Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Double Your Farm Revenue with Delivery as a Service
260 Plays5 days ago
Discover how to access 99% of buyers by leveraging Delivery as a Service. Learn how to double your revenue, ditch the logistical office work, and meet modern consumer expectations with professional, doorstep delivery.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
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
About Barn to Door
00:00:20
Speaker
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 podcast. I'm James, the chief operating officer at Barnador and your host for today's episode. As you may be aware, Barnador provides a solution for independent farmers to help them make more money, ditch the office work and look like a pro.
00:00:55
Speaker
We're all about helping farmers build your brand, own your customers and sell direct online and in person.
New Delivery Service Announcement
00:01:00
Speaker
In today's conversation, we're going to get into an exciting new announcement from Barn to Door, delivery as a service. Now, farmers who use Barn to Door may leverage a set of third-party logistic partners, or 3PLs, to actually pick up food from your farm and deliver it to your buyers.
00:01:16
Speaker
Believe it or not, it's now available nationwide to farms within 90 miles of a major metropolitan area of 250,000 people or more. Now, there are a ton of details to
Interview with Kevin Sonnkrant
00:01:26
Speaker
dig into. And today, I'm happy to welcome back Kevin Sonnkrant, who manages our success team, including onboarding and account management. Kevin's been with the business now for several years and will share more information for for us about deliveries of service. Welcome back, Kevin. It's great to see you. Yeah, thanks for having me, James. Glad to be back.
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, before we dive into today's topic, deliveries of service, why don't we share a little bit more with the listeners about your evolution of Barnador? When did you join and how's your role evolved over the years? Yeah, i joined Barn to Door, it'll be four years ago this June. So I came in as an account manager. So I was working with all of our farms after they graduated onboarding. They would start working with an account manager to help them establish best practices, reach their business goals. And that was a great role. Loved it. I fit really well with my background. I will still meet with farmers today in a similar function, but I was eventually promoted to run that account management team. So I oversaw that small team for about a year and a half, two years, and then again, promoted after that to oversee the entire success team. So I work both with our onboarding team and then our account management team as well. And then in addition to working with them, I work with farmers every day, still helping them onboard, get their business system set up. And then after they graduate onboarding, working with them more closely one-on-one as
Attributes of Successful Farmers
00:02:41
Speaker
Well, it's been a great ride. Really love what I do here. Love helping farmers out and really excited today to be talking about delivery as a service and how we can help farmers continue to reach more customers. Well, we're super thankful for your contribution to Kevin. You're a fantastic leader and an example for many people just to see how hard our team here at Brunderdore works to help farmers be successful. And speaking success, there's a lot of things that Barnador can offer a farmer when it comes to building a direct-to-market business. Irrespective of the tactics, whether it's delivery or not, what are some of the key attributes you see of farmers who are successful?
00:03:15
Speaker
Sure. The most common key attribute, really, like every farm that signs up with us is going to have quality products. And that really is a must, especially from the customer's standpoint. you know, when they buy local, we as customers expect to have higher quality products and thus we're willing to pay more money for a higher quality product. So that is really one of the most important things is to have high quality products, things that taste better, they look better, they have higher nutrition. Those are key factors that consumers are looking for when buying local food. In addition to that, our most successful farms are going to have a trustworthy brand because buyers will spend more with brands they trust. I think it's something like 47% of buyers spend more with brands that they trust, right?
00:03:55
Speaker
So we have a variety of tools and resources here for farms to help build a brand. But you know if you're brand new or even been in business for years and don't know if you have a great brand, really the basics of a brand is understanding that it's the cumulative experience your customers have when they interact with your farm whether it's online or in person. So whether on your website or their social pages or they're reading an email from you or they're in person, maybe at an event shopping from your in-person store, whether it's on your packaging or merchandise, the more consistent brand experience that buyers get from you, the more they're going to trust you. And that's what's going to help you attract more buyers as well.
