We sit down with Ben and Morgan from Eastern Nebraska to dive into their journey building the Farm Focused brand. They introduce us to their family—Ben, Morgan, and their three kids - and share how family values like hard work, pride, and quality are the core of their business.Ben and Morgan reveal how Farm Focused began in 2015 with a mission to bring practical efficiencies to farm operations. Initially sharing their message at local fairs and events, they gradually expanded their branded merchandise line, sparking interest across the farming community. Fast-forward to today, Farm Focused has grown into a recognizable brand, offering an apparel line that's shipped across the U.S. and internationally, with each item representing their dedication to the farming lifestyle. They collaborate with some of the biggest names in ag social media, including Millennial Farmer, The Cow Guy, and Welker Farms, amplifying their reach and impact.This episode also touches on the adventurous spirit of their family. Ben and Morgan even tell us about the Big Red Challenge, a military-inspired obstacle course that showcases their commitment to resilience. Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen!Websitewww.Farm4Profit.comShareable episode linkhttps://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.comEmail [email protected] to YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5XqwFollow us on TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitConnect with us on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/
It's design. We have graphic designers on staff that honestly are some of the best in the business. They've got an eye for these categories. And then we do the website development and the website hosting. We do the day-to-day production, the printing, the shipping, the after-the-fact customer service.
The stuff that gets sent to people that buy from your brand or from anybody else's brand off of our website comes Our hands touch it. It comes directly from us. So we have a lot invested in making sure that that is good quality stuff.
There is a podcast in Iowa. Thoughtful profit was named by they. Faith stirred up a banker near. Then quick came an auctioneer. Making profit was their first goal. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Soon may the farmers come. One day when the recording's done, we'll take off. One day when the coating's done, we'll take our mics and go.
Listeners, welcome back. It's the Farm for Profit podcast, but today we are doing a Farm for Fun show, which is the way better show, right?
The way better show.
Yes, yes. We actually have a crowd here today. We are at a windy Husker harvest, and it's warm, though, so it's good to have the wind.
It is. It is, and we're going to do a really fast episode, so that way our guest doesn't end up in the sun. No, I'm kidding.
It is coming.
It's okay. I'm good. I need some color. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, who doesn't want to get tan at a farm show?
Right. If this is the first time that you've been listening to us, though, we are the Farm Profit Podcast. We do two different show styles. We've got episodes that come out Monday and Thursday. But that doesn't matter if you're going to binge. We have over 450 episodes. You're bound to find something that you're going to like. I didn't realize we had 450. I thought we just hit over 400.
That's a lot. It's quite a few. 104 a year. Because we do two interviews a week.
Yeah, we do it twice a week.
Yeah. Just to get through the list of guests. Now, it doesn't make any one guest any less significant. There's just that many great stories in agriculture like yours that we're about ready to tell. But listeners, if you have a story or somebody that you want to be a guest, farmforprofitllc at gmail.com. You can text it to us, 515-207-9640. But please, if you could do us a favor.
Go to our swag shop. That's not where you thought it was going. Go to our swag shop, farmfocused.com, and buy something. No, that's not really what we want. It is what we want. It's a great way to patronize us, I guess. We want the five-star reviews, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, all the subscribers, you to tell your friends and family. We do appreciate that.
But it is fun being able to take the feedback from our listeners and have a good time. Correct? Yeah. Well, is that good enough? Yeah. Are you giving me music this time? I could do that.
Okay. Because we finally got cell service back. We haven't been without cell service for like six hours, which absolutely wrecked people trying to find us this morning coming here.
Yeah. Where are we going?
And it's like, I can't text them back.
I've been waiting for this. I listened to a bunch of guys' episodes, so I've been waiting for this.
I want to know what you came up with. You want to see what I came up with? Oh, God. Man, now I feel the pressure. I feel like I didn't do good enough. I'm a little scared. Today on the Farm for Fun show from the 2024 Husker Harvest Days, it is windy and we're trying not to blow away. But if that happened with the tent, that'd be kind of, that'd be good content. That'd be epic. Right?
It'd be like when that sign went. We meet up with a power duo that's typically behind the scenes, but... There's a very good chance that you know their work very well. They started a clothing and merch biz in 2015, focusing on agriculture brands.
They serve as some of the biggest names in the industry, like Millennial Farmer, Master Pipe Layer, Brian's Farming Videos, Modern Day Farm Chick, The Welkers, Larson Farms, Mary Pat's House, Shark Farmer, and more. Oh, and more recently, Farm for Profit. Please welcome from eastern Nebraska, Morgan and Ben of Farm for Profit. Let's go.
That was good. That was real good. Wow.
I'm ready to go to battle, man. Let's go!
They finally made it.
That's right.
Makes me want to start working out or something.
Yes, yes.
Come on, let's go.
If you would have been here and heard the previous show, Flea Speaks, you would have probably wanted to work out there too. Very motivational. I bet that was good. Yeah. It was good.
We'll have to listen to that one.
So welcome to the show. Thank you. We have recently started working with you guys. Probably the least favorite client. We are your least favorite client, I'm sure. I told you that at Farm Progress Show because we were very slow. I actually think I have an email I need to respond to from a week ago.
Hey, it's all right. It's pretty typical.
I'm sorry. It's pretty typical.
I'm sorry. Yeah, don't worry about it.
But we have a secret weapon now, and she's sitting right over here, Miss Rachel. And, well, actually, we're trying to come up with a nickname for her. PR. That's PR. PR, number two, the young one. Yeah.
Are you guys nickname people? We're trying to figure that out. Okay, so what's your name?
We don't have those.
Oh, you don't even have them. What should our nicknames be? I think we have nicknames. We have the banker, the farmer, the auctioneer. Those aren't nicknames. Well, that's how everybody knows us.
Okay. Okay. So, yeah, maybe, Rachel, you need to start with her.
Yeah. You guys are creative.
We'll come up with something. This is going to be great. Anyway, welcome to the show. It's a Farm for Fun show, so we learn about the people, right? We're not on a certain topic here, so we want to know what drives you, who you are, how you came up in life.
Yeah, man.
So you're from Nebraska, married, kids?
We are, all of the above, all of the above. Before we kick off, though, I've got a little something here. Is this on video? Yes, it is. Okay, all right. Do you need a knife? I got one. Okay. Come on, man.
Come on. Ask him if he has a flashlight, too.
Do you have a flashlight? Yeah, it gets dark sometimes.
I was going to give you a good knife. Oh, dingo.
Now we're battling with knives. Oh, look at that. Just in case you couldn't see. What else do you got in there? A few things. Is that a flashlight in your pocket?
Yes, it is. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and oftentimes the... The hosts have gifts for the guests. So anytime you guys want to break yours out, I'm ready.
Yeah, it's in your cup, actually. Oh, that's right.
I got my boosh. So you guys know what we do. So we brought a little gear, brought a couple items for the folks here at the Farm for Profit.
Self-branded tape and everything. Farm Focus.
Yeah, man, of course, of course. This is what we do. So we have, and I guess we'll get into that, but that's our favorite Farm Focus hat. Very badass. Very great hat. This is my recent favorite, the koozie. Oh, look at that. The banquet throwback. The old school. Old school banquet.
So Bergen just gave me one of these, and it pisses me off because I can't get the can out.
They do get tight, yeah, but once you work it in.
There's a hole in the bottom. You've got to push it.
And it's one of those things. It's like the more you use it, the better it gets. Got you guys a cup. Got you guys a coffee cup as well. Oh, look at that. And then got you guys some of our coffee.
What? You have your own coffee?
We do. We do.
You need to get one. Farm Focus, Brandon.
Holy smokes. That is a exclusive blend. Blueberry pecan. Yeah, blueberry pecan.
So are you guys like coffee connoisseurs? Not really. We like coffee, but not connoisseurs.
Is this full bean or grounded?
It's ground. Grounded? Is it ground? Grounded. I'm very grounded. You're grounded, holding the coffee. He's got the neutral. That is cool.
So we've got what you guys were talking about earlier, the Farm Focus brand. That's what we're most known for. That's what we started in 2015. That's good. And then just within the last, it's been about the last year, we started the Stock and Rod brand, which is what this hat is. I see that. That is cool. That coffee's listed.
