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Ep. 66: How to Shift Your Mindset and Build a Profitable Flower Farm with Charlotte Smith
1.6k Plays6 days ago
If you’ve ever struggled with burnout, self-doubt, or pricing your flowers with confidence, this episode is for you. In Episode 66 of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, Jennifer sits down with Charlotte Smith — a farmer, coach, and host of The Profitable Mindset Podcast — to talk about the mindset shifts that can make or break your flower farming business.
Charlotte shares how her own farming journey led her to coaching, why your thoughts shape your results, and how to overcome limiting beliefs like “people won’t pay that price” or “my field’s not good enough.” You’ll learn why perfectionism holds so many farmers back, how to stop looping in overwhelm, and simple questions that can help you get unstuck and grow with purpose.
You’ll also hear about Charlotte’s free upcoming Master Class — 5 Mistakes Farmers Make That Keep Them Broke — happening August 18–19. Don’t miss your chance to learn from one of the most respected voices in the industry.
🌸 In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How mindset directly affects your profitability
- Common limiting beliefs that hold flower farmers back
- Why building a local customer base starts offline
- Charlotte’s “belief triad” and how it can change your business
- What to do when perfectionism and self-doubt show up
Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been farming for years, this is a conversation that will leave you feeling grounded, inspired, and ready to take the next step.
🎧 Listen now and grab the link to Charlotte’s free Master Class in the show notes!
Show Note: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2025/08/06/ep-66-charlotte-smith-mindset-for-flower-farmers/
Follow Charlotte Smith On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlotte.m.smith/
Listen To The Profitable Mindset Podcast: https://charlottemsmith.com/podcast/
Join Charlotte August 18th & 19th: FREE Master Class: 5 costly mistakes that are keeping your farm broke
Sign Up HERE: https://courses.3cowmarketing.com/five-mistakes
Join Farm Marketing Mastery - break out of marketing misery: https://charlottemsmith.com/mastery
Sign up for The Backyard Bouquet Newsletter: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.myflodesk.com/backyardbouquetpodcast
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction of Charlotte Smith
00:00:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Welcome back to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Gulizia and I'm so glad you're here during this full and often very busy time of the year.
00:01:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Today, I'm joined by Charlotte Smith, a farmer, business coach, and the host of the Profitable Mindset podcast. Charlotte has helped thousands of farmers build sustainable businesses by combining mindset work with marketing strategies that actually feel good.
00:01:26
Jennifer Gulizia
I recently started listening to her podcast and I knew right away that I wanted to bring her voice to this community.
Mindset Shifts for Farm Success
00:01:33
Jennifer Gulizia
In today's episode, we're going to talk about the mindset shifts that can make or break your farm business, how to grow a loyal local market and what it takes to run a business that supports your life, not just drains it.
00:01:47
Jennifer Gulizia
Charlotte also shares details about her free upcoming masterclass, five mistakes farmers make that keep them broke. happening August 18th and 19th. And if you're feeling stuck or stretched thin this year, this is something you won't want to miss.
00:02:03
Jennifer Gulizia
The link for this is in the show notes today. And if you're enjoying this podcast, I'd be so grateful if you'd take a moment to leave a review or share this episode with a fellow flower friend.
00:02:15
Jennifer Gulizia
It truly helps this show reach more growers like you.
Charlotte's Farming Journey
00:02:18
Jennifer Gulizia
All right, Charlotte, welcome to the podcast. It's so great to have you here today.
00:02:23
Charlotte Smith
Oh, Jennifer, thank you so much for having me.
00:02:26
Jennifer Gulizia
It's such an honor. It's been so fun listening to your podcast while I've been out planting our new field and you've given me so much inspiration. And then when you started talking about your daughter being a flower farmer and you've worked with other flower farmers, I was like, okay, Charlotte's got to come on the podcast.
00:02:43
Charlotte Smith
Oh my gosh. Yes. I'm glad our paths crossed and that you're so close. Usually i meet farmers across the United States and you're just An hour and a half up the road. It's great.
00:02:53
Jennifer Gulizia
I know maybe one day I'll get to meet you in person.
00:02:56
Charlotte Smith
Definitely.
00:02:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay, so for those of you who are listening, or for those that are listening to the podcast today that aren't familiar with you, Charlotte, can you give us a little bit of a background on your journey into farming and what led you to coaching?
00:03:10
Charlotte Smith
oh goodness. Yes. Okay. I'll try to make it short. yeah
00:03:14
Jennifer Gulizia
Loaded question.
00:03:15
Charlotte Smith
Right. So I grew up right next door on my family's fifth gener. generation farm and we raised commodity products. And what happened was in the eighties, my dad's farm went bankrupt and we lost everything. And that was common back then. And what was interesting is when we lost everything, we didn't raise food. We were a commodity farm. And so we had food scarcity here. We're living on this farm.
00:03:42
Charlotte Smith
And we couldn't even enjoy food that we had raised. We were short on money and short on food. And so when I went away to college, I swore farming was just a ridiculous way to make a living. And then when my kids were in grade school in the suburbs of Portland, I really wanted them to have this lifestyle.
00:04:06
Charlotte Smith
So we moved back out here. I found property and we, purchased it. And i didn't want, I didn't purchase it with the intent of farming. I just wanted the lifestyle and live near my parents, their grandparents. and what happened is we started discovering the health benefits of farm fresh food.
00:04:28
Charlotte Smith
So we started raising our own raw milk and pork and chicken and beef. And then everyone, of course, once you start a farm, they're like, Oh, can I buy some from you some Some of your products. So I had a farm store here. It's here on the property.
00:04:45
Charlotte Smith
And I did that. And then farmers started asking, how was I able to sell all my products? I rented 75 acres next door, plus my own farm. So we had lots of space for all these animals. And how was I able to sell everything at often twice what they could charge?
00:05:05
Charlotte Smith
And we were selling out. So I started teaching farmers marketing here at my house. And this is back in 2012, 2013. And when I got to 50 farmers here at my house, I was like, oh, we, I got to do something different. And I put all my training online and I started marketing or teaching marketing online.
00:05:28
Charlotte Smith
And that again was 12 years ago. So a few years ago, I, my daughter's sixth generation, she's now farming. She's doing a flower farm. That's her passion.
00:05:40
Charlotte Smith
And i closed down my meat store because this work I do is full-time. I work full-time. I have a few employees that work for me with coaching and and helping teaching farmers how to make money selling their products, whatever it might be.
00:05:56
Charlotte Smith
And then your last part of your question, why I have mindset coaching, I was teaching marketing all the skills. And I noticed that Everyone learned it and some of them implemented it and others would be like, oh, I'm scared or I i't i don't know where to start or what if I don't do it right?
00:06:19
Charlotte Smith
And I realized I started hearing about mindset and I realized the only difference was how they were thinking about it. The ones who were having
Impact of Mindset on Productivity
00:06:27
Charlotte Smith
success were just telling themselves a different story. Like, I'm going to figure this out.
00:06:32
Charlotte Smith
Oh, this, I can't wait to help people learning. I can't wait to learn this new thing that's going to help me serve more people. They just had a positive mindset about it instead of negative. So I went and I got certified in mindset coaching. And now I coach in my marketing program that you can't buy just the marketing class. You have to, the coaching is built into it because that is the difference that makes farmers successful.
00:07:02
Charlotte Smith
And so now the farmers who work with me see an increase in sales on average of 200% in their year that my program is 200%, they pay off the investment in the program within usually by on average the first 90 days.