Importance of Convenience for Consumers
00:04:32
Speaker
Two other quick points here when we look at our most successful farms. One around pricing and packaging products. Our most successful farms focus on building packaging for their products that buyers are looking for. So when we talk about that, we're generally looking at bundles and subscriptions because buyers want convenience. And so giving them the option to purchase a small or medium or a large bundle that has a sampling of products from the farm, one click to get a variety of products just makes it easy. so As an example, if you're selling beef and you're only selling quarter halves and wholes, you're really only serving 3% of the market because that's all that owns a chest freezer, right? 97% of Americans don't own a freezer big enough for even a quarter beef, so they can't even store your product. And many of them couldn't even afford a quarter beef, right? So giving them smaller options that still bundle your products is really a crucial factor for driving higher conversions. And then lastly, and Arguably, one of the most important ones is convenience. In today's e-commerce world, convenience is king. And as farmers, if we're doing all three of the other ones flawlessly, if we have a great product, a great brand, our packaging is on point.
00:05:33
Speaker
But if it's not convenient for buyers, they're not going to purchase your products, right? They have to go drive 30 minutes or an hour out of their way. Just going to lose the vast majority of buyers. They're not willing to do that. They're used to shopping from grocery stores that are five or 10 minutes from their house at most. So the farms that make it convenient and easy for their buyers to purchase are really the ones that will drive higher conversions. And that convenience starts with an online storefront where buyers can purchase at any time of the day, and make a couple of clicks, put stuff in their car, pay digitally. And then it extends beyond that into the fulfillments, which we'll talk more about here. That's why I'm so excited to talk about delivery as a service, because it is the ultimate convenience for buyers and one of the easiest ways to help farmers get their products to their customers.
00:06:16
Speaker
Well, I'm super excited about delivery service as well. Kevin, like you said, I know looking at all the data that farms who offer delivery to the doorstep of their buyers make two times more per month in average revenue than farms that do not.
00:06:29
Speaker
Right. So it is a game changer for farmers who are looking to grow their business and make more money. So let's talk about buyers first. You mentioned buyers a couple of times here, right? Because at the end of the you know, that's who is going to purchase and pay for the product. What are buyers' expectations today, right? mean, they have a lot of choices, lot of options that are available to them. What should a farmer expect when thinking about their buyers?
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah, we live in an Amazon era, right? Uber Eats era of e-commerce where convenience is a click away. People can get on their phones and make a couple taps with their thumb and the products will be at their door within hours or a couple of days, right? Many buyers expect this from any company they're purchasing from, right? And so to scale a business, really independent farmers have to transition away from just being... available at local markets only, right? Or on-farm pickup only to being easily accessible at the doorstep. So being able to get their products to buyer's doorsteps. This means like direct delivery. It's not just a luxury, right? It's a strategic necessity to capture nine out of 10 customers who want to purchase local food.
00:07:28
Speaker
Farms must offer the convenience of products delivered directly to their door. It's where you get people like me and like you, James, that are working, you know, 10 plus hours a day during the week. And, you know, if the only offerings ah for farms are to get products during the week, it's just really hard for us to be able to do that. But we'll happily pay to have things delivered to our door, come home. You know, there's a ice chest full of farm fresh products on our doorstep and we just throw them in the freezer. That convenience is really what's needed for us. Even if I wanted to purchase from a local farm that offered pickups during the week, I wouldn't be able to.
00:07:56
Speaker
but I know I'm certainly guilty of this. I have three different farms who deliver food to my doorstep. In fact, just two nights ago, I had a tote on my doorstep when I got home. it was just perfect. So let's talk a little bit more about delivery as a service, right? Concept of delivery is not new, but what does delivery as a service mean for
Details of Delivery as a Service
00:08:13
Speaker
farmers, right? Like what does this entail?
00:08:15
Speaker
So at its core, Barnador now offers delivery as a service to help farmers move their products directly to the doorstep of their customers. This allows the farms you work with to attract more customers, delight buyers, and very importantly, give time back to farmers. So Just a couple quick bullets, some highlights for farmers to understand how delivery as a service works.
00:08:37
Speaker
Drivers are going to pick up products directly from the farm, and then they'll deliver those products to buyers. Everyone's kept informed on delivery day, which means there's automated text messages the morning of to inform buyers of the upcoming delivery window. 15 minutes prior to the driver arriving with the products, customers will get a text with a map that they can click on that's interactive, which allows them to see where the driver is directly from their phone. And then they'll be delivered confirmation text as well with a photo. So there's visibility along the entire process for both the farmer and the buyer, really just making farmers look extremely professional and giving them a top-notch service.
