If You Grow, So Will Your Farm!

By Jane Eckert - Eckert AgriMarketing

You’ve had a good deal of the winter to reflect. What did you learn this year? Did you attend those farm winter meetings?

You can’t really expect your farm to keep growing if you don’t, so it is very important to read the right books, get off the farm, take classes, and attend the workshops and conferences. Think about what you did right this year, and what you did wrong, and think about what others are doing that will make your operation more effective, more efficient, or more profitable.

Over the past 12 months, I’ve been able to attend farm meetings from Hawaii to Georgia, and from New York to Ottawa, Canada. Here are a few of the things I’ve heard, and learned. (It’s kind of a “top ten ideas”, but I think I fudged a little.)

1) Successful Farms Are Making the Tourism Connections

Successful farms are realizing that the tourism connections can help them grow their businesses. By joining and participating in local groups, they have the opportunity to share the costs of marketing, yet still impact how the money is being spent. Working together, a group of farms and tourism folks can really make a significant impact to the regional economy.

2) State Agriculture and Tourism Pros Now See the Potential

State agriculture and tourism professionals are now appreciating this critical partnership of agriculture and tourism as a viable and legitimate endeavor for agriculture survival and mutual growth. We have their attention! We are a growing industry worthy of being nourished and developed, and these groups are now sponsoring workshops and meetings, providing written materials, and creating websites, all to benefit the agritourism connection.

3) Farms Are Seeing the Mutual Benefits of Agritourism

Farms are now recognizing and improving the value exchange with their tourist visitors. The farmer is realizing much more revenue, charging more for produce by selling direct, and collecting additional revenues through admission fees, bakery concessions, gift shop sales and entertainment. In exchange, tourists are more than willing to pay to play on the farm. They are flocking to the farms to breath the fresh air, enjoy the scenery and nostalgia of the farm, and take in a whole new experience not available anywhere else.

4) Leadership Has Made an Impact

Thanks to those pioneer farms that have been so successful, along with growing support from state leaders in terms of education and assistance, many more farmers are now ready to jump on the (hay)wagon to try agritourism on their property. Of course, this also means that those pioneers will need to continue prospecting, finding still newer and better ways of differentiating their offerings.

5) David and Goliath?

Direct farm marketers now recognize that their real competition is not necessarily their farm neighbors. The competitors are the large retail operations, the amusement parks, and even the video games, all of which seem to have the big marketing dollars and high profile to lure away the farm visitor. As we realize who we are competing with, we can learn to use some of their tricks…expanding our offerings, setting up unique product displays, offering special activities and coupons, and so forth. At the same time, knowing our competitors helps us clearly define exactly what sets us apart: there is only one place a family can get a true farm experience, and that’s on a real farm!

6) You Have to Know What Makes Money, and What Doesn’t

Farms are now learning to study and track their revenue just as closely as they once tracked the value of fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides. They are installing more sophisticated accounting systems to track their sales by enterprise. For example, some are amazed to see how much profit there is in selling cups of feed to tourists, and letting them feed the livestock and petting animals. You have to know what makes money, and what doesn’t. It’s no longer just about making revenue, it’s about tweaking you business so that you can do more of what does work, and stop doing what costs you profit.

7) Create Your Own Vision

No big surprise here…the very successful farms are creating their own visions rather than simply following the pack. They spend their time in planning, not just planting. Of course, we have to think through every new idea, a quick or knee jerk decision can be even worse than doing nothing new at all. But we all know that the first guy on the block will draw the big crowds.

8) As a Team, You Can Be Everywhere

Successful operations have learned that a great farm experience depends on every single staff member having the right attitude-giving guests a big smile, a friendly greeting, and providing a tireless attention to detail. From the teens, right on up to those charming seniors driving the tractor, everyone needs to know and feel that they are an important part of the team. Ask their opinions, clearly communicate what is expected of them, and reward their enthusiasm and success. You can’t be everywhere, but your team can be.

9) Look to the Horizon

Successful farmers get their inspiration from outside the farm industry. They read consumer magazines, learn new software, visit entertainment attractions, read books, and attend seminars outside the industry.

10) Look at Each Other

Successful farmers are also always looking at others inside the farm industry. Talk with every farmer you can, both within your state, and throughout North America and even beyond. Sharing ideas, sharing successes and failures, and sharing dreams will benefit you both, and ultimately, will benefit your visitors, the local economy, the state economy, and so on. It is a small world after all.

11) Yes, It Is a Small World After All

No doubt about it, we really feel that the world has gotten smaller. We can get places so much faster, we can go so much farther, and we see progress so much quicker. And nowhere is this more evidently than through this thing called the World Wide Web, or the Internet.

What’s that mean to you? It means that if you do not know what the Internet is, it is past time to find out. Your farm visitors no longer look in the newspaper or the phone book to find out when you are open, when the season starts, or how to find the farm. They look on the Internet expecting to find all this information at your website. If you haven’t got a website, you have customers that are turning to other farms that do.

So that’s my top-ten-plus-one things I’ve learned this year. This has truly been an exciting time, with a great deal of growth and progress in our special industry. If your farm is not growing…if you are just kind of resting on the “Back 40” waiting for planting season…well, I’m sorry, but I think you are going to be left behind.

So get out and grow a little. There is no better way to recharge your batteries than to surround yourself with other farmers that are walking the same fields you are. I see on the TV that the city folks think they’ve invented business-to-business networking…they’ve apparently never been to a state fair, a county extension office, or the local feed store. Most states have agritourism and direct marketing workshops that provide these same experiences, and more. We’ll see you there.

Here’s to your growth!