DIRECT 2021: Behind the Scenes
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast we'll be giving you a behind the scenes look on the Direct conference from the team that put it together.
-
Rory: 0:26
Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. My name is Rory, your host. We've got a great conversation for you today. We recently wrapped up our Direct 2021 Farm Conference. So today, we'll hear from the team who made the conference happen. I'm delighted to welcome the first team member, Rachele.
Rachele: 0:43
Hi I'm Rachel I am in charge of the content and messaging at Direct 2021. For the conference this year, I really focused on kind of building out the theme with the team members that was the first step leading into the conference.
Rory: 1:01
Awesome. So then, a lot of what you're working on starts out months in advance before the conference could you maybe talk about what that's like getting started so early on when the actual project isn't until way later on.
Rachele: 1:12
Yes. So I would say my role kicks off right away I'm kind of the early beginning stages of Direct. Again it really starts with the theme of the conference and the messaging behind that. Like for this year for example, the theme was Grow and Manage direct sales. So as soon as we nailed that down, then it was really easy to plug in, you know who our keynote speakers and we were so lucky to get Mailchimp and QuickBooks as official partners at the conference and then from there, we were able to plug in farmers, like Dan and Debbie's Creamery, Old Rich Valley, Jessica Evans from Evans Family Farm, so it was really cool to have them come on and share their own stories on how they've been able to successfully grow and manage their businesses.
Rory: 1:59
And then could you maybe talk about how you chose that theme? Like what went into deciding on Grow and Manage?
Rachele: 2:05
Here at Barn2Door we're really about providing you know the software and the services to help farmers sell direct And so when we were thinking about the software and services that we offer it really did line up with we help farmers grow their businesses with Barn2Door and Mailchimp as an example. And so farmers are able to drive orders through their emails and we see a lot of orders I think up to 30% of farmers sales can be driven from their emails. So that's huge, being able to bring on a farmer, bring on Mailchimp That can talk more about it how more farmers can do that was really exciting and then from a management standpoint we were thinking, okay you know you grow your business but how are you able to manage it? What are the tools, what are the tactics farmers can use there. So we thought, QuickBooks obviously a great, great company they've been around forever at Intuit, and we thought that they would just be perfect to come on and talk about the management side of your business how to track expenses how to manage your cash flow all the things that you know were super important people don't think about it maybe all the time, so that was kind of the process behind that.
Rory: 3:18
So all that kind of stuff you're kind of taking a step back and deciding on some of these bigger topics and themes for the conference. As the conference gets closer how does your role kind of transition into actually making sure that, that all comes together to to create a conference?
Rachele: 3:32
Yeah, great question. So as we narrow in on the theme and we decide who we would like to come on to speak at the conference then my role shifts to actually planning out each of the sessions and so I kind of go in and and see okay how can for example Dan and Debbie's Creamery they've been so successful with growing their business, what messaging what content can we get them to share and so building out the session step by step like that.
Rory: 4:01
Well, Rachel, what was maybe one of your favorite talks during the entire conference and maybe some of your main takeaways from that talk?
Rachele: 4:08
Oh gosh. That's a good question. I would say probably Josie's talk from Dan and Debbie's Creamery. They've grown so quickly and have really expanded their delivery service. I think it was something like in six months they went from servicing two zip codes to, I think it was 15 zip codes and they really leverage email marketing to get the word out and they've done a really good job with their branding. So I think that was the biggest takeaway for me from Direct.
Rory: 4:37
Awesome Thank you Rachele
Rachele: 4:38
Thanks Rory
Rory: 4:44
All right It was great to hear from Rachele about the content side of the conference but now we're going to go to the design side with Kyler and Jo, could you guys both introduce yourselves?
Johanna: 4:54
Awesome. Hi I'm Jo I am part of the design team.
Kyler: 4:58
And I'm Kyler.
Rory: 4:59
So we just talked with Rachele about how as soon as the previous conference wraps she pretty much gets to work right away could you guys maybe talk about what the first steps you guys take in terms of the design for the conference?
Kyler: 5:10
From the last conference we did a huge brand overhaul, so Jo and I worked you know for a good month or so kind of rethinking the brand and you know developing a whole new brand guideline and style and that was a pretty incredible process, being able to go through that with someone else and bounce ideas off of.
