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Farmer Spotlight: Veteran's Liberty Ranch
579 Plays5 months ago
On today's episode, Janelle talks with Julie and Michelle of Veteran's Liberty Ranch in Texas. They discuss how the Ranch came to be, their tips for maintaining a recognizable brand presence and their goals to take over Texas and hit $1 Million in Sales.
Learn more about Julie and Michelle: https://www.barn2door.com/fan/veterans-liberty-ranch
Find more Farm resources: https://www.barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast & Hosts
00:00:10
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. 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.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn to Door and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn to Door offers an all in one business solution for farmers selling direct online and in person. In today's conversation, we'll meet two of the newest members of our farm advisory network, Michelle and Julie of Veterans Liberty Ranch in Texas.
Veterans Liberty Ranch Journey
00:01:05
Speaker
Today, I'm happy to welcome Michelle and Julie. We'll learn about Veterans Liberty Ranch, their growth and scale opportunities, and I like to say their plan to take over Texas. Welcome, Michelle and Julie. Thank you. hi Very excited to dive in. And you two are calling from two different places. Yep. i Julie is down here in Liberty Hill, Texas, which is central Texas, kind of, I don't know, 30 miles outside of Austin.
00:01:31
Speaker
Okay. And I'm Michelle and I am North Texas. I'm about 45 minutes north of Fort Worth. Okay. Yes, you are. How many hours a apart is that? Three hours, door to door. Okay. So this is fun. So tell us a little bit about your farm because here you are farming together. You live three hours apart in two different wonderful parts of Texas. but um So tell us a little bit about how you got started. We started because Julie placed a personal want ad for a sexy bowl. And so so I answered the ad along with probably 300 other eligible bachelors. Wow. and
00:02:12
Speaker
so but So she ended up leasing a bull from me back in 2019 is how it started. Prior to that, we did not know each other. We like to absolutely tell everybody that this was God starting a journey that we just continue down. It was a chance meeting of literally, she can verify, I think it was close to 300 people responded and said, I've got a bull, you can lease him. Out of all of those, she chose me. I delivered the bull down to her and briefly met. We hit it off. I mean, everybody was nice. The bull was nice. He was now a happy bull. Her couch was great. All was good. And from there over the course of the next co a couple of months, a series of events happened that we began to communicate with each other, not even by phone
Challenges & Community Support during COVID
00:03:00
Speaker
number. This was still just Facebook messenger communicating back and forth.
00:03:05
Speaker
some things about the bull. I was selling a little bit of beef, mostly because my daughter was trying to raise some money to buy back her steer that I had sold. Oops. And so Julie was starting to get interested in that. As we all know, 2020 came along, rocked our world. And that is when things really started getting fun for us. um This is when in 2020, when COVID hit, my son reached out to me and said, a mom They've closed the school down and they turned all the pig exhibitors around. They were on their way to Houston and we're talking like 50, 60 pigs and they turned around and they're coming back to the school. And I said, wow, that's horrible. I can't imagine we don't have a pig that doesn't affect us and i go I'm not housing pigs. And he said, no, no.
00:03:57
Speaker
These pigs have got to be sold. Is this an FFA project then? Yes. These kids are on what age? These are 15 to 17-year-olds and most of them are city kids. Yeah, with FFA hogs. Yeah, they're keep your pigs at like the school barn and that feed costs a lot of money for anything FFA like that too. So when they were turned away from the show and literally, I think some of them even drove up to the show and they turned them around. Like they were turning them around in the parking lot. So now you have miles and gas.
00:04:30
Speaker
and nowhere for a pig to go. They're not gonna take a pig in the best Western. It's so interesting, all the stories, you don't realize what happened when the whole world shut down, right? And then this is in sort of the Fort Worth area. ah Actually, no. So Houston is about... Oh, he was in Houston. oh Excuse me. Yes. Okay. So wow. This is the Houston livestock show. And these are all pigs coming from my area in Decatur. Yeah. And so wow I reached out to the ag teacher and I said, well, let me see if I can help. We sell a little bit of beef and maybe we can try to get some people to buy these pigs. And to kind of wrap up the story,
00:05:07
Speaker
Basically, this is when Julie stepped in and she said, well, first of all, I would like to buy a pig. And again, we're still just Facebook Messenger. I'd like to buy a pig. Well, I can't even tell you. I mean, it's comical now, but by the end of two weeks, we had placed over 60 pigs in those first two weeks. And we had spiral notebooks and we had names and phone numbers going everywhere. And basically we act as just the intermediary between kids trying to sell their pig. We would get them delivered down to the butcher and then pick up the meat and push it onto the customer. And then the customers would pay the kids and we just, you know, rinse and repeat. We just kept doing that cycle. And through that,
00:05:53
Speaker
really hard time for a lot of people and it affected all of us in different ways but that was the beginning of something really amazing with Julie and I ah helping place the pigs and not only taking care of the FFA kids but also feeding the community during a really challenging time. It brought us from just a casual acquaintance to all of a sudden we've changed actual phone numbers and we started talking to each other I can remember where I was when we did that. and We went through some really tough things to get to where we are are at today, but Michelle and I, our partnership, it was definitely, as my great-grandmother would say, she would always say something is made in the stars.
