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Building a Happy & Healthy Family Farm Business
825 Plays1 year ago
In this week’s episode, we are joined by one of the newest Farm Advisors, Rachel Shenk of Shenk Family Farm. Join us as we discuss the origins of the Farm, new fulfillment ventures, local partnerships, and Rachel’s success with subscriptions.
Shenk Family Farm is a pasture based livestock Farm in North Carolina, offering their community chicken, pork, eggs, Thanksgiving turkeys, and grassfed beef from a partner Farm.
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Transcript
Introduction to Direct Farm Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the go-to resource for farms across the US looking to grow and manage their business. Tune in weekly to hear tips and tactics from our most successful farmers on how to increase sales, access more customers, and save time
Meet Rachel Schenck
00:00:17
Speaker
and money. We'll also speak with industry experts, business leaders, and partners to share the latest farm business trends selling direct to market.
00:00:27
Speaker
Well, welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Richard, your host for today's episode. We have a great conversation for you today with one of our newest farm advisors, Rachel Schenck from Schenck Family Farms, located in North Carolina. Welcome, Rachel. Thank you, Richard. Excited to be here. Absolutely. I'm excited to be chatting with you today as well.
Schenck Family Farms Overview
00:00:47
Speaker
So jumping right in, could you start by telling us about Schenck Family Farm and what you all produce today?
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So we are a pasture based livestock farm. Like you said, in North Carolina, we're in a little town called new people. It's about half hour from the coast, uh, which is really cool. We've got the beach so close to us. Um, and we raise pasture raised chicken, pork, eggs, and also Thanksgiving turkeys. And we do partner with a local grass fed beef farm as well until we have our own beef ready in a few years. Um, it's just a husband and nine. Well, we do the majority of the farm work we do.
00:01:22
Speaker
um, have paid help for our pickup locations and our chicken, but drink.
Acquiring Volunteers through Social Media
00:01:26
Speaker
And we also have volunteers that help pack orders, pack eggs and various tasks like that. But the majority of it is my husband and I, and sometimes the kids when they want to, but we have, she's almost two and Mason is five. I love it. Now, just, you know, out of curiosity, I know a lot of farms I work with as an account manager are looking for all the hands they can get.
00:01:51
Speaker
So can you expand a little bit on some of these pickup location help and some of these volunteers and how you were able to get some extra hands on the farm? Yeah. So to be honest, the only help we've ever sought out was for chicken butchering, just because it's very obvious we could not handle that ourselves anymore. So we honestly just asked friends that we knew that had flexible jobs or people that we knew that were interested in home setting, maybe wanting to learn how to butcher their own chickens.
00:02:17
Speaker
And for the, as far as volunteers go, we have never sought out volunteer help. They have just reached out to us on Instagram or Facebook and just said, Hey, like we just had a baby and I'm staying home, not working full time anymore. I'd love to come out one or two days a week and just help however I can.
Farm's Evolution from 2016
00:02:36
Speaker
Um, so we've had at least four different people that have just randomly reached out to us. A few of them having customers and then some of them we had never met.
00:02:44
Speaker
That was really cool to see that people wanted to be a part of what we were doing. I love that. Well, that's awesome. Kind of goes to show the fingerprints you have on the community around you. I love it. Yeah. So how did Schenck Family Farm come to be?
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, so back in 2016 when my husband and I were starting to think about having a family, my husband Joe, he just felt very strongly that he did not want to work full time away from home. He loves working on different farms growing up. His uncle had a farm, just loves being outside, hard work. And we just really started to think about it.
00:03:20
Speaker
farming would be something we could bring our kids alongside us. We could like work alongside them, meaningful time together, teaching them about animals and responsibilities and yeah, being able to push through the hard stuff together and have really rewarding work that we could look back on and be proud of. Um, so we just started with melt 40 meat birds and five laying hens in our backyard.
00:03:42
Speaker
Um, we gave those away to friends and family and everyone was blown away. They said this is the best chicken and eggs we've ever had. Um, so then in the spring of 2017, we established the business and about three years later in 2020, we went full-time farming. We were still working part-time before that. Um, but yeah. I love it. Well, just out of my own curiosity, how has been farming full-time?