00:07:17
Charlotte Smith
And then they just keep making more and more money, more and more profit. And this is every kind of farmer, but I work with tons of flower farmers because that's my passion. not I've always had,
00:07:31
Charlotte Smith
a huge, you know, probably one acre garden, never sold a stem because I was working on selling food products. But I am so delighted that my daughter is turning it into a flower farm because imagine, you know, being, I used to be surrounded by smelly pigs and now it's our gorgeous dahlias and sweet peas and all the things that are blooming right now.
00:07:52
Charlotte Smith
So that's kind of the long journey around how I ended up where i am now.
00:07:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you for sharing all of that. i I'm a huge believer in mindset. It's been instrumental in my own journey. And that was why I wanted you to come on and share about all of this.
00:08:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you feel like looking back on your career as a farmer, did you always have this mindset, positive mindset mentality as you were farming? Or is it something that you had to learn and develop as a skill?
00:08:22
Charlotte Smith
So that's a really great question. Our minds are, and and also I love what you said. You're a believer in this. We also, because I was a believer before i became aware, we have science that shows us our thoughts create the results in our lives. so So now it's not only do I believe it or not? It's like, oh my goodness, there's so much research evidence, not to mention my own anecdotal evidence.
00:08:53
Charlotte Smith
So to answer your question, our brains are always, they're wired, biologically wired to go to the negative for survival. We always are going to see what's wrong with something. So therefore, mindset, shifting your mindset is not a once and done thing.
00:09:09
Charlotte Smith
It is constant, you have to be intentional about If I'm feeling a negative feeling, but I'm thinking a negative thought, and that's not going to be useful in building my business. So yes, when I found it early on, have the normal unmanaged negative mindset, which is why I'm always reading and and researching and listening. And that was when I discovered that, oh, you can actually decide to think useful thoughts.
00:09:43
Charlotte Smith
And then you will improve your sales. You will make more money and your relationships will get bigger. So yes, I am not naturally, I'm just like everyone else, wired to go negative and critical and see what's not working and think about that.
00:09:58
Charlotte Smith
And so I have spent years intentionally shifting my mindset. I actually head out tomorrow to Nashville, Tennessee to to spend two days in person with my mindset coach because I don't
00:10:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, awesome.
00:10:11
Charlotte Smith
Yep, I go in person every six months and and and get an update and then weekly meetings. So it's it's ongoing for me and everybody just because that's how we're wired.
Business Mindset and Marketing Strategies
00:10:24
Jennifer Gulizia
So when you were starting your farming journey, did you, how did you develop that mindset for yourself? What, what did you have to do in your own business to become a successful farmer? Because you had already experienced heartache from your family when your family farm declared bankruptcy. So I imagine that you already had, i kind of these limiting beliefs in your mind saying, this is going to be hard. This is something that can lead to failure. How did you get that out of your mind to become a successful farmer?
00:10:53
Charlotte Smith
Sure. Well, I studied communications in college. I had a corporate job. I was ah ah in real estate at that time, and we learned a lot of marketing and real estate.
00:11:05
Charlotte Smith
So I actually did not even, my decision was my dad had a commodity farm. So someone else told him what they were going to pay.
00:11:14
Charlotte Smith
So when I started my farm, my mindset that got me through very useful, and and I didn't even choose it intentionally, but the mindset was I am going to charge a fair price based the expenses and my time.
00:11:30
Charlotte Smith
And if someone doesn't want to buy my product at that price, that's okay. But this is what I have to charge to be able to serve them. So I actually never, luckily, i think I stumbled on not, I did not have the doubt that I would make money. I just knew that, okay, here's how you market a business. This is what you do.
00:11:49
Charlotte Smith
And I have to price it to obviously cover my costs and pay me a livable wage. I was the sole income provider in my family. I have three kids at home. So i was pretty lucky for the business mindset part of it that I just knew that my farm was going to look very different from my dad's and it was going, and if I wanted to keep the farm, the farm had to pay the bills and then some, it had to pay the mortgage. It had to pay the groceries or why would you keep a farm?
00:12:21
Charlotte Smith
So I kind of stumbled onto that part of the positive mindset. I would say where I struggled with the, and and also to to finish up that conversation. So I was going to sell direct to consumer.
00:12:37
Charlotte Smith
And I know you said you were you've been selling wholesale.
00:12:37
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:12:39
Charlotte Smith
Now you're going to sell direct to consumer. I was determined to sell direct to consumers so that nobody was trying to undercut me through her because of a contract or you know whatever the commodity market was doing that week, for instance. so And that's my work today as I work with farmers selling direct to consumer.
00:12:59
Charlotte Smith
But how the the mindset challenges I had early on, knew I was going to be profitable, set myself up to be profitable otherwise why i work this hard But I would say the the challenges were negative thinking around people and relationships and like this shouldn't, things would get hard and I would just say this shouldn't be so hard.
00:13:23
Charlotte Smith
And even that thought is poison and makes things harder. Or an employee, I felt an employee would not perform. And I would just be frustrated. Well, that's not useful.
00:13:36
Charlotte Smith
And so I, when I discovered mindset work, it just helped every relationship that I had on the farm, my family, my parents, my employees, the vendors, oh, my customers, you know it's really easy when you sell on your farm, it can be tempting to resent all these people coming and knocking on your door and driving fancy cars or whatever it might be.
00:14:01
Charlotte Smith
And so it cleared up all of that. So it has been life changing and mindset work has been the thing that has made running my business, not just profitable, but wonderful.
00:14:14
Charlotte Smith
You know, every relationship was,
Practical Mindset Strategies for Farmers
00:14:16
Charlotte Smith
is wonderful. So I, I hear from farmers who say, well, we're finally making money, but it's not worth it because I'm, and what they don't realize is because their mindset is so negative all the time.
00:14:28
Jennifer Gulizia
You briefly hinted at an example, but could you go a little bit deeper on example of one of those my limiting beliefs that you're talking about here? so like, and coming from like a flower farm perspective, what is something that a farmer might think that is that they won't are maybe not even consciously realizing that they're limiting themselves on?
00:14:39
Charlotte Smith
There's
00:14:50
Charlotte Smith
yes, they're usually not. They usually don't realize at all because the mindsets that keep you stuck are very simple and you think they are facts and it's as simple as this is so hard.
00:15:05
Charlotte Smith
I don't know where to start. Nobody's buying my stuff. Email marketing doesn't work. Social media marketing doesn't work. Those are simple things that farmers will think, well, yeah, that's a fact. It's not a fact.
00:15:20
Charlotte Smith
It's a thought that's keeping you feeling terrible about doing the thing to move you ahead. So you don't. Or another thought would be people don't value the work I have to put into this.
00:15:37
Charlotte Smith
People don't value that I had to get up at 5 a.m. and pick their put their arrangements together or people are so demanding. Like all of these thoughts, the things that you think about going through your day that you think are matter of fact are not. And they're the things keeping you stuck.
00:15:57
Charlotte Smith
So that's the tricky. That can be the tricky part about mindset work is you've created. We often as humans, we've created this pattern. of thinking that, that we just default to.
00:16:11
Charlotte Smith
And it it truly is that simple. Like, oh, it'll never work. Oh, blogs don't work in today's world. Oh, i I need some, you know, just, I could go on and on, but just be aware that it's the very simple things. It's not complicated thoughts.
00:16:27
Charlotte Smith
It's the things you're telling yourself in the moment. Like, I don't want to write this marketing email because no one reads email anymore. Number one, it's not true. But number two, you just trained yourself to think that. And number three, when you think nobody reads email, the last thing you feel is motivated to write an email.