00:06:38
Speaker
and I always think about like that was already planned and it was already born before anything I mean from a silly bowl and why would I choose out of that there seriously was at least 300 everybody wants to lease their bowl out like it's not hard to find a bowl and I don't know what drew me to Michelle, but I'm so glad that I messaged her. And, you know, in a lot of ways I'm kind of glad that COVID happened because if it didn't, then we would have never, yeah, we would have never had this happen. So Michelle, were you a hobby farmer of a before then? Is that where you came, like you have a couple of steer out back? Is that sort of the story? Absolutely. we were
00:07:19
Speaker
literally just a hobby farmer. yeah So my ranch it wasn't even a ranch at that point. We were known as Veterans Heritage Farm and my husband is the veteran and our kids wanted to get involved in FFA and 4-H and so we started with chickens and goats and pretty soon we were showing some Texas Longhorns. And really what happened about the same time I met Julie is we ended up with a couple of steers that weren't real competitive. And so we decided to sell them. Well, yeah again, I sold the wrong steer. from my daughter and she decided she was heartbroken and she wanted to get that steer back and so in order to do that we processed two animals and she made up boxes of beef and it was a $200 box 25 pounds of beef and
00:08:14
Speaker
Her marketing tactic, her and I was that we were selling that beef to raise money for her to purchase her favorite steer back, which she did. And so that's what we were doing. We were just selling the beef. I think that year in 2019, we probably processed four animals. Yeah. Okay. So this is, well, and yes, especially when you start to disclose to everybody what you're doing today, which I'm so excited about.
From Hobby to Business
00:08:40
Speaker
So it was a hobby. Like this isn't your full time job. You're just like correct being an awesome mom, supporting your kids and having fun with animals and
00:08:48
Speaker
yeah one hundred We had goats and and sheep and chickens and just a little bit of everything. I was finally, for the first time in my life, I was a stay-at-home mom and just living in the moment, really enjoying it. Wow. I love that so much. And then Julie needs a steer. so Yes. Well, she needs a ball. So, so tell us a little bit about that. So clearly you had animals too. So were you a hobby farmer as well? What did that look like? I actually grew up in the rodeo part of animal raising. I was at the barrel racer. So I had goats and I raised goats and FFA and lambs. And so I knew my granddad raised her for cattle. I had been around the agriculture.
00:09:32
Speaker
yeah But and by no means was I selling meat or doing anything like that. I think the very first time I sold meat was because my oldest daughter was raising chickens for FFA and they needed to be slaughtered. And that's actually where I think the kind of drive came up for when Michelle had the pigs. yeah And I knew that I could tap into some people that had bought chickens just because they were from FFA, like they would pay more because it's for kids. And I was like, okay, I have some ties into that. So I would never raise chickens again, not the meat kind, like they die if you look at them wrong. Like that's a very hard, hard thing to farm. yeah But it also opened up doors and windows to opportunities for people that I knew down here.
00:10:23
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad we did. But yeah, I don't rodeo anymore. Just my kids. but So 2019 is really when you're like, okay, hobbies aside, this is working. weve We figured some things out. We're going to switch the name. We're going to join forces. What was that transition like? Because you didn't look back. Like when you guys hit the ground running, you might as well have been bull riding, right?
00:10:48
Speaker
that So it actually took a minute for us to realize we were onto to something. Really, it wasn't until early 2021. And at that time, we were meeting pretty frequently. We were out on the road. back and forth those three hours and meeting people in church parking lots or traffic supply parking lots, delivering meat. So we would sell some meat and and we would have cash or a little bit of Venmo and then we would go to our favorite Mexican restaurant, get some margaritas and have a meal together and really split a little money kind of and then roll it on and and go into the next
00:11:32
Speaker
processing and get more pigs. I remember vividly having just enough money to buy fireworks from a fireworks stand and we were yeah so like excited because we had extra money that we weren't planning on to buy fireworks for the 4th of July. I can't remember that. It was like $200 worth. so It was in early 2021 that a restaurant reached out to us. And so we went, we sat down with the owner of this restaurant. And this is one of those doors that opened up because of the community Julie is in. And so we did sit down with him and we came up with some pricing and.
00:12:10
Speaker
It actually ended up not working out. We sold meat to him a handful of times. But when you, as a hobby farmer, just two women as hobby farmers, you know, we have our little families, this restaurant owner is going, you know, I want to use you to supply my meat and how would you handle this and what would your pricing be? We came out of that meeting and looked at each other and went, oh my gosh, we've got to be a business. We have to have a name. We have to be legitimate. This could be something big. Immediately got mango margaritas and to help make the decision. And I can't even tell you how much I would pay to find the napkin that we close out.
00:12:52
Speaker
Oh, the front of the napkin in this case, right? Yes. And we played around with the name. We wanted to incorporate My Ranch Veterans Heritage Farm. Julie's was C.D. Bar Ranch, which came from her grandfather. And probably by the second margarita, we somehow merged Veterans Heritage Farm with her location in Liberty Hill. There it is. And so that's where Veterans Liberty Ranch came from. Love it. Love it, love it, love it. We decided, wow, well, we should get a bank account and be real. And let's do a website and a Facebook. And oh my gosh, I just laugh thinking about those days. It was so basic, what we started with, and so accidental on our part.
