EP 319: The Ripple Effect with Dan & Julia

0:00I'm Lindsay with Wild Roof Flower Company and I'm Shannon from Bloomhill Farm. Over the last six years we've leaned on each other as we grew our farms into the profitable six figure farms they are today. We want you to join us each week as we have real honest conversations about life and business and we promise you'll leave feeling inspired and your farming toolbox will be filled with actionable strategies you can implement at any stage in your business. Learn from our mistakes as we talk business, marketing and growing techniques to help you create the farm of your dreams. So let's roll up our sleeves and get the dirt on flowers. Hi everybody welcome to another episode of the dirt on flowers. Happy Friday. We have a really great talk discussion just even listening thinking through what this episode would be like has been really like interesting for Lindsay and I just talking through what this might look like to be able to have this discussion with you and so today we're talking about something that's really easy to forget when we're in August. We had a listener call it slow-giss.

1:02And so we're all in August we're busy running our farms getting ready for the fall but the truth is is that this is the easy thing to forget is that nothing in our business happens just in isolation or in a silo. So in sometimes when we're having discussions with you guys we know we're always looking at our problems kind of one at a time so I need to grow more flowers. I need to sell more flowers. I need to hire somebody. I need to cut expenses. So all of these decisions that we make in our farms have a ripple effect somewhere else. So growing just doesn't mean growing more. It means harvesting more processing more more labor more supplies finding somewhere to sell the flowers. There's so much more than just making that one statement that I need to grow more flowers. So today we have some really cool guests. One I know that you guys probably already know because we've had her on the podcast before. The one and only Julia Shanks. And then we actually have her co-author. She has a new book at co-authored with Dan Brie Swa. How do I do Dan? You did pretty good. Okay, okay.

2:07I've been practicing phonetically on here to make sure we got it right. But he's her co-author on their new book The Profitable Farmer. So we're going to talk about how we can use our numbers to look beyond just what the obvious answer is in our businesses and understand what really it's going to cost us when we make a business decision. So welcome, Julia and Dan. Thank you. Great to hear you guys. Yes, absolutely. So Julia, you want to, if people don't know who you are, let us know. And then Dan, you too. Well, my name is Julia Shanks. I'm the author of The Farmer's Office. A page turn a book. And no, you have to get to the end to see what happens to the farmer. But my goal is to help farmers be financially sustainable. And I'm taking a numbers approach to be financially sustainable. And I've been working with farmers since 2008. And full disclosure, I am not a farmer, but I am a former chef. And as a chef, I know what it's like to work on your feet 8, 10, 12 hours a day. I know what it's like to burn yourself and work in a hot, hostile

3:13environment with sharp objects and heavy things. A lot of similarities between the restaurant business and farming. So I just so appreciate all the work that farmers are doing to give us beautiful flowers and delicious food. And I want to help you succeed. I've since learned how to properly cut an avocado since you've been on here last, since you put it on your story. Are you? You did a post on it. And I messaged you and I was like, hey, thanks. I was not doing that very well. So I know it's when people use a knife and they sort of slam the pit in their hand. And it just like it always makes me cringe because somebody's going to miss the pit and they're going to slice their hand and it's going to be awful. I've always tapped it on the countertop. But you do know, there, I had a friend that did this with her fingers. So I always tapped it on the, on the countertop, but it's called the avocado, they call it the avocado cut because you cut a particular tendon where people, like, I know my friend had it. And so it's like, scard me. I

4:17like, I will not. So, but you showed me, I was like, well, that's even safer than what I was doing. I was just, I just switched it up and I've changed it. So I appreciate that. I'm also now scarred. Thank you. I'll send you the proper way to do it. Yeah. So Dan, welcome to the podcast. I'm grateful to have you here. You want to tell people a little bit about yourself too? Sure. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm Dan Breezboa. I'm a farmer at Turner Soul Cooperative Farm. We're a worker co-op with 11 co-op members and then nine non-co-op members. We farm outside of Montreal in Canada. So I'm a, well, our farm grows are getting vegetables and flowers and also seeds. And I'm really work with the seeds, especially. So that's my farming hat. And then I run the farmer spreadsheet academy where I help farmers with crop planning and farm management. And I have one other hat, which is I host a podcast called the seed farmer where I interview different seed growers and talk about seeds. And just yeah, and we're talking about a different book today, but my last book was called the seed farmer about that kind of stuff too.

5:21I, when we were, when I read the book that you guys sent me, I looked you up and saw that. So my, I have this like in the back of my mind, this passion project to have my own solution seed through our farm. And so I didn't realize that you had podcasts. So I need to, I need to check that out because I think that would be like soaking in some more horticulture knowledge of how to's and the things I'm not thinking about. So that's exciting. So glad to have you guys here and get to have this chat today. So how did you mind if I asked how did you two get hooked up with each other? I know Julie, you reached out to him and how did the partnership come about? Well, I reached out to Dan about 10 years ago because the farmer spreadsheet academy, I mean, how can you not be excited about that? And I needed to know him. So I, I reached out to him and we started meeting like every three to six months on Zoom. And then about two years ago, November of 24, so a little more than two years, or no, not even two years ago. I don't even know today's. But Dan was speaking at a conference. It was about an hour from where I live. And even though I just moved the day before, I was like,

6:25I need to meet this man in person. So I drove up to New Hampshire and we ended up talking for quite a long time. And at the end of the conversation, I asked him if he wanted to write a book with me. And he didn't say no. Oh, yes. I love that. Girl, it was about three months before his convinced that he wasn't going to say no. And I don't know if I should ever not writing a book is a lot of work. And it's right with something else is, I mean, Julie is fantastic as a as a writing partner. But it's still you have to be on the same page. And you got to yeah, hard to make that happen. So I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we did it. And I'm glad it's over. Yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I mean, just being in a partnership with anybody. I mean, even when we started the podcast, that's kind of we were just had this idea. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And you don't really think of like just all the kinks and all the things you're like, yeah, we're so lucky that we

