Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Farm Innovator Series: Tom’s Tactics to Doubling Sales
216 Plays4 years ago
Barn2Door has partnered with ACRES USA to produce the Farm Innovator Series. In this first episode Zoe one of Barn2Door's very own Sales Managers Interviewed Tom Bennett of Bennett Farms in Michigan.
Acres U.S.A. would like to offer all active military and veteran’s a 20% discount off registration to the 46th Annual Eco-Ag Conference December 6-9 in Cincinnati, OH. This conference sets the standard for innovative, practical soil health education, equipping attendees with the tools they need to be ecological and economically successful.
Show Notes:
The code is: MILITARY20
https://www.bennettfarmsmichigan.com/
https://www.barn2door.com/blog/2019/11/8/bennett-farms-veteran-farmer
https://www.barn2door.com/webinars/military-service-prepared-this-farmer-to-serve-his-community
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction & Focus
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.
Introducing the Farm Innovator Series
00:00:26
Speaker
Hey, this is Sebastian with Barnetador. We recently released the first episode of our Farm Innovator series, co-hosted with Acres USA. In this first episode of the Farm Innovator series, Zoe, one of the sales managers here at Barnetador, interviewed Tom Bennett of Bennett Farms in Michigan. Tom dives deep about his experience selling direct to his customers and doubling in sales year over year. Without any further ado, here's
Interview with Tom Bennett
00:00:49
Speaker
that episode.
00:00:49
Speaker
Well, hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here. I'm super excited to be sitting here with Tom Bennett of Bennett Farms in Michigan. My name is Zoe and I'm one of the sales managers here at Barnetador. I get to talk with farmers every single day, kind of hearing about what their goals are and what the priorities are. So I am again, just super excited to be sitting here with Tom.
00:01:07
Speaker
And we're going to dive into our first of the Acres in the Barn to Door Innovators series webinars. Tom, I'm just really excited to kind of get started. I want to have you kind of introduce yourself first as we dig into this past year of growth at Bennett Farms.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, my name's Tom Bennett. I started Bennett Farms probably 10 years ago as more of a hobby farm. And then as it grew into a full-time opportunity, transitioned into that a few years ago to farm full-time. I come from a Marine Corps background. That's what I did right out of high school for a decade. After the Marine Corps went into
00:01:43
Speaker
normal nine to five job with a food service company and as a sales service rep. And then from there, as the farm grew, was able to transition away from that into farming
Challenges of Transitioning to Full-Time Farming
00:01:52
Speaker
full time. At first, then it sounds like you were kind of in a transition phase. Did you have the farm and you were also working a nine to five at the same time?
00:02:00
Speaker
Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah. It was, I would not sleep for three days. Wow. Oh my gosh. And then how long did the transition take you? I suffered that for about two years. I could jump from one to the other, but I tried to do both for as long as I could to just kind of give me that support, but it takes a special type of person to do that. And so, and I don't, it's not good for you because prior to that, it was more of a hobby farm or we were just doing bulk sales where it was just whole and half hogs.
00:02:28
Speaker
you know and bulk chicken orders several times a year so it wasn't like you know 13 farmers markets a week and in everything like we are now so I love to hear from you though how that is doable
Farm Operations and Strategies
00:02:40
Speaker
it just sounds like it's something you kind of have to dive into because so often I hear from the farmers that I'm talking to on a daily basis that they're like I'm just not sure when to make that leap from our time to full time
00:02:51
Speaker
You just got to do it. I mean, and it's not for everyone. Like if you're risk adverse and you're a person that has anxiety by nature, like really hard to make that joke because you got to have a lot of self-confidence in yourself to say, okay, you know, I believe that I can do this and just do it because the worst thing that's going to happen is it's not going to work.
00:03:12
Speaker
You're going to go back to your job because they would hire you back. I mean, still today, the place I was working three years ago, they would have gladly hired me back today. The scariest parts losing health care and 401k and vacation days and paid holidays, all that stuff like that stinks. Cause now when I take a day off, I'll get paid for it. So.