00:13:43
Speaker
hey We know there was a brand or plan at work and that's okay. It's good. We're loving it. ah and It was just so basic. It's so great when the plans unfold and then you're like, oh, that was the plan all along. I just had to catch on. Right. Oh, now we understand. yeah I like to talk about how basic our stuff was and I'm like, wow, people trusted us. Like they're feeding us in a Q2 parking lot. Pretty cool. Cause they know it's better than, yeah, better than the options. Yeah. You're real people, right? I mean, there's a lot of power in that. And the answer to that is absolutely. Isn't it? Cause they trust you. That's exactly it. Yes.
00:14:23
Speaker
So let's fast forward then. So 2021, you're like, wow, this is the real deal. We're going to become a business. We have a name. It's time to throw up our shingle and get more serious about this. Right. And so then, I mean, that's what, not too long ago from now, that's like two and a half, three years that we're looking at. And I know at some point in there, you were hitting what, farmer's markets, and then you needed your website, et cetera. I think at some point in there, somebody at a farmer market told you about Barn to Door. Correct. Yes. Julia, I think you hit the first farmer's market, didn't you? I honestly don't remember. Yes. and And when we think back about it, we hated it. We did not want to do farmer's markets. We hated it because we didn't have the tools like we do now to use it. And so we didn't have a way for people to pay. Like right about that time, Venmo was just now really becoming
00:15:16
Speaker
I think everybody didn't have Venmo. Everybody did not have PayPal on their phone yet. It was more like the people that were rocking around the market just would pay in cash. And then that's even kind of questionable too. Not everybody has anything. but Yeah. So we yeah hit that first market and then we did not do another one for probably like another six months. Okay. And then Michelle tapped into that one. And that's where you met Sandy. That it introduced barn to door. Yeah, she had Barnadore and she told me about it. And so I called Julie. I remember talking about this. This is yeah one of those defining moments for us. I remember calling Julie and saying, yeah, so it's something Barnadore, like let's check it out.
00:16:00
Speaker
And what do you do the first time you go window shopping for something? You go look at the price. And it's i mean's kind of embarrassing to say this. And we were like, ooh, I don't know if we can afford that. Boy, I'd sure like to go back and tell myself three years ago, dummy, you can't afford not to do this. yeah It was fantastic. So we talked about it. And I remember talking about, okay, let's save our money. Let's not have mango margaritas for the next month. And we're going to save. That's a sacrifice. Careful. but Yeah. If you know us, you know what a sacrifice it is. And so we saved up our money and we really thought about it and made that leap and
00:16:43
Speaker
from the very first phone call and the onboarding, it's like, absolutely. That is the point where we never looked back again. And we went, this is an investment in us. Yeah, we're stay at home moms, but watch this. Our kids are going to be so proud of us. We got this. Yeah. I love that so much. Well, and this isn't even here to quote unquote promote Barnadore. I mean, you did all the work. to do it, but i I love that we get to be part of an organizing factor for you to be successful, right? To scale and to grow. Like you're doing the work, but anything we can do to help it be seamless and easier and trackable and easy to scale and go big for us is sort of the privilege, right? And so, you know, that's your story is just amazing. Oh, and now we do like what seven
Leveraging Barn to Door for Growth
00:17:34
Speaker
markets a weekend, Michelle, but between yes all of us. Yeah.
00:17:38
Speaker
so so you guys yeah now So now tell everybody how quickly once you have that like, oh, we're organized now. We've got this, we're gonna have a website. We've got an online store. I think you're one of the power users of of the POS that Barn to door offers, which is so fun for us to watch even from our side. Like look at them go. They're dragging POS is all over the state. We are. The growth has been exponential and you would think that, okay, you make a big investment in a website or an online store, you expect some growth. And we definitely experienced that. But I would even venture to say that every time we add even another point of sale unit,
00:18:23
Speaker
or add another trailer, but you're adding another tool. So trailer, a freezer, a point of sale device, another iPad, an employee, each time you make an investment like that, the growth is absolutely exponential. Is it scary to to commit and say, I'm going to spend X for the next 12 months and I'm going to provide for this person. It is scary, but I would venture to say it's even scarier to not take that leap. We're living proof of it. You've just got to open up the door and go through it. It's just, it's there for you. um I think in that, year yeah, you've spoke a lot of truth there. I think that every farmer out there is like, yes, it's scary to invest in yourself or the next thing that's going to continue to open up.
00:19:11
Speaker
the business opportunities, but it is. You have to pay into that or pay into yourselves, right? And believe in yourselves enough to say, yep, we're going to invest in ourselves and we're going to do the work to make it worth it. That's fine. And keep doing it. It brings out a competitive edge in us too, because behind the scenes, Michelle and I are like, are we their number one POS? We've got to be their number one. I don't know if I want to look at us now. Well, if you're not, you're pushing it. If you're not, I'll give you. behind the scenes I'll tell you what that number is. I remember I walked into the butcher one day we use one butcher and I walked into the butcher and I said are we wearing you out yet and they said no we would never say that you're wearing us out you keep us busy and I said well our goal is to be number one and they said
00:20:01
Speaker
Your goal, you already are number one. I called Julie and I said, we are number one. I love it. I love it. but sir And I don't know why that is such a a competitive thing for us. Well, it's a good drive to have considering what you're doing. So tell the listeners then, how big have you become in a short amount of time? Right? Cause did we leave this off at 2021 or is it 2022 when you're like, okay, if we're all in?
