Fostering Farmer Connections with Barn2Door Connect
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we chat with a member of the Barn2Door Farm Account Management team, Kevin, about the Barn2Door Connect program. Learn how Connect fosters 1:1 conversations and discussions between Farmers and members of the Farm Advisory Network.
Learn more about the Barn2Door Connect program and register for weekly sessions:
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[00:00:27] Rory Loughran: Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's episode.
[00:00:31] We've got a great conversation for you today with one of the members of our Farm Account Management team, or FAM team. Our FAMs are dedicated to helping Farmers implement tactics to help drive sales, access more customers, and save time and money. So today we are joined by Kevin Soncrant.
[00:00:46] Welcome, Kevin. It's great to have you back. I think the last time we had you on was for the hundredth episode.
[00:00:50] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, it's great to be back Rory, and yeah, that was an awesome episode. I'm happy to be here.
[00:00:55] Rory Loughran: Yeah. So as a little bit of a refresher for folks, could you introduce yourself and then also [00:01:00] just tell us about your role at Barn2Door as a FAM?
[00:01:02] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah so, my name's Kevin, right? I'm a FAM here at Barn2Door. Really that role is kind of all encompassing, helping Farmers after they've completed their onboarding with us, really their main point of contact for the rest of the time that they're with us. So primarily work one on one with Farmers mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
[00:01:22] And I help them implement go-to-market strategies and grow and manage their business. Really do that in a variety of ways, Rory, either through like live Google Meet meetings, phone calls, over email, and sometimes even over text depending on how they choose to reach out and what works best for them.
[00:01:37] Rory Loughran: Yeah, I know it is, it's a lot of that one on one and stuff. So what does your kind of day to day look like meeting with Farmers and working and supporting them?
[00:01:45] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, I mean, usually it'll be like a 30 minute Google meeting session with up to eight different Farms throughout the day.
[00:01:50] And then outside of that, it's a lot of phone calls to Farmers, working towards helping some of our accounts improve their overall health. Going through emails, answering questions, going [00:02:00] through texts, answering questions, and then really just helping out as many Farms as I can every single day.
[00:02:05] Rory Loughran: Yeah. Well, I'm sure that's a lot because there's a lot of Farms that you're working with and that your whole team is working with. What are some of the big areas of focus that you would say that kind of come up on a recurring basis in all these different calls with Farmers? What are some of those key areas that you guys, these calls tend to focus on?
[00:02:21] Kevin Soncrant: Sure. Yeah, I mean basically I help educate Farmers on how to use the Barn2Door software and how to implement go-to market strategies while helping them meet their goals. So, sometimes it's simple as answering a few questions. Other times we're working on setting up their online e-commerce store.
[00:02:35] We might dive into MailChimp, explore how to do effective email marketing, or even implement social media best practices. So every Farm's a little bit different in terms of what their goals are and how we can help 'em reach, those goals. But really it boils down to like a handful of best practices and ensuring that they're implementing those consistently.
[00:02:53] Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. Well, so the focus of today's episode is Barn2Door Connect. And I know there's [00:03:00] a program that you and I both kind of get to do some work with and helping get Farmers plugged into. So maybe to start out, could you kind of lay out for listeners what is Barn2Door Connect?
[00:03:10] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So, Barn2Door Connect is a free resource that's available to any of our Barn2Door subscribers. What it is, is essentially we have a network of around 15 different Farmers called our FANs, our Farm Advisory Network, and we rotate people in and out of that network. But all of them have been with Barn2Door, or for several years, they've been extremely successful with the platform and they give time back to the community.
[00:03:33] And so every Tuesday and Thursday, a different Farmer will host a live Q&A session via Zoom. And so any of our, the Farms we work with, they can sign up for an unlimited number of sessions. They get the opportunity to join that Zoom call, ask questions, learn from other successful Farmers on tactics that they've implemented that have led to their success, and then also expand their network because there's other Farms that attend those as well.
[00:03:56] Every session's gonna be different, but certainly every single session's gonna have other Farmers [00:04:00] that are right there with them in their shoes attending and asking questions as well.
[00:04:04] So it all boils down to an amazing learning opportunity that's completely free with our subscription.
[00:04:09] Rory Loughran: Yeah. And those FANs do such a great job with this program and a lot of people are, if you've listened to the podcast before, I'm sure you've heard an episode with one of those Farm Advisor Network members.
