Building a Happy & Healthy Family Farm Business
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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Richard Weisberg: 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 Shenk, from Shenk Family Farms, located in North Carolina. Welcome, Rachel.
Rachel Shenk: Thank you Richard. Excited to be here.
Richard Weisberg: Absolutely. I'm excited to be chatting with you today as well.
So, jumping right in. Um, could you start by telling us about Shenk Family Farm and what you all produce today? Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Shenk: So we are a pasture based livestock farm like you said, in North Carolina. We're in a little town called Newport. It's [00:01:00] about half hour from the coast, um, which is really cool. But we've got the beach so close to us.
Mm-hmm. Um, and we raise pasture raised chicken, pork, eggs, and also Thanksgiving turkeys. And we do partner with a local grassed beef farm as well until we have our own beef ready in a few years. Um, and it's just my husband and I.
Richard Weisberg: Wow.
Rachel Shenk: So we do the majority of the farm work. We do, um, have paid help for our pickup locations and our chicken butchering.
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 wanna, we have Daisy, she's almost two, and Mason is five.
Richard Weisberg: I love it. That's awesome. Now, just, you know, outta curiosity, I know a lot of Farms I work with as an account manager are looking for all the hands they can get.
So can you expand a little bit on some of these pickup location help and some of these volunteers and, and how you were able to get some extra hands on the farm?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So to be [00:02:00] 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.
Yeah. Um, so we, we honestly just asked friends that we knew that had flexible jobs or people that we knew that were interested in homesteading, maybe wanting to learn how to butcher their own chickens. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and for the, as far as the 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. Um, so we've had at least four different people that have just randomly reached out to us. A few of them have been customers and then some of them we had never met. Um, so that was really cool to see, that people wanted to be a part of what we were doing.
Richard Weisberg: I love that. Well, that's awesome. Kind of goes to show the fingerprints you have on the community around you. Um, I love it. Yeah. So how did Shenk Family Farm come to be?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So [00:03:00] back in, um, 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 loved working on different Farms growing up, his uncle had a farm, just loved being outside, hard work. Um, and we just really started thinking about it and. 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, about 40 meat birds and five laying hands in our backyard. 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. Nice. 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, [00:04:00] but yeah.
Richard Weisberg: I love it. Well, just outta my own curiosity, how has been farming full-time?
Rachel Shenk: 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. Mm-hmm. Um, so we, we were kind of like, well, the farm at this point has got to sink or swim because this is not sustainable any longer.
We were blown away. So it was the year that Covid happened and, and that was honestly a blessing for us because our sales doubled that year. Um, wow. So that gave us the boost in sales that we needed to make that jump to make the farm, start paying for itself.
Um, 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.
Richard Weisberg: That is awesome. And way to take that leap of faith, you know. So, um, taking a look at your branding, happy and healthy seems to be really at the core of who the Shenk Family Farm is. [00:05:00] Um, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Rachel Shenk: We, we really just try and mimic nature in all that we do, um, letting the animals express their natural instincts and most of our farming methods were inspired by Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm. I think a lot of Farms kind of base their production off of him and just the way he raises his animals. It is very inspiring and also family friendly. Like it's, it's a way of farming that we felt comfortable bringing our kids into. Um, it's not smelly, it's not stinky, like we can let the kids hang out with the animals and it's, yeah. We don't feel like, yeah. Weird about it. 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 happy and 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 'em and be like, good luck. But, um, give them recipes and give them [00:06:00] 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, as a long-term thing, and we wanna be farming for years and decades to come. And so in order for that to happen, we've gotta be happy and healthy too. Mm-hmm. Which means we've gotta charge a price that is going to be able so we can pay ourselves a living wage and to be able to continue with the business.
Um, and also sustainable. Family rhythms so we're constantly having to adjust those as the kids get older. Mm-hmm. Uh, certain things get easier, certain things get harder. Um, so just making sure we're always remaining flexible.
Richard Weisberg: Definitely, definitely. Which easier, of course said than done. Yes. Well, um, one thing I really like what you're saying too is you are 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 it's [00:07:00] pretty common for Farms not to understand the value of their time or the value of their flexibility. Um, so how, just for other Farmers out there that maybe need to find that value, um, how did you and your husband dial that in?
Rachel Shenk: I mean, to be honest, we're, we're not great at it and we're still learning and uh, there's definitely times where we're getting close to burnout and we can feel it and we're like, okay, something's gotta change if we wanna keep farming, and keep enjoying farming because in order to serve our customer well, we've gotta be coming from a heart of service, not just like, uh, oh, I just gotta get this work done, you know? Right. Um, And, and yeah, like I had said before, just being in it for the long haul. We had talked with other Farmers, um, that had said, you have to prioritize your own health to be able to continue doing this, otherwise you're gonna give up and youre gonna quit because you're, you're, you won't have the energy or the motivation cause it's, that's easy to lose when you're [00:08:00] working so many hours. So we, we've really tried to be cautious of that. But like I said, we're not great at it.
