 Good evening everyone, my name is Isaac Bronco and this is our final webinar in our local meat marketing series and tonight we'll be covering retail inventory management. We have three panelists joining us tonight. James Miyakeo from Barn to Door, Shane Wendell from Wendell Livestock and Glenn Bronco from Bronco Family Land. And we're just going to hear from their experiences with inventory management and some of the tips and tricks that they've picked up over the years and some thoughts that they have over the topic. Like the past webinars, we'll open it up to questions from the audience after they give some introductions and thoughts. And thank you for joining us tonight. So without further ado, I will let James take the floor and I believe he has a short video for us to give up some background information over Barn to Door. Isaac, thank you so much for inviting us to participate today and thank you for everyone who's joining us. It's a pleasure to have a chance to speak with you, but obviously super eager to give you a little bit more of an overview on how Barn to Door we can work with and serve thousands of farms across all 50 states. Farms and ranchers all have obviously played a very important part in our economy, so we're really excited to have this opportunity to chat with you. Let me go ahead and share my screen here and we'll see how this comes together. Perfect. All right, well, you'll see here this is one of our farmers here at the upper left hand side that is Alex Russell with Chucktown Acres and all the pictures in here will be from farmers and ranchers like yourself. Alex himself, he worked for Joel Salton for about five years on polyphase farms before stepping off and starting his own business, built a very successful six-figure business. Because obviously one of the most important things for all farmers is you're here to make money ultimately while your goal is obviously raise great products. Very importantly, actually have a viable business financially to be successful. One of the first things we always ask, like to ask a farmer is a little bit about how much money they're made last year just based on income category and where their goals are in terms of where they want to move ahead. This is all based on USDA guidelines. These are the USDA standards for what's called gross farm cash income. And it's very important as you grow and manage your farm to actually be very thoughtful about like what's your plan if you're in let's say you're in level B or level C and how do you get to level D, for instance, right? And we work with farmers because the strategies might evolve and be different for a farmer who's in level A or level B and wants to get to level E eventually, right? So very important just to be very realistic about what you can achieve. The first thing to recognize as a farmer is that you service buyers. At the end of the day, they are the people who want to purchase your products. If you're selling direct today and you're thinking about going there, the good news is that buyers want to buy your product. In fact, 94% of all Americans right now would prefer to buy from your farm, right? The challenge is it really oftentimes a question of market awareness. Do they know you? Most buyers in America today can name five local micro breweries, right? They know a local micro brewery. They're willing to pay twice as much money for that product versus another commodity beer. However, that's important there is that they know who your farm is, right? So can your local buyers identify your brand? Really important. What we do know is looking at the thousands of farms we work with, we oftentimes will analyze the tactics that the most successful farms use. Probably one of the most important things that we see is brand consistency on all channels. So from a brand's channel's perspective, your consistency across all channels in which a buyer can engage with you is really key. Because you're competing, believe it or not, with big billion dollar brands, whether it be Cabela's, Red Wing, REI, what have you, Tractor Supply. They have a really great brand, but it's consistent, whether it's an email or on the website. Your pricing of packaging also has to be smart. So when you think about your inventory, particularly when you're thinking about livestock, if you're selling beef or pasture pork, what have you. Most farmers oftentimes make the mistake of packaging for other people like them, people with families. But the reality is this one-third of Americans live alone. One-third of Americans live with just two people, and the other third of Americans live with four people. Most importantly is that 97% of Americans do not have a chest freezer, right? So pricing of packaging is really critical. So if you want to be a six or seven-figure farmer, being thoughtful about how you're pricing your package or products is key. And then this third point is really key, which is making your products conveniently available for purchase, right? Because at the end of the day, the buyer is going to make a decision based on convenience. While you might have some loyal buyers who are willing to drive out to your farm, the reality is that most people are going to be looking for something that's available either directly delivered to their home or available for pickup. And I'm not talking about shipping necessarily. I'm talking about like directly available for pickup at, could be at a local school, a church parking lot, or at the local gym, right? If you can invest in direct delivery, that's also proves to be a very winning strategy, right? Farms that follow these strategies on average have grown over 52% per year, which is pretty amazing. So when I showed you that initial set of farm income standards, we've had farms go from A all the way to E. We've had farmers four years ago who are making less than $50,000 a year, who stay now four years later and making more than a million dollars a year. But that's because they leaned into all three of these areas. Now the key is it all starts with your brand, right? So while you have to provide a really good branding experience for people to purchase from your farm on all these different channels, the purchase experience has to be simple and easy, right? They need to be able to