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Convenience is King: Quality Products at the Right Price with Sheeder Cloverleaf Dairy
179 Plays5 years ago
Listen in as Grant Sheeder, owner of Sheeder Cloverleaf Dairy, walks us through how he increased his family Farm's sales by focusing on subscriptions and door-to-door delivery.
Show Notes:
https://www.sheedercloverleafdairy.com/
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Four Levers for Farm Success
00:00:03
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 to save time and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:00:25
Speaker
All right, welcome back everyone. You're listening to the Direct Farm podcast.
Direct Farm Price Conference Announcement
00:00:29
Speaker
It is nearly January, which means we are quickly approaching the Direct Farm price conference on February 2nd. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know we often refer to our four levers for farm success, and those are price, quality, convenience, and brand.
00:00:44
Speaker
This coming conference we are going to focus on pricing insights for your farm and how you can increase your sales by selling direct to market online. And so today I want to introduce you to Grant Sheeter.
Insights from Grant Sheeter
00:00:56
Speaker
He'll be speaking at that conference and will cover the best practices he learned from his own personal experience selling direct this past year.
00:01:04
Speaker
It was great to talk to Grant and learn more about his story as a farmer and how Sheeter Cloverleaf Dairy has experienced exponential growth as a result of providing subscriptions and incorporating delivery options to expand their reach. I'm delighted to introduce you to Grant Sheeter, one of our newest members of the Farm Advisory Network.
00:01:23
Speaker
Welcome, Grant. Great to have you here. Why don't you introduce yourself and how you got into farming and selling direct online?
Sheeter Family's Transition to Dairy Farming
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm Grant Sheeter from Guthrie Center, Iowa. My family and I run and operate Sheeter Club Leaf Dairy. My dad was a full-time UPS driver for about 12 years, and my mom was a local K-12 music teacher in town.
00:01:45
Speaker
And they were both at a point and young enough where they wanted to do something a little bit more. My dad was always, he always had cattle or hogs and sheep on the side.
00:01:55
Speaker
And he just wanted something that he could build and possibly hand down to me and my two sisters, if we so chose. So with that dream, they both quit their full-time jobs, bought a shy 500 acres, bought some dairy cows and started milking cows. We've been milking cows since 1996. And we began doing our on-farm processing where we bottle milk and glass bottles, make ice cream. And throughout the years, we've done butter and cheese courage as well.
00:02:25
Speaker
and throughout the years obviously I'm the oldest of three and I'm the only one still around full time. We've done the on-farm processing in the glass bottles. It's been a huge boost in a niche market for us in our area that's really separated us from a lot of the other different dairies that are on the shelves in the grocery stores as far as quality, appearance, and just the local factor. We milk about 100 cows year round with two different
00:02:53
Speaker
calving groups.
Pandemic-Induced Adaptation to Home Delivery
00:02:55
Speaker
We sell to grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, and just recently with the pandemic we've begun doing home delivery service and teaming up with other local producers. It's great to see that for the past 24 years this has been a passion project for your family. I'd love to hear more about your decision to incorporate delivery options for your customers.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, the home delivery thing is something we've kicked around for a while. In recent years, just due to our size and our market, there's a couple of other larger dairies that service a multitude of states across the Midwest. And we're in no shape or to have a desire to get it that big. With this pandemic that has taken place this year, it gave us an opportunity to give it a shot. And one of the fine folks at Barn to Door happened to reach out to us via Facebook.
00:03:45
Speaker
and just it really it was hit home on one thing led to another and about a month later we were live and online and promoting through our social media and now we're up to about 1100 orders a month right now we're doing home deliveries for
00:03:59
Speaker
What were the drivers to explore Bonadour?
Revamping Online Presence for Home Deliveries
00:04:02
Speaker
It was kind of a perfect storm. One of the individuals from Bonadour had reached out to us recently before we kicked it around and I touched base with him and he got back me right away. And everything that he was telling me, it almost sounded too good to be true, to be honest. We're not real computer savvy people. So there's just some of those little questions that we wanted answered.
00:04:24
Speaker
And yeah, everyone that we've worked with at Barnadore from the beginning has been very helpful along the way from just getting up and going to the website, to ordering the inventory, anything that we've ever had questions on. Everyone's been really good about getting back to us or assisting us to make sure we look good.