[00:04:19] Kevin, I'm curious, what was kind of the decision behind starting this program up and why do you think it was a priority for Barn2Door?
[00:04:26] Kevin Soncrant: Sure. Yeah. I mean, ultimately Rory, we work with thousands of Farmers across the country and really farming's a unique industry, and all of our Farms have specific needs, and one of the best ways to learn is actually from your peers, right? So the ability to connect with our FANs and these Farm leaders and be able to ask them questions, to learn their best practices, and then also meet other Farmers from across the country.
[00:04:49] It's really just unique and it provides a valuable learning experience.
[00:04:53] Rory Loughran: Yeah it's pretty cool. And as you were saying that, I was thinking like, maybe it exists, but I haven't heard of other resources like this for small [00:05:00] businesses that are industry focused and you're able to just hop in and talk with people that are having a lot of success. It is really cool that we're able to provide that platform for Farmers.
[00:05:08] How would you say that this Connect program has evolved I think we've been doing it now for year and a half. How would you say it's kind of changed since then?
[00:05:15] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, I mean, really since I started working here Rory, the biggest evolution in the Connect program is the emphasis that were placed on it. And so we really bring it up throughout the entire process from sales to onboarding to account management.
[00:05:27] But once they make it to their account management and they start working with an account manager like myself, like it's ultimately on us to make sure that we're getting them involved in these sessions. And so, typically I'm gonna be trying to sign up multiple Farmers for sessions every single day with two sessions a week and different Farmers with different products and everybody having different needs and different questions, like we can't possibly fill those seats fast enough to get them involved in this program.
[00:05:52] Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. I'm curious too, we've talked about some of the other things that you do in your role as a FAM, whether that's [00:06:00] meetings or providing support to when folks reach out to you via email or whatever. But how does it kind of fit into that puzzle of all the other pieces that you have to help Farmers be successful?
[00:06:09] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah I think it plays a vital role, Rory. I can sit my office and explain best tactics to Farmers over and over again, but there's really no substitute for someone that's in their shoes, being able to offer time to help them and provide advice to them.
[00:06:21] In addition all of our FANs have resources available in our Learn Center. Articles, videos, podcasts that also share their best practices. And so after one of those sessions, any of our Farms can go into that Learn Center or just ask myself or one of our other, their account managers for those resources, and they can learn more about that Farmer and hear from them and other methods. But most importantly, all of our Connect Farmers really, they implement the majority of our best practices and tactics consistently.
[00:06:48] So, this is really important because it allows for us to maintain consistent messaging for new Farms that we bring. They learn about best tactics throughout their entire process, from sales to onboarding, to [00:07:00] account management and support. And then they get the opportunity to go to Connect Program, hear from another Farmer, and they get to hear that same thing and have a discussion about how they've been implementing our best tactics that have led to their success.
[00:07:13] Rory Loughran: Yeah, and it's really cool I get to sit in on a lot of these sessions kind of playing the behind the scenes cohost. And it's pretty awesome that a lot of these sessions, sometimes, you know, they might start with a question around inventory or store setup, something very e-commerce related, or their MailChimp account.
[00:07:30] But sometimes we really start to dive into whatever the Farmers that are attending want and need answers on. Sometimes that's like, Farmer's market setup and what kind of ice packs you're putting in your coolers for the Farmer's market and what's the best cooler or the best setup strategy for those types of things. All kinds of different things like that.
[00:07:47] I always just enjoy that the conversation can go wherever it needs to, I guess in those sessions is really great.
[00:07:53] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, a hundred percent. And to that point, those are questions that, like, frankly, I'm just not gonna be an expert on, there's just no way, right? [00:08:00] And the people that are doing it every day, they're the ones that can provide the best answers for those types of questions. And so, it's not easy to make those connections outside of like your local region.
[00:08:08] Like you might know a couple other Farmers, right, that maybe you could ask that to. But being able to talk to some of the top Farmers throughout the country and ask them those questions is really invaluable.
[00:08:17] Rory Loughran: Yeah. Well, kind of, on that note, why do you think it's so beneficial for these Farmers to be able to meet with these folks and what would you say is kind of the role that FANs play in Connect, those Farm Advisory Network members?