We're, we're better than we were, but we have a lot of room to grow. And I think a part of that is, 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.
Richard Weisberg: Absolutely. Now, you mentioned having this happy and healthy approach to your farming practices, your community, you and your husband as well, and the family.
Um, yeah. You know, why, why has this been a big deal for customers? How has this resonated well with your customer base?
Rachel Shenk: 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, we wanna be good stewards of them and we want to let them live how we believe God intended them to [00:09:00] live, to express their natural instincts, which means pigs get to wallow in the mud when they're hot, but also can get dry.
Um, like, yeah, we don't believe pigs should just live in the mud all day, but they should have access to all, all different kinds of environments and, and yet to be able to root around in the ground and to bathe in the sun. And chicken scratching and pecking in the dirt, eating bugs like we really think that's how they were created to live. And that's also really important to our customers.
Um, but also on the other side of that, the products that come from happy and healthy animals, um, are more nutrient dense. They're tastier, they're healthier and our customers really, um, 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 wanna have empty label claims on our products. Like we want to back that up with people being able to come see the farm firsthand. Mm-hmm. Um, So we lease the land. So we can't have an open door policy all the time, but we try and do tours in the spring and in the fall it's [00:10:00] way too hot in the summer, at least where we are, um, and people can sign up for those and then come out and see the Farm. So we really love being able to share the Farm with our customers.
Richard Weisberg: Nice. That's, that's awesome. I'm happy to hear you're doing some farm tours. I know with some other Farms I'm working with, um, they've become much more popular. Great way to, to get people plugged in and really showcase the practices and add value there. So, um, well what, what drove you to join Barn2Door?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, so it was that year when we went full-time. Our market 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. Okay. And we tried to set up, um, 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, um, we could have different pickup locations, but then our packing list would [00:11:00] not be separated by all those different pickup locations. And so it just got administratively exhausting.
Yeah, so Barn2Door 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. Yeah. Um, but, but y'all made it really, really simple to make the transition. We appreciated that.
Richard Weisberg: Good. I'm, I'm happy to hear that. Especially, I mean, what a year. For a lot of the producers, for working
Rachel Shenk: for everybody, absolutely. Regardless of you do
Richard Weisberg: well.
Um, I'm happy to hear it was a pretty smooth transition. Um, could you expand a little bit on, on what that transition was like moving from Squarespace to Barn2Door?
Rachel Shenk: I'm trying to remember back. I know the biggest thing was just like, obviously moving all of our items, um, into the store, like minimum [00:12:00] 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 the nuts and bolts like, y'all kind of took it over from there.
And so that was, that was really, really nice.
Richard Weisberg: 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?
Rachel Shenk: Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, so, so many people commented on that it was a lot more user-friendly. Oh. Um, and to be able to see 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 Boston butts? [00:13:00] Or, how thick are 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 of the load off of us too, and not having to answer as much questions. Um, the only people that had trouble with the transition were the older generation just because they were used to just coming to us at the farmer's market and, and getting stuff from there, but after being on the phone with them, walking them through it, they, they did it themselves a few times and then they got comfortable with it too. Great. It was a smooth
Richard Weisberg: transition. Good. Good to hear you man. We are creatures of habit after all, so I'm glad able to change that so well. Excellent. Um, now one change to your Farm business that at least we're super excited with, uh, and on our side here is the introduction of this mobile farm store.
Rachel Shenk: Um, yeah. Talk about it.
Richard Weisberg: I'd love to hear a little bit more about it.
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, so we've been doing farmer's markets or we had been doing farmer's markets from the beginning. As the kids have [00:14:00] gotten older, saturdays got a lot more difficult. It was roughly 10 hours between like setup, market, tear down, unpacking, and then a couple hours at the Farm every Saturday. And so we couldn't do birthday parties, we couldn't do baby showers, we couldn't do festivals or any kind of weekend activities with the kids, cuz most things are on Saturdays.
Um, and so it was honestly a family decision and we were thinking like racking our brains, like, well what can we do if the majority of our sales were not gonna be through farmer's markets anymore? What's another way people can shop face-to-face with us? Uh, a brick and mortar farm store is not option at this point.
And so, we had seen some friends do something similar up in Virginia. Mm-hmm. And, um, although they're more like, a mobile farmer's market, so they offer their meats, but also like a bunch of local bread and local produce. And we weren't ready to make that whole jump , but we liked the mobile idea.
So, we got an enclosed trailer with chest freezers. So we, we chose [00:15:00] 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.
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 list 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 is super easy. I can show up 15
minutes before we've gotta sell cause everything is pretty much already set up. Um, and I don't have to haul coolers to the market anymore. 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.