So the Farm Focus brand obviously works with farm folks and in the rural ag community. And then Stock and Rod brand is more the outdoors, so hunting, fishing, camping, whatever. The brand is actually the hat. It's in the hat. It is, yep, yep. So you make the hat? We have them custom made, yeah. Really? Yep, yep. Those are some things to think about for you guys.
It's like Louis Vuitton. It's got its name right on it. This is a robust hat. Feel that.
Yeah, I know. So it's the same story with this, too, the way these are set up. Oh, man. There's weight to it. Yeah, they're nice. Yeah. Wow. You feel it?
Thank you.
Oh, it is. Thank you for that. Cool. So that's all for you guys.
I've always... Showcase that a little bit. I've always loved the double F. Yeah. Because we, you know, as you guys are well aware, we struggle with farm for profit. Yeah, yeah. How do you make that look cool and what you do with it and all these things. And who would have thought when you launch something that you really got to pay that close attention to your logo. Right, right.
Or your company name. And then all of a sudden it becomes something and you can't change it. Right. Or shouldn't. And that's... What? We do all a lot. So that's...
You're not paying attention, are you?
Dave's getting yelled at for bending the... That looks good. You give it a little bend. It'll come back.
I was copying the master here. I was never a fly brim guy, but I've gotten used to it. I specifically looked at your hat and I'm like, it's got a little crown to it. It's got a little bend. It's got a little crown to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably not like... Correct.
Yeah. I'm slow to come around. I didn't like the logos on the side. I didn't wear those for a while. Yeah, yeah. I used to be curve bill all the time. Yeah, yeah. I think the wider brim makes my face look thinner.
Oh. I think you look great.
Thank you. I like that. I think you look great.
Yes, thank you for all the gifts. But now I want to go back to little Ben. Yeah. And little Morgan. What was it like before each other? You guys grow up in a higher culture?
It was just like a world of emptiness. I just didn't know where I was going. Well played. So smooth. I was just like blindly going through life.
Awesome.
uh so we i mean we grew up pretty differently um where we run farm focus today is at my family's property our we call it our farm we raced horses what kind of horses uh quarter horses paints um mostly that's like show horses yeah yep show horses yeah and my sister got big into barrel racing so she had some barrel horses that's what those you know is she crazy I can't comment on that.
Dave thinks they all are. Can chasing. So I was out there. Man, we moved out there when I was like eight years old and just kind of started living, I guess, that real life, which I really enjoyed. Grew up that way. And that was a big part of why I do or why we do what we do today because of growing up that way.
You know, it's just something that you just keep going back to, you know, no matter what. But then I went to high school in the next town over, which was a bigger town, which is where Morgan lived. And there's two high schools in that town. So I was at one. She was at the other. I was at the better one.
Two proms. Two proms.
Yeah.
Yeah. Two proms, two homecomings, you know, all this stuff.
Long story short, I worked for the city when I was a kid mowing, mowing like city parks and pools and stuff. She was a lifeguard.
So I was mowing the pool.
I saw the lifeguard. I was like, hey, girl.
Hey, girl.
From the lawnmower? Yeah, I gave her my number.
Was he cat calling you from the lawnmower? His pager number, okay? Right? We didn't have cell phones.
Yeah, that was back in the day.
Y'all have got to be younger than us.
I think we figured this out. Yeah, he's like, hey, page me.
Did you have a pager, Dave? I did, yeah. What? I feel like you're a pager guy. And then I went to alphanumeric pager where it actually read like a text message. You're like, oh, I got a page. Oh, I can read the message. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How old are you? 42 or 43. Okay, that's us. Yeah, we're 42. Pagers were the thing, man. We didn't have cell phones. So we'd drive around town. The pager would go off. You'd have to stop and find a pay phone. And call whoever it was. Or they could send you a message and then you could call the number and you could listen to the message.
Yeah.
Figure out what you're going to do or where you're going to go or whatever. But, yeah, man, so I gave her that. And, you know, she couldn't resist. One thing led to another.
What's the name of the gal on the baseball where Smalls goes? Squints. Squints.
Where Squints goes in the sandlot. So he was the Squints of whatever town.
Yeah, that's right. Except she wasn't older than me, but yeah.
Did you fake the dive?
The lawnmower went to the pool? We weren't allowed in the pool. We were the scrubs. We were the lawnmowers. So I'd go up to the fence. She's on the stand, and I'm like, hey. What are you doing? Come down here. Here's my number. She's like, I've got to watch the pool. I can't leave my seat. Weirdo.
Of course, his hours are like 7 a.m. to 2 maybe, and our pool hours are like 1 to 7. Guess when they mowed the pools.
Oh, yeah.
The one hour that we're there.
I had to get a look at the lifeguard.
There were a lot of Bellevue pools. It worked pretty good.
Very strategic.
I guess I should feel lucky.
You should if there's that many pools. You're right. She's always had her eyes moving. Lifeguards keep their eyes moving. I'll go out with you.
They're all on camera now. They all do that now.
So, yeah, that was that. Like, what, sophomore, junior year? Yeah, high school.
High school sweethearts.
So there you go. You know, been married 20 years. But, yeah, before that, growing up, I was not – I just lived in a neighborhood in Lincoln, Nebraska, you know, and then we ended up moving out to Omaha and still –
don't know a ton like he does of farming at all it's just not my i just didn't grow up in it but i have learned a lot from obviously being with him for 25 years so so as you guys have you know you got married live right on the same property that you grew up on now were you always doing farm focused or was there a portion of career before that yeah there was quite a bit before that um so we would have got married in
What year was it? Oh, two ish.
Yeah.
Um, I went to college. We, we had a, we had our first child very young. Um, and you know, life got real. So college spread out quite a bit. It took me about seven or eight years to finish college with night school and things like that. Um, and worked, you know, just a bunch of jobs. I worked in some body shops, you know, did some automotive repairs and things like that.
Um, and then once I got school done, You know, I was like, all right, well, it's time to put this degree to work. So I got hired on with a major auto parts supplier. We spent about almost 10 years traveling around the U.S., getting assigned to, like, different territories, running stores for them. So in that corporate role. and it was good.
I mean, I learned a ton, um, business wise and just people wise and management and all those kinds of things. And it was right up my alley with the degree that I got. Um, but it didn't take too long before I got real tired of that corporate BS and, you know, just they're having their thumb on you and how all that works.
So I remember we were in our last, the last stop was in Tennessee, which Tennessee was awesome. Um, and I hated my boss and I told, I told Morgan, I remember coming home one day, I'm like, If he says one more thing to me, I'm done. We're out of here. That's what Corey tells his wife.
I do hate my boss.
And of course he did, and that was that. So just threw in the towel with little to no plans. I just told her, I was like, we have to go back home. I'm going to start a business. Screw it. I'm done dealing with these people. So I spent a good amount of time just trying to figure out what am I going to call this thing. You mentioned earlier the logo.
Um, I just feel like I've always kind of had an eye for design, although I personally can't bring it to life. I can just kind of see it, uh, which is great. Why we have people working for us nowadays, like Sarah, you know, you guys know, uh, from the Welkers. Um, and so created the logo, um, created the brand name and came home and started the business.
I came home like four, probably four or five months before Morgan and the kids did.
2014 ish. Yeah.
And just started traveling and talking to farmers and working on farm focused. This was 2014. 2015? It was 2015 is when it was, yeah.
Oh, okay, yeah, 2015.
I was going to say, I put it in my intro.
I hope that I was right. No, I think you're right.
It was the end of 2015, yeah.
And so for all the listeners, so Farm Focused is not just a swag company then. Like what? Shirts, hats, coats, everything? Custom?
Yeah, so when I started the business, what the concept was was that we were going to get into ag and bring farmers...
mostly unknown efficiencies you know to the field and to the operation um so it was focused on the farm you know was the was the whole concept and then the logo and started doing hats and shirts and things like that from more of a marketing kind of standpoint i was working with guys on some biological uh products it was it was when that was really new on the scene um
And then also working on agricultural diesel tuning. So adding power and fuel efficiency to diesels. And that was all going pretty well, but the biological thing kind of got crazy. The big brands kind of took over and pushed everybody out. But meanwhile, the branding that we were doing was catching on and folks were wanting some of it. They were wanting some of the merch.
They were wanting some of the gear. So I started realizing like, Hey, we got something else going on here. So it never started as a merch company. It did not. No. Okay.
He's really good at pivoting, like shifting. I don't know what you call that.
