Profitable Mindset

Free training: the Farm Marketing Fix, November 9. Save your seat at charlottemsmith.com/masterclass

If your farm's Black Friday sale got crickets, or you've never tried one because "I'm not Walmart," this episode is for you.

Charlotte Smith, farm business coach for direct-to-consumer farmers, shows why a Black Friday sale that fails is a calendar problem, not a marketing problem: pick one thing to sell, give it a real name, close orders Monday at midnight, and write to one real customer. Start six weeks out, not the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

This is the first half of the plan. Next week: the five emails.

In this episode:

- Why Black Friday works for a farm, and how it pulls next spring's money into November

- The two ways "10% off everything" costs you money

- Three questions to pick your one thing to sell, plus the fourth that matters most

- How to name and package it (the Sunday Dinner Box, not 10% off all beef)

- The five questions about one real customer that become next week's emails

Links:

• Free Farm Marketing Fix, November 9: charlottemsmith.com/masterclass
• The Profitable Farmer program: charlottemsmith.com/profit
• All episodes: charlottemsmith.com/podcast
• Instagram: @charlotte.m.smith

If this episode helped, follow the show and leave a review so another farmer can find it.

Charlotte Smith is a farm business coach who helps direct-to-consumer farms become profitable with calm and balance, through the Profitable Mindset Podcast and The Profitable Farmer.

Join us in the Profitable Farmer program: Sign up HERE

This week I walk you through The Profitable Farmer from the day you join: what you learn, what my team builds for you, and how your year unfolds. The foundation has stayed the same for over a decade: your ideal customer, a website and email list that sell, a lead magnet, and the 5-Day Sales Launch.

What's new is Your Farm Marketing Year, where we build your first year of marketing in your voice. These are the skills that took Vanessa from 80 email subscribers to $175,000 in sales in her first year in the program, let Sarah sell $100,000 of beef in one week, and helped Brooke sell out her flower shares in a week at double her old price. I also answer your biggest questions, from overwhelm and time to saturated markets and whether it's ever too late to start.

• Why social media can't be your marketing foundation, and what is
• What's inside each module of Farm Marketing from the Heart
• What Your Farm Marketing Year includes and when you receive it
• My answers to overwhelm, no time, saturated markets, and rural low-income areas

Free strategy call with Hayden or Rebecca: charlottemsmith.com/strategy

The Profitable Farmer Program — Doors close on Friday, October 9th. Sign up at charlottemsmith.com/mastery

FREE Event: The Farm Marketing Fix – October 5th

Sign up HERE

Next week I'm going live for five days, October 5th through 9th, fixing real farmers' websites and marketing emails on camera. It's free, every session is recorded, and you can save your seat at charlottemsmith.com/masterclass. In this episode I show you why your website isn't selling: your customer is not wondering how many generations your farm is. She's standing in her kitchen at five o'clock with two kids to feed in twenty minutes and chicken in the fridge she doesn't trust. The farms with the most impressive practices lose to the farms that understand her. One client sent a single rewritten email and sold two whole hogs from a list that had never bought from her. This is the first skill taught inside The Profitable Farmer, and there's a homework assignment in here you can finish tonight.

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

• Why "I'll do it when things calm down" never arrives
• What your customer is actually worried about when she shops
• The difference between describing your farm and marketing it

Regina Rivers was teaching full time, hauling frozen beef to hot Georgia farmers markets, and posting on social media around the clock. A gazillion tabs open in her head. She even went into debt stocking her farm store with wholesale products nobody wanted.

Last year she sold almost 70 beeves and barely made money. Then she ran her real numbers.

In this episode, Regina shares:

• The pricing spreadsheet that changed everything, and how she raised prices 20% with zero customer pushback
• Why she cleaned all the "fluff" out of her farm store so customers only see beef
• The weekly email with no buy button that keeps her selling out
• How relationship marketing means customers come for HER, not the price
• Why she's no longer exhausted, in body or mind, after four years of farming

If you're selling out every month and still broke, this episode does the math with you.

Ready for results like Regina's? Learn about The Profitable Farmer here: charlottemsmith.com/mastery

FREE Event: The Farm Marketing Fix – October 5th

Sign up HERE

Ethan and Natalie Brinegar raise grass-fed beef, lamb, and pastured chicken at Haven Hills Farm in Webster, Minnesota. They both work full time. Their daughter is two. They sell at one farmers market.

Eleven months ago they joined The Profitable Farmer. Since then, farmers market sales climbed 60% and direct sales climbed 75%. Prices doubled over two years. They shut off shipping. And this February they used the 5-Day Sales Launch to sell an entire season of beef before the cattle ever reached the processor.

Inside: why they abandoned a paid e-commerce site before it launched, how time management changed the way Ethan ends his day, what happened the first time they raised prices 20%, and the customer conversation that turned a "too expensive" into two packages sold five minutes later.

If you know your prices are too low and are afraid to fix it, start here.

Farm Marketing Fix (Free Masterclass October 5th) - If you're heading into another season unsure how to price or where to start, this is a full week of marketing help at no cost, and a real taste of what a year of coaching looks like. Save your seat at charlottemsmith.com/masterclass

FREE Event: Farm Marketing Week – October 5th

Sign up HERE

Every farmer in the valley told Kate Gessford she could not make it. There are no frost-free days on record where she farms. The market season runs ten weeks.