00:16:46
Jennifer Gulizia
Totally. I love what you're saying here. and For myself, I spent a lot of time alone because I don't have employees at the time at my farm. So I'm out harvesting. And so I'm usually either listening to a podcast or an audio book.
00:17:00
Jennifer Gulizia
And one of the books I read was Don't Believe Everything You Think. And it really helped me realize what a scarcity mindset I had without even realizing it. Like, why am I even thinking this? It's not true.
00:17:11
Jennifer Gulizia
I can't remember where I heard it, but I heard that the universe really only hears love or fear. Like you either hear positive or negative thoughts and what you tell yourself becomes that reality.
00:17:22
Jennifer Gulizia
So if someone is stuck in this mindset of, oh, people aren't going to spend $30 for my bouquet or this email doesn't matter, how do you get unstuck from that?
00:17:34
Charlotte Smith
The easiest and okay, this is a plug for coaching. i love to say you can't read the bottom, you can't read the label from inside the jar.
00:17:45
Charlotte Smith
So if you're in your own head, and you're like, no, I can't, people just aren't going to pay this much in my area.
00:17:45
Jennifer Gulizia
m
00:17:52
Charlotte Smith
I hear that all the time. They can't even see that they're thinking that so the very first step, it would be lovely to have someone to say, what if they will?
00:18:04
Charlotte Smith
Because people come on my coaching calls every, we do two coaching calls a week and they'll come on there and they'll be like, Charlotte, you gotta help me. In order to make money, i have to charge $50 of okay, but nobody in my area is gonna pay that.
00:18:18
Charlotte Smith
And all I have to say is, what if they will? And their mind is blown. They're like, oh, you're right. I don't even know that. I haven't even tried it. There are some people who all of a sudden, as soon as I say, what if they will, they start seeing the possibility of that being true.
00:18:38
Charlotte Smith
So that's the very first step. And and and if you can't remember, or if you don't have, if you're not working with a coach that can point that out, the best thing is try to remember to do it yourself. I do i do a practice every day where I write down my thoughts. And then I look at those thoughts and I just notice, does that make me feel positive or negative?
00:19:00
Charlotte Smith
And if it's a thought like, Nobody's going to buy my $30 bouquets. I know that, oh, that makes me feel negative. I just, and I'm glad I wrote it down. Now I can just ask, coach myself and say, what if they will?
00:19:14
Charlotte Smith
So it's, it's as simple as asking yourself to broaden your perspective, to just consider the opposite.
00:19:14
Jennifer Gulizia
That's...
00:19:22
Charlotte Smith
Or it could be,
00:19:27
Charlotte Smith
marketing. I hate marketing. And I might say something
00:19:32
Charlotte Smith
What if it's okay to hate marketing and use it to make a hundred thousand dollars in sales a year or a million dollars in sales a year? And just that question. So I like to say that questions, either you ask yourself or have your coach, your coach will ask you questions will help instantly turn around those negative thoughts.
00:19:52
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. I've had a coach for the last year and a half, and it's been instrumental in my life, but I know not everyone can afford a coach. So, but you can do a lot of this work yourself as well.
00:20:04
Jennifer Gulizia
If you're in a position where you can't afford that coach. So for a flower farmer, who's feeling stuck right now, and it's the middle of the season. So maybe they're overwhelmed. The weeds are out of control, like on my farm, or they're feeling burnt out from endless summer of farmers markets.
00:20:20
Jennifer Gulizia
or they're unsure of how to price their flowers, what's the first thing they should do? and Is it ask those questions to get unstuck or how do they first begin?
00:20:32
Charlotte Smith
Usually unstuck or stuck comes from a feeling of overwhelm. And overwhelm comes from a thought, a series of thoughts, some flavor of there's too much to do There's so much to do.
00:20:48
Charlotte Smith
i don't know where to start. I'll never get it all done. see So somewhere in their mind, they're thinking, oh my gosh, there's so much to do. Oh my gosh, I'll never get caught up. That creates overwhelm, the feeling of overwhelm.
00:21:01
Charlotte Smith
And then they're stuck. It's very, and this is again, but this is science backed. That's the process, thought, feeling, action, or in this case, lack of action. So what we, they, if if they're feeling stuck, they can immediately know that, okay, it's probably some version of the thought.
00:21:22
Charlotte Smith
There's too much to do. ah can't get it all done. There's nobody to help me. i should have done it better early. I should have planned better. It's something like that. And then they can just pause and say, what if I only have one thing to do?
00:21:38
Charlotte Smith
That on a coaching call, i which is always like, I'm like facing someone on the screen and they'll be like, there's so much to do. really overwhelmed and I'm stuck. It's very predictable pattern.
00:21:50
Charlotte Smith
And I can say, what if you only have one thing to do? And there's just immediate relief I can see on their face. Like, oh, Well, I guess I do have one thing to do only because today's tomorrow's pickup day. So today I have to harvest and they immediately see the, see their way through and there's immediate unstuck.
00:22:10
Charlotte Smith
So
Benefits of Group Coaching
00:22:11
Charlotte Smith
again, it goes back to questions, questions you can ask yourself. And so, yes, if you're feeling overwhelmed, just say, what if there's only one thing to do? And then when you get that thing done, it's okay.
00:22:22
Charlotte Smith
What is the next one thing I have to do? Oh, I have to go. Water that area. And then you're done. What is the next one thing I have to do?
00:22:33
Charlotte Smith
Oh, I need to sit down at my desk for two hours and get the marketing email down. So when we approach it that way, they get unstuck very quickly. I also teach a time management program along with my marketing class.
00:22:46
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:22:46
Charlotte Smith
It's built into that too, for that very reason, because often farmers in general, and of course, flower farmers specifically this time of the year,
00:22:57
Charlotte Smith
We think everything has to happen. I got 10 things that have to happen right now. And if you tell yourself that, you're going to overwhelm yourself. So I teach them very deliberately how to calendar it in a way that is so relieving.
00:23:09
Charlotte Smith
And you you find 10 to 20 hours in your week when you do it that way. So hopefully that helps.
00:23:16
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. That's such great. Yes, that is. I know I start every day. it used to be I would wake up in the middle of the summer and I'd rush out to harvest the flowers. But now I sit down with my cup of coffee and I have I've got my massive dump list of like everything that's on my mind that I need to take care of. And of course, it's way longer than I can probably complete in a month.
00:23:36
Jennifer Gulizia
But at least it's down on paper. And then I'm like, okay, what are the three things that I have to accomplish for the day? And it's so much more manageable when you narrow it down. Instead of looking at this huge task list, I'm like, okay, I can check off three things today. I can do this. But I love that you simplified it down to just one.
00:23:54
Charlotte Smith
Yes, because even those three, they will sit in loop on, well, which of these three should I do first? If I do this first, then do that later? Will that work? Or if I do that first and this later, will that work?
00:24:05
Charlotte Smith
We stop the looping. Yeah, you might just try that. Like, okay, here are my three essentials for today. Which one thing do I have to do right now?
00:24:16
Charlotte Smith
And that's it. And it doesn't matter. That's the other thing people will, farmers will loop on. Well, i have to do the right thing right now. No, just do one thing. Because you're not getting any of it done anyway.
00:24:27
Charlotte Smith
When you're sitting there stuck, you're not moving ahead on any of it.
00:24:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Totally.
00:24:30
Charlotte Smith
So just choose one thing and let's do it for one hour, two hours, that's it.