00:03:30
Speaker
But that's awesome, though, just to see how far you've come as well. Also, then I want to hear a little bit or have you tell kind of everybody a little bit more about all the different products and kind of the range of different items that you sell and what kind of led you towards those products specifically. We just do pork and poultry. We also do turkey for Thanksgiving. Pork and poultry are our primary
00:03:51
Speaker
items and believe it or not, you don't have to do beef to be in this business full time as a direct to consumer farm. We don't do any beef. I've never sold a pound of beef in my life. We started with pork and poultry because that was the, what we thought was the lowest threshold to entry. Like as far as like to
00:04:06
Speaker
get your foot in the door and start moving product. Like that's the most accessible for people. So we started with that and that's still growing today. So our favorite way to sell stuff is through the website and almost all the farmer's markets we do. The primary goal there is to convert those people into our online customers because we need those people to keep buying from us year round, not just in June and July and August, because we still have a business to
Influence of Military Background on Farming
00:04:31
Speaker
run in January. So we really try and drive everyone that direction.
00:04:36
Speaker
Okay, well then awesome. I want to also hear a little bit more about your experience too, because I know you briefly just mentioned you obviously were in the Marines for 10 years, you know, prior to becoming a farmer and transitioning into full time farming. So tell me just a little bit, I guess, about how, you know, either that work ethic or kind of the skills that you picked up there over that 10 years serving how they kind of relate into to farming now.
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think everything that I am today, like I owe to the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps training, I would say it's the fortitude and that nothing is insurmountable with the proper mindset. Also, I mean, there's a lot of managerial skills, you know, team building, team leading that of course was beneficial, but I just think it's a self-confidence that really was the primary benefit of that experience.
00:05:26
Speaker
I know you're part of the farmer's veteran coalition has being part of that just brought another kind of level of community surrounding you of like-minded farmers as well. Yeah. Cause prior to that, I mean, I thought I was alone. Like I was like, I felt like, Oh, I must be like one of a handful of people in the world that like got out of the Marines and just started raising chickens in their backyard. But no, there's a ton of people like that. Just like me that are that transition from the Marine Corps.
00:05:51
Speaker
and got into farming and we're all going through the same things. We all face the same challenges. And so it's nice to meet those guys. And it's just nice to know that someone has the same background as you.
Farm Practices and Animal Welfare
00:06:02
Speaker
It's a really cool organization. And that's one of the highlights of my year is their annual conference that they put on. Oh, I love that. Dive in a little bit and tell me a little bit about what farming practices you're using on a regular basis and what brought you to those practices.
00:06:18
Speaker
We're pasture-based, non-GMO and antibiotic-free. When you're a direct-to-consumer, it's almost expected that you're going to be bringing something different than what they're getting at their grocery store, you know, local and everything. We didn't really see any other way to do it. That's what we wanted to do.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's what we believe in. It's what is better for the animals. It creates a better quality product. All the way around, it's just all good things. We abide by those things. That's the best way for these animals to thrive and enjoy their life that they have with us. As a side benefit, it lowers the barrier to entry for new and beginning farmers. So pasture-based, you don't have to build a half a million dollar barn to start raising hogs. You can raise hogs on pasture.
00:06:58
Speaker
move them every week to a fresh pasture using portable electric fences. And so you can get into it to see if this is what you want to do without, you know, ruining your life. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I actually hadn't thought of that. So you can, you know, you can do this as a side hustle for however many years you want until you decide like, is this what I want to go all in on? Or is this just something that I'm glad I tried out so you don't have all that overhead of the commercial farms?
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I also, I noticed too, you use the word specifically that your animals live really relaxed lives. I think it was. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you're providing them to let them be relaxed?