That's what it is. You were like, I'm going to go home and start a business, but you didn't know exactly what.
Yeah. Yeah. And the brand and the name and everything fit well. So I was like, well, we're. People want this gear and it's like a lifestyle. It's becoming a lifestyle of its own. So let's just start a website. We'll do that too. Might as well.
Let's just build a website.
So we're in the basement, like, you know, packaging some orders and stuff. And meanwhile, I'm out during the day knocking on doors, trying to get farmers to treat their fields and tune their diesels and stuff like that. And the online thing kind of started growing. And I got in contact with Zach, the millennial farmer. and drove to Minnesota and tuned his combine.
Brought him a bunch of gear, and we talked about a bunch of things while I was there, and he said, man, I've got this YouTube thing going on. He wasn't super big at the time. He was probably 100,000, 150,000 YouTube. He's like, people keep asking me for gear. Like, this is what you do? Would you...
want to help and i'm like yeah man i think we could do that like that wasn't the plan yeah and it was harvest so those famous words yes yeah i think we could do this yeah i think we can do this like it's not that big of a deal so it was like october so we put together a couple of designs launched them he uh mentioned it obviously to his followers that went nutso that christmas was was crazy
Um, if you would have came into our basement, I mean, it was just, it was gear everywhere.
You couldn't even walk. Like I have pictures. It's hilarious. Like tables on tables of just gear. And we had friends come over and help package and we didn't even know how to label stuff.
We called everybody we knew. We were like, dude, we need, we need you to put packages together. We need to label. We need to run to the post office, you know, all the things. got all that, got all that to work pretty well. And then, um, and then we said, all right, well, there's something here. Cause even Zach was like, man, I might sell 10 things. I might sell 10,000. I have no idea.
Well, he sold 10,000. And so it got, so then that got crazy. And we said, all right, this is real. Let's build him into the website and let's start running with this. And then the big YouTube guys, you know, they all talk to each other. So somebody talked to Zach and so on and so forth. And people started calling and said, Hey, we need some help with this. We need some help with this.
So next thing we know, I guess if you, if you were to fast forward to today, I think we're on like the fourth iteration of the website, you know, have gone through multiple different e-commerce platforms to figure out what works best. You know, we're now in our own building, which is just an old house on our, on our farm. You know, we have our own t-shirt printers.
We have our own embroidery machines at the time we were outsourcing all of that stuff. So one thing just continues to lead to another and that's what we're doing. So is it only influencers? Pretty much. I mean, everybody that's on our website has something to do with social media or YouTube in general. And then obviously the Farm Focus brand itself and the Stock and Rod brand itself.
And then on the Stock and Rod side of things, it's outdoor guys. Like one of Zach's best buddies, Target Focused Life, he's on the Stock and Rod website. He's an exhibition shotgun shooter and YouTube guy.
But if we've got a listener that has a farm, Wants farm merch or wants to run for clients?
That's the types of stuff you do also? Yeah, that's a good question. I see what you're saying now. Yeah, we do a lot of one-off merchandise for farm folks. We have people call us all the time that just say, hey, I've got a family farm and I want 24 shirts. Can you help me with the design? Can you put it together? And we do. Yep.
And that's what attracted us to you guys. I mean, we were friends with Zach and all the guys that I had mentioned in my intro. And we had tried swag. And we know that we are not Zach Johnson, right? We interview Zach Johnson. We are not the influencer. We interview people like you. You're very popular. And we would not sell 10,000 shirts. We wouldn't sell probably 100.
But we tried to do, what, runs of 300 here and all that. Oh, you do them through custom ink and... Yeah. Whatever.
You know, that stuff.
You get what you get. But we would stock and then quickly learn that we don't want to be the ones going to the post office and, like, we have other jobs. The podcast is already a side gig. We don't need a merch side gig either. Yeah. And do you know how many T-shirts you got to sell to make $10,000? Right. A crap ton. We're not going to do that, right? So we're not...
there to sell swag like that if you're not set up properly for it it's almost more work than it's worth yeah and that's what most people realize and it's like that with anything you know anything that has to do with manufacturing or whatever um so that's where we've been able to streamline that and then also primarily focus on these categories so it's been you know super helpful for folks um and we do beginning to end so it's it's design we have graphic designers on staff that honestly are some of the best in the business they've got an eye for these categories um
And then we do the website development and the website hosting. We do the day-to-day production, the printing, the shipping, the after-the-fact customer service. The stuff that gets sent to people that buy from your brand or from anybody else's brand off of our website, our hands touch it. It comes directly from us. So we have a lot invested in making sure that that is good quality stuff.
Hmm. Morgan, you were living in Tennessee then as well. Yeah. And then moved back. So his plan was to start something new. Was your plan to join in that something new or to do your own?
Well, yeah, that's kind of a little shift. I mean, for a long time, I stayed at home with the kids because we moved so much. So I stayed at home. I have a license. I did hair for 12 years, still have my license. Anyways, back story. And then when we came back home... Well, a little bit before that, I had a skincare business and still kind of do a little bit of that.
And it's been there for about 12 years. So that was a little bit helpful with financially, but really coming back was like, okay, like I got to start doing some more stuff. Like there's something else that I got to do. obviously money-wise. And then he was doing hard work, like he said, knocking on doors.
And I remember him coming home like, oh my God, you're literally driving up these roads, dirt roads, and just knock, knock, knock. I mean... dogs are jumping on him. I'm like, this is crazy. Are we sure we're really going to do this? Like you left a really, really good job. Anyways, we can go back. So we're just going to make it work.
So yeah, I mean, it's been an evolution of when we were doing some stuff in our basement. He was like, yeah, I kind of need some more help. So like I help and then Became like, I needed to help more and more and more. And so obviously it's full, full time for both of us. So it's, but all our kids have gotten older. We have a 23 year old, a 19 year old and a almost 14 year old.
So two of them are in college. They don't need us. The 14 year old acts like he doesn't need us at all. Unless it's time to eat or needs a ride somewhere or needs money. But other than that, like, you know, we work together. It's good. I don't know what else I would be doing. So I always feel like I'm a really good, I'm a hard worker for other people.
Like he is really good at inventing and having the ideas and kind of delegating ideas. I'm good at, I don't know, being told what to do. Like, that sounds weird, but I mean, you need these workers, right?
You're like a list person? Yes, definitely.
So I like to leave it, but obviously I've learned that when you have a business, you don't ever just leave it. Right.
definitely things i think weigh on him more but yeah so i feel like it's it's a great a great combination i mean he works a lot from the office and a lot of times i'm at the shop so it's not like we're like on top of each other all day but we work hand in hand and probably call each other a million times or you know we're in passing and so it's not in the basement anymore
no it's not in the basement because it's at the shop it just we outgrew the basement even at our house it was like the whole basement was taken up printers and all the things and we just had to move somewhere else and so it was it was smart to move out to the shop and
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What's the team look like? How many people you got? Morgan runs the day-to-day production at the print shop. And oftentimes it's just her doing that. And then I'm in filling in, doing a couple of things. And then throughout the different times of year, we've kind of got a pretty good idea of how the volume is going to flow throughout the year.
So obviously when we get into the fourth quarter, yeah, we get really busy. So we bring folks in and have a couple of part-time. It's usually college or high school kids, you know, out there helping us, working on some things, pretty straightforward stuff.
And then our kids help this summer. I mean, so it's good. It's like it ebbs and flows.
And then separate from that, as I mentioned earlier, our graphic designers, they're remote. So Sarah Welker, she's in, she's in Montana.
Yeah.
And she's, she's been with us for a number of years now. I don't know. There's no way we could do what we do without her. I mean, she just, she kills it. She's so creative and, and she also helps keep me on track. Like, and she's nice about it. Like she could be really mean to me cause I, cause I dropped the ball on things all the time.
And then we have a second graphic designer that's in Texas, Sierra, that Sarah kind of manages. And then we have someone in charge of our social media who's out in Idaho. So that's our crew.
Yeah. I always think it would be... I mean, and we've had people that have worked full-time with it.
We have, yeah. We've had people in and out.
And different in and outs. And it's hard to almost staff because, again, orders come in, and I could walk in one day and have... Over the holidays, it could be 150 in 24 hours, 200, but then one day it could be... Well, that's super manageable. Like, why are we paying? I don't know. So we struggle sometimes with that.
