Favorite FAN Feature: Grass Fed Cattle Co
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, Valarie Luhman of Grass Fed Cattle Co will share with Rory, their favorite Barn2Door feature and tips that have helped her business profit.
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Rory: 0:26
Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's podcast. We've got a great conversation for you today with one of our Farm Market Development experts, Valerie lumen of Grass Fed Cattle Co. Welcome, Valerie. It's. It's good to have you back here on the podcast.
Valarie: 0:41
Thanks. It's good to be with you, Rory!.
Rory: 0:43
It's been a while since you've been on. I think I was looking at, it's been since like last June that you've been on the podcast here with us.
Valarie: 0:49
Yeah.
Rory: 0:50
Could you maybe start by just telling us a little bit about your farm and what you produce and kind of the origins of Grass Fed Cattle Co.
Valarie: 0:58
Sure. My husband, Jared and I farm with his dad, John in Southeastern Minnesota, not too far from the Twin Cities and we raised Grass-fed and Grass-finished beef. We sell pastured pork from another farm. And then we raise pasture chickens as well. We own the Grass Fed Cattle Company and direct market some of the meat from our farm to customers. We do just a little bit of wholesale right now, but mostly direct to consumer. And then we have our son Colton who's seven months old that has added a lot of fun to the farm and yeah, our big focus is selling meat and then also selling our bulls through Pharo Cattle Company.
Rory: 1:39
Awesome. Well, you guys have you signed up originally with Barn2Door all the way back in 2019, which here that feels like forever ago. But what were kind of some of the primary reasons you chose to use Barn2Door at that time?
Valarie: 1:52
Yeah, I forget who it was, but one of the sales team members called and it was kind of perfect timing because we were working with Shopify at the time. We actually purchased Grass Fed Cattle Company from another couple who started it eight years prior to that. And they had a website all set up and everything. So that was nice. But when we wanted to start adding some different features such as, shipping and delivery and subscriptions. We found that Shopify added a charge to each feature we wanted to add, and it was getting super expensive. I didn't know how to set up any of that. And so the sales member from Barn2Door called and was telling us about all the features you guys had coming up and we're like, yeah we'll hear about this. And anyway, after a few different conversations and talking to James some we decided to jump on board with Barn2Door and started our onboarding and all of that. So, it was kind of . Perfect timing. And you guys have the features we were looking for and the support that we needed to be able to put everything into Into our website and just the behind the scenes of everything. We, We really needed that because we were both working and trying to grow this business at the same time.
Rory: 3:00
That's awesome to hear what was kind of that, that initial onboarding and getting set up. What was that process like for you guys?
Valarie: 3:07
It was great. We had the weekly onboarding calls that were really helpful, had just a few things that we did in between every week, getting, you know, some inventory set up and all of that. And it was more of a transfer over from our old website to the Barn2Door one. So that wasn't a whole lot of work, but just learning the system. I thought that the onboarding process was really smooth. So that was really nice to have kind of somebody to actually talk to, like I said, when we were trying to get a hold of customer service prior it was like hours spent on the phone, whereas we could reach out anytime to the Barn2Door team. So that's always been something that I've loved about working with you guys.
Rory: 3:44
That's great to hear. Waiting around on customer service is like the worst experience ever. So I'm glad to hear that that onboarding team is awesome. Glad to hear that they're helpful for you guys. So kind of, after some time with Barn2Door you actually came on and kind of joined the team as one of our Market Development experts as well as kind of participating in Our farm Advisor Network and, and some of that program as well. Could you maybe talk a little bit about what those roles entail and what are some of your favorite parts about it?
Valarie: 4:11
Yeah, I really love that I get to help other farmers just share my experience and what I've learned along the way. But it's been fun to share what I have learned through the academies and some of the other roles I've had. The academy is one of my favorite. We get to I guess, got to help design a program that teaches farmers some of the basics about MailChimp and social media. And how you can use those to grow your customer list and your sales. So that's been a lot of fun. I've learned a lot from other farmers through that as well. Just sharing ideas and asking questions. And that's been a great time connecting with farmers that use barn door and then otherwise have been able to help some with the connect office hours, kind of doing the same thing, giving feedback to other farmers and helping talk through ideas. And then working with FFA partnership as well. That's been a lot of fun getting to go to national convention and just help make that partnership grow and come into fruition.
Rory: 5:05
That's awesome. And yeah, I know the FFA conference was a really a huge highlight for us here. Especially being able to go there, our team with you and your husband. Both you guys are former FFA officers. So being able to bring you guys there and talk with us to the students about kind of growing and setting up their farm business was a super cool opportunity. You touched on academies a little bit. You're kind of one of the professors, I guess, of the academy. What would kind of be your pitch to other farmers for why they should sign up and try it an academy?