Rory: 5:29
Awesome And this was your first time working on a conference design together, that's correct?
Johanna: 5:33
Yep this as my first Direct Conference that I've worked on, which is very exciting to also get to start with the new rebrand as well. So really working from scratch and starting over with the whole look of everything.
Rory: 5:44
Awesome And then so kind of throughout the next few months I know you guys have a ton of content to work on as we prepare for the conference. Jo, could you maybe tell people like the things you're working on as you're getting ready for the conference?
Johanna: 5:55
Yes absolutely, so for us the first thing we're probably going to start doing is kind of some updates to the overall look. So anything we want to change like deck designs, the website will get updated pretty frequently with any new announcements we have, or any updates content. And then just kind of keep working on any social posts, or agendas, programs kind of everything you might not really think is there but we pretty much update everything before the next one.
Rory: 6:19
Awesome. And Kyler I know for you you do a lot of the live graphics that we use during the conference. Could you maybe talk about the what goes into those and how that process works getting those right?
Kyler: 6:30
Yeah absolutely, Jo was talking about designing things like the agenda and decks, So for me when I'm designing motion graphics and things that go along with to accompany the conference, and kind of move the conference along throughout the day using those motion graphics, I looked at the thing she designed. So the like I said the agenda and decks and kind of take those elements and recycle them back into motion graphics and put movement behind them. So for instance our logo or the arrow mark that you'll see all over the place you know add some movement to that to kind of help guide people throughout the day. So, some of our key videos as well got animations to kind of help demonstrate things, like our CEO, Janelle was talking about new features so generally animations to just guide people throughout the day but doing that in tandem with the things that Jo created.
Rory: 7:19
Awesome so I know with design, a lot of times the designs and things like that can be kind of personal for you guys. So like what was your favorite thing that you that you put out for this conference that you were really excited about?
Johanna: 7:29
Oh man that's a great question, I think I personally really liked the icons that Kyler came up with the D shape. That was kind of one of those things that when we did the rebrand we're like how can we change this up? Cause it used to be just circles which were really fun but we wanted to do something a little different. And then that D shaped then kind of turned into the fun D images which then turned into really fun tabs and agendas. Everything really connects back to the Barn2Door brand through that icon, so that's super exciting to kind of see it connect to the Barn2Door website. So it's a nice little touch that I think really worked out well.
Rory: 7:59
Thank you guys so much for all your work on the Direct Conference everything looked amazing thanks for coming on the podcast today.
Johanna: 8:04
Yeah, thank you for having us, it was fun!
Kyler: 8:06
Yeah that was great!
Rory: 8:12
All right. It was great to hear from Kyler and Jo about the design aspects of the conference. Next up, we have Meet on the demand side. Meet, could you introduce yourself?
Meet: 8:22
Hi. yeah. I'm Meet from Marketing here at Barn2Door, also part of the Direct team and I handle, you know, a bunch of the promotion the interactive stuff you see at the conference, like Menti. And I was also fortunate enough to give a talk this time around.
Rory: 8:35
Yeah. You did a great job with your presentation during the conference. Could you, maybe before we get to that, talk about what goes into your job at the very early stages of the conference when we've just kind of decided on a theme.
Meet: 8:46
Yeah. So once the theme is laid out, we start to get speakers coming through. And then it's my job to plan out the promotion for the conference. And then just laying out this plan for, you know, the two, three months leading up to the conference. Just to get the most possible registrants in to come and attend and watch the talks.
Rory: 9:02
Awesome. So you did give a talk this time at the Direct Conference. Could you maybe talk about what that was like in terms of doing that with Cade as well as also what your talk was on?
Meet: 9:12
Yeah. So we talked about the five key metrics that farmers need to key in on to you know, grow and manage their business. My job here at Barn2Door deals with a lot of analytics and data. So it's really cool to be able to kind of translate what I do on a daily basis and make it really hit home for farmers as well. The main thing that you need to know about any business, is that if you're putting in all of this time and effort to get this great product out to the people you want to get it to, if you can't see how effective your time and effort is through data, then you know, you're really putting in all that effort for nothing. So being able to see, you know, if I'm doing an ad campaign and I'm putting in all this effort and it's not getting the returns seeing that data helps me then plan out and do this differently. And then that can really help, key in, on what we need to do to really make sure that we're getting the most out of our efforts. And the same applies for farmers. And if you go and watch the talk, you know, we really dive in deep to what these numbers can mean, and it can really help, you know, really take your farm to the next level.
