Profitable Mindset

#285: First Steps, First Wins: Part 2 - Building Your Farm From Scratch

FREE Guide: The month-by-month roadmap to build your farm business from scratch. Grab it HERE [https://charlottemsmith.com/start] It's been two months since Hayden decided this was happening, and things are getting messy in the best way. The work party? Eight friends showed up at 10 a.m. and worked for hours pulling out buried metal, layers of old landscape fabric, and foot-long weed roots. At the end, they all thanked HER. Turns out people stuck in apartments and suburbs are genuinely excited to get muddy on a farm. She's got 20-foot rows going in, her first seedlings planted, and a grow tent crammed into an 8-by-12 converted shed she can barely fit inside. On the business side — website drama. She built the entire site on Shopify, hated it, and started over on Squarespace. Hear why, and what she learned about choosing the right platform when you're small and seasonal and need to throw up a product listing in 15 minutes, not 2 hours. She launched her email list February 10th and hit 43 subscribers in the first month — half of them strangers she doesn't recognize. She got them without spending a dime, just word of mouth and Instagram. Her welcome email includes a survey, and the responses are already shaping her sales plan: more people want grab-and-go bouquets than subscriptions, and at least one person signed up specifically to support a small, queer-owned farm business. We also get into what's next: a possible Mother's Day peony pop-up, selling bouquets through local coffee shops and wineries, a creative idea about marketing to real estate agents for closing gifts, and why she's skipping farmers markets entirely. You'll hear real-time decision making, plenty of second-guessing, and both of us laughing at the chaos of figuring this out as she goes. This is what it really looks like to build a farm business from nothing. No polish. No playbook. Just figuring it out. Click HERE and Let's Meet! [https://charlottemsmith.com/strategy] Chat with us to see if The Profitable Farmer can break you out of marketing misery.

#284: From Dream to Decision: Part 1 - Building Your Farm From Scratch

FREE Guide: The month-by-month roadmap to build your farm business from scratch. Grab it HERE [https://charlottemsmith.com/start] I can look out my kitchen window and see Hayden's flower farm taking shape. She lives in a little cottage right on our family property, and I've had a front-row seat to every breakthrough and every meltdown. Hayden is 32. She moved back to the family farm after years of city life because — as she puts it — "it's so much more fulfilling to wake up and go outside and see things growing than there is at any corporate job, no matter how cushy it is." But the practical side of her kept saying no. She grew up watching how hard farming is. She's got good health insurance. She sits at a desk. Why would she go do that all over again? Because the dream wouldn't leave her alone. Sound familiar? In this episode, you'll hear the story behind the name "Big Oak Flower Farm" — it came from her childhood, when she and her cousins would call each other up and say "meet at the big oak in an hour" or "let's race to the big oak." When that name hit her in the car one day, she knew it was right. You'll hear her scrappy funding strategy: $500 saved from working twice a month on a neighbor's farm, driving her old pickup to get $10 loads of compost from the city waste treatment facility, and doing absolutely everything herself. We dig into three sales models she's weighing — CSA subscriptions for early cash flow, a little farm store for walk-up sales, and you-pick events (she's dreaming of "sunset in the flower field" evenings). And you'll hear me pushing back in real time on her decision to NOT start an email list yet. No formal training. No business degree. No trust fund. Just a woman figuring it out. If she can do it, so can you. Click HERE and Let's Meet! [https://charlottemsmith.com/strategy] Chat with us to see if The Profitable Farmer can break you out of marketing misery.

