Farm4Profit Podcast
Direct to Consumer: Amy Hay - Former Engineer Driving The Future of Beef Sales
Mon, 27 Jan 2025
In this conversation, Amy discusses the intricacies of direct beef sales, emphasizing the importance of pricing structures, customer education, and storytelling in agriculture. She shares her journey from traditional ranching to establishing a successful online platform for selling beef directly to consumers. The discussion highlights the challenges farmers face in finding customers and pricing their products, as well as the strategies to overcome these hurdles through effective marketing and social media engagement.takeawaysAmy is a first-generation rancher with a diverse background.She transitioned from engineering to ranching to pursue a dream.The ranch focuses on direct-to-consumer beef sales.Understanding the economics of ranching is crucial for success.Social media can be a powerful tool for marketing beef sales.Regenerative agriculture practices are employed on the ranch.Amy emphasizes the importance of knowing your numbers.The farm-to-fork movement is growing, with increasing demand for direct sales.Pricing strategies are essential for profitability in ranching.Farmers should view their operations as standalone entities. Understanding pricing structures is crucial for profitability.Empowering farmers through education can lead to success.Storytelling can make ranching more relatable to consumers.Building an online presence is essential for direct sales.Customer demographics play a significant role in sales strategy.Educating consumers about pricing can enhance perceived value.Finding customers is a common challenge for farmers.Social media can be a powerful tool for engagement.Appealing to consumer interests can drive sales.Free resources can help farmers get started with direct sales.02:11 Meet Amy: A First-Generation Rancher05:39 Transitioning from Engineering to Ranching10:26 Direct to Consumer Beef Sales18:24 Understanding the Economics of Ranching20:49 Leveraging Social Media for Sales23:37 Understanding Pricing Structures in Direct Beef Sales24:34 Empowering Farmers Through Education25:45 The Value of Storytelling in Agriculture27:25 The Journey to Selling Beef Direct30:39 Building a Successful Online Presence32:41 Navigating Customer Demographics and Preferences35:55 Educating Consumers on Pricing and Value37:58 Overcoming Challenges in Direct Sales42:50 Getting Started with Direct Beef Sales48:52 Connecting with Customers on Social Media Want Farm4Profit Merch? Custom order your favorite items today!https://farmfocused.com/farm-4profit/ Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen! Website: www.Farm4Profit.comShareable episode link: https://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.comEmail address: [email protected]/Text: 515.207.9640Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5XqwFollow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitConnect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/
That algorithm that runs Meta, it works in your favor. So if you're posting things like, for example, save money on groceries, buy a quarter beef, then the algorithm is going to show you your post to people who are looking for things like groceries or vouchers or, you know, things like that. That's how the algorithm works. So what you post can actually find you customers.
It's not just to post buy my beef. It's to post your whole story.
Ladies and gentlemen, farmers, ranchers, and distinguished guests, thank you for listening to the Farm for Profit podcast, where we discuss the latest ideas, methods, trends, and techniques available to help your farm achieve higher levels of farm profitability. Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.
Well, listeners, welcome back to the Farm for Profit podcast. You've got Tanner here. Corey's here.
And David is definitely here today.
Nice. Look at us all kicking off the new year with some new content and excited to make some new friends. Of course, we appreciate all of our old friends and listeners. We appreciate the audience that that you have helped us build. Got a text this morning that was asking questions about the show that came out today. And before I got to respond back to them, they'd already found their own answer.
So how capable is our audience? Very capable.
It's always nice when they do that. But how can they text us, Corey? 515-207-9640 is the text line, or you can leave us a voicemail. We always love getting those.
Ooh, I've got one that we should play here. I texted back, and I was wrong with what I heard, so I need to get your opinion as to what they said. So we'll play that one on a future show here. I'm curious. Yes, exactly. Follow us on all of our social platforms, right? Because if TikTok goes away, we've got many ways to connect with you. TikTok's not going away.
You don't think so? No, not at all. Okay. We need it to elect the next president, you know?
That's right. That's right. Podcast platforms are powerful. Yep. Mm-hmm. Even can affect elections. But our interview for today is not someone from the U.S. not even somebody from where they currently reside. So it'd be interesting to see how long it takes for you to guess through her accent. Now you have me intrigued.
I just am all these cliffhangers making everybody wait for everything that we've put together. But we thank you listeners again for all that you do continue to send us ideas and connections just like the ones we've gotten so far. So nonetheless, that's about enough of them hearing us. We are excited to meet our guests today. Amy, welcome to the podcast.
Hi. Nice to be here.
Well, that's not enough.
She didn't say enough. No, she didn't. Happy New Year. Got the brand for those that are watching online, too. I like the WK Inside H. That is cool.
