Below is a long story of our latest marketing strategy. But before I get into it, please read the following announcements.
First, we have successfully negotiated a new supplier for our SalmonShares — Matt’s Wild Salmon. Matt’s Wild Salmon is a locally owned and operated husband/wife team bringing the very best salmon to Minnesota. Matt grew up in Minnesota but found his calling fishing the beautiful waters of Southeast Alaska. In his off time he returns to his wife and kids in the beautiful woods of Afton Minnesota. Most of what Matt catches is sold commercially. He only started sending fish to Minnesota because friends and family begged for it. Since that first shipment 10 years ago, the excitement and demand for his fillets has only grown. Try Matt’s Wild Salmon and you too will taste the difference. To order go to our online store or click here!
Next, please order your add-on shares (eggs, cheese, fruit, meat, etc) as soon as possible. This will give us a better idea of the demand.
Third, we may have a source for duck eggs this summer. Please let me know if you would be interested in purchasing duck eggs. I’m not an eggspert (ha, ha) so I can’t tell you the benefits of duck eggs but I do know they are bigger than chicken eggs. In any case, let me know if we should pursue it.
And as always, please spread the word about our farm! We still have shares available.
Farm News
As you may or may not know I have been operating Fresh Earth Farms since 2003. Seems like only yesterday. For the first few years it was quiet. I’d get the occasional phone call about joining the farm or needing help with a delivery issue but overall there wasn’t an unduly large number of calls and they were seldom wrong numbers. Some number of years ago I started to get occasional calls for a company called CieloStar or Outsource One. I told them they had the wrong number and left it at that. Occasionally people were rude and hung up quickly then called me right back again. It started to occur to me that perhaps they weren’t dialing the wrong number but were given the wrong number. Who is this CieloStar?
Of course trying to look up a company like CieloStar was nearly impossible. How the heck do you even spell CieloStar? Plus people said, “Is this CieloStar?” so quickly I was never sure what they were saying. Eventually I realized or discovered that the number they were trying to reach was our number but in the 612 area code. I could see the mistake. If you have a phone in the 651 area code and were dialing a local number you may not think to dial the area code. Once I came upon this realization I would respond to the infrequent interruptions by telling them to dial 612 first. This seemed to be effective for a time.
Hey Chris, what does this overly long story have to do with farming or the farm? I’m getting to that. Well last fall the farm suddenly started to receive a lot of interest. We were getting 10 – 15 calls a day. In the past we’d get maybe 10-15 calls a season much less in a single day! Unfortunately they were all for CieloStar. After the third or fourth call I was getting a bit exasperated. On the next call when the person asked if I could help her with her 401k questions or some such thing I answered, “Unfortunately no but I could answer questions about growing vegetables in Minnesota.” This was met with silence. I continued, “The number you called is a CSA farm, not CieloStar. Do you know what a CSA farm is?” Surprisingly she played along and said, “Yes”. So I proceeded to try to sell her on joining for the 2018 season. You know what they say, when given cucumbers make cucumber water or something like that.
Day after day I was getting a lot of calls. Most callers were not that sympathetic and either hung-up only to call back again or say sorry and call back again. In my discussion with the one person who was sympathetic to my plight I came to the understanding that the City of St. Paul uses CieloStar as a benefits company and that a document was sent out telling people to call my number to get help with their benefits. This document was obviously the trigger to start the barrage of phone calls and answering all these calls with dirty hands was taking its toll on my cell phone.
As the interruptions continued — likewise my dirty hands — I decided I couldn’t spend the time answering all these calls. So I changed my voicemail answering message to say something like, “If you are with the City of St. Paul and have questions about your benefits please go to www.FreshEarthFarms.com and order a vegetable share for the 2018 season. If you actually need answers to your benefits question please call your HR department to get the correct phone number. Thank you for calling Fresh Earth Farms!” You know what they say, when given tomatoes make tomato sauce, or something like that.
Eventually I got an email from someone who apologized for the mistake and that she was interested in picking up at Ginkgo! Well at least I got something out of it. Then a week or so later I got a voicemail message from the City of St. Paul’s HR department where the person’s message was laughter at my voicemail answering message followed by an apology and the suggestion that maybe we can turn this mistake into something positive. Well, six months later the phone calls have diminished to a few per week or less (I just had one today) and we now have a new drop site for employees of the City of St. Paul! You know what they say, when given kohlrabi make kohlrabi juice!
I guess the moral of the story is if you want to give my number out for something in your organization please do so. It might just be the most effective form of advertising we have!
As always, do not hesitate to contact me with comments, suggestions, jokes and questions regarding your HR benefits!