But we've gotten into a flow of, okay, we know it's going to start getting real busy here come end of October through January. Let's staff that. Then it starts, you know, tapering out to March. You know, you just have those high holiday seasons and things like that. Yeah.
So as you manage that volume, you're printing on demand. Yeah. That's right. You have very little inventory. Right. Except for, you know, okay. Except for Zach. We can have. Just print stuff.
We do have some of his stuff on the shelf because it just flies so quick.
In our inventory, we do have tens of thousands of dollars in inventory, but it's all blank goods. Yep. So we keep those blank goods around and then they're getting pulled off the shelf every day based on the previous day's orders. and getting ready for production and then printed and shipped.
Yeah, yeah. That makes it, again for us, something that is valuable because otherwise you end up with okay, I need 10 XLs, I'm going to get 10 larges, and I'm going to get 10 double XLs. And then you give away all of everything except for one size. And now we've got double XL t-shirts that we can't find anybody to give away.
Or even worse, you run out of one size, and then you're like, this is all I need, but the screen printer... We'll do a minimum of 48. I don't need 48. You know, how all that kind of thing works.
Which is also good for people that are, we call them off-brand, that just want a handful of stuff. Or, hey, Ben, you know, can you run some hats or, you know, things like that. And we do a lot of stuff for our local school, our son's school. And they, you know, want merch for volleyball and, you know, sports stuff. And so we help a lot with that.
How did you learn that?
this i take i'm assuming there's a lot of skill and weird stuff i mean you guys are always talking about well that color bled you know that's not going to work or whatever yeah yeah that's i mean it's really all just been trial and error honestly um you know the machines like the investment in the machines to do this is you know expensive i mean the stuff's expensive flat out but we knew this is what we had to do in the route we needed to go so we just got the stuff you know and then the manufacturers send out a trainer and you work with them for a day and
you're more confused than when you started. And then you just start going, man, and you just start trying to figure it out. We've got a pile. I mean, a pile of messed up stuff.
Oh, boxes. He's acting like it's like a pile.
No, when I say a pile, I'm talking about a pile.
That's the stuff we should be giving away on the podcast. Yeah. Like, all right, today's is a Femme shirt.
Yeah, exactly.
Get it for a rag price.
You think about it. How many? Ten boxes.
For me, I go to the farm, and I don't want to wear a nice shirt. Right. Because if I get an oil stain on it or whatever it is, that's perfect.
Yeah. Yep. And normally that's what it is. It's some kind of misprint. So, you know, the printer moved when it shouldn't have or the color got screwed up.
Or I printed the wrong logo on somebody else's tee and I'm like, ugh.
And on top of that, like we are super picky, probably a little bit too much because sometimes folks will look at like our mess up pile and be like, what the hell's wrong with this?
We have friends that come over and just dig through it.
Well, you see that little spot right there and they're like, oh my God, give me that, you know. But it's important.
And you're like, okay, yeah, and 20 bucks, please.
Right. But when you think about it, man, like when you go and buy something and you're buying something from one of your favorite people that you follow, like you're excited to get that dang thing. And if there's something wrong with it, you know, that's disappointing. Like the experience is part of it, right? So we want to make sure that what you're getting, it's spot on.
And every now and then we'll ship something that we missed, you know, and someone will call and say, hey, I don't want to be mean, but I noticed this or whatever. Absolutely. Thank you for calling.
And I do feel bad. I mean, we just got a phone call the other day of, like, one of our mugs. We bubble wrap it and put fragile on the box. It's broke.
I'm like, God, I'm so sorry. The post office is rough on packages.
I'm like, yep, we'll ship you another one. But, like, what else could we have done? I stuffed paper in there. You know, you just...
once in a while someone gets the wrong shirt like oh you just feel horrible my brother-in-law's gotten into this hobby of buying storage units oh and because he always cooks uh the meals for the local auction house and for him he just loved seeing you know all the weird stuff that come through these estate house clear out auctions and just geeks out he's his porch is full of a bunch of antiques that he buys and then when his shelf gets full he'll take something back out to the auction the next week to to keep the inventory rolling so now he buys storage units
to go through this process again, but he discovered eBay. The problem with eBay is you've got to ship everything. Well, the auction house, it's done. You set it on the table, you're out. But he can get better money on eBay, so he's going through that of, okay, this is crystal. How do I safely get Crystal to Arkansas or wherever the winning bidder is on eBay?
It's just fascinating to see the amount of newspaper that he gets from the post office that don't get delivered. He tells everybody in the family to save their bubble wrap and their packing peanuts. It's fascinating to watch it run out of his garage.
There's no question that the number one problem that we have is shipping. And it's from all aspects. It's from packaging. It's from how the packages get handled. It's the price component. It's working with these shippers. It's lost packages. I can help you with that.
Oh, my God, please. Shipping Saint. ShippingSaint.com. And so being in the auction industry, now everybody wants us to ship. So take it to the auction company. Well, guess what? Now we have to ship it. And there's a company that just came out a couple years ago, Shipping Saint.
And I mean full catalog management to track your hours, how much we charge for the box, bulk deals on buying boxes, bulk deal on buying tape, where we ship it. And then they also have bulk deals. So all the auctioneers in the country work together every day. More than just auctioneers, Shipping Saint actually started as a manufacturing deal to where they shipped a lot of stuff.
So they got bulk rates. So then bulk rates from FedEx to UPS to everything. And it shows all the rates and how do you want to ship it. That was fine for me. There was other software. But here's the cool part. Not to tout their software, but...
It will send my client a text message and say, hey, we just, you know, you check the box on the shipping saint and it sends you a text and it says, hey, your box is shipped and ready to go. Are you ready to pay for it? Here's the deal. They have to enter their own credit card. They pay for it after they pay for it. It sends you a text back and prints out every morning.
These are the guys that paid last night. They're ready to ship. So then you just have it and it'll automatically alert the shippers. So they bring their truck in to do it. If you engage the whole system, It's actually pretty fantastic.
But that means that they've got to pay for the shirt separately. And then they've got to pay for the shipping. Because they bought your item on auction separately.
Yep.
To where you could... I wonder if you could get it to where it's integrated. You can pay for shipping at the time of purchase.
They have APIs that mix right into your website or whatever your point of sale is. So, yeah.
What we do today, we try to be very transparent with people because shipping is a hot topic, man. So, we... We use a platform as well. We use ShipStation currently. And that integrates with our website. And it takes your package, which is basically your package weight, everything that you have in the cart. And it takes your zip code and it hits the post office.
It hits UPS and it comes back with a price. And then it takes that price and we add anywhere from like 50 cents to a dollar to that price. So completely transparent. We don't make any money on shipping because that is the price to print that label. And then we have to pay for the box.
We have to pay for the packing material, the tape, the cool tape, you know, all the things that go along with that. So shipping is by no means a profit center for us. It's just a pass-through. So we get people, you know, who are like, oh, my God, I can't believe how much it is to ship a T-shirt. Sorry. But I'm not charging you anything for that. That's what the post office is charging. Yeah.
You know, so it's – and people – get it. Most people get it.
Actually, I feel like our price is cheaper than if we went to the post office.
It is.
We get a little bit of a discount. We'll see little notes. There's a note section that people are like, oh, that much for a t-shirt? I hand write.
That's Amazon for you. Everything you can get shipped for free. We don't all own our shipping company as small entrepreneurial ventures.
I'll tell you, man, I think the category that we deal with with
ag folks i feel like we have some of the most understanding customers that exist so people tend to be cool with you know a little bit more extended time compared to amazon every now and then we get somebody you know that's pissy or whatever but usually people are cool with that people understand how it works people are just happy to get these neat products
From their favorite YouTuber or whatever. So we have very little trouble with, you know, customer issues. People are, I mean, just this category of people are just good folks.
I would agree with that. And they absolutely love to just call and chat with you on the phone.
Yeah.
Bro.
We'll talk to people. Yeah. Sometimes somebody, some old timer I call, we'll be on the phone for 20 minutes just like. Hey, did you see Zach's video the other day? Yeah, man, I saw it. Oh, man, that guy, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Then they think you're the other brand. It can be anybody on the website. I'm like, oh, actually, I'm not the Welkers. Like, I'm not. No, but, well, so-and-so is selling meat over here at this market. And I'm like, that's not us. But, like, I mean. It's fun.
