626. "I want to grow beyond being a local small business, what’s my best path forward?" | Coaching Session

I feel like I'm just hitting my head against the wall a lot of times at the markets because they're so unpredictable. I'm like, I can't, I can't do this very much longer. It's gonna be like this. So.

Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is the Product Boss podcast. I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists, or food and beverage businesses, I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into a successful business? And what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And this is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, or I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little courage, strategy and support, and you too can be the next million dollar product Boss. Let's do this.

Hey, hey, Product Boss.

It's Jaclyn Snyder. And welcome back to another episode of.

The Product Boss podcast.

And today we are digging in with another coaching session. So today I'm chatting with Kelly of KD Crop Farms. So Kelly has been growing vegetables and fruit and turning them into delicious jams, pickles, relish and salsa since 2006. So listen, don't blame me if at the end of this episode you're like, I'm hungry and I want to buy from her immediately.

Okay.

Cause it's all sounds so delicious. But here's the deal. Most of Kelly's sales are coming from.

Bigger local farmer's markets near her, Right? So she's really only making sales by.

Going to farmer's markets, and she really wants to expand beyond her local community and market. And by doing that, she wants to be able to focus on increasing her online and holiday sales.

So she really has a question of.

What'S her next best step and where should she focus on to grow her business? That's exactly what we're going to figure out today. So let's dive in.

Yeah. So we've been in business for almost 20 years now, and I run a small farm. So we originally started, you know, just growing vegetables and fruit, and then we started making jams, jellies and pickles from the fruit and stuff that didn't get sold. So we have been making a certain varieties like cranberry habanero jelly and farm farm fresh dill pickles for that long. So we've got a couple like staples we've been mostly selling through, you know, farmers markets and I also have the online store on my website. So there's a lot of different avenues, but the online sales have never, like I maybe sold one order a year. So there's a lot like I'd love to have things like grow for this holiday season. And like you said like in the talk before, think of your three best sellers. Of course we have like 20 or 30 different things that we make because we just make things with like Connecticut grown raw vegetables and fruit. So it's seasonal. But every year I try and like make so much more. Like last year I think I made 5,000 jars and this year will probably be around 6,000 jars. So we try and like make as much as we can during the season and then some of the things we can freeze so we could keep on making more stuff. And then I've been using it. I used a co packer a little bit this year just so I just can't produce a ton in the kitchen right now by myself. I have a couple workers, but there's not, you know, like compared to the co packer that has like a lot of like amazing kitchen, like huge quantity batches that they could make.

So where are you like, even though you're trying to sell online, where are people finding you and buying from you?

We've made like over 20 years. Our customers are mostly at the farmers markets.

Okay. So local, like local to your town in Connecticut?

Yeah, we've grown. Now we have like at least three farm stands and we have a, like a local cooperative, like food cooperative that's basically down the road that buys our stuff. So we've got a couple avenues. Of course it's not nearly enough to, you know, what I need, but yeah, so we have gotten the word out.

It's just.

Yeah, it's very localized. Probably within 30 miles radius. In Connecticut, maybe a few people bought like in. I have someone bought in Florida and Virginia and I don't even know if they were related to someone that bought from me at the market. So I can't say that I have a, you know, like United States presence yet, but that's kind of the goal.

Okay. So really it's small business. You've had it for a long time. It's very much like a local farm business. You've got what you have, you sell you jar, you can in person markets that are local and then like you said, the farm stands and does anyone come to your farm to buy, do you have a farm stand there?

We don't have a authentic farm stand. We have like it's a CSA pickup. So mostly just people that are part of the community supported agriculture that they usually purchase a full share, half share at the beginning of the season.

Okay, so you're at about, looks like about 40,000 a year. And the thing that you want to see is you'd like to make more online sales and holiday fair sales by selling our, our jarred goods, holiday gift baskets, pickle kits and subscription bundles. I plan to reinstall my monthly webinars to entice people design it for consulting programs. I offer to generate a bigger presence on LinkedIn. So teaching people how to do what.

You do, yeah, that's a side business I kind of started. But I don't see it growing just yet. It's just like hard to grab that because there's so much do it yourself and like Facebook groups are like, hey, you know, so much free advice that people just feel like I'll just do it all on my own. But the one thing that I do like to offer is like I love in person presentations, like at different gatherings. So I've gotten paid to do presentations about like homesteading and you know, you know, starting your own garden. And also I've done like jam making, like literally in a kitchen presentations. I've offered people like at the farmer's markets, they've said before like, oh, I'd love to learn how to do that. I was like, well I can help you do that. Either live in a like a kitchen setting or over zoom.

