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Employee Spotlight: Tying mission together with the team featuring Lauren & Mackenzie
163 Plays5 years ago
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're delighted to host two of Barn2Door's very own team members, Lauren and Mackenzie. Listen as they discuss how they came to join the team and have helped Barn2Door grow.
Show Notes:
https://barn2door.com/careers
https://www.barn2door.com/blog/2021/3/31/employee-spotlight-mackenzie-sales-manager?rq=employee%20spotlight
https://www.barn2door.com/blog/employee-spotlight-lauren-sales-manager?rq=employee%20spotlight
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Transcript
Introduction to Direct Farm Podcast
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.
Meet the Sales Managers: Lauren and McKinsey
00:00:25
Speaker
Hi, welcome back to the Direct Farm podcast. I'm Cade from the marketing team at Barn2Door, and earlier this week, I had a couple of great conversations with two of Barn2Door's sales managers, Lauren and McKinsey. They've both been at the company for around two plus years now, so their insights into the business's growth and mission to help farmers succeed were great to hear. Here are those interviews now.
Lauren's Motivation and Role at Barn2Door
00:00:48
Speaker
My name is Lauren. I'm one of the sales managers here at Barn2Door, and I've been here for just about two years.
00:00:55
Speaker
Awesome. Two years. Yeah, that's a long time. So what originally two years ago brought you to the company? I was on NT just looking around. I just finished school, really just trying to figure out what I could do, what would stick. Ran across Barn to Door and didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I loved the mission, knew I wanted to do something that helped the planet. So I applied and here we are.
00:01:20
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I know even across the wide range of skills of people across the company, everyone just is really kind of brought back together by that mission. That's great. And so then since then, you started at the company. I know it's grown a lot since then. And so now today, what do you do on a day-to-day basis for Barnadore?
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, so as one of the sales managers, I have a team of six people. My job is really to help them be successful. It's one of my favorite parts of my job, really helping them learn how to communicate with farmers to help them on their path to finding online ordering or getting online. So part of that also includes helping grow the sales organization itself, right? There were four of us.
00:02:02
Speaker
When I started, I'm pretty sure, now there's 20 of us, and so really just putting proper processes in place, learning how to train, training people, that's my average day today. Yeah, that's awesome. A lot of growth in the sales department, I know. From 4 to 20, that's pretty massive. Bringing it back to the mission, you're all really working every single day on a daily basis, talking to farmers, directly helping them make improvements in their business, right?
00:02:28
Speaker
What's amazing about working with farmers in general, I mean, technically we're business to business, right? But for a farmer, it's not just their business, it's their whole lives. It has an impact on their family, it has an impact on their community. Being compassionate in those conversations is a big part of what we do. So the more that I can help my team understand that and have those conversations with a farmer in a way that really engages them and really truly helps them, that's what we're here for.
00:02:55
Speaker
It's a very human interaction, for sure. Farmers' farms are very personal to them, of course. That's awesome.
Growth and Mission at Barn2Door
00:03:03
Speaker
And so tying in with that, you know, why do you like working at Barnador and coming into work every day?
00:03:07
Speaker
Being a part of something that's so much bigger than myself makes it very easy to get out of bed every day. One of our core values is humble. It's not about us. It's not about me, and it makes it much easier to do my job. But being able to watch my team grow, being able to help them through challenges and watch them be successful, that's really fun. But also just getting to work with farmers who are such wonderful, genuine, humble people makes every day so fun.
00:03:32
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. And speaking of those core values, you mentioned Humble, which is one of the six core values we have at the company. How would you describe the company's overall culture?
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, the core values sum it up really well. Humor is one of my favorite ones on there. We definitely have a lot of fun, but it's because we work so hard that we get to have fun. And so I think those two things go hand in hand, but just the amount of passion that everybody has is palpable in every single meeting and every phone call. So the more of that that comes across, like just the better every day. So yeah, passionate people for sure.
00:04:06
Speaker
Totally, yeah. I always try to describe the magic of working on a team where everyone's so driven by the same mission. And I think it's definitely a very special thing to be a part of. And along with that, too, what would you say makes Barnadore a unique company?
00:04:20
Speaker
The opportunity is so big, which is wild. Every company has a mission, every company has passion, but farmers are so underserved. And so to be able to be as an individual, there's plenty of room for growth, right? I came in without sales experience and now I'm managing part of managing a team of 20 people and that's gonna continue to grow. But also just to be a part of a company that has so much opportunity and has so much potential. Sometimes it's a little scary, but it's also just really fun.
00:04:51
Speaker
Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself. I think it's really about that whole being comfortable, being uncomfortable thing. There's going to be big growth, big changes. But if you can get behind that, roll with it, then you're definitely going to be in a good spot. So we talked a bit about over the past two years, since you initially started the company, all the changes that you've faced personally with moving up from starting in sales for the first time to becoming a manager of a whole team. How else has the company evolved in those past two years?
Company Changes and Sustainable Practices
00:05:21
Speaker
Well when I started we were in a garage in the back of a bakery so and now we have a proper beautiful office so that's been a big change but with that change I mean we have a big office because we have a lot of people here now. The processes and
00:05:36
Speaker
hard work that goes into making all the different moving parts happen is just a lot different than it used to be and so there's stuff that I'm not involved in that I used to be involved in there's stuff that I'm involved in that I never imagined being involved in so there's as we continue to grow there will be more of those changes but just the structure of the company has changed quite a bit.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Becoming a little more structured, a little less scrappy, but still maintaining that passion all the way through, for sure. And then finally, what's one thing that someone who might be listening to this podcast episode or watching this video is a job applicant, not realize about the company just from looking at our Indeed page?
