For someone who has run their own business for over a decade, I am a terrible salesperson.
In amongst the day to day of running the farm, pulling together publications, answering emails, leading events, sending long-winded voice messages to our team and capturing our lives… the ”making the sale” call is usually tagged politely at the end, almost as an apology. You will see a specific pattern in my newsletters:
Tell a funny or moving story about our life.
Add in photos.
Link to cool things other people do.
Then finally… hoping you have stuck out the course, I mention an event we have coming up or a new publication we are selling and then quickly press send before I delete it.
It works, mostly. I always want the story of what we DO and MAKE to be more prominent than the things we sell. I feel comfortable in that space and we sell enough to get through. We want to grow a community around us, one that talks with us and each other, not just add to a list of clientele to hit up all the time.
Over the last month, we have been running the Crowdmatch with Creative Stirling and I have felt exceedingly awkward when it comes to the pressure of being direct. Most days, I have done my best to push our events through the platform so that we could unlock the match funding from Creative Scotland. It has worked (also the subject of a VERY long voice note to our Operations Manager Kat Begg which was in summary - ‘turns out if you talk about what you do and are selling, people will buy it’).
We really have been blown away— an over used term, but apt in this context—by all of the support. Our goal for getting the funds together to weatherproof & rewire the barn, plus put in new loos have been met. Our final stretch target is focussed on getting a kitchen put in the studio to move the catering out of the house.
What we may lack in sales skills, I feel we make up for in raw determination and enthusiasm. With our event programme starting so soon, we have had to get cracking before the Crowdmatch closes tomorrow.
We started by transforming the area behind the barn from this:
to this
The area is much more accessible and actually useable now, with space for sitting, growing and even ready to build an outdoor kitchen with the crowdfunding secured so far!
Lucy, our new business partner (so much more about her coming later! She’s AMAZING), brought her family up to help shift dirt and gravel and dig holes through solid stone and after they left, my crew took over.
We also started the process of rewiring today, which is such an invisible thing, but so crucial to everything we need to do. Stewart our neighbour and electrician has been incredibly helpful in getting the logistics thought through. Our local community and businesses have shown up to help us to take a vision and turn it into practical steps and solutions and you will know by now how much we value using whatever leverage we have to invest back into our community.
Every day we are working from 6am to 8pm to try to fit everything in. Its a lot, but so good and so exciting. We have already moved more barrows of muck and gravel than we we moved bags of flour during Covid! And with Lucy growing alongside me in her new outdoor kitchen garden, the seedlings have multiplied this year to epic proportions! We hope to feed many of you with their bounty in the months to come.
As we finish up the Crowdmatch programme tomorrow, I can’t thank you enough for supporting this piece of work. We can not wait to host you in our spiffy new spaces, make you a cuppa from an urn that doesn’t trip all the electricity, let you use the loo where the chances of you being jumped on by an enormous beardie collie are slim to none, feed you delicious food from the farm and generally be open and functioning again!
So if you have read so far… and if you haven’t already bought a ticket or product, or paid one forward for someone who could benefit, please do consider our last ditch pitch for a sale or pledge. With much gratitude!
Wowww congratulations guys on meeting your target and more! So exciting to see you pouring your hearts into these improvements, as a family and a community. ❤️
Thank you for the kick up the behind to get behind you! 😉😁