see your products and make a purchase. Every one of these channels represents a double digit, you know, percentage of revenue for your farm business. Typically websites represent about 25 to 30% of a farm business. Email can often represent 25 to 30% with the remaining 60% plus coming across social and mobile. But again, it will vary from farm to farm. Behind the scenes when we talk about inventory, this is really critical. The buyers don't care how you manage your products. You obviously care as a farmer because it's really important. But for the buyer, the experience has to be easy. They simply need to be able to point and click and purchase. None of you have picked up the phone to place a purchase or to call somebody at Amazon to order an item. Yet 96% of all American adults have placed an order with Amazon, right? So this is not a new experience. The key is you have to provide the right information to somebody when they're making that purchase and you must make it easy for them to pay with a credit card. I know a lot of farmers are allergic to credit card fees, but the reality is 98% of all buyers in America would prefer to purchase with a credit card. So factor that into your pricing. Just assume that you're going to be paying 2.9% plus 30 cents. That's the standard card fee across pretty much all processors, right? And then make it easier for them to purchase and sign up, whether they're paying in advance or paying as they go. What we find the most successful farms do is they build a strong base of recurring subscriptions because no one's going to stop eating tomorrow, right? And that's great for you as a farmer too, because if you're producing your pasture proteins under regular cadence or your produce or your dairy, what you do know is that those buyers are going to keep eating. They don't, they're going to be six feet underground. So for you as a farmer on the backside, ordering inventory management is probably one of the most important things, right? Because depending on how many head of cattle that you might be taking to the processor or how many bushels you're picking from your orchard, the key is to be able to simplify and make all your inventory available, not only online, but have it reconciled online and in person. So that's one of the really unique things at Barn to Door that we do, is that whether or not somebody purchases across any of these digital channels or if they purchase at your on-farm store at a farmer's market, all the inventory will deduct from a single bin, right? And that's really critical. And for those of you who are on proteins, particularly the ability to sell by weight is really critical because you obviously want to maximize your earnings to the ounce. I'll kind of finish up here just hitting on the fact that when you go into this market, the key here is, again, is keep it simple and focus on increasing your sales with really easy purchase experiences. Inventory management is absolutely at the center point of everything that we do at Barn to Door, and then more importantly is then being able to have those things just be able to pull through and then be able to post your financials into QuickBooks so that you can again manage your money. The last thing I'll just share here, and I'll skip ahead two slides, is that one of the things that we really distinguished ourselves on at Barn to Door is working with a lot of farmers who are highly successful and making them available to you. In fact, you'll see one of the farmers there in North Dakota here right at the bottom, Peter Bartlett with Bartlett Farms, North Dakota, very successful farm, six-figure farmer as well has been highly successful. In fact, they grew over 85% with Barn to Door last year, and that was on top of six figures. They grew another 85%, very successful year last year. The key thing here is that most of you are going to want to talk to multiple farmers to learn the tips and tricks because there is no silver bullet. The reality is that wisdom comes from multiple counselors, but one of the things we do at Barn to Door is we offer farmers like these folks. We have 16 farmers, we rotate them on a quarterly basis that are available every week, every Tuesday and Thursday for you to talk to through a virtual conversation just like this twice a week, every week, all year long. The key is to figure out what's right for your farm. Again, like I said, we often encourage farmers who sign up with Barn to Door to really take advantage of this program because it's a great way to not only get the technical support from our team, but working with other farmers like you who are in your situation to actually be able to go through and address the types of challenges or questions you may have. I'll stop there and we can move on. Awesome. Thank you, James. That was very insightful. Like Dr. Hoffman said in the chat, I was amazed that 97% of Americans don't have chest freezers. That blows my mind. Getting on to our next panelist, we'll have Shane Wendell from Wendell Livestock. Floor is yours, Shane. Alright, thanks, Isaac. I am a member of Wendell Livestock, but I'm here on behalf of Dakota Angus tonight, being a partner with that. And thanks for allowing us this platform to share with you our insight and some of our experiences. And hopefully we can learn some new things this evening. I already have from James. I think I need to learn how to keep my own inventory in my house a little bit neater because we have three chest freezers. So, I mean, we're covering our basis, but obviously we have a little extra inventory that we manage in our house too. So what I'm going to do is do a screen share here. And I got some slides and if people watched the other evening, they're going to see that these slides are a little recurring. Ashley Brunner, the other Angus Ranch, Brunner Angus Ranch, who was our partner and actually made these and I just kind of edited them and jumped in because she's just a whole lot better at advertising and making a slide show than I am. But with that, I'll use these and we'll move on. So we are Dakota Angus and we are registered Seastock Angus breeders and we have production sales every spring and Brunner's have another sale here coming up this summer for Seastock. And so what we do and have in the