Impact of COVID on Farming Business
00:04:05
Speaker
We kind of got to a crossroads where we could not keep doing what we were doing, like working all the hours for the farm plus other jobs. Well, I wasn't, but my husband was, he was still doing construction. Um, so we, we were kind of like, well, the farm at this point has got to see or swim because this is not to say, you know, any longer.
00:04:23
Speaker
We were blown away. So it was the year that COVID happened. And that was honestly a blessing for us because our sales doubled that year. So that gave us the boost in sales that we needed to make that jump, to make the barn to start paying for itself. So yeah, scary, but we are very glad that we made the jump and we don't regret it at all. And we can't imagine doing anything else now.
00:04:47
Speaker
That is awesome. And way to take that leap of faith.
Farming Philosophy and Personal Health
00:04:52
Speaker
So taking a look at your branding, happy and healthy seems to be really at the core of who the Schenck family farm is. Tell us a little bit more about that.
00:05:03
Speaker
We really just try and mimic nature in all that we do, letting the animals express their natural instincts. And most of our farming methods were inspired by Joel Salton, Polyface Farm. I think a lot of farms kind of base their production off of him and just the way he raises the animals.
00:05:19
Speaker
It's very inspiring and also family friendly. Like it's a way of farming that we felt comfortable bringing our kids into. It's not smelly. It's not sneaky. Like we can let the kids hang out with the animals and we don't actually feel like, yeah, weird about it.
00:05:34
Speaker
Um, so, so that was really important for us. Um, and that wording came about honestly, when we were building our website, we were just trying to communicate it in a simple way and not only having healthy animals, but also community and farmers. So it's really important for us to be able to equip our customers to, to prepare food with our products, not just like give it to all of them and be like, good luck.
00:05:57
Speaker
But give them recipes and give them inspiration, get them excited about cooking from scratch in their kitchen with good meat and obviously a product that's, that's healthier and tastier. And then for us personally, as farmers, we're in this for the long haul. We see this as the long-term thing and we want to.
00:06:14
Speaker
be farming for years and decades to come. And so in order for that to happen, we've got to be happy and healthy too, which means we've got to charge a price that is going to be up so we can pay ourselves a living wage and to be able to continue with the business and also sustainable family rhythms. So we're constantly having to adjust those as the kids get older, certain things get easier and certain things get harder. So just making sure we're always remaining flexible.
00:06:42
Speaker
That's definitely what's easier, of course, said than done. Right. Well, um, one thing I really like what you're saying too, is you're prioritizing your own happiness and health as an account manager. You know, I can just speak for the farms that I have the opportunity to work with, but.
00:06:59
Speaker
It's pretty common for farms not to understand the value of their time or the value of their flexibility. So just for other farmers out there that maybe need to find that value, how did you and your husband dial that in?
00:07:14
Speaker
I mean, to be honest, we're not great at it and we're still learning and there's definitely times where we're getting close to burnout and we can feel it and we're like, okay, something's got to change if we want to keep farming and keep enjoying farming because in order to serve our customer well, we've got to be coming from a heart of service, not just like, oh, I just got to get this work done, you know?
00:07:40
Speaker
And yeah, like I had said before, just being in it for the long haul, we had talked with other farmers that had said, you have to prioritize your own health to be able to continue doing this. Otherwise you're going to give up and you're going to quit because you're
00:07:55
Speaker
You don't have the energy or the motivation because that's easy to lose when you're working so many hours. So we really tried to be cautious of that. But like I said, we're not great at it. We're better than we were, but we have a lot of room to grow. And I think a part of that is looking at farmers that have been doing it for a long time and asking them for advice and listening to them and not thinking you can do it all on your own.
00:08:20
Speaker
Absolutely. Now you mentioned having this happy and healthy approach to your farming practices,
Animal Welfare and Product Quality
00:08:26
Speaker
your community, you and your husband as well and the family. Um, you know, why, why has this been a big deal for customers? How has this resonated well with your customer base?
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, our customers, they really value animal welfare. They want to know that the animals were raised well and with care and respect. Um, obviously eventually their, their purpose is to be good, nourishing food, but while they're in our care.