00:20:32
Speaker
but So that was really 2021. By mid 2021, actually I think our business documents are June 1st. Happy anniversary. We got a checking account with debit cards and real checks. Thank you. and Yeah. So 2021 was the start of the actual business and we were moving forward with some very purposeful decisions. In 2021, I think we did a whopping, if I recall, I want to say it was about 25, $35,000 in sales for the year. We were pretty excited by 2022, right? We had $100,000 that year, Julie? Yeah, right at $100,000. Yeah, pretty exciting, right? That Excel spreadsheet that we were keeping was pretty awesome. 2023, let's just say the accountant is still working on our books for 2023. There you go. But we closed out at $1,000 shy of half a million.
00:21:32
Speaker
Unbelievable. And and you traded in your Excel spreadsheet. Oh, yes. The accountant said, sell no more. Another shout out to Barnadore for pairing up really well with QuickBooks. So that's so happy to hear that. Good, good. But then, okay, so just shy of 500k and This year, Julie? I don't know. I have to look. Let me see if I can- No, you don't. No, drumroll your goal for the year. How about that? Oh, our goal is one million. And I have really no doubt that we'll hit that. I think we've already we're already past what we made last year.
00:22:09
Speaker
So absolutely. We're halfway through the year. We're already halfway past our goal. So I propose that we hit a million and we hit a million. We'll take a two day vacation back to Las Vegas. And then we come back and finish out the year and do like one and a quarter for this year. That sounds fancy. I like that. That sounds good. You shortened yourself earlier, a few margaritas. So you, I think you have to celebrate. Yeah, there you go. It is important to celebrate though. It is. I think that's part of your incremental investment, but incremental celebration should be on the docket for folks.
Market Strategies & Community Engagement
00:22:43
Speaker
So I'm sure everybody's now wondering what is all the secret to your success. I mean, and now you're at seven markets, right? Obviously you live a couple of hours apart in two different parts of Texas. You're at seven markets. Where are those markets? How did you enter those markets? How did you decide where to go next? Any high level roadmap that you can give to anybody who's like, yeah, I would like to do that. Or, ah you know, try or come close or do even half of that.
00:23:08
Speaker
Right. I think the number one thing to remember, and we had to learn this the hard way at first. The number one thing to remember. Always. Always. Just yeah pause, right? like Hard way. It's okay to learn the hard way. Yeah. Value yourself going into it. set an expectation, but that is not always monetary. So every time we go into a market, we look at the community and, you know, is there a need? Are we welcome there? can you Is there a need to be fulfilled there? And I would say that as far as meat or vegetables or other farm supplies, most of the times that answer is going to be yes, there is a need by the community. And so
00:23:51
Speaker
We go into a market going, okay, is this a market that doesn't already have five other meat vendors there? Let's right let's go into a place that really does need us. It is absolutely rewarding to do $500 an hour. That's fantastic when you do that. But we've also spent some quality time at markets where we speak to five and six customers an hour. and plant the seeds and they show up later and they're buying a whole cow from us. Or they sign up for subscriptions from us. And had we not been in that community at that time, we wouldn't have been able to plant that seed. So I think that number one, going into the market and how you choose is that community receptive and in need. And then the second thing is,
00:24:40
Speaker
and And this is gonna be a common item throughout everything we talk about, and that is relationships. So everywhere we go, we have relationships, whether it's other vendors, whether it's friends, whether it's our own kids, we have a relationship that we value and we want them to value us too. ie And that is the only way that we could be at so many markets at the same time. We've got family and friends that are working for us. ah Some of them work for free. Some of them work if we'll just buy them lunch. There's others that we probably don't pay near enough for their time and they just work for us. And they believe in what we're doing. They believe in what we're selling. And so I think that's the important thing is the relationships. Julie has pushed us hard on markets. So I'll let her talk.
00:25:36
Speaker
Well, I was just going to say that, you know, like we've been around so much on markets and we've grown so much with them that now we have customers getting us into markets that we did not know about. Like just recently there was a customer and she knew of in her area that there was going to be a grand opening. market and it's so funny because the daughter that recommended actually goes to um a market at Michelle's. Her mom goes to my market down here and every now and then those two, when they see each other, they'll both come visit both of us and it weirds Michelle and I out a little bit, just be like, how, how are you over here? And you're right there. But so she actually recently referred us to another one and it turned out to be a huge, huge market.
00:26:25
Speaker
And we have one of our really good friends that has actually kind of grown up with us, right? Miss Alexandra has kind of grown up with Veterans Liberty Ranch. And now she has taken the initiative to take a trailer and we're paying her for her time now, but she loves it. It's addicting. It is really addicting another tap in into Barnadore when it's easy to run something like that. And you can actually. focus more in on talking to the people at the markets and actually seeing what's on there than having to focus on running somebody's card or at, you know, all of this stuff. It really does make a big difference. And so now people, you know, I do a market with 75 folks here every week at that. You guys might be familiar. I know Kevin's familiar with them because he works with her, but every Wednesday we're there and people wrote it's a drive through. We call it the fresh food farmers market chick-fil-a.