00:24:35
Jennifer Gulizia
That's such great advice. Question about your coaching and your membership. When you say that you sit with someone and you're talking like we are today, do you do one on one coaching or is it group coaching? How does that format work?
00:24:47
Charlotte Smith
Yes, it's group coaching, but it's as if you're one-on-one. So right here, you and I are looking at each other and it's a webinar set up on Zoom. So there might be 20 other people on the call, but you can't see or hear them.
00:25:00
Charlotte Smith
And the reason I've never done one-on-one coaching in that program is because every farmer, they they often start out thinking they're the only ones struggling with that thing,
00:25:14
Charlotte Smith
but They move ahead so much faster. They get to profit faster and faster when they see that they watch the group coaching calls and they see me coach one farmer and they're struggling with the exact same things.
00:25:28
Charlotte Smith
And they they can be out in their greenhouse listening to the coaching call replay and up level their life like, you know, 50% just from listening. So I only do coach group coaching because everybody benefits more faster, more and faster from from doing that.
00:25:49
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that you said that we don't, that all of our problems are universal. I mean, we're all struggling with the same things, whether we realize it or not. And it's so true that just hearing someone else, it's almost ah reaffirming like, oh, maybe my problem's not so big because someone else is dealing with it.
00:26:06
Jennifer Gulizia
And then you all of a sudden have an actionable step for solving something, whether you already have the problem, or maybe it's something that's going to happen in a week or two that you're not ah ah prepared for, but now you're prepared because you've heard from someone else's experience.
00:26:18
Charlotte Smith
Yes. Yes. Yes. It's, it's fantastic. The there's about 300 farmers a year that go through the program and many of them come back year after year, five, six years now that some of, and they just, the more you coaching again, it's not a once and done thing. The more you listen to these calls and uplevel your life, you just keep improving everything year after year after year.
00:26:48
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. And I think you're a perfect testament of that because you just said that you also have a coach yourself.
00:26:54
Charlotte Smith
Yes, yes, I do.
00:26:55
Jennifer Gulizia
So...
00:26:56
Charlotte Smith
And I don't imagine ever being without a coach in my life. Yeah.
00:27:01
Jennifer Gulizia
It's yeah, what you said about the
Community Engagement Strategies
00:27:03
Jennifer Gulizia
leveling up. I mean, i would have never been able to take the leap with our new farm and feel like I could go from one acre. We're not growing on 20 acres, but we have a 20 acre parcel now.
00:27:13
Jennifer Gulizia
And it just feels manageable because I can look at it on many different levels and feel like, okay, I can I can tackle this.
00:27:22
Charlotte Smith
To have that support. And I think I was so open to coaching because think of it like an athlete. I grew up, ah I've always been a competitive athlete from when I was a kid, equestrian, you know, I always had a horse trainer who was, would be called a coach today, probably always.
00:27:43
Charlotte Smith
and whether it was piano lessons or then, you know, running, biking, swimming, sprint triathlons. I've always had a coach in the athletic field and I never could have accomplished the the championships and the finishing races and things. I never would have been able to do that had I not.
00:28:03
Charlotte Smith
And it's so understandable. It's acceptable in the sport, the athletic world that you know Michael Jordan, the best basketball player in the world, walks off the court during the middle of the game and the coach immediately sits down next to him and says, okay, here's what we got to do.
00:28:23
Charlotte Smith
And some of it's mindset work and some of it's physical, you know, we, we've seen that our whole lives and that's acceptable.
00:28:27
Jennifer Gulizia
hu
00:28:29
Charlotte Smith
Well, this is the same thing. And the farmers in my program just have success. They never imagined possible because they have that person in their ear, developing them, supporting them, encouraging them,
00:28:44
Charlotte Smith
giving them feedback, giving them perspective and awareness, giving them examples from other farms like, oh, well, this flower farmer I coached last year, she did this and and it worked. So there's that too in a coach in the group setting.
00:28:57
Charlotte Smith
They're all in a Facebook group together where they're sharing ideas and inspiration that also moves them ahead faster.
00:29:05
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing about your coaching and that mindset because it is so important and it's so nice sometimes, especially if you're working alone as a farmer, to have someone just be like, you're doing it, you got it.
00:29:19
Jennifer Gulizia
And giving you that positive reinforcement can make such a difference to have that cheerleader.
00:29:24
Charlotte Smith
Yes, farming is a lonely world when you're a small size.
00:29:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Which I think most of my listeners are on the small scale.
00:29:31
Charlotte Smith
the
00:29:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Let's switch gears if we can and talk about local flowers and local farming in terms of nurturing your local market and community.
00:29:46
Jennifer Gulizia
How does someone go about building a strong customer base with their community?
00:29:51
Charlotte Smith
Sure. I think you have to get off the farm. There's no way around it. We were faced with social media. So it's, I mean, it's at our fingertips and we're tempted to think we can sit in the house and just go on social and build a community. It will happen very, very slowly.
00:30:08
Charlotte Smith
But if you meet someone in person, they will become a customer probably a hundred times faster than someone you might meet on social media. So, or the internet, something and, or people will want to skip meeting people in person and put flyers around or put an ad somewhere.
00:30:30
Charlotte Smith
None of that will work to you. You won't become profitable fast enough to be sustainable. Like you will give up if you just rely on that.
00:30:44
Charlotte Smith
You've got to get out in your community. And when you get out in your community, you build business so quickly. And what I mean by that, so in my program, I did a Facebook post once in our private group and then group coaching. And I said, hey everyone, what are you doing to build your email list, build your customer base? What are you doing in your community? And I have two page list of about 50 different things people do and how this looks for me.
00:31:14
Charlotte Smith
when I was building my farm is in my, I'll tell you, share a story about my daughter. But when I was building my farm, every Wednesday, i left the house at noon, and I knew I had to pick my kids up at three o'clock after school.
00:31:30
Charlotte Smith
So I left my house at noon, and I always had a product in my car. And if I didn't have product at the time, it might be store bought flowers, but I had something, some sort of a gift. And I would have either a coffee date planned with a current customer or a girlfriend. It didn't have to be a customer.
00:31:49
Charlotte Smith
Or i would stop in at, a when I went to somewhere in town, oh, i because I was in real estate, I would go to the real estate meetings they had every Tuesday where everyone talked about what houses, new listings they had.
00:32:06
Charlotte Smith
And I went there and it said, here's, Here's some product. This is what I do when you have people with the idea that when you have people move into the area, send them my way with flowers, you could connect with local realtors, especially when you're in small towns, it's a handful of realtors that you, everyone knows at least one realtor and you do something, you have them, you deliver the move in bouquet that the realtor will
00:32:26
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely.
00:32:37
Charlotte Smith
contract with you to deliver the day their client moves in. Or the other day, my daughter was going, we have a local newsletter for our local community.
00:32:49
Charlotte Smith
And she was going to talk to him about placing an ad. And I said, well, be sure you take him a bouquet of flowers. And she's like, really? And I said, yes. And so he put him on his desk, he put a picture on social media, and then he bought her CSA.
00:33:04
Jennifer Gulizia
Awesome.
00:33:04
Charlotte Smith
so
00:33:04
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:33:05
Charlotte Smith
That's an example of what it turns into when you get out in your community. I'm in wine country. So go visit wineries and always you're in wine country. You're in all kinds of, you've got all kinds of opportunity.