00:08:54
Speaker
We want to be good stewards of them and we want to let them live how we believe God intended them to live to express their natural instincts, which be pigs get to wallow in the mud when they're hot, but also it can get dry. Um, like, yeah, we don't believe pigs should just live in the mud all day. We need to have access to all different kinds of environments and to be able to root around in the ground and to bathe in the sun.
00:09:18
Speaker
and then chicken scratching and pecking in the dirt eating bags like we really think that's how they were created to live and that's also really important to our customers but also on the other side of that the products that come from happy and healthy animals are more nutrient dense they're tastier they're healthier.
00:09:36
Speaker
And our customers really enjoy that aspect of it too. And that's part of why we offer farm tours. We want people to come out and see the farm. We don't just want to have empty label claims on our products. Like we want to back that up with people being able to come see the farm firsthand. So we lease the land so we can't have an open door policy all the time, but we try and do.
00:09:57
Speaker
tours in the spring and in the fall, way too hot in the summer, at least wherever you are. And then people can sign up for those and come out and see the farm. So we really love being able to share the farm with our customers. Nice. That's awesome. I'm happy to hear you're doing some farm tours. I know with some other farms I'm working with, they've become much more popular. Great way to get people plugged in and really showcase the practices and add value there.
Transition to Barn to Door
00:10:22
Speaker
Well, what drove you to join Barn to Door?
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah. So it was that year when we went full time, our markets shut down for a little bit when COVID happened. And really the only option for us was to move to online sales because we couldn't have that face to face time, at least for several weeks. Um, and so we were using Squarespace and we tried to set up, um,
00:10:47
Speaker
Like an online store through there, we kind of already had one in place, but we weren't using it a ton. And we just realized we couldn't have variable weight items. We could have different pickup locations, but then our packing list would not be separated by all those different particular locations. And so it just got administratively exhausting.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah. So Barnador was a really good option because it offered a lot of customization and the variable weights and all of you guys, the onboarding manager, account managers, like so, so helpful and kind of taking the overwhelm away because our farm was under a lot of changes already. And to add something new like this was, was kind of scary, but it all made it really, really simple to make the transition. We appreciated that.
00:11:33
Speaker
Good, I'm happy to hear that. Especially, I mean, what a year for a lot of the producers for work. For everybody. Well, I'm happy to hear it was a pretty smooth transition. Could you expand a little bit on what that transition was like moving from Squarespace to Barn to Door?
00:11:51
Speaker
I'm trying to remember back. I know the biggest thing was just like, obviously moving all of our items into store, like minimum weight, maximum weight, item description, pictures, all that stuff. Um, and I think y'all just had us like put a spreadsheet together and then you were like, we'll take it over from here. And like you created all the items. Um, you already had product pictures for most everything that we had. Um, so it was scary at first, but as we, we dug into it and like,
00:12:20
Speaker
The nuts and bolts, like, well, y'all kind of took it over from there. And so that, that was really, really nice. Well, good. Happy to help. Like I mentioned, and I know transitions in general can be kind of scary. So for sure. Well, and then, um, how have your customers responded to the change? You know, as a new shopping experience for them, um, were they able to pick it up pretty easily?
00:12:43
Speaker
Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, so, so many people commented on that. It was a lot more user friendly. Um, and to be able to see. Yeah. All of our inventory in one place and not have to like call us or email us with a bunch of questions like, well, how big are your busts and butts or.
00:13:00
Speaker
how thicker your pork chops or like things like that. Um, everything was there. So they, it was kind of like self-serve shopping. Um, and it, and it took a lot out of the load off of us too. I'm not having to answer as much questions. Um, the only people that had trouble with the transition were the older generation.
00:13:18
Speaker
just because they were used to just coming to us at the farmer's market and getting stuff from there. But after being on the phone with them, walking them through it, they did it themselves a few times and then they got comfortable with it too. It was a transition. We are creatures of habit after all, so I'm glad you were able to change that. Well, excellent.