00:27:21
Speaker
Because they literally can buy all the farm food food products and they drive through and we load up their car. It's like, Oh yeah. love it So they pre-order and it's a pickup location, essentially. Yes. And it's so funny because I'll wear my veterans Liberty ranch shirt. She wears her 75 Oaks, but people roll through and they're like, are you going to door? I'm like, sort of. Like, because they see that on their power. they Oh, the receipts and the power by Barnes & D'Or. I'm like, no, it's Veterans Liberty Ranch. we're We're under the hood. It's all about their brand. It just proves more relationships though. Yeah. Because we have you, now they know us. And we were just commenting earlier today that we brought remember that when we were on onboarding
00:28:07
Speaker
that he was telling us, don't worry, in a few years, your name will show up on Google. It just has to be like searched so many times. We've had like six people this week message us, Michelle, that are like, we found you on Google. Are you serious? That's a whole next level. I love it. um I will congratulate my design team for inserting all the um s so yeah SEO best practices in the back end. but Yes, it's working. But it's true. It is. A lot of folks are like, why am I not on and Google page one day? Why? And it's like, because you have to lay the groundwork and then you have to patiently wait for, you know, keep pushing people online to search for you or to buy from you. And then over time you keep getting cataloged and links and people, when there's activity on your site and your store, then that's where it starts to grow. And look at that. That is awesome. Yeah, it's for sure.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah, one of the other things we do along that line is on our trailers, we just have our logo. And it says Veterans Liberty Ranch. There's no website. There's nothing else. And I've had several people ask like, well, gosh, you're kind of missing the boat by not putting the website on there. And I said, Oh, no, we maintain our website and our online presence to the degree that if you type in Veterans Liberty Ranch, We pop up on that first page. And if you're a business owner, that is a big deal. That's awesome. So not only do you type it in and we're on the first page, but we're at the top. and That's yeah amazing. It's nice to be able to do that. I feel like we're Madonna or Prince or something. like you don't need your adjut You don't even need the real name. You just need to Google Prince.
00:29:46
Speaker
yeah Also, she probably has a trailer, but for different reasons. Yes, that's fair. I just clearly dated myself by saying Prince, and but anyways, we're literally- I get that all the time. It's fine. I get it. We're known by our logo and by Veterans Liberty Ranch. We don't need to put the site. People can find us and that is an amazing feeling. yeah Well, and so let's talk a little bit about that, because branding, marketing, and I do love that you're connecting with other farmers using Bern Todorov. I'm all about that club. You know that. yeah yeah yeah But so let's talk about branding because it is important. I mean, it really is important for that brand recognition, the brand trust, the loyalty, the longevity.
00:30:32
Speaker
of it so that it's consistent and keeps showing up, especially across all the markets and everything else. So what are your top tips in terms of doing that to the best of your ability, especially as you're pushing to grow? Like what are what are you doing to promote yourselves? Julie, I'll let you talk about our Meet the Rancher events, but products, let me address that first. This is something that we're just getting into this year. So some of the things that we're doing, ah we have had, that was so bad. Lowball, whiskey glasses, etched with just our logo on it.
00:31:05
Speaker
One of the things that a lot of our customers say is, you guys look like so much fun. It would be great just to sit down and have a drink with you. So Julia will tell you a little bit more about our event that we do at the ranch, but our customers are going to get the opportunity to sit and have a drink with us. It's going to be apple juice, of course, but they'll get to take home a glass with our logo on it. So that's one thing. Love it. We've had customers that absolutely love our little t-shirts that Cassandra made for us. It has our logo in Veterans Liberty Ranch. It's got the American flag on the sleeve and customers love it. And they're saying, we would wear that. That's amazing. That's a great shirt. Do you sell that? So we are starting to add merchandise, yeah letting our customers go ahead and promote us. They love us. It all goes back to those relationships. Yeah. yeah
00:31:57
Speaker
And then we've got a small fleet of trailers where we have our freezers that we were using for markets. Those all have logos. We invest heavily in a canvas reusable shopping bag. And it also has our logo, Liberty Ranch, and it does have our website. And the best thing is every farmer's market to see customers bringing those bags back and shopping the entire market within our bags. That's back to the competitive like we won. Yeah, that's our bag. And then I think what's even better about it is when we took our own kids out trick or treating into our community. Yes.
00:32:39
Speaker
We're seeing kids trick-or-treating with our meat bags. That's game over. Isn't that when you drop a mic or? Yeah. Remember the lady sending us, we've had two or three people send us beach pictures where they carried their sand toys and they took a picture with the ocean behind them and veterans have already ran to that. Oh, I hope that's on your social media. Yeah, we put it. We did, I think, somewhere. It's a while back. It's like a sighting contest. We put our bags in the most unique places to win. That's right. good And then I think the probably the biggest thing we do for branding and building our relationship is, Julie, I think you should take this one. So wait at my place down here we started a thing called Meet the Rancher.
00:33:22
Speaker
And we played it. It's a pun on the spelling in the AT, the rancher. And we do this twice a year. We started off just really small and basically we opened the gates to the ranch and we say, come in, see the animals. We bring animals out. Like right now I have a bottle calf that we'll bring out and they can touch him and feel him and play with them. And then we have ducks that my son will carry out. And one year Michelle's daughter brought. about fireball and you could sit on a longhorn steer, little fun things like that. Well, it grew so much that now we have vendors asking to set up out here. And so now it's become like a mini farmer's market at the ranch, but yeah you can see where your food comes from. Yeah. And just trust. Yes. It definitely builds trust trust and transparency. Yeah. That's powerful. We were so worried the first time we had it, or mainly me, I was worried that nobody would show up.