00:07:37
Speaker
They are. They just chill out all day. I'm like sweating and it's 90 and they're just having a good time playing. There's no stress on them. We want them to have as good of a life as possible. And especially when it gets close to the end of their time here and we're getting ready to take them to the butcher. We keep them as low stress as possible because those hormones and everything, if they get excited the day that they're going to the processor, that could ruin your
00:08:00
Speaker
eight months of hard work that you put into them because of the chemicals in the body and the hormones that are released will affect the quality of the meat.
Challenges in Processing and Customer Loyalty
00:08:09
Speaker
Our pork processor, they're a humane handle and certified processor, so they've done some extra steps to make sure that everything on their end also in the last step is done the best way possible.
00:08:21
Speaker
Did you have to do extra digging to find that processor? So we've, our situation with processors is that we have to have a use processors. So that right off the bat limits our ability for processing. An extreme example of that is poultry. Right now there's only one poultry processor in the entire state of Michigan. It's USDA inspected. That's currently operating that will take small farms birds like us.
00:08:45
Speaker
And so we're small, we're not Tyson or Purdue. Those guys have their own federally inspected plants. So they have a mom and pop butcher shop that's USDA inspected. There's only 20 in the country that do poultry that are USDA inspected. That's how much is in the system. And so even if I want to switch butchers, I have to do it a year and a half out because they're booked up right now. Every poultry processor in the country, those 20, they're all booked through the entire season.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, and do you find too that your customers are even more tied into the brand of Bennett Farms because you have such sustainable practices kind of all across the board? Yes, we've converted a lot of vegetarians back to bacon.
00:09:27
Speaker
That is amazing. In and of itself. They come up to us and they're like, Oh, I'm a vegetarian. You know, I have an eight fork. I'm like, Oh, that's great. You know, you do you. That's awesome. I'm all for it. Like, I'm not going to, you know, I sell meat, but I'm, I'm all for individual expressions of.
00:09:43
Speaker
of what they believe in so go for it but then they're like but I see that you're you know you're raising the animals right and that's why I'm a vegetarian because I don't like the way they're treated and I explain to them how they're treated and everything and then they'll buy okay maybe I'll buy bacon for my husband and then they come back the next week and they look like they're just like loading up their arms with all this meat like that bacon was great you know and then they sat down $200 worth of stuff on the table so
Online Presence and Sales Strategies
00:10:11
Speaker
And I noticed too, one of the big things for you, I know kind of before getting started with the online store, e-commerce was something that you were really thinking about. And once you deployed it, I had just seen that you were finally able to like have dinner with the family at night and do the little things because your, you know, your farm stores open 24 seven, which I think a lot of people don't really think about, but it's working for you while you're off the clock.
00:10:34
Speaker
it's great i mean you could be you know inside getting ready to go to bed and like last night we got an order at 12 30 in the morning you know in the middle of the night people are still buying stuff so yeah it's great well it doesn't close it doesn't have any overhead i mean we spend less on our barn to door subscription per year than we spend at one farmer's market substantially less
00:10:53
Speaker
It's a really good value for what you're getting. If you're a farm out there that's looking to get into direct-to-consumer, there's no way that you could, in my opinion, make this work without being online in one way or another, like selling online. It's the leading edge of what's happening right now in direct-to-consumer.
00:11:11
Speaker
And so if you don't evolve and get with it, you're going to get left behind. You know, it happens in every industry. You know, look at taxi cabs. They got replaced by Uber. You know, look at, you know, things like standard hotels, motels, they're getting replaced by Airbnb. I mean, this is an industry disruptor and you can either get on the train and be a part of it or, you know, you can be left behind. But the question I've gotten from a lot of farmers is like, well, what do I do then about pricing?
00:11:39
Speaker
And you do a really good job of pricing your products at a more kind of premium rate. How did you come up with the cost for it? You know, I mean, not gonna work for minimum wage and free. Like if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna generate a decent return for my family and my time. I mean, you know what something's worth. So you can just take and break down all the cuts and a whole pig. You know, you only have to do that a few times to figure out how to price stuff.
