This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. You're listening to "Side Hustle School," the one and only daily podcast, bringing you case studies, tips, questions and answers all about starting an income generating project and usually doing so without going into debt or spending a ton of money in general. I really enjoy making this podcast every single day. I've got all kinds of listener questions coming in. Today we received one from Maya.
Maya is a small business owner based in Portland, Oregon. She's struggling to find new customers for her organic farm produce. So as she's gonna tell us a bit, she is torn between selling at farmer's markets, you know, which are fun in some ways, but also have limited growth potential and expanding her online presence, but she's not sure how to do so effectively. And the struggle is real, you know, it can be especially difficult when your business is pretty niche and relies on local customers like Maya's organic farm. However, there are still ways to expand your customer base and increase revenue even with limited resources, which is what we're all about here.
So in today's episode, we're gonna share a couple of tips for Maya as well as anybody else out there looking to start or grow a small business or a side hustle. All right, stay tuned, it's coming right up. [Music]
Hi, I'm Maya and I run a small organic farm in Portland, Oregon. I'm struggling to find new customers for my produce and I'm not sure if I should focus on selling at farmer's markets or online. At the farmer's markets, it's always the same vendors and customers.
So growth seems limited. At the same time, I'm not sure how to expand beyond my local area because of the nature of the product. In short, I want to expand my customer base and increase revenue. What would you suggest? [Music]
Hey Maya, thanks for reaching out.
Great to hear about the small organic farm. And you're absolutely right, farmer's markets are somewhat limited. I think farmer's markets are wonderful, but when you're trying to grow a business, you tend to have, as Maya said, the same customers coming back and such. So what can be done here? A couple of things.
You can, as much as possible, diversify your sales channels. So you've got the farmer's market down, you're connecting with some customers in person, but what about some wholesale accounts? This could be a true game changer. Local grocery stores, restaurants, perhaps, any kind of ongoing wholesale source that orders in larger volume, that can just allow you to do so much more. Rather than thinking online, I would think what can I do to reach local restaurants, grocery stores, anybody else ordering in volume?
Next, is it a possibility to offer some unique products? You know, maybe just to stand out from the other vendors, consider offering products that are hard to find elsewhere. I don't know exactly what that is, but it could be heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables, perhaps, or specialty items like organic eggs or honey. I mean, Maya's the expert there. I would just say, what can you sell that other people are not selling, or at least what can you sell in a different way?
And then the last tip or the last kind of strategy here is to build some kind of brand. And I'm sure Maya has a brand already, but just investing in some branding and packaging to make your products look more appealing. Of course, you can also use social media as part of that to build the brand, but just kind of helping you create long-term value, both with retail customers, and again, with potential buyers from wholesale sources. You know, that just might help you again to stand out a little bit when there is a lot of competition. So I hope that helps, Maya.
Good luck with your business. Listeners, if you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. I'd love to hear from you, and we'll do our best to feature as many as possible. The show is completely free. Comes out every single day.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From The Onward Project.