You know, the two questions and the two like problems you're presenting to me are kind of two different things. So one is how to grow the product business, how to kind of get that more direct to consumer, how to get it off of just like the local. And then the other one is taking what you know and trying to teach it as a service. So which one would you like to focus on for our session?

Oh, well, definitely the product base because I think that is like I know I can do that and it's just I know I'm competing with a lot of like product based businesses and you know, the jargoods are, you know, they're different, they're shelf stable, they're glass. I really like the shelf stable jars. And we've tried to make ourselves different by making like the cranberry habanero jelly. We do like a strawberry chutney. We do some really interesting flavors and then our dill pickles, like we call it Farmer in the Dill. So it's kind of a cute name. Like a lot of our things have cute little names. I just find like right now I just know it's a farmer's market. I was like no one's been buying our stuff for like weeks. Like it's been really slow sales and then all of a sudden like people are starting to like get all worried about you know, winter coming. So they're starting to stock up on know all the shelf stable stuff that they don't have to open right away. It will be like good for you know, a year or two years. So that's kind of. Yeah, I want to center on that cuz I think I have a lot of inventory and there's a lot of holiday stuff coming up and if I could figure out how to just bundle it just right and price wise like what you know I charge for an 8 oz jar of jelly, I charge $8 at the market and then wholesale I'll get $6. But that's just at the farm stands it's usually more like $4.75 at wholesale like the co op so it's a cheaper price. But I think everyone says my margin is pretty good for getting that kind of wholesale.

Who when you say there everyone says your margin is pretty good. Who do you mean by everyone?

Oh, just some of the other places. Like I said at the farm stands if I could get $6 for 8 ounce jar when I'm selling it for $8, that's pretty good because usually like if you go into like malt and all that stuff and even tractor supply like they'll buy a 10 out like a, a jar for like $3 a jar. And I could never compete with that. So that's why I'm honing in on like the boutique shops like the fancy shops, the farm stands because they like people want to see locally grown things, locally jarred things instead of just like run of the mill pickles from Georgia or something in Connecticut or whatever. So yeah. And then our 60 ounce jars are going for $10 a piece and our 32 ounces are going for I think 14 a piece. So and then I do a deal three for 21 on the eight ounce jar. So that's like the only deal I'll do is 3 for 21, which I never feel that great about. But it sometimes like brings people in and they will buy more than just like one little jar or whatever. So. And that's about as high as I can go on my prices. I don't know if I could do anything better anywhere else.

All right, so what I think, I think there's like a couple, a couple of things here that I feel like we can address to sell more. So I think that you've got the product in like you said, you've got really, you've got cool names like Colonel's Corny Savory Corn Relish, Beat this Beet Relish with Horseradish. Like, I think you've got like a humor to the way you speak and your marketing and kind of like let's not take it so seriously. And it's great. The way that the brand is currently kind of established is looks like a local company. Right. Like eventually you're labeling. You may or may not decide that you're going to like upgrade it a little bit. Like Katie Crop Farms, the way that it's written with the rainbow and the flower behind it and stuff like that, like there might be a more advanced kind of like a next level design that you might do to it. Because what I want you to start to think about is if I were to sell these to markets to grocers, what would it look like on the store? So there's, oh, guess what, before we.

Go on, I did get a new label. They don't look like that completely anymore. Yeah.

Okay. So here's, here's where I want to start. You and you probably there's, I think there's this mix between Standout society, which is one of my programs, and the multi stream machine. Standout Society, I think for you might help hone you into developing the brand because I think the product is there and we can talk about places to sell. So now if I go to Pinterest and I look at other brands and I look at market or market jams, you can see that there's lots of different ways of packaging that make it seem a certain way that call forward a certain customer. So the thing that's going to differentiate you, pickles or pickles or pickles, technically, I'm just going to say it because jam is jam is jam. We're going to have like the different flavors. It's the same as candles. There's going to be, you know, if you're faced with two apricot jams with habanero in it, I'm just going to say that one. Right. Or you have like strawberry with habanero and someone were to show you both. A lot of times we can't taste them. So if we were going to sell online or sell in a store, they're not going to taste them. They might taste them at a, at a market, but they're not going to taste them when they're needing to bite off the shelf. So what makes somebody want to buy something? Well, one is going to be brand familiarity. So have I heard about this company, Have I seen it on social? Have I seen it in a lot of places? Have I seen it in grocers? And then the second thing will be the jar. The packaging, the labeling, that's the thing that's gonna attract them to actually take it off the shelf and buy it. Then they're gonna taste it and then they're gonna make a decision if they wanna do it again. So the difference of like the biggest shift that's gonna have to happen for you is the idea of being in front of a customer and letting them taste it. And they're buying based off the, the taste, which is more typical to the way that you sell in person versus if you want to blow this up into like an online type business or you want to sell wholesale, they're going to just have the images, what it looks like, like what the photos, you know, look like. And then they're going to have the product descriptions and any sort of backup. So like if people leave reviews or anything like that. So for example, this brand, have you seen this brand? The Bond Maman?