00:34:20
Speaker
And there are so many people that show up, there's not enough places to park. yeah And we have lines at every booth. And we've had many people tell us, we've made more money at your place out here. And then we made a fair place to park. Did we actually be a farmer's market? No, but I mean, that's the whole other thing. Oh my goodness. I will say I think that we are known now for our Meet the Ranchers and we get people asking, well, when's the next one going to be? And when are you going to do one in North Texas? And we're known for them now, as far as branding and promoting us. It's another way on social media to create an event and
00:34:59
Speaker
pay for the ad. you know We've gone ahead and made a Facebook marketing ad fee on that and promote it. And literally we just ask our customers, share it, RSVP, and then so many people see it. I mean, it is scary sometimes to look at the RSVP because it might say like 800 people. It doesn't mean they're all going to come on that day. You went from like being scared. Nobody would show up to be scared because the number's too big. That sounds to me like a good problem to have. well And we do incentive things with it too. We do incentives kind of multiple times throughout the year. Like ah we love getting reviews because it just boosts your page and stuff. So we'll say, Hey, leave a review and you get a free pound of a ground beef.
00:35:44
Speaker
um the The thing with that happens is people will leave a review. They'll place an order for the ground beef where we can go back and see you find them, but they also ultimately end up buying other things. They're usually not going to make a trip way out without adding something on. So it works. yeah Absolutely. I think there's so much power in that too. And not being afraid to ask your customers to share, like customers sharing, especially in those local communities, because often those are customers who are going to those farmer markets and they know you. And so sharing for them is no big deal, but they have a whole network of followers and people and audience and friends and family. So there's a lot of power, a couple of shares, and that's a lot of eyeballs.
00:36:26
Speaker
I'm sorry. That's certainly a good deal. I know a new marketing tool. I used to tell them about our pageants. Oh my goodness. So one of the other things we do as far as branding, you know branding goes way beyond logo. And I'm gonna say it again, it's relationships. And yeah it's not just the relationship between two people that decided to partner together and ranch. It's a relationship with our customers, with other vendors, and really with our communities. Down in Liberty Hill, down in Julie's area, there is an annual 4th of July,
00:37:01
Speaker
party, your big community party. And so we're very patriotic in our company. And that is something that we are known for also, in addition to our logo. We are known for wearing. Our July 4 is your holiday. Yes, July 4th is July 4th every day. So we have flag pants and flag shirts and flag shoes and and the whole nine yards. We have everything. So last year for the 4th of July festival, Julie and I got up on stage in front of, I don't know,
00:37:35
Speaker
ah hello you A lot of people, and this was a last minute thing so we're just gonna say that's why we didn't win, but we got up on the stage with full size American flags we were dressed in flag paraphernalia head to toe, and we got up on the stage and really whooped it up. And the winner was chosen by the response of the audience. And we just missed it by hair. A very young, cute cheerleader from the local high school with all her friends and there in a tenon. Just not bitter, but you know. She actually beat us out last year, but we have plans. We've got big plans. I'm sure you have plans. So after we found out that we were
00:38:20
Speaker
second place or first loser we went ahead and we still had a good time we didn't get changed we stayed dressed like that because that's literally how we do the markets and we made sure that we went around to every first responder booth that was out there the fire department was out there the police were out there there's veterans walking around there's young kids walking around There's so many pictures floating around of us from this event where teenage kids took pictures of us and put it on their Snapchat or Instagram. Oh, I think I know where this is going. Yes. So, no, we did not win that day.
00:38:59
Speaker
Again, that was last year. This year will be different. But we did win because it was huge. We spent several hours talking to the community and they know those two crazy ladies. They're ranchers that are super patriotic and fun. And that's part of our brand. And so did many of those folks tag you then on the Instagram, like they knew you were Veterans Liberty Ranch, right? So yeah I'm hoping that that means they were all tagging you at at Veterans Liberty Ranch, right? Your Instagram handle and Facebook and everything else. And so people could see and follow and your brand kind of had a huge yeah huge viewing that day, which is a marketing win, all up, no question about it.
00:39:44
Speaker
That's right. I love it. Love it, love it, love it. Definitely one of our best days. I think we've gotten a long list of grassroots marketing and very good branding ideas, which we'll probably throw into a blog after this if I'm being honest with you. So let's talk one little bit, a few more topics.
Communication Tools & Customer Engagement
00:40:00
Speaker
One, I want like, so in terms of customers, you clearly need to grow a customer list. Branding is one thing, but an engagement, you know, relationships is one thing, but a lot of it today is digital. You need to maintain your customer list, grow and engage with them. Talk to us a little bit about how you track and keep your customers organized and communicated with.