00:09:14
Speaker
That sounds really slick. And I know I've seen it in action. But let's talk about some of these advantages then for the farmer, right? What the experience looks like from a farmer and a buyer standpoint. Yeah, mean, for farmers, they look like a pro, right? This allows you to look like a professional at the highest level. It's convenient for your your customers to order and receive your products. Even better, all your farm products are insured 100%. You don't need to make extra investments in people and vehicles and insurance, maintenance. There's a lot of factors there where costs can add up quickly when doing delivery on your own. And then I mentioned earlier, but it's worth mentioning again, you get time back, right? Rather than being on the road delivering for an hour or two or three or a whole day, you're able to just load up a car or another vehicle for our delivery partner. And then the rest of the day is yours to check off farm tasks or do marketing or back of the office work. And best of all, there's no upfront costs. So delivery as a service will generally pay for itself with reasonable delivery fees for the vast majority of our farms. And then from the buyer perspective for customers, right, getting local farm food just became hassle-free, which is really exciting for us and for me as well, because I love to buy local. and I'm probably, I know I'm in the minority where I'm able to go to the farmer's market every weekend on Saturdays. Most consumers are not. They have busy schedules. They can't make time for it. So this allows them to buy online anytime from your farm and then get food directly on their doorstep. In addition, as a buyer, we're kept completely informed. So we know every step of the process. And it's just as easy and convenient as ordering from any big e-commerce platform now.
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty amazing, right? Any local farm now has this opportunity to look as professional as well. put together as Amazon, right? And it's just going to arrive on the doorstep for the buyer. There's really no excuse now for why a buyer wouldn't opt into purchasing from a local farm. In fact, I'm excited to see how this is going to take off and help farmers expand more aggressively. I mean, to some degree, it almost sounds too good to be true. I mean, there must be some limitations around the parameters for delivery as service to help our listeners understand, you know, where is this available and like, what are some of the limitations that they should expect?
00:11:17
Speaker
Sure. I mean, it's important for farmers to understand that our delivery partners run for profit businesses too. So just like the farmers, it has to be worth their time. So to make it worth their time and to make it make sense, the farms that want to sign up for this have to be within 90 miles of a major metro area, which would mean a MSA population of 250,000 people or more.
00:11:36
Speaker
This assures that there's an adequate source of volume for drivers for our partner to be able to send to the farm, right? In addition to that, farms must agree to at least 20 fulfillments per delivery day. So that means if they're doing, you know, once a week delivery, they have to have 20 deliveries on that day. Or if it's once a month that they're doing still 20 deliveries on that day. You know, drivers aren't going to drive 90 miles just to deliver a dozen eggs. It's just not worth their time. Right. So you'll need to have 20 orders, which will be delivered on a given day. Otherwise, it's just not going to make sense for our partners. And then farms are responsible for packaging their products. So the drivers are experienced with food, proteins, produce, dairy. However, they're still perishable products.
00:12:14
Speaker
So what we recommend is insulated tote bags. Typically, this is what's going to work best for the vast majority of farms. They're reusable. There's marketing of ah opportunities for your farm when people are out shopping with your tote bags. And it makes packaging really easy when you know packing them into a vehicle. Alternatively, we do have some farms that will opt to do by cardboard boxes that have insulation. Those certainly will work as well.
00:12:37
Speaker
So when thinking about getting started with the service, I mean, what are some of the costs that a farmer could expect to pay? you mean, it sounds great. Let's say I'm a farmer here outside of Nashville and and I've got, you know, a hundred orders that could be fulfilled every week. And let's say I'm within that 90 mile limit. what What am I going to be expected to pay in order to use this service?
00:12:56
Speaker
Sure. Great question, James. So ah typically the costs are going to range anywhere anywhere from $8 to $15 per delivery, but there are many factors that would impact that delivery fee. For example, the distance from the farm to the city that they're servicing, right? So a farm that's 30 miles away versus another that's 90 miles away, that's obviously three times the amount of gas for our delivery partners. So you know, further away, generally you'll see a little bit higher costs per delivery. Some other really important factors to consider would be fragility to products, right? If you're talking frozen meat, that's not very fragile versus, you know, glass bottles, which is obviously more fragile. Delivery window requirements. So when the farm is looking to have those deliveries, if they're within reasonable hours, like 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., they'll have drivers that'll be readily available, make it easier. Another really important factor to consider is buyer density, right, in that city that the farm is servicing. So ideally, they're going after a handful of zip codes as the farm and really just trying to get as many buyers in those areas as possible. That's really where they're going to be the most successful. A couple other factors. that would influence what farms should expect to pay for deliveries of service would be you know quantity of deliveries with the 20 minimum, more deliveries that they're doing. Generally, they'll see the cost come down a bit. And then the frequency of deliveries, whether it's weekly versus every other week versus monthly. Those are just a handful of factors that would influence what farms could expect to pay for deliveries of service.