It is funny. It's fun to talk to all those people.
Yeah, it does.
It makes your day go by. Well, what's that like working with all these celebrities?
I don't even think of it like that. Isn't that weird? They are. I know. Right?
But we completely get it. We get to interview. We get to spend hours with them. They come to the after party. They hang out, and they're real humans. Yeah.
It's the same. I mean, I would say it's the same as what I said about the customers. Like, the folks who are in social media and YouTube and whatever in this category, they're just good folks. There's not any of them that we've run into that we would be like, I wouldn't have a beer with those guys.
So every business is trying to make money. What's the future look like? I mean, you've grown it from your basement to a shop and a handful of employees. Do you want it to be larger? Hopefully, maybe, maybe not.
Yeah, I'm torn with that because we want to get bigger, but we want to make sure that we still are able to provide that really good customer service. Also, you know, the next step is getting into a bigger facility. So it's like, you know, a big industrial building somewhere or something like that, which I'm torn because right now we're at the family farm. That's where we work every day.
It's quiet. You know, the dog's coming in and out of the door all day long. You know, mom's next door. She comes over and bothers you about whatever, maybe brings lunch, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's like that day-to-day is so much better than being in some industrial park somewhere pumping out T-shirts, you know. So it's...
It's a trade.
Yeah. I mean, we definitely think about it. I mean, we definitely, we need to grow. We want to grow. There's a lot of things we could do. Like the Stock and Rod brand is new. I want to grow that. I want Farm Focus to also, just itself for that brand to continue to grow and be something cool, you know, that it can stand alone if it needs to. There's a lot of things, you know, that we want to do.
But right now, I mean, we're doing good. It's fun, you know.
So obviously you do hats, shirts, coffee. No, coffee cups, things like that. But is there some weird items you do, like swag items?
I would say the one that is different is we cattle slappies. We ship those.
Oh, slappies. We interviewed him and that's where we learned about slappies. What's a slappy? Shorten sticks? It's like a flag.
It's like a flag on a bendable. Those things sell really well.
They sell really well. I'm shipping slappies all the time.
We need five slappies then.
Cole's pretty innovative. He looks at a lot of stuff. We do vaccination coolers with him. There's vaccination coolers on the website. One of his partners...
Well, Zach had a bobblehead for a little bit.
Yeah, the bobblehead thing was funny. Yeah, we had these bobbleheads custom made. Like somehow I came across somebody that was doing these. It was some dude in New York. I contacted him. He's got a factory in China. They started making these things out of clay, and they were sending me clay pictures like they're hand molding Zach.
And I sent it to Zach, and he'd be like, ah, you know, I need him to change my sunglasses a little bit or whatever. You know, like they're doing this, and then they're hand painting them, and then we get a picture, and it's done, and I'm like, this is hilarious, dude. And he was like, he was on board with it. You know, at first we got them all and I showed it to him and he was like,
Ooh, I don't know if I want to sell those. I mean, it was him. It's him a hundred percent.
And we're like, no, you're selling them. We bought them.
Those things have been a game for like the last five years. Yeah.
They've just been sitting. Cause he got weird about like, I don't think I could sell myself.
And I don't blame him. Like it is strange. Like you're selling a little thing of yourself, but, um, we had a lot of fun with those. We just sold the last ones at foreign progress a few weeks ago. Yeah. And we've just, they've just been kind of fun, but I don't know what else would be different.
Can you do, like, one-offs? Like, you know, my knife has a brand on it. Or, like, a seed company. Like, can you do that kind of stuff? Is that, like, laser?
Yeah, I mean, any of that stuff is possible. Yeah, I mean, there's companies out there, you know, just a matter of finding who's willing to do those kinds of things and who's willing to partner. The downside in the merch game is that when you get into that full-on custom stuff, you end up having to get some kind of quantity. Yep. You know? So you've got to get a ton of stuff up front.
And then you've got to figure out how to sell it. So wear the T-shirt and the hat thing. Like we talked about earlier, we're making most of those one by one by one, so it's very easy for people. There's not a big inventory investment. It's just kind of you're investing as you're going.
So obviously, Zach is probably the number one seller, I would assume. He sells the most on the website, yeah. Who's second?
Current second would be Larson or Colesani.
And then Cola Cornstar?
Cornstar does pretty well as well. Yeah. Dr. Hake, Cafet, Marissa Hake. I don't know if you guys have met her.
We haven't. I was looking through who we've had as guests on the podcast. And I was going through who you have on your website. Yeah. And that's one we've never interviewed. Yeah.
So she's actually not on YouTube. She's really big on Instagram. And she... just has decided she's not going to do youtube it has a huge following and obviously she's a vet and does something else i forget what else she does so they they own a uh that black label oh okay yeah um cattle so black black label farm um I almost feel like her Instagram stories are basically her YouTube.
I mean, it's lots every day, and it's so good. It's entertaining to see what she does.
Another one, obviously, is Welker's. They're big on the website. How does Sharky's stuff sell? Man, Rob does good, but here's the thing, and this is what I tell everybody. What we do is we make sure that your customer gets a really good product and gets good service. We don't sell it. We're on social media.
We'll advertise it here and there, but we can't have even half, even a quarter of the impact that you can have. So if the influencer, if the brand decides they want to advertise it, they're going to sell it. Rob, solid dude, doesn't advertise it. So people come to our website and they see the stuff and they'll buy it. Got to get them there. Yeah, if he talked about it.
And that's the other cool thing about our website is that it's become like this forum for these ag brands. So, you know, you talk about Zach, like a lot of people are visiting the website to see Zach's stuff. They know it's there. But then they see, oh, this exists and this exists and this exists. Probably 60% of our carts are multi-branded.
That's what's so awesome. It's kind of like a one-stop shop. That's really cool. Yeah.
That's what's cool about it, though, too, is like, You got to wear clothes, right? It's going to be expensive no matter what. If you like these people, you might as well support who you like.
For sure. And honestly, our prices are super competitive. We could charge another probably 20% over what we charge right now. But it was decided early on that we want to make this stuff as affordable as possible. There's a lot of kids that are into these brands and they want to get something and they don't have a ton of money or whatever. Maybe some rural folks that don't have a ton of money.
We want to make sure that we try to make it as accessible as possible. So that's always been that.
So you've got a lot of big names, but there's always the next big name. Who are you chasing? You drove all the way to Minnesota to meet up with Millennial Farmer Zach.
Yeah.
Is there the next big name that you're chasing?
There's always new ones out there. And one of the things that's cool, like we talked about Cole Sonny earlier, He contacted us and he said, I want to be on the website. I want to sell something. When he did that, he was very small. So we've been with him from the beginning and he's gotten big. So that's an awesome success story. He's done a phenomenal job.
But when I look at, I always try to pay attention to social media, obviously. And there's a few folks today that I've been messaging and just trying to get their ear and try to talk to them to see if they want to do it. The biggest one, and you guys know who it is right now, who I'm hoping that someday we can work with, is that little John Deere boy, Jackson. I just texted his dad.
literally sitting here i'm like yeah does he have an apparel line yeah and you you've talked to him so i think it's his mom i don't know for sure but we've been messaging a little bit you know over email we were supposed to meet at farm progress it didn't happen but it's brands like that that we see and we go it we want to make sure that everybody's on the website is you know the same of the same state of mind you know we all can easily work together they seem like good folks it's not just about you know trying to make some money it's about working with good people and they seem great
So I think that would be a fun one, you know, amongst a number of other ones. On the stock and rod side, I'm talking to, you know, hunting personalities, fishing personalities, you know, the people in that space all the time, trying to get people to come on and give us a shot and let us try to help them with some merch.
We were on a sugar trip with Roland Martin's son. I can't think of his name. Steve? Martin? Big fisherman. Yeah. Okay. That's right. At Lake Okeechobee in Florida.
Yeah, like competitive. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Very, very well.
I mean, does really well at tournaments. Land Trust has swag. We interviewed Land Trust VRBO for hunting. Do you have any companies? Is there any companies? Yeah.
That's a great point. I mean, there is a couple of them that we work with. The biggest one would be probably the Red E brand. So I'm sure you guys have seen some of their stuff. They work with air seeders. They rebuild air seeders. They're up in North Dakota. Wow. Solid folks. They contacted us early on, wanted us to help them with their merch game. They have a store on the site.