past is sell our genetics to our customers and specifically on our side, we have been purchasing back calves to feed and we have been feeding cattle to finish since 1997. And so we've got a few years history on how our cattle perform, how they grade. We take that data, we've gone back and tailored our genetics to try to hit that quality mark that we're after to raise as many prime and CAB cattle that we can because when you sell your cattle on the grid, those two categories pay the premium and get you some extra dollars for your product. And so as we started doing that, back in the late 90s and early 2000s, we were getting a $25 premium for our prime cattle per 100 weight. And as the years went by that went from 20, was it 25 or 26? I think it was 26 and then went down to 20. And then in the years past, it's gone to 15. And so we were allowing a lot of that premium to slip and raising the bar and hitting prime and CAB at a much higher and higher percentage. And yet it seemed like we weren't capturing more dollars as we were moving the needle on our quality of cattle. And so we came up with the idea of marketing to the end because as we're all aware when you go to the grocery store or you find a CAB retailer, the retail price has not been going down over the years. The spread has probably actually been increasing. And so the part of the idea was to be able to capture some of that value back and have it traced back to the actual producers of the livestock that our consumers are purchasing and eating. And they know where it's sourced and have a story behind the product that they're eating and feeling comfortable with that. So as I explained before, and Ashley did just the last week who we are, Dakota Angus is a combination of Brunner Angus Ranch in Drake, North Dakota. And everybody had the pleasure of listening to Ashley speak the other week and I am part of when the livestock were in LaMoure, we're in the southeast corner. And we have about 350, 400 Angus cows. And I am actually 100 miles away. We had a large family. We have 12 of us kids. So not everybody is operating the original family farm, but my brother Mike is there and his family. And but we combine all of our cattle and they're all developed bread and same health program exactly the same. And so that's our story on the window livestock part of it. So when we get into inventory management, because that's why what I was asked to speak about, you know, keeping your inventory fresh. And I'm sure a lot of people have heard of FIFO. Obviously, it's good with beef. It's good with anything that you have that has some kind of shelf life or perishable first in, first out. So when you get your product, you put it on the shelf and the product that comes in next goes behind that and everything sells forward. And that's the same concept that we use with our beef. You can't take those deep freezers and fill them up. Sorry. You can't take those deep freezers and fill them up. And keep taking off from the top and expect that you're going to have good products. So you have to have in our small case, some good racks and shelving that allows you to keep moving that inventory forward and keeping your product is fresh. And so you don't have any dated product because obviously with dated beef, you can get freezer burn and you're not going to keep that quality. And that's the last thing we want to do. We raise quality beef and we want to make darn sure that it's staying fresh and it's consistent to our consumers every time they get it. And so that goes to my next slide of your own supply and keeping it fresh. And how do you keep that supply fresh? Because when you feed your cattle and we feed ours in a feedlot, the bulk of those calves are born within 60 days. And so they're going to be market ready in a smaller window than 12 months. And so we've had to be a little innovative buying calves back from bull customers, genetic customers, and that we're a different age. And so they would go in and we've also have several different pens and we've actually fed these cattle different. And so they would become market ready at different times so we can keep a fresh supply of what we have because obviously we want to be consistent and have the same product over a 12 month period, not have all of our animals market ready in a 60 day window and process them all and have to store them for 10 months. That's not our goal for keeping our product as fresh as we can. So we've made some different breeding and feeding decisions that help us keep that product as fresh and current as possible. And obviously time on feed, we all know that cattle have a finite endpoint. You feed them a ration and you can maintain them with that cost money to keep them alive and keep them fed even without gaining it too much of a rate. So that costs money. So you got to plan that in. And that comes down to my next point of the quality of feed. So some of these cattle that we choose that are a little later and maybe under performers that are going to finish later down the road. We'll put a different energy level with those cattle and feed up some of that lower quality feed. So it actually creates that gap of finish time between them, even creates that gap of time and extends that out. So we can spread these cattle out even longer. And those of us that work in a meat lab such as Travis, he knows that the age of an animal that the older they are, the better they grade. And so some of these lower performing cattle don't convert quite as well. But the one advantage that they do have is if they're on feed longer and they're not as efficient in converting, and we feed some of that lower quality feed stuff to them, that they're going to finish at a later age. But the one benefit you get is that you capture on those as they are older, you're going to hit that quality mark a lot higher percentage. And so you can gain some of that value back on quality that you're not getting on efficiency on some of those calves that go at a much younger age and the weight that they're having. So that's kind of how we manage our inventory as it comes through. So we have a steady supply, obviously with frozen beef, that's everything that we sell does have a shelf life. And it does allow you some time. But also the fact that how we feed these cattle, what the age are and the quality of feed and the length allows us to spread and have a 12 month supply. So we never have to go off and be out because if you're going to sell, just like James said, you've got to be consistent on what you have. And our goal is to provide a consistent 12 month product for people to have available whenever they need it. And so feeding and inventory management. Hopefully, as we kind of go through, that's our plan. And that's what we've developed. And that's kind of our process. So with that, I'll stop and turn it over and I'll listen into the next speaker. