174. A Subscription Model Transformed Jeff Siewicki’s Farm Business
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Jeff.
We'll get started with the fast five.
First question, what's your name?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Jeff Sowicki.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
And what's your farm's name
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Farm
is Vital Mission Farm in South Carolina.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
in South Carolina?
We just had someone from
Charleston, South Carolina on
the podcast just the other day.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Oh, is that right?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
From Chucktown Acres?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Okay.
Yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
that Alex?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes, Alex.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Yeah, I know Alex.
Yep.
I,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
In fact, when getting this schedule,
I thought, oh, we're gonna have two
people from South Carolina in just
a short span after we'd gone so long
without anyone from South Carolina.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: yeah.
Well, we have to make
up for lost time, right?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Exactly, exactly.
What livestock species do
you graze on your farm?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So most of my experience, what we
raised on the farm has been meat birds.
We've done a little bit of pork
production, but the majority of it has
been pasture raised ducks and Turkey.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
So when we say pasture poultry,
we're not even talking chickens.
We're talking ducks and turkeys.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Yeah, yeah.
I started with chickens just a handful.
And then I realized that raising ducks
was pretty much the same process.
And they were just a little bit messier,
you know, they need a little bit more
water, they make a little bit more
mess, but essentially the same process.
And we found a, a strong demand and
there's nobody in our area doing ducks.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
particularly in the wholesale
market with restaurants and chefs.
And, and so that's kind
of the direction we went.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, very good.
I look forward to learning more
about that as we continue on.
You mentioned you started with chickens.
What year did you start grazing animals?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Yeah, see
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
early 2017.
Just started with of birds, you
know, and just wanted to raise
food for myself and my family.
My wife was pregnant with our first
child and I bought 25 meat chickens
and I thought, Hey, this will be fun.
Raise my own birds and have some
good, you know, clean food that I know
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: I
know how it was raised for my family.
And just really loved the whole process.
I built a little chicken tractor and
I was moving around the yard every day
and just loved the whole process of it.
And then started learning
about regenerative agriculture.
And I started hearing about these
people like Joel Ston and Richard
Perkins and these guys that were doing
you know, regenerative livestock.
And, and I just really fell in love
with the whole idea, you know, it was
growing food that's better for the
consumer better for the soil better for
the environment better for the animal.
And I was like, wow, this makes
total sense is a win-win, win.
And, and just kind of fell, fell
straight in the hole there, I
guess, you know, head first.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
Win-win, win.
That's capturing all those wins.
Very good.
Cal: Welcome to the grazing grass podcast.
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for 10 seconds about the farm.
I'm really enjoying the Redmond
salt with trace minerals we
started using a couple months ago.
I think the cows are looking good.
I.
Conversely, I am not happy with my
energizer still having some issues with
that, that I hope to get resolved soon.
Um, I may have a cow that's
trained to jump the electric fence
as well, and that's a problem.
Moving on 10 seconds about the podcast,
I've teased you for a couple weeks
or a month that we're gonna get this
Grazing Grass resources available.
We've got it launched.
It's available grazing grass resources.com
or from our main website@grazinggrass.com.
Click on resources.
I'm changing some stuff around,
so there's still some broken links
and I'm trying to get everything
fixed, but I need your help.
This is built for the community,
so we need you to add your favorite
farms tools, groups so we can build
a, a service or a directory that
really benefits the community.
So, , add your listing.
Let's make this valuable
for our community.
If it, if our community needs
it, let's make it valuable.
Anyway, enough of that.
Let's talk to Jeff.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: And you mentioned
there, you, you got those first chickens
as a way to provide food for your
family, a healthier food for your family.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Mm-hmm.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Why
was that a concern to you?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah,
I guess, never been the most health
conscious person but when you have a child
on the way, I think it kind of changed
my perspective a little bit, I guess.
You
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
these things, you start thinking
about, you know, what you're eating
and what your kids are going to
eat, how they're gonna live, and
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: yeah.
So I became a lot more aware, a lot more
educated on, you know, some of the stuff
that that goes on in our agricultural
system and a lot of the problems with it.
And yeah.
And so I bought those 25 chickens,
raised them, harvested them,
gave some to friends and family.
And everybody told me, this is some
of the best chicken I've ever had.
And I was like, well, maybe there's
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
this whole thing.
This is kind of cool.
And shortly after that, I told my wife
I was gonna buy a few more chickens.
And she said, okay.
I was like, yeah, I just wanna get a
few more just for us, you know, you.
And I think it was a month later,
I had 300 chickens and ducks in
the backyard, and she was like,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
this is more than a couple.
And I said, well, you know,
we'll see if we can if somebody's
interested in purchasing 'em, you
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: it
kind of just it took off from there.
Yeah,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
Did, were you raised on a farm?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
was not, no my uncle has
been a farmer his whole life.
And then my grandfather, they've,
I've had some farming in with other
family members in my life, so I've,
I've been around it a little bit.
But I was raised in the suburbs,
so I definitely haven't had any
firsthand experience in farming.
Army?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: And
with those first chickens, were
you in the suburbs when you were
started raising some chickens?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: No.
So we had just recently
moved out to the country.
We got 10 acres out in the country.
And and so
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: you can
put a lot of chickens on 10 acres.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and, and that was the goal is, okay,
can we grow some food for ourselves?
So we started
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: and
then, you know, got the chickens and
you know, as they say, chickens are a
gateway drug into livestock farming.
So that's kind of how it all
started and, and fell in.
So, yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah, that,
that chicken math will hit hard.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Yeah, does.
It does.
And you know, they're, they're
they're challenging, right?
You know, if anybody who's, who's
raised, especially meat birds, you
know, it is one thing to do it for
yourself, for your family, for fun,
for sustenance on a homesteading level.
Right.
A a lot of people do that
and, and that's fantastic.
And, and I think that's a great way to go.
And that's, that was my intention.
But when you make that mindset shift,
you know of, okay, this is gonna be
going from just feeding my family to,
I'm gonna make a business out of this.
This is gonna be a commercial level.
a completely different ballgame, right?
Because now you've
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
to watch your numbers.
You gotta make sure your costs are down.
You gotta make sure you're making profit.
You gotta make sure you got bills to pay.
You got all this weight on
your shoulders, you gotta find
customers, you gotta market.
And so it just, really
changes the mindset.
It becomes a little
bit, you know, less fun.
There's definitely a lot
more stress there right.
And, but know, it, it, it's been
it's been quite the learning curve.
We've, I've done, definitely
done a lot of things wrong.
But there's a couple things I feel like
I've stumbled upon that have gone well.
So, you know, in the end, you, you
learn and kind of, and eventually you
get to where you want to go, right?
Sometimes it's two steps
forward and three steps back.
But eventually you get the.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
You just gotta keep moving.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
That's right.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: And I
wanna dive more into that first
batch of chickens you, you raised.
What kind of chicken
tractor did you build?
Where did you find the plans for it?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
The chicken tractor I built was
just like a 10 by 10, or it might
be a 10 by 12 chicken tractor.
So it was a wooden frame.
And I put PVC over the top with chicken
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: it.
So it was, it was kind of like
the kovich style chicken tractors.
Similar it wasn't exact plans.
I don't know where I saw the exact plans.
I might have just kind of put together
a couple different ideas I saw and just
had PVC hoops and you could walk into it.
It was about six foot tall, had a door
we could walk in there and feed the birds
and, and, and that put wheels on the
back so it was easy to roll and you could
pull it and it was fairly lightweight.
You could roll on those wheels.
and that's kind of how we
started with those tractors.
And I built a few more.
And then especially with
ducks, they herd really easily.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
so I started experiment.
Different ideas, different
ways we could do this.
looking at some of the electric netting.