7:29work so well together. So I guess the same for you guys too. So yeah, I mean, it is good luck. I don't know that I realized how fortunate I was to ask Dan to write this book with me, but it has been a great process. And we really do think alike, which is it's been helpful. We don't always say things the same way in dance. Like, no, don't think like. Use different words to express the same thing. And it can take us a while to realize we're talking about the same thing. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's me and my husband. We're both saying the same thing just differently. Okay, okay. Well, let's hop into it. No, we kind of were naming this episode like the ripple effect because that's really what it is. And I think Lindsey and I, as goal, obviously, is always we want people to think bigger about their farms, like to see the bigger picture instead of always operating in these kinds of silos. So if when someone's there's listeners out here who are in year one of farming,

8:31there's listeners who are in year seven of farming. So when we're making a business decision, how do we get better at looking like beyond the obvious number and seeing everything that that kind of original decision affects? Like, let's say I want to grow, you know, or I want to sell a thousand more dollars worth of flowers a week. Like, take us through kind of like what that looks like for you guys. Well, I think about it actually, I mean, coming from the numbers side of thing, when I'm working with farmers, I always start with a budget and we'll make a budget and let's say you want to make, you know, a hundred thousand in revenue. Therefore, this is your allocation for various expenses. And, you know, let's say you have 12,000, 12% for seeds and bulbs and tubers. And it's like, okay, well, can 12,000 dollars of seeds and bulbs and tubers actually achieve your revenue goal? Because it's like, we're just sort of making up this number of how much you can spend on this expense. And we need to tie it back to what your revenue goal is. And then we think about,

9:36all right, well, if your revenue goal is a hundred thousand dollars, then what's the labor you need for that? And can that much labor be accomplished? You know, can you grow all the things that you want with the labor budget that you have? So it's like, you can't just sort of take those numbers and like, poodle, we have a budget. Yeah. And we need to take it back to, you know, the field and the sales and marketing team and the labor people, the team management to sort of see how it all comes together. And I think something that I'm really into is not jumping into fast. Like, you want to add $10,000 of sales. Are you at a point where your business is $2,000 of sales? Is it 10,000? And is it 100,000? Because if you're adding just 1% of sales, that's really different than you're adding 50%. And I think the, so there's so many unknowns that you have. And like, just you can

10:36definitely back of the envelope do some math to make sure that it's not like really crazy as an idea. Yeah. But then you have to go through it and do it and figure out the pain points and then reflect on it. And that's part of, it's just as important the reflection at the end or keeping track as you're going along and then reflecting at the end to see what you learned so that you can do better that next time. And because it's a process like, you're trying to set the perfect year, but that year's going to be over. And then you got enough, have enough year yet want to be perfect afterwards or even better. Yeah. But you're trying to have a great year. Maybe. Perfect. Perfect is a really high bar. Very high bar. And it doesn't exist in farming. Yeah. You'll get checked really quick on that one. But yeah. And I think they're, you know, I guess when we talked a little bit before the podcast started just about like people like where they're jumping in from like a hobby farm and wanting to be full time, you know, we're seeing like where you guys seen disconnects from that.

11:37I kind of gave you my answers before, but like for you guys like where are you seeing and, you know, Dan like specifically maybe with what you guys are doing with coaching other farms too. Like do you see that in like the veg side of things or. There's definitely a romance to farming that people want to go and work outdoors and be one with the world. And I mean, I do too, you know, but that there's I mean farming is a craft. It's, you know, it there's so much knowledge you have to do and without even getting into like all the administrative type stuff like just the growing crops, you have to learn how to do it. And I think that people don't realize how hard it is, how complex it is, how much weather makes a difference, how you can burn out really easily. And yeah, people don't treat it like a business right from the beginning. And in if you have savings and if you don't need to treat it like a business, that's phenomenal to be able to do it slowly. But at one point, you're going to have to treat it like a business. And that's something that not all farmers think

12:40of that intuitively. For me, it's hard to imagine not starting out like what's what I'm trying, how much am I trying to make? How much is going to cost me to get there? Is that realistic? And a lot of folks are just, you know, I like vegetables or flowers of this color and I'm going to grow some. And yeah, you've brought up a really good point though that people are just like, oh, I want to be profitable or I want to make some money and they're not specific enough. So if you're vague about what making money is, you know, is it $5, $100, $2,000, whatever. But if you're really vague about how much money you want to make, then it makes it difficult to create a plan to get to there. Yeah. So having clear goals and, you know, that's one thing that we focus a lot on is, you know, making sure that you're clear about where you want to be so that we can work backwards and create a plan to get there. I think that's exactly what we try to like convey to people over and over again, but the fantasy of farming, I think clouds that vision for a lot of people. I think that a lot of people

13:46when they start into this, that the idea of growing flowers and the beauty and they get a little bit of sales, even I did a talk at our Dirk Con conference about target market and like what it really means to establish, do you have a market? I think there are so many places that we've like we've coached people, we've done, you know, consulting with people where we're like, they really are going to have to go, not that you couldn't still have a business, but you need to think bigger, right? You're either going to have to ship flowers or you're driving two to three hours to a market, not to say that you don't have a viable business idea, but being realistic about your market. And I think that's just like one blinder or also like looking at now market saturation in an area and thinking about how not that you can't do it, but how do you differentiate? How are you different than somebody else? But I do think this fantasy farming, fantasy of farming, and especially we call it pixie dust, that's what Shannon and I call it the flower pixie dust, we're just like, oh, it's like scabiosa and it's like, at the hell