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Shane. Continuing on, that was some great insight, especially when it comes to dealing with handling the frozen beef and making sure to keep your product rotating as fresh as possible. Moving on, we will go over to Glenn Bronco joining us from Kansas to give some insight that he has. Well, thank you. And it's a great be here and talk about that. Direct marketing, something that I'm pretty passionate about. I'm the fourth generation on the farm here in Northeast Kansas, we're between Manhattan and Tepika, about two hours from the Missouri border, about an hour from the Nebraska border. That gives you an idea right in the Flint Hills. But we're a very diversified operation. And we always have been growing up. We had dairy cattle, hogs, beef cattle. We used corn, milo, soybeans, a lot of hay. Now, our operation consists of beef. We have a spring calving and a fall calving herd in the sheep. Then we have some row crop, mainly just corn and soybeans. We are moving into using a lot of cover crops and grazing those cover crops with livestock. And we started direct marketing actually quite a while ago with our beef. We sell some butcher beef. We don't do anything more than quarter inch and halves with beef. Market some of those calves that we don't, aren't able to market through the sale barn. We feed them out and then sell them. But the sheep, we added that, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago, it is an overgrown 4-H product. The kids started showing lambs and we started keeping new lambs. Eventually it grew up to the point we now lamb out between 1780 years a year. We started direct marketing. Like I said, that's always something that I've wanted to do. I enjoy opening this farm up, letting people tour it, come in and see what we do, talk about what we do. So I always enjoyed delivering the beef. The problem was the beef paid the majority of the bills around here and I didn't want to risk that income. So when we got involved with the lamb, we also were able to partner with the local meat market. And for about three years they bought all of our lambs. We had a deal with them where they set up a price that was pretty good in the beginning of the year. And they paid us to hold our lambs and bring them in and bring them into them in five to 10 lambs at a time and have them processed. They went under after three years, closed down. And one of the owners also owns a processing plant. We talked about it. We decided to go out on our own and direct market. We take our animals down or take our lambs to Yoder, which is about two and a half hours away. It's a pretty good job down there. But we really liked the way they processed the lamb, like the taste of the lamb from them better than anywhere that we found. And we started out small, a friend of ours that does a lot of direct marketing. That's what she told us. We started out selling whole lamb carcasses. And then eventually we got into doing the cuts. We did that for two, three, four years, something like that. And just keeping about 25% of our lambs and doing that. And we would sell out in December or January. This past year we decided that we were going to go into it a little deeper. We kept about 50% of our lambs. The processing plant also added on some storage space. So they had storage space to last. We also have a battery of freezers that we utilize. In the beginning, my inventory management was a notepad and we scratched it off and recorded a new number. This past year we became clients at barn to door. And I do really like the inventory management system with them. It's been a bit of a challenge because we store some here. We have other lamb and yoder and the communication between us and yoder. We're working on it. We're going to get it figured out. But there has been a problem with knowing how much we have in storage of yoder. Shane, I was interested in your inventory management. Sheep, we have a little different problem, especially we raised blackface mainly hemp cross sheep. So we get one shot of breeding them a year. So inventory management has been a bit of a challenge for us. We slaughter everything in a 60 day period because that's the deal we have with our processor. They shut down two different days, 30 days apart and process our lamb. So that's been my biggest challenge. One of the things I want to do in the future is figure out how to have some fall lambing, but make sure the carcass consistency is there. As I've looked at fall lambing, I was afraid that we wouldn't have the consistency in the lamb in the meat. We feel that we have a high premium product. Our customers rave about how good our product is, and we want to keep that. We pride ourselves on that. This year has been a struggle. I've talked to other marketers here in Kansas anyway, direct marketers, and they've struggled. I don't know whether it's inflation. I don't know. Lamb is a high dollar product. We're going to go to some farmers markets for the first time and try to go to name out. We developed a brand program we have here in Kansas called From the Land of Kansas. They help us out tremendously. Most of my marketing is on Facebook. Our daughter does the social media and the marketing for us. We're learning as we go. Like I said, I would recommend to anyone interested in direct marketing to start small, start simple, keep it simple, and learn as you go. Isaac, did I miss anything? No, you should be good. What we'll do is we'll open it up to questions from the audience. We have one here for Shane. You described a chest freezer with racks and organizing. Is this upright or how do you keep product rotating and