The problem with the electric netting is
especially are shaped just like a little,
they're perfectly shaped to get stuck
in those, in those holes in the netting.
And especially when they're young that
you know, that two to four or five week
age, you know, something would spook 'em
a hawk and they would just get stuck.
And then you'd be out there
just pulling birds out.
They're all stuck in the net.
Well, about that time, premier
One it's a company that makes a
lot of electric netting and stuff.
I'm sure you've heard of, they
came out with a chick netting.
And so what they have is a netting
that's got, it's the traditional
electric netting, but the bottom, I
don't know, eight, 10 inches or so.
Has a fine mesh on it.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: a
half inch mesh that chicks won't go
through and ducks won't go through.
And so that was a game changer for us.
So now we can have this
electrified netting, could set
it up and move it every day.
We didn't have to worry about, you
know, birds getting stuck in it.
the other thing was our
pasture was really rough.
We had a section that was all
pine forest that we had logged,
they left the stumps there, right?
And so it wasn't flat, it
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: you
couldn't get a chicken tractor in there.
so I was trying to find an
alternative where I could rotate
these birds through there.
And so the, the netting was working.
And so we could set the netting
up, we could go around stumps and
trees and everything else, and
we could make our little paddocks
and, and rotate them that way.
And the beautiful thing about that is,
you know, I can feed water and move a
thousand birds and about a half an hour.
So it was incredibly efficient
from a time standpoint as well.
Because at the time I was still working a
full-time job while trying to do the farm.
And so that system worked
really well for us.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I didn't even
realize they had that type of netting.
I know they have some chicken netting.
I, I have some goat netting or just
netting for that I use of goats and sheep
that I got from the Premier one and I.
I think I have a reel of chicken netting
that I use occasionally, but I didn't
realize they had that chick saver
netting, which reminds me if you've ever
built rabbit cages in that welded wire,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Hmm.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: some baby saver
that kind of does the same principle.
But for rabbit cages, you know,
the smaller holes at the bottom
are much smaller so babies can't
get out and fall out of the cage.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Oh,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: So,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
so it's the same concept.
So that's interesting.
I wasn't aware of that, but that
would make a big difference.
When you started with those first
chickens, did you just go with cross?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
I'm trying to remember.
I think the, actually the very first
ones I got, I believe were one of the
rangers, the Red Rangers, and there was
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
the Freedom Rangers.
There's a, there's another ranger.
But yeah, we started with
those and I love them.
They seemed to graze more, they
seemed to act a little bit more
like a chicken than a corners cross.
You know, they're a little more active.
But they also had more dark meat.
So they've got a longer leg, more,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: more
meat on the thigh and leg less meat on
the breast compared to a Cornish cross.
so, but yeah, we've done both, we've
done rangers, we've done Cornish cross,
but we, we pretty much shifted the ducks
'cause we saw a large demand in that.
So we did a lot of ducks and, and
turkeys has kind of been the majority of.
What we do.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: On
the, the chickens, which would
you say was your favorite?
The Rangers or the Cornish Cross.
And did you notice a
difference when you ate them?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Hmm.
Yeah, good question.
I don't know if I notice a difference
as far as taste or flavor, but
you could definitely taste,
you know, see the difference in
the shape of the bird a hundred
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
as usually to tell the difference.
I liked raising the Rangers but
you know, the corners cross.
I can get a five pound, you know,
carcass weight eight weeks, whereas
the Rangers would be, you know, like a
four pound carcass in nine or 10 weeks.
So for that reason it just, it was just,
it was a lot easier to do a cornish cross.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: You start
running your numbers on that.
And, and the Cornish Cross
is, is just a growing machine.
I, I like the idea of the Rangers,
but when you start figuring that
additional time, the Cornish
cross, it's hard to beat them.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Absolutely.
And, you know, raising
poultry is, is difficult.
You know, there's a lot of challenges.
They're so delicate this first
couple weeks of a life, even when
they get older, you know, you get a
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
cold snap or a rainstorm and
you can lose a lot of birds.
I've had days where I've lost half
my flock, you know, within hours.
And you know, everything wants
to eat 'em, you know, all the
predators want to eat 'em.
And
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: you
know, I always tell folks, you know,
poultry, that's a steep learning curve.
You know, doing pastured po you know,
let's make it as easy as possible on you.
So start with the breed that's kind of,
you know, tried and true, proven that's
gonna make things as easy as possible when
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: and
then, you know, and then maybe franchises.
A lot of now you see a lot of
these producers are doing you
know, these, these breeds like the
American Bresse and, and these.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
traditionally, you know, you
haven't seen, you know, years ago
are, are becoming very popular.
but when you have an American Bresse
that you paid $12 a chick for and
you lose 50 of them, that's a big,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
you know, versus a Cornish cross
that's a dollar 50, you know.
so
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
Yeah, so very true there.
Now, you mentioned on that first batch,
you gave some away from friends, and then
you quickly got in the chicken business.
Did you find there was a ready market
forum at a price that was sustainable?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
yeah, so, I had, so I, I
processed some chickens.
I had 'em in the freezer and
I said, okay, I need to figure
out how to you know, sell these.
And I didn't have any
clue how to sell anything.
I had no, you know, experience
running a small business or
marketing or anything like that.
I, you know, went to school for science
and biology, had a science background.
I was like, how, how do I do this?
And so, aside from my mother and
my aunt who bought a few birds
from me, I didn't, I didn't know
have anybody else to sell 'em to.
And they sat in there for,
you know, a c several months.
And I was like, I gotta do something.
And so I there was a local
restaurant, it was called the Fa Hen.
It's not around anymore, but it was
a locally owned operated restaurant.
And a really great, you know, it was
really renowned, very nice reputation.
It was real close to my house.
And so I just I think I called
him, I think is what I, I
think I called him the owner.
I'm trying to remember My first
communication, I think it was, I
just called him and I said, Hey I'm
a farmer and I got some chickens.
Would you be interested?
we got to talking and he was like,
yeah, I live really close to you.
How about I come out to the farm
sometime and check out what you're doing?
I said, sure, yeah.
Come out on Wednesday.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
And he came out and I
showed him what I was doing.
You know, I was raising my
pasture and I gave him one
try, and he left with a sample.
And I think I called him back, you
know, four or five days later, said,
Hey, did you get a chance to try it?
I said, yeah.
what'd you think?
He said he said, I'll buy two.
He said, I'll buy 14 birds from you.
I was blown away.
You know, 14 birds is not a lot
of money, not a lot of, but for
me life changing because here's
this chef who is a prominent chef.
He's got a booked restaurant, and
he's gonna buy chicken from me.
You know?
And, and it
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
like, oh, wow, this works.
Somebody's gonna buy it.
Somebody likes it.
Somebody who's, you know, got
a great reputation wants this.
I was like, oh my God.
And so then it was like, wow, I can,
I can make this, I can make this work.
so the strategy became those first
years, the first three, four years,
that's pretty much all we did was
we focused strictly on wholesale.
and so the years we've worked.
You know, probably over 75,
80 chefs in restaurants.
And, and that was the bulk of our business
for the most part, up until COVID.
And then things kind of
pivoted at that point,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
How did you get into
that many restaurants?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
boots on the ground.
literally it would just, I
would, Charleston is a very
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
a food scene.
At that time.
a chef called Sean Brock, and he is pretty
world renowned at this point, but he was
really putting Charleston on the mat pin.
Several other guys had a
lot of national recognition.
He was really famous for his restaurants.
He was real farm to table, working
with a lot of local farmers.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yes,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: He
now, he moved away and he's been doing
his thing in Nashville for some time.
But but Charleston's very
much a food destination.
So there's a big restaurant
scene a lot of restaurants here.