Valarie: 5:33
I think so many people are intimidated to just start with MailChimp or with social media. They just are unsure where to even begin, or how to grow. Maybe they're getting tired out of doing the same things and not seeing a lot of results. I just think being surrounded with other farmers that are sharing their ideas, their problems, their successes is just a great way to be encouraged and to grow in your skills and your knowledge of how to brand your farm and reach new customers and all of those great things. So, when we developed the academy curriculum and it's changed a lot since we did just based on farmer feedback, we really wanted it to be something that farmers could share ideas they could. Kind of take the class in whatever direction they needed to be able to grow and to gain the skills they needed to feel confident marketing their products to their customers. So, I would say if you're at all interested, definitely join. It's always really fun for us as facilitators of the academy. It's a lot of fun and you learn a lot.
Rory: 6:38
Definitely a very like collaborative experience too, which is always great to hear. I know farmers always appreciate that part too. Well I guess kind of shifting gears, the main point of this episode and why you're here with us today is to dive into what your favorite feature is on Barn2Door. And so Barn2Door we, you know, we offer a really wide range of software features that are built specifically for the needs of farmers. But you've been using the platform for some time now, and you're certainly pretty familiar with a lot of those software capabilities. So what is your favorite feature on Barn2Door that that helps Grass Fed Cattle Co either save you guys time or help you guys increase your sales?
Valarie: 7:14
Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of great features. Obviously we use a whole bunch of them, but one of our favorite, as we thought about that question is the fulfillment options, and just the simplicity of them, but also the options that it gives us using the delivery options. And we had previously used the shipping and then the pickup options as well. So, I think it's saved us a lot of time just in how easy it is for us to use how easy it is for customers to select what works best for them. I feel like I could go on and on about the different options, but I think it's just worked really well for our farm and what we want to offer our customers.
Rory: 7:52
And it's kind of funny, cause I feel like fulfillments isn't necessarily like one of the most flashy features out there, but it's so important and it's really kind of what business eventually runs on is how are you going to get the products you're producing to the customers? How do you kind of choose your fulfillment options to, to make those products more convenient for your customers?
Valarie: 8:11
Yeah, when we purchased Grass Fed Cattle Company from the couple that owned it previously, they just had a pickup location in Edina and a lot of their customers are actually like, really close to that neighborhood, some within walking distance. And so, a lot of them were used to the option and we've kept that pickup option at our freezer space. It's in a really popular area on called 50th and France, in the Twin Cities. And so that's worked well. We have always had that. We have two pickup times per week either one and like a one hour slot or a two-hour slot, people can choose from to come pick up the product. That's free, pretty easy for us and for customers to just pick the time that works best. Come there, they call us when they get there, we bring the box to their car, say hi, and then that's that. The other option that we added shortly after joining with Barn2Door was the delivery option. And we started with one just big range all over the Twin Cities. And I've kind of changed that since, but the other option we had was shipping at one point and I think we had that for about six months.
Rory: 9:13
Well, and you had mentioned earlier that you got. It had been using I think you said Shopify before, how does kind of this feature and how you're using it now, compared to what you were doing before Barn2Door?
Valarie: 9:25
Ooh, going to have to think back. I know we had to use an outside kind of app for the scheduling. And so after someone placed an order on our website, they would get an email asking them to schedule when they were going to pick that up. And so that was kind of an additional step customers had to take after placing the order was actually scheduling that. Whereas now Barn2Door has a built in you know, after they add it to their cart, they select delivery or pick up. And they can actually select our farm as a pickup location, as well it's nice to have that as an option too. I just think they make it really easy for our end to be able to sort through this orders, put them together and get them delivered. There's nothing complicated. I can easily tell a family member who might be doing the deliveries or pickups for us. Especially when Colton was born, you know, pretty hands-on here with him. And so we had to rely on some other people to help us get customers their orders. And so I thought it was simple teaching someone else how to use it or giving them that pick and pack list to use to put those orders together and get those out to customers. So, I think it, it definitely saved time just in how user-friendly it is.
Rory: 10:33
Well, and there's also definitely a balance between making it an easy system for your customers, but also you, because you definitely don't want to get too overwhelmed or overcomitted with just fulfilling orders or doing deliveries and things like that. So what's kind of your thinking or your logic behind the way that you've structured your schedules to make that system work for you, especially, but also your customers.