suggested? That's a really good question. This freezer, if you remember back, I think it was last week that Ashley presented. She is on. I know she is. She can chime in and add to this. And actually, she has the inventory that turns in the freezer, but they actually built a freezer compartment and put a racking system in that. So all of the inventory is stacked up on different levels. And so it all sits flat and it sits in totes. And so that is, it's all labeled. And like she stated last week, we grade all of our beef. It's all graded. And so we also sell on quality. And so we have different bends with a certain grade of quality. We have CAB. We have our prime separated choice and any few selects that we would have, we have very few of those, but if we have one of those, then we'll separate those and also, so they're all broken down by cuts. And so there's lots of bends and they're not stacked on top of each other. And obviously that inventory that's coming forward to the front would be in that first in, first out rotation. And we can track how long that stuff has been frozen also. You know, and one other thing that I'll mention is, is we vacuum pack all of our cuts. And every once in a while, you know, it'll get nicked and you'll lose that vacuum. And so what do you do with that inventory? I mean, that stuff doesn't have the shelf life. If you have air exposed to it and it's not sealed. And so one of the ideas that we came up with, and this was actually Ashley's idea. She's had a lot of good ideas is that she'll have the bargain bent. And so the meat's absolutely fine. You don't wait until you get freezer burn on that stuff. If it happens, you'd be proactive. And she's got a little markdown on that product before it starts to show some signs of burn and get it out fairly quickly. And that's been fairly successful also. So we can kind of mitigate any diminished quality and product and, you know, address that before it becomes an issue. So that's kind of how we handle it. So, and that's our system. Awesome. Thank you, Shane. Isaac, I was wondering if I could just add one thing onto that. Just real quick on top of Shane's feedback. One of the things that we've seen a lot of farmers do and ranchers do is really lean heavily into subscriptions. I don't think any farmer or rancher gets into the business to own freezers, right? Like most of you don't want to keep investing in and expanding your freezer business. But what I can tell you point blank, again, back to the fact that 97% of people don't have a chest freezer is that if you package your products in 10, 20 and 40 pound bundles, 10 pounds typically will be fine for a single person on a monthly basis, 20 pounds for a two-person household and 40 for a four-person household or more. And depending on the type of pasture proteins you have, particularly if you have mixed proteins, what have you, that tends to be a fantastic subscription. We've seen, we've had some really great success with farms who've gone from, you know, trying to move eight to 10 head of cattle and we're just selling them at auction to then slowly moving those into again about somewhere between 30 to 40 bundle boxes a month per animal. And so for, as an example, I can show you an example, for instance, of a farm that's gone to, it took them about six months, but they've gotten now up to over 250 plus subscriptions that are every single month. It took them six months to get there, right? But the beauty of that is, is they've lined up their subscriptions with the processing that they, they pick up from the processor. So all their monthly subscriptions land on the same day they pick up from their processor first thing in the morning and they run their pickups that same day. Nothing goes to a freezer at all. And the beauty of a bundle box is that if you're taking an animal and you can reduce it down to 30 or 40 bundle boxes, small, medium, large, and you've got subscribers, you're already paid up front. You know, there's a guaranteed payment that's going to come to you every single month. And I can tell you, it will change your life. We have some fantastic podcasts which I'll share with Isaac afterwards, where you can hear some interviews with these farmers where it now will send, they line up their kill dates all year. They line up their kill dates out for 36 months in advance. They just line them up and they just keep slowly growing their herd as they grow their subscription base of customers. And the best part about it is subscription bundle boxes moves the entire animal. There's nothing left over. Number two, you're going to get the highest margin you possibly can for your product, right? So now it does take more time to manage because now we're talking about managed hundreds of subscribers, but you're building more resiliency in your business because you can lose one or two or three buyers at any given time without it truly affecting your income. That makes sense. So anyways, I'll leave it at that. Again, that's not going to happen overnight for anyone. It does take time, but if you go down that path, you can get out of the freezer business and focus on farming and moving your products. No, that's awesome. Yeah, no. Our next question, I believe, is directed at Glenn. The question is, what would you say is the minimum number of sheep needed in production before even going to market? How do you plan for marketing your products and ensure product availability? Good question. You know, I don't know that there's a minimum. Like I said, we started out selling whole and half lambs. Apparently, I know most of the people are a greater number of the people that have a chest freezer. But, you know, you start out with what you can. And if you can, if you can have, like James was saying, if you can have people buy that in advance, then it kind of gives you an idea of how many animals you need. You know, I would tailor the minimum number of sheep. You know, I would tailor that minimum to what you have, the acreage you have and how many you can run. And then figure out from there, you know, you may just want to do farmer's markets to begin with. Or I market a lot of mine off Facebook. And the beef where I sell quarters and halves, that's all I do is I put it down on Facebook that I have beef going