They buy a lot of product from us that we just direct ship to them, you know, that they use at their shows. I think they're at the Big Iron Show right now. And they travel around to some of these. So there's a lot of just corporate brands that we work with that we help with that as well. Cool. There's also, and this is another good point, there's also a lot of companies that we work with
who have their own website. So they're not on farmfocus.com, but they have their own store, and we're on the back end. So they're selling all their stuff, and we're getting the day-to-day orders on the back end, and we're fulfilling them. So we become, at that point, a spot to do the production and the shipping for them.
Gotcha. There's Q. You could do his swag. There you go. Quentin.
Absolutely.
Have you ever fired a brand?
Oh, boy.
You don't have to say the brand.
I don't know if you'd call it fired. We've talked to and decided.
There's definitely been. So one of the things that we try to uphold is the activity on the website. Because, again, we keep talking about Zach. So if Zach's going to sell X amount of items per month, And we have somebody on the website that's only selling two. It's not fair. No. You guys are selling more. It's four instead of two.
No, this is over like. That's double.
And obviously we look at like the activity. Like what kind of effort are they putting in? And you can pretty much tell at some point when somebody's just like. They must be done with what they're doing.
He's going to fire Sharky. You heard it here first. I just wanted to know how close we were to getting fired.
No, we've had some... Well, we've had people leave that decided to go with other people.
We've had some of these brands that we've had conversations with and been like, hey, are you into this or are you not? And they just don't really have much to say.
But it's always ended well. We've seen them at shows.
They're like...
If there's anything on your shelf that was already printed or we've had bulk stuff, they'll buy it. We haven't had anyone.
And on top of that, we've had brands more or less fire us, you know, where they've been like, hey, this isn't working for me anymore. I want to go do something different.
We're like, okay, can you tell us what we could improve on? And sometimes we don't hear.
I had, as a company owner, I had brands just send me, like, Like, hey, we took your logo from your website. Here's a couple hat ideas that we had. And sure enough, I was like, okay, that looks pretty cool. Yeah, let's do it. And so I didn't even know I wanted it until they showed me how cool it could be. And then so actually sending out some samples, I thought that was pretty cool.
But one of the things I was looking for is I had swag for pocket knives like Corey's talking about or tumblers. Uh-huh. And then I had a different company for stickers. And then I had a different company for shirts because I wanted branded clothing that was Nike or OGO or Under Armour or North Face on my jackets. And then I wanted Spyder. And then that company didn't carry it.
So then I went to Spyder Gear. And so then I ended up working with like eight different companies. And I was like, dang, if I could just get one. that had all the same stuff that my employees could have a back end to buy their own stuff, and my people that wanted to buy any swag, here's what you get on the front side.
Do you go that corporate level, or are you still small enough and home shop that you don't hit that corporate level? Because most of the guys that I've found that can do that, they're awful big.
Yeah, I mean, I'd say we're probably in the middle somewhere. We do a lot of that big stuff, but what it comes down to is what we were talking about earlier, is how much you're willing to buy. Gotcha. So when we've got to get that full-on custom stuff, like, If you're willing to purchase 150 of these, I can get them done for you. Got it.
Yeah, whatever that ends up looking like.
Yeah.
If you want those fancy jackets, Ariat jackets or whatever, we'll do them, but it's going to be X. Yep. I mean, I'm excited for the conversations that we get to have because these shirts are fun. Yeah. And full disclosure, they didn't print them.
Yeah. Because this is called sublimation. Yeah. You guys probably don't do sublimation. Not in the house.
That's pretty high skill.
Probably done in China.
But I'm excited because the number of people that walk by. I mean, today we kind of helped coordinate. So we got more people wearing the shirts than just us. Yeah.
Yeah.
Somebody even got in free today wearing one of our shirts because they remembered us walking in. And they're like, oh, no, you're good. We saw you before. And the fun part is you understand the brands that we work with because we've had this conversation. This is the first time our audience is hearing it. But we're excited to have more designs come out.
And we're excited for you guys to be able to put those together and help roll those out. And that's the fun part is you get it.
Yeah. Yeah, it's what we do. I mean, and we enjoy it, you know, so. We do our best, and like you said, creating those new designs and having an eye for that stuff, and it's just fun.
Have you seen certain people have to have a certain number of followers on socials to make swag before people will buy it? Like, is it, I have to have 50,000, 100,000, half a million?
I think there probably is a number that you could put to that, but more of what I'm concerned with, it's just like when we started with Cole when he was so small, was just figuring out how engaged that person is. Got it. Yeah.
And most people are going to say they are. Sure. But like, let's actually see what happens in a few months.
What's funny is most brands will start with, you know, they have a YouTube channel or whatever. And they're like, everybody's telling me they want a t-shirt. Everybody's telling me they want a hat. All I need to do is just get these out. They're going to sell like crazy. Every single time we get them out and it's just like, you got 10. Yeah.
We were like opposite. I don't know if you want to take us. We don't.
So we just literally wanted the opportunity to do it for us. So we can send, you know, we have a guest on. Yeah. They never come to the studio. We don't have to physically handle something. We can let us know and send over. It's easy. That's the plan is we continue to get more organized. Yeah. That's our goal for the strategy is the thank you sign. We love our audience. Go buy it, please.
Are they going to print a shirt that says Iowa corn is better than Nebraska? We can make it. I mean, it might be against their policies. It's probably in their policies. Is that against the policy?
Who's going to preface this here? Little ears, big ears.
I mean, I'll be honest with you guys. We're excited to work with you guys because, as I said before, what's most important to us is working with like-minded folks. And I have a lot of confidence in what you guys are doing as well. So it's just, it's fun. And it's also a little bit of a change from what we're traditionally doing, you know, like with these sublimated shirts and so on and so forth.
Well, and he listens to podcasts all the time. And I was like, who are these guys? Like, I don't, again, I'm not from this world. And I'm like, okay, all right. I like this. Yeah. I mean, not like I have the final say. He does.
I hope Rachel really hones us in because we have a lot of cool ideas. We're really great at like spitballing and like we just never can get them
Just like you guys said, you start off a lot of different directions.
It takes time. It's not going to happen overnight. None of this stuff...
is super duper quick and a lot a lot of people feel like you guys maybe feel bad that it's slow but then we have the flip side where people are like we want something tomorrow and you're like yeah bro like you got to slow down because we don't even have a logo like you know right so you kind of almost have one or the other and it's it's okay you know it works out
So one of the cool things you guys do is you give back quite a bit. You guys just did a campaign over the 4th called the 50 Mile March. Talk about that kind of stuff that you do.
So my father was a police officer. He was 36, 37 years, somewhere in that range. So I grew up in a law enforcement family. He was also a volunteer fireman, a paramedic. My brother... went to the Air Force. My grandfather was in the Air Force. So those things have always been close to home. Also, the town that we went to school in is the home of Offutt Air Force Base.
A lot of people are familiar with that. It's the home of STRATCOM and Strategic Air Command and all the things that go along there. So we've grown up around the military and first responders. So it's always been an important thing in my life. I think even this morning, we were talking about our son and And jobs and our kids.
And I was telling Morgan, I was like, if I could rewind 20 years, I'd probably get involved in something like that. I probably would have a completely different path. Today, I'm on the local fire department. You know, that's fulfilling for me. So it's a passion of ours. So we figured, man, we've got a small business. You know, we're making some money. How do we give back?
Not only to the local school, which is super important, but to those causes. So someone like Zach, huge patriotic guy, he loves the Fourth of July. That's his favorite holiday. You know, so him and I are chatting and he's like, every year, let's do something around the Fourth of July. So that's what we've always done.
It's been a fundraiser for some kind of cause that has something to do with the military and with veterans. The past few years, we were working with the Farmer Veteran Coalition. So we're raising money for them. They're helping veterans get into farming and getting them tools and equipment and so on and so forth. This past year, we interviewed a lady named Kim. What's her last name?
Cavallis, I believe. She owns a brewery in Nebraska called Nebraska Brewing, and she is on the board of the 50 Mile March. So the 50 Mile March is an organization that does this walk from Lincoln to Nebraska, 50 miles over the course of 22 hours straight, and raises money for homeless veterans, for mental illness, and for housing, to help put housing together for them.