Oh yeah, yeah. They look all like from France or something. That's the way I look at them.

Yeah, they're French. And what I like about them is they're a French family that actually ended up saving a lot of Jews during the Holocaust, for example. So they've been around for a very long time. So they're French and they're actually a very, very old company. And only in the last, I would probably say like five years or so has the, the brand become more recognizable. So seeing the sort of like picnic blanket printed top, the way that the, the writing is on the label, right, it feels French. The jars like the whole thing, you can identify it. Even if you didn't see the label or you saw it from far away, you would like now be able to identify this as that brand. And because we've seen it so often now, it's this no, like trust. But we haven't all known about this brand for the last 90 years, you know, so.

Yeah, yeah, they haven't changed it, it stayed the same. They really haven't changed anything. Even the tops.

Yeah. And it maybe it was packaged in a different way, but from what we know, Sarah Beth's is a company from New York City. Like I would eat at this cafe and actually when I was in Japan, this brand was there. So one thing I really want you to think about doing and I know you've done your labels, but it's a little bit of deeper work into yes, I sell pickles, jams, relishes that anyone can eat. But when we're selling and branding to anyone, we're kind of selling to no one. So while anyone can buy this stuff, if you look at like this image on Pinterest, it says like little foodies, luxuries, these all feel like they're from Europe. So someone who kind of values that or likes European type flavored stuff or they want to feel like it's from Provence or France or whatever, they might be more attracted to these mustards and jams and oils versus this one, for example is just called Jam. I am country goodness for the urban palate. Right. And they're, they look a small company, it's cutesy, it's got a specific look and then they're going to build their brand in that way. So we still need to attract a certain customer with our products. And it's for you specifically, it's going to come into like what the, the branding and the packaging and the labels look like to sell what's inside. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And I'm still like in the beginning stages.

What I want to just express to you is that what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to really identify who you're ideal customer is. Now because you've been local and you've been in Connecticut and it's just been more or less, like you said, within 30 miles of where you are. And you live on a farm, so there might be a lot of farmland and you reference like Walmart. That's not, we never want to compare to Walmart. We never want to. Like a lot of people are isolated into small, you know, into small towns and we're not exposed to lots of different things. So the best way for you to start to understand your market is to start to shop the market. So if you have like a better grocer that you can go to, I want you to go to the jam, pickle, relish section and see what's happening on those shelves. If you want to find brands like the best way to research this is to work backwards. So to think my eight dollar jam, let's not attach any belief to the amount that you're charging for it. Okay? I don't want to be like, well no one's gonna Pay more than $8 or blah blah, blah. Like, let's not make up any stories about what people are willing to pay. And instead I want you to just think, who is my ideal customer? Where does she shop? So does she live in Connecticut, but she lives like in Greenwich? You know, is she in New York or Greenwich? Is she the Hamptons? Does she like, where is she that kind of person? Is she the. Like think about what kind of grocery store she shops at. And you're going to have to do this research outside of your small town a lot of times to think like if I like let's say being in a bigger city, New York, Louisiana, that kind of thing. You know, maybe there's a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, maybe there's a specialty grocery chain of your neighborhood. There's Vons and Ralph's and Safeway and you know, there's all the different places. So I want you to start to identify where would I want my stuff to be? Now we don't want to go for the cheaper markets because typically they have like Smuckers. It's cheap. They're looking for cheap because they're selling to the masses. And it has high fructose corn syrup in it and all the crap. They don't value small batch wholesome ingredients, farm fresh, that kind of thing. So I just want you to think through like what are these markets? It's a specialty grocer. Is it a specialty market? Or if I was in a bigger store. And then when you know what that is and you know who like these bigger retailers, I want you to go then research who they sell. And you can do this online. Like you could look at Whole Foods online. You can look at Erewhon as a really expensive place in la. But like, let's say that's not your customer and you find a different customer. You get to choose who you want your customer to be, but you're going to get that information by based on where she shops. And then I want you to look at the products like who, what brands they carry in the categories that you sell. So relish, pickles, jams. And then I want you to go look and see what you can find is like through lines to it.