00:12:06
Speaker
And then make sure that once that's sold, you have X amount of dollars, you know, gross for retail off that unit. And yeah, pricing. So we're already in a premium niche market. If someone's looking for the cheapest pork and poultry, they're not shopping with me. They're going to Walmart or save a lot or whatever.
00:12:23
Speaker
So our customers aren't necessarily price sensitive as much as, you know, some of the, some other customers that shop at box stores are and almost every market we're at, we are even amongst our peers that are at the market with us.
Pricing, Branding, and Customer Education
00:12:37
Speaker
We are the higher priced option.
00:12:39
Speaker
so i mean there's other certified organic pastured pork and poultry guys you know three booths down from me they work construction during the week they enjoy farming they have all farm jobs they're not paying their health care and their kids from their pork sales yeah so they're not
00:12:55
Speaker
getting what they should get and it hurts everyone when people do that. So if you're not sure if you're charging enough, charge more and you'll probably actually sell more because I've seen, when we've raised our price on things, we increased our price last week on one item by 30%, thinking that that would slow that item down because we were tired of selling out of it. It actually sold after we increased the price. And even if you've got two side by side, well, his bacon's $10 a pound and his bacon's $8 a pound,
00:13:22
Speaker
The $10 a pound must be better. Let's buy that one. Yeah. I was actually going to ask if you felt like by raising your prices, that kind of tied into your branding. Do you think that it actually kind of gets people even a little bit more excited and prideful about buying your products?
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's always a limit to everything, but we're not looking at other people in our industry's price and saying, Oh no, should we lower our price? Because that's what they're selling it for. We're going the other way. If we're both selling it for the same price, I'm fine with raising my prices, but there's always a limit. You got to find that tipping point to where volume goes down. But yeah, don't be afraid to be the most expensive in your market.
00:13:58
Speaker
I love hearing that from you. Actually, I think that's something that a question that I get all the time. It's just like, where do we begin with pricing? We want to make sure we're competitive. Especially when you're young and you're starting out with your farming adventure. In your mind, you're like, you feel embarrassed that your prices are so high. People don't realize what cost goes into producing these animals and the processing and things like that. Like just our chickens alone, $7 a bird just to process them.
00:14:24
Speaker
Do math on that. A bird weighs four and a half pounds. So you're paying almost $1.70 a pound just for processing on that chicken. So when you're seeing the price tag, it's $4.95 a pound. Well, remember the butcher's getting about two bucks of that. You know, when you're not Tyson or Purdue, your costs are more per animal unit. It's just the way it is. Well, can you talk to me a little bit too about just like the difference that adding or implementing subscriptions has made in the business as well? I wanted to touch on that too for everybody.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, it really smoothed out the flow on our sales. Like I know every month about how many subscriptions are going out in a given month. And I can count on that income every month. Like it might rain today when I get done with this interview, I'm going to a farmer's market.
00:15:08
Speaker
And I don't sell hardly anything because no one comes out but subscriptions I know that those subscriptions are coming in next week, you know, so it gives you Some stability customers love it. They love the idea of a subscription box, you know I've had customers come to me at the farmers market They're like, oh, we really love your stuff. Like we'd love this. This is awesome set up It's great, but we order from butcher box and we really like it that they deliver to our door I'm like you should go to my website
00:15:33
Speaker
Like I actually do the same thing. Well, you know, meet box subscription monthly, cancel whenever you want. And they're like, really, you know, I handle my flyer and now they're a subscription customer the next day. So you can convert a lot of those customers because some of those brands have done a good job in subscriptions as far as like getting customers used to that idea of getting meat in the mail or delivered to their door. So capitalize on that.
00:15:57
Speaker
convert ButcherBox into Bennett Farms customers, because we do the same thing as them, except it's more local and more personal.