to the locker and usually within a couple of hours I'm sold out. The planning, the marketing has been a struggle. I get wrapped up in a day-to-day operation farm. And that's where my daughter has been good at. She's a lot more scheduled and regimented than I am and has that, those posts and the marketing and the newsletter. It's true, we're truly a family operation. Everybody has a part in the newsletter. Everybody has a part they play on the farm. And the product availability is something we're struggling with yet. Like I said, with sheep, it's even more of a challenge because you, you know, you lamb basically once a year. Unless, you know, unless you figure out how to do that twice a year, but we're not at that point. So thank you. Next question is for James. James, what part of your business has producers found the best resource for their operation? Yeah, I was just replying to that in the chat there. I think first off, you have to have a quality product. That's what it starts with. I mean, you guys have to do your job as a farmer or rancher to produce a quality product that people are willing to spend more money on. Hands down, right? I'm drinking a microbrew right now, right? And of course, I'm, I pay twice as much money for that than I did a Bud Light. Especially these days, no one's find a Bud Light. But my point is, like, you really need to lean into, you know, quality product because people, when they buy something local, in the same way when I buy a microbrew, I expect it to be uniquely flavored, I expect it to be uniquely branded and I am happy to support a local business. The best part about that, you know, this, where I'm here sitting in Nashville, one of our local brewers here is called Bearded Iris. You've never heard of it. You don't need to. They've built a, you know, $5 million plus business just capitalizing on local demand. Many, many ranchers and farmers make the mistake of thinking they need to ship product all over the country. And that's just simply not true. If you really focus in on your local markets, most of you have a market awareness problem, not a shipping problem. So the key, what we oftentimes focus with farmers on, you focus in on quality and then we can work with you and like narrowing in and targeting, building your brand, building a base of buyers in a local community that you can service. It might be one to two hours away because you're not going to get those price points that you want in a real market. But, you know, if it is two hours away, running deliveries or running pickups one day a month, you know, two hours away. It's not that difficult, believe it or not, particularly when the average person today will pay $9 for delivery. In fact, there is no free delivery with Amazon for food anymore. I don't know if you guys knew that or not. The flat fee for delivery from Amazon for food is $9.95. Period. There is no free delivery. And so we often remind farmers like, look, again, get a quality product, focus on your brand, and then really plug into a strong local community. It could be through your church, school, local business. Key there is then make it easy and convenient for them to purchase and support you. The really great news to Isaac is that buyers are concerned about food security. So this is the greatest news of food security. This is the greatest news for local farmers, which is I am my entire life livelihood and I'm 52. I've never seen empty store shelves until the last few years, right? And so families are concerned. And so the ability to subscribe to your farm and to know that they have a consistent supply of product that they get access to, you're talking about making them have peace of mind. So this is them guaranteeing you that they're going to pay you money every night, makes them sleep better, right? Knowing that they've got a resource in a local farmer like you to feed their family. Awesome. Thank you. No, that's a great answer. I had a question for Glenn and Shane, both, and you guys can both give your insight on this. From my personal experience, we've had issues with freezers before either locking up and they don't, they, they lose temp or not shutting properly. What strategies have you guys had to prevent disasters like that from occurring? You mean like when the kids don't shut the freezer door all the way? Exactly. Now that's what, you know, I like, we've got upright freezers and I like them because you've got the shelves, the racks and you can segregate product. Like you said, first in, first out. But then you have to worry about doors and seals. Our new ones have an alarm on them. I like that. And we haven't had a problem with them knock on wood. It was the older one that didn't have an alarm. Yeah, that's, that's just, that's one of the things I'm really worried about. We need to back up our source. Again, knock on wood. We've been, we've function fine. We've been okay. But that's, that's one of those growing things we're working through. So for us with this freezer, walk-in freezer that was built in Drake that we have plus the two trucks that we have in order for us to get insured because we have to ensure all those perishable products. So if we do have a power failure or a freezer failure, they're going to be covered. So we had to go through a process that said, you know, what are you going to do to ensure that these things don't happen in the first place? And so we went through and had backup power. The door is an automatic closing lock door. It's a big freezer door. And we have scheduled visits to come through for maintenance to make sure that the cooling devices is working the way it's supposed to. So we've mitigated a lot of that, but our freezer is new. So we haven't had any issues now in 15 years. I don't know if we will, but we still have some procedures in place for maintenance to address that. And we do have the backup power issue addressed. And, you know, the door does close by itself. It's a, it's a true industrial freezer. So that's, we've kind of addressed that. Awesome. There's another question we've got for you, Shane. You said that you strive for year-round supply. We heard there's different feeding strategies. Are calves born at different times also? How have you worked with the processor to make sure you have