Top 5 Reasons that Small Farmers are not Outsourcing
There are certain times in the life of every small business owner where they want to shout something from the rooftops at other business owners. Here’s the thing, this thing that you want to scream is ALWAYS about something that is common sense— but somehow no one pays it any mind.
It’s my turn to get up on my soap box and address all my fellow small farmers and market gardeners.
YOUR FARM IS A BUSINESS!
Did you hear me?!?!
YOUR FARM IS A BUSINESS AND YOU NEED TO BE TREATING IT LIKE A BUSINESS. There needs to be financial planning, crop planning, marketing, bookkeeping, sales tracking. All. Of. The. Things.
My favorite farm marketer, Charlotte Smith from Three Cow Marketing and The Profitable Mindset Podcast often jumps back to a statistic that she heard a few years ago, from the USDA, claiming that less than 5% of small farms will be in business five years from now.
Do you know what that means? In five years, your farm will more than likely be gone. And let me tell you something. It won’t be gone because you didn’t work hard. It won’t be gone because there are not enough people to buy from you. It will be gone because you failed to treat your farm like a business. You failed to plan, you failed to track, and now your farm is closing it’s doors because it failed to be profitable.
This is a hard truth. This is tough love. It’s a serious matter.
Let’s dig a little bit deeper. Why are farmers not paying attention to the business aspect of farming? Could it be that they are actually too busy growing food? Duh. Farmers are over worked. Hands down.
So why are farmers not outsourcing this work?
They don’t know that they can
Well yes, you can outsource business tasks. Often times you can find services to organize your business AND take over the tasks that you don’t have time for. The only things you actually have to do is get the information to your virtual assistant.
They think it’s too expensive
Virtual assistants work within all sorts of budgets— remember that you get what you pay for. The services you’ll find on a matching site can be hit or miss, you don’t pay much, but you really might not get the quality that you’re searching for either. Because most VAs are independent contractors you don’t have to worry about the expenses that go along with hiring an employee either!
They are already paying for too many services that don’t do the whole job
I don’t want to diss all of the applications that try to make farming easier. They are beneficial. They do make things easier. But man can they add up. Sometimes it’s more beneficial to let someone else take care of all of these. For example— say you use a certain app for planning crops and then also use another app for financial tracking. A VA specializing in farming will already have a subscription to both of these and can use it for multiple customers. So it will cost you less to allow a VA to manage the software and you don’t have to do the work either!
They don’t have time to manage an employee
Managing employees is not always a walk in the park. Virtual Assistants are independent contractors that you don’t even need to meet in person. Call, text, email… whenever you can! Their jobs are to make your life easier…. so let them!!
They think they can do it themselves
They can! Absolutely. If they have the time, they should! But when they don’t even have time to eat dinner at a table, they should look into outsourcing. It’s a mental health thing. Farmers NEED a break. Go home and spend some time with your family.
These are all valid reasons— but sometimes we need to stretch our understanding of outsourcing. Virtual Assistants are a real service. They can get a bad rep if you’re using a service meant to connect you with a VA, but when you are able to find a real Virtual Assistant that has built a legitimate business helping other businesses succeed… that is gold!