00:33:15
Jennifer Gulizia
yes
00:33:18
Charlotte Smith
And we all do go to the library and offer to teach a free class on how to arrange your flowers. Is it because women don't know how to arrange flowers? No, it's because they're looking for ways to gather Something that's interesting. That's not sitting home, watching TV or scrolling on social media, something where they can, and it's not either also just going out, eating and drinking. People are looking for activities to do. So free class at the library, even if it's only three people, those people, because they met you in person are so much more likely to not only buy from you, but also tell their friends.
00:33:59
Jennifer Gulizia
And I'm sure there's probably studies that show when one person speaks about your farm, do you know what that is? Like how many people it reaches versus, i mean, you brought up such a good point with social media that we can post on social media, but it's going to take a really long time versus i think if you like, for example, if I post on social media, most of my reach isn't even in my area.
00:34:22
Charlotte Smith
Exactly.
00:34:23
Jennifer Gulizia
But if I go out to the community and drop off a bouquet, like I brought my veterinarian a bouquet last week,
00:34:29
Charlotte Smith
Good for you. You're doing it. Yes.
00:34:31
Jennifer Gulizia
And yes, and they said that so many people made comments on the bouquet. So I imagine like if I think about it, there are probably what 20, 30 people coming through an office a day that are seeing those. Do you know what the statistic is on the reach of a local
00:34:49
Charlotte Smith
I don't know. Oh, but this, I just have to share this right now. So once she had that experience with the guy who then bought the CSA, she then went to her chiropractor appointment, took a bouquet. And the gal said, I'm getting married next week. Just, just the two of us, we just need a little mint flowers. And I was going get them at the, you know, grocery store and, but but will you do it? And she made a sale and she made a long-term customer.
00:35:16
Charlotte Smith
So I don't know statistics off the top of my head, but here's what I do know. Many of us can use our anecdotal research that our friends and family were our first customers and our customer base will grow to a certain point before we have to go out and and do more. So, you know, I know my first customers were the moms in my play group, probably five moms and I was sold out immediately on with 20 customers. This was when I had the raw milk dairy. So five moms turned into 20 people at my farm.
00:35:56
Charlotte Smith
So my own anecdotal research that's not scientific whatsoever could be that it's like four or five times, your customer base will grow by four or five times, but you also have to teach them how to share the word. You just can't expect them to share.
00:36:11
Charlotte Smith
And you learn in my marketing, I teach them how to utilize, be strategic with your family and friends and teach them how to share about your farm.
00:36:23
Charlotte Smith
But yes, you could probably, if you do ask your current customer base to share regularly or create events where come to the farm for a tour and bring your mom and your sister and your daughter and your cousin, you can grow your base that way as well.
00:36:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Can we ask you to share? You just said you teach your friends and family how to share about your farm. Can you give us a few tips, one or two suggestions of what we might be able to do?
00:36:52
Charlotte Smith
Sure. Just asking them to most people don't even ask. So it could be a text, like say, you're, uh, I'll use the mom at the play group.
00:37:03
Charlotte Smith
And so you would text her and say, hi Beth. I'm so glad you love the flowers. Do you have friends or anyone, you know, that would enjoy these two.
00:37:15
Charlotte Smith
And what I often tell, like I would suggest to my daughter, if I were to give her advice, Take two bouquets, take a bouquet to the person you're selling to, and then give them an extra bouquet and say, give this to your friend, mom, sister, neighbor, whomever, and tell them about our farm.
00:37:31
Charlotte Smith
So that's just a very simple way. So it's not saying, hey, you need to go to Jennifer's farm and spend money. It's here's a gift from my favorite flower farmer. And all of a sudden they're feeling warm and fuzzy, like, oh my gosh, she doesn't even know me. I'm going to look her up.
00:37:47
Charlotte Smith
Oh, wow, look at her Instagram. I'm going to get out there. She's having a farm tour. Her store's open next Saturday. So it's as simple as just asking them to share about you. But if you can give them something to give their friend, that's even better because the friend feels good giving it.
00:38:04
Charlotte Smith
And the friend, your customer feels great giving this gift. And flowers are really easy to share. It doesn't have to be a big bouquet. It can be a little tiny, tiny one.
Overcoming Perfectionism in Farming
00:38:16
Jennifer Gulizia
Everyone loves flowers. i remember one year I grew a bunch of zucchini with our flowers and my husband was like, you can't make friends with zucchini, Jen.
00:38:24
Charlotte Smith
yeah
00:38:24
Jennifer Gulizia
I'm like, but I can with my flowers.
00:38:27
Charlotte Smith
Right. That's hilarious. Zucchini bread.
00:38:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes, I just, I was like overrun.
00:38:30
Charlotte Smith
is.
00:38:32
Jennifer Gulizia
i I had seen this YouTube video and I've never had time to try this. So I'm sharing my secret that I thought I was going to try. grew like 20 feet. It was like 20 by 40 feet. It was an insane amount of zucchini.
00:38:46
Jennifer Gulizia
I had seen this YouTube video and I cannot find it again for the life of me. And this lady, instead of foam, was using zucchini. for her vases or for her event flowers.
00:38:58
Jennifer Gulizia
And I was like, if I could do that, that would be awesome.
00:39:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, I was so busy that summer, I didn't have time. And so I was like, I just need to give this zucchini away. And people were like, no, I'm good.
00:39:06
Charlotte Smith
even she would she would shred it or cut it in half and stick the flowers in the zucchini or
00:39:12
Jennifer Gulizia
she would cut it to fit whatever it was that she needed or on a table, she would just set it on the table and then poke the holes and put the flowers in it for the event. And of course, they're not going to last forever that way, but long enough for an event to take place because the idea is that there's so much moisture in the zucchini.
00:39:29
Charlotte Smith
Yes.
00:39:30
Jennifer Gulizia
And I have yet to try this. This was like three years ago, but I couldn't give away my zucchini. I ended up taking a whole bunch to the food bank and dropping off bags. But I've had so much zucchini bread and everything, but farmers don't have time to bake in the summer.
00:39:44
Jennifer Gulizia
So, but my, okay.
00:39:44
Charlotte Smith
Right. I know.
00:39:47
Jennifer Gulizia
So what I wanted to ask you, I'm getting off track here. I'm sorry. Is this is a mindset piece, I think for a lot of farmers, because you always hear, don't give away your flowers. Don't undervalue your flowers.
00:39:58
Jennifer Gulizia
What's the difference between undervaluing your flowers and giving them away?
00:40:02
Charlotte Smith
Oh, such a good question. So undervaluing for, for one start with being generous. If we're always given away, like if you, there's this in sales, there's the element of this feeling of reciprocity. When you give someone one something for free, they just feel they They want to reciprocate.
00:40:25
Charlotte Smith
If they've never thought of buying flowers ever before, as soon as you give them something, you just open them up to, oh my gosh, I should. They feel obligated in a good way to buy from you.
00:40:36
Charlotte Smith
So we want to be giving away all the time ah ah strategically, not just setting up a stand next to the road and saying free flowers. It's got to be strategic. Like the giveaway is to the friend who bought the bouquet and then the second one for free that you arranged to have her give it to someone that could be a potential customer.
00:40:57
Charlotte Smith
And it's then that is very different from valuing your flowers. And what a lot of farmers do is they, they just, we, again, remember our minds are wired for the negative.
00:41:12
Charlotte Smith
So our minds are wired to always go to, it's not good enough.
00:41:12
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:41:17
Charlotte Smith
It's not good enough. And I'm not good enough. So if you're If you're aware of that at first, if you just become aware that you're going to think it's not good enough and you're going to think you're not good enough and you're going to think the people aren't going to pay the price, just be aware that that's what's going to come up first.