Launching a Mobile Farm Store
00:13:40
Speaker
Now, one change to your farm business that at least we're super excited with on our side here,
00:13:46
Speaker
is the introduction of this mobile farm store. Yeah, about I'd love to hear a little bit more about it. Yeah, so we've been doing farmers markets, we had been doing farmers markets from the beginning, as the kids have gotten older,
00:14:02
Speaker
Saturdays thought a lot more difficult. It was roughly 10 hours between like set up market, tear down, unpacky, and then a couple hours at the farm every Saturday. And so we couldn't do for birthday parties. We couldn't do baby showers. We couldn't do festivals or any kind of weekend activities with the kids because most things are on Saturdays. Um, and so it was honestly a family decision.
00:14:24
Speaker
And we were thinking, like racking our brains, like, well, what can we do if the majority of our sales, we're not going to be through farmers markets anymore? What's another way people can shop face to face with us? A brick and mortar farm store is not an option at this point. And so we had seen some friends do something similar up in Virginia.
00:14:43
Speaker
And, um, although they're more like a mobile farmers market, so they offer their meat, but also like a bunch of local bread and local produce. And we weren't ready to make that full jump, but we liked the mobile idea. So we got an enclosed trailer with chest freezers. So we chose two neighboring towns that are where the majority of our customers are. Uh, both about half hour from us. And, um, so we set up the same time, the same day, every single week. So people know where we are and they can count on us being there.
00:15:13
Speaker
People can order ahead and just drive through and pick up or they can drive through or walk up and shop. We've got our price lists and we bring everything out there. Um, so that's been good to still have that face to face, but it's only a few hours set up and tear down a super easy. I can show up 15 minutes before we've got to sell everything. He's pretty much already set up. Um, and I don't have the hot pullers to the market anymore.
00:15:36
Speaker
So that's been great. Um, and customers have really enjoyed it too, because they don't even have to get out of their car, especially moms with young kids or people that order a lot of meat, like at the farmer's market, they were hauling 24 pounds of meat, like, and they got to walk six blocks back to their car. Um, so it's been really, it's been really convenient for our customer too. Um, and a good, good transition for us.
00:15:59
Speaker
Great. You know, I'm really happy to hear how well the customers are excited to be picking it up. And it's a win-win. It sounds like everyone's saving time as well. You've been doing a great job connecting your community via email and social media. You've mentioned those farm tours earlier as well. Will you be doing anything different now that you won't be having those market interactions?
Marketing Strategy Changes
00:16:19
Speaker
Or maybe we're just leaning into the mobile farm store.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, so I am trying to do things a little bit differently. We've already been sending out our weekly email with recipes and things like that, but I'm really trying to be more intentional about, I'm still figuring it out, but like.
00:16:39
Speaker
more engaging and more connection in those emails because we have lost the base to base with a lot of people. So letting more of our family personality shine through those emails rather than just simply sharing a recipe. So we're trying to figure out how to do that still to be able to have that connection and that engagement. We also have a friend that has been helping us butcher chickens who also is a videographer.
00:17:03
Speaker
And he is working on a video for us to kind of share our heart for farming, why we do what we do. Um, so that's something that we're excited to like blast on social media, website, email to kind of get it out there to reach.
00:17:18
Speaker
the customers that we wouldn't have reached at the farmer's market because a lot of our customers did transition, but some of them didn't. And so sales have taken a dip, which was kind of scary, but we also realized like there's a ton more customers out there that would have never come to the farmer's market. And we've just got to learn how to reach those people. Um, and we've already seen it happening at the mobile farm store, which has been awesome. So we're excited for the future of that.
00:17:43
Speaker
Good. Yeah, me too. It seems like it's going to be an awesome opportunity for you here. Now, this season you've also added deliveries to local vacation rentals in your area. Yes. What's that experience been like?
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so it was it was a program that was originally started by one of our state colleges, like as an experiment trying to connect tourists to the local farm community. And so it's been in some beach towns and some mountain towns. And then this year, some of the local farmers have taken it over.