Richard Weisberg: Yeah.
Rachel Shenk: Um, or people that order a lot of meat. Like at the farmer's market, they were hauling 24 pounds of meat, like, and they gotta 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. Yeah.
Richard Weisberg: Great. You know, [00:16:00] I'm really happy to hear how well the, the customers are excited to be picking it up and it's a win-win it sounds like everyone's saving time as well. Yeah. Um, now 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? Um, or maybe we're just leaning into the mobile farm store?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. So I, I am trying to do things a little bit differently. Um, we've already been sending out our weekly email mm-hmm. Um, with recipes and things like that, but I'm really trying to be more intentional about, I'm still figuring it out, but like, More engaging and more connection in those emails because we have lost the face-to-face with a lot of people.
So letting more of our, our family personality shine through those emails rather than just simply sharing a recipe. Yeah. So we're trying to figure out how to do that still, to be able to, yeah, have that connection and that engagement. We also have a friend [00:17:00] that has been helping us butcher chickens, who also is a videographer 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 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've never come to the farmer's market, and we've just gotta learn how to reach those people. Yeah. Um, and we've already seen it happening, at the Mobile farm store, which has been awesome. Great. Um, so we're excited for the future of that.
Richard Weisberg: Good. Yeah, me too. I, it seems like, uh, it is gonna be an awesome opportunity for, for you here. Now, um, this season, you've also added deliveries to local vacation rentals in your area. Um, yes. What's that experience been like?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. Yeah. So [00:18:00] it was, it was a program that was, uh, originally started by, uh, one of our state colleges, like as an experiment, trying to connect the tourists to the local farm community.
Um, 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, um, So that was us. 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 meats.
This is our first year taking ownership of it, which has also been scary. I'm like so many new things at once. Um, 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. Mm-hmm. 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. Um, we've been in the [00:19:00] newspaper, um, and so it's, it's been, um, yeah, just trying to get the word out honestly, and to make it run smooth and we've gotten to that point. Um, but, but we're still 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. Nice. 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.
Richard Weisberg: 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, um, but it's, yeah, sounds like it's taken, um, a lot of partnering with other local businesses in order to, to get this ball rolling here.
A lot of Farms we work with are interested in partnering with other local businesses. Um, yeah. As, as I often say, a rising tide raises all ships after [00:20:00] all. So, yeah, for sure. Any advice for other Farmers when it comes to creating partnerships and working with other local businesses?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, I think things are a lot more fun when you do things together.
Richard Weisberg: I love it.
Rachel Shenk: And 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 gonna get received by their customers and vice versa. So it is a win-win situation. My advice whether you're doing a giveaway or an event together or whatever you're doing, it is just like you said, lifting each other up that, um, is huge and you're gonna spur each other on. You're gonna 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.
Richard Weisberg: 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, uh, with a group of other folks.
Rachel Shenk: For sure. For [00:21:00] sure.
Richard Weisberg: 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 bulk pork, whole chickens, uh, specialty cuts, uh, you offer a handful of bundle boxes and subscriptions. What made you add these options for your customers here?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, so it's funny, sometimes I'm scared that we offer too much and it's overwhelming. Cause I, 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 ask the waitress, like, whatever you really love, just gimme that. Um, so, so sometimes I second guess that.
But I also realize 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 freezer 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 [00:22:00] or they live far away or they live yeah, 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. Um, so I think it's good for us to have that variety to serve each of those different kinds of people.
Richard Weisberg: Perfect. Now have you seen any kind of fan favorites amongst this, uh, wide variety?
Rachel Shenk: I would say the subscriptions, um, it is, it's probably a third of our overall sales.
Wow. 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. 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, 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, [00:23:00] um, just ordering a la carte. They find out what their favorites are and they just wanna stick with that. But it's a good onboarding process for people that are new, that kind of wanna try the best of what we have to offer.
Richard Weisberg: Awesome. I 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?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah, so, so not as great, but it's also 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. The really, the only bundles now that we offer are the ones for the vacationers.
Gotcha. Um, so like the grill and breakfast bundle and then the produce bundle. Um, and we do offer a farm sampler 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 emails, so that's probably why.
But bundles are great, because. It takes the decision making away from the customer so [00:24:00] they can click one thing and have like 20 pounds of awesome meat. Mm-hmm. Um, and not have to like, spend an hour shopping and picking through your inventory. So I think that they can be successful, uh, 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 wanna work on more.
Richard Weisberg: 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 the subscriptions going well cuz that's usually where they get started. But, um, yeah, it looks like you're, no, that's good idea.
So now you've got a lot of different items out there. Um, you know, how has Barndoor helped managing all of your inventory here?