[00:08:30] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, I mean, ultimately it's beneficial. I always like, it's a sports, like think about like an eighth grade basketball player, if they got the opportunity to meet LeBron James, right? Like their growth can probably accelerate very quickly. Like it's easy to draw inspiration from other people that are very successful, but there's learning opportunities that exist in those conversations.
[00:08:48] So for our Farms to be able to talk to other Farmers that have been very successful, those are learning opportunities that can accelerate their growth at a much quicker rate than if they had to go and fail and then figure it out on their own. And so that's really [00:09:00] the FANs, they are what make the Connect program work, right?
[00:09:03] Without them, it wouldn't exist. They're also part of what makes this community such a special place. They simply just want other Farmers to be successful, right? They share all their best practices with complete strangers to help them be successful and equally as important, they're gonna share their failures and mistakes so that other Farmers can learn from them without having to make those same mistakes.
[00:09:22] Rory Loughran: Yeah, I think that's a great point too and I think something that a lot of the FANs are very upfront about. I think like, Amy from Old Rich Valley Farm kind of comes to mind. She's always like, "well, we can try and tell you what's worked for us, but we can speak to more what hasn't worked for us, and hopefully help you avoid some of those mistakes."
[00:09:40] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. It can be a huge time saver for people. Like some of those mistakes can set you back months or years. And so being able to avoid those pitfalls is really crucial to the overall success.
[00:09:49] Rory Loughran: Yeah. Well, awesome. And are there any kind of areas or topics that you've found help for a Farmer to attend Connect for? Like are there any things that people might start asking about right away you're like, "oh they [00:10:00] should take that to Connect"?
[00:10:01] Kevin Soncrant: Sure. Ultimately I think kind of the all-encompassing thing is if it's really great if someone's apprehensive about any aspect of our best practices. So whether that's direct delivery, drop off locations, bundles, subscriptions, or even email or social media marketing. Like, give them an opportunity to join a Connect session and ask a Farm Advisor how they made it work.
[00:10:20] That's really the best way to do it. But in addition to that, like, if there's a topic that I'm discussing with a Farmer and I know one of the FANs coming up is really great with that topic, you mentioned Amy. Old Rich Valley comes to mind when we're talking about subscriptions, especially for our beef or Farmers that do like whole, halves, and quarters only, and they've implemented a very unique, herd share subscription model, like being able to refer them to them and give them an opportunity to talk about how they could sell their beef and open up a whole new audience is really valuable.
[00:10:49] Rory Loughran: Yeah, and I think too, kind of, I mean, to go back to your example of an eighth grade basketball player, getting to go to a practice with LeBron James. I think it is inspirational a lot of times. [00:11:00] And just being able to hear that these other folks were in the same shoes or are in the same shoes and are finding ways to make it work, can be really great for a lot of folks to hear and I think it always does sound a lot better than something coming from us.
[00:11:13] Yeah. So, why do you think it's kind of unique in this format of Connect for Farmers to be able to connect with other Farmers? And why is that important?
[00:11:24] Kevin Soncrant: Sure. I mean, every Farmer's experience is unique, but there's many aspects of farming that are shared experiences, and so our FANs experienced Farmers who have successfully built a direct to market business through Barn2Door's platform. And so they have unique experiences with their products, whether it's proteins, dairy, produce, et cetera and how to sell those successfully online.
[00:11:48] And so, they can share those tactics and techniques and really help other Farmers be successful.
[00:11:53] Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. Well, like I mentioned, we've been doing this for a bit over a year now, hosting these Connect [00:12:00] sessions. What's some of the feedback you've gotten from Farmers that have gone to these Connect sessions?
[00:12:04] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, great, great question. So I actually took some quotes here, Rory, cuz when I'm in the conversations with people, we always like to try and capture quotes to share with the team. And so I went back and actually just captured a few of the quotes. So I, I'll just read a couple here too.
[00:12:14] So, one was about BCS Livestock: "I did the Connect with BCS Livestock. It gave me some good ideas. I am in a rural part of New York and I'm gonna implement some drop off points to make it easier for people to get my products in other larger cities that are a few hours away."
[00:12:28] And I got a couple from Old Rich Valley Farm, so: "We got some great ideas from Old Rich Valley. They gave a lot of information from bundles and subscriptions and herd shares. I had a lot of questions for her and she gave me some great advice. And then we put together a lot of new bundles after listening to them."