What does that stand for?
That's our ranch brand. That's Why Kick a Hay Ranch.
Okay. She's giving a couple more hints. Yeah, that was close. This is how you really know that the guys don't look at the outlines before you dive into an episode, because otherwise Corey would already have the answers to the question. So, Amy, why don't you start off by introducing yourself? And if Corey can come up with it, he'll just shout it out where he thinks you're from.
Don't give it away. Oh, I might help you. My name is Amy. I'm a first generation rancher. Get it yet? No.
Yeah, I'm from Hawaii. She's not from Hawaii. It sounds like a Canadian accent, but Hawaii is what I guessed. Canadian accent?
No. I'm from Scotland.
Oh, there it is.
And I live in Canada, but this, the name of the ranch is actually Maori. My husband's from New Zealand.
so you weren't totally wrong you were catching the canadian little little twinge mannerism yeah there we go that's funny so that is uh wow new zealand scott scotland and canada that's the that's a trio that's uh not normally normal what province i'm in bc
You're in BC.
I am.
Canada is literally halfway between Scotland and New Zealand and finger on a map. That's why we're here.
Finger on a map?
It's halfway between New Zealand and Scotland. It's in the middle. Nobody has preferential treatment.
She really isn't close to her in-laws.
No way.
You're both caught equally in as much when you have to go back home. That's how that goes?
Yeah, exactly.
Good skiing in BC. Go to Whistler back home. Get to see the ocean and be on the mountains. Dual ski resort.
That would be kind of cool. Yeah, we do a lot of skiing and snowboarding.
Yeah. I'm going to take these guys skiing. We're going to go out to the old Commodity Classic and...
I saw a baby snowboarding the other day on TikTok. Some guy was just holding it up while it snowboarded. That's how you learn. Nobody did that for me.
Dave, are you going to hold Corey up? I'll hold Corey up. Let's let Amy get into what she's doing. Now you're in British Columbia and obviously you've got a diverse heritage that we'll dive into a little bit more. What are you running right now as a business?
Two things. We have our ranch. We're a direct to consumer. So we only sell beef, like we don't do auctions. So we're a grass finished beef ranch, but just for a direct to consumer market. So that's this, that's one hat. The other hat is I developed a program, if you like, to teach other farmers and ranchers how to start selling direct to consumer.
And that's what you're going to help our listeners do today. At least we're going to try and give them a couple of insights to get them pointed in the right direction.
Exactly. Yeah. And there's so many free tools out there that if you learn to utilize them correctly, it just opens up a whole new world of customers for you.
So before we dive into that process, why don't you tell us more about your ranch and what you've got going on?
We're first generation. So it's my husband's maybe got a little bit more farming background. I have zero. We're both engineers. My history or both our backgrounds is the maritime industry. So he was chief engineer on the big boats. And I designed satellite communication equipment for oil rigs and ships and the military, etc. And that's how we met. So
Nothing to do with farming at all, but it was always kind of a dream. And the first night we met, he told me that his dream was to have a ranch in Montana and to raise Wagyu beef. And we're not in Montana, but we're pretty close. And that's basically, yeah. So it was like a conscious decision to kind of leave the rat race and leave what we were doing and focus on family and raising beef.
And that's what we did. So that's what we do now.
Yeah. Is that how you landed your wife? Did you promise her a ranch in Montana?
She wanted a Montana cowboy, and I said, well, I'm from Montana, but I'm not necessarily a cowboy, but we can make it work.
I'm still just intrigued by this finger on a map situation. Like, okay, obviously you went to the spot in the middle, but wouldn't it have been just a little bit easier to slide it a little bit more south into Montana where it's just a little bit warmer in the United States? Or did you just feel like Canada was the place to go?
Canada was kind of where we almost moved to the States. We almost did, but... I don't know if I can even say this. Your insurance, your medical insurance is insane. And when we were looking to move, because I was of childbearing age, I couldn't get medical insurance because it was almost like a given. So if we ever had kids, they wouldn't insure us for like four years.
Yeah.
We just couldn't get insurance to go to the States.
Well, now you can come to the States.
Are you saying I'm no longer a childbearing?
Yeah, you caught me on that one. That's probably could have been worded a lot more friendly.
How many people in the States don't have insurance that just have kids all the time? I mean, the government, I guess, takes care of them nonetheless. But I never thought about decision making to move to the States.
You know, it's interesting. We've kind of had this feeling that it's not a great system at times. And especially, you know, what was it when Obama was in presidency and called Obamacare and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
you know, you can hear people talk about it, but then when you hear a case like this of someone that literally was looking to move somewhere and had a choice, I mean, can't argue with that, right? It would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to literally move, you know, several hours South.