00:04:44
Speaker
to our customers. We opted to have Bondador assist us with our website and revamp it. Just get a nice, clean, new look. And that really meshed well with the online store. And it was such a seamless thing for, I guess, for us. Again, we're not computer savvy. They asked us the questions that we wanted, how we wanted to look and give us some different options and how we could present our website in our online store. And just made it very easy to pick and choose how we wanted things to look.
00:05:14
Speaker
and be listed and then be able to train us in a fashion where we can change it if need be do.
Maintaining Quality and Brand Satisfaction
00:05:20
Speaker
On this podcast, we love to talk about levers of success for farmers to build momentum for your business and to keep growing. Can you tell us about the Shooter Cloverleaf brand in your community and your focus on quality?
00:05:32
Speaker
We're top quality and it's priced that way. We don't do anything with our milk and we don't only feed the best to our cows and they're well taken care of than probably myself at times. And without them, there is no us. And same thing with the customer. I mean, if they don't like what we present to them on the shelf or at their door, we don't have that customer to continue to survive out here.
00:05:56
Speaker
what Central Iowa is. Quality is utmost support to us and obviously the quality of life for animals as well and that's a huge part of, well it has been from the get-go but today as connected as everybody is with social media and everything we really try to convey that to our customers because unfortunately not all farms are that way. But having that top-notch quality not only from our products but the other products that we work with from other producers for our home delivery is essential
00:06:25
Speaker
moving forward in the direction we're going because since May, I think when we started using bar to door end of May, we've gone nowhere but up in sales. So it's pretty exciting for us and I'm looking forward to the future.
00:06:40
Speaker
Our product really speaks for itself. We've been delivering to the grocery stores now, like I said, since the end of 2005. And we've got that mainstay of the quality and it's in glass bottles. And anything, I guess you look at a shelf, I mean, something that just looks presentable and good. Anything in a glass bottle is going to taste really good too. Having that,
00:07:02
Speaker
I guess it's not, it's not an image, not only an image, but it is something that it's truthfully something of the highest quality. You're going to be able to buy in a grocery store, get delivered to your home because of the way we take care of our cows and the way we feed them and handle them from the time they're born up until that milk's at your doorstep. Different facets that we use for our marketing
Balancing Quality, Pricing, and Profitability
00:07:22
Speaker
aspect. It all goes hand in hand as far as you mentioned, the MailChimp is a huge key component for us, not only to gain new customers for home delivery,
00:07:34
Speaker
changes or new products or just stay in touch with them on occasion, just have that personal touch with our several pushups, almost a thousand plus customers we have now. How would you say that quality and price go hand in hand in terms of your strategy and how you promote your business and go about pricing your products?
00:07:55
Speaker
It's a tricky question because to be completely honest with you, I really, I don't do a lot of grocery shopping. My wife does most of that. So when we were getting some of these other products outside of hours and getting the prices, I would see some of these and be like, Oh my gosh, I just don't think anybody would pay for this regardless of it's delivered to your home or not. But I told all of our local producers that we work with price it where you're comfortable.
00:08:19
Speaker
making money. I mean we're not into this just to do it to be doing it. We need everyone needs to try to we're making a living. We're not going through the motions only for the fun of it. We're trying to put food on the table for us as well. We try to be as competitive as we can as far as values and then we tack on a small margin for our efforts in marketing and delivering and all of our expenses with our van and delivery driver and
00:08:42
Speaker
everything that involves the actual delivery part of it. And every time I plug in something and think, oh my gosh, we're never gonna sell this. That's like the number one thing that we sell the heck out of. It just blows my mind. And it comes back to those people, they get it and they taste it. And it's just that they're astonished by the quality and the taste and the full of flavor that everything that we are able to provide, they get. We're in the Midwest where pork and beef are a huge part of a lot of people's lives.
00:09:12
Speaker
with Iowa State University being so close, we actually delivered up in the Ames, Iowa market. And so we've got a couple professors that have been buying our products here for a couple weeks now. And we got an email from a couple, two of them just in the last week saying that they've traveled the world, doing a lot of different studies and so on and so forth. And they said that they were naming different products that we have between our beef or milk and pork products specifically, that they never had something that tasted so wholesome and delicious and fresh
00:09:42
Speaker
in their travels across the world and their one was 30 plus years and the other one is almost 50 years and he's just retired this year so when you get things like that from people that are really that really understand and know what they're tasting that really makes us feel that we're more of an insurance thing that we're really doing what we try to do our best with that is that that's that quality across the board not only for our dairy but like you said all the producers that we work with
00:10:08
Speaker
I'd love to talk about convenience.
