Mr. Salatin wrote, "In light of the insatiable human desire for empire-building, perhaps it would behoove us all to back off and examine the merits of relationship marketing."
He continues, "...by selling only to those who will come to the farm, the producer will remaine inherently small compared to empire-builders who pack, ship and advertise all over the country. ...our several hundred customers are more than enough to provide the income and lifestyle we desire."
Mr. Salatin then lists a couple of advantages to this style of marketing; consumer education (people like to know where their food comes from and how it was raised), and, the second, has to do with product quality. The biggest temptation, when in business for yourself, is to comprimise quality for growth. (Cutting corners, expenses etc...)
He poses the question, why is it so difficult for us to ask our customers to come to the farm to buy our products, when they will readilly drop $1,000 on a vacation to Disneyland?
I found this to be true. Although we don not have "hundreds of customers", we do feel it is important to understand each other. We have one customer who is delighted that our chickens lived a happy life before slaughter. Kind of PETA sounding, I know. But it is important to her, non the less. And through her experience with our farm and our birds, we have built a relationship that will keep her coming back. I like that. Can we build an empire that way? Probably not. Can we earn enough income for our family? It is possible. Can we earn a decent extra income? Yes, that has been proven.
Please see the picture on another post of our PVC pipe chicken tractor. I need to add something to it on the bottom to help prevent predator attacks, but it does work quite well in providing the birds fresh grass and sunshine.
(All quotations were taken from Joel Salatin's book "Pastured Poultry Profits".)
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