Rachel Shenk: Oh my goodness. It's amazing. Before Barn2Door, I mean, I would just put things up for sale and I'm like, I hope we still have that in the freezer. Um, like, and then I have to go through and be like, oh, we only have two of those and constantly adjusting. Um, but Barn2Door made it [00:25:00] 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
Richard Weisberg: Well now, clearly you have a ton going on between the Farm and the family and at Barn2Door, we love to help Farmers get some time back in their days.
So in, in what regards has Barn2Door helped you save time and make managing your farm a little easier?
Rachel Shenk: Yeah. Yeah. I talked a little bit about it before, just the self-serve shopping experience. Because 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 amount per purchase is way greater than like the shopping in person. So like,
Richard Weisberg: oh, wow.
Rachel Shenk: 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 [00:26:00] can shop from the comfort of their own home. They're not in a rush, there's not someone behind them like waiting for them, and they feel like they have to hurry and make a decision. So the orders are a lot higher. Mm-hmm. Um, for, for 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 each category, and makes bookkeeping so much easier, because y'all do all the tracking for us.
Richard Weisberg: Good. Well, are there any, um, integrations or tools that you recommend for other farmers?
Rachel Shenk: Um, definitely the Mailchimp integration because, at least for us, the email marketing has been a huge part of the way we market. Mm-hmm. 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 weekly emails, We can look and we can see the revenue that came from each email, so we can kind of see like what's working, what's not, what do people,[00:27:00] connect with the most, what leads to the most sales. So that's been really awesome. 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 Routific. So also our vacation deliveries is like an experiment to see if we might want to offer deliveries all year long for, everywhere, not just at the beach.
And because I've heard other Farmers that have used Routific and like the automatic text and it does the route optimization for you and all that stuff, and it's all integrated with Barn2Door. So I think that's probably gonna be the next one that we invest in, just because I think it's gonna make things a lot simpler for us and give the customer a better experience too.
Richard Weisberg: Absolutely. Well, and I, I can think of a few, FANs that you'll be able to chat with, who have
Rachel Shenk: t Awesome. If you could connect me with them, that would be great.
Richard Weisberg: Happy to do so now, any tactics you recommend or maybe specific programs, that you recommend for other Farmers?
Rachel Shenk: I think one thing that's been helpful for us, [00:28:00] 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 and general. And I think like targeting in on that, that one person that you wanna sell to and obviously you're gonna sell to all different kinds of people, but it's just kind of helped me in my writing and it helps me focus and I've been writing my emails a lot faster when I can focus on just like 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 gonna work we should do something else, and my husband's like, no, just give it time, just give it time. Um, 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 [00:29:00] takes people time to learn the rhythm. Like whether you're gonna be at a farmer's market or a certain pickup location or whatever it is, 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, to just remain consistent with it and give it time to thrive before you just throw in the towel and give up. Cuz that's what I would like to do sometimes. Um, 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. 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 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, like it's, you can't do any of this on your own.
Um, well, [00:30:00] you can, but it'd be really hard. Um, so yeah, having, having those people that you can, that, that are your safe place that you can go to and, um, yeah. That could help make you better.
Richard Weisberg: Yeah. And, and that's great. Great advice and um, a good perspective to have as well. Like you said, consistency leads to a lot of trust as well.
Um, yes, yes. The customer that, yeah. So, um, awesome. Sure. Now, As our newest member of the Farm Advisor Network, what are you most excited for when joining our team here?
Rachel Shenk: 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.
Hopefully anything that I shared today, if it was helpful to one person like that, that's a 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. [00:31:00] Um, but, but yeah, just excited for that connecting with other Farmers.
Richard Weisberg: Excellent. Well, and we're excited to have you here as well. I know you'd be, you're an awesome addition to the team. So, um, what's next? You know, what are some of your goals for Shenk Family Farm this coming year?
Rachel Shenk: The mobile farm store, the vacation deliveries, just honestly honing in on those, getting them efficient, getting them running smoothly, sustainable, and, 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 at that. So again, like the happy and healthy Farmers, like we've gotten 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 all of our products and just making sure like we're charging what we need to charge and then make those changes is another big scary thing we've gotta do. Um, yeah. Yeah. But other than those things, no. Crazy big goals.
Richard Weisberg: Yeah. Well, you've started a lot of things already. [00:32:00] Yes. Well, awesome. Rachel, again, we're, we're super fortunate to have you joining the Farm Advisor Network here. Um, I know a lot of Farms are gonna benefit greatly from chatting with you and getting some of your perspective here.
So I wanna extend, my thanks to Rachel for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn2Door. We are humbled to support thousands of Farms across the country, including Shenk Family Farm. If you wanna connect with Rachel and other Farm Advisors attend Barn2Door Connect. Register for weekly sessions at barn2door.com/connect.
For more information on Shenk Family Farm, you can follow them on Instagram @shenkfamilyfarm. That's S H E N K Family Farm. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.
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