Are you someone resourceful and passionate about local food and agriculture? Know how to run a retail store, have experience growing a business?

This particular kind of store will include lots of interacting with farmers, special programming (classes in beekeeping, cheese making, etc.) and other online social media activities.

If you want to apply, or know someone who should, have them contact:
Terry McDonnell
802-345-5616

Living La Vida Local!
Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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Tomorrow we launch something new: a series of live interviews with Vermont superfood producers (like me) and a diabetic expert.

You can join in, listen to why these food producers make what they make (hint: there’s nearly always a health connection), and hear from our nutritional expert why it matters.

Access to these folks is free, fun, and easy.
The calls are live, so you can ask your Q’s and get A’s.

Please join us. Noon each day this coming week, May 7-11, 2012. (Eastern time)

www.VeggiesWorthEating.com

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10. Be ready to do business. If this is your first ever market, your preparing days are over. Have lots of change. Have your receipt book ready. Have two pens. Know if you take cash, checks, credit cards. Know your prices. Keep track of what sells, so you can evaluate your product line later. If a friend can help sometimes, put them in the background to note on paper every comment — hugely beneficial — pick out the best ones for your website and promo copy.

Work up to these: Keep track of when the purchases happen: 11 am-noon, noon-1pm, 1-2 pm, 2-3 pm. Note the buyer’s gender and approximate age – this helps you craft your target market demographics later.

11. Ask fellow vendors which market dates are best and slowest, so you can plan your inventory accordingly. Outdoor markets mean occasional rain, but otherwise most markets follow a typical history (quiet in August, maybe, crazy busy in September…).

12. Show up anyway. Rain, heat, wind, boredom, headache, fear, resentment, loneliness, snow even! Show up, be ready on time, and stay til the end even if you run out of product to sell. Be a conscientious and friendly and stout-hearted community member of the market, and it will come back around to you. You never know who that last shopper will be, or how much the dedicated rain-going customer will buy, now and into the future, all because you were one of the vendors who were still there after she made the effort to come out in the rain.

Front of promo piece we use most

Back of the promo piece we use most: includes all contact info, benefits to customers, product descriptions

13. Never let an engaged shopper leave your table without offering them a next step. As you make change, ask if they’re local. If so, let them know where they can find your products every day (website ordering, local retailers, farm stand).

If they’re from away, either welcome them to shop your website, come back on their next trip, or let them know if/where they can find your products at home. We give them a small postcard that they can bring home to their own local specialty food buyer to request that they carry our products. These customers are some of our best sales reps!

FIRST DAY - "THEN"

TWO YEARS LATER - "NOW"

14. Don’t think it to death. Farmers’ markets are an outstanding way to test out products, because they are relatively inexpensive, have a relatively low commitment, and because market shoppers expect things to be more homemade and homegrown, and have a high tolerance — delight, even! — for new, fledgling products.

I found that on our first day, people were charmed by our paper labels, badly cut with hand scissors, taped onto the top of the tubs. Charmed enough that we sold out! People love being present for the beginning of things. So use that.

Go try it so you can see