Rory: 10:14
Yeah. I mean, like we've said a million times, we've never met a farmer who has extra time on hands. So figuring out which tactics are actually working and which ones aren't, so they can not spend as much time on those and then really hone in on the important ones. That's a great thing for farmers to learn about. And again, they can still see your talk on the Direct Farm Conference website.
Meet: 10:33
Definitely. Yeah. It's all on the website there for your viewing pleasure. And I definitely recommend if you're trying to key in on metrics, to definitely go watch that talk and, you know, get the most out of it that you possibly can to help your farm business.
Rory: 10:46
Awesome. Well Meet, thanks for telling us about all this.
Meet: 10:49
Of course, yeah thanks Rory.
Rory: 10:55
Okay. Well, it was great to hear from Meet about the demand side of things, but next up, we have the guy who spends the most time in this room, the multimedia room we're talking with Sebastian, could you introduce yourself?
Sebastian: 11:06
Yeah. Hey everybody. My name is Sebastian. I am on the Multimedia team for Direct here. I usually work behind the scenes, making sure everything looks and sounds the best that they can.
Rory: 11:16
The conference is very content based around video. So could you maybe kind of talk about early on in the process? What are the first kind of steps you take to outline how those videos are going to work and what's going to go with those?
Sebastian: 11:27
I, work quite closely with, Rachele and Kyler and Jo on the Direct team as well since they kind of do a lot of the early on legwork to get everything ready for Direct. So once they have completed all of their tasks, they just kind of pass the baton to me and I will follow through with making sure that all the audio and the video quality for each of the presentations are at its utmost highest quality. With these conferences and it being virtual, it can go quite long and we would like to keep it as nice and timely and neat as possible.
Rory: 11:59
Could you maybe talk about that and some of the setup and things that re that are required of you leading up to it.
Sebastian: 12:04
So during the day before the conference is usually our prep day, that's usually when we put all hands on deck, we're setting up the area we're about to host the conference and making sure all the cameras and lights and microphones and everything are all ready to go because we do host our conferences early in the morning. So a lot of this stuff has to be prepared the night before. And in order to make sure that we don't have any hiccups throughout, we'll also kind of just do like a rehearsal if you will, just to kind of make sure you know, who's going to be sitting where, and you know, who's going to be doing what during the conference and leading into the conference, during the day, of we'll have our hosts come on, they'll arrive early in the morning with us, and then we'll kind of get ready for the conference, getting ready for the broadcast. And that's really when all the nerves are really there And we're all anxious to get ready to start. This is when showtime is going to happen.
Rory: 12:52
Could you talk to me maybe about, which was your favorite of the talks?
Sebastian: 12:56
My favorite was actually Amy and Will from Old Rich Valley. I really loved hearing their talk and even though they're living in a really rural situation, they're actually able to still make delivery and selling online work for them.
Rory: 13:09
Thank you for all your work on the Direct Farm Conference. I think it really did turn out great. I think farmers are going to find a lot of the talks that you've worked on to be super helpful. Well, thank you so much, Sebastian, for coming on and kind of giving us a peek into what your part of the Direct team looks like.
Sebastian: 13:23
Yeah. Thanks for having me on Rory. Appreciate it.
Rory: 13:31
Thanks for sticking with us through this podcast. It was so great to hear from Rachele on the content side, as well as then talking with Jo and Kyler about how visually the conference will look and feel as well as the motion graphics that go into it. And then moving on to Meet and hearing how he helps drive demand and get the word out to farmers so that they can access all these great resources and great presentations as well as farmer success stories that are all a part of the direct farm conference. We also heard from Sebastian and all the leg work that he does to put together the presentations so that it's ready to go for the day of the conference. If you missed the conference and want to access the videos for free, they're all available in the video archive at DirectFarmConference.com To learn more about Barn2Door including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm. Go to www.Barn2Door.com/resources. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week.