14:48was scabiosa? I'm not growing, I actually like my scabiosa this year. That's what happens in farming. We're done with it and then we just, yeah, we swear back to it. Yeah, it just depends on, but it's like, you know, we just talk about like you do, you have to look like pixie dust and we just float and we buy things and seed catalogs with no sort of plan to it. So I think this idea of the ripple effect is, it's sort of just like really puts you your feet on the ground, brings you back to reality a little bit and says like, you know, okay, like, let's say I need to start growing more, like what else does that affect? You know, not just saying that you want to scale, but like where else does that, what else does that affect? So, so quick question. Do you find, Lyndy and I, we see this a little bit, but people are really focused on their revenue number as opposed and then plus add in like marketing from coaches and all that saying, oh, like we're, you know, we're making, you know, over $500,000 a year doing this one trick and stuff like that. So there is a huge focus on

15:52the revenue piece when really, you know, we're profit first girls. So yeah, yeah, we're on the planet's profit first. Yes, revenue is, oh god, now I'm going to forget it. Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. Yeah, I love that. That's from the book. It's true. It's so true. And I mean, you talk about adding $1,000 worth of sales. It's like, well, what's your cost of production? And beyond that, it's, you know, what is your cost to get to the market? And if you now also need to add a new market because you have more product to sell, it's not just your cost of production. It's also your cost of sales. Yeah. And the additional labor. So there is that ripple effect and $1,000 in sales doesn't mean $1,000 in your pocket. Yes. So that's an example we see a lot from people. They just say they're selling out every week at their market. And they say, okay, I need to grow more flowers because I'm selling out.

16:56So what are some things like if there are plenty of people listening to this and they're like, that's me, like, I know I'm saying no, like I say this all the time, I really don't want to be in position to say no. So I'm saying no, I need to up. What are some things that they should be thinking at? What are numbers that we would once want to look at first? Give me a little deep dive into like that scenario, what somebody should be thinking about. Well, I mean, the ultimate, the ultimate answer is that you need to do a cost of production analysis. And that's really Julius Wheelhouse. Yeah. But I think at the beginning, you should be thinking about how much growing space you have. Like I just, I do a simple math of if I want to make, let's say, $100,000 in a year. And I have two acres. I got to make $50,000 in acre. And then I can break it down by the number of beds. And I can figure out how much I need to make. And that's probably something like for a hundred foot bed, if I can make somewhere between like 700 and 1200 bucks after that, a hundred foot bed, I'm probably going to be okay. You know, you can definitely make more or less.

17:59So that's just a starting place I would think about. But something that's not a number I would think about is do you need extra infrastructure to do it? Like, are you going to need a cold room? Are you going to need to have a tunnel, a greenhouse? Because that's a whole like a bed and a greenhouse. Got it has to make more money than a bed that's in a field. And another thing is, do I hate this crop? You know, it might be really successful. But if you hate something about it, you know, it could be the smell. It could be the way it feels like, is that where you want to put your money? You know, or your time, you know, I think those are some of the things to think about. And that's like a first filter when you're going through the crop. And if you can make it balanced with that, that's really fantastic. But if you're still not able to make a living, you need to go and crunch the numbers deeper. What about for the newbies out there who were like, I know someone's listening to this and they're thinking, okay, this all sounds good. But like,

18:59where I don't even know where to start because I've never, I mean, they're people, there are people getting into flower farming who have not grown one thing in their entire life. Their goal is to be full time and that you get that often. So, yeah. So like, if someone who doesn't have a team to go back to, to, you know, crunch the numbers and stuff, where, how do we get this into a beginning spot for them so that they obviously starting to track so that they can make those better decisions. But where's a good starting point for them? Well, I think tracking is important because if you don't have any historical data, then you don't know your cost of production. You don't know which flowers are going to be more profitable and how much it costs to go to this market and that market. But there's sort of a balance because you can track so many things and you can drive yourself bonkers, track track, all the things. So it's important to, you know, set boundaries about what you can realistically track and focus on tracking one or two things really well and letting go of the

20:01rest and sort of, and just slowly building up your business based on, you know, new knowledge. And, you know, maybe it's tracking the cost of production for one flower and one market just so you know those really well and, you know, you can, you know, track how many flowers you brought and what you came home with and what it cost you to get to the market and start small in terms of getting comfortable and tracking versus trying to do it all. So listening to you talk and say that, is there, can you back that up even further and simplify that saying like how would somebody do a simple cost of production analysis if, because I think people just don't even know how to start to do that. Like if they wanted to track a market, let's just say they, not even a single flower, but that they wanted to track a farmer's market and what they made and the cost of production, how would you walk somebody through who's never done it before through that? Well, I think there's two parts

21:02of that and you just said it, there's the cost of production, which is how much does it cost to get my flowers on the truck to the market and then how much does it cost to get from the farm to the market, stand there, sell, do the things and then get back to the farm. So, you know, first of all, being clear about the two things that you're tracking and you know, I tend to keep it as really simple, it's like Google Maps, how far is it to the market, how far is it back, assign a mileage rate, you know, now that's sort of covers the cost of the car or truck, the gas and maintenance and then how much time are you spending there? I think the biggest mistake farmers make is not accounting for their own time because if you're here, you can't be doing anything else, you know, if you're selling, you can't be growing more flowers, there's limited time in the day, limited resources, so you have to make sure that you're understanding not just the direct cost of driving to the market and paying

22:03the stall fees and the packaging and the paper, etc. But it's also what is your time worth and how does that impact your profit? That's great. And now we tried to, you know, I know for myself when we have a number in our mind of what we need to clear at a farmer's market and so it's the, you know, how much time did my, what are the hours that my employees, it took for them to harvest, the cost of the sleeve, the sticker, what do you know, you could literally go down and break down the fee that you paid at the farmer's market, that's what you pay per week to be there, you know, you could do it that way, see what it costs. I know that it takes us about $400 to like go start to finish through a market and so I know where our starting point is and where we need to be and what we need to have to be bringing it back in. So if it's $400 to go to the market, what is your break even point in terms of sales, what do you need to sell given your cost of production? Yeah, so we, like if I, for me, just to cover my costs, I'm at $400. Like so that would be like that sale, that's flower costs, that's labor to be there. So like if my break even were,