And so I just started going to him, you
know, and I would just, I would just
pack a cooler full of a bunch of birds.
I would just walk into the restaurant,
say, Hey, I need to talk to your chef.
And I got a cooler with a dead, you know,
a frozen chicken, and people were just
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yes,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: at me.
But I found that if you just kind of
like, if you just kind of just walk
past that hostess at the hostess
stand or the assistant manager that's
there and you just act like you're
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
there and like, Hey, who are you?
What are you doing?
I just gotta go talk to the chef.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and they just let you go.
You know, if, if you
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
know what you're doing.
And I would just find 'em,
say, hey, and they'd kind of
look at me like, who are you?
And I'm like, I got a chicken.
Try it.
Lemme know what you think.
Call me.
You know, kind of thing.
And yeah.
And that's, that's really all it was,
is just, you know, letting them try it.
And then I would, you know, check in.
you know, go from there.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: You
mentioned about COVID and how that
affected your business, and we
all went through COVID, and I can
only imagine how that affected it.
Before COVID, had you already started
ducks and turkeys in addition to
chickens, or was that after COVID?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So we quickly went from chicken to
Turkey because a lot of these chefs
I was talking to for several reasons.
One, there were several
chicken producers in the area.
And so some of them already
had a chicken farmer,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right?
Yeah
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
no one was doing ducks.
It was wide open and they wanted them,
they were like, oh, I'd love to get some
fresh logo duck from the other thing
is, like I said, the process for raising
a duck is very similar to a chicken.
it's a little bit more expensive
'cause ducklings are a little more,
you pay a little more for ducklings
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
And the processing is more
difficult, but aside from that,
it's essentially the same thing.
And I found, but the ironic thing
is people will pay twice as much
for duck than they will chicken.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
the same thing.
They just see, I guess
they see more value in it.
And, and so we were
able to make that work.
You know, especially if we could get ni a
nice, large bird we could make that work.
You know, one of the biggest things
we would get from a chef that I
would talk to would be the price.
You know, that's the biggest thing is you
know, they're used to getting it for X I'm
selling it for y, how I can't afford this.
And for a lot of 'em,
they couldn't afford it.
And that was a big thing.
But what I found was after talking with
them about it was I said, you know,
I kind of would present it as, do you
want to have the same thing everybody
else has all these other restaurants
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
They want to be the best, right?
They want to have packed
tables every night.
They want to have the best reviews.
they want, they have a little
bit of an ego too, right?
These chefs, especially these, you know,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: chefs,
you know, they, they want to get all the
accolades and win all the awards, right?
And have their name out there.
And I said, okay, well if you want the
best dishes, wouldn't you agree that
that starts with the best ingredients?
And they would say, yes.
Okay.
, I'd say you, you don't wanna buy the
same food from Cisco or US Foods.
You need to start with
the best ingredients.
the other thing we would do is
because of times they're used to
getting smaller birds is I would
raise as larger bird as I could get.
And so when they would part it out,
instead of having two rests, I would say,
these are really extra large breasts.
You can actually cut these in fours.
And
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
breasts instead of two and
four dishes instead of two.
And so now they can make the numbers
work 'cause they're getting four
breast entrees instead of two breast
entrees, and they can essentially
pay double and get a better product.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
the numbers as well.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
Did you, so the chefs kind of
drove your adoption of raising
ducks, and you mentioned turkeys.
Is that how you got into turkeys as well?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
Well, turkeys were more of a
Thanksgiving thing is kind of how we
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Just seasonal Thanksgiving and
then we'd sell a few for Christmas.
But when we started doing more direct
consumer sales, which is around the COVID
timeframe, because when COVID hit all the
restaurants just quit ordering, right?
People weren't going out to
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
And I had a freezer full
of birds and I was like.
What do I do?
And so that's when we started doing
some farmer's markets and started
focusing more on direct to consumer.
But I was doing the turkeys and we're
doing ducks, and I, I said, well,
why don't we do turkeys year round?
And instead of selling whole turkeys,
most people aren't buying them
year round, a whole Turkey anyway.
How can we make this a year round thing?
And we started doing other Turkey
products, so we would part 'em out.
We'd sell Turkey parts, you
know, legs or thighs, breasts.
we also do ground Turkey and we have
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: of
Turkey sausage breakfast sausage and
lynx and all these different things.
And so that made it a viable
product that we could sell you
know, 12 months outta the year.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: With your
turkeys, ducks and chickens, were you
doing all on farm processing for them?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
We started out that way.
Yeah, it was, it was a challenge.
So we
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I imagine so.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
And I mean, even with equipment, and
I think I remember the first time
we did ducks, so it was myself and I
hired eight people, so it's nine of us.
And I had a, a, a big commercial chicken
pluck or you know, I had a machine, I
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: So
I had all the equipment and it still
took us, I think we worked 10 hours
straight and we did like 70 birds.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and it was brutal, you know, nonstop.
And I was like, you know, here I am, I'm
doing, you know, batches of like, at the
time I was doing like 400 birds at a time.
I was like, there's no way
I can, I can process these.
And, and you know, that
was our first time, right?
We would've
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right, right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: more
efficiency as we got more practice,
but I just said, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna take these to somebody else.
I, I don't wanna do this.
This is a lot
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
it's a lot of headache.
And I was, I'll just
pay somebody to do it.
And the other advantage of taking
it to A-U-S-D-A processor is, you
know, now we can do parts, now
we can do value added products.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: across
state lines, which we wouldn't have been
able to do those things if we had process.
Still on farm, so
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Was
it easy to locate A-U-S-D-A
inspected processor for ducts?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: mm-hmm.
No.
So, know, poultry, you know, a lot
of four, four-legged animals you
can use state, you know, custom
exempt processing poultry has
to be USDA, federally inspected.
There's roughly one USDA
processor per state on
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
zero, some states may have one or two,
but about one per state in the country
that'll work with smaller producers.
and so they're very few and far between.
And the processor we were working
with wasn't doing a great job.
They did a great job on chickens
and turkeys, but ducks were a
completely different animal.
It's a waterproof chicken with, you
know, three times the number of feathers.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
difficult to get a nice clean
bird with a good presentation.
We were having issues where a
lot of birds were coming back
with a lot of feathers on 'em.
I was losing restaurants.
They're like, we can't buy these.
I was losing product and so I called
all over the place to find somebody
that could process these ducks for me.
And I found a place in
Kentucky, and it was about a
12 hour drive from where I was.
And so that's what I would do
is for a long time I would up
400 birds on a trailer drive 12
hours, let 'em process all day.
I'd spend the night and then pick them
up the next morning fresh and drive back
12 hours straight through the night.
So, that's what we did
for, for many years.
Yeah.
So that's how few processors there
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
Yeah,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
waterfowl and do it well.
So,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: right.
Yeah.
Now you said that, you said you
did that for a number of years.
Do you have a closer processor now?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
Yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
more have opened up that are
much closer to us that we use
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
Oh, very good.
Very good.
With the, the turkeys and the ducks,
and you're going through restaurants,
COVID hits and like you mentioned a
while ago, restaurants were shut down.
How did you pivot at that time?
I know you mentioned earlier you started
going to some farmer's markets, but how
did you, you get through that period?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Yeah, we've had to shift our
business model like three times.
So the, so that was one shift.
So we went from wholesale,
direct consumer around COVID.
It was a challenge, you know, 'cause I
was selling whole birds, whole ducks.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: And
when I went to the farmer's market,
I said, I got whole ducks for sale.
as you can imagine, not a lot of
people were looking to buy apple duck.
It is not an
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: food
like chicken or pork or beef would be.
And you know, some people would
buy, but it'd be, you know, kind
of on occasion, you know, once a.
a month or something
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and especially buying a whole bird.