00:06:17
Speaker
how important it is to work with farmers and how much of an impact we get to have on so many different things. So when we help a farmer, we're helping the earth because we only work with farms with sustainable practices. We're helping feed local communities, which is pretty amazing. We're also helping that farm be successful and grow their business. And that's a pretty big deal because that impacts their family and their community by extension. Yeah, totally.
00:06:45
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thanks, Lauren. It was great having you on the podcast today. Thanks,
Mackenzie's Role and the Company's Evolution
00:06:49
Speaker
Cade. Hi, I'm Mackenzie. I am a sales manager here at Brand to Door, and I've been here for about two and a half years.
00:06:57
Speaker
Awesome, yeah, two and a half years is pretty long at Barn to Door. A lot has grown since then, which is awesome. How many people do you think were at the company two and a half years ago when you started? Two and a half years ago, there were 10 people at the company when I joined. And I think we've grown to over 80 people now, which is crazy to think about. That's some pretty massive growth. And so originally, you know, rewinding that two and a half years ago when you're looking for a job and found Barn to Door, what brought you to the company?
00:07:26
Speaker
What brought me to branch door was really the mission. I studied sustainable agriculture in college. So that was really important to me. I love working with farmers and definitely have a huge passion for that. But I think what's really kept me going too is just the fast paced environment that we have at the company because it is a startup. So that really keeps it lively and fun.
00:07:49
Speaker
Moving ahead to today, two and a half years later, you know, the company's grown a ton. Your role has changed quite a bit. What are you doing on a day-to-day basis? On a day-to-day basis, I am managing a team of about six salespeople, and we are literally talking to farms just all day, every day. Talking to them on the phone, doing video messages with them, things like that, and really helping them understand how to get online and how we're going to help them be successful to do that.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a pretty big deal, right? Because farms for a long time have run their business offline, but being a part of that movement online and becoming into the 21st century, selling online and being online, that's a pretty big step for a lot of farms to be taking. Yeah, it's huge. It's huge for them. Awesome. Yeah, and speaking of which, dealing so much with farms every single day, that ties in very closely with Barnador's mission of creating a more sustainable food system in America, helping local farmers. So what does that mission mean to you?
00:08:49
Speaker
The barn to door mission for me is not only really important for farmers because of course we want them to be successful and have a sustainable business, but it's also really important to local communities across the country to have access to a food system and have the opportunity to buy from their local farms. So I think that's a really special part of what barn to door helps with.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Making a really tangible impact across the country, which is awesome. And I think that also ties into, you know, how Barnadore is a pretty unique company. You know, what are some of the things that you think make Barnadore different than just any other company someone might be finding on Indeed or Glassdoor?
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the things that makes Barton Tador so unique is that every single day we get to hear success stories of really what's working for farms and how we're assisting them in that process. So you can go through, sign up a farm, and then you'll see their website come to fruition and then all the quotes that they're mentioning about our team and how we've really helped them increase their sales or just save time. And so that tangible success is really exciting.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, and there's always a lot of transparency throughout that whole process to seeing farms from the start, just signing up, getting their first order all the way through to even maybe becoming a part of our farm advisory network, which is always very cool to see.
Barn2Door's Work Culture and Camaraderie
00:10:11
Speaker
But yeah, it's great to see that whole cross-company journey for farms. And along with that, you know, talking to farmers every single day, it's a lot of hard work. How would you describe the company's culture?
00:10:22
Speaker
I would describe our culture as fairly balanced in the sense that everyone is here to get their work done and really make sure that we can help farms get online and do it in an efficient way. But we also like to have fun and we like to connect with one another through
00:10:42
Speaker
you know, whether that's trivia throughout the day or company events, things like that. So everyone is really friendly and wants to get to know each other, and I think that that's pretty unique.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. There's just a very good sense of camaraderie across the company, even as we've grown from the 10 people to 80. I think that's still held pretty strong. And along with that, speaking of the massive growth over that time in the company culture, how would you say the company has evolved in the past two and a half years, going from 10 people to 80 plus?
00:11:13
Speaker
The company has evolved so much. When I started, we were tracking everything from calls in a day to farms that we had signed up via Excel spreadsheets and marking things on a whiteboard. And now we've really gotten cinched in in terms of processes and what works and developing those to keep us really organized and focused.
00:11:37
Speaker
And then of course, you know, we used to do other things like Facebook lives and now we've moved into podcasts and the direct conference. So it's really exciting just to see the upward mobility. We're able to reach so many more farmers now and do so much bigger things than we ever were before with our spreadsheets and everything. Super awesome. And finally, you know, what's one thing that someone who's looking at our Indeed page right now or on our website right now might not realize about the company looking in on it?
00:12:04
Speaker
I think that when someone is looking for jobs on, you know, indeed, something that you probably wouldn't be able to see about Barnstor is actually, you said it earlier, Cade, but is that camaraderie that we all have, working towards the same mission and everyone being really driven in that sense. Farmers are just some of the greatest people out there and it's such an awesome feeling to be able to help them every single day and, you know, have a very like-minded approach with all of your colleagues.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, wonderfully played. That is really the magic of coming into work every day. Awesome. Thank you, Mackenzie. It was great getting to chat with you. Thanks, Cade.
Conclusion and Future Teasers
00:12:42
Speaker
This episode was the first in a series of employee spotlights we're going to be sharing to give you an inside picture of Barnadore. So stay tuned for more. As always, thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.