slaughter dates confirmed for the calves? So that's a really good question. So yes, they, there is a calving window. So we have our calving window runs with our cows for about 40 days. And our heifers have a little bit earlier, but like I said before, being seed stock producers, we also buy back customers' calves. So we'll start calving some of our heifers in about the 15th of February. And then the cows will start about the 10th or 15th of March. And if you put about a 40-day window or a 45-day calving window on those, it doesn't cover a huge span of area. We've only got about 60 days covered. But we also have genetic customers, the calf in January. And we also have genetic customers that calf in May and June. So now, all of a sudden, our birth date is six months out. So on those calves that we can go back and buy back our genetics. So all of our Dakota Angus is sourced back to either one to livestock genetics or brooner angus genetics. So for consistency of product, we sell ours on, look, if you buy it from Dakota Angus, you're getting a consistent genetic package every time. And then with buying them back from our genetic customers, we still keep that genetic attachment with all of our animals and consistency. And we spread out that for six months. And if you fed cattle long enough, you know that you're going to have 90 or 120-day window of those calves that really convert well versus ones that don't, you're probably not going to have that much of a window. But in North Dakota, we have a ton of feed stuffs. And we have a lot of lower quality feed stuffs. And especially these last couple of years with corn being $7, there's a lot of people that realize they didn't finish their calves near as fast. In fact, a lot of these cattle weren't as fat. And a lot of them didn't grade. And that's why we're running into less prime and CAB grading cattle the last couple of years is because people aren't feeding $7 corn for near the length of time. And these cattle aren't marbling as well. And so if you add age onto these cattle and you're feeding this low quality feed stuffs, it's costing you a little more to maintain these cattle. But man, you're really getting back some quality grading on the backside of that. And that's really spread it out nice for us. And as far as filling the slots for the processor, you just got to go schedule them and say that, you know, we're going to project this many. And if you need to back off a little bit, make sure that you know where your trends are. And or if you need more, you know, plug that in, but you have to set those slots up in advance and work with your processor because if you're not filling them all, you need to give them ample time to do it. Or we got to deliver product. And then we're sitting on more inventory than we want. So just kind of some foresight of what it's going and projecting growth is how we've approached it to this point. So. Awesome. Thank you. I had a question for James. What strategies and advice would you give to farmers that aren't necessarily versed super well in technology or utilization of social media? Oh, there's many farms that have arriving businesses without being in social media at all. I think, you know, first and foremost, you're going to build your business based on relationships. I think as Glenn mentioned, you know, going to a local farmers markets are very good starting point to shake hands, right? People want to know you, right? And that distinguishes you against a commodity product that they can pick up at the grocery store. The reality though, however, is that only 1% of Americans attend the farmers market on a regular basis. So 99% of people do not. So it's not a long term strategy. If you want to grow your customer basis, maybe a starting point to get your name out there. But I would go back to again and focus in on like, how do you again think about the areas in your community where people are in what we call the local loop? So typically like people are have, they have daily lives, they have busy lives. And so you want to focus on what's convenient for them. Schools are oftentimes a very convenient place where families are driving through picking up, dropping off kids on a regular basis. A lot of people are going to church on Sunday. It's a great place. We have some farms that focus exclusively on doing pickups at church after church on Sunday afternoons. Parking lots are wide open. People see your brand, your logo right on the side of the, right on the side of your truck or your trailer. It's actually the heaviest day for shopping that most people shop, believe it or not, are on Sundays as well. I mean, it's just, there's a lot of things you can do that don't involve social media. We have many farmers who for their own personal or political reasons don't want to support big tech and do not want to be on social media whatsoever. We have a few multimillion dollar farms that use next door exclusively. And they use, you know, like folks who are in local neighborhoods that allows you to focus in on a 10 mile radius to focus in like on a suburban community and put, you know, like, you know, a milk box type of thing that's on there, on the front porch and they see it, they see the brand, they see the logo. And again, bring the milkman back, right? So we have a lot of farms up your way actually, especially in Iowa, et cetera, some very successful farms there, there in North Dakota as well. Bartlett Farms does delivery of milk to the door, right? And have been very successful because other people in that neighborhood, they're going to see that local farmer, they're going to ask a question. Why don't I sign up for that? That's a lot more convenient to rather support them than something coming from Safeway or Kroger. Awesome. Thank you. We have another question for Glenn. What have you found as the positive negative for whole half lamb versus retail ready cuts as you suggest for the farmers market? Well, for the whole lamb, it's just you, you get sold at one time and it's, you don't store it. I do the same thing. When I sell a whole lamb, I pick it up and I deliver it all on the same day. And in most of my whole lamb customers or repeat customers, I've had them for years. They've been with us since we started raising sheep. And I