Welcome to the Si Farmer Podcast. Podcast, where we talk farm and marketing, business tactics, strategy. If it's farmer or marketing, we'll probably talk about it on this show. And today is no different. It's six 30 in the morning. I've already been at it a couple hours, forgot my watch this morning. I, I, I had to look at the computer screen, tell what time it is. I'm not used to not wearing a watch. Kind of messes me up. But I saw a story the other day that just, it really solidified why we started Si Farmer, why we are here. And it was a story that's very common and it's sad. Family had started a farmer, the first generation farmer, so doubly tough. I know I'm there. Um, they were, they were running a retail operation, trying to sell their products, sell other products, had a little store going. Um, got into a little trouble, I guess. And I'm, I don't know the whole story, so I don't wanna give out too much information. But they got into a little trouble with the, with the irs and they were making on a payment plan, and they finally, government came and just shut'em down. And it brought into, you know, they were, they were starting to market themselves. They were doing a lot of good in the community. There was a lot of good, and they'd gotten some bad family news and some stuff, but it really just hit home that, you know, if we're making enough money, if we're doing enough business, that we don't get in that kind of trouble. And that's why we started Si Farmer, because when we farm, when we run a business, we have to take care of a lot of things. And we have a lot of things on our plate more than, uh, I, I dare say, more than some small businesses. So let's get into it. Today.

I have a love hate relationship with marketing. Really, I've gotta do what all I wanna do is farm. Welcome

To the Si Farmer

Podcast. If you wanna market your farm, farm-based business or craft food business directly to the consumer, this is the place for you. Welcome to the show. Today's podcast is sponsored

By Little Tractor and Equipment Company. Now, I've worked with these guys for years. These are great guys, and they really care about the small farmer carry a lot of lines of products, tractors and lawnmowers and all kinds of stuff. But one of the things they carry that's really unique is they carry used Coyote tractor parts. So if you run an older coyote and are looking for an engine or a transmission for, uh, an LB 1914 or something like that, check these guys out. Go to little tractor.com and click on the used parts tab. Yeah. So this family got them, it got some really bad news and got themselves in trouble. And, um, I guess it was the, the State Department of Revenue where somebody shut them down. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a very sad thing. Farming is hard. It really is. And, and, you know, you farm, you know this, it's hard. And running a business is hard. It really is. I mean, I have a, uh, business partner, she's my wife, kind of makes it tough. She's also the boss, but it makes it, you know, when you have a partner like that, it makes it a lot easier, but it's still hard. Running a business is not easy. Good. Bless you. Dally my dog's here, she sneezed. Um, it's hard. And it, when I saw this story, it really, it, it, it broke my heart because it's, it's, it's a tough deal. It really is. And it really, it, it solidified why we started Si Farmer. I have a lot of knowledge that I want to share. It's here, it's in my head. If you can pick it out, it's yours. I was blessed with a a, a good mind. And I wanna share this, this knowledge that I've gained over more than 20 years in marketing businesses. And I see small farms that spend so much time and effort farming and raising these wonderful products and growing and forgetting the side. Or, I, I, i, I, it's not forgetting. I mean, you don't have enough time in the day. You gotta market it too, because we have to sell our products. And most small farmers, unless you're selling into the the commodity market, have to market our products. I mean, we run a forage farm, we have to sell. Hey, there's no guaranteed outlet for, hey, people need it, people want it, people want good quality product, but there's no guaranteed outlet for it. So we have to market it. And what we started si farmer for, was to try to share this knowledge and come up with solutions for farmers to help market our products in a way that doesn't take as much time that is efficient. Because, you know, if you work an eight hour day on the farm and then you work an eight hour day in the business, and then you sleep eight hours, that's all, that's all you do. And life has to be more than that, you know? So, you know, we started this as a way to help. And I, I wanna reach out and try to help this business so that that's in this trouble. And I'm, I, I might release some more information about who they are, but, um, in, in, you know, coming weeks. But I, I, I need to do my research and figure'em out a little bit and help. But, you know, when you work, it's something that you're passionate about. You know, the old, the old quote is, if you, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Well, I love what I do and I work every day because it's work. And when you have to balance that work, it's tough. It's a challenge. Prioritization becomes an issue. Well, you know, like for example, I have to prep equipment and we're down a couple of people. So I was doing a lot of the work myself and made a parts run two hours, an hour, hour of the parts, hour back, got back, started pulling everything apart. Wrong part got the wrong, they gave me the wrong part. So I had to call'em back and say, Hey, wrong part. And so now my day, I've got four hours in a day replacing parts that didn't even work. So now I had to put it all back together. So, you know, I had, you've gotta prioritize. So now I'm six hours, four hours into my day, plus a couple hours of getting parts. And that's one piece of equipment. How do you prioritize the, you know, the, the, how do you prioritize those, those things? Well, I also had five or six