Valarie: 10:56
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. It has to be a balance between getting our product to our customers in a convenient way that meets their needs, but also. Doesn't add too much chaos or complication to our lives or cut into our profit. Because obviously at the end of the day, that's important to our business as well. So I think it's all about, you know, offering enough options that customers feel it's convenient. Actually last night we had a pickup time and then some deliveries as well, and a customer who was. She just seemed a little new to the process. And so I asked her if she had ordered before which a lot of times I know, but sometimes I just like to ask to, to find out how they found us and all of that. She said, no, this is my first order. So I'm not really sure what to expect, but I'm really happy. I found you guys. And so I asked how she found our farm and she said, well, I was looking through Instagram stories and I saw this other person, I just started following talking about how important it is to buy local meat. And I thought, well, I can do better than buying from target. So I went on Google and I found you guys because you have such a convenient location to pick up at here. And I just thought, Hey, this is a good place to start. And so, I handed her her beef sample box and talked to her a little bit longer in a way she went and I just thought, wow, what good timing for the podcast tomorrow? But um, Truly, I think she did choose our farm because we have that convenient location because we offer some times that were, you know, pretty close to when she ordered, I think if she would have had to wait, you know, a month or two months to get her meat, she maybe wouldn't have been interested anymore. She watched that story. She decided, yes, that's something that I can support and get behind. And she found us and was able to pick up that order soon after. So, I think just having that convenient option for our customers. And then having it also worked for us having that pickup location about an hour from our farm and being able to put those together and meet customers and then go home again is super important. So I thought that was a really great example of someone who we gained as a customer because we have that convenient option.
Rory: 13:06
What a great story too. Perfectly time for the podcast. Like the fact that she could go Instagram story, website, store, pick it up from you the next day is, is really great that you can kind of see that direct timeline. What were kind of the reasons you've chosen to offer delivery and pickup? Why are those kind of the two options that you guys have found most successful?
Valarie: 13:27
We added delivery. I can't remember how long after joining Barn2Door, but pretty quickly after. And like I said, we had one big delivery zone, but we've changed that to two different zones and we have two different charges within 15 miles of our Edina freezer location is $15 and then within 20 so essentially that extra five miles is $20 for a delivery. And we found that a lot of especially moms busy families will choose that just so that they don't have to make the trip to Edina and we try to make it convenient with a Wednesday pick up from four to six and then Saturdays, we kind of do every other week from nine to 10 in the morning. But some people just have busy schedules and we found that they choose that delivery. We're happy to do it as long as we're getting paid for our time and our mileage doing that. And customers seem to really appreciate that. So those are kind of the two options that we have stuck with.
Rory: 14:21
Yeah, definitely. For farmers who, maybe think that setting up a delivery fulfillment option would be too much of a time commitment or just kind of in general, too big of an undertaking. Maybe what would be your response to that, or even just your advice to them if they are thinking about just getting started with delivery
Valarie: 14:38
I said it earlier, but I think a balance between those is so important, making sure that you're able to get your customer, their product in a timely manner and in a convenient way. Like I said, we send them a quick text after we delivered it. Customers are able to go grab it off their step and put it in their freezer. It's pretty easy for them after they have placed that order. But I think for us, it's important to think about, you know, what's worth your time. Are you getting paid for that time, you're spending, delivering those boxes and putting the box together itself and labeling it, all of those things. I would say start simple. Set up a small zone that you deliver in and just give it a try. It never hurts to go back and edit that delivery zone or to change the delivery charge. If you're finding that maybe it doesn't take as much money as you thought to deliver those boxes. Once we got started, we realized, oh, this is actually really simple and easy to do. So, I would say, just get started, try something out. Don't be afraid to change it if it's not working for you or your customers. And then also. Ask your customers. How did this work for you? What can we do to make this better? We often send out surveys or even just ask customers if we're talking to them on the phone or if they're there for a pickup. Hey, how did this work for you? Do you have any feedback for us? What can we do to make this easier? I think customers love to be part of the process. They know they're supporting a small business and a local farm. So they're always happy to give that feedback and help make it a smoother process for others.