have some really good ones. We have one couple of buys two to three lambs a year from us. And so it is, it is good. They get a discount because buying a whole lamb is, is more economical. You make more money selling it by the cut than I do selling it as a whole or half, but there's a lot less risk with it too. So I see, see the next question is, yeah, absolutely. And I try to get those and it goes back to James talking about subscription. I try to make sure that my customers that want holes and halves let me know in July or August before I take the first load of lambs into the processing plant. And then I just hold out however many lambs separately. It's whole lambs or half lambs and deliver them that way. Yeah, some of my best customers, my longest term customers have done that. Now I have another customer that, that buys 30 packages of chops every month or every two months because that's all he and his wife eat. So they were finding they were buying a full lamb and not eating the legs, not eating the racks, having a hard time using up the ground lamb. So he is really happy to pay a premium and pay for those, those chops. So it is, you know, selling by the cut is a way to make more money. Selling by the whole or the half is a whole lot simpler and a lot less risk. So do you include the awful in your whole and half boxes? You know, we have never been offered the awful of the lambs. A lot of the livers don't, either they don't, I don't know for sure. They either don't pass the inspection or they're just not offered. This last time through, they did offer us the kidneys. I've never had enough people ask for the kidneys. I do have it once in a great while, but I don't have enough asks make it worth, worth keeping them. Is there any final question from the audience? Oh, we got a comment from James. I'll let him elaborate on it real quick. You know, it's just, it's just one of those things. It's just, I love the creativity farmers. I can't take any credit for this, but we had some farmers doing a dog food bundle box, believe it or not, for moving all that awful, right? We have other folks who will take it and free stride and do a free stride doggy treats. It's just so many ways to make money on all that product. Please don't let it go to waste. The other one is broth packages. Bone broth is huge for health for a lot of folks. A lot of people just discard the bones like believe it or not. Again, you have a lot of people out there who will buy the bones by chicken feet, chicken heads for, you know, given the gelatinity it offers for a broth thing, for broth. So again, you know, look around, talk with other farmers, see what they're doing. There are just so many creative ways in which you can move all that animal. God made that animal a whole animal for a reason. There's every part of it has a use and a purpose. It's just a matter of figuring out how to package it and mark it in a way that it's consumable and approachable by consumers. Awesome. Yeah, no, that's a good point to have. Definitely a good opportunity for people to utilize those products that might not be sold as easily for human consumption. So with that, I guess I'll just ask for final comments from our panelists. We'll start with Glen if you have some final thoughts and comments and then we'll move on to Shane and end with James. I do think that direct marketing, while it's not for everyone, you have to enjoy working with the public to do that. But I do think it's a way, we're a smaller farm. We're in one of the fastest growing counties in Kansas. Urban sprawl is approaching us all the time. I want to bring the next generation back to the farm and so we have to find a way to create more income and not assume that we're going to be able to expand acreage-wise. And it's just one of those things. From an advocacy standpoint, I enjoy sharing my product, sharing my farm, telling my story and spending time with my customers. And I think that's the thing I enjoy the most out of this direct marketing. And like I said, it's a learning curve and a pretty steep learning curve. The best advice I got was to start simple and keep it simple. And that's what we're trying to do. Thank you. What about you, Shane? Well, I guess my suggestion would be that when you get into this, have your message and story and be consistent with that message and story and just keep grinding away. Being in the seedstock business, it's a long journey from starting anybody that starts up to building it into something that's sustainable and having a large customer base and growing that. And that's going to be the exact same way in selling meat. You've got to be a grinder. And we are. I mean, our ranchers are absolute grinders and they have adversity that goes before them. And this is no different, but your expectations just can't be too high, but you just have to keep plugging away and building on that and building on this goodwill and relationships that you have with your customers, and it'll come. So don't have too high expectations right away, but just always keep that goal and that mark out in front of you and just keep driving and heading in that right direction in that same direction. And I think everybody gets there if we keep that consistent message and that same push to get where we need to go. Well, thank you for that insight, Shane, wrap up with James. I would definitely echo both the sentiments of Glenn and Shane both spot on, right? Build relationships, be consistent, deliver quality product. The great news for all of you is that people want to buy from you. Again, as I said earlier, you don't have a market demand problem. 88% of millennials today, which are people 25 to 39 year olds, the largest segment of our society in terms of buying power, will spend more money to purchase from you. They just need to know you exist. So it will be a grind. It will take time, but be consistent with that messaging and deliver a high quality product and they'll keep coming back to you. So thank you again for all your hard work to feed your local communities. Thank you for ending our webinar tonight, James. It was a pleasure hosting everybody and I want to thank all three of you for joining us tonight. It's been a good series this year and this concludes our final webinar of the year.