23:06like if I'm at $500, I'm like, oh, I just covered my expenses. So like, you know, we're aiming our spring markets were usually at $2,500. So I know that I'm like in the clear and then in the summer or more at like 12 to 1500. And so we have a few summer markets like I texted Chan a few weeks ago, we just had really bust sales and we, we did $500 and my I was like twitched for two weeks after it, you know, but the thing is we also have records that we go back. We have a single tracking sheet that I know what we inventory every single week. We inventory for for for farmers market. We also track our shrink. So we track our waste and that helps us to know like how many bouquets should we be taking? We always see like a two week drop in there. So we have these like consistent documents year after year to be able to say like this is this is the pattern, you know, like could it be it maybe it's weather some months. So you know, with farmers market there's only that variable. So but yeah. Yeah, you mentioned on the podcast a couple of weeks ago about think there's a two week slump in July, you said? Yes, yeah. So it's like August. And but that goes back to the crop planning

24:12and the budgeting and the sales management that's like, okay, I know I'm going to have that slump. So let's not plan all my flowers to be coming in at the end of July and August, even though the planting time works really well with my schedule. And we just you and like it can be simple. I think stuff gets so overcomplicated and farming and just we just have simple basic records like it's just those notes and then over time it just kind of builds on each other and that little simple note is becomes very valuable. So flower farmers, if you've been looking for a reason to uplevel your farm, invest in yourself and connect with other farmers who just get it. Maybe this is it because sometimes the thing standing between you and the next level of your farm isn't more information. It's putting yourself in the room meeting the people who have already done the thing that you're thinking about doing and getting the encouragement to finally say, okay, I'm going to and that is the reason why we created dirt con and dirt con tickets are live now and right now

25:19you can grab your early bird ticket before prices go up. Dirt con is for flower farmers who are ready to stop doing everything alone learn from other farmers industry pros get inspired ask those questions that you've been afraid to ask and leave with ideas that you are ready to put into action. And we don't just want you to come to dirt con take a bunch of notes go home and forget everything. We want you to leave thinking I feel ready to do this. So if you've been thinking about coming now is the time. So tickets are officially live, the early bird pricing is available. So go grab your ticket, put dirt con on your calendar and give yourself something to look forward to and invest in yourself and something that could change what you do next on your farm tickets are live now. So let's grow like a pro and farm like a boss together. Head to the dirt on flowers. dot com forward slash dirt con 2027 to secure your spot today. Okay, so let's talk about one of all of our biggest expenses, which is labor. So tell me a little bit about in the book like

26:23what are you guys talking about labor? If someone's saying I can't afford an employee we hear that all the time they're like literally drowning and they're like but I can't afford an employee. You know, so what are what are some things that we should be asking ourselves when we're going to either add labor or wanting to make that step to increase labor on the farm? I think I mean whether you can afford an employer or not is really important. And but that's I guess how you start what it's you don't want to just jump in in the middle of the season having somebody without any foresight. And that's really something to think of from the beginning. And if you're you know, there's different kind of personality types you want to business. And if there's you're there's a certain place where you're always going to have a bit of a risk. But can it pencil out or does it not pencil out? And if you have a market that you know can bear a certain like you know, there's a market you can grow into like you see that you can be bringing more bouquets

27:25every week. And it's just money that you're leaving on the table. And what you're what's stopping you is you don't have enough pans to pick the blooms to make the bouquets. Then hiring somebody will mean that you're going to make money that's going to be able to pay that person. And I think you do have to have a plan of that type to make it work. There can be a transition point. Well there's probably a transition point where you are where you don't yet know that that's possible. And you want to get there. But hiring somebody when your body has to be your body. Your business has to be solvent. And you have to be able to afford it. So either coming from your savings or the business. Sometimes one of the things that hiring somebody does is it frees up your brain so that you're able to think about these numbers and think about this path so that you can make it work. And you know some people don't want to work with people. And that's great. But working with people makes you so much more resilient. You know you get sick. You hurt yourself. You know your kid sick.

28:32It's really great to have somebody who's in the field doing the work. Go and market for you. And building a team will create that resilience. And you know it'll create a community that you can interact with. And that'll also help you. I mean what's something we talk a lot about like Julian and I is like kind of quality of life. And a lot of farmers are alone on their field with their thoughts. And they're always. And having other people with you can be you know you don't want to be venting and like emotionally burdening your employees. But it's nice to have people who understand what's going on. That's an interesting point. Resiliency because it is. I mean I really think I have enough room in my life for like three friends. Like Lindsay and then two of my employees. Yeah. It was like my socializing for the day. But it does it does make our because I think where people go wrong where where fire businesses go wrong is that they're just so inconsistent.

29:37You know they can't deliver the same product two weeks in a row or they're just like you know their pants are on fire constantly running around. And a team really does create like a consistency for you and your business too as you get more comfortable growing and stuff too. But if like if my business had to be completely reliant upon me. I don't know what I would do. I wouldn't want to be in business without a team. So we hear from people all the time they're just like I'm a one woman show and I'm just like even when Lindsay and I were working our full-time jobs we had an employees or one or two employees working on the farm to just keep something happening during the day. And really employees should be revenue generators. Not we think that they're just coming out of the bottom line and they are but they should be you know making that revenue plus some. Goes back to understanding your numbers and knowing that okay if I'm going to pay an employee $200 a day or whatever the number is then I need to be able to generate that much profit