Rory: 16:09
Yeah, that's awesome to hear. Especially cause I feel like that definitely kind of helps with that customer loyalty too, that they feel like they're kind of, contributing to the farm as well. And also, I mean, obviously you don't have to take all of that advice, but if you kind of can maybe implement partially what they're asking for and things like that is always good way to meet their needs as well. And I think the other thing that you touched on that I really like is there's no such thing as free food delivery anymore, even Amazon charges for food delivery. And so making sure that you're getting paid for that time and that effort. And like you said, then maybe if you need to scale it back, if you find out that it's easier than, than you've had thought it was to get those products delivered right to people's doorsteps then yeah. Great, scale it back. Maybe make it even more accessible for people, but definitely want to make sure that the time is worth it. And you can kind of guarantee that with a delivery fee,
Valarie: 16:54
People don't seem to mind at all paying us to deliver their box of meat, even if it's a couple of steaks and they have a $15 delivery, it seems like they are willing to pay that. And sometimes tip us on top of that. So, that's really nice that they don't mind and that we can offer that feature for them and save them a little time. If they have a busy schedule.
Rory: 17:13
So Grass Fed Cattle Co you guys started or offered shipping on your products for, for quite a while. And what would you say were kind of the, the benefits of offering shipping?
Valarie: 17:22
We did see some new customers that are from rural areas in North Dakota, South Dakota, some in Wisconsin, that's kind of the area that we offered the shipping in and then other areas of Minnesota as well. And it was nice to be able to ship boxes to them. We've had some customers say, you know, I used it when our family went up to the cabin, we shipped some bacon, some brats, some steaks up there so that we had things to grill and we didn't have to worry about bringing it with us which is super nice to be able to offer and be part of their family vacation. And that was really nice. We used FedEx and used some insulated boxes for the most part, the boxes arrived just fine. The shipping charges were a little higher than what we had expected when we talked to a rep when we started doing the shipping. But yeah, for the most part, it was smooth sailing for the customers after they placed their order. We'd let them know when it would be delivered. And for the most part, they got there on time and, and everything was okay.
Rory: 18:19
Could you maybe talk about the reasoning behind that and why you guys chose to not ship your products anymore?
Valarie: 18:25
We did decide I want to say last year, around this time to stop doing a shipping, we had offered that as another option for customers. And we just found that it took so much extra time getting the dry ice and packaging, those boxes. We had to take them to FedEx just because their pickup times were so big. And we weren't up there for that much time to have them come pick up the boxes. And so, that was all a bit of an extra hassle for us that we weren't sure it was worth our time. And then beyond that, they stopped guaranteeing the delivery times for the ground shipping. Or the 2-Day that we were using and that just made it a little extra complicated for us. We had some customers, probably a handful of them that got boxes that had sat at one of their locations for too long. And, and the meat was thawed out and we had to not only refund them for, their order. And then we were out the meat. We were also out of that shipping charge and the dry ice and the insulated box and everything like that. So, that's kind of our reasoning behind why we stopped shipping and we stuck with those two options, the pickup and the delivery. But, I definitely know farmers that it's working great for to have the shipping option, but just for us, we were feeling a bit stretched, thin. We've had a couple of customers that are sad, we don't offer any more, but for the most part, people are really understanding that we're people too. And we have to have a life outside of getting boxes of meat to them, so. Yeah, we just decided. For our farm and the amount of boxes we were shipping, it wasn't quite worth our time. And we didn't have a ton of customers using it. Anyway. I think if we had more, we probably would have tried harder to simplify the shipping and figure out how to make it more economical as well. But we just had a handful of boxes that we would ship every week. And after talking to some of our customers, we realized, you know, there are so many customers in the Twin Cities that we aren't reaching yet. We don't necessarily need to reach people in five different states. After some thought and consideration, we decided to stop shipping. I think. It definitely can work for different farms. I think it could have worked for us. We just chose to simplify a little bit and really focus in on the local customers that we are serving and the ones that we haven't yet met and that we can serve in the Twin Cities.
Rory: 20:47
And that's a great point too, is like when you, when you do decide to ship there's a little bit of that process then that you're handing over to somebody else where they can then influence the quality of your products, which can be a bit of a risk, as you said customers can end up with products that are not frozen, which is not good, especially in the case of beef. And so that's, that definitely is a risk with shipping. I think a lot of farms do have a market of maybe not as big as the Twin Cities, but I very decent sized city or town nearby where ideally, if you started selling and supplying all those people with their food, then you'd have a really good customer base right there in your backyard. So what are some of the changes you've made to your fulfillments? Over time as you've kind of figured things out that have made life easier for you?