calls to return for people who were looking, who were looking for, Hey, I had, uh, a brokerage company calling me. I had, so how do you prioritize those things? Well, you have to, you have to come up with a system or at least have a flow that you can work in that takes care of customers and takes care of the needs of the business and takes care of the business. Needs of the business. I mean, the business has to run, has to have, you know, you have to do things like you have to pay taxes and you have to, you know, pay your bills and you have to do all this stuff. And you have to, you know, luckily I have a business partner, my wife and I, we run several businesses together, so we sort of have a groove going that we get this stuff done. And I don't know how she does the other part, and she probably doesn't know how I farm, but you know, we, we sort of run this thing together and it's, it's, you know, it's a partnership, the good one. But you have to get there. And then we, then we also have to market these things and running a business art. So we, we got into the, you know, the marketing side of it to help. We got into the SI farmer, we started this to help these businesses that are failing. We need them. We as a people, we need farmers. We need local food supply. I truly believe we can do so much good for our community if we provide local products so people can shop local, people can buy food from somebody. So when we have issues where there are food shortages, not a food shortage, if you get it down the road, you know, that's not a supply chain issue. Uh, you don't care. You know, I, I've seen grocery stores, you know, when the truck, when when we didn't have enough truckers that would be low on beef because the beef pack plants had shut down. And you know what? If you have your local farmer and you have a, a relationship, and we ran all the way through Covid, very few disruptions, and having that relationship with somebody who grows local food is important because it helps everybody. The community is better for having us in it. I hope. Excuse me. I had to take a couple drinks, got a sore throat this morning. But, you know, the, the community's better because farmers are in it. I mean, who doesn't love farmers? I mean, we're great folks. The community's better, but we have to do our part on the business side. And you know, when I talk to the farmers that I know that I, I look up to and I respect when I talk to them about their business and their marketing, most of'em are so far behind the curve on marketing that they struggle. And it doesn't have to be that way. We live in an era where, era where technology can be our friend. We don't have to, you know, it doesn't have to be this big scary thing, but we need to approach it in the right way. We need to, you know, look at technology for what it is. I, I like to talk about our business as being, you know, we have really old-fashioned values, but with a new technology approach. So we do things, we use tools and technology to help us be, help us do our jobs more efficiently. And that's a lot of what we are starting to do is trying to help farmers help y'all out there, get better at your marketing by leveraging, by using tools to help you do it, help you do it easier, manage your, your, your marketing side in a very easy way. And there's no one size fits all solution. It's not, well, you know, I've seen companies just come out and say, well, we're a farm marketing agency. You know what, I, I've never seen two businesses that you can market the exact same way. Everybody has their own workflow. Everybody has their own. And so we discuss this stuff so that we can get into it and help you understand what is gonna work for you. We teach some, we have a a, an online marketing course, we have a whole bunch of'em. You can join our, our community and talk, you know, get in there and look at, we have courses on how to set up, you know, set up some of these platforms and how to, how to do a lot of the things that we have to do every day to keep our businesses running. I believe that we have the opportunity to help a lot of people. This company that I saw that fold, that had to close their doors the other day, they were running a great business. I mean, they really, and from the outside, you know, when you look at the outside, they were doing a good job with their social, they were engaging with the community. They did so many things with the community where they helped out and they did these things and they fell down on another, on, on some other parts and it, they couldn't keep it going. And there are ways that we, you know, that with a little bit of knowledge, understanding the, you know, we talked about prioritization. How do you, and if you listen to this podcast, you know, I'm a big person for introspection. And I think a lot about what are the things that I'm good at and what are the things not good at and the things I'm not good at. I try to find people who are good at those things. Reason pretty simple. They can do the things that I can't. Got a really good friend who's an absolutely brilliant mechanic. You know, I do a lot of the maintenance work myself. I do a lot of the, you know, the little things. But when it comes to something that I absolutely have to have running in that, and I've learned that I, I shouldn't tackle these jobs myself. Can I do'em? Yeah, I probably could. Is it an efficient way to do it? Probably not. Cuz he can do in two hours. What, take me 10 and five tools and, you know, whole bunch of, whole bunch of screaming and yelling. You know, it, it's that efficient. We, we find ways to get better. And my, one of the ways that I think I get better is by understanding what I'm not good at and where I need help. And then partnering with people and companies that take on the slack that I can't do, try not to, you know, there are things, there's a lot of things that I can do, but is it efficient? Is it an efficient use of my time and the business's time to do them? And sometimes I, I, you know, I like to do things myself. I, I like to be self-sufficient, but I also think