Yeah, that's the only way you talk to people in the store. And they do have shelf talkers too, but there's only so much. And that's why on the label it was important that we put our little story. Like I learned how to make canned goods for my grandma. And like it was always like in our family that we always had a garden and I never, you know, I'm a first generation farmer so I built this all from scratch.

That's the brand building part of it. But right now it's going to be, you've got the product, you've got the jars. It's really so easy. The label part, you might just find you don't have to stick to your logo the way that you've always had it. It's a little bit of work. So it's not like a tomorrow change. So you're going to keep even with your labels right now if you want to keep going with it. But this I think is the deeper work because you've already been told by the stores that it's the packaging, right?

Yeah.

So they see it and I see it as a. And it's okay. Like, it's not that you're meant to know how to do this. Like you're farmer. Like if you're farming or you're figuring how to make all this stuff, it doesn't mean you're also a graphic designer and a brand designer. Like you'd be amazing and so lucky if you could do all those things. So your thing is more of honing in what this vision is, who your ideal customer is and what kind of like packaging she'll be attracted to. And because you do have like this sense of humor, you might look to the more like less bougie approach to it, but still really good quality ingredients. But then they know it by something.

Yeah, it was. I got involved with like Boston. Like I'm. That's one of my goals and to go into like Boston, that's the next big city that I would even try. Because New York City, I've researched, you know, the fancy shops there and I really, I'm not into going to New York City at all. Like, I'd rather go to Boston by far. But like just thinking outside and everyone's like, oh, you have to like become like very popular within your own state. And I was like, I don't know why they tell you that.

I mean, okay, well let's stop talking about everyone. And they. Right, because you haven't been exposed to everyone. It's not all humans in all places. There's not one coach or expert that Knows everything about everything. And what they say is it right? Like, you take what you want and leave the rest. So what I will tell you is I want you to look for clues based on what people are saying to you. So right now it's a packaging label issue. It's a. At a market, it makes sense because they get to taste it and I'm just exploring and da, da, da. And I can get it. I can go get to the farm. I can. You know, locals are like, yeah, I'm just gonna go pick up my local relish. But to expand is going to take your expansion of creating a brand versus just labels on a jar to tell you what's inside. So Pinterest is a great tool for that. Pretty easy for you to, like, look up different versions of stuff and then just say, like, what? It's easy to then decide, like, what font do I want? I know there's going to. It's going to feel like there's a lot of options for you, but you'll kind of find the stuff. If it's like, even with my house, like, if I start to save stuff, I'm like, oh, I can see something consistently showing up.

So you don't even think it's like bundles or anything. You think it comes down to the label?

Right now we need to. We'll get into that, but right now we need, like, what the look and feel is. Okay. Even this one is so simple where it's just a white sticker with, like the parchment paper on top with twine and it looks different. Or do you know, Duchess? Meghan Markle.

Oh, yeah, Meghan Markle.

So she. I don't think she's done anything with it, but she kind of advertised that she was going to have a jam. So if you can see here, like, she. She was calling it American Riviera Orchard. So the name brought in a look, the embossing and like the logo felt very sophisticated. See how it feels like very sophisticated. It doesn't have to be much different than you just kind of identifying, like, who you want to call forward.

And it helps that she's, you know, she's, you know, everybody knows who she is.

We're not worrying about her. I'm talking about packaging. So the packaging represents and reflects what she's trying to create as a brand. It doesn't matter that she's a princess. She hasn't sold a single jar of anything. It. That part doesn't matter. It's just what I'm trying to say is, like, what I want you to start to see in your mind's eye is like what the jar could look like. Do you see where I led Kelly here?

When it comes to growing your business and sales, it all starts with your brand. And when you don't have a clear vision of your brand brand or you do have a clear vision, but that vision isn't being cohesively shown through your products or your packaging and labeling, then you're going to struggle to expand. In Kelly's case, when trying to pitch her products to stores, she's been told that her packaging is the issue, which is why I want her to get really, really clear on her brand. Because when she gains that brand clarity, she can uplevel her packaging to represent and reflect that, leading to her becoming more recognized. Right, A more recognized brand that you would see on shelves and know exactly what you were buying, especially among her ideal customer.

Now if Kelly wants to grow her.

Direct to consumer sales, this is going.

To be her first best step.

Now let's dig into the next part of her questions about increasing her online sales.