Valarie: 21:29
One that I mentioned was creating some different delivery zones, just giving customers that are close by a bit of a, smaller fee for that delivery and then ones that are further out charging them accordingly. And they don't seem to mind knowing where we're coming from, but also giving more pickup times with a shorter pickup window. We still offer the two hour window on Wednesday evenings just because we know people get off work at different times. And. As you get closer to five o'clock it gets a little busy in the area. We have our pickup at. And then just adjusting offering the farm pickup, but that work has worked really well for our more local customers to the farm. Besides that, I don't think we made a ton of adjustments just. I'm sure we have just making small adjustments along the way as customers tell us different things. Or we realize, Hey, there's this different feature that we didn't know about on Barn2Door sometimes during the academies or office hours, I hear someone talking about something I'm like, I should really look into that for us. So, I'm learning something all the time. And I found that making those adjustments are pretty simple. One other one I thought of is for our subscription boxes. We have a meat club, that's beef, pork and chicken, a beef club box, and then a ground beef club as well. I switched those to delivery just once a month, but I did change that a little bit just so we weren't having those spread out across the entire month and that has made it a lot more efficient on our end as well.
Rory: 22:56
Awesome. Well, I guess kind of looking ahead, what are some of the ways you see yourself either like taking even more advantage of the fulfillments feature or even just kind of expanding what you already have?
Valarie: 23:06
We're hoping at some point to have a walk-in freezer here at the farm where we can package all of our boxes whenever it works for us. Especially knowing that we have a little one here on the farm and lots going on it'll be nice to have on farm storage at some point, and then hoping to be able to offer deliveries at a bit more of a discounted rate and still do that pickup location, but probably not rent that space long-term. We're not sure when that'll all happen, but we'd love to have a delivery van with our logo and maybe some nice photos of the farm or our meat on it, just for that extra marketing as well. And then when we do that, we'd hope to utilize the Routific feature as well.
Rory: 23:48
To finish things off what would be your three things that you think any farmers should keep in mind when they're either setting up or even just kind of reassessing how they're going about their fulfillments on Barn2Door? What would be those top three?
Valarie: 24:01
Well, I'm not sure this is three things. It's more like two, but I just think it's so important that you figure out how you're going to meet the customer needs and how you're going to meet your needs as a business owner and find out where those two things meet. For the customer needs. I think making sure that you have a quality product, first of all, and that you can get that to them in a convenient way, whether that's doing a pickup in their local area, maybe offering a couple of different pickup locations, so they don't have to drive so far and then offering some different times throughout the week for, you know, families. Considering people who might work nighttime or work just in the morning, I'm just thinking through some of the different lifestyles that people have. And then just making sure again, that it's convenient. If you are doing the delivery, maybe not doing that at a time when people aren't home, if you're in a really warm area It delivering something frozen or, or whatnot. So just making sure you consider the customer's needs. And like I said earlier, just sending out a survey or asking them maybe giving them a discount if they answer some of your questions is always a great thing to do. And then figuring out how that can balanced out with your needs as a business owner, wanting you to be efficient, getting paid for your time and still making a profit, I think is so important. So make maybe sitting down and putting those two things on two separate lists, listing out some of the different things to consider. And then at the end of the day, trying to figure out where's the balance in that between meeting those customer's needs. Being able to run my business any efficient way that still again, helps those customers get my quality product in a convenient way.
Rory: 25:40
Awesome. Well, that definitely was two things, but we'll let it go.
Valarie: 25:43
Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate it.
Rory: 25:45
They were good Awesome. Well, Valerie, thanks so much for joining us this week. And coming on the podcast to talk about fulfillments, like we said, not necessarily the, the flashiest or coolest feature, but definitely an essential one for a farm business that is looking to make it convenient, to not only get their products to customers, but for customers to be able to order as well.
Valarie: 26:06
yeah, I have a third one.
Rory: 26:07
Oh, what is it?
Valarie: 26:08
Talk about those fulfillment options often in your emails and your social media spoken like a true academy facilitator. It is different than buying in a grocery store. So don't be afraid to share with your customers that you have options. Often after we post about a new product or something that we have, we say pick up available at our convenient Edina location or delivery within the Twin Cities. And just continuing to repeat that to customers, what some of our options are and how they work is always great. So that's my third one.
Rory: 26:37
Awesome. Love it. That's a great third. That's a great third one. I want to extend my, thanks to Valerie for joining us on this week's podcast episode here at Barn2Door we're humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, including farmers like Valerie, who implements sustainable agricultural practices and support their local communities. If you would like to ask Valerie any questions directly, you can meet her and other farm advisors in Barn2Door connect to learn more and register to attend. Go to Barn2Door.com/connect. Sessions occur weekly. For more information on Grass Fed Cattle Co visit Grassfedcattleco.com and lastly, to learn more about Barn2Door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm. Go to Barn2Door.com/resources. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week.