker, I came home and somebody contacted me as soon as I pulled in the driveway wanting the last one. And so then I'm loading it up and I'm going back to the locker. We were able to do that. And I still can say that I've never had to take anything to the sale barn, but we grew small. We grew with our customers. We didn't try to grow to this point overnight. It was, I just kept telling my customers, if you keep supporting us, we're just going to keep growing. And that's exactly what we did.
00:32:19
Speaker
I love it. And to be fair, we do sometimes get some very large operations and ranches and folks that come to us. And so for them to start a direct to consumer model is them just starting that from scratch versus the entirety of their farm, right?
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah. Which is really cool for them because they already know how to grow cattle. They already know how to, they can take it to the sale barn. and They have that option. They know exactly how to do that. So they're not completely starting from scratch. Yeah, that's a really good point.
00:32:46
Speaker
I appreciate that. Okay, we have to talk a little bit about
Building Customer Relationships via Email
00:32:49
Speaker
customers. I know we need a whole other segment on this, Erica, because you're so good at FOMO and marketing well and building loyal customers. And so that kind of merits its own podcast, in my opinion. But can you just give a plug for email collection? Because I think some farms who start smaller, sometimes that's scary to them to think about growing emails. And I know when farms come to us, we automate a lot of that. We automate a lot of the email collections, whether it's in-person POS or whether it's online e-commerce or through their website, we make sure they have the automation to collect emails if somebody makes a purchase.
00:33:21
Speaker
It's automatically added to their list. But we talk so much when farmers are working with our onboarding managers or account manager managers about just the email list. You need to keep growing it because people move or you're always going to lose a certain percent of customers. You always need to replace them. And then if you want to grow, you need to grow even more, but it doesn't need to be intimidating.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely love my email list. We've gotten to a point where i very rarely post on social media when I have like our bulk hogs or beef for sale. I can sell it all through our email. It might take me a month to get it all sold, but I hate posting that kind of stuff on social media. There's always those random people that come out of nowhere that want to tell you you're too expensive. And those people just drive me nuts, just block them and go on. But it's just like they get in your head and I don't like it I agree. I love that. Thank you for saying that.
00:34:08
Speaker
For all the farmers out there, some have experienced that too. And I agree with you. Like just ignore it and move on. If you're doing something right, you're going have naysayers. It's just, it's true. And it's just focus on your business, focus on what's good, focus on what you're doing well, because you all are doing amazing things. So I appreciate that. So you're to the point where you're just the emails and you have to send emails. People love to be reminded.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yes. Oh, they love my emails. i always assumed like nobody was reading them. I can see that there's 30, 35% of people opening them, but I don't see them. Until we opened this farm store, I didn't like see people. And so I'm just like, maybe my grandma is reading my email. And honestly, don't think she is either. But now people are coming in my store and and they're telling me things about the email that I wrote to them and repeating it back to me. It'll be like, I told them about how we went to Nashville and saw you guys. And so many people came in like, I'm so glad you guys took time away from the farm to reset. You guys needed a break. People loved that.
00:35:05
Speaker
I had people with AlphaGal. I had one customer that she's like, you really need to reach out to the people with AlphaGal. So I sent out my emails every Friday. It's very conversational. If it's a sales email, it's a sales email. Otherwise, I like tell a little story to get started and just ease them in and then teach them something. So I mentioned AlphaGal and I had four people show up the next day with AlphaGal wanting our chicken. I love that.
00:35:30
Speaker
They'd been on our email list for years. They didn't have any reason to come out, but because I mentioned something that related to them, they were here the very next day. That was pretty cool. I love your emails. I get them too, Erica. Oh, thank you. I'm glad somebody's reading them. I am on your reader list because I'm not near you, so I don't get to buy it directly. But I loved how you explained to the buyer just what does it mean to buy bulk beef? You broke it down for them in a very digestible, casual way that just made it so approachable. And I love that. But you don't do that every time. You just paste it out, right? Like you mix it up.
00:36:01
Speaker
Is it, can we tell folks, do you mind sharing, even for all the farms that are listening, where they can subscribe to your email or find you? Oh yeah. So on my website, benoitfamilyfarmstead.com, I try to have, I think it's almost on every page to sign up for my email list. So it's for sure front and center on the very first page, sign up for my email list. I encourage people to do that. Like I've done a lot of research on how to write those emails. I try not to be like businessy about emails. It's a conversation just like I would have with them if they came into my store.
Future Focus on Email Marketing
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. We'll do a podcast with Erica again, digging into emails, FOMO, fear of missing out. It's basically how do you create urgency to move product? And Erica has a ton of great suggestions. I watched from afar and talked to her in person and in the Connect program, if other farmers are joining her office hours, she has so much wisdom to share. So we want to dig into the emails and the FOMO and the marketing. And also don't be overwhelmed. It's much more doable than you might think, right? We can help you collect emails automatically. a lot of people don't know. even basic marketing. We help. yeah i don't know if you ever used our order reminders, but we have automated order reminders that farmers can set up where it just weekly goes out to remind people, even if you don't have time to do newsletters, you can do this. You can automate it. And then if you want to get just really educated on it, listen to the next podcast with Erica. So any final words before I sign off? And then we will definitely do another podcast.
Passion for Farmer Support and Community Engagement
00:37:20
Speaker
So probably some of my final words was I love doing this. So we were getting started with you guys and I would listen to these connect calls or your podcast, everything. And I always wanted to be the person that I wish I had when we got started. i have such a passion for helping other farmers get going and learning because I didn't have anybody to talk to during those very first years. And so learning through your old's podcast and everything has helped me grow and I'm excited to help other farmers grow too.
00:37:49
Speaker
That's amazing and beautiful and dropping the mic. So yes, please listen to Erica. i'd Follow her. I think your Instagram, I've got her right here. It's at Benoit Family Farmstead. And then Benoit is spelled B-E-N-O-I-T, Family Farmstead, just in case you're listening. Erica, thank you for joining us on this week's episode. Again, follow her on Instagram, sign up and stay tuned. I think we already have a schedule to record at the end of next month. So that won't be in the too distant future of the next podcast we
Conclusion and Resources Invitation
00:38:17
Speaker
do. At Barnton or over humble to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.
00:38:21
Speaker
We're delighted to offer services and tools, including connect programs with folks like Erica. to farmers to help them be successful in their business. Ditching the office work, making it easy to do marketing, helping their buyers buy from them more effectively, efficiently, and easily on their own. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and want to simplify the business side of farming, check us out at barnsador.com backslash learn more. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
00:39:01
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn to Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
00:39:18
Speaker
For free farm resources or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barntodore.com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.