Subscription Services and Marketing Tactics
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah. And 94% of people prefer to purchase locally. So if they can find a local option, they're going to go for it too, which is really cool. So it's so cool to be able to come in at a farm market and be like, we actually already offer them.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, it blows people's mind. They're like, no way. I was like, yeah, we'll deliver it to your door. And they're like, it's not a centralized pickup location. Like, no, like to your doorstep. Leave it cool around your porch if you're going to be at work. Like, they're like, wow, that's awesome. You know, so people are impressed when they find out all that they can do on their phone with our farm and orderings. Awesome. Talk to me real quick about, I just want to kind of touch on your pre-ordering system that you have for Thanksgiving with turkeys. Tell me a little bit about how that works for you and kind of how you get that out to customers.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. So the turkeys we put up the next year's turkeys available for pre-order as soon as the pickup from the previous year is complete. So like we've had turkeys up on our website since December of last year. Okay. And we're, we're currently taking pre-orders for turkeys. People, they see the sign at our booth and they're like turkeys. I don't even want to think about Thanksgiving. I'm like, I know you don't, but if you don't get one now, they will be gone. Like I'm just letting you know, like you can wait a little bit, but by August, we're going to be completely sold out.
00:17:14
Speaker
So like, yeah, I'm selling turkeys every week right now and it's springtime and no one's even thinking about Thanksgiving, but we raise a finite amount of turkeys because we have to start those the first week of July in order to have them finish and go to the butcher and come back fresh prior to Thanksgiving to the customer. They come straight from our butcher. We pick them up in a refrigerated truck. We drive to three drop points. We do not deliver turkeys to your doorstep because we have too many to deliver.
00:17:39
Speaker
and such a short time period because those are refrigerated, not frozen. We have to get those to the customers that day, which is a few days prior to Thanksgiving. Do you think a lot of that is tied into kind of creating that fear of missing out? You'd also mentioned kind of telling your customers, hey, if you don't get them now, they're going to be gone. So fear of missing out is a real thing. Like seriously, it works on me.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah. We see it every day at the booth too. Cause I mean, it can be kind of slow for a half an hour. Like no one's stopping in at your booth or whatever. And then, but as soon as one person comes up and starts looking through your coolers at your stuff, it's like a line generates because people see other people and they're like, what's going on over there? And then, so a crowd draws a crowd. Yeah. It's so the same thing with turkeys and it's not a bluff. Like last year we had to turn people away and we're like, sorry, we only did X amount of turkeys and they've been gone for a month. So.
00:18:31
Speaker
Wow.
Brand Management and Customer Engagement
00:18:32
Speaker
Okay. Well then let's shift gears to, I also want to make sure that we have some time to talk a little bit too about like your ability to story tell really effectively and get out to more of the customers that you're reaching on a regular basis. So can you tell me a little bit about how you're kind of leveraging the brand that you've created and how that's kind of empowered you to expand, reach a larger customer base, and then, you know, even start to send out, like you'd mentioned those emails that you're sending a couple of times a month.
00:19:00
Speaker
So on our brand, as far as like our reputation as a business, I will do anything in the world to avoid a bad review from a customer at any cost. And we've never had a bad review left about our business from a customer for that reason. I tell all of our employees.
00:19:15
Speaker
at the markets. If anyone ever has an issue and they weren't happy with something and they come up and they vent to you about it, you have my full authority to do whatever you feel is necessary to make sure that they leave with a smile and that they don't feel upset when they leave. Like that's what that's worth. So if they said, oh, my bacon was too fatty or I didn't like this, give them free bacon, give them a refund, do whatever you want to do just to make the customer happy.
00:19:38
Speaker
that's just one example but we do that across our whole business to make sure that our customers feel appreciated and that we hear them and and that they're important to us. So that's a big part of our brand is just taking care of people because then those people go and tell their friends like hey this business they're awesome like these are good people over here they really they care about their animals they care about us. On our storytelling
00:20:01
Speaker
I'll admit that I don't have a 20 minute stick that I have about our farm. I don't like talking about myself and like things that I've done. So a lot of our storytelling about our farm is done by our customers, about us to other people on our behalf. Word of mouth is a thing and just being able to lean into even Facebook or social media or emails and allow for customers to then share information or share products that they've purchased.