#283: The Marketing Strategy Jennifer Uses To Create a Line at Her Farm Gate

Profitable Dahlia Summit: 12+ Expert Speakers Sign Up HERE [https://myrootabl.com/r/LHT5ISiO?rootabl=charlottemsmith] Can email marketing really work for small farms? Jennifer Guilizia is living proof. Jennifer runs a 20-acre regenerative flower farm in Oregon, specializing in growing and hybridizing dahlias. After losing her lease land and purchasing a new property, she joined Charlotte's Farm Marketing Mastery program (now The Profitable Farmer) and used a deceptively simple strategy to build a thriving local customer base from scratch. In just six farmer's market appearances, Jennifer collected hundreds of local email addresses by offering a bouquet giveaway at her booth. She then used those emails to drive traffic to her new on-farm pop-up stand — sending reminders both the day before and the morning of each sale. The result? Lines at the gate and customers buying three bouquets at a time. When she missed sending one Saturday morning email, the difference in foot traffic was immediate and obvious. Jennifer and Charlotte also discuss pricing confidence (why the highest-priced vendor often sells the most), the mindset shifts that separate struggling farms from profitable ones, and why investing in coaching and personal development directly correlates with income growth. They cover why your email list follows you even when you change locations, lose a lease, or shut down a farmer's market — and why social media followers in distant cities can still become valuable customers. The episode wraps with details on the Profitable Dahlia Summit [https://myrootabl.com/r/LHT5ISiO?rootabl=charlottemsmith] (March 3–5), a virtual event featuring 12 speakers including Marin Mathis and Julio from The Flower Hat, covering tuber sales, wedding flowers, pricing, and the mindset of turning a backyard dahlia hobby into a real business. Live access is $99; the all-access pass with lifetime replays is $199. FREE Master Class: The Farm Marketing Fix Sign Up HERE [https://charlottemsmith.com/masterclass] Links, Resources & Names Mentioned: * Jennifer Guilizia — The Flowering Farmhouse: thefloweringfarmhouse.com [http://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/] | Social media: @thefloweringfarmhouse * Backyard Bouquet Podcast [https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/the-backyard-bouquet-podcast/] — Jennifer's podcast * Farm Marketing Mastery / The Profitable Farmer [https://charlottemsmith.com/mastery] — Charlotte's coaching program * Profitable Dahlia Summit [https://myrootabl.com/r/LHT5ISiO?rootabl=charlottemsmith] — March 3–5, virtual event * Marin Mathis — The Farmhouse Flower Farm (speaker on tuber sales, grows 8,000 dahlias/year) * Julio — The Flower Hat (speaker on dahlias for weddings and events) * Hood River Fruit Loop — scenic loop drive in Hood River, Oregon (mentioned as drive-by traffic source) * Pricing: $99 live access / $199 all-access pass with lifetime replays and speaker bonuses

#282: The Real Reason Your Farm Marketing Isn't Making You Money

FREE Master Class: The Farm Marketing Fix Sign Up HERE [https://charlottemsmith.com/masterclass] Are you a farmer struggling to turn a profit despite working harder than ever? In this episode, farm marketing expert Charlotte Smith answers the most common questions from over 2,000 farmers who attended her recent webinar—and the answers might surprise you. Charlotte explains why social media is a distraction for most farmers and why email marketing should be your number one priority. She breaks down a counterintuitive truth: at farmers markets, your primary job isn't making sales—it's capturing email addresses. Why? Because the lifetime value of a single customer can reach $5,000 or more, compared to a one-time $50 purchase you may never see again. You'll learn practical steps including how to collect emails legally (and why using your personal Gmail can get your account shut down), which email platforms work best for farmers, and how to keep customers buying all winter long—even when the farmers market closes. Charlotte also addresses the overwhelm that keeps farmers stuck: how to find time for marketing when you're already exhausted running the farm. Her solution involves creating two hours of protected "focus time" daily to work on money-making activities rather than constantly reacting to interruptions. Whether you're a beginning farmer or have been in business for decades without turning a profit, this episode provides the foundational marketing strategy that's helped Charlotte's clients achieve results like going from $45,000 to $300,000 in annual revenue. Click HERE and Let's Meet! [https://charlottemsmith.com/strategy] Chat with us to see if The Profitable Farmer can break you out of marketing misery.

#281: Real Farmers, Real Results: From Struggling to Sold Out

Farm Marketing Mastery is open for enrollment! Sign Up HERE [https://charlottemsmith.com/mastery] What happens when farmers stop struggling alone and finally get the marketing and mindset tools they need? In this episode of The Profitable Mindset Podcast, host Charlotte Smith steps back and lets her Farm Marketing Mastery clients tell their own stories. These aren't hypotheticals—they're real farmers who were losing money, burning out, and wondering if they'd have to give up farming altogether. You'll hear from Alyssa, who ran her first-ever five-day subscription launch and sold almost double what she'd made in any single month over ten years of farming. From Stacey, who made back twice her program investment in under 30 days and now sells $17-per-pound chicken breast in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. From Vanessa who went from $25,000 in year one to over $300,000 by year three. But here's what makes these stories different: it's not just about the money. Farmers share how their marriages improved, how they stopped crying over marketing, how they finally believed in themselves enough to raise their prices without flinching. One farmer's husband quit his off-farm job. Another built a farm store. Several went from sold-out waitlists to calm Sunday planning sessions with their spouses. If you've ever wondered whether direct-to-consumer farm marketing actually works—or whether you're just not cut out for the business side of farming—this episode is your proof that it's possible. Farm Marketing Mastery registration is open this week only. Click HERE and Let's Meet! [https://charlottemsmith.com/strategy] Chat with us to see if Farm Marketing Mastery can break you out of marketing misery.