[00:12:45] And then we'll do one from Grass Fed Cattle Company: "I did the Connect with Grass Fed Cattle Company. She shared a lot of information. She gave me some great ideas for some emails to send out with MailChimp. It was really good to have the opportunity to ask questions from someone who's in my shoes. [00:13:00]
[00:13:00] And then I got one more here, Rory: "I did the Connect with Bennett Farms the other day. My head is spinning a hundred miles an hour because I've got so many new ideas right now."
[00:13:10] Rory Loughran: That's awesome. I think that's the desired outcome really and that's awesome. And yeah, Amy's getting lots of shout outs from Old Rich Valley, but also BCS Livestock there. You said mentioned Grass Fed Cattle Co and Bennett Farms. I think what's so cool is that all those Farmers are able to speak to their specific areas, but also their specific products and kind of how they've made all that work from different backgrounds.
[00:13:32] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, a hundred percent. And so the one with BCS is really cool too, because it's a Farmer in rural New York talking to a Farmer in rural Washington and being able to learn from each other. Like where else do people get that opportunity other than through this Connect program, right?
[00:13:46] Rory Loughran: Yeah. Really cool. Well, I think some of those quotes were great examples and kind of speak to this next question, but what would you say have been some of the most positive outcomes that you've experienced with some of the Farms that you work with that have gone to these Connect sessions?[00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, sure. So I'll start with one that literally just happened this week. So I had a meeting yesterday to help a Farmer implement herd share subscriptions after a Connect session with Old Rich Valley. And then she was extremely excited about tapping into a whole new customer base that can't afford like a whole half or a quarter or doesn't have the freezer space for it. And then she literally just sent me an email this morning letting me know she already got her first half beef herd share sale.
[00:14:24] Rory Loughran: Wow.
[00:14:25] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. So seeing that kind of turnaround obviously is awesome to see for her. And she was very excited about that. I had another Farmer in Ohio that attended the Bennett Farms Connect and really just got a lot of great ideas about pricing for quality and email collection.
[00:14:37] These guys signed up in the summer of 2022 and they already have over a thousand email subscribers in their list.
[00:14:44] Rory Loughran: So they have a thousand new emails that they've gotten since coming on with Barn2Door?
[00:14:50] Kevin Soncrant: Not a thousand new. They've grown their email list considerably though. It's over a thousand at this point.
[00:14:55] Rory Loughran: Wow. That's awesome. Yeah, and I know Tom always has a lot of really great [00:15:00] tactics and like presenting at schools is something that he talked about in a webinar, I think, and it's come up multiple times in his Connect sessions.
[00:15:07] And I know some folks have started implementing that as well too. They go into schools and handing out flyers to the kids to take home to their parents that has their web store on it. And so people will go and they'll get emails, they'll get sales that way too, which is really cool to hear that, that's a tactic that's kind of made its way through Connect to other folks.
[00:15:23] Awesome. Well, Kevin, we've talked about a couple different FANs that host these sessions, but I was curious, who would be some of your most recommended FANs and connect hosts for Farmers to check out and why?
[00:15:35] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. A really good one is Local Appetite Growers. What they've done since joining Barn2Door is implemented a direct delivery program instead of going to Farmer's markets, so they actually scaled back completely out of Farmer's markets and this really adds a layer of convenience for their customers, especially in today's one click world where people expect to get stuff at their doorstep immediately, right?
[00:15:54] So getting that direct delivery has really opened up a larger customer base. But in addition to that, something [00:16:00] that they did is they actually scaled back their delivery while also increasing their profits. So they really narrowed their delivery zones to make it simpler on themselves, while also focusing a little bit more on some profitable areas.
[00:16:11] This just kind of falls in line with our recommendation to Farmers considering delivery. Start small, make sure it's gonna be profitable, and then expand your customer base by adding another layer of convenience for buyers, right?
[00:16:21] Outside of delivery though, Local Appetite Growers have done a great job of streamlining their processes by using Farmers' Choice subscriptions instead of a la carte ordering, which is great for customers because they can go in, make a couple clicks, set up a subscription, then forget about it, and they get food shown up at their door every week or every month, and they get charged automatically.