So, but don't, aren't your taxes in Canada, don't you guys pay like 40, 50% like income tax on your income? No. Oh, okay. I'm wrong. Okay.
Every province is different, but it's tiered. So it's like free to a certain amount. And then the next tier is... say 20%. And then the next tier is 30%. So if you're in a higher tier, you only pay that higher bracket for that, that.
Oh, I see.
Not for your whole salary.
I gotcha. I don't mind that structure. No, that seems to make more sense. Like your first 35,000 is free. And then everything from 35 to 75 is this rate.
Yeah, because if it wasn't like that, people would literally go, I'm not going to do this last job and get that last 30 grand because it'll kick me back to taxes all the way back to zero. That makes sense to just do it above.
So as you said, you and your spouse have engineering backgrounds. We do. Especially as far as that goes, why sell direct to consumer? Or when did that come about?
Um, it was his, well, it was his dream was to have a ranch and, um, I used to be a vegetarian very long time ago, but, um, more because I didn't agree with how animals destined for our plates were treated. But if my dad or brother shot a pheasant, I'd happily pluck it and eat it because it was like flying around one bad day.
It's on my plate as opposed to, you know, like factory farming, commercial farming. Bear in mind, I was like 20, 19, whatever. So when we kind of started discussing things, it was giving people... I mean, we're going back to 2005 when we were speaking about this. It was giving people that option of, you know, you want to eat meat, but you don't want to eat that meat.
You want to know where it comes from. So we built... this around that, that we wanted to give people a conscientious and ethical food choice. And now more and more people are like, there's that farm to fork movement is huge. Like there's, um, the statistics that are readily available are for the States, but out of the something like 2 million farms in the USA, only 7% sell direct to consumer.
Yet the farm to fork movement, the people who want to buy direct from the farm is huge and growing. There's actually not enough farms to supply that demand.
I'm curious, like, how do two engineers say, all right, we're going to start a farm, like, let's go buy some cows. Yep. How do you know what kind of cows to buy and how do you not buy dairy steers instead of beef cattle and, and then get the land to support the cattle and like all those decisions that go with it. And do we need creep feeders and how do we do it?
Like there's a lot of learning curve there.
There is. So we, we had, so when we lived, we moved here. So the ranch I'm sat in now is five hours away from where we started in like near Vancouver and, So we had five or six acres and we literally went to the auction and bought four Hereford steers, finished them, sold them. So we advertised. So it was to kind of test the market and we kept one for ourselves. We advertised the rest.
to see if this was a viable option. And it was like, we almost got to the point where people would knock on the door going, I heard you had beef for sale. And we're like, we're all out. It was like this backdoor beef sales. Yeah, exactly. But it worked. So we did end up keeping on.
So on our six acres, we actually ended up with a herd of like 23 head of cattle, but we leased two 10 acre grazing around us. So we were able to raise them. you know, from May through to October and then bring them home and feed them haylage, et cetera.
Wow. I just like how they just went and bought four Hereford steers. This is what we're going after. So are you still growing Hereford?
No, we don't. So our, we do Wagyu. So Wagyu is our kind of main breeding stock. So we have our full blood Wagyu and then we also have our F1s and F2s. So our cross breed is Highlands and Galloways.
I'm like, are you have any miniature cattle? Cause that's what I think of when I hear Highland.
So there's not, I'm sure I'll get yelled at this. There's no such thing as miniature cattle. It's a dwarf gene. Like people just breed for it, but it's not a breed. Like, I don't know. Miniature cattle. No, no,
They look so cuddly though.
They do look cuddly.
When you're now doing your crossbreeds, obviously you've learned and chosen that crossbreed for a reason. Like you said, you do have your purebred Wagyu, but is there a meat quality that you're getting out of the genetic crosses?
Yeah, so our F1s is just our standard beef, but it has that buttery flavor of Wagyu. And even though we don't feed any grain, it's beautifully marbled. You can cut it with a fork. Galloways are slightly faster growing than highlands. Highlands, in Scotland, a highland cow is actually considered a premium breed.
They're very slow in growing, so you can't really process them until at least 36 months. So they're always going to be in OTM But that slow growth lays itself to this beautiful, thick marbling. Like it's not being pounded with grain for 18 months and then sent to harvest. It's grown slowly. So they have, they're more expensive than Angus.
Like if you want to order like a prime river, something Highland is like a premium beef. For our model, they're a little bit too slow growing, so we're moving away from highlands, but we chose them because they suit our environment. It's rugged, it's mountainous, it's extreme cold, extreme heat, that they do really well. They thrive, so it's less input for the same output, if that makes sense.
