Rogers Online Business Management for the Agriculture Community

Ever have trouble talking to potential customers about what you do, and why they should buy from you?

You may not want to hear it but choosing a niche is one of the simplest (and least expensive) ways to grow your farm business. It’s easy to know what to say and how to say it when you know who you’re talking to.

Here’s why: Marketing is about 2 things – communication and creating a relationship. And the way we approach those 2 activities varies, depending on whom we’re dealing with and the topic of our conversation.

I define niche to mean not only the type of people you work with, but also what you do for them. So “picking a niche” is the way to get really clear on who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about.

First, identify your Core Customer. Ask yourself, “What group/kind of people are interested in what I have to offer?” Next, clarify your Core Solution. Ask, “What challenge is my Core Customer facing that I can help with?”

Then fuse the two answers together to identify the niche you occupy.

I go around and around with people about my pricing and today I was directed to a blog post by Johnny B. Truant, called “You’re worth more than you think.” Ok, so I stole his title and changed it around a bit but I wanted to get your attention. So I hope it worked.

Johnny talks about what you do is not a commodity. I quote, “This may seem obvious, but it’s worth really thinking about, so think about it: Creative services are NOT A COMMODITY.”

So how am I relating this to farmers? As a farmer you are always being creative and you need to realize that there are other farmers out there that want and need this information. You can share your creative ideas with farmers all over the World and you know what, you can even get paid for it…and at a handsomely rate…24/7!

Your creativity and your knowledge is worth a lot to others who want to know how to do what you did. You need to…no let me rephrase that…you owe it to them to tell them how you did it.

You need to take all your knowledge and know how and put it into products that you can sell on the Internet. These products are going to bring you that extra income you need to help you and your family survive the tough times.

My advice to you is learn how to use the memo feature on your cell phone; or text yourself at your email account while an idea comes to you; or while you are in the middle of developing a new method for your farm. This is also a great way to have documentation on how you did it so you don’t forget any steps. And then start putting it all together into ebooks, podcasts, videos, articles, and more. You need to start today and make what you’re really worth!

With the end of the year drawing near I started thinkng about things that I need to do to make the coming year more productive and thought you might be able to use some tips as well. So here are 7 Computer/Technology Ease Your Workload Tips to get you started.

1. Using the software programs on your computer can free up the most time in your day by taking over mundane administrative and sales tasks for you. So you need to get trained on your computer software so that you can take full advantage of it. The few hours you spend in a classroom or taking an online course will reap huge rewards of saved time later on. Check out a great online education center at ed2go.
2. Use a software product where you can keep your appointment calendar, contact list, To Do list, and “Tickle” reminders. I use Microsoft Outlook for these tasks, as well as for sending and receiving email. It’s a great all-in-one tool for the self employed and synchronizes with most PDAs so that you can take your data with you. Again take a look at ed2go for a course on using MS Outlook.
3. Back up your computer, at least weekly, so as not to lose valuable data and files. You can’t afford to re-create your work  if your hard drive should fail. Even though I’d like to think that my desktop and laptop should last forever in reality that’s not going to happen. So I back up both my desktop and laptop once a week.
4. If you can swing the expense buy yourself as a early Holiday present a printer that can automatically print double-sided. It’s amazing how much paper you can save when you print on both sides. I am constantly printing off information and have noticed a significant decrease in my “paper piles” since I’ve been printing on both sides. I’m still trying to work on being “green” when it comes to printing information out but somethings I’ve just got to have in print.
5. Instead of laying cords across your desk, run them under or behind your desk. Try to keep your work space as clear as possible so that you don’t feel like your working in a messy cluttered area all the time.
6. Connect your computer equipment to a surge protector. Not only will it protect your equipment, but you’ll have one central place to turn off all devices at once, at the end of the day. I don’t know about you but I’m not getting any younger and this is one thing that I have always tried to do since they say that you are wasting electricity even when you leave things plugged in. So I was always having to bend down, and crawl under my desk all the time to unplug everything. Well now I’ve put them all on a surge protector and just have to use my foot to switch it all off. Now I only have one plug still in the wall instead of several.
7. Instead of buying a fax machine, which probable means having to pay for another telephone line to support it, consider using one of the fax-by-email services that are available. You will be assigned a fax number, and when someone sends you a fax, it will be converted to a PDF file and emailed to you by the service. I have used two such services in my business, GoDaddy and Callwave, both with success.

Try implementing as many of these ideas as you can and in the coming new year you’ll be finding some extra time (as well as some extra cash) to relax.

Did you know that the week of October 11 through the 17 is Getting the World to Beat a path to Your Door Week?

Well here’s a great marketing idea to make that happen and promote your business…Personalized Stamps!

Personalized stamps are a great way to get noticed. Have stamps of your farm logo, your products, or even yourself made and use the stamps for promotional mailings. It’s a very creative way to catch someone’s eye and make a lasting impression. You could also have them made for your best clients and use as a thank you gift for referrals and their business.

Make your mail memorable with PhotoStamps: the exciting new way to turn photos into real US postage!

Excel automatically by default moves the cell pointer to the next cell down when you press Enter after entering data into a cell. It drove me nuts because I enter most of my data across columns, not down columns. So I changed the direction of the cell pointer.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Click on the Excel Options tab in the Dialog box.
2. Click on the Advanced tab in the Editing Options Section.
3. The check box that controls this behavior is labeled After Pressing Enter, Move Selection. When that check box is enabled, you can specify the direction in which the cell pointer moves (down, left, up, or right).