00:41:35
Charlotte Smith
And then you can intentionally say, okay, negative thoughts, get in the back seat. let's come from a place of valuing what we do.
00:41:45
Charlotte Smith
And you've got to dive into the numbers. You have to know how much it costs you, because if you're selling $30 bouquet that costs you $29, if you add up your parts of your mortgage, your electricity, the seeds, your labor, and maybe even it costs you $35 to produce when you get to the end of it and you're only selling it for 30, that awareness is huge.
00:42:10
Charlotte Smith
So then often they see the the price value, like, okay, I see that since it costs $30, $35 to produce, it's worth at least $30.
00:42:22
Charlotte Smith
But then they don't value themselves. They're like, but I can't charge any more than what it costs. They feel really terrible. And so that's the coaching work we have to do is what is your belief about yourself?
00:42:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:42:35
Charlotte Smith
And if you don't, you Your belief about yourself is always going to be the ceiling that you can charge money for or profit your farm. If a farm is not profitable, I know there's a whole lot of limiting beliefs they have about themselves.
00:42:52
Charlotte Smith
So once we work on those beliefs that i am worthy just because I exist, I worked hard for this. So I worthy.
00:43:04
Charlotte Smith
worthy of getting a paycheck for this. And they believe in their customers. my customers i I will teach my customers how to value this. And my customers will then pay this price. Then we have this upward spiral of them finally becoming profitable.
00:43:20
Charlotte Smith
And that's but I call that the belief triad. You have to believe in your product and that's often really easy for them. Like, oh yeah, I believe the flowers are pretty and I believe they're worth it. Cause they, they're worth $30 cause they cost 32 to produce.
00:43:36
Charlotte Smith
And, but what they don't believe in is themselves. And that's what we've got to, they've got to work on on. And once they have that belief in themselves being inherently worthy to receive money, then they can start, they'll start pricing more accurately.
00:43:54
Charlotte Smith
something that actually includes a profit in there.
00:43:58
Jennifer Gulizia
That is so good. I think I was having a conversation with another farmer recently, and we were talking about perfectionism and how perfectionism kind of really ties in, I think, a lot with those limiting beliefs.
00:44:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, it's not my bouquet is not perfect, so maybe I can't charge enough or my field's not perfect enough, so I can't open it up. how And I say that a lot of flower farmers, I'm not saying everyone, I don't want to stereotype, but I think a lot of listeners probably would classify themselves as a perfectionist or having perfectionism syndrome or whatever you want to call it.
00:44:37
Jennifer Gulizia
How do we release that mindset?
00:44:40
Charlotte Smith
Oh, I heard this saying that helped me. Perfect people are scared people. You're not worried about the field not being perfect. You're scared of what, of someone driving up and saying, oh my gosh, your field's a mess. You're scared. That's what you're scared of.
00:45:00
Charlotte Smith
So once you look at what you're really scared of, you realize your perfectionism is not coming from a beautiful place. It's coming from a negative emotion. And this is where I go back to look at the thoughts you're thinking.
00:45:15
Charlotte Smith
And if they make you feel bad, then it's not a useful thought for your business. And so a thought like, I can't have people over. There's too many weeds in the yard or I'm embarrassed because for people to see my house or my place or my field or anything.
00:45:34
Charlotte Smith
That's all coming from the fear of what you are hallucinating people might say.
00:45:42
Jennifer Gulizia
That is so good. So when you realize that, is just that realization enough to allow yourself to then be like, okay, my field doesn't have to be perfect or this bouquet doesn't have to be perfect?
00:45:53
Charlotte Smith
Well, if I were coaching them, it would probably be a 20 minute coaching sessions. So, and and coaching is questions.
00:45:59
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:46:01
Charlotte Smith
So I'm asking them questions that just broaden their perspective. And by the end of the 20 minutes, they're like, Oh, and so often one of the questions I'll, they'll say, I'm really struggling. I need coaching today. I'm struggling because I'm supposed to do a farm tour. I know it'll help the business, but my field just doesn't look good. And my yard is weedy and this one bed dried up and it's just not good enough.
00:46:26
Charlotte Smith
And I will listen. And then I know their feeling is scared and they'll say, I'm a perfectionist, but it's really coming from a place of fear of what people might think. And I'll just say, what if it is good enough?
00:46:39
Charlotte Smith
And they'll, it'll just melt away. They'll be like, oh, well, maybe it is because it's August and things dry up in August. It's August and and the weeds sprouted.
00:46:52
Charlotte Smith
So the questions will just help turn that around. And then I'll ask them all sorts of, as a mindset coach, I don't have a list of questions. I go through one through 10. i respond to whatever they say in the moment, the next logical question after that.
00:47:09
Charlotte Smith
And by the end of the 20 minute coaching call, they'll see that, oh I'm good enough. My farm is good enough. And if 10 people come over, chances are they're going to love it But if one of them says, what about these weeds?
00:47:24
Charlotte Smith
i can I can just own it. i can take ownership. So we will have that complete transformation. when When you've got a coach asking you questions, it just facilitates your growth so quickly.
00:47:39
Charlotte Smith
So by the end of the 20 minutes, they are just so solid. Like, oh yeah, my place is good enough. I can now cancel the all the people I was gonna have come and spend all this money painting and and redoing and all that because it's good enough the way it is.
00:47:56
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that.
00:47:56
Charlotte Smith
And the other thing, one thing I love to tell everyone, if you're worried about people coming to your farm and seeing where you work, they can't buy this on Amazon.
Embracing Farm Authenticity
00:48:09
Charlotte Smith
They can't buy the experience you're giving them on Amazon and, and the experience you, many farmers think the experience has to be something sensational.
00:48:20
Charlotte Smith
I learned from watching the customers in my store. The experience was driving in and feeding the horse and apple across the fence. That meant the world, they would pay hundred dollars for a bouquet to have that experience.
00:48:38
Charlotte Smith
Or I'm not kidding you, driving out, walking in the farm store and petting the cat that lays next to the cash register.
00:48:45
Jennifer Gulizia
That is...
00:48:47
Charlotte Smith
That there, we as farmers discount that that is why they're willing to pay an enormous amount that is warranted for your bouquets or tours or farm tours or events or classes, whatever it might be.
00:48:58
Jennifer Gulizia
that is
00:49:03
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so good. I actually was talking to Kiss the Ground earlier today and they they had collaborated with me a while back and they shared on social media this post that we worked together on.
00:49:15
Jennifer Gulizia
And on their caption, it says something along the lines that only 8% of people have talked to a farmer in the last year.
00:49:25
Charlotte Smith
Oh yes, I believe that.
00:49:27
Jennifer Gulizia
So when you're talking about this experience, it was kind of this aha moment for me that tied it back to that, that this really, we are so ingrained that like every day we're touching the soil, we're touching the flowers, we're petting our animals.
00:49:38
Jennifer Gulizia
But some people have never experienced that before. And it is about the experience that you're creating.
00:49:44
Charlotte Smith
Yes, and and so if you have a flower farm and you have a flower patch, no matter how tiny it is, you can have a farm tour that you can charge for. And when you charge for people will be delighted to come out and stand there and hear about what you do every day, what your day is like.