Expanding Customer Base through Delivery
00:10:10
Speaker
I understand you made a commitment to door-to-door delivery for your customers, and you've touched on how that's been able to expand your business. Maybe you want to go a little bit deeper with that and how it's worked for you. Yeah, it's been a crazy fun road, really. When we started this venture, we had about 800 followers on our Facebook page, and that was in May. Right now, we're closing in on 6,000 followers on our Facebook page.
00:10:34
Speaker
And which I mean to some small farms, that's nothing but for us for that growth that fast. It goes to show that people are really grasping the thought of having the service to them and doing the door to door. It's been a learning curve for everybody. And thankfully for our customers, they've been so gracious on everything. They really get it with everybody. A lot of people working from home for the younger generation are still working.
00:10:58
Speaker
to the more of the retired age people that are buying our products that are usually home anyways, they really make a point for their delivery day. Again, it goes back to the communication, make sure that they are aware of what kind of what time they can expect the delivery. And it's always the same day each week for based on the zip codes that we service. We're all humans. We make mistakes or messed up once in a while, but usually it can be fixed pretty readily. And everyone's been so nice about everything. We've, we've,
00:11:27
Speaker
had honestly never had a complaint that we know of yet anyways and our our customer base keeps growing so I'd like to think that we've done pretty well with our excellent drivers being courteous to the customers with the COVID thing some of them prefer that we come up to the door with a mask on others and as long as we leave it at the door they don't mind it goes back again that communication where
00:11:50
Speaker
Just stay in tune with your customer as much as possible and it really pays dividends because they're your best form of advertisement as well when they tell their customers and that's been a fun thing to see too how many people you stop at one stop and you can hit three or four houses by essentially stopping at one neighborhood and then that's an ever increasing case scenario as well too as we keep moving forward here.
00:12:16
Speaker
and how you partner with local stores and other food producers, what does being local and community-focused mean to you? In a day and age where people really want to know where their food comes from, the local part of it is such a huge marketing tool that it's not just an imagery thing, but it's a quality assurance thing where people will really know
00:12:38
Speaker
And they can put a name with the product and know that it's been handled by people that take pride in what they do, whether it's for our milk or ice cream or beef producer or pork producers, whatever it is. We try to keep that level of communication
00:12:55
Speaker
at the top notch, as readily as we can. With any questions they may have, there's really not much that a customer can't ask me about any of our products that they don't know. Thanks to the communication and relationship that we have with our other local producers, it's been a key component with our growth. And I can't stress enough, the communication and relationships you can build, not only with our producer, but our customers has been off the charts since we've been doing this home delivery process through Barnadore.
Expansion Plans for Delivery Services
00:13:23
Speaker
Looking ahead to 2021, how do you expect to maintain and even build upon your buyer loyalty for your farm? Right now, we're in the process of purchasing another van and two more drivers to really capitalize on these customers that are on board or searching for something like this.
00:13:44
Speaker
And I think the idea of having fresh local products conveniently dropped off to the store or their front door is a huge thing, whether it's COVID or not. And with this COVID thing going on, I think it's driven some people to maybe work from home a little bit more, too. So some of them may be home more. If not both people in the family, it could be just one. Or we make a point where they're home for that delivery day for something like this. So I would say a high percentage of our customer base
00:14:14
Speaker
regularly order either biweekly or weekly. I don't foresee that going away for a very large percentage of our customer current base right now.
00:14:22
Speaker
I love to hear that because I think this year so many farms have definitely pivoted and you guys included and being able to see that it's paid off dividends to implement the door-to-door delivery and the direct-to-consumer online shopping experience for them to make things convenient and more approachable for people, especially if they're unable to leave their homes. What about subscriptions? How have you tried to secure ongoing commitments from your customers week over week?