Now, does your area, the topography, also dictate this no-grain ration, or is that a distinct choice you've made?
That's a distinct choice. We're a regenerative ranch. So we really follow regenerative agricultural practices and we host clinics here for regenerative ag. I will caveat with saying I am system or feed agnostic that we need a place for all farming. This is just our choice and it's not something that I would force on anyone else. But for us, it works really well.
So we don't feed any grain, but we do plant our pastures with a really diverse forage crop. So our fields are full of brassicas, so like radishes and turnips, alfalfas, clovers, different grasses, sunflowers, even peoats and barley that they forage on in the grass form. But we don't feed any additional grains.
So they're getting some grain and they're just foraging it themselves type of a deal.
It's a forage crop. Yeah. We just don't feed, we don't strip it off and feed them anything, but they've got a very diverse.
Consumers think, you know, grass fed, grass finished is just this cow out on a grass pasture. Yeah. you know, that, that they see on the side of the interstate is, is probably what they think of, but it's not really.
No, we put ours out on range and on range, they eat everything. Like they're eating leaves and shrubs and berries and bar. We've even caught them chewing on antlers for like the nutrients. Like they eat everything, but yeah. So we just try and emulate that when they're back at home as well.
I just think of logistics, like whether you believe that that's a healthier or better tasting or whatever. But like the fact that you don't have to handle tons of grain and pay for it or farm it and harvest it, it makes sense. Even if it does take a little bit longer, right? Like as far as the business wise goes. Yeah. A little bit longer.
You guys know our friend Huey. Be cool. He's always got business ideas, and he was talking to me about selling direct-to-consumer the other day. He wants to start this and was asking me. We have cattle at my house as well. We don't sell direct-to-consumer. And so he was asking, what does it take to get started and whatnot? You said you rented 20 acres and you had six acres of your own.
So you had about 26 acres and you had six head that you kind of started with. To me, that doesn't add up to dollars that that's enough to feed a whole family, you know, for a living wage. How much did it like we're yet now? We're yet now like how many head if I can ask, what's it take to make a living at this if you're going to do direct to consumer?
It's an open-ended question, though. It's a hard question to answer. I get asked this a lot online, but it's like, well, what do you need to make a living? Do you need 50K a year? Do you need 100K a year? So it's really hard to answer. When we had the acreage at the coast, we were both working full-time. So it wasn't our sole income. It was supplemental.
But it got to the point where that enabled us to move and make it our sole income. So we don't work... Selling beef is all we do.
She almost said they don't work. Almost.
Well, and I was leading into the next. Now you're teaching people to sell beef. So you must have some analytics of if I'm going to teach you how to sell beef, that's my next question. How do we sell beef?
So if you want to do it full time, you have to know your numbers. Like you have to know, well, I need to make 50K clear, 50K a year to pay my mortgage, to buy groceries, have some fun money. So then you have to work it backwards. So are you going to make 50K a year on six acres? Probably not. Unless you're buying, selling, buying, selling, buying, selling, which you could do.
You could go to the auction, buy cattle, finish it, sell it. But that's hard work. you might only need 50 acres. But then the other variables are, are you growing your own feed? Are you harvesting your own feed? Or are you buying feed in? Because if you have 50 acres and you're growing your own feed, you might only be able to hold five pairs.
Whereas if it's all for grazing and you're bringing in your feed, you could have 50 pairs. So, I mean, there's so many variables there that... Whoever is wanting to start this needs to know the route they want to go and then plan accordingly.
So your program, though, adapts itself to, it sounds like, many different styles.
Yes, very much so. And as I said before, I'm pretty much Finnish agnostic that you can do grain finish, you can have a feedlot, you can do grass-fed and finish, you can do whatever. You can do chicken, pork, lamb, bison. It works for anything, but the main thing is beef.
So let's kind of step into what somebody can get out of working with you or how you start providing value to someone that signs up.
Wow.
Canada, it's Tim Hortons, isn't it? Not Starbucks?
I know. So that is where your customers are. So the first thing I teach is you've got to have a social media presence and it's not for posting pictures of your youngest at a dance recital. It's targeted. So your social media is that widest point of the funnel where you are going to find all your customers. That algorithm that runs Meta It works in your favor.
So if you're posting things like, for example, save money on groceries, buy a quarter beef, then the algorithm is going to show you your post to people who are looking for things like groceries or vouchers or, you know, things like that. That's how the algorithm works. So what you post can actually find you customers. It's not just to post buy my beef. It's to post your whole story.