00:40:25
Speaker
It's MailChimp. MailChimp is huge. I mean, I think the obvious is social media. Social media is huge. You've got to be on it multiple times at minimum once a day, if not twice. You have to be interactive. You can't just be constantly just pushing information. You have to ask for engagement. You have to ask your customers and your followers, what do you want? What do you think instead of just pushing your products? Throw out ideas. Hey, we're having dinner tonight and this is what we're having. Or, you know, I was at a barbecue. Check out this brisket. and Just fun things. We're not always just pushing a product. But you need to collect emails, right?
00:41:10
Speaker
Yes, we do collect emails. We have them sign up for the newsletter and then we utilize MailChimp in order to communicate with our customers at least once a week because the bottom line is if you're not talking to your customers, somebody else is. So we're constantly engaging. Yes. Well, and I have to shout out out there that Bernadore has an integration with MailChimp, which is actually, people don't realize this. We're actually MailChimp's number one partner in the country. Wow. We are on MailChimp's customer advisory board and they're number one partner. Yeah. Isn't that funny?
00:41:43
Speaker
And um it's great, right? So we get to give them feedback on behalf of our farmers as well, which is great news, but because we have a direct integration so that farmers like yourself can put items for sale directly into that newsletter, have it branded for you, and then have whatever people are buying from you in your store automatically populated, not only in your barn to door, customer list, but also into your Mealship because if anybody out here doesn't know who Mealship is, they are a best in class email provider. So if you're a small business, medium sized business, or in the case of these lovely ladies growing to be a large one, you need to be able to communicate through email regularly through your branded email.
00:42:24
Speaker
to your customers. And so we essentially help ah power that experience and load up the email list, but MailChimp has the bells and whistles in terms of organizing that list into specific types of drip campaigns and email campaigns and welcome emails. And our team here at Barnes-Tador actually helps farmers set up that account with MailChimp, gives them templates to get started. Have you two been to the MailChimp Academy class or the email marketing class at Barnes-Tador or the Academy? Yeah. Like you have to email, you want to grow your list. We obviously want to help automate it, but lean into your brand and emailing those customers. Right. Yes. And I would say that probably Michelle would agree too, that when we started, Barnetador, that was probably the scariest, like we weren't sure if it would work. Like we just did not know what MailChimp was. And I would say to anybody out there that's feeling scared or worried about it, stick with it.
00:43:18
Speaker
Well, hold your hand. of it Yes, you'll hold our hand. And then I remember the second thing was we were afraid that we were going to email too much and we were doing it like once a week. And I can remember Kevin saying he was the one that led us through a MailChimp. Yeah, we got to praise him every time we talk about Barnes. I remember him telling us nobody that does not want to see your newsletter is not subscribed to you. They want to hear from you. yeah And so that was a game changer, I think, in our mind. They're subscribed to us because they want to see a newsletter. They didn't subscribe just for nothing. So that's another thing that Michelle and I work on, too, actually, to brand ourselves and promote is heavily in MailChimp. We will post, hey, become part of our newsletter. And they get certain incentives that not everybody sees.
00:44:13
Speaker
So we'll put stickers. I love it that you do that. It's very smart to attract people to sign up for your newsletter. You create FOMO for, Hey, only our newsletter subscribers get XYZ, right? And you were like, no, give me your email. Give us email because you know there's so much power in that. There is. And then the toolkits that you guys have sent. I just recently used one, one of the images that makes it so easy to come up with an idea. Even if you don't use the image, it's like, Oh, that is a really good idea. We used one of yours. It was like a farmer's box this month and we decided to call it our beef summer box, but we use your image and we've sold several of them, like love it in the first 30 minutes. So yeah it's definitely working for folks listening. Tell them what a marketing toolkit is.
00:45:05
Speaker
yeah So you get it once a month and it's a toolkit that I think Michelle and I didn't really use until recently. It was one of those things that were like we didn't really look into it that deep and but I'm glad we did. It comes with images that you can use for that particular month like this one was June so it was a lot of summer grilling ideas. There's stuff in there for honeybees, there's stuff in there for vegetables, milk, ah anything that you can think of farm related is in there. And then there's ideas for you to throw out tips to promote. I believe there's even recipes in there that you can take. and blood month Yeah. Yeah. And I think to your point, you're right. Like for folks listening, there's a monthly marketing toolkit that farmers can subscribe to because we want to be and very helpful to farmers who might not have a graphic designer on staff. Right. right
00:45:59
Speaker
So we provide 40 to 50 social media graphic designs to your point that may say, Hey, summer bundle, summer barn box, CSA, you know, half whole hog, what may be. And so there's all these different designs that farmers can just use in their feed and their social media feeds. And then I think there's four to six MailChimp newsletter templates that are also seasonal. Hopefully you saw the patriotic ones coming out or maybe you haven't yet. You haven't seen July's yet. We saw Memorial Day. Yes. my I do the MailChimp and I did use one of the templates. And it was fantastic. So easy. There's no excuse to not use it. Yeah. That's what we hope. Cause we assume that you have no extra time cause you're busy, hopefully building all your customer relationships.
Scaling Advice for Farmers
00:46:41
Speaker
So if you don't have to worry about a design template, right? for right Or things like that. And you can just get that taken care of. That's just music to our ears. Cause again, you know, you building your brand relationships are frankly top at top of the list.