00:18:19
Speaker
So that was us that, so we took it over for our, our community. So we're partnering with a local organization for produce and then another local farm for flowers. And then we provide the meat. This is our first year taking ownership of it, which has also been scary. I'm like so many new things that one, but, but it's been good and it, um, it has been challenging just because it is a different ideal customer than like our, our local people. Um,
00:18:46
Speaker
And so we've partnered with some realty companies that have put our information in their confirmation emails when people sign up for a vacation rental. And that's been great. We've been in the newspaper. And so it's been, yeah, just trying to get the word out, honestly, and to make it run smooth. And we've gotten to that point, but we're still
00:19:11
Speaker
Sales are definitely still a little lower than we had hoped, but I mean, nothing's easy the first time around. So we're just trying to give it all the time that it needs, but it has steadily grown. And so that's exciting. Um, and we've gotten great feedback from the vacationers, but just that it's, it's made their vacation that much more enjoyable having fresh produce and good meats. So yeah, it's been good and we're hopeful for the future of this as well.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, I love the idea to be able to vacation and then you got a bunch of great local protein, a bunch of great local produce available to you. But it sounds like it's taken a lot of partnering with other local businesses in order to get this ball rolling here.
Partnerships with Local Businesses
00:19:51
Speaker
A lot of farms we work with are interested in partnering with other local businesses. As I often say, a rising tide raises all ships after all.
00:20:00
Speaker
So any advice for other farmers when it comes to creating partnerships and working with other local businesses? Yeah, I think things are a lot more fun when you do things together. Especially if you've got those local businesses that either you're already connected with, you're already friends with, or you know, you share similar customers. If you do something together, your information is going to get received by their customers and vice versa. So it's a win-win situation.
00:20:28
Speaker
My advice, whether you're doing a giveaway or an event together or whatever you're doing, it's just, like you said, lifting each other up. That, um, is huge and you're going to spray each other on. You're going to just make each other better. Things are never great when you do everything alone. It's always good to have those partnerships to be able to grow together and to learn together.
00:20:49
Speaker
Perfect. Well, especially when you're in a season where you're adding more and more scary things, it's nice to go through those with a group of other folks. For sure. For sure. Now, one of the draws for your customers to your business has to be the wide variety of products that you offer. You offer everything from pulled pork, cold chickens, specialty cuts. You offer a handful of bundle boxes and subscriptions. What made you add these options for your customers here?
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah. So it's funny. Sometimes I'm scared that we offer too much and it's over me. Cause I know people have decision fatigue. I do. If I go to a restaurant and there's like 17 pages, I'm like, I just asked the waitress, like whatever you really love, just give me that. Um, so, so sometimes I second guess that.
00:21:35
Speaker
But I also realized that we have a ton of different kinds of customers. We've got older customers that have a lot of free time and love just coming every week and purchasing a few items. We've got like the busy mom that wants to just come once a month. She doesn't have a chest bridge in her garage, but she can get her stuff once a month. And so the subscriptions are great for her. And then we also have the people that are super busy or they live far away.
00:22:01
Speaker
or they live in the middle of nowhere and they've got tons of freezer space. And so those are the kind of people that want to get their items in bulk just once or twice a year so they don't have to constantly be shopping. So I think it's good for us to have that variety to serve each of those different kinds of people.
00:22:19
Speaker
Perfect. Now, have you seen any kind of fan favorites amongst this wide variety? I would say the subscriptions. Um, it is, it's probably a third of our
Subscription Model Success
00:22:29
Speaker
overall sales. Like it is substantial. Um, and that is something like we can count on every single month. We just do monthly boxes, a small size and a large size chicken pork, and then the beef from our partner farm. And that, that has really, really grown a lot.
00:22:45
Speaker
So that's definitely been the favorite. I think people love having the variety. They love being able to, to get cuts. They might not normally buy on their own and figure out how to use them. Um, and then some people do that for like a year or two, and then they end up, um, just ordering all the cart. They find out what their favorites are and they just went with that, but it's a good onboarding process for people that are new and that kind of want to try the best of what we have to offer.
00:23:10
Speaker
Awesome. I love that. I'm really happy to hear that the subscriptions are driving a third of the sales. That's great. That's really good to hear. Now, how about your experience just selling kind of one-off bundles? How have those been selling?