Your choice is completely a matter of personal preference. I prefer to keep this option turned off and use the arrow keys rather than press Enter. All I do is press the right-arrow key to move to the cell to the right. The other arrow keys work as expected, and you can even use the PgUp and PgDn keys.

There is no better way to market yourself than excellent customer service. Be easy to work with. Go above and beyond. Appreciate what your customers do for your success.

I recently stopped at a local Farmer’s Market and I have to tell you how disappointed I was in how the vendors were marketing their products. Well actually let me re-phrase that–how they were not marketing their products.

What do I mean by that? Well, as I walked around the market I had no idea what farms were being represented. There was only one booth that had a banner on the front of it’s table and that was a local restaurant. No other table had a name attached to it and even more crazy, only one had prices on the produce.

I really don’t like the idea that I have to go from table to table and ask the same question over and over again. I don’t buy my produce on price alone so it really doesn’t matter to me if you’re going to have the best price or not. But in these tough times many families are pinching pennies and price does matter. You need to have your prices visible for your customers. And please don’t just write them out on a piece of paper and plop it in front of the produce. Take the time to print the price list out on your computer. If you don’t have a computer at home then find a friend who can do it for you. Appearance is everything and that hand-written piece of scrap paper just isn’t that appealing to any one.

Now lets get back to the sign for your business. You don’t need to have a big banner running across the front of your table. Just go to your local office supply store and purchase a table top sign display. Print off a colorful flyer with your farms name and proudly display it on top of your table. And don’t forget to print off some business cards with the information on how the customer can reach you if they have any questions for you…like maybe they want to know if your going to be back next week so they can buy some more snap peas from you.

So all I’m suggesting is just take a little bit of time and represent your farm in a positive way. People notice the little details and sometimes that’s what makes their decision for them of whom their going to buy from. You put a lot of time, money and effort in order to get your product this far so don’t stop now when this could be a very profitable moment for you.

Take full advantage of this easy to implement marketing strategy. An email signature tells readers who you are and what you do.

Using a “signature” at the end of all your email correspondence gives the reader important contact information about you and your compay. Your signature acts like an “ad” at the bottom of each message in that you can promote new products and special events.

So you’re saying now, Ok Sue we know about email signatures so what’s the twist?

Well the twist is if you use Outlook for your email messaging you have a very powerful simple way to easily insert reusable content at any point when responding to an email. This great feature is called Quick Parts.

Quick Parts exist both in Outlook and Word, and allows you to save pieces of content to easily re-use, like a seasonal promotion on your farm. Personally I like to use Quick Parts for all those answers that I repeat over and over again, and am tired of re-typing. I also have a few Quick Parts that contain different products I’m selling in my online store.

So how do you create a Quick Part:

1. Type the content that you are going to want to use over and over again. Or if you already have it typed go ahead and select it.
2. Now that the content is selected click on the Insert tab in the Ribbon, choose Quick Parts and then click Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.
3. Type a name for your Quick Part and tab down to the Category selection. Type in a new category that you want your message to be filed under.
4. Now click OK.

That’s it…You’ve just created a Quick Part!

Now that you have seen how easy it is to create, start creating several Quick Parts to add to your emails. Whenever you want to insert a Quick Part just click on the Insert tab in the Ribbon, choose Quick Parts and you will see a gallery with all your saved Quick Parts.

Click on the Quick Part that you want to insert and it will be inserted at the current cursor position. You can find more advanced options by right-clicking the desired Quick Part.

Let me know how you’re using Quick Parts and I’ll share them in a future post.

Online forums and discussion groups are an excellent way to build visibility on the Internet and drive traffic back to your website. There are forums and discussion groups of every description. Regardless of your area of interest there is most likely a group or groups you can join.

To find forum groups do a simple Google search using the following key words: online forums + “your topic”.

Be sure to participate in the dialogue of the forum once you have been reading posts for a few days. Pay close attention to the topics being discussed. If the topic is something you have a lot of knowledge in, offer helpful suggestions and show your expertise.

Make sure you pay close attention to the rules of the forum as well. Some have no problems with blatant self promotional marketing, while others absolutely forbid it.

Many restaurants have built their foot traffic by having a vendor booth at professional gatherings. Contact some of your local restaurants and ask if you can provide them with your products from your farm for their next booth. Be sure that you will be allowed to add your business brochures and cards on their display table.

You may also want to see if they will allow you to set up a display to have a drawing for a free breakfast, lunch or dinner basket Food Sampler Give-A-Way. This allows you to build your database for backend marketing.

A great way to gain visibility within your market and promoting your business is to write articles. You can easily post your articles on your website. Give them away rather than charge in order for people to sample your expertise.

Let people know the articles can be downloaded and used elsewhere as long as you are given full credit with a link back to your website.

The more visibility you gain from your articles the more likely you will be to have magazine and newsletter editors asking to publish your works in their publications. Often they do not pay, but it is great free advertising for you.

Be sure to include at the end of your article a byline that contains key information about yourself and business. It can also help in your marketing by directing people to your website to access further information or to sign up for something.

Here is a sample byline:

Sue Rogers is a partner of the Agriculture Industry Partnership that was formed on behalf of the Northwest Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board and the Regional Center for Workforce Excellence. This partnership was formed to identify a plan of action to assist the agriculture community in providing the necessary workforce, economic developments, and education/training supports necessary for retention and growth within Pennsylvania. To get more tips on how to ease your workload visit http://agriculture.easmyworkload.com.