And so I was like, man,
this is, this is tough.
We gotta do something different.
And so we started parting out our birds
and I found that I can, I was selling
more product if I would break it down.
And we had some people that
buy a whole bird, 'cause that
was the most economical route.
But we broke it down to, you know, legs,
thighs, wings, breast, we would sell more.
People were more interested in that,
they're more familiar with that.
They knew how to cook that.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: And
when you and I could sell it for more
money, so when you add the total value of
all the parts, we were making more profit.
So I was like, okay, this is cool.
And then I, I kind of went down
the road of, okay, can we the
most juice out of this lemon when
we're looking at these parts?
I was like, okay, there's gotta be a
way we can, can, you know, just, just
make like, how can we make more profit?
time, I had a lot of the wink.
We're backing up.
I had duck wings and if you've
ever had duck wing, there's
not a lot of meat on it.
You know, it's just real lean.
Especially when you, and when you cook
it, they get kind of tough and chewy
and there's not a whole lot of meat, not
as much as a chicken wink would have.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: And so
people weren't really interested in it.
And I was selling 'em, I think,
around for a buck a piece ish.
And I would, I couldn't tell 'em,
you know, I was just, I just had a
whole bunch of 'em in the freezer.
I was like, I gotta figure something out.
Even I put 'em on sale.
I wasn't selling a lot of 'em.
And so what I did was I took those
duck wings I was selling that I
couldn't sell for a dollar a piece.
put 'em in a dehydrator and we
dehydrated them and I put 'em in a
bag and marked them as pet treats,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and, and I sold them for $3 a piece.
So I increased from a dollar a piece to
$3 a piece, and I'm selling out of them.
I'm like, whoa, okay.
You're onto something here.
is
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right?
Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
People are buying 'em for their
dogs for three times more.
Okay.
So we started, so then they, they really
got the, the wheels turning, okay, how
can I make more money off the parts I
have raise fewer animals and, and make
more profit and make the numbers work?
And so I started thinking,
okay, what else can we do?
And so we took the, we did the same
thing with every piece of that bird.
We did the legs and we did, we
used a commercial kitchen and we
make con feet, duck comb, feet, a
seasoned and flavored and precooked.
And we packaged that and sell duck
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
We took the breast and we did cured
meats and sausages and prosciutto.
Took the carcasses, the frames that
are left after you part it out.
And we grind those.
We make dog food.
and we also make bone broth the bones.
So all these pieces, essentially went
from making $10 net profit per bird.
When I was selling to restaurants
wholesale, net would be about
$10 a bird to making 70.
$0 per bird net
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh wow.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: when
we did all these value added products.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: so now
I'm making seven times the amount of money
per bird, and which meant raise fewer
birds and still make the same, revenue.
And it was a
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
than, than raising, you know,
thousands and thousands of birds
and trying to wholesale 'em all.
'Cause then you need more infrastructure,
more land, more freezer space.
And I was like, wow,
this is, this is cool.
So the, yeah, so that was a big
pivotal moment when we started doing
direct consumer and trying to figure
that whole market out and how to sell
direct consumer and make it work.
And the farmer's markets were great.
We did, we were doing at our peak, I
think we were doing six or seven markets
a week in multiple cities all around.
We would drive as far as two hours south,
two hours north two hours to the west.
And we do all these different markets
every week and they were great.
But.
and I love farmer's markets.
I'm a big proponent of it.
learn so much about your customer,
what they like, what they don't like,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
you know what, okay, these are
moving, these aren't selling.
Maybe I need to adjust my pricing here.
Maybe there's something about
the product they don't want.
You know, you just get so much feedback
about what customers are into, why
they're buying it, you know, recipes that
they're making with it, it's invaluable.
And I think without that information,
I never would've been able to
be successful selling online.
And so that was where we
pivoted again, online sales.
Because, oh, go ahead.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Before we jump
into your online marketing, I wanna jump
back real quick on your ducks and turkeys.
What breeds are you using
for your ducks and turkeys?
This is just a tangent that I always
have to know is what breed, and then
we'll go back to your online marketing.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
Jumbo pecans is what we like.
There, there's a, there's a hybrid, a
grim hybrid pecan which is pretty good.
A lot of producers, users for the ducks.
But I just found that the jumbos
got just a little bit larger and
a little bit shorter timeframe,
which I really appreciated.
You know, especially with
the wholesale market, we won
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
And for turkeys we did broad,
they're all broad breasted turkeys.
So we did the broad, broad
breasted whites, and we do
the broad breasted bronze.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
Do you have a, you don't have
a preference on color there.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
The whites make a better presentation
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
you'll see a little bit of feathering,
you know, that dark feather will
really show up on the carcass if it's
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
real, real clean.
But.
As far as yield, the light, the
whites were probably a little
bit, slightly better yield.
But I also noticed that the
whites got hit by predators a lot
more often than the bronze did.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
And that makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for going
on that tangent, Jeff.
So you, you're going to
these farmer markets.
What led you to doing
new online marketing?
I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So the farmer's markets were
great, you know, it was, it was
you know, doing really well.
We had a lot of customers,
we got a lot of feedback.
you know, farmer's markets
were just inconsistent.
So many of 'em
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
wintertime.
Or we would have weeks where, you
know, we'd have a lot of rain and if it
rains, you know, people don't show up.
And then you have summertime, and
if it was sunny, wouldn't show
up 'cause they'd be at the beach
or go out on the boat, you know?
And so it
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right, right.
Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
You could have a banger day and
you could have a horrible day.
And it was really no rhyme or reason.
You know, it was, it was hard to predict.
The sales were up and down.
You're doing this revenue roller coaster.
Like I mentioned, we were doing
markets in different cities, you know,
several hours away from where I lived.
So I would hire people to do
that market in that city and,
you know, they would quit.
And so then I'd have to
find a new person, go out
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and it was just, you know,
this kind of revolving door.
And I wanted to do online sales.
I knew other people were doing it
and having some success with it.
And I had a website, I had an
online store for many years,
and it was just struggling.
I didn't really know how to
make the online sales work.
And tried for a long time to do it.
And then until we finally started to
figure out a few things that, that
started to click and started to work.
With the online store.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Let's dive deeper
into that online marketing, and that's
gonna be our overgrazing topic for today.
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cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: A practice
that you're doing on your operation
that we talk in deep, talk deeper about.
I don't know how I usually say that.
Hmm.
Whatever we're going, we're
gonna dive deeper into it.
That's what I usually say.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: we go.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
Dive deeper into it.
For the online marketing.
So what did you do so that your
online marketing became a success?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
I'm not sure there's any
one thing I could say.
I, I wish it was that simple.
You
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
be like, oh, just do this.
But I feel like there's, and I feel
like that's why it was so challenging
is 'cause there's so many moving parts.
That's why I, I, I'm a big
proponent of farmers to do like
farmer's markets because you get
to learn a lot of those pieces.
You know, if I, if I set up an
online store and I never went to
a farmer's market and I say, okay,
people buy my stuff, even if I have
everything set up perfectly and I'm
not getting sales, don't know why.
Right?
There's
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
variables.
I don't know if it's the price.
I don't know if it's my messaging.
I don't know if it's my emails.
I don't know if it's the website.
I just don't know.
The delivery price is too high.
Like there's so many variables
and you can basically, the, the
farmer's market simplifies things.
We don't have all these variables.
You have people that walk up
to you say, I wanna buy stuff.
And you go, okay, here you go.
You know, it, you, you
eliminate all those variables.
And so, and you don't
get that feedback online.
It's just, it's just silence.
Right, and you're hoping for a
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
every now you get one, you're like,
but you don't know why they bought.
Okay, okay.
I wanna get more of these sales.