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah, so not as great, but it's awesome probably because I don't feel like I market them as well as I could. I honestly, I have a lot of room to grow in that area, but really the only bundles now that we offer other ones for the make case shares. So like the grill and breakfast bundle and then the produce bundle. And we do offer a farm sampler.
00:23:45
Speaker
bundle and that those are really the only ones that we, that we offer. And I honestly just don't talk about them that much. I haven't focused on them in our email. So that's probably why, but bundles are great because, uh, it takes the decision making away from the customer so they can collect one thing and have like 20 pounds of awesome meat. Um, and not have to like spend an hour shopping and picking through your inventory. So I think that they can.
00:24:10
Speaker
and be successful if you put the work in to market them well and maybe offer recipe cards and that kind of thing. But yeah, that's something that we want to work on more.
00:24:20
Speaker
Perfect. Well, and with a lot of the farms that I work with, they usually use bundles as kind of a starting location for subscriptions. And so I'm happy to hear this because that's usually where they get started. But, um, yeah, it looks like now you've got a lot of different items out there. Um, you know, how is Barnador help managing all of your inventory here?
Benefits of Barn to Door Platform
00:24:43
Speaker
Oh my goodness. It's amazing. Well, we're Barnard door. I mean, I would just put things up for sale and I'm like, I hope we still have that in the freezer. Like, and then I have to go through and be like, Oh, we only have two of those constantly adjusting. Um, but Barnard doors made it super easy. Yeah. It's like, it's night and day. I can't imagine going back to having to do manage inventory ourselves. So
00:25:10
Speaker
Well, now clearly you have a ton going on between the farm and family. And at Barn to Door, we love to help farmers get some time back in their days. So in what regards has Barn to Door helped you save time and make managing your farm a little easier?
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I talked a little bit about it before, just the self-serve shopping experience. All of the information is there. Customers just don't have the amount of questions that they used to have. I'm not getting the amount of phone calls or emails that I did before. And also I've noticed our online order.
00:25:43
Speaker
amount her purchase is way greater than like the shopping in person. So like, I think our average order in person is maybe like 40 or 50 bucks versus like the average online orders 80 or a hundred. Like it's way more. So that has been huge because people, yeah, they can have the time. They can shop from the comfort of their own home. They're not in a rush. There's not someone behind them. Like.
00:26:05
Speaker
waiting for them and they feel like they have to hurry and make a decision. So the orders are a lot higher per order. And so that's been awesome. And also I love that I can like at the end of every month, just like run the report, see how much I sold a beach category and makes bookkeeping so much easier because y'all do all the tracking for us. Good. Well, are there any integrations or tools that you recommend for other farmers?
00:26:32
Speaker
Um, definitely the mail chip integration, because, uh, at least for us, the email marketing has been a huge part of the way we market. And so having that, when people place an order, they can check the box to sign up for the email list has been awesome. And then also like when we send our emails, we can look and we can see the revenue that came.
00:26:54
Speaker
from each email so we can kind of see like what's working, what's not, what do people connect with the most, what leads to the most sales. So that's been really awesome.
Interest in Routeific for Delivery Optimization
00:27:05
Speaker
Um, and then also one that we're still looking into, uh, we just haven't had the amount of orders to, to make it worth it yet, but the route. So awesome. Our vacation deliveries is like an experiment to see if we might want to offer deliveries.
00:27:18
Speaker
all your mom for everywhere not just at the beach and because i've heard other farmers that have used relativity in like the automatic text and it does the route optimization for you and all that stuff and it's all integrated with barnadore so i think that's probably going to be the next one that we invest in just because i think it's going to make things a lot simpler for us and give the customer a better experience too.
00:27:40
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, and I can think of a few fans that you'll be able to chat with who have Rautifica. If you could connect me with them, that would be great. Happy to do so. Now, any tactics you recommend or maybe specific programs that you recommend for other farmers?
Consistency and Patience in Business Strategies
00:27:56
Speaker
I think one thing that's been helpful for us as far as a tactic or strategy, whenever I write my emails, I'm trying to think of one specific person and just talk straight to her. Because before I did that, I felt like my emails were kind of vague in general. And I think like targeting in on that, that one person that you want to sell to, and obviously you're going to sell to all different kinds of people.