00:14:14
Speaker
That's great. Well, I really appreciate the clarity there because I know that's a question we hear often. The other side of this too is like, well, tell me a little bit more about the fleet of vehicles that your delivery partners have to offer, right? I know there's a lot of third-party logistics carriers out there and they have all kinds of different types of vehicles, right? So what what should a farmer expect?
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, so farms should expect anywhere from cars, you know, whether it's a Prius or SUVs to minivans. And then in some of the larger MSAs, we can see Sprinter vans that will be doing deliveries as well, especially for farms that are making larger deliveries in larger cities. Got it. And are the vehicles refrigerated?
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, great question, James. They are not refrigerated, right? So these are all 1099 contractors. So they own their own vehicles. So don't expect any refrigeration for that. Now, that's not to say you couldn't get lucky because there are some larger metro areas, again, that will have Sprinter vans. Some will have reefer units, but don't assume that the vehicles will be refrigerated. So the average vehicle should be able to carry 25 orders. But yeah, like I said, the bigger the city, the more Sprinter vans there will be, which will increase capacity for carrying products as well. And then a nice added benefit from farms that we haven't talked about up to this point is the ability favorite or ban drivers, right? So if they have a driver they really like, they can favorite them, making it more likely that they would get that driver and vice versa. They could ban a driver if they see the need to do that as well.
00:15:33
Speaker
Are there any other costs that a farmer would have to take on to get started with delivery as a service as well? No, there's not. So that's really important for them to understand. All the drivers are fully insured. There's no other cost for fuel or maintenance of vehicles. And then on a side note, important for farms to know if they have existing drivers, our delivery partners will actually take on those existing employees as 1099 contractors. So just a great opportunity for farms to remove some of those costs and make it easier for themselves to not manage that aspect of their business.
00:16:03
Speaker
I know that's a big one. In fact, I was on the phone this morning with a big farmer in California who was excited about that aspect of just being able to offload some of their own contractors. But the other cool part about it too was driver replacement guarantees, right? Which is if you're inside those, you know, normal delivery windows sometime between 8 a.m. m and 9 p.m., that if a driver is unavailable, they guarantee a driver will be there as a backup as well, right? Which is really cool to see. So, Nice headache to resolve for farmers who don't want to deal with a driver who calls in sick. So what does the day-to-day operations look like when it comes to the DAS experience or it deliveries of service experience for a farmer?
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, let's talk about that from both perspectives again for the farmer and for the buyer. So for the farmer, they should be expected to pack and schedule, right? So the farm will pack the orders and then they'll also set the delivery timeframe. So we'll set that up in your Barnador e-commerce storefront. You can work with our team in one-on-one meetings or in office hours to make sure everything's set up the way that you intend. there. There'll be a farm pickup, right? Once the orders are placed, drivers will then pick up products directly from the farm. They'll deliver to the buyers. So drivers will complete all those deliveries within the timeframe, all that's tracked in real time. So there's live delivery, visibility, photo confirmation, really great experience for farmers to know that all the boxes are being checked. And then, like we said, really important to reiterate, they can choose their drivers so they can favor preferred drivers and ban the ones they don't want. From the buyer's perspective, They'll purchase the products from your online storefront on bar to door. So they won't really notice any difference on that first purchase, right? They're just going to purchase within the delivery timeframes that you set up. Where they'll start to see the difference then is once those deliveries are on the way, right? or the day of delivery, because they'll be receiving those text message updates. Those will all be automated notifications to keep the buyers informed. They'll be able to track the delivery with real-time maps. And then everything's insured to the door. So products are fully insured to the buyer's doorstep. We had talked about it, but it's really important for farmers to understand this is a truly professional experience they're bringing for the buyer. So buyers will see a polished look from your farm. They'll see the reliability that you're able to provide with consistent delivery days and text message updates. And then it's just making it as easy as possible to buy from your farm. There's really no excuse at this point. If customers want to buy local, if you can deliver to their doorstep, there's no excuse for them to not buy from you at that point.