So then we take you through those steps of social media is free and it is the most powerful funnel you have, regardless of if you want to pay for ads, you still need to test that first in social media. And then the next stage is pricing. And it literally is, we walk you through everything you need. So this would answer your previous question is,
where you need your pricing to be and what you need to make to make this work for you. And it goes through everything. It goes through cash flow, revenue, gross profit, net profit, operation costs. The one thing that I find a lot of farmers fall into when they want to start this is that they don't look at that beef operation or that direct-to-consumer beef operation as an entity by itself.
So say, for example, they're a cow-calf and they take their calves to auction. They don't think that, well, I've kept 10% back. That 10% needs to carry 10% of my operating costs. Otherwise, it's never going to pencil out. You shouldn't subsidize one with the other, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Oh, we've been doing that for as old as time. Farming is not where it should be or supplementing. Well, I've got this off-farm job, so I can continue to lose money farming. We're good at that.
So it kind of really does teach them that if you're keeping 10% back, then that needs to carry 10% of your operating costs so that your true net is literally after dog food's being paid. And after 10% of the mortgage has been paid and you know, like it's, it has to carry that to be profitable. So it, it takes you through, um, all those cost codes, like you might have logging that you want to do.
And that should, you know, that adds, adds, adds into. So it's a pretty in-depth pricing structure.
Amy, what I'm hearing is you have a way to show customers how to market their product probably really good or an education program that does that. Do you teach them how to, say, buy cattle at the auction? No.
No. I mean, there's like a coaching aspect where people ask all kinds of things. Like we get asked, what crop should I plant or how much fertilizer should I buy? And that's not what the course is designed for, but there's enough expertise inside that those kinds of things can get answered. But the sell beef direct motto, if you like, is empowering farmers.
So if you want to start selling direct, these are the tools that you need to make that successful for you.
Have you ever told someone, you might just be better off just buying your beef instead of trying to raise it?
As in buying it from the store or buying it from the sales bar?
You might as well just buy it from me and let me do it.
No, never. No. We had a guest sitting right over there that said, I don't have an interesting story. And how often do you come across people that reach out to you with that concern that you just talked about using social media to tell their story, but maybe they don't think they have something worth telling?
That happens all the time. And one of this might be super, I don't know, beaten to death. But one of the best examples is do you watch Yellowstone? And people go, yes. And it's like, well, all these people who live in a city and they're driving a commute and they're going in their car and they're driving for an hour, they're sitting in a cubicle, they're doing their stuff.
They're getting back in a car and driving home. Your life as a rancher is so exciting to them that it may not be exciting to you because you do it every single day. But someone who lives in a high rise and goes to work, the thought of having a baby calf by the fire in the kitchen because it was born in a snowbank, they love that and they eat it up.
So it may not be interesting to you, but I can guarantee your story as a rancher is
thousand times more interesting than someone who works in an office right so when you guys quit to go farm cattle did you have this sellbeefdirect.com in your head too or no never that come out of like hey we should probably do this because we had to go through this we knew we wanted to do this to sell direct to consumer and this was what we wanted to do for our family um so
Back in 2017, we released finance, released equity in our little six acres because the property was booming to purchase this ranch that I'm at now. And it was like, you know, we need to make a go of this. is either go or stop complaining about life. So it was, we're going to do it. So we released equity. We moved here with our 23 heads, um, and we had cattle finance to build the herd.
Um, everything was going really well. We carried two mortgages for a while. Um, the property market took a crash. So, and we chased it down. So then our, our little six acres actually cost us money to sell that. We didn't get anything from it. And the bank was like, you now owe way more than we're comfortable with. Then what you have now doesn't cover it. And we're going to,
cut our losses and foreclose and it was like what like can they do that is that even legal um apparently it is um but because um we're a farm and farms are treated differently it takes 12 months to foreclose on a farm you can't just foreclose in three so um then that 12 months it was like this has to work so we um we're buying a lot of time with a beef herd No, it's not.
So we were growing our herd and we also had, um, we were working with, um, some friends and things at the coast who traditionally they, they grew speckled parts, which is a Canadian breed. Um, and they were unfinished if you like, and then they would take them to this sales barn. So they ended up finishing them for us. We'd buy them from them instead of them taking them to auction.
Um, and then we would process them and sell as beef. So, um, It worked like, I don't know, 50% gross to the point where we had an order book. We were doing two a month and then three a month. And then we had orders for five a month, up to 10 a month. And it got to the point where we went...
Over our local representative's head, who was just being a pain in the ass and went to the head office in Saskatchewan and said, look, for the last 11 months, even with our hands tied because you're foreclosing on us, I have an order book of eight months ahead and I'm bringing in 50K a month regularly selling beef. What's happening? And they actually said, we apologize.
And they halted proceedings and they reinstated the mortgage. Like it was it was just insane. So it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. But within that time, obviously, Google, I was searching for, you know, how to sell beef online and help with selling online. And the companies I came across, they talked an amazing game. And I was like, yes, you can save my ranch. You can save me.