00:20:28
Speaker
It is so much more effective than you just talking to people and telling them how great the product is. Would you say you have one outlet that has been the most lucrative for you? Or do you think it's really just kind of a combination of all of these different places that you're reaching buyers?
00:20:44
Speaker
I mean the most lucrative is email list. Second most lucrative is Google and I can see the analytics from Google. I can see exactly how many people called our farm from Google search engine. I can see how many people requested directions from Google's analytics. So Google's number two and you know Facebook and Instagram.
00:21:02
Speaker
They're not good for sales, but they do have a purpose. They are good for brand building. So that's where, you know, why have I heard of them before? Well, it's because I was flooding your Facebook account for three months for that. You know, I mean, they didn't buy anything, but they recognize my name now. Right. It's kind of that brand recognition. And then when they see you in person, they're like, I have to buy from him because they can think of you and they remember that they've heard of you someplace.
Delivery Services and Competitive Edge
00:21:26
Speaker
And I think.
00:21:26
Speaker
Two, I've heard also more specifically even about you, you have a really cool way of getting email addresses from your different types of buyers with that like boots on the ground, being at farm markets. Can you maybe share a little bit about that as well?
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, email addresses are important. They're like, that is our equity in our business. It's one of the most valuable assets that our business has is our email list. So at our farmer's market, when customers are checking out, there's a clipboard with an email sign up list. And would you just let them know, hey, if you want to sign up for our email list, you'll get a coupon.
00:22:00
Speaker
your first email for five dollars off an order. We'll just send you an email about once a month with updates from what's going on around the farm, maybe new products we're going to be carrying soon, things like that.
00:22:10
Speaker
people will sign up and then we pay our farm market sales people a dollar per email bonus for all the emails they collect. That is awesome. Let's dive into talking a little bit more about convenience. I know we touched upon the fact that you guys do door-to-door delivery but tell me a little bit about how I guess how you decided to get into delivery and kind of the the effect that having a little
00:22:34
Speaker
extra convenience has had on the business and then where you'd like to take it because I know you've been growing on a really consistent basis kind of year after year. Yeah, door to door delivery and doing pickup points like just going straight through their doorstep.
00:22:49
Speaker
it sounds like it would be a lot, but it's not. Once you have routing software, once you have your fulfillments set up for certain days, you're thinking in your head, oh my gosh, I've got 40 deliveries to do. It's not that bad because you're getting out of your car every three miles. Those go really quick. We can do 20 deliveries in two hours because they're all
00:23:09
Speaker
you know, just a block away from each other. Delivery is great. We did that just to take away all barriers for customers to say, oh, we would, but well, now there's no more butts. Like you can get our stuff anyway, anyhow, all year long. Like there's customers no longer have any excuse
00:23:27
Speaker
that they could think of as to why buying from us would be inconvenient. You know, we remove them all. Convenience is totally the tipping point. So when it comes from a buyer's perspective, when you're looking at a farm that allows for even online ordering, or like you'd mentioned door to door delivery versus a farm that doesn't usually they're just like, Hey, we need the one that's going to show up right there on my doorstep that I don't have to think about. And I think that also kind of ties into you now offering subscriptions for products too.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah. And there's, there's pastured poultry and pork producers in our region that have been doing it for 30 years, family farms that have been around for generations, selling direct to consumer just at farmer's markets. And we don't go to the same farmer's market. I respect them and what they built and I try not eat their lunch, you know, there's plenty of markets. So I go to other ones, but their customers find us and we use the same butcher, us and the other guy, like, so our products are very similar, but I have an online store. They can order from their phone.