Morgan is super competitive, and we interviewed this lady, and she was like, I'm doing it. And I was like, and she's looking at me and I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm not, I'm not walking 50 miles. So she starts training for it. And we decide let's get the community together because we have to raise money for this thing. It's a fundraiser. So they only allowed this year, 150 walkers.
Morgan was one of them that qualified and we had to raise $2,500 minimum. If we didn't raise it, it's coming out of our pocket because we made the commitment. And by way of our, our podcast and our farm focused brands that participated, which a bunch of the brands stepped up and said, hey, I want in. $5 of all their items got donated to this. We raised, what, $4,700, somewhere in that range.
That's close, too. Yeah, for the team. Yeah.
That's great. Yeah, so Morgan went and competed. It was pretty crazy. It's a competition walk? Yeah, so I guess you wouldn't call it a competition in the Olympics? No, I know.
You said competition.
I'm like... Yeah, it's not so much a competition.
They call it a march. I mean, we were in formation. You're walking with your platoon. I mean, it's very military style, and so it was very orchestrated. Yeah, it was a long 22 hours of 50 miles walking, and there were stops in there, and... Um, yeah, feet were pretty sore afterwards that the heat was like intense.
It was like 102 for, um, that was the highest, this is their fifth year ever doing it. So, um, it was, but really I fared really well at the end. Looking at some pictures that people posted and hearing some chats, I'm like, all right, like this wasn't I mean, it was tough, but it wasn't I didn't.
Right.
I wasn't as in bad shape as other people. And so, yeah, I said I'm going to do it again next year. But I feel like every Fourth of July we've picked a different.
uh group i don't know if we're going to do that again but then on our website we have the corporal dagan page foundation and we work really closely with them they are in our community and that was um one of the fallen soldiers of fallen 13 from the afghanistan pullout dagan page He was one of them. And so that family, we're really close with them. And so they're on the website, on both websites.
And they do a decent amount of merch. And actually, we have their big golf tournament Friday, Saturday, and Sunday coming up here in a couple days. Cool. So we do a lot with, I say, military organizations and first responders and stuff like that.
Always been something that's important to us. And if we can leverage the community... The community is always willing to help, and they come in big, and we help these folks out.
Wow. We're happy that you do that.
I mean, if you have a platform, like a little bit of a platform, right? Like, why not? Like, help something or do something for somebody else. That's kind of just the way that we have always run.
It's very fulfilling knowing that you have a platform and you can do something. We did a swag merch auction, right? Is that what we called it? That was wild, yeah. And it was like our first year of the podcast. First year or second year? First, second year.
It was 2021. First year of Farm for Fun.
Yes, for the Travis Burkhart Foundation.
So we thought it would be kind of neat. We run into these guys, and the Burkhart family story is Travis has a debilitating accident.
Couldn't occur accident.
Yep, had a brain injury. And they created a foundation that helps pick up where insurance stops.
Okay.
And they're doing this in his honor because Travis is still alive, still functioning, still being, you know, as a human, doing what he can do. Yep. Just has some physical limitations. Sure. But they didn't want any family to feel what they felt. During this process, after Travis's accident, they retired. Travis's dad, Mike, and his dad retired and they had a retirement sale.
Well, this was when TikTok was really blowing up for agriculture during COVID and a little bit after that. And a lot of people from TikTok were going to go out to that farm sale in December and support him. We weren't able to go. It was podcast related, I think. We couldn't physically go. We felt so bad. A way to say, hey, we support you, but not.
We got everybody together because everybody had a farm t-shirt that we knew and branded hats. We said, send them to us. We will create an auction because Dave's got an auction platform. And we'll just see how much money we can raise off these donated items. So we were getting hats and t-shirts and all of this cool stuff. And then it went beyond that.
Yeah, we had a car donated. Oh, my gosh.
$40,000.
How sweet is that?
And so the Burkhart family came out. We had a gathering at Dave's shop. Wow. Corey and I, we had to now ship all this stuff that was in my basement.
Oh, no.
Because we shipped it all to my house. And then it was, okay, you bought this item and this item and this item. You got a Lower Farms hat and a Katie that Farms.
And those were easy enough. It was the, here is the Adirondack chair that we built custom for you that we got to ship to Indiana. So we've done it once.
And out of almost fear, we've never done it again. We made. Yeah. Because we don't think we could replicate that.
That impact. Yeah. So we made like custom packages, right? Because we got so much. So it would be literally like a shirt, a hat, you know, all this. And people were, we had to go through and physically put in a description for everything. And someone might have bought this one of these packages for 10 bucks, like really a good value.
right and then three t-shirts two hats and some of the people were complaining about like they got their own color shirt or whatever like that and i was like stop i was like come on we don't do that this is not our job yeah there's some people you're just gonna please it was uh a very big weight off our chest when we got done with that we're very happy to do it yeah yes very big because it's for a good cause but you didn't know all the
Ins and outs. I mean, Tanner and I were in his basement packaging stuff. For days and days. That's not what we know, you know. Right. But I did download, like, the USPS app or something and was, you know, doing weights and all that stuff in the basement. So we didn't have to do it.
And poor Dave. Poor Dave is going through how do we charge him for shipping. So they pay for the auction item. But then we had to quick get his wife what the shipping was going to be based upon the size of the package we were using. Oh, shit. So it was a learning experience. We would do it differently going forward if we ever did it again. We would use a ship.
So you guys know what your shipping is.
Shipping saint. Send them a bill. You never know what they're going to buy yet. And so when you buy it, well, then you have to say, oh, they bought that item, that item, that item, that item. Okay, now let's box all those items together. And what is that way? And what size box is it? So you can't just say it's this much shipping.
on one item because we don't know you can generically do it but then you're going to overcharge everybody 10 bucks an item yeah you know and then it's right whatever yeah so we got to wait until you package it together that's why there's almost a second go where then you send them okay now i got all your stuff together of the 25 items you bought here's what it's going to cost for shipping here's the text message sent to you now if you'd like to pay for it game on yeah let's go that's an interesting concept
And it works really well. I like it that they send a text and an email. The whole blooming works. But, yeah, they don't have to contact them again. That's where these guys, we didn't have that before, and it's a struggle.
And I think to your guys' point where you're talking about that fundraising that you did and what we've done, that's, again, that's one of the best things about this community. I mean, these people come on strong. You know, when you bring that stuff out and you start talking about trying to help someone, you know, our folks show up. Talk about your podcast a little bit.
We've been doing our podcast for a little over two years now. We call it Common Folk. It really just started out of this, well, a couple of things. One, you know, everyone wants more content. So we're like, all right, let's create some more content, drive some more traffic to the website.
But more than that, like I listen to a lot of podcasts and I listen to a lot of talk radio and so on and so forth. And especially with the talk radio and the news, I'm just getting tired of, you know, the slanted views and the agendas and all the things.
And I thought, man, where can I go to listen to some common perspective, like the silent majority, the folks who we deal with every day, who aren't loud, you know, who are all just talking within their own communities and within their own circles, but what they say makes sense. You know, and again, it's a common perspective. So that's what it's been built off of. It's a common folk perspective.
We talk to
entrepreneurs we talked to farmers we talked to ranchers we talked to police officers our episode that we that we put out this week was a re a replay from a little over a year ago with a police officer in a town close to us actually a kid that i grew up with that became a police officer and his primary role when he started was a school resource officer so we've recently seen some of these school shootings and we thought man and and school resource officers were involved
So it's time to relaunch that. It's time to get the common folk perspective on school resource officers. Let's have a real conversation about that. You know, so it's those kinds of things. Some of it's serious. Some of it's joking around. The week before.
Yeah, it was just us.
The week before, what did we do? We talked about late night TV. We were talking about. You guys are probably too young. You might remember Tales from the Crypt. Do you remember that? I actually remember that. We were talking about that.
I didn't know what they were talking about.
We were talking about stupid late night TV shows. You know, just fun conversations.
And he's wanted to have a podcast forever, I always say. As cool as people do.
well but i'm the one that was like no what no don't now no and he wanted to have it at the house and i'm like we just got the shop out of the house i want to leave the house the house like no kept saying no he's like well i'm gonna do this and i was like well you're gonna find somebody else and he knew he was gonna have this other guy named andy our buddy and then he was like well i'm pretty sure you're gonna do this i'm like
Can't you find another girl?