And then I get hit with how much it was going to cost. And it was like, yeah, no, no. Like, there's no way I can give you $18,000, $20,000 when all this is happening. So it was do it myself. Like, we're pretty smart. And we put together a solution that really did work. And a lot of that was starting an Instagram account. That was literally the turning point.
But then after all of this happened and everything is hunky-dory and we would post about our story and we would post, you know, we're first-gen ranchers, blah, blah, blah. I would get messages and direct messages from farms all over the States going, how do you do it? Like, how do you do what you do? Like, how did you do this?
To the point where I was, I kind of joke and say, I was handing out my phone number like candy and I would have hour or two hour long phone calls with someone in Oregon and someone in Ohio and someone in Montana to the point where I said to my husband, maybe I should do something with this. And this was in 2022, like November, 2022, I was like, I should do something with this.
Like we could help so many farmers do this and it be affordable. Like it's not going to cost $18,000. Um, and that's when sell beef direct was born. So we launched in January, 2023 and it's changed a lot since then, but it's doing pretty well.
Sure. So now are you selling only quarters and halves and wholes or do you sell individual cuts?
We don't sell individual cuts. And I actually warn my students, like the farmers I work with, I mean, if that's something they really want to do, fine. But it's hard work because it's inventory. Like, you would have to itemize every single item in a carcass and upload it to a website and then find that item and ship it or, and it's too much like hard work.
So we sell quarter size and whole and we, our ranch, we do packs that we have a 10 pounds of ground and we have, you know, like a steak pack or a steak and ground pack, but we don't sell in, no, you can't just go online and order a steak.
Yep.
It doesn't work for us.
And then is this successful for you because you're close to a big city or are you selling – is that not a requirement for someone that wants to start to have to be tied to a big metropolis?
So something that I kind of speak about a lot on my social media is we are pretty remote and our neighbors and our local area are not our customers because everyone has an uncle who has a steer and gives them a side for Christmas or they have – a couple of acres and they take, you know, a couple of yearlings a year to finish and they keep one and sell one. So my local area is not my customer base.
So we actually drive five hours away to deliver our beef.
So you're physically delivering it yourself?
My husband does. Yeah. That's just what works for us. But we go once a month. Yeah.
We have several friends now that are going direct to consumer, and I feel like they're either... They are doing more of the smaller packs. I don't know if they would sell you a single cut like you said, but I do know they are. I mean, shoot, we got a corporate box from our friends at Barn Talk.
I've just always thought those are interesting because, like you said, there's so many cuts of the calf. Or if you're doing hogs or anything, what do you do with the rest? If they're not all highly desirable – You got to throw some roasts in there and some ground beef.
Well, isn't the biggest burden the ground beef, right? Half the roughly is ground beef. You got to get rid of it.
Half is, but no. So for us, our most popular item is a quarter cow. We sell more of them than anything else. Our next most popular item is 10 pounds of ground beef. We can't keep ground in. Yeah, people love it because it's so versatile. Burgers, chili, pasta, lasagna, meatballs. What's, you know, what's for dinner? Like kids love. We can't keep ground in. It goes out so fast.
Sounds like you need Dr. Price.
My father-in-law sells direct to consumer. He started doing that. We were cow-calf for a while and he'd sell genetics and then he realized that instead of selling the bull for genetics, he'd get whatever, $3,000 a head.
He's like, well, I could cut its head off and sell it as meat and steer it and then end up feeding it out, make more money doing that and get $5,000 worth of meat out of it instead and in a shorter window. And he would start doing that.
But when he would do it, a lot of people didn't realize how much the packer cost to have them process or the processor, not the packer, but the processor to process the meat. And so some people would sell it as hanging weight. Some people would sell it as just the meat. So there's bone in or bone out weight.
And then some would sell it as carcass weight, you know, with skin, without skin, et cetera, et cetera. And so explaining that to the consumer. What he's always tried to explain to him was here's the price of what you're going to pay at the grocery store for hamburger. Here's the price of what you're going to sell for steak. I'll just split the difference.
Instead of paying $15 for a steak and $3 for hamburger, I'm going to sell it all to you at $7. You know, and he just split it all and he just split it in the middle. But I don't know if there's a right way to do it, but that was his.
Was that based on hanging or was that based on yield?
Uh, he did it on yield.