00:24:26
Speaker
he doesn't because he hasn't evolved yet. I'm gaining customers from other similar farms in my region just because of the convenience factor. What would you suggest to farmers who are thinking about doing door-to-door delivery in terms of one, just the cost or the delivery fee, and then also how to choose areas that are most effective for delivering to?
00:24:53
Speaker
go for the densely populated areas first but then on your way to and from those densely populated areas as your areas also hit that corridor on that main highway all the way to and from it because you're right there on the highway anyways you know say if you're 50 miles from Milwaukee
00:25:09
Speaker
Okay. Well, obviously do Milwaukee put a big circle around that, but then your whole trip from your farm to Milwaukee, you need to add the zip codes all along that route too. So that can be one zone. We go weekly to most of our. Closer places as far as like Chicago, they go every couple of weeks just because we let those orders build up a little bit longer.
Managing Growth and Scaling Challenges
00:25:29
Speaker
The deliveries on the delivery fees, we do have a delivery fee just to discourage people from buying one package of bacon a week. That's the intent of the delivery fee is to discourage small orders like one or two dozen eggs because who's going to buy a pack of bacon for eight bucks if the delivery, you know, the delivery fees. Right. So I'm not going to say I haven't done it, but I've done it before, too, just to test out other companies delivery process. Let me get some lamb bacon just to see how this comes. But
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah, so the charge of delivery fee and those delivery fees will pay for your entire route driver's salary that day. I mean, they'll pretty much cover your cost of delivery. We do have a threshold where they hit $75. That's what we set it at. You can design anything you want, but after $75, it's free, delivery is. So, except I think to Chicago, we still have delivery fee for them no matter how much they order because
00:26:22
Speaker
Chicago is not fun. Right. Yeah. Do you feel like, you know, now that you've implemented things like door to door delivery and, you know, the convenience of having the online store, kind of all of these different levels of convenience, are you getting a lot closer to the point of selling out on a really regular basis or are you there already?
00:26:40
Speaker
We were last year. So last year, because we've increased is why we're not now. So last year we grew faster than we expected and we were selling more than we ever thought we would before. This year we anticipated it and we bit off a lot. It never gets easy. Like you might think, oh, you know, if you're doing a half a million dollars a year in sales, that's when it'll be easy. Like I want, you know, a couple of years we'll be okay. Like, no, numbers just get bigger.
00:27:08
Speaker
I would probably be the same except for like 20 grand instead of two grand. Like, you know, cashflow will become a headache for a lot of farmers once they scale to the size. And a lot of people, you know, you don't have to have a business degree to raise a chicken. I tell people.
00:27:26
Speaker
They're asking like you need to be a sales and marketing and business management guru Like stop reading about how to grow grass like the animals want to stay alive Like they're gonna figure it out, you know with a little bit of help, but you to stay alive as a farm No one can help you but you so Point of that being is we're always trying to over produce so that way we don't run out but yeah, so we would be selling out because we've doubled sales again, but
00:27:51
Speaker
We knew that's what we were going to do. Yeah. And that kind of goes right in with the goal too, of being able to kind of continue to expand as you guys are like doubling just year after year after year. So doubling is great, but like, I can't stress enough. If you're legit doubling, you know, a hundred percent again. And your margins are 50% say on animal, just as an average number, like that means all of your profit from the previous year has got to be completely reinvested next year into production.
Supporting Local Agriculture and Future Plans
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well, I want to go through just a quick recap too, in terms of kind of everything that we've gone over. I know there's been a lot, but really, I think at the end of the day, we can tie it down to the branding that you guys have done in terms of your storytelling, in terms of being in all of these different places. I also heard you talk too about pricing and just making sure that
00:28:41
Speaker
you know the products were all priced correctly not trying to stay competitive but rather making sure that you're pricing products for what they're actually worth and then quality obviously in terms of just being sustainable in terms of having all the practices and having the relaxed animals there on the farm and that final one in convenience what allowed us to grow so much was an aggressive expansion plan there's so many people to feed in this world and i can't do it by myself i'm trying
00:29:07
Speaker
but it'll never happen so it's great to have all of these other local farms around us too that can compliment us or do the exact same thing as us. I don't really look at them as the enemy or a competitor like we're all on the same team because the more people that buy food locally direct from a farmer that creates a normalcy to it or the more people that work online it makes it normal. It's not just that weird guy that buys his food next door from the farm down the street so we're all on the same team. A lot of the markets we're at we're the only meat vendor.
