🐴 I'm telling you this because I love you and want to see you succeed

Did you know more than 50% of all farmers lose money every single year? Some for 5, 10, even 20 years in a row.

6% of dairy farms shut down in 2022.

98% of farmers go out of business by year 5, usually after investing their entire life savings.

I’m dishing out some tough love to those in the agriculture/farming/homesteading space.

Some of this is going to frustrate you and it should. Because this is your life. This is your livelihood. This is a way of life you want to preserve.

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

You love being an owner, a producer - but you need to make more money (or money period) to keep doing it.

Or how about, you love rural life but you:

• Don’t love sales or marketing
• You’d rather deal with cows than people
• Too often you’re selling your products at cost or for a loss
• You’re having a hard time balancing the needs of the farm/homestead and those of your family, let alone any self-care
• You know you need to increase your prices to stay afloat, but you’re afraid you’ll lose all your customers
• Trying to figure out how to keep things going is stressful, overwhelming, and some days paralyzing

You’re not alone.

How do I know this?

Because probably like you, I’m a small family farmer. I grew up working long hours in sweltering heat, bitter cold and everything in-between.

I also married into a farm family – my husband is the 4th generation of a 200+ acre crop and livestock farm in south central Pennsylvania.

And for the last 15 years I’ve worked off-farm for the United States Department of Agriculture. Seeing day after day how farmers and ranchers are struggling to make ends meet and keep their family legacies and beloved way of life alive.

In 2019 I watched my 72-year-old father-in-law sell our cow herd in order to have enough money to “retire”.

I’ve also watched as he’s had to rent out crop fields to neighboring farmers to make the payments on his line of credit. The shame and embarrassment in his face absolutely broke my heart.

And it got me thinking…what could I do to help our farm make more money?

And why is the business of farming one in which NOT making money is universally accepted as ok, even normal?

Name another industry where someone goes:

“Gee, I think I’ll put my heart and soul into this, work sunup to sundown, give up precious time with my family and friends, and lose money every single year for the rest of my working life. Sign me up!”

We need to change this mindset.

Two years ago, I set out to change our farm’s financial trajectory.

I started by deciding we were going to sell direct-to-consumer.

I also took my experience in agriculture marketing and communications from college and my day job and employed those skills at home too.

Long story short, it worked.

My husband and I built a successful side business where we breed and raise show pigs for 4H and FFA kids, selling the ones not quite good enough for the show pen to people who want quality pork to fill their freezers.

We also switched up our rental agreements. Instead of leasing our “empty” fields to producers growing corn, soybeans and wheat, we now contract with neighbor farmers who grow high-value specialty crops like tomatoes to increase the rental rate per acre.

I also have a small vegetable patch that I grow direct-to-consumer products, in addition to feeding my own family.

As people started noticing the changes we were making, they started asking me what we’d done to turn things around.

I got asked to speak about it at my agriculture alma mater, and eventually created a small side business helping other farmers and ranchers learn to do the same.

Today, I’m focused on my mission to help producers grow profitable farms. Allowing them to work fewer hours, so they can keep their farms, enjoy their lives, and have the financial and time freedoms other business owners enjoy.

I’ll leave you with a few questions…

• How would making and keeping more money on your farm/homestead change your life?
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• What would it feel like to be able to quit working in time to have dinner with your family each night?
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• How long has it been since you took a family vacation? Or a stress-free one where you weren’t worrying about what was going on back home every second of the day?
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• What would it feel like to have better relationships with your spouse, your kids, and your employees?
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• How would your life change if you were less overwhelmed and anxious? If you could get a good night’s sleep and live a more balanced, healthy life?
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• What would that mean to you? To your family?

I’m here to tell you it’s all possible, and it starts with you taking back control.

You can’t control the weather. You can’t control politicians. You can’t control the cow that decides to up and die on you in the middle of calving.

But contrary to what you’ve probably been told your entire life; you CAN control the price you receive for your product(s). And you can change your farm’s publicly perceived value to the marketplace.

Read that again.

You must be willing to look at your operation from a 10,000’ view and see how you can position yourself and your products as something other than commercial agriculture. Something subject to the price whims and other uncontrollable factors.

Here’s a few options to get your wheels turning:

• Sell direct-to-consumer, at local farmers markets or even a homemade farm stand
• Create a digital product/course on something you know how to do better than others
• Start a newsletter and sell advertising spots for products/services you truly believe in
• Set up an online storefront using Shopify, Stan Store, Kajabi or others
• Start promoting yourself as a speaker and get booked at events, conferences, graduations etc.
• Farm/homestead merchandise

The list goes on and on.

My recommendation – start by talking to your current customers, or the audience you already have.

See if they’ll give you a few minutes of their time and ask them some of the following questions:

• What is it about my [name specific product] that matters to you?
• What is it about my weekly flower delivery that matters to you?
• What is it about my pastured chicken that matters to you?
• How does my [product XYZ] solve a problem for you? How does it make you feel?
• What frustrates you about the available options with [XYZ]?

In exchange, maybe give them some free products, offer a discount the next time you have something in-season that they want, or another small way to say thanks.

Next, pick an option from the ideas above (or brainstorm your own based on customer feedback) and try it out for a few months. See what kind of response you get, but more importantly, how you feel doing it.

To grow a community of raving fans willing to pay any price you set, you first need to earn their trust. And if you’re doing or selling something you don’t believe in, that’ll come through loud and clear to your audience.

If something is working, double-down on it and expand as you can. If it’s not working, get more feedback and try again.

Bottom line: you do NOT have to settle for a life of poverty, stress and constant fear of losing your livelihood just because you are in agriculture or the rural lifestyle.

There are ways to be profitable, peaceful, and happy while still doing the thing you love. It’s also possible to do it in a way that’s authentic and genuine without coming across as salesy.

You grow things. You raise things. You create things.

If you don’t believe your products are worth more than some policy writer in Washington D.C. - no one else will.

You and your work matter. You can do this, and I believe in you.

Enjoy the ride,

Charlie

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you may like my publication The Female Farm-Her: lifelong farm girl with thoughts. Opening the barn doors to give you a backstage look at what small family farming is really like. Helping people start, and grow profitable farms through connection and writing.

📌And if you’re ready to become more profitable and really connect with your customers, you can grab a free copy of my Direct-to-Consumer Startup Guide. It comes complete with templates, email and customer interaction scripts, pricing calculators and more.

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1. Share this newsletter with a fellow rural brand or business owner.
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