But, so, you know, a lot of things
that I think we did differently.
You know, we'll start,
give you a background.
We, so at first I kind of built my own
website and I wasn't doing much in sales.
So I hired somebody to pay them a lot
of money to build me a new website.
Oh, this is gonna be great.
still didn't do a lot of sales.
So I went with a third party company
you know, one of these farm to
door companies, not gonna say 'em.
And they did my online store
had our products listed,
still didn't do any sales.
You know, we, it was a great website,
great online store, had all our
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
but there was nobody going
to the store and buying.
And I didn't know why.
And I didn't know how to market it.
So.
What I'm trying to think of the
easiest way to break this down.
The way I, the way I look at online
marketing, there's many different facets.
It's not a silver bullet, it's more
like a thousand golden bbs to make it
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
you know?
But but there's, but the way, I guess the
easiest way to break it down is I look
at it there, there's basically two things
to, to marketing online you have to do.
first is lead generation, meaning
you have to get eyeballs to
your store, your product, right?
You can have the
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
in the world.
You could be selling Wagyu beef
for a dollar a pound, it be the
best Wagyu beef from the world.
But if nobody knows about it, nobody
knows how to get your website.
It's not, you're not gonna
get any sales, right?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: exactly.
Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Websites are like the
stars and the galaxy.
There's a hundred billion
'em out there, right?
So how do you get people to yours?
So, so you have to get leads, eyeballs.
And ideally you need to capture that
email address so that you can continue
to communicate with that person if
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Is that
something you did at the Farmer's
market is capture email addresses?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Yes, that's something we did
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
on, which I'm thankful we did.
'cause that really gave us a good
basis a good seed essentially,
right, of, of customers that
I can continue to market to.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: so we
always have a list at the farmer's market.
You know, today still at our, we
still do a few farmer's markets and we
have a list and people can write down
their name, email, and phone number.
So yeah, so capturing email
where you continue to speak with
them, continue to market to 'em
and so they're not lost forever.
'cause a lot of farmers will
say, you know, let's say they're
posting on social media, they'll
say, Hey, check out our website.
Check out our online store.
If that person doesn't go to that
website online store, and they
don't purchase at that moment.
Which 99% of 'em do not.
They're usually gone forever.
They might come back and visit
again if they're really so en
engrossed and excited, you know,
a few months down the road.
But, but chances are they
might be gone forever.
They might ever not ever
visit your website again.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
When you think about the average
conversion of an online store
is around anywhere from 0.2
to maybe 1% on the high end,
that's a lot of people have to
visit that just to get one sale.
So, and, and I'll get, I'll tell more
about that, but you have to get a lot
of eyeballs to it to make it work.
So, so lead generation is the first
thing you need to do a lot of.
So you have to have leads, eyeballs, and
there's multiple ways we do that, which
I can go into in a second more detail.
But the second thing we need is once
we get those leads, those eyeballs,
we need to be able to convert them.
So.
I look at marketing as a two phase thing.
You need to have leads, lead generation,
and you need to have conversions.
Two different things.
Those are two separate things and
some, some farms are missing both.
Some are just missing one or the other.
But you need to be able to
convert them into a buyer.
meaning when you get that eyeball, you
get that email address, you need to
be able to convert them into a buyer.
And then I would, and then we try
to take, we take it a step further
than that with our online stores.
Okay?
We don't just want buyers,
we want repeat buyers.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: we
have a subscription model that gives
us repeat sales month over month.
And it's my belief that when you're
looking at, after trying many different
types of online stores and meets
different types of online sales, I
tried, you know, different bundles.
We tried, you know, buy
enough chicken for a year.
We tried subscribe and save, where
if you subscribe to this, instead
of buying it one time, if you
subscribe every month, you save 10%.
And all of these were just kind of okay.
Like we got a few sales, but
nothing was really taking off.
And until we did our new subscription
model, that's when things changed for us.
The
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: So,
how's your new subscription model
different than those models?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: yeah.
So I didn't, with all the websites and
software and platforms that I used, none
of them had really any custom features
that I could do a customized subscription.
What I did was I said, we gotta
figure out a way to make this work.
So I emailed and talked to all the
customers I could at the farmer's market.
I sent an emails out to our list.
I said, have you ever done a
subscription, have you ever
done a CSA for a farm, a local
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
If so, what did you like about it?
If not, or, and if, if you
quit, why did you quit?
What would you like to see in it?
What are the big deciding factors?
What, what's a make or break it for you?
Right.
And so I just asked them, you know, I
found out what it is they wanted and
I did I did a lot of this research to
figure out, okay, I'm gonna deliver.
And I found out what they
wanted and I delivered that.
And the result was we essentially
added $30,000 to our bottom line
in five days when we launched it,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh wow.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
10 times more than we did over the
previous 12 months on our online
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh wow.
Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
it, it, it, it worked.
And what I found was through that
process, I'll tell you what I, what
customers told me, what we did, they
told us that they wanted they wanted
to be able to pay month to month.
So they didn't want it like a
traditional, like vegetable, sea,
say they, they didn't wanna pay six
months or a year in advance, right?
So we charged them month to month.
They can quit any
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
they wanted to be able to pause or
cancel if they were out of town.
So we give them that ability, right.
They wanted customization.
They wanted control.
So a lot of, you know, particularly
when I'm talking about like,
you know, vegetable CSAs
usually farmer's choice, right?
You, you sign up for this vegetable
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: and
they've got but carrots and potatoes.
And so you get a box full of
carrots and, you know, a hundred
pounds of beets, you know, like,
what am I do with all these beats?
You know?
and so a lot of people
quit because of that.
They don't have any choice
in what goes in the box.
So we give 'em full choice customization.
And this is something that none of
the other platforms that I looked
at had and we offered variety.
So instead of just offering, you know,
our pasture raised chicken, duck, Turkey,
we've partnered with other local farms.
So we offer pork, we offer beef,
vegetables, bread, honey, you know,
all these different things, right?
And they can choose if
somebody, if they were a box.
So we have our box, we have a
size, they choose their size.
So small, medium, large.
And that box gives them a number
of items that they get to select.
So for example,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, okay.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
box is $200.
They can get 12 credits,
essentially 12 items.
And if they want 12 ribeyes,
they can get 12 ribeyes, right?
If they want ribeye steak, bread,
and eggs, they can get that right and
they can, so they can choose whatever
they want and we deliver that for 'em.
And oh, and the last piece, there's one
more thing I was trying to remember.
There's one more thing.
Customers really wanted,
they want convenience.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, convenience.
Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Our subscription model is hyperlocal.
We only do it for people within
a 20 mile radius, we deliver
it to their house once a month.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
So, so you're not mailing this,
you're, you have a truck and
you're delivering it to them?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Correct.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
The reason for that is when
you look at shipping, know,
shipping's expensive, right?
You,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
pay the shipping fee, you've
gotta pay for the box, the liner,
the dry ice, the ice packs.
I mean, that's a lot of money.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
I can put together a box.
And what we essentially do is we
charge $10 for shipping or for home
delivery, I should say, sorry, not
shipping $10 for home delivery.
We bake that into our price,
so we don't charge 'em, we,
we say it's included, but we,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
that $10 fee into our price rate.
I pay a delivery
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
$10 for every delivery he takes.
So basically it's not costing me
anything delivered to their house.
They drop that box of that, that
subscription box, they get on
their doorstep once a month.
And so the fulfillment's easy.
It's one day a month, right?
I don't have to go
markets all weekend long.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: You
know, I can essentially list disappear
from the farm as long as people are kind
of looking after the livestock and stuff.
I can disappear as long as I'm available
that one day a month, I'm good.
You know, I'm not fulfilling
orders and shipping stuff out
and doing all this other stuff.