00:29:33
Speaker
Not all of them, 60% of our markets were the only meat vendors. So there's a huge hole out there for people doing what I do. That's why we can keep expanding. There's online. I mean, there's so much more potential there that I don't know when we'll stop growing. I mean, obviously I'm not trying to become a huge, but you have to get to a certain size to make it to where
00:29:55
Speaker
you can generate the same type of income you could, you know, work in a good job. You know, I mean, we create a lot of jobs. We got eight people. Sometimes I think of myself, you know, if we have a slow day at the market, it's like all I did that day was create jobs for eight people, which is good too. You know, so we're just going to keep growing, keep doing what we're doing. I do want to take a break from growing probably not next year, but the year after just to kind of capture a lot of that profit for a year. So,
Advice for Aspiring Farmers and Future Expansion
00:30:23
Speaker
to take a break and catch our breath and just maybe add a couple of years back to my life in the end. So I would say to anybody out there that's thinking about doing this, not everyone can do it. So I don't want to say that anyone can do it. It takes a special type of person that has enough grit and fortitude to stick with something when times get hard because there's been multiple times in this farm journey where
00:30:50
Speaker
A lot of people would have said like, this is just way too hard. Like the stress that there's a lot that comes with running a business, especially a farm. Like we're not just selling stuff. Like we're producing it from the beginning, having it processed or selling it, we're transporting it. I'm at every step in the entire supply chain and distribution. So.
00:31:09
Speaker
If you do get into it, you need to know that ahead of time that there's going to be hard days and you need to know yourself and know that you'll just push through those because there's always positive things on the other side and you'll just keep doubling every year. Yeah. Well, it's good advice. It's kind of good to take too as well. And as you kind of look forward, I guess the last thing I really want to ask is like, what's next for Bennett Farms? I mean, I think there's a lot you guys have already done. Obviously you want to continue to grow and where do you see your skills going from here?
00:31:38
Speaker
So there's tons of room in the wholesale sector for us to expand We haven't even bothered with it. We can sell it all we can produce right now direct to consumer But wholesale so that's always an option smaller stuff that we're doing right now We just started carrying a pre marinated chicken breast or we will this next week. I think those will be really popular So there's like seven different vacuum pack marinades and the chicken breast I love that
00:32:01
Speaker
And jerky. So we just worked with a craft jerky guy that's local to us. He's doing some research and development on turning our pork butts into like some craft artisanal jerky. That's really good. So hopefully we'll start carrying that soon because we haven't carried that before. This is cool. It sounds like you're taking some time to even like take a step back and be creative and come up with kind of more niche products too that will serve the community of people that's already so excited about buying from you.
00:32:29
Speaker
You don't want your inventory, what you have available to get stale. Like if it's the same stuff every week when they look at your website or the market, like, and it has been for three years, they don't need to go there anymore. Cause they know what's there, you know, if they, so they're not going to go browse and maybe, you know, something will catch your eye. If they need it, they'll go there. Awesome.
00:32:46
Speaker
Cool, exciting stuff in the future then. Well, looking forward to seeing all the new products come out to you on the website and in your store and excited to hear how those go over at the markets as well. So just kind of wanted to wrap things here and thank Tom so much for joining us and for sharing a little bit of insight in really what's gone on in this past kind of crazy year and how he's been able to take that and really managed to grow so much over such a short period of time. So thank you again for joining us, Tom. Thank you.
00:33:17
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.