00:50:04
Charlotte Smith
And they'll just think that's you're the bee's knees. Like, Oh my goodness, look at this woman. and this is what she does. This is my dream life. It's everybody's dream life. Right. and because of that experience that they paid for, that they can't buy anywhere else online, anywhere, they are now willing to come back every week for their,
00:50:23
Charlotte Smith
$50 per bouquet CSA subscription, for instance. So it and just i i want every farmer listening to know that if you have a little flower patch, you have a farm tour that you can invite people from your community to.
00:50:40
Charlotte Smith
And I also don't want to mislead people that miss miss or mislead people that Nobody's ever going to complain. If you have 10 people out there might be one person who says, oh, this is it.
00:50:55
Charlotte Smith
That's okay. Let them that Mel Robbins has that new book title.
00:51:01
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:51:01
Charlotte Smith
Let them that that's huge. Like, let them it's true. You might have your, you're not having your farm tour because you say you're a perfectionist, but it's really fear of what people might think.
00:51:14
Charlotte Smith
Well, 99 out of 100 people are going to love it. One person is going to say, oh, but what about all those weeds? And that's okay. Let them. And you can say, yeah, those are my weeds.
00:51:25
Charlotte Smith
I always just kind of make a joke. like Or I'll say something like, yes, I'm doing the best I can. And it just neutralizes and everyone has a great time.
00:51:35
Jennifer Gulizia
And that ties back to Mel Robbins book also because the first half of her book says let them and then it says let me and you responded with that positive.
00:51:44
Charlotte Smith
Yes.
00:51:44
Jennifer Gulizia
It's okay.
00:51:45
Charlotte Smith
Yes. Yes. I love when people and and not very many people are going to criticize us as farmers, but you do open yourself up to criticism whenever you sell to the public.
00:51:57
Charlotte Smith
And I usually just come back with a very, instead of snippy, because some farmers will say, help, I need coaching because I'm really snippy at everyone. So you will learn to come back with a very graceful response. Like, oh, I just believe we're all doing the best I can, the best we can.
00:52:13
Charlotte Smith
Or I'm doing the best I can. If someone comments like, shouldn't you have picked those sunflowers by now? Yes. I'm just doing the best I can. it always neutralizes people.
00:52:26
Jennifer Gulizia
And that's such a positive affirmation to give yourself. Also, if you just tell yourself, I'm doing the best I can, or i lately have started telling myself, if I get frustrated with something, I'm like, well, that person's doing the best they can.
00:52:38
Charlotte Smith
Yes. Yes, because most of us wake up thinking I should have done that better. I should have done yesterday better. I should have harvested that yesterday. I should have, should have, should have.
00:52:49
Charlotte Smith
And if we wake up and say every day, every moment of every day, I'm doing my best. And so is this grouchy customer or something like that.
00:52:58
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:52:59
Charlotte Smith
It's a great reminder that We're all doing our best. And sometimes that means we slip up and make a negative comment to ourselves or someone else slips up and makes a negative comment to me.
00:53:11
Charlotte Smith
If someone is critical, I always think, wow, they're hurting, you know, because if they're saying that to me, their self-talk in their own head about themselves is equally as harsh.
00:53:22
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I think it was Mel Robbins was the one that actually said, we're all doing the best we can, and we would do better if we could. And so give our ourselves grace and give others grace.
00:53:30
Charlotte Smith
Yes.
00:53:33
Jennifer Gulizia
And I think that all goes back to that mindset work.
00:53:36
Charlotte Smith
Yes, yes, it does. It does. And that's why mindset is everything. I couldn't imagine starting a farm or running a business now or or having a family or anything without my mindset coach, because my life, I swear my life is a Hallmark movie because everything's so positive and I'm not gaslighting myself at all.
00:53:59
Charlotte Smith
But when challenges happen, I'm like, okay, that happened. That burned down, that canceled, that whole bed dried up and died. And that's okay.
00:54:11
Charlotte Smith
That's life. That's farming.
00:54:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Yes, I've had to learn that mindset, especially starting new. I've kind of had to chuckle as we're talking here because I'm like, if you only saw my weeds in my field right now, there's so many.
00:54:24
Jennifer Gulizia
And we have a really special guest coming next week. And this was so helpful for me because I was walking and harvesting this morning and I'm like, how am I going to have this person come out to our farm?
00:54:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Because I have weeds everywhere.
00:54:35
Charlotte Smith
yeah
00:54:37
Jennifer Gulizia
we We have napweed, uncontrollable napweed at our new field. And there are certain areas that no matter what I do, it just keeps coming back. And I'm like, well, I could either spend all my time weeding or I could focus on actually having flowers to sell this year.
00:54:50
Jennifer Gulizia
And so that's what I've done. But I'm like, okay, now I'm criticizing myself for these weeds and thinking it's not good enough. So I love your mindset mentality that.
00:55:00
Charlotte Smith
It is what it is and if you're doing the best you can. I know I have the same thing. i i just had the pasture mower leave my house. i have a three acre pasture with nothing on it.
00:55:13
Charlotte Smith
And he didn't actually mow the grass. He mowed the weeds. Like I hire someone to come and mow my weed pasture because parts of the farm look really gorgeous. And the other part is weedy and that's okay.
00:55:25
Jennifer Gulizia
It is what it is.
Family Farming Tradition
00:55:27
Jennifer Gulizia
i'm so curious. You said that your daughter is a flower farmer.
00:55:31
Charlotte Smith
Mm-hmm.
00:55:31
Jennifer Gulizia
What's it been like to watch her carve her own path as a farmer?
00:55:35
Charlotte Smith
Oh gosh, it brings tears to my eyes. She's, it's wonderful. i think because of our, I don't know if she's aware of this or not, and she'll listen to this episode, she wealthy but it's our DNA or our genetics that I see her doing so many of the things i did when I started my farm 16 years ago.
00:55:58
Charlotte Smith
And she was a kid. So she, she probably doesn't remember what I was doing, but she's doing them all today. And it's like, Oh my gosh, she's doing what I did in her own way. And it's very unique and different. She has social media today that I didn't have back then.
00:56:13
Charlotte Smith
But so that makes me really proud as a mother that like, oh, she is, she knows what she's doing. ah ah She worked for me in helping me with my marketing for three years while she was in college.
00:56:28
Charlotte Smith
So she knows marketing inside out. So I'm, I'm so proud of her for starting her farm, diving in feeling scared and doing it anyway, having loss and doing it anyway, creating ah ah community.
00:56:48
Charlotte Smith
Talk about like, she can put something up, an event up. And this is her first, like she sold her first flower in June.
00:56:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's amazing.
00:56:56
Charlotte Smith
She'll put an event up on social media and it'll be sold out just like that because of she knows how to connect with people. And then so that that the business side of it, yes, I'm just so proud sitting back watching her do that.
00:57:10
Charlotte Smith
And then the flower farming side of it, she's had a a big yard. So she's been a flower gardener for years. And so then to watch her just dive into learning the differences between having a farm that you're actually going to sell the flowers versus just enjoying them.
00:57:30
Charlotte Smith
So yeah, it just couldn't be more proud of her and supportive and excited for her. And she is the sixth generation in our family to have a farm. And so, yeah, I can't say enough amazing things about her and her flower farm. She's going big places with it.
00:57:50
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so exciting. I love that it she is a sixth generation farmer because I feel like that's becoming more rare these days because farmers are struggling more.
00:58:00
Charlotte Smith
Yes, yes. And what's interesting is, so my ancestors came here from Ireland in eighteen in the 1850s. All six generations have had a different product.
00:58:13
Jennifer Gulizia
ah ah wow.