00:46:56
Speaker
Right. Yeah. That's awesome. So many good ideas. I just love it. Love it. Thank you also for using burnt it or we're so excited to be alongside you. You have to help the folks here know what are things that you've done as you scale to save you the most time. Like when you first got started. Did you really think ah three years ago when you officially got your paperwork, we're going to have a million dollars in sales in three years? But we find that there's a lot of farmers that really do want to grow. Like they seriously want to grow. And you know, we want that too. We want independent farmers all across the country to have just mad success in their communities and building up those relationships and sales, of course, directly, right? Because we want all of you to keep all that as much maximizing your margin, right? But all of those relationships going to you,
00:47:43
Speaker
but you can't necessarily scale if you're sticking to notepads and taking orders one at a time, right? I mean, that's the reality of it. And so what advice would you give? We always say in our business, like people don't scale. That's like not a negative thing. That's like, there's only so many hours in a day. So if you're taking orders by phone, you can't humanly take more than X number of orders and still do all the other parts of farming. So what is your advice for a lot of other really hungry farmers out there who are like I'm going to take this to the next level.
00:48:17
Speaker
I think my number one piece of advice is your only and limiting factor is you. And you have to let that go. You have to invest in the technology and the expertise. um And anybody who ever asks me, well, what is Barn to Door? I mean, the sticker is on my iPad, the sticker is on my cash box. So I have customers ask me, what is Barn to Door? And I tell them, they are my business coach and they keep us moving forward. And we mean that in every sense of the word. You are the business coach for us. Sometimes Kevin reminds us, why are you wasting your time, you know, trying to formulate an email? Why don't you automate that? Why don't you pre-plan your social posts? yeah And then sure, you can have some along the way that prop up, but plan that out so that you're not constantly
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah. Tied up with this. Free yourself up to talk to your customers. He is always a breath of fresh air and we always feel like we've been to a good old Southern Baptist revival when we get off the phone with him because he helps us to maintain focus. So. Yeah. So just for everybody listening, Kevin, who is now going to be the mysterious Kevin. did Nobody knows they have him. ah He's one of our farm account managers at Barn to Doors. So Julia Michelle. Have an account manager here. bartiddo It essentially is one-on-one coaching as needed, right? and We have more than one Kevin. They have different names, but they're all account managers and they meet with farms as needed. When farms need it, they all also are known to call down farmers who they haven't talked to in a while, especially if we have new things coming out that they know would be helpful.
00:49:59
Speaker
And we are very appreciative of them because they are eager to share all the resources that we have, right? I mean, the fact that you actually have already gone to the academy and are trying marketing toolkit, you know, like it's time to try new things. It's sort of like you were saying early on, Michelle, which is like, just keep slowly investing. You don't have to do it all overnight, but start with the first POS device, get the trailer, get the iPad, sign up for the next farmer market. keep slowly. It's not overnight. It's okay. right And sometimes you think you're not making money that day, but you are putting time and you're investing. So, and it's the same if you have business opportunities. In our case, we keep putting out new things. I think POS, we've had POS for a year and a half now, right? But it was new a year and a half ago. And we have more and more, I know you we're going to help you with email capture too. You know, that's funny.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yes. Email capture right on your POS device is coming very soon. I can't wait. I think I might have to call you up personally because I'll be so excited. We're very excited about that. And I know, you know, emails just matter. We just need your customers to be accessible to you. So we're really excited about that. And I'm so amazed with all that you're doing. Taking over Texas, any last advice? I kind of can't get over this wonderful story and we're all cheering for you and anything that we can do to help. I know Michelle got us started in reading a book recently and there's one like paragraph it's just talking about leadership and there's one thing that keeps sticking out to me and it actually comes to me several times a day but it's like don't put something off.
00:51:31
Speaker
If you put it off, you won't get to it. It could be something so simple, but you won't have the same motivation that you did in that five minutes that you had. Interesting. If you're thinking about doing it, then do it then. If you are thinking about joining Parn to door, do it now. Like oh you're so kind if you're going to make a Facebook post, do it now. Do you want to help connect? Yes. Like all those little things they add up. They do. They do. They do. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. A million good marketing ideas, inspiring people to go from hobby to frankly, million dollar farm. Can we say that out loud? and Well, probably need to toast some mango margo margaritas over that one. yeah
00:52:15
Speaker
But seriously, thank you. i to you and barley do i I was actually, when you said take two days off, I was hoping you were going to say Nashville. Wow. That's so fun. but the ands It's a great inspiration. I'm so delighted that you joined today so that people can hear and know that it's achievable and doable, but you have to listen to people like you on how to do that because years ago you wouldn't have believed it and you were nervous about the next investment and the next one and look where you are today. so Thank you for the inspiration. So, so much. So appreciative. Keep up the good work. We're going to just keep cheering for you and doing everything we can over here, but mostly it's just our honor and privilege to support you. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And can't wait for many more podcasts and to check in again.
00:53:00
Speaker
I want to extend my thanks to Michelle and Julie for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more of Michelle and Julie and their farm on Instagram, please do, by the way, and repost and share at Veterans Liberty Ranch, at Veterans Liberty Ranch. It will pop up, right? We know this. Yes, it will. okay Here at Barn to Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales and save time for their business. 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 your business management to scale up and save a ton of time, please visit barn to door.com backslash learn more. And thank you for tuning in. And we look forward to joining you next time on the independent farmer podcast.
00:53:55
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. For free farm resources or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barntodoor dot.com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.