00:28:19
Speaker
But it's just kind of helped me in my writing and it helps be focused. And I've been writing my emails a lot faster than I can cope with this. I'm just writing to one person and it makes it more conversational and engaging. So that's one thing I definitely recommend. Also another thing, when we try something new and it doesn't go great, I'm very much like, oh, okay, well maybe this isn't going to work. We should do something else. And my husband's like, no, just give it time. Just give it time.
00:28:48
Speaker
And I think like when you're trying something new remaining consistent. For a while, like whether that's six weeks, three months, whatever at least that to just give it time because it takes people time to learn the rhythm like whether you're going to be at a farmer's market or a certain pickup location or whatever it is.
00:29:06
Speaker
Um, to just stick with it. And then if after like a couple months, it's still not working, maybe tweak it then. But I think people really are drawn to consistency. They want to know that they can count on you being at a specific place at a specific time, like every week or every month or whatever it is. So just remain consistent with it and give it time to thrive before you just throw in the towel and give it up. Cause that's what I would like to do sometimes.
00:29:31
Speaker
But my husband just he's like, have patience, like, uh, just give it time. So, so that's another thing. And then also just, yeah, having those other farmers or business people that you can go to just like download your struggles or share your victories with because it's better.
00:29:50
Speaker
to share those and to have those people that can hold you accountable and give you feedback and you can bounce ideas off of, because like I said, again, you can't do any of this on your own. Well, you can, but it'd be really hard. So having those people that are your safe place that you can go to.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, that can help me be better. Yeah, and that's great, great advice and a good perspective to have as well. Like you said, consistency leads to a lot of trust as well. Yes, yes, customers. So awesome. Now, as our newest member of the farm advisor network, what are you most excited for when joining our team here?
Joining the Farm Advisor Network
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just excited about connecting with other farmers that are just wanting to grow, wanting to learn, wanting to just constantly serve their customers better. And I'm just excited to connect with them, network with them, learn from them.
00:30:42
Speaker
Hopefully anything that I shared today, I feel it's helpful to one person like that to win because farming is hard. I mean, any business is hard, but especially farming. I'm excited to offer any helpful advice, whether it's all the things we did wrong, like don't do this, learn from our mistakes. But yeah, I was excited for that, connecting with other farmers.
00:31:03
Speaker
Excellent. Well, and we're excited to have you here as well. I know you're an awesome addition to the team. So what's next? You know, what are some of your goals for Schenk family farm this coming year?
Future Goals for Schenck Family Farms
00:31:14
Speaker
The mobile farm store, the vacation deliveries, just honestly conning in on those, getting them efficient, getting them running smoothly, sustainable and learning how to market those better and serve our customers better. We haven't done like an across the board price raise in like three years. And so like, that's one thing we're like, Oh, we really need to look into that. So again, like the happy and healthy farmers, like we've got a lot more efficient at things, but it's not quite making up for all the increased costs. So like sitting down and looking through.
00:31:44
Speaker
all of our products and just making sure like we're charging what we need to charge and then making those changes as another big scary thing without ado. Um, yeah, yeah, but other than those things, no crazy big gold. Yeah. Well, you've started a lot of things already.
00:32:02
Speaker
Well, awesome. Rachel, again, we're super fortunate to have you joining the Farm Advisor Network here. I know a lot of farms are going to benefit greatly from chatting with you and getting some of your perspective here. So I want to extend my thanks to Rachel for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn to Door, we are humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, including Schenck Family Farm.
00:32:25
Speaker
If you want to connect with Rachel and other farm advisors, attend Barn2Door Connect. Register for weekly sessions at barn2door.com slash connect. For more information on Schenck Family Farm, you can follow them on Instagram at Schenck Family Farm. That's S-H-E-N-K Family Farm. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
00:32:49
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in. For more free farm resources, tips, and tactics that are most successful farms used to grow and manage their business, visit barnadore.com slash resources. Also don't forget to subscribe to the Direct Farm podcast to automatically download our weekly episodes. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.