I don't have to pay for dry
ice and styrofoam coolers.
I mean, it, it, it, it works, well.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: With it being a
monthly subscription like that, is that
where the majority of your sales are
coming from, or are you still doing some
farmer's markets or some one-off sales?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
Majority of our farmer, or majority of our
sales are through the subscription model.
We still keep a couple farmer's
markets that we do locally.
We've done forever, and they're
close by, but we've quit all those
markets we're doing that were,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
hour drives.
Majority of our sales come
through the subscription model.
It's ironic because those first
three to four years, we were pretty
much doing like 99% wholesale.
Now we've completely flip flopped.
We're doing like 99%
retail, direct consumer,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
and like 1% wholesale.
It's kind of, so it's kind of
interesting how it's our, our sales
model's completely flipped around.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: With the,
the customization that the consumer
has available, does that ever, do
you ever run into problems about
having the right supply of what the
customers are needing or wanting?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah,
so that's the nice thing about the way
we set it up is you know, we have kind
of our core items that we know we're
pretty much always gonna have in stock
that stay consistent for months to month.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
I can, I can adjust, you know, what
those selections are each month, right?
So if I run out of bacon, I can
just take bacon off the list.
I add another producer, like, like
we had a cheese producer who's
doing really good goat cheese.
added them in, but they
didn't have milk year round.
So we had, you know, these awesome
goat cheeses for like three months, and
then we just took them off the list.
So it's easy to manipulate our offerings
depending on inventory, which is nice.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: you
know, if I'm running out something,
I just take it off the list.
If I'm getting heavy on something
you know, we, we keep it on the list.
We could even do a sale or
something like that, but yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Is, is that
something that a consumer logs into a
website, or are they doing this by email?
How is that managed for them
to make those selections?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So our system, so basically I mentioned
that I, find a platform that did this.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
I essentially our own platform it's
called the 10 x Farm Marketing App.
And it's basically an all
inclusive farm marketing platform.
So basically it's, it's.
One one platform that has our
website, our online store takes
payments, does our subscription model.
Custom subscription model has a
full CRM so we can keep in touch
with our customers through email.
Has full email marketing capability,
professional email marketing capability.
it does everything all in one place
that I've kind of, I didn't build it.
I'm not that smart.
Somebody else built it, but I basically
customize it specifically for farmers.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
so we, we use that and we also set
that, use that same platform we
set up for other farmers as well.
But the way that customers sign up for
their, box is they get an email that
says, Hey, it's that time of the month.
need to get your preferences
in what you want in your box.
We have, and the thing that
makes this platform powerful,
we have a bunch of automations.
So when they click that link and they
fill out, it takes 'em to a form.
They put in their name and their phone
number and email, and it says, okay.
And then we have all of
our selections listed.
They basically check off
what they want on that form.
When they complete that they get a
follow up email that says, thanks for
completing your form, your delivery
will be on this day at this time.
I get a notification saying
they completed the form.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Now it's easy for me.
I can just run a report of all of our
orders and it's real easy for me to
run to print off a pick list and a
pack list for all of our customers.
it makes fulfillment really easy when
we go to fulfill all those orders.
But
Yeah, but essentially they're just
filling out a form that that lists,
you know, the items they want, where
they check off the items they want.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: oh, very good.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
The other thing I was gonna mention
is, you know, I started talking
about there's two way or two aspects
of, of farm marketing, right?
So the first is lead generation.
We need to get eyeballs to our website.
The second
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
And I didn't quite finish
talking about conversions, but
conversions is essentially the
message you're putting out there.
And in order to, conversion can be
capturing a, an an email address.
Conversion can be a purchase,
whatever you want to be.
But the model that we
follow is we take leads.
And we send them to a special landing
page just to get an email address.
our o
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
We want an email address.
That's all we want.
We're not asking for a purchase.
'cause the chances of somebody
buying from you had just
heard about juice pretty slim.
We just wanna get an email address.
We then do email marketing and we tell
'em who we are, what we do, why we do
it, and what makes our product different
from the grocery store and what the
benefits are of our product recipes, of
our products behind the scenes, stuff like
that, right through our email marketing.
So they get to know, like, and trust us.
Sometimes we'll send them like
a special promotional email.
Here's our most popular
product, check it out.
You know, special coupon,
something of that nature.
But we want to make sure that
we, when, if we're asking for an
email address, this is very key.
A lot of farmers don't do the
seals on a lot of websites.
Make sure you're giving something
in return to that email.
Don't ask somebody to sign
up for your newsletter.
People get a hundred emails a deal.
They don't want another newsletter.
You know, as much
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: farm,
they don't need another newsletter, right?
Give them
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
in exchange for them giving
you their personal information.
So that can be a, a, a list
of all your favorite recipes.
That can be a 20% off coupon.
You know, the, the, you
know, the sky's limit.
Know how to, how to cut up a whole
chicken, you know, how to defrost
meat, you know, whatever it is.
Give 'em something.
and if it's like a digital
product, that's great, right?
'cause that's easy for
you to, to send them.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: so
get something in return for that email.
Talk about who you are, what you do,
and why it's special, and present your
product as a solution to that customer.
You're not just selling food,
you're selling a solution, right?
You're, you're offering healthy nutrient
dense meat for a mom of four that wants
to feed her family good clean food, right?
You're offering high protein you know,
high protein food to somebody who.
list weights and is like
a big CrossFit guy, right?
Whatever it is, you are offering a
solution to that person, and so you need
to present your product as that solution.
And so your conversion piece is made
up of your, your message, your, your
email marketing, what you're saying,
your website and your social media and,
and, and how you present your product
as, as a solution and, and an offer or
a solution to their product, basically.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: So when you,
when you get a email in, they get that
free product, whatever you're offering.
Do you have a sequence that walks 'em
through, kind of that getting to know
you process and then once they're
finished with that process you send out?
Is it weekly emails
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: mm-hmm.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: or similar
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So email marketing is still by far our
biggest sales channel as far as returns.
We send a warmup sequence, usually
four to five emails when they
sign up for email list that, you
know, answers those questions.
Who we are, what we do, why we do
it, what makes it special, right?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
after they get those, that series of
four or five emails, sometimes we'll
send them like some promotional emails.
Oh, here's our bestseller.
Just, just trying to get them to
try our product for the first time.
You know, here's a discount code,
here's our best, most popular product.
Something like that,
just for them to try it.
And, but I'm writing a
weekly email to my list.
I, I'm telling 'em, and it's not always,
you know, Hey, buy this or buy that.
It's, it's, you know, here's
a new recipe we just did.
some baby animals on the farm.
Here's
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
behind the scenes, here's how
we process whatever it is.
Just to keep, to keep in touch.
And they learn a little
more about what you do.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
And you're building that
relationship with them?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: So
then when I do have something like this
big subscription offer that we launch.
They already know who we are, what we do,
and, and they're ready to, to purchase.
And so when I go, Hey, we got this new
subscription offer we just launched
you can sign up for this seven day
window only, people jump on it.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
how great it is, you know, all the
benefits they're gonna get, you
know, all the food that's included
and they're excited about it.
When we tell 'em it's, you can
choose what you want, it's monthly.
You can cancel any time we
deliver it to your house.
And they, they love it.
So,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: With doing
that, I think you said you do do the home
delivery within 20 miles of your location.
Has there been any problem with that?
Radius?
Have you thought about expanding it?
Have you, what I'm thinking of, did
you get someone that's 20 miles one way
and there's no one else around them?
How has that worked for you?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: yeah.
So when we tried doing home
delivery in the past, didn't work
because it was always these, you
know, we would deliver every week.
And we might get a handful of
orders, and one was 20 miles hour
and one was 20 miles hour way.