00:18:18
Speaker
Well, this sounds super compelling, Kevin, and I know we've had a ton of existing farms who are getting started with this already today and have already rolled it out. And we have lots of new farms that are signing up to participate in this new program.
Maximizing the Service for Farmers
00:18:31
Speaker
If I'm a farmer and I'm listening to this podcast today and I'm interested in rolling out deliveries of service, what should they do to get started? What's it look like depending on my farm business today?
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, let's break it down and talk about a couple different business types that might be already with Barnador, right? So there's going to be farms that already have an existing delivery business. So delivery zones already set up. They're doing deliveries. They have the minimum delivery threshold. And if they don't, maybe they're doing you know deliveries three times a week. They can consolidate those days to make it once a week to get to that 20 delivery per day threshold. So we'll work with them to make sure everything's set up properly there, particularly if they're not doing subscriptions will help them set that up because that's the easiest way to guarantee that they get to that 20 minimum delivery threshold is have 20 buyers on subscriptions or 25 on subscriptions. That's guaranteed sales. There's no better peace of mind than having that. And so once everything's set up, you know, make the announcement to their buyers. After that, we'll look at farms that a portion of their business is delivery, right? So again, they've got delivery zone set up.
00:19:29
Speaker
We'll look at maybe expanding that to some additional zip codes, looking at offering additional products, again, looking at bundles and subscriptions. And then we'd really want to focus on with these farms to be able to announce to their buyers that they're now offering expanded delivery or new delivery. So looking at lapsed buyers are the easiest, right? Take a farm that has, we'll say like 500 emails, in their Barnador storefront, as an example, maybe only 50 or 100 of them are actively purchasing from them because you know they can't get delivery right now or it's only pickup. So going after those 400 or 450 lapsed buyers that have bought at some point in the past but likely aren't buying right now just because it's not convenient is one of the best ways to grow that customer base and hit that 20 delivery minimum threshold. And then lastly, there's farms that are just getting started with Barnador. Those farms, the most important thing is complete onboarding, get their store set up, and then get their existing buyers and business to use Barnador, right?
00:20:26
Speaker
After that, they'll be able to work with our account management team to build up the customer base. And then once they have sufficient volume, then we'll be looking to announce delivery as a service for them when it makes sense at that time. This is just such an awesome new service from barn to door. It's just really great to see that there's just a whole range of options for a farm where they've got existing delivery today, or if they're just getting started, there's an avenue for them to be able to lean in here and really build a new line of revenue. And like you said, get time back on the farm. So we've covered a lot of ground today on delivery as a service. Is there anything else you want to share before we sign off,
Impact of the Service on Farms
00:21:00
Speaker
Kevin?
00:21:00
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, just a couple things to summarize what we discussed. Delivery as a service is a game changer. There's no doubt about it. This makes it easier for buyers to purchase from farms, gives farms time back, makes them look more professional, helps them build a stronger brand.
00:21:17
Speaker
There are so many factors here that will help farms really grow and scale their business. So for farms that are serious and they're organized, this can readily change the entire trajectory of the farm business. that you know You can escalate and increase your sales significantly quicker by offering delivery to buyer store. the most exciting thing, I don't think we talked about this yet, James. The most exciting thing is there's no shortage of buyer demand, especially in large cities like we live in Nashville here. There are more people moving to the city every single day. There's more and more buyers that are becoming aware of how important it is know where their food is coming from, to buy local, to get higher quality products. This is the best time to be getting into local farming. And for farms that will make it easy for those people that want to buy local to get their products, they will be able to capture that share of the market. Really, it's just for farms. It's more of a question of, If they're ready to evolve their business model to keep up with the times, because this is where it's heading, right? More and more buyers going to be expecting delivery and the farms that offer are going to be the ones that will get ahead. So the farms that are willing to shift with the times, make it easier for buyers, streamline their packaging options. They're the ones that are going to find success with this.
00:22:25
Speaker
Well said, Kevin. Well, hey, I want to extend my thanks to you to taking time out of your day and joining us on this week's podcast
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:22:32
Speaker
episode. You can check out more of Barn to Door on our website, social media handles on Facebook and Instagram. Here at Barn to Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers all across the country, and we're delighted to offer new delivery-as-a-service program to help farmers access more customers, make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro.
00:22:51
Speaker
If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or looking to sell more products direct to market with delivery, go to barnador.com backslash learn more. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
00:23:15
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.
00:23:32
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.