30:37from that person. So it's not just oh I need to generate $200 more in sales or you know $1,000 across the week. It's what are they bringing down to the bottom line and you know where the cost going to be for that added production, the added market etc. So not just contributing to the top but also to the bottom line. And just to like tack on what Dan was saying too is the quality of life piece and that's what I love so much about your book because I feel like you guys blend business and then quality of life and it just speaks to the season that I'm in in my business in life. And so that really that really resonated with me but my employees actually ironically had been the ones that were pushing for my quality of life and allowing me they're like go for the walk. Yeah you did. Day off. It's fine. We've got it. We'll figure it out. And so I have this like I said it on our uncut last week when she and I were talking but I said I actually was like just mowing and I got emotional thinking about my team because it's so fun to come to work and I am just like

31:42I how lucky and we all feel that way. We do really farming is really hard and so we all sort of you're spreading these tasks these like hard things out that we're doing and we're just sharing in this experience. I don't know I'm not to be like all woo woo about it but like I couldn't I was this pinch point over and over again in my business and so like every time that I hit this like as we continue to grow or things change in my life and I hit this like oh I'm limited by something I'm realizing like oh I need to delegate or we might need a new employee or we need to you know and so it's just I don't know the employees have been like I mean I we wouldn't be here and even within the podcast Shannon and I are growing and we're realizing like where we're kind of where we need help and where we're subaining and where we need to do better and or want to do better not need want and so you know that come from there we're looking at it of not just from a monetary standpoint of a quality of life is like what drives maybe that more than monetary a lot of times for

32:46me so you said something that was interesting to me how your employees are pushing you to take the walk or to take the break and I think sometimes as bosses managers we feel like we need to set an example and if our employees see us slacken off and it's not slacking off but if it's if they don't see us working all the time aren't we setting a bad example but I think there's also the example of setting boundaries on your time so that you can have quality of life and I have to say it's one of the things I really admire about Dan is you know you set your work schedule I work from you know eight till four I have school pickup or you know whatever and it's like this is when I stop period and that's what really allows for quality of life is being able to set those boundaries and sticking to them. Have you always been that way Dan or did that just like evolve because we just talked about this on the podcast Shannon and I did yeah it was it's a little bit uncomfortable at first where we you know to set a boundary because Shannon was we were talking about the podcast

33:52where it's like you know you're gonna say oh I have school pickup or like mine is that like yeah you have to take max somewhere like my husband gets off work in his home by four and I actually enjoy spending time with him so I want to be I want to be there I want to be there with them and so like it was uncomfortable at first it's like people pleasing but was that born were you just naturally that way or is it what is it born out of burnout. I think I have an inclination that way I like having a schedule to do things working in a worker co-op it made it really valuable in the first year or two one of the ways that we came to be able to like to cooperate more was to figure out a schedule that worked for everybody you know and working like Monday through Friday being the court growing and then rotating a a market on on Saturday and trying to restrict fieldwork in the weekends it just it made it more sustainable for everybody it made it easier as to an agree upon what the work was as opposed to having everybody working always forever and I think as I've got an

34:55older like we have kids now like schedules become much more important you know and it starts off like it is the starting point where I think back when we started farming often the revenue was the starting point of our plan and like how much do we make so we can live and that starting point is okay school ends on these days we have piano at this point we got to get to Badminton here we want to see family on the we like you know this is like that's the starting point that I designed everything I have to meet Julia because we're writing this book and I said yes like these are the things and then and then as the puzzle well like so in my case I work mostly on the seat on the farm so it's a little bit different than vegetable or flower harvest where you're like you got to hit those harvest days for me it's more like I need to do a certain number of field days a week and then they'll be like on a weekly basis I'm trying to balance the weather because I got to do it on dry days so there's a little bit of of that that happens but it's the

35:55schedule that starts off everything and then just making it work and and that's how you know and and even more like I try not to look at my email after about five or six in the afternoon because if something comes up like what am I going to do you know like I cook we got to get kids to sleep you know and then I got to sleep a full night like I don't want to be standing up till 11 at night like stewing about something and and if I write a response then you know separate from judging whether it's a sane response like nobody's going to see it till the next day so I'd rather just see it the next day and deal with the next day on work hours what I'm saying yeah I see like there's a new generation of farmers coming up because the old school farmers still like there's some some in our area they so wear that like kind of a weird for me even badge of honor like oh like I work you know 80 hours a week during this season and there's like this weird in there's like this new generation of farmers who are saying oh no we have a schedule that we can't work over and not that there aren't

36:59times in life where there's a push you know that happens for everybody but just as far as like you know setting the daily standard and then not not feeling like you always have to apologize for it that's what linds and i too like we're you know we're kind of doing this in our like peripheral times so we're trying to find these little pockets of time where her and I can meet together and still have our own home-backed life boundaries because this is what we do it's not our entire identity although it is a big part of us you know that is undeniable in every way shape and form you know but it is nice to have like that separation and when you're it's those beginning years of business where you're like push push push push push where it's hard and then when you get to you're not making money it feels harder and I think that's where people are feeling you know you know completely burn out and exhausted what what's so for sure when you're starting up a business like oh even stepher from starting up a business like we've had a such a rainy season and

37:59I've been going in on Saturdays to work on the farm which I try not to do it's peak summer so that that reality happens but I think sometimes there's an illusion that working more means you're going to make more money and if you work twice as if you work 80 hours every week it's you're not just like to make more than you make 40 hours every week and that's knowing what how to prioritize and what actually makes a difference can mean that you know of those 80 hours that you would want to maybe 30 of them really aren't going to have a big return and um and I mean I I when you mentioned kind of the new generation there definitely is I think thinking about this kind of stuff in the generation I think there's also you know in all the generation there's a way of life that farming is and yeah and and so that's that's part of it you know you get up you have livestock you do your chores you go in and sometimes there's also a kind of seasonality in it that you don't see from the outside like I know dairy farmers you know get up early they work but then they have a good chunk of