So we, um, a lot, I mean, a lot of what, what I teach is you have to train your customer. So all through your website and your social media, you're not selling beef. You're, you're educating and telling people things that they, I mean, they don't know what they don't know. So, um, we always do, do hanging weight and it's never hindered us, but we do explain it.
that you have this forum that you have to get them to the point of comparing apples for apples. And I actually have a student, he did an exercise and he priced out his carcass if you were to buy all those cuts at Walmart. So not like Trader Joe's or a butcher, but Walmart. And his carcass from him, if you bought a whole cow, would be like five grand. Whereas
and that was hanging weight, like eight bucks a pound hanging weights. Um, if you then he priced it all out, that carcass at Walmart was $6,800. Yeah. But people don't know that. People think I'm spending $8 a pound hanging weight. That's way too expensive. And it makes my heart hurt when farmers are literally charging $3.50 or $4 per pound hanging. I'm like, I can't raise a cow for that.
It doesn't work. But even at $8, if you actually do the homework and find your comparisons, it's cheaper. Hmm.
that's just shows you the cost that people are willing to pay for convenience. If they're willing to go to Walmart and buy, buy it for that much more. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. So what is the biggest challenges that people face when they are looking at, obviously they're, they're Googling or they're paying attention to the materials that you put out in your social media. What, what are you helping them most overcome when they work with you?
And the two biggest, not complaint, well, I guess the two biggest issues farmers have when they come to me is how to find customers. They're like, I have this amazing product. Everyone who buys it says it's fantastic, but I can't find new customers or more customers. The other one is pricing. So we go over those a lot.
But finding customers is you have to know who your customer is first, too, that you can't just You can't just keep on advertising or saying I have beef for sale. I have beef for sale because that's not going to appeal to people. Whereas if you post, I don't know, save money on groceries, you're going to get every mom within like a whatever mile radius going, oh. save money on groceries.
And then when they delve into that more, they'll realize that you're funneling them into buying a quarter beef. Um, so you're not saying buy my beef and people go, I've just been to Costco. I'm done. Keep scrolling.
But that big hook or that big kind of reason is save money on groceries or drop 10 pounds, which is a huge one because everyone wants to drop 10 pounds, but it's, you know, drop 10 pounds, prioritize protein, buy a quarter beef and but you're funneling them into your world by giving them answers to what they want.
I can just see the headline drop 10 pounds of beef in your freezer.
Yeah. Whatever works. Yeah. But yeah, it's, um, that makes sense.
If you, you know, you just put it into perspective, we can start thinking about who's buying this. So it could be probably know where your food comes from would be a, a hanger. And like, so lowering the cost of your groceries is, if you want to eat healthier or whatever it ends up being, is the know where your food come from.
Is that the biggest thing driving this? Do you think the demand?
That's only a, so that's one character trait, if that makes sense, that we teach that you have to appeal to like five or six character traits. And one of them is know where your food comes from. But then one of my best customers for our ranch is, I hooked him in with, it was, did you know red meat has more creatine than a supplement? And I was targeting carnivores and gym goers.
And he was like, oh, really? And then he went through all that material and ended up calling me and buying a side of beef and he buys a side of beef every two months and then he told all his friends at the gym and i think we sell six sides of beef every two months just because of that post about uh creatine and red meat yeah what do you think your average age is of your buyer it's um 43 hmm
She knew that pretty quick.
It's as old as day. I check my diagnostics. So we have people who are in their 20s, and we also have people in their 60s and 70s that buy our beef.
I got a couple rapid fires. Sure. I'm nervous. What if... What if they don't want to? They understand they want to grow beef. They want to sell direct to the consumer. They understand they need to be on socials, but they just don't. They want to focus on the raising the beef. Like, can someone run their socials for them and still sell directly?
Yeah, they can. We do that for some customers. It's not something we like doing, but we do teach how to run your socials. But a lot of these farmers, they hand that over to their wife or to their kids. Or there are social media companies who will do it for you, but you still have to train them in, this is selling beef. This isn't just selling pictures of a ranch kind of thing.
Like there is a knack. Like you really do have to answer that pain point because... If you then want to speed things up and say, I don't want to be on social media all the time and I would rather run ads, like I would rather spend 10 bucks a day running ads to these landing pages, you still have to test that in social media.
So if your content isn't appealing to a warm audience, it's not going to appeal to a paid audience either. And that's when you start wasting money. Whereas if you know your message is converting for free, then at that point you take those best posts and you can run ads and you're going to save money and get a much higher return on investment.
Okay. And my next one is, let's say I just want to get into cattle. Maybe I have a few cattle and I want to get into this, but I want to start maybe using you to help. What's the best process? Where should I start?
As in you want to contact me to help you?
I want you to help me sell my beef direct to consumers. Maybe I've sold a couple of beef to some friends or maybe I'm just thinking about buying some. What's the best place to start?
I'm not sure if you want me just to answer the question or if you want me to start a pitch.