So let's get to the other parts of your questions. So I don't think selling online is going to be your best way of selling because you're going to need to create traffic and drive traffic to your website to buy and that's going to be harder for you because right now you don't have a lot of followers on social right. So that would be a free way, a free way to drive people to your website. So I talk about paid organic or partnership. So paid would be using ads, which I don't think right now you should spend money on ads to drive traffic to your website. Organic would be you building yourself by creating an organic following. Like people start to discover you through whether it's TikTok or Instagram. But again, you're a farmer. Sounds like you don't have a lot of time to then also figure out social media and then the third one would be partnership. So partnership means you're getting other people to share about your company.

And I kind of get that through the farm stands and the co op and farmer's markets.

So. So again, success leaves clues. So you're already seeing that you've been able to make a good amount of money selling your products with using other people's customers. So this is sort of what we move into for like multi stream machine. What I teach in there is that they're going to have their own customers and they're going to have their own customers there. You just have to have your products to deliver. So I actually think wholesale the better expansion point for you because you do have a shelf life. Then worrying about website right now you can sell more in bulk. You can sell. When you ask about bundles, people like if you're selling to a grocer, it might be. And you're gonna have to do this research specifically for your kind of brands. But it might be like they have to buy in packs of 12. So like 12 bread and butter pickles, 12 spicy cucumber relish. Like they have to buy twelves and then they get their wholesale price. And then this might be a better way for you to. Again, if you go to your local areas and you think about what local market markets do I have? You can go up and approach them and say like, hey, we're a local farmer. It's. It's farm to table. Da da da da. Can we put it there? You may approach some local restaurants that have jams and relishes where you can approach them and say, hey, would you like to use our product? They could buy from you. You can leave them some sample jars because again, I've discovered jams before because a cute restaurant has provided new jams where they can sell the jams on their shelves. But they can also be a vendor of yours and like buying it because that is the, the partnership part. That's the getting in front of other people's customers. So now if I go sit down at this cute restaurant somewhere within, you know, range, somewhere in Connecticut and then they've been served this jam or this relish or whatever and I'm like, this is delicious. What is it? Then they can easily refer me to like, oh, it's Katie Crop farms. So I think the better path for you forward right now is wholesale in a couple of versions, wholesale to markets to. It could be like kitchen type stores, restaurants, anywhere that we get like sample jams. Right. So we just need to get you out of your local town and expand out past that. And then if you want to do the tri state area, you absolutely can. But I think those would be the better alternatives to, to try versus you trying to get go direct to consumer and try and market to me and get me to, to buy in.

Yeah, that's what I figured. I was like. Because everyone's like, you know, subscriptions and stuff. I think all of my Kit Pickle did a subscription box where they'd send you, you know, that's like drinking the brine. That that was their big thing was like drinking the pickle brine And I'm not sure how they did, but you know, that has to be refrigerated and all that. And we always have to worry about glass breakage and all that. So even shipping, like I've learned about distributors and all that stuff. I'm definitely not that stage. I'd be delivering it myself probably. But yeah, that's. That's really good information.

So what did you hear me say in terms of other ways to sell.

Your product besides the wholesale? I mean, you said, well, like the.

Kind of like the advice I just gave you now what. What would be different than what you're doing now that you kind of heard me say?

I've kind of been dabbling in it. I found I have one restaurant that's kind of like an eatery, ice cream shop. And they put our cranberry on their hot turkey sandwiches and they have like a little shop of all local products, like you were saying, like a cute little shop. Getting into restaurants. So I've noticed, like, I've tried and they always like either make their own stuff or my whole. My price that I would sell them to is too high for, you know, what they're trying to cover in the kitchen cost for, you know, all the condiments and things that they sell or put on their food. So restaurants are kind of like, I don't know if that's something that I should put a lot of time into. But definitely like the shops I do enjoy, like just bringing a bunch of boxes of pickles to someplace instead of just going to the farmer's market and hoping I sell like a lot of that to just customers. So I would definitely be, you know, looking to more markets. And you're right. Just hone in on all the shops I could possibly sell to. We have definitely in Connecticut, we have a lot of like sightseers and you know, Greenwich, and we have like some really Old Saybrook. We have some really high end, like cities around here where a lot of people come. And I find at the farmer's markets, the people that are out of town are usually the ones that appreciate my product more so as you were saying, than the locals because they're like, oh, I've never seen this before. And I've had people come back that are from different states and they just come out to get my product. So it's kind of cool when that happens. So I definitely, you know, have a good product. It's just, yeah, like getting the name out and getting it more out there organically than what I've been doing.