Last year she hauled vegetables home and made $120 on a good day.

This year she sells out in 30 minutes, raised her chicken from $6 to $10 a pound with zero pushback, and sold out a five-day launch in three days.

We talk about the pricing math, the emails, the launch, and the part she did not see coming: her autoimmune symptoms cleared, her marriage shifted, and she finally let people help her.

If you are working harder than anyone you know and still packing product back into the truck, start here.

Farm Marketing Week starts October 5th: charlottemsmith.com/masterclass

FREE Event: Farm Marketing Week - October 5th Sign up HERE

My dad's farm went bankrupt in the 80s. We lived on hundreds of acres and still had food scarcity.

After 13 years of coaching farmers, here's what I've learned: your success isn't limited by your location, your competition, or your website. It's limited by what you think is possible.

Farmers in my program average a 200% increase in sales their first year, and most earn back their investment within 90 days. They get the same training as everyone else. What changes is their thinking.

In this episode:

• The simple thoughts that keep skilled farmers stuck
• Why "I can't raise my prices" is a belief, not a fact
• The one question that unlocks pricing confidence
• How to kill overwhelm in your busiest season

Works for flowers, meat, milk, eggs, produce, fiber, and every direct to consumer farm.

Farm Marketing Week starts October 5th, join us at: charlottemsmith.com/masterclass

FREE Event: Farm Marketing Week - October 5th. Sign up HERE

"I should be further along by now."

Notice what that sentence does to your shoulders. That reaction is your clue.

Charlotte Smith calls this success expectancy, and it is one of the most expensive thoughts her clients bring to coaching calls. It feels like an accurate description of your life. It is a mindset, and it is the thing standing between you and the result you want.

In this episode you will hear real coaching examples: the client who stopped marketing for weeks, and the client planning 18-hour days to hit a deadline she invented. You will learn the four expectations hiding underneath the thought and the three-step protocol to replace it.

Your only assignment this week is to notice whether that sentence is running in the background.

• Why "I should be further along" is a thought you can change, not a fact you have to live with
• How expecting success can actively prevent success
• The four hidden expectations underneath the thought: timeline, effort, skills, and investment
• The three-step thought protocol Charlotte uses with clients to build a mindset that holds up in month nine

• Feelings drive actions. Nobody has ever felt defeated and then taken big, strategic action. Defeat produces quitting or frantic busywork.
• The lens distorts everything. With that thought running, your business, body, home, and website all look broken. Most of them just needed more time.
• Check the source of the target. If you did not set the deadline from a plan and self-confidence, you are not behind.
• Awareness first. Catch the thought, label it, and stop rearranging your external life to fix an internal problem.

Q: What is success expectancy? A: Expecting you should already have it. That expectation creates frustration, and frustration drives the actions that keep you stuck.

Q: Isn't expecting success the point? A: Believing you are capable opens you up. Being frustrated it has not happened yet shuts you down. Those are two different thoughts.

Q: Why does "I Should Be Further Along" feel like a fact? A: Repetition. You said it enough times that it stopped sounding like an opinion.

Q: What do I think instead? A: "I'm giving this all the time it takes."

• Free masterclass, October 5th: How to Say No Without Losing the People You Love. Live coaching included. Last time this year. Sign up at: charlottemsmith.com/class
• Profitable Mindset Academy. Weekly coaching and the goal setting training from this episode. Registration opens once more before year end: charlottemsmith.com/coaching

Ready to stop saying yes when you mean no?

Free masterclass October 5th: Sign up HERE

What's the one thing you wish you'd said no to instead of yes?

I asked 1,500 women that question on a free masterclass. Hundreds answered. The volunteer role. The mom who calls daily. The invitation you dread.

Then I asked how it feels. Anxious. Guilty. Behind. Resentful.

We coached for 20 minutes using one skill. When I asked again, the chat filled up: lighter, relieved, hopeful.

Nothing in their lives had changed. Same people. Same problems. Same calendar.

In this episode I break down what actually shifted, share what happened to Jen and Julie, and answer the question I get more than any other: isn't spending time and money on myself selfish?

Then I do the thing I've waited 25 years to do and open the doors to the Profitable Mindset Academy.

I've taught marketing to farmers for decades. This is not that. The Academy is for every woman, every age, every background. I've coached women from 17 to their late 70s and the skills work the same for all of them.

• Doors close Friday, August 21st at midnight Eastern. Join the Academy: charlottemsmith.com/coaching
• Free strategy call: charlottemsmith.com/strategy

Ready to stop saying yes when you mean no?

Free masterclass August 17th: Sign up HERE

A doctor told me I would not live to raise my babies. I was a young mom with a newborn and a three year old, and my body was showing signs of a stroke from anxiety.

I tried everything. Churches, meditation, mantras, journaling. Each one helped for about a minute.

Then someone said one word to me: coaching.

In this episode:

• The wake up call that changed the direction of my life
• Why short term fixes stop working
• How my client Deidre Clifton (episode 312) stopped losing sleep and started saying no without guilt
• Why 250 to 300 women a year say the mindset work changed every area of their life
• What I am teaching live and free on Monday, August 17th

Open to every woman. No business required.

Save your seat: charlottemsmith.com/class