I want to know your pitch. We're to that point. We've learned enough about it. Like, okay, I'm intrigued. Where should I start?
So our first step is, I mean, regardless of how much it is, it's still a bigger investment. So it's almost like a value ladder. So the first thing you would do is, you know, look at some of the free resources. We have a free workshop that goes every month that literally shows people how to do this and what steps they need. And it's free.
There's a free masterclass that kind of teaches them how to use social media. And we have a free Facebook group where they can ask us lots of different questions because money is... And being a farmer myself, I know there's not always a lot of disposable income. So before you make that investment, I would check out all those free resources first.
And then we have like an entry level course, which is only $47, but it's going to really kickstart your marketing. It's going to tell you how to post on social media, what to post, who to target, how to use social media, how to use emails, how to set everything up.
all the way up to i will design your website for you like so there's like entry level up to the full everything and there's there's one in in the middle as well is that 47 canadian or usd us us is pretty much a universal currency for digital products because um if it's in my home currency i almost have to pay a conversion rate twice yep gotcha
Interesting. And the other cool thing that we have to offer our audiences is we're affiliate partner of yours. It's an opportunity for our audience to benefit greatly from us finding finding partners out there that can, you know, in this case, maybe potentially contribute a significant amount to their bottom line as we look forward to potential tighter margins and tighter years. Mm hmm.
We're looking forward to that.
As we look forward to those. We're not looking back. It may not look good, but we're still looking forward.
I haven't posted it yet, but I was scheduling a reel for my social media, and it was kind of all about contingency. And our ranch, so this hat, had a bit of a tough year this year. My husband almost lost his hand in a post-pounding incident.
incident and that kind of because we do everything ourselves we have no staff that's really slowed things down for two or three months while he was recovering and then we were just getting back to delivering beef and catching up when he just dropped off ten heads of at the pro successors and the stock trailer got rear ended.
So on first look, it didn't look that bad, but it actually got written off. And then we had no stock trailer to take cattle to. And it was a big fight with ICBC, which is our, we only have one insurance company in BC and trying to get them to pay out is impossible because So then we just got, so this was in like October. We just got that fixed. We're like, right, we have to catch up.
We have all these orders. We have to get beef in. The butcher dropped us. The butcher was having staffing issues and they weren't getting stuff cut right. And they just shut down to regroup. And we're like, but we're booked in until February. Like, what are we meant to do now? So then we found another processor at the coast, which is a 10 hour round trip. And he's going to start this month.
So it's from July till now, it's been, wow, one thing after another. But by having this in place and taking pre-orders and people can purchase in advance, having all of that in place meant that we didn't take a big nosedive, like everything did kind of keep on ticking over.
What is that link, Tanner? Do we have that? Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes. Absolutely. So it's easy to get to as far as that goes. And I appreciate you sharing that, Amy, because every farm goes through times like that at different levels. Sometimes it's bad days. Sometimes it's bad years.
But if we can have a mindset of looking forward or just turn the bad situation into a good situation, you could have upcharged for that load of beef because it was extra tenderized. Yeah.
oh naturally tenderized by really the the uh i mean it's almost like a comedy sketch the poor guy who rear-ended he was a senior and he was volunteering at the senior center and to paint their i don't know something so inside his ford f-150 he had a five gallon drum of white emulsion i will
when he hit the stock trailer so he completely wrote off the front of his truck but the inside of his it was just white paint it was like oh my god the poor guy he was devastated funny but not funny oh it is funny yeah that's about as funny as it gets as long as no one got hurt yeah no one got hurt no one got hurt and the trailer was empty but yeah it it completely twisted the chassis
So if our listeners want to follow along with you on social medias and continue to watch what content you put out, how best do they look you up?
It's at Cell Beef Direct.
There you go.
Pretty straightforward and simple.
Facebook and Instagram or pork or whatever, you know, we have, um, we have lots of, we have beef, but we also have chicken, goat, lamb, bison. We have a yak farmer. Um, I have an author who, who has written some farming books and he's using it for that. And I also have a farmer who is, um, they're more a homesteader, but they import coffee beans and they have a, uh,
local roastery and they sell and roast coffee so i mean it works regardless of what your product is i think i just added yak to my food bucket list yeah my pig suppliers roast their own coffee beans and they give that they give that away for christmas and it is dang good it's so good it's all i drink now is her is her coffee
That's awesome. Well, Amy, we thank you for taking the time to share this with our audience. Hopefully a couple of them you can provide value to directly as well. But besides that, it was entertaining. It was fun for me. Yeah.
Perfect.
Game on. I'm looking forward to some yak. That's right. And listeners, until next time, have a good one.
Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.