[00:16:41] But from the perspective of Local Appetite Growers, they get to set an order cutoff time. They don't have to deal with any like last minute orders. They can keep everything consistent and then they'll also be able to manage their inventory by doing this Farmer's Choice subscription. And they get to choose what goes in that subscription box rather than relying on customers to make those choices themselves.
[00:16:59] Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:59] Kevin Soncrant: [00:17:00] One of the other FANs that I really like to refer people to is Dan & Debbie's Creamery.
[00:17:03] Josie there takes full advantage of the Barn2Door and MailChimp integration, so they've set up automatic email order reminders and use our marketing toolkit and newsletter templates to send out consistent newsletters with the automatic email order reminders through Barn2Door. Though they currently have set up three different groups to receive different weekly automatic email order reminders that helps drive sales for them.
[00:17:25] But Josie also consistently sends out newsletters through MailChimp to maintain regular communication with her community. She's right now exploring like some additional ways to segment her MailChimp audience to be even more effective with targeted messaging towards smaller groups of customers and they really do a great job with social media best practices. They have between Facebook and Instagram, almost 20,000 followers right now. And Josie's really got some fantastic ideas on how to be creative with posting, but most importantly, she's consistent and persistent posting multiple times a week and really focusing on the threes: education, entertainment, and e-commerce for those posts.
[00:17:59] Rory Loughran: Yeah. [00:18:00] Awesome. And Josie is one of our instructors for the Social Media Academy, and it is, it's so cool. And what I love about what you just said is kind of that marketing side of things with MailChimp or with social media and delivery are two very different topics. You can get into those sessions and really dive in and hear how people are approaching each of those things and sometimes you can hear about both in the same session. So that that's pretty cool too.
[00:18:22] Kevin Soncrant: And I think even an even cooler thing, Rory, because it's live and it's mostly Q&A based, like you can join a different session with the same Farmer and learn something completely different. really I encourage people to sign up as many times as they can make it and attend regardless of the Farmer, regardless of the product. Like there's so many valuable learning opportunities that can take place just based on some of the questions that are asked.
[00:18:42] Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. And I think a lot of times it's like the community aspect of it too. I know you mentioned this earlier, but cuz you know, we have multiple there's a lot of other folks in there outside of the host that are just other attendees. And so some of the ideas that come out of there or somebody might ask a question and somebody else might [00:19:00] have not come to that session thinking that, that was something they wanted to learn about. But somebody else asks about it and then their brain starts firing. So I think that's a really cool element of it too.
[00:19:08] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, a hundred percent.
[00:19:09] Rory Loughran: Well, so if you're a Farmer running your business on Barn2Door why should you attend Connect?
[00:19:15] Why should you take advantage of that opportunity to connect and learn from other successful Farmers?
[00:19:20] Kevin Soncrant: Sure. Yeah, got a couple reasons. One, it allows you to really network with other Farmers. I'll just echo what you just said. Two, it allows a unique opportunity to pick the brains of very successful Farmers, learn from their best practices and some of their shortcomings. Three, it provides unique opportunity to be part of a community that wants really only to see everyone be more successful.
[00:19:39] And lastly, it's completely free. You can't beat free learning and free opportunities to grow. Right?
[00:19:46] Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. Those are all great reasons and I hope people listen to this and continue to go to these sessions because, like you said, they're free and there's so much that can take place and attend multiple sessions because the hosts change.
[00:19:58] And even if you go to the [00:20:00] same host, there's no way you could cover everything in one call. So it's great to be able to do that multiple times.
[00:20:05] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, absolutely. I'll be attending some more here in the future too.
[00:20:08] Rory Loughran: Awesome. Yeah. Great. Well, Kevin, thanks so much for joining me for this podcast and for kinda walking us through Connect and laying out the resource that it is.
[00:20:18] Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, absolutely Rory. I really appreciate your time as well. Thank you so much and you're welcome.
[00:20:22] Rory Loughran: I want to extend my thanks to Kevin for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of Farms across the country who implement sustainable agricultural practices and support their local communities.
[00:20:34] We're honored to get the opportunity to learn from our most successful Farmers who share the tactics, resources, and tools they use to grow and manage their Farm business. If you would like to connect with a range of Farm Advisors, attendBarn2Door Connect, you can register for those weekly sessions at barn2door.com/connect.
[00:20:51] Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.