Not very many people pull it off like you guys do. I think it's super hard to have just a bunch of guys. because I don't know what happens. Something happens. You guys do a great job with it.
Well, we're just extremely good looking.
Yeah, that's probably what it is. Yeah, that's a no. Radio. Radio. So I was like, we have to have a female. Who were we talking to the other day? We did a recording. Oh, we went out to, in O'Neill, Nebraska, there's a place called Handlebin. They make these copper mugs. You familiar with them? Yeah. So they got some super cool stuff. We go out to their shop. We interview those guys.
We're chatting with them. It's two dudes that run the place. And myself and Andy and Morgan, we do the interview. And I talked to somebody who listened to it afterwards. And they're like, man, that was such a good interview. It was so entertaining. That's the first one I've heard from you. And they go, I'm so glad you have that girl on there.
Because otherwise it would have been just a bunch of drunk guys sitting around talking. I was like, yeah, you're right.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I bring that much. You must. But it's a girl voice, so there you go. Tanner's our girl.
Tanner's our girl.
I can't believe I didn't see that coming. I really didn't even see that coming because that's a joke I would make.
We've actually thought about introducing a girl host.
Maybe you could have Rachel be the special guest or something.
She's going to be a guest tomorrow.
Once in a while. But you know what I mean? Like, she could have, like, every once a month.
And we've also thought about that, too. Like, we get so spread out at these trade shows. And then, like, also not just this trade show. We could be at Big Iron, too. We could be here and there. Like, we also thought about, like, having multiple teams. Oh, that's not a bad idea. Like, we're not special.
Well, I mean, yes, you guys are.
Well, the thing about podcasts, you guys know.
Did your mom not love you? My mom told me I'm a special officer. I know she did.
There's a lot of podcasts, and there's more and more every day. Every time you turn around, you guys know. The difference is the people who stick with it and put in the effort. You know, you guys put in more effort, I think, than just about anybody in agriculture, and it shows. But it's sticking with it and continuing to do that work. And then those start kind of rising above.
Like, that's where, you know, where the cream rises. And there's a few of them, you know, that I really enjoy listening to. And then there's so many where it's like, okay, well, what's the next one? Right. You know.
Yeah. We have to work the hardest because we're not the best. But if you consistently do it, like, we'll be there. Right.
I mean, you're four years in, you said?
Five.
Five. That's crazy. That's a long time. Yeah. Two. Two.
Yeah. There are several others that were started and never got off the ground. And I would say they were better. They could have been better. More popular. Yeah.
Oh, really?
You worked harder. There's been more popular people, but it's consistency. Yeah. Like Zach. could absolutely just kill it.
Oh, people want it back.
So bad. That's all every time we're around him. When are you going to do another podcast? They love it, and he just doesn't prioritize it. Which is fine. If you're not into it, we only do this.
It takes a lot of time to hit one platform, though, let alone five, six, and then different venues and media sources for outlets. If he's hitting YouTube, just keep hitting that. Right.
Yeah, it's what he does, and he does it well, and it works, you know.
I think that's great. I do, and I appreciate the perspective you guys have shared. This is a unique interview for us. You're contributing to agriculture in a completely different way. You're still helping agriculture grow and the awareness grow because I guarantee you, you've shipped items to every state, correct?
Oh, every state, all kinds of countries. We ship international packages every other day.
Oh, daily, yeah.
That's really cool.
That is cool. That is fascinating. What's the most popular item? Not like brand, but is it a shirt? Is it a hat? Is it something else? Is it a brand of shirt? Brand of hat?
What's that? Canva?
Most of what we print is a district shirt.
yeah the district brand um i would definitely i would say probably people want t-shirts yeah and this time of year yeah it would be t-shirts and then here in the next month it's going to be hooded sweatshirts oh yeah that's kind of kind of seasonal yeah good hoodie right the uh and like you guys talked about earlier like kind of staying on top of trends the um the crew neck sweatshirt without the hood that's coming back man it's yeah and it's that that's not my thing i love hoodies
but i do too i'm trying to get used to that shirt and that's the biggest thing i made you a crew so why do we like hoodies though because we don't wear the hood up all the time right not all the time no but i think it just i don't know it just feels good it just you do because it's weird my thought process around that is i like the hoodies when i'm outside but if i have to if i get chilly in the house i put on a crew neck okay i go to sit in a chair i don't agree that's why i don't like that either so can we have it's the pocket
Can we have crew neck with the pocket of the hoodie?
I think they do make one of those, yeah. Oh. I think that's possible. Can you also have a chest pocket, too?
Are you listening, Rachel? I'd rather have a button-up. Oh, and a pocket. Oh, really? Like a Carhartt flannel button-up type deal. Oh, yeah. Oh, he wears those, too. A chest pocket on the hoodie.
Oh. Like a Carhartt. I do love the pocket.
Do you guys want three-quarter sleeve, too?
No. Neon Dion was wearing one the other day. Did you?
Oh, when he was playing the Huskers?
Yeah.
Three-quarter sleeve, had like a little V cut out. Man was like, you know.
I remember those from baseball. That was the most annoying thing in baseball.
The three-quarter, yeah.
What is the point of this?
Can you just figure it out? Is it long or is it short? Yeah.
Yeah. That was in that weird phase of Under Armour started coming out. And then you had everybody wearing the long-sleeve Under Armour, which, you know, oh, it's great for, you know, it's not too hot and it's not too cold. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, but try peeling that thing off after you're sweaty. Right, right.
You just turn into a snail, the shape of a snail trying to get it peeled off your body.
Yeah, that's the funny thing about apparel, too, is, like, a lot of people are pretty particular about it. So I feel like a lot of what we carry is...
pretty generic in terms of like your standard stuff you know so people know what they're going to get you know it's not like some special fit or something like that but yeah overall it's yeah because like bigger guys want a different feel than different like smaller people and even ladies it just guys i see want that p is it p at professional fishing gear pfg brand it's got like the vents in the back here it's the button up like southern gentleman type type look yeah yeah right here
Yeah.
You got it.
Nailed it. There it is. Can't even see it, guys, but I'm telling you. I like those shirts.
Yeah, they're great. But I was thinking of t-shirts, meaning like sometimes people want heavier cotton. The bigger guys I've talked to, because they say they don't want them sticking to their bodies. So they fit different, but then like some people think they want them. I don't know. It's just crazy. Like people are not picky, but they are. Yeah. Yeah.
You guys sell those TikTok t-shirts? I don't know what that is. What's that? I was telling these guys about it. Maybe I get in the wrong algorithm, but it's a t-shirt that's more tight around your shoulders and your chest, and then it's loose in your stomach. Oh, it's like the dad bod shirt. The dad bod shirt. Oh, okay, yes.
And then... No, we don't have that specifically.
You don't have any?
Dave's going to buy you some. He buys all the girls clothes. I can't believe, I think we could talk forever. I can't believe we've talked as long as we have, but this was well overdue. I appreciate it. Thanks for having us. And your patience, the way today kind of got SOS'd on us. We don't have a schedule.
It's pretty close to home for us, so it's nice to make the trip out and see the farm show and see folks.
So remind the listeners that are still listening, where do they go to find the gear and support you guys?
So, farmfocused.com. I always spell it for people because it sounds like farm focus. Which is a different website. I've tried to buy it. I can't get it just because so many people do that.
Kenner, you should sell that to them.
It's you?
No wonder you're not getting back to them.
Yeah, that's right. So, farmfocused, F-O-C-U-S-E-D.com. Stockandrod.com is where we have the outdoor merch. And then we're on all the socials and it's just farm focused on any of the socials. So, You can check that out. But you'll see all your favorite brands on there. There's an individual brand tab where you'll see all the farm folks.
And I got to say, I mean, there's a few companies that have popped up since we started doing this. Honestly, we were the original, and we just stumbled into it.
Well, you invented it, I feel like. Give yourself some credit.
I guess. I mean, I think people were probably doing it in other categories.
But you were the first.
And I'm a humble dude. But nobody does this better than we do. So if folks are looking for good quality stuff that you can be happy with, that you'll be proud to wear, we've got it. So come check it out.
Yep.
That's great.
There you go. That's why we're there. I said it. Took us a while to get there, but that's why we're there. Yeah. Well, we appreciate you guys. Yeah, we do. Thanks, guys. Awesome. Corey, what do you tell the listeners? Crack a cold one. You deserve it.
Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.