39:02mill a day where they're able to do their own things and then they go back and do their chores you know and they might work they have to feed the animals every day of the year but but there's a seasonality you don't see from the outside and sometimes when you come in and you're not part of those traditions you don't know that you're trying to capture that quality of life also and all you just think is I got to work hard to make it happen. Yeah farming farming is something that the work never stops the to-do list always grows and you there is this sort of like you were saying we are extremely rainy too like we are way above average on like with this year and so certain years are just a little bit more out of balance and you know seasonally I think in the beginning when I was working full-time you know I was less balanced in those and did feel like I had to be out with a headlamp harvesting flowers trying to get it done and so I think there are scrappy seasons of the business. Yeah and so then but like having the awareness that you are out of that phase

40:09is where I felt like I was starting to teeter with some burnout where I had to kind of get things in check and now you know my kind of my north star is is that like have is that boundary that I want time off and that I want to enjoy things that are my life I don't do farming you know I do this so that I can do the things outside of the farm and so it can be really hard I mean I I lived on my farm for the first 10 years my husband and I just moved off the farm 10 miles or 10 minutes away like four miles away and so that's been in like a whole new adjustment phase for me but you know it can be very challenging to live where you work and see the to-do list did not feel this constant like you know like jab of like oh I have to get these things done and I think that that's it's just something that it has to work for everybody but well one thing that Dan has commented is that

41:10burnout is the reason why people want to throw in the towel and if you really want to keep farming for the long term you need to find a way to incorporate quality of life and set those boundaries so that you can keep doing this for the long term because you know several years in a row of complete burnout it's yeah yeah yeah yeah but I you know and I think you know for the farmer just starting out it's hard to know what are the things that are going to drive profits and you know Dan was commenting how you know you can work 80 hours but perhaps 30 of those hours don't do anything to drive profits but that comes from experience of you know you have to trial and error things before you realize the activities that are contributing versus the activities that are dragging you down it comes from experience and it comes from record keeping and data analysis even if it's like simple data points that you're looking at you mean to know what like if those extra 30 hours are profitable that what you're going you're saying like if it's I don't

42:14know specifically a flower example but like you might have a bumper crop of you know like we grow when we're planning our carrots you know we'll plant plant a certain number of beds but then we add 30% more because we know there's going to be creatures is going to be weather and usually you're going to lose 30% but some years everything is not this year but some years everything aligns and everything germinates well you stay on top of the weeds the crop is perfect and you just then you have 30% more carrots you know and you can go and harvest all those carrots and you could spend a lot of work doing it but if you don't have a market for those carrots yeah then that's waste of time you know you could donate it to a food bank and that's and that's fine but you could also have them come out and glean and so it's just knowing that it actually matters makes a difference and other things you know you might have crops that pencil out really well but every year it you lose half of it or two thirds of it and the penciling out it's not good the reality is what

43:15you got to base yourself on mm-hmm I can give you a flower example of that so I had this issue where the sunflower we always joke and say the sunflowers always flip and bloom on Sundays and that's when like we try not also to work weekends there's sometimes tulips there's certain crops tulips panties that just pull you in yeah god bless us to get through spring and so sunflowers was one of them for me I thought I could pay someone and say I'm gonna get pay you a minimum of three hours to come in and harvest or I plant let's what's my average I looked at like what am I losing from a Sunday harvest and then planting just a little bit more seed so that we can get those flowers on Sundays so we're not harvesting Saturday and Sunday and I let those flowers just bloom out and I know that that's extra little wasted seed but it's cheaper for me than having you know for me one to worry about but it was just this release for me to not have to think about or worry about it was already calculated in there I know that I'm making money on this crop and that little tiny

44:20bit of factor made a huge difference for me so yeah I think the importance of knowing your numbers goes into all of this too I mean Lindsay and I can make decisions and I just made a decision last week we could have spent like 24 hour more work payroll hours to have the farm like our production field like sparkling clean no weeds not a single weed in sight nothing and I'm like hold pause like this is not affecting the flowers it's more just like giving my husband a twitch you know it's just like that one the paths need like line trimmed I mean there we all know that there's nothing better than a perfectly line trimmed farm you know but it's like do we need to spend those labor hours to do it so this is 10 this is me talking 10 years down the road you know where I'm feeling comfortable and what we do but there is like kind of like a give and take to figuring out what is worth it and what's not and that's where the newer growers I think struggle a little bit

45:21but it's not the answer is not always throwing money to make it perfect what I've learned is like they're I have a certain weed tolerance you know I have certain tolerances of things that are okay to not have to spend a bunch of money to make it perfect and all that's digging into the profit at the end of the day and there's a point that sometimes you should till it in yeah it's done for whatever reason it's under you lose control early you're never gonna catch up and if yeah it's it's just so much when it goes into that crop yeah it like it goes back to like how many times are you touching it you know and and is that we we had a bed that was like that we had direct seeded and then we hit the monsoon season started in Southeast Ohio this year and we just it just took over and then everything was stunted the weeds put pressure to it and you know I just said to them like don't touch it we're done we're just gonna tell it in and and and move on with it because it was not worth the extra money to keep focusing on it so so for labor are you are there certain numbers that you think people should be tracking or

46:24looking at weekly monthly like what does that look like for you I know we'll start with creating a budget but how do they kind of ebb and throat ebb and flow through their season looking at the number like what does the labor numbers look like for you guys when you're tracking that well I think there's I think there's two places that you could be looking at that if you're looking at your marketing then you can try not to too much math here but let's say 30% of your of your of your sales is going to be your marketing costs you can pencil out to see if it fits within that you know can you afford to put another person or two more that budget and usually that's not the place where you're losing you know that usually the other parts in the field and the field what I'll look at and I'm trying to think of my ratios now but you know the thing I'm often thinking about is how much can somebody harvest how much they can be a pack out of the field and I'd like somebody to be making probably like 150 an hour of crop that they're harvesting and