00:58:14
Charlotte Smith
So it's not like it was like she's going rogue by having a flower farm. Every generation did their own thing, which I really... proud of it my family. Like, look at us, a bunch of independent people. We didn't raise sheep just because grandpa raised sheep. We went and did our own thing. So I love that now she has completely transformed it from animals.
00:58:36
Charlotte Smith
You know I took it from commodity crops to animals, and now she's farming flowers and it's wonderful.
00:58:43
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. I love it. Thank you for sharing about that. In the
Upcoming Masterclass and Events
00:58:48
Jennifer Gulizia
intro, I mentioned that you have a free masterclass coming up that's called the five mistakes farmers make that keep them broke.
00:58:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Can you tell us what to expect? This is coming up in just a couple of weeks, right?
00:58:59
Charlotte Smith
It is August 18th and 19th. There'll be an afternoon session where we'll go over the first three mistakes, the Monday, and then Tuesday is a morning session. So, and there's a replay. So sign up. If you can't make it live to one or both sessions, you'll get the replay.
00:59:17
Charlotte Smith
The five mistakes are critical and crucial, and they're so common. It's for, if you're a beginning farmer, it will help you prevent, help you,
00:59:31
Charlotte Smith
move away from making those mistakes, prevent making those mistakes. And if you're have been farming five or 10 or 20 years and your, your chances are you're making all five mistakes.
00:59:43
Charlotte Smith
So, yeah oh yes.
00:59:43
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, really? Interesting.
00:59:44
Charlotte Smith
Oh yeah.
00:59:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Uh-huh.
00:59:45
Charlotte Smith
Because they're so common that the, see, here's what happens. Other, they see other farmers doing farming a certain way and selling a certain way. And so they start copying that, whether it's on social media or person, we think, Oh, that's how you farm and that's how you sell. And that's what your flower should look like. And that's where you should sell.
01:00:04
Charlotte Smith
So I'm going to do that. And now none of them are making money, but they think it's the right way to do it because everyone else is doing it. So sometimes the mistakes I teach can seem counterintuitive, but once they start turning them around, they start becoming profitable.
01:00:20
Charlotte Smith
So yes, everyone, everyone will learn. It's often the, I do a lot of keynote addresses at conferences and it's often the talk I give at conferences and people in the audience are like, oh my gosh, I was making every single mistake.
01:00:34
Charlotte Smith
No wonder I've never been able to pay myself on my flower farm all these years. So yes, I highly recommend everyone, everyone come.
01:00:45
Jennifer Gulizia
Perfect. And we have a link in the show notes for that. That is free. And speaking of keynote, you shared with me offline that you are going to be a keynote speaker at an upcoming ASCFG conference.
01:00:58
Jennifer Gulizia
Can you tell a little bit about that?
01:01:00
Charlotte Smith
I am delighted to be the main speaker in the morning, and then I'll be doing another breakout workshop in the afternoon. And I am going to speak two hours in the morning on how to develop a marketing plan for your cut flower farm.
01:01:17
Jennifer Gulizia
And this is the January Albuquerque, New Mexico annual conference.
01:01:20
Charlotte Smith
Yeah. January 13th and 14th in Albuquerque. I'll be there. I'll be there in person. I'm so excited to meet people that I've only ever met online.
01:01:32
Charlotte Smith
So getting to meet them in person and yes. And my second workshop is how to create a profitable email newsletter. So both are very, I liked my website says I teach farmers how to make money.
01:01:43
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
01:01:48
Charlotte Smith
So everything I teach is actionable and, and with the intent of, if you're gonna work this hard, you need to be making money, otherwise you're gonna quit. Your family is eventually gonna say, hey, you're gone all the time and you're using family resources.
01:02:04
Charlotte Smith
You're not even making money. why don't And even the farmer themselves see it as more attractive. Like, yeah, I could just do nothing and make more money.
01:02:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely.
01:02:13
Charlotte Smith
So that's why my workshops are very focused on let's get flower farmers sustainable.
01:02:21
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so exciting. Well, I really hope to be at that conference as well in January.
01:02:26
Charlotte Smith
Oh, good.
01:02:26
Jennifer Gulizia
it's such
01:02:26
Charlotte Smith
I'd love to see you.
01:02:27
Jennifer Gulizia
It's such a great time of year for farmers because it's our off season and it's right before you have to start waking up your plants and starting seeds. So
01:02:36
Charlotte Smith
Yes. So motivating to go there and get all that inspiration.
01:02:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Is there anything, Charlotte, that I have not asked you today that you want to make sure our listeners know?
Encouragement and Resources
01:02:48
Charlotte Smith
Oh, goodness. i could say a hundred things, but I think, I think that the two most important things that I would love your flower farmers to know is we, as human beings, we learn by doing.
01:03:02
Charlotte Smith
And a lot of farmers feel stuck and they don't take action because they're afraid they're not going to do the right thing. The only way you know what the right thing is, is to get out there and do the wrong thing.
01:03:13
Charlotte Smith
So just start doing, don't wait till you know what's right or what people want or what you should be doing. Just start doing and making all those mistakes. And then the second thing I touched on earlier earlier is You are worthy just because you exist.
01:03:29
Charlotte Smith
There's no evidence of the world showing that you have to prove your worth. You can't work hard enough to be better than the person next to you. And a lot of flower farmers get stuck thinking, i can't charge.
01:03:44
Charlotte Smith
I have to prove my worth to be able to charge that or do that or say that. No, your worth is inherent. And the more you can practice believing that and embracing that, the more you will value the work you're doing.
01:03:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
01:04:01
Charlotte Smith
And then other people will value, other people won't value your prices or your flowers if you don't do it first. And it starts with valuing yourself. So yeah, that's a belief that I hope everyone can practice embracing because that belief is life-changing. You show up differently for your farms flower farm and your customers and your family when you believe that.
01:04:26
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Where can listeners go to learn more about your podcast, your programs and coaching, and this upcoming masterclass? We will have a link in the show notes, but can you give us a quick little
01:04:42
Charlotte Smith
Sure. Yep. So my website is charlottemsmith.com. And my Podcast is everywhere you listen to podcasts. It's also on the podcast page on the website, but it's on iTunes and Spotify and all that. It's called Profitable Mindset.
01:05:00
Charlotte Smith
And then the masterclass is that if they go to charlottemsmith.com forward slash masterclass, they can sign up for that. And when this one's over, like say they're listening to this episode next year, there's always my next free training at that link. So they can go there and see what upcoming thing I have. And it's always actionable. It's always something that's going help you make more money and be more successful and sustainable.
01:05:26
Jennifer Gulizia
perfect which is something we can Perfect.
01:05:27
Charlotte Smith
I'm I am on Instagram and it's Charlotte.m.smith there too.
01:05:34
Jennifer Gulizia
I will include links to each of those in our show notes today. Charlotte, we have covered so much, and this has been such a great conversation about mindset and how it really does impact everything we do and it's what limits us from going to that next level and being profitable in our business. So I'm so grateful for this conversation and that you've taken this time today.
01:05:58
Jennifer Gulizia
And I would love to connect with you again in the future. If you have any other workshops coming up that you feel like would be beneficial for our audience, you, there's always an open door here.
01:06:08
Charlotte Smith
Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. It's ah ah it's a privilege and an honor for me to be able to share this, what I believe is the most life-changing thing I've ever learned that affected my, my life and business. So thanks for the opportunity.
01:06:24
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. This was a great conversation. Thanks so much, Charlotte. We'll talk to you again. Bye-bye.
01:06:28
Charlotte Smith
Thank you. Bye.