So, so I think that the, the theme that I'm finding in your coaching session is that you've had the clues, right? Like, like the breadcrumbs have been left and, and then, and it's kind of like again, how many cliches can I come up with? Like the writing's on the wall. But what I, but what's happening is I think you're what I want you to do. And if you can imagine this looks like I want you to be like a solid oak tree, right? Like firm roots planted in the ground. You're super solid. The wind can blow, people can tell me, tell you you should do this, you should do this. Da da da da. But you're like, no, no, no. I have this plan. I'm seeing where the water comes from. I'm seeing like the sunlight. I know exactly what needs to happen. So instead of being like swayed by all the, all the opinions and the consumption of information, try and hone in on that consumption so that you can keep a solid roadmap so that it doesn't throw you off. So what I've heard you say and that I would like to see you go deeper in on is identifying your ideal customer avatar. So who is she? The woman typically makes the buying decisions, who is she? And it goes back to that market research of where does she shop, what other jams and spreads and da da da does she spend? I want to know, even down to the point of like how much does she spend on coffee? And I don't want this to be based on your current experiences because your current experiences are only based on where you currently sell. So if we're going to think about the future of Katie Crop Farms, I want you to think outward a little bit more. Where we move out of your area and we start to expand and by expanding, we have to still think so it could be an out of town person. She loves the idea of like Connecticut. I remember being a west coast girl coming over to the tri state area in the fall was like amazing. So you want to think like if I were to expand into other markets, what am I trying to get them to feel when they're buying this jar? If I want them to feel like they're on my farm in Connecticut, if I want them to feel like they've just picked it off of a tree, what would that look like and who would she be and where would she live and how much would she spend on coffee and where would she shop and all the things we need to know all about her. So that we know what she expects her packaging to look like, and they'll also tell us how much we can charge for the product. Okay, we don't want to be a competitor with Smuckers. We want to be with the other small specialty businesses like you. Long term, you can expand and expand, but there's that. So that's like step one, and it goes back to the labeling, because that's what you said people said. Second thing you're saying to me is that you've already tried restaurants and like, the concept of restaurants and wholesale with the restaurant with it being too expensive, means that it might not be the right restaurant. So when you do this first step of inform in, like, information that I'm telling you, you might also think, well, what kind of restaurants would she shop at? So when you can really start to identify what she does with her time, where she eats all the stuff, then you can be in service to her. So it's going to go back to the restaurants. What kind of restaurants would she eat at? Maybe for you it's hotels, right? Maybe eventually you do small jars and you offer them to hotels for, like, you know, the table when they bring you jam. Because I also know when I'm at, I'm like, because I only drink almond milk with my coffee. Because, yes, I'm la. And two, I'm lactose intolerant, but I know the kind of restaurant I'm in for. When they have the Smucker's jelly packets. I'm like, they absolutely do not have oat milk or almond milk because they've got the Smucker Jellies jelly packets. I know that they come with high fructose corn syrup. I know they're terrible for you. And so I'm like, I don't even want my kids eating them. And they're there. And so I'm like, I know the kind of restaurant I'm at. That's what I really want you to start to deepen into as you're thinking about the next steps for your business.

Yeah, I have. We have thought about those little packets of putting the jelly in. We just have no idea how to even start.

Don't do the packets. That's Smuckers.

Okay. Don't do the packets. Okay.

But if you look at the other jams, they come in the tiny little jars.

Yep, really tiny. Like 2 ounce.

You don't have to do those, but you could if you did a deal. So this is the unlock. I know you're looking for strategy, but the unlock is going to be really you knowing who she is and what she's looking for. So that when you're looking for the retailers to sell to, when you're thinking about collaborations with hotels or restaurants, you are like, it's perfectly aligned. They're like, yes, this fits our customer.

That's quite a different way of thinking about it.

Do you see the common theme here?

Even before our coaching session, Kelly was given all these clues as to where she needed to focus and what she should hone in on. But she's been unable to see a clear path because she's consuming so much information. This is why I want to help.

Her figure out her path forward so.

That she can stick with it moving forward and not be swayed by other people's opinions. How many times have you guys all heard me say, don't let people should on you.

Okay?