And
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
It, it, it was just, it was
such a waste of time to Dr.
Spend all day driving back
and forth and delivering
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Mm-hmm.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
you know, these packages.
But when we launched our subscription
model, you know, and we were able to
get a whole bunch of orders and it's
all done on one day then it makes it
worth our time to do those deliveries.
It makes it worth my time to pay
somebody because they're not just
taking one or two orders, you know,
they're taking, you know, 12 or more.
Right?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, right.
Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
worth their time to go do that delivery.
And, and that's why it worked, when it
didn't before, when it kind of failed.
Before.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Did you
give, does the customer have like a
timeframe when you'll be there, or are
you just dropping it off on the porch?
What's the process for, for
that actual delivery to get it
in the hands of the customer?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So we we tell 'em it's
going to be delivered.
do the first Sunday of every
month, so today was our Sunday,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
CSA delivery day.
So we do this the first
Sunday of every month.
So they always know when it's
gonna be and we tell 'em it's
gonna be there between 11 and five.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
they're not and we drop it on the porch,
we don't knock on the door, wait for 'em
to show up, you know, all this stuff.
I'll meet you at the park at five o'clock.
No, I mean, we're not
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: that.
We drop it on your porch,
hopefully you're home, or ring
the doorbell and we're leaving.
We're back in the car and going.
We also tell them 'cause we do a
lot of protein, frozen meat, we tell
'em to leave a, a cooler with ice
on their front porch if they can.
just as an
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
we, package all of our frozen
items in a cooler bag, like
one of those foil cooler bags,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: throw
a couple ice packs in there and seal it
so it's, it'll be good for an afternoon.
You know, if they happen to be
gone for the day, it'll be okay.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
Do you, do you have those costs built
in or are they encouraged to return
those items so you can reuse them?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Some of them do, but you know,
the, I think the bags we're
getting are like two bucks a piece.
You
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: okay.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
packs are maybe, know, a dollar or two.
So it's, it's not a, it's
not a big cost, really.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
a huge cost there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very good.
Very interesting how you've, you've
pivoted multiple times in your farming
career and how you have this model
going, which sounds really nice, and
something I aspire to do in the future.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
I, I made my mind up that.
Yeah, we tried doing the online sales
thing for a long time and I really
decided, or learned, I guess through
trial and error, a lot of error.
That there's really only two ways
to make it successful online.
You have to either get sell a
very large ticket item, right?
So you're
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: or
quarter beef, you know, a half hog, you
know, something like that where you're
getting $500 plus in a single order.
Because if somebody orders from you once
or twice a year, it's worth it, right?
You're still getting a good return on that
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
But that doesn't work for
chicken farmers, right?
Or somebody who's selling, you
know, pork sausage and ribs.
You know that for like
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: You
know, when you're, we have it on it's
fine to sell you know, per item, you know,
individual items on your online store.
But when you're just getting a few orders
here and there, like, so we would get,
somebody would go to our website and
they, know, let's say their or order,
average order value was 40 bucks, right?
And they'd visit us three times a year.
So we made 120 bucks.
Three, three months.
They ordered 40 bucks from us.
And I said, well, how can we take
these 80% of our customers that
are ordering just a couple times a
year get them to order every month?
And so instead of them paying us $120 a
year, 'cause they have three $40 orders,
getting like $150 order, $200 orders from
the subscription model every single month.
so
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
believer that there's really only
two ways to make online sales work.
It's either you selling very expensive
items like, you know, a side of beef or
you are, you have a subscription model
where you're getting that revenue month
after month after month, relying on one
off sales here and there a few orders,
you know, low tech, low value items.
Just, it just, it just didn't work.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah,
and that makes sense as I'm
sitting here listening to it.
I probably couldn't have verbalized
that before, but it does make
sense as you're saying that,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
And the
Is we also do a lot of advertising.
So we, we do our lead generation
in several different ways.
We do social media organically.
We do social media with paid advertising.
So we're driving traffic to our website
and we do partnerships with other
local farms, other local businesses.
The funny thing about paid advertising
is costs me to get a local engaged
customer between two and $4 to get
an email address from a local engaged
customer that's interested in local
food is about what it costs me.
What we've seen is with our
subscription model, we get about $4
roughly the same as what it costs us.
$4 per email subscriber per month.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
So essentially it costs me $4
and I'm getting a $4 return in 30
days with our subscription model.
And so
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
I am making that advertising
cost back in 30 days.
And that, which means that I, and I'm
getting that return every single month,
which means I can essentially scale this
subscription model as high as I want.
'cause I'm getting my
money back every 30 days.
So
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: and
we've, and we've seen this with all the
farmers that we, we set this subscription
model up with, they're all getting
roughly, it's just weird, but they're
all getting roughly that $4 return.
And so now we can put, we can
put a pen in that, okay, we
know we're getting a $4 return.
okay, let's just spend more money
on ads, get more email addresses,
and we can grow this thing as.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: right.
Yeah.
Is there, when you think about farmers
getting started, what would you say is
their minimum that they should be able
to offer for a subscription model to get
started, and when I'm thinking about that.
If they're just raising
poultry, is chicken enough?
I know you work with other local farms,
so you have more things in there.
How many things do they need
available to really get it going?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah,
I don't know if I have a hard number.
But I don't,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah,
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
it would be very hard
you just had a few items.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
I think it would be tough.
I think that's, that's one of the key
factors is we have so much variety.
The other benefit to utilizing these
other farms is, especially in the
beginning, they really helped us kind
of get this thing off the ground.
Because when I approached them
and I said, I'm doing this.
Subscription model thing.
I'd love to buy your product.
Can I buy your product?
They said, yes, you can buy my product.
You know, they, they're
not gonna argue with that.
I said, awesome.
We're gonna give you free
marketing, free advertising.
We have their farm name
and logo on the website.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
know, their label is on the product
when we give it to the customer.
So they're getting a lot of
business and marketing from this.
And I tell 'em that.
I say, all that I asked from you
is, can you help us spread the word?
And so when we
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
we asked them, will you help us share
the word, get as many people excited
about this as possible and they, and
you know, we're gonna buy your product.
And they said, yeah, sure.
So they posted on social media, they
sent an email out to email list.
So they really helped us market
this thing too when we launched it.
And so that helped
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
But yeah, I think you have to
have a good number of products.
If I just had chicken, I doubt
that it would be that successful.
I think you could be successful if you
had, you know, kind of all the proteins,
you know, chicken, beef and pork, you
know, especially if you had multiple
items, you know, sausages and different,
you know, value added products and stuff.
I think you
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: But,
but yeah, I, I don't know if I could
have done it with just, just poultry
if it would've been worked as well.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
Yeah.
Very good.
Jeff, I've, I've really enjoyed
talking to, to you about
Martin, about your journey.
Before we go famous four, is there
anything else you'd like to add?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
I think that's about it.
If, if people are interested in
like, learning more about that
and, and want help, regenerative
success is is our website.
So regenerative success.com,
they can check out, you know, what we do.
We happy to help you out.
But yeah, I appreciate you having me on.
Cal, this is
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yeah.
Very good.
Let's transition to Famous four questions.
For today's sponsor, we wanna talk
about the Grazing Grass Resources.
We just launched it and it is
built by graziers, for graziers.
It's a listing, it's a directory.
It's your go-to spot to find farms,
consultants, books, podcasts, tools,
and more, all focused on grass-based
and regenerative livestock production.
Even better, you can submit
your own listing there for free.
That way we keep it practical,
useful and a community.
Whether you've got a service to share, a
favorite Facebook group or a farm folks
should know about head over an add it.
You can check it out at
grazinggrassresources.com
or just at our main
website, grazinggrass.com
and click on resources.