47:31you can kind of look at your total year and maybe you can correct us how we how we how we pencil this out to yeah but you kind of make your total year that you're trying to make and then divide it by that and kind of figure out how much labor you're going to need to do to get there yeah because if you have your hard if you have your revenue goal and then you have your harvest rate you can sort of back into how much labor you can afford but in the labor piece connects through all of it because you know first of all you're saying your quality of life and you're setting your schedule so what do I need to what can I accomplish and if I'm going to do all these things and grow all these things and go to all these markets I need to have this much labor so then you can see well I can do this therefore the gap is that and I need to hire this many people and you can then say well that's my budget obviously it's going to be different you know you can have four or six seasons to the year depending on how you're operating and then you have a budget each week so

48:36you know in the springtime you might have a greater budget than in the fall so you can track your payroll against your budget yeah I think it gets confused it was confusing for me and the early years with even like I knew what my payroll costs were but I didn't really know how to associate it so because like Shannon and I is the way the flower farming businesses we have so many different income streams right so like we have a more higher profit margin where we're doing wedding work and event work where you're getting a higher profit margin versus our like you know bought it we would say like bottom of the barrel would be wholesale so we're talking grocery florist and and so for me I have had to look at like I've looked at individual revenue streams but I also take my total budget for the year and then put it up against a labor percentage and then I kind of know because there's like all my employees are doing harvesting and weeding and so I've sort of had to look at that labor percentage and know like okay this is my budget this is my top

49:38line revenue goal for the year this is my like my profit goal and this is my percentage of labor but that I'm like operating in so that's been that's probably been the last three or four years that I've been doing and looking at it that way versus like you know one because we're such a small company so everybody's kind of doing like a lot of crossover and doing different tasks you know so but I do remind my employees all the time that there is no money in weeding I mean there is it helps you have like a profit but like you know us staying like there's no money in the pathways we say that you know where you're just like maintaining pathways where I'm not making it's the same example as Shannon just date like what are we what's the return on spending 24 man hours on making it making your twitch stop you know there's not so you can just have a cocktail at the pool Shannon for that tell Judd just to get in the pool and you're fine float on a raft yeah he won't see those weeds you're fine I was like you're fine Judd you're fine you know but you you bring up a good point though about the different markets because wholesale obviously you're not going to

50:38command the same price as you do for weddings but you also have the labor so perhaps the production labor is the same to grow those flowers but the handling to get them wedding ready versus you know dropping buckets at a market yeah yeah you know so I think it's really important to pull in the selling costs as well as the production costs because otherwise people are like oh I'm just going to do weddings because I can make more dollars without considering the added labor so and that's not to say people should do weddings but just making sure that you understand the labor commitment for each of your sales channels not just the cost of production and not just the revenue yeah mm-hmm so if someone came to you and said you know I think by maybe adding another Saturday market it's going to generate another $20,000 a year you know but now like every Saturday from May

51:40through October belongs to the you know you've got to hire somebody else like how would you walk somebody through that to decide if this actually is the business is this is this what they want because I think more people I think people often think like more is always better so like how would you like walk somebody through that well right off and I'm not sure if you where you were going with that thought process initially but yeah we we went to market for 16 years it was a major part of our business and around 2018 we actually quick go to market because you know we had we all had kids me and my business partners and the weekends were something we no longer wanted to get rid of and for a couple years we tried hiring a market manager and they were great but you know they don't build the same relationship as directly having the farm to there and then we pivoted away and we so we're in terms of vegetable well it's actually interesting with the market we we were doing vegetables we were doing cut flowers we were doing seeds and some reseal products and so like

52:40if you're selling when I make $20,000 it's good to think about what that breakup is because if you are reselling something you know that's that's cost of goods right away and just thinking about what so in our cases what could you do another way and what quality of life are you compromising so if if you have stuff that you if you need time to decompress you know if you don't like being around people maybe that Saturday market isn't worth it but let's say those things you you have to agree that you're gonna you're gonna make that commitment then you know it's thinking through how many weeks are there in a year and I guess the $20,000 was that net or gross so if it's gross you can think into that $20,000 divided by let's say you're going to let's say 20 markets just to make the math nice it needs to make a thousand dollars a market on average and then you can figure out how much flowers do you need to grow to get there you know how many bouquets is it how many stems

53:41are you gonna have in there it gives you an idea of the space and is that makes sense there because there's a growing component that you have to have if you always have a surplus of blooms then you could see is the surplus you have kind of that scale or is it you have to be growing extra beds because that's going to add you extra growing costs whereas if you can redirect something that's already there and you're just not optimizing well then it's really just marketing costs that you're adding in so those are all different things that I would I would think through but I would also test is that market really gonna bring you that much money are you gonna have to come in and be a $300 a week vendor and build it up over two or three years to get to that part like what is the other folks who are at that market what are they doing how do you distinguish yourself these are all questions that I would ask but I think it goes back to your earlier comment that revenue is vanity profits or sanity that you know what is your goal why do you want the $20,000 in extra revenue

54:42what are you trying to accomplish and making sure that you're actually gonna accomplish that it's not just like oh I want to weigh more 20,000 more in revenue it's like I actually want $5,000 more in profit and you know to get to my overall profit goal and I think this will help me get there I have an employee that I like that I'd like to give them more hours or to Dan's point I already have the blooms I just I don't have the market I could sell more I'm growing as much I just need the market to sell them so you know what are you really trying to accomplish it's not just oh I could make $20,000 but why why are we trying to do this and what else does it affect those that ripple effect that we were talking about which I think you guys like to tie into your book the profitable farmer I mean I think that that's like it really resonated with me and there where you are just treating you know you guys kind of look at the farm as like the whole business and like what do you need it to provide for financially and like what do you want your life to look like and

55:46then how does production sales labor your numbers and all of that work together to kind of get you there and I think that's what you know I think in the early years we're not we're not thinking that we're just like in survival mode but I think the businesses that succeed and do well that are financially and they're they're profitable are looking at that system as like as a whole and and we Shannon I say this all the time with our where we try to be an example like Shannon baby sets on Thursdays for her nephew and I I try to take every Wednesday off I'm taking a month I take a week a month off during even during the growing season which just sounds like crazy to me but it sounds amazing yeah and it's it's those are the things that's like I want to build my business around to do that and so I think that you guys I think that it's going to resonate with a lot of people your book for for all of those reasons so and then it comes back to you know you make choices it's like okay if