All the shoulds. It's not their business. You got to keep moving forward despite their opinions. Now, I keep saying it, but success leaves clues, meaning if you're having success with something, pay attention and keep doing more of that. In Kelly's case, she's having lots of success with her in person marketing, which is a sales channel that uses other people's audiences. Now, that's why I see her best path forward as continuing to do in person markets, especially during the holiday season, and then adding on wholesale. Because if she's seeing success with leaning into other people's audiences and customers versus having to drive her own traffic through social media, which I know she doesn't want to do and she doesn't have time for, like so many of you, then she should keep working and doing what's working. And remember, the same goes for you. If you're seeing success with something, keep exploring how you can expand on that since you already know it's working. Plus, it'll end up being a lot less work than something you're having to start from scratch. Now let's see what else I can clarify for Kelly and if we have her path forward nailed down. Hey, product boss. Okay, so you know that I am on a mission to empower women all over the world to build product based businesses that give them the security and freedom to build build their dream business, which will also lead to the life of their dreams. So I know that I can help you do this by teaching you how to nail the core four foundational pillars of a standout business. And it's going to turn your business into something that feels like it's kind of struggling along or limping along to standing out In a crowded market and getting more customers. So I am so excited to invite you to join my free masterclass, your four step playbook to stand out and in a crowded market and get more customers so that you can grow your business no matter where you sell. In just 90 minutes, I'm going to teach you the core four foundational pieces your business might be missing. How to stop wasting time and money on things that don't work and what to focus on instead. I mean, these are proven ways to build an audience that buys from you and that tells their friends about you. So what I want to do is I want to unlock what can be blocking you from growing a profitable business and how you can turn it around pretty instantly. All you have to do is come join me inside of this totally free masterclass. Head to the productboss.com standout to get access again. That's the productboss.com standout. Now back to the show.

So this is what I'm just trying to get you to see. You can stay as a $6 brand as well. Okay. So if you can't afford it, then I want you to know you. There's so much room out there to go up. It's just because you're so local that you're isolated to what you know to be true in your neighborhood, but not what's actually happening in the market. So so much of this is market research.

Okay. And that helped me a lot about online because, like, oh, yeah, I can sell so much online, but maybe for the online, I should just try and sell, like, my educational services instead of, like, products. Like products. Yeah, sure. You could buy it online if you want it, but I'm not gonna.

I want to keep you focused. You run a farm.

Yep.

As far as I know, that's not for the faint of heart. That's a lot of hours.

It is.

Okay. So my brother said this to me once, and I was like, well, you suck. He's like, if you're trying to grow everything, he's like, you're gonna grow nothing. So he's like, you might as well go get a job for $40,000 a year and work at a retail shop. And I was like, oh, thank you. Thanks for that encouragement, bro. But it really honed me in on I can't grow it all. So if you're going to try and grow like a course or education business trying to teach other people how to do what you do, really the best way to do that is by doing it and modeling it. Because once you show that you can do it. They're going to want to know how you did it. So first, I want you to get really good at running this farm business and then taking the food and then just seeing if you can take that story and sell more of it. And let's get you to a hundred thousand dollars.

Yeah, that's my goal this year.

Okay, so your goal then is to work backwards from wholesale and think, how many stores do I need to buy 250, $500 worth of goods for me to get me and doing the same stuff I'm always doing. But if I add an additional stream of revenue, like wholesale, how many? And I sell them 12 facts, right? How many do they need to buy to start? There's probably going to be minimum orders that you create. And then let's say they're each buying $500. You might be like, okay, great, I need, you know, four new wholesale vendors a month. The more and more shops have it on their shelves, the more it's exposed. People are going to find you and you're actually going to find that. They're going to automatically come to your website. You're not going to have to drive your own traffic there, because they're going to discover you. And this is what happened for me in my business. They're going to discover you on another shelf. They're going to taste it and try it now. They're going to recognize your brand. Then they're gonna know to follow you or buy from you directly, or they'll keep buying from the retailer, which gets the retailer to keep buying from you. Okay, so that's where I really want you to focus. I want you to focus on really getting good at knowing who this is for, the branding of it. And then as soon as you kind of knock that out, which shouldn't take you more than like, you know, you can do this in the next few weeks. Like, if you can focus, get the labels made, you don't have to do anything fancy. They could still be Avery labels, but maybe it just looks a little bit different. And then you could think about. Then you make your list and then you start to approach them, knowing that you've built your line sheets, you know your price point, you know your minimums, and you show that forward. So, you know, you started with, like, this strategy session would be a success to you by having a plan of which products to promote and make the most money and how to promote them. So what I think is that it's not even specifically which products you can think through the Season and like what flavor? So cranberry should be pretty hot. So just thinking through the season and the flavors of like what makes sense. But I love the idea of you even have this story about a farm with excess produce. Nothing. We don't go to waste. We use these fresh vegetables and we and fruits and we put them into the stuff and it's delicious. And it's like this farm to table feel. And we have a selection of jams, relishes and pickles and pickled products. That's fine. As soon as you get hone in on your messaging and branding and then by using a sales channel with somebody else's customers, like wholesale now, you're going to start to get discovered and you're going to get more input and more input and so you don't have to worry about promoting them. You just have to make the connections. I don't want you to worry about the marketing part right now. I just want you to actually like yours is actually making connections with buyers and selling to them and that's the simple path forward. Did you hear how Kelly is going.