I look forward to seeing you
over there and I look forward
to seeing your listing there.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Same four
questions we ask of all of our guests.
Our first question, what's your favorite
grazing grass related book or resource?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Oh yeah.
Well, you know, we don't do grazing in the
sense that, you know, you would if you had
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: But
we, you know, we do rotate our animals
outside on pasture and that sort of thing.
I really like, would,
I would give you two.
One is pasture of poultry
profits is what I read from Joel.
So right about the time I
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
me kind of hooked on and excited
about farming and that, you know,
hey, I can make a go of this thing.
And the second one I really
liked was regenerative
agriculture by Richard Perkins.
His regenerative agriculture book I
thought was really good and has a lot
of different enterprises and, and how
to be successful with them in there.
And, and he outlines a lot of numbers
and costs and that sort of thing.
So I thought that was pretty good.
so I liked both the.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh, very good.
Excellent resources.
Our second question, what's
your favorite tool for the farm?
I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
It's gotta be a four wheeler.
I don't know, a tractor.
Never have got a, there's
many times I wish I had one.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
but yeah, I mean, I, for, you
know, get by with just a, a wagon
pulled behind a four wheeler.
We can haul over feed buckets,
all our equipment that way.
So yeah, the four wheeler's
key to doing moving things,
moving birds, moving equipment.
Yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303:
They can really be handy.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Our third
question, what would you tell someone?
Just getting started?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Oh yeah, I would say, don't jump
into online sales right away.
You know, start with the farmer's
market or start with the on-farm stand
someplace where you can interact with your
customers one-on-one to really understand.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
What your customer values, what they
want, they like, what they don't like.
you can utilize that information
and you then you'll know what
to write in your social media,
what to write in your emails.
'cause you'll be getting that
information from your customer
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh yes.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
really help.
You know, thinking about the
end goal marketing, how you're
gonna sell your product, who
you're gonna sell it to is key.
You know, I think a lot of us farmers,
you know, I was in this boat, you know,
I just was so excited about farming and
being outside and being with animals.
And you don't think you start a farm, you,
you gotta a business and you gotta market.
gotta tell people what you do
and you gotta be able to sell
your product otherwise you're
not gonna be forming for long.
Right.
and that's kind of the hardest
piece and the piece that I think
that I, I overlooked for a long
time and didn't understand how
difficult that was going to be.
You know, you never start, stop marketing.
You know, we,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
stop, we see customers drop off, you
know, they move away, they forget
about us, they go somewhere else.
it's the day you start farming is the day.
If you're selling direct to
consumer, you gotta start marketing
and, and essentially never stop.
Right.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Right.
Yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
you know, something I would, I
would say to, to keep in mind,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Yep.
And lastly, where can others
find out more about you?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: yeah.
Regenerative success.com
is our website.
And we've got lots of, I I send a lot, if
you wanna join my newsletter, I send lots
of free resources, tons of stuff when it
comes to, you know, how to post on social
media, how to do email marketing, how
to run ads, all these kinds of things.
So yeah, definitely join our newsletter
and check out what we, what we have.
We have Facebook group,
regenerative Success,
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: I.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Group.
Lots of free information there.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Very good.
And Jeff, we'll put those in our
show notes so our listeners are
able to find those and click on
'em and, and get there quickly.
And I said lastly, but we
have one more question.
Do you have a question before I
tried to wrap it all up together.
Do you have a question for
me before we wrap this up?
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303: Yeah.
So my question for you
would be drives you,
at this stage to, to get up in the
morning, to keep you know, going
through and pushing what you're doing?
What's, what's your big, I guess,
your main motivational factor?
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: There's,
there's, there's two aspects of that.
You know, motivation only
lasts so long and it's really
discipline that comes into play.
And so when I say that there
may be three points to it.
One is I.
Block out time each week.
That's just for the podcast.
And I try to maintain that schedule and
I actually have too much time blocked
out for it right now, which causes me
not to be as effective as I am when I
have a, when I'm constrained on time,
when I say I'm doing all of it during
this time, it actually works better
than if I say, oh, I can do it that day
or this day, then I get kind of lazy.
So that discipline and having it
scheduled really helps with that
motivation to do it every day.
But, and I think that's really important,
but part of the motivation is the benefit
I get from every conversation I have here.
Every conversation energizes
me, encourages or helps to
encourage me to do more.
And I hear things I've heard before.
I hear things I haven't
heard, and it energizes me.
It's like going to a conference,
you get that feedback and you
come home, you're all motivated.
So it helps with my motivation.
It's like small injections
of it, every podcast.
And I hope that's doing that
for the listener and that's
where my other motivation is.
I think as we incorporate
more Ty practices in, it just
benefits, it benefits the earth.
It benefits you, it benefits you from the
food you're eating to the lower amount
of chemicals coming into your body.
It benefits the soil, it
benefits your animals.
It is a lot of times a lower cost
option than some of those if you're
using some high input things.
So my, my third step of that
is that motivation to help the
listener take their next step.
And I know what I'm saying is probably not
going to get 'em to that next step, but
what I'm hoping is they hear something in
your story and they're like, oh, that I, I
identify with that person and they did it.
I can do it.
And we just need them
to take that next step.
And the big worry I have, especially
when we get someone on here that's
been doing this for 50 years
and they're sharing their story.
They're in a different spot in
their journey than you are for you.
You're in a different spot than someone
just getting started, and we have to
remember not to compare our journeys at
the same time because that's, you're,
you're in a totally different part
of your journey, but the goal is we
help that person take that next step.
So those are big three.
You know, being disciplined helps
me, the motivation that I get
benefit from it very selfishly.
I just happen to record these
conversations and share, and then the
hope and the desire that the listener
gains something is able to take that
next step, keeps me going each day.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I say the same thing, you know, when
we get interns or, or people that,
you know, seasonal workers out on
the farm and everything, and a lot
of 'em are brand new to farming
and they've never done it before.
And, and I talk to them and they're
like, well, have you ever tried this?
Why don't you try, why
do you do it like that?
Why don't you do it like this?
I'm like, I've never thought about that.
That's
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: Oh
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
You know, and so
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: yeah.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
a lot from them too.
Even though they may not have any
farming experience, it's always good
to see a fresh, you know, perspective.
cal_1_06-01-2025_181303: It is.
It is.
I completely agree.
Jeff, really appreciate you coming
on and sharing with us today.
jeff-siewicki_1_06-01-2025_191303:
All right.
Thanks a lot Cal.
I was so excited to get Jeff on here.
Been watching what he's been doing
at Regenerative Success and his focus
on marketing and helping farmers.
I want to get him on here and
share about what he's doing.
If this, if you're thinking, Hey, I
need to find out more information, I
encourage you to go visit his website.
I think he gave some great ideas in that
direct to consumer using subscriptions.
One thing he said that I think he's
probably a hundred percent right,
but I didn't really want to hear.
I at some point would like to
start selling direct to consumer.
I haven't, I have no big desire
to do farmer's markets just
seems like a lot of time.
But as he mentioned.
Farmer's markets, you're interacting
directly with your customer or potential
customer, and there's no better way to get
direct feedback than that Farmer's market.
At least that's the way it is in my head.
That's what Jeff was saying.
If you have something different, I'm
gonna post a couple polls or questions
over on the Grazing Grass community
concerning Farmer's Market, and if you
do direct consumer, I'd love to hear
your answers, your thoughts on it.
Cal: Thank you for listening to this
episode of the grazing grass podcast,
where we bring you stories and insights
into grass-based livestock production.
If you're new here, we've
got something just for you.
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It gives you more information
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You can grab your free
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Don't miss out.
And Hey, do you have a
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We're always looking for passionate
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Until next time.
Keep on grazing grass.
Creators and Guests