it's important that we balance that with, you know, for example, we, my, uh, my wife runs the financial side of the business, use an accounting firm. She does all of the detailed stuff, but we use an accounting firm to do all the things like payroll, taxes and, and all of the, the, the stuff like that. Because could she do it? Absolutely. She's a brilliant woman. Could she do it? Sure. Is it an efficient use of her time? No. So we find those partnerships and sometimes those partnerships we have to, you know, it's more of a client and a service relationship. It could be, uh, several different things. But you know, we find those areas where either we're not strong, whether, whether we may not be as good or we think this is, you know, we can have somebody do this. Somebody do a certain service or function. For example, my buddy who's the mechanic, brilliant, I mean, got all, I mean, he, he does it all. And I lean on him because, well, if I had to do it, I wouldn't get the other stuff done. And prioritization, I couldn't, if I didn't have him, I would have to probably hire a mechanic. And it's, it's, even though he charges a very fair rate, I have no problems with his rate. It's still cheaper to hire him than it is to hire a full-time mechanic. And he's, he's probably as good as anybody I've ever met at this stuff. I mean, he's really, really, I mean, he's a genius and I lean on him because that's an area where I'm not as strong. Could I figure stuff out? Sure. And he and I have a great relationship. I mean, he was just down here yesterday replacing a wheel, uh, speed center on one of my trucks. You know, what, could I replace the speed center? Yep. Probably, uh, would it take me three times as long probably. But I was also fighting that issue with John, with, with John Deere where I had to, you know, they sent me a, a part that was for a, uh, there was a break in the serial numbers where they sent me the newer bracket and I needed the one for the older brackets. So I had to make all those runs and all that stuff to do. And I had to find an efficient use of my time. And that's, when we talk about marketing, we have to find efficient ways to let people know about our products. We have to find efficient ways to let people communicate with us and for us to communicate with them, we have to find efficient ways. And the reason we as farmers have to be very efficient is because we're really running at the minimum two businesses. First there's a farm and then there's the sales side of selling our products. Again, unless you sell into, unless you're a grain farmer or a row crop where you sell into a specialty market, most of us have to sell our products. You run a small cattle farm and you're, you're having a, a processor work with you where you're selling your, your beef by the cut you have now you have a farm to run and you have a retail operation to run. You have to be able to do both successfully. Means we have to get efficient in all of the areas. We have to be better at all of'em. And it means marketing efficiently means, uh, communicating efficiently with not only our, our vendors and our uh, contractors, but also with our suppliers, but also with our customers. How do we communicate efficiently? Because I, people will call me and I love to talk to customers. I love it. They call me, they'll tell me, you know, they ask me, well, do you have horse hay? I said, well, I have lots of kinds of horse hay. What kind of horse do you have? What do, do you do? You know, do you, are, are you working this horse every day? Is this a rope horse or is this a, you know, is this a a, a pasture ornament? Well, the nutritional needs of those two animals are, are different. And you probably want a different type of hay for them. You might want, you know, I have a, a customer who, she is dead set. She went to pure alfalfa and she has a plan. She has, you know, she mixes her alfalfa. She has it, she has her system that works and she raises some beautiful, beautiful brood mares and has some of the, the best looking cults, best looking fos you'll ever see. I mean, just really, really, really good operation. But she has her plan and she has her needs. And I love talking to her about it because she has a definitive reason why she wants a certain type of hey. And I love it. I love having that conversation. But it takes time. So if I have 10 customers and they all wanna talk for, you know, 20 minutes, that's 200 minutes. That's two, you know, what is that? Two and a half? Two and two and two thirds hours. Yeah. 120. Yeah. Three and a half. It's a three and a half. My math is bad this morning. It's been a long morning<laugh>, but you know, that's almost three hours just talking on the phone to customers. I still have to work, I still have to get the job done, which is this time of year, it's mowing, ting, raking, bailing, storing, transporting, all of that kind of stuff. Still has to get done. And you know, we, we are always looking for ways to be more efficient. And one of the things, and when I, when I talk about SI farmer, when I, I said why we started this was to find those places and help you if you're a small farmer, help you find those places to get efficient. Maybe it's using tools in your social media, maybe using, uh, a single tool to manage all of your social media, Facebook, Instagram, um, TikTok, I mean all of those things. And using a tool that manages all of them for you, where you make one post and it reformat them. That might be something that's helpful for you if you're big into social media. If you are, you know, if you're not and you deal with telephone calls all the time, maybe there's a better way to handle telephone calls and text messages. Maybe there's, and what we try to do is talk about all of these things so that we can get more efficient because we have to run at least two businesses. You gotta do the farming and you gotta market the farm and sell product. And speaking of getting efficient, I gotta get outta here cuz I got a lot of stuff to do today. It's been great talking with you. Have a wonderful day. Good luck. God bless.