To start breaking into wholesale? There's actually a few things I want.

Her to consider here. First, she's going to get really clear.

On her ideal customer, who that person is, where they're buying and shopping and what's similar about that ideal customer.

Right.

I really want her to hone in. Then from there she's going to start to reach out to stores and I.

Give her a strategy that I teach.

Inside of my programs.

But she is going to reach out.

To stores that sell to her ideal customers. And when she reaches out to them, right.

Whether she's going to reach out to them on the phone, email in person.

Or if they're local, she can just.

Go knock on their door.

She's going to start pitching to these.

Companies to sell her products.

And by doing this, it's going to give her a ton of opportunity to test and try. And I promise you, the more and.

More of these that you do, the better you'll get.

So for anyone who wants to add wholesale on similar to what I told Kelly, I always recommend starting with knowing.

Exactly who your customer is and who or where they would shop, who they would shop from or where they would shop. Right.

And then from there, there's a passive way of waiting for people to come find you on certain platforms.

And there's a way that I teach.

Wholesale which is going out and getting them.

Yeah, I agree. I feel like I'm just hitting my head against the Wall a lot of times at the markets because they're so unpredictable. I'm like, I can't, I can't do this very much longer if it's gonna be like this.

So a good, a good, good like wholesale arm to your business will be great because you don't have to leave where you are necessarily. It can be phone calls, it could be follow up emails. There's a lot of strategy there that you don't have to physically go anywhere. And then I see you growing and expanding and being like in all the sprouts markets or whatever it is like that can be your goal later. And so your story in the future will be we started as a farm in a farm stand doing farmer's markets and look at where we are now. So to have the patience, like know it takes the time it takes. And you didn't know, any of you didn't know this. You didn't have all the tools to get you to where you needed to be. So now you're a little bit more clearer on. I know we want to sell more, sell more. But there's a few steps to take before you get there. So set yourself a goal. By the end of the year, I would like to be in how many retail shops?

Shops. I think a good number would be 15 to 20.

Great. So that means you're going to need. We have about four months, about five stores a month. So let that be your goal.

Sounds good.

Okay, so if we want a shop from you, support you, buy from you, where would we be able to do that?

So at my website, KatieCropFarms.com that's the best way. I have a online store account and.

I do ship and we can follow you on Instagram at Katie Crop Farms. Perfect. Awesome.

And also Facebook too. Same address.

Amazing. So reach out to her if it's something. I mean her flavors look delicious. If you're local, in Connecticut, close to Chaplin. She's got amazing things and yeah. And I'm excited to see where you go. I think you've got a really great product and I think it's just a little bit of honing in and simplifying your plan and I think you're going to see a lot of changes. So we're going to go for 15 to 20 stores in the next four months. You're going to come up with your minimums line sheets so that you can tell people like what you sell and how they buy from you. A little bit of relabeling and you don't have to worry about social media or marketing or e commerce or anything right now. Like, just keep it super simple.

Alrighty.

Alright. Thanks, Kelly.

Thank you so much.

Kelly sells products that sound delicious and.

I really enjoyed coaching her because we.

Were able to find her simplest path to move forward. A path that doesn't involve her needing to spend time on marketing or getting her own traffic.

Now, the main theme here is that if Kelly wants to continue to grow.

Beyond selling locally, she's really going to need to get honed in on her branding, right? How her product shows up, the messaging, and then potentially adding on wholesale as another sales channel. If Kelly is able to implement this path and what we discussed, I know she'll be able to expand her business and reach her goals of getting into 20 retail shops over the next four months. If Kelly can do it, so can you, my friend. I want you to find your simplest path, lean into it, and take action. All right, if this was helpful for.

You, please let me know if you're.

Not subscribed to this podcast yet or you're not following the show. Make sure you're subscribed or following wherever you listen to your podcast.

And if you haven't left a review.

Yet on Apple Podcasts, I would be so grateful if you left one.

I love reading them.

It allows for other people to know whether this is the right podcast for them or not. And it really means a lot to me when I get to read these amazing reviews.

So thank you so much to my.

Friends that have done it and thank.

You for those that are going to take the time to do it.

Remember, subscribe.

I have two episodes a week. I do not want you to miss.

Out on a single one. All right, until the next one.

Bye, friends. It.