00:14:48
Speaker
People really like the idea of if they don't have to remember to place an order every week for the customers. It's an easy thing where they know if they want a certain amount of milk or eggs or whatever, whether it's weekly or biweekly, we have both options for them. They can choose to do so. And if they're going to be gone for vacation or for whatever reason, they contact us and we're able to skip a week. So they're not getting charged or have a bottle of milk sitting out of the front door for a week when they're not home.
00:15:14
Speaker
But yeah, no, it's been a good thing. We look forward to expanding on that after the first of the year and some of our other products. What would you say is the biggest lesson that you learned this past year in 2020?
00:15:26
Speaker
Besides, as a communication organization, it's been probably the thing we've been working on the most on our farm with these different producers that we've been working with just to keep that fresh products coming in and logistics to keep the freshest quality goods to the front doorstep.
00:15:46
Speaker
Early on when we weren't doing a whole lot of home deliveries, it was very simple. And as we, like I said, we were exceeding 1100 stops a month now. It becomes just, just gradual growing pains, which we're very happy to do. So it's just, yeah, the organization thing has made us rethink how we do some things just to make life easier for us. Cause.
00:16:08
Speaker
as much as we love doing the home delivery and still doing the grocery store, we still like living a life a little bit too with our families. That's one thing we've been working on recently and we've hired a couple more people to step up and help, not only do book work, but get the vans prepared for the orders to make sure that whatever's on the van is what is needed for home delivery. So we're not shorting customers or having a bunch of extra. So we're dumping down the drain or something like that. So
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah, organization, communication, it's all part of it. So that would be probably the biggest recent thing that we've, the hurdle we're trying to jump over and get through. Looking ahead to 2021, what's next for Sheeter cloverleaf dairy?
Collaborations with Local Producers
00:16:54
Speaker
We're actually, we're trying to work with a couple of other producers and actually bringing a meat locker to town to work. So we have a better availability of beef and pork products.
00:17:04
Speaker
and working with a couple other individuals in a pretty close proximity, getting some produce going with just we'll have some in season stuff along with building some greenhouse, high tunnel greenhouses for kind of year round produce availability for some stuff. Yeah, we're not slowing down yet. It's been, like I said, it's been a fun road to travel down, getting to know our customer base a lot more indirectly and directly in the way we're doing our farm, our home delivery.
00:17:33
Speaker
I went out early on and did some of the home deliveries with our drivers to see the feel and get a sense for how and what everything takes place. So I kind of have an understanding of any issues that could take place. And the fun thing about this whole thing that I didn't really mention earlier, like the sales we have in our grocery stores, they've only gone up since this deal. And it hasn't been a, that was a concern of ours where we started doing home delivery to a degree where our sales in the grocery stores would diminish.
00:18:01
Speaker
And I think with the publicity we've done through our social media and our radio outlets that we've used, it's just exposed that many more people to our products. And it's been crazy to see our sales exceed both in home delivery and our grocery store, both in these essentially trying times for a lot of the farmers and just individuals in general.
Importance of Communication and Customer Service
00:18:26
Speaker
What's your final piece of advice for farmers selling direct to market?
00:18:30
Speaker
Communication, I can't stress enough, I mean for us that's been a huge thing where I've always done a lot for my phone as far as keeping in contact but just having those important emails where people just email them from a simple question to more just trying to learn more about home delivery or your products or just other local producers in our case having that availability to respond within a very timely manner has been a huge asset for us. That's one thing that
00:18:58
Speaker
we've got a lot of really nice emails and even we get cards in the mail thanking us and already left at the doorstop where drivers bring home. I just really appreciate our steadfast communication skills where you get they ask a question and before they close out of their computer they got a response back with the answer and yeah the communication thing with your customers and obviously your anybody you're working with along the way right down to even the folks
Virtual Conference Details and Upcoming Guest
00:19:29
Speaker
So again, that was Grant Sheeter from Sheeter Cloverleaf Dairy. If you want to hear more from Grant, how he transitioned to selling direct online, adding door-to-door delivery, and subscription options to expand his business, and how you can do the same, please join us at the Direct Farm Price Conference coming up on February 2nd. It is completely free and virtual.
00:19:51
Speaker
and you can register at directfarmconference.com. Join us next week to hear Ashley Clark's story from Sacred Roots Maple and how her family farm has built a brand rooted in keeping maple traditions alive in their local community. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week.
00:20:25
Speaker
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