56:46I'm going to take a month or a week off every month and that means I need a labor plan that can support that and I need a production plan and you need the production plan to support the labor plan to support the marketing plan but having those quality of life goals helps you achieve it you know to build everything out from there so you can get there yeah if if you're people are listening to this and they've read the farmer's office how is the profitable farmer different is it a different are you writing it to a different audience or what are they going to get here what's the big take take where the hope for the person reading this book well I think about the farmer's office is helping people get to the front date of their farm like here the numbers here how to create a cashflow budget here's how to do financial analysis and do the bookkeeping but I feel like it falls short in terms of taking those numbers from the office and into the field and you know making sure that all the numbers that you're penciling out

57:48in the office makes sense from a production standpoint labor and sales and marketing because I mean you can create a beautiful picture of you know $50,000 in profits and you know 100 pounds in revenue but you need to feel tested to make it work so I think this book actually you know just takes it one step further I think that you know the farmer's office definitely goes deeper into the financial analysis piece so when people are ready to geek out on the numbers yeah but I think that profitable farmer definitely gives a more comprehensive look for the numbers and the farm and when you approached me Julia one of the things you wanted is you wanted like you wanted kind of like real farm experience brought into the book you had worked with a lot of farmers but it's you want to kind of a farmer's eyes as part of that process and because I already work with like crop planning and spreadsheets and you know economics on a farm like it like that was what we were

58:51trying to do is make it practical kind of on a day-to-day basis and because the what you tackle in the farmer's office is really important for really understanding your numbers and it's just how do you apply that in real life a little bit yeah and you actually you bring so many wonderful stories about your farm turn us all to the book and your experiences and I mean you've obviously learned all of this over the last 20 years and figured out the system so it's really exciting that you're able to share all these experiences and insights also I love it I love it so where can where can people when can they get the book like talk about the the details and how they find it all those good things you can pre-order it on a national international website or you could go to our publisher new society.com and you can pre-order our book there it's official release is November 17th but if you go to our publisher they'll send it to October 18th you can get it like a month earlier

59:58yeah I love it I think you'll find that in all places that you can find good books online yeah that's the right answer yeah see we're thinking the same thing we're just saying it in with different words classic example we could not and we'll be happy to drop links if you guys have us for the people know to get it on the episode and everything too so do you guys have any like takeaway advice for farmers or anything that you want to share that we didn't cover or well I think hearing what you were saying about taking a week off a month and take like this can seem impossible to farmers but and you know for sure you have to be able to pay the bills like that is the starting point but it isn't impossible to create drastically different ways that you farm because you get to a point where you're just spread so thin and your choices stop or like crash and burn and there's

1:00:58another choice which is to change your business and I think it's it really it is possible to have a different business and it could mean that you scale your farm down dramatically and you do have another source of income but it could also just mean that you work less for the same amount that you make now and I wouldn't be surprised if you work less for the same amount you actually wind up with more than you had before so it is possible yeah well and I think when you scale back you also are more focused in what you do and you know you're very clear about what is profit driving in my business because I've only got you know 32 hours a week to do the work if I'm going to work four days a week or you know 40 hours or you have to be really focused on what's going to be profitable for your business and not just you know busy work there's one other thing that I thought about early on and I kept forgetting to say it is sometimes there's an idea that you got to go full time to be a real farmer and you know maybe that is really your vision but you can have a lot of the

1:02:04benefits of farming without going all in like that and you have a little less stress and so I think it's okay to start small it's okay to scale as you can and it's okay to stay small if that's actually where you're happy to be so you don't like you know if somebody doesn't think you're real farmer because you're not farming full time don't listen to them you know yeah yeah I mean I've had people just even people here that farm and their big egg right so they're doing row crops I actually had one of them say to my face like oh yeah you're a farmer you know and it was this whole condescending and I'm thinking I freaking work harder than you do I know it's just so there's always yeah it's like we can we can hear there's so much imposter syndrome that they think that they're not full time they're not like absolutely this comes back to I feel like this whole conversation of what we're having today is just hopefully putting like an emphasis on doing what works for you

1:03:07personally the business owner and then creating a business around that and seeing how production and labor and profits and all all of our systems how they all work together to create this and make something that's sustainable for you because at the end of the day that is like that is why we do this and I think probably all of us that have been farming have teetered into the burnout phase of our business and so it's nice to be on the other side of it and tell people and show people that it is possible to to have it feel more sustainable so well juliet tell everybody where they can find you read you know hear about your books website all the places I think the place is the farmers office dot com yeah you can find the book you can find my online courses and resources and then we do have the profitable farmer dot com it may be online now yeah it will be about time this come that we'll make sure it's in the show notes and it's like so Dan what about you can find out more about what I'm doing at dan breeze boy dot com or spreadsheet dot farm you can also find

1:04:12the seed farmer podcast where I do talk about some of the stuff but also about seeds and you can find that on wherever you listen to the podcasts like where you listen to this right now okay we'll link it we'll make sure we get all this stuff linked up for you guys in the show notes too and very grateful for you guys this time and in chatting with us today and I hope you have a very successful book launch it's a great book you guys should be really proud of that project and um it was a fun read thank you for asking me to read it and be ahead of the head of the curve so thank you of course of course so well thank you guys for listening I am sure you got as much out of this conversation as we did we so appreciate you guys listening every single week make sure you give Dan and Julia a follow and check out their books and treat yourself to this one because I think you're going to love it put on your book list your your reading list for the winter to get cured up for the next 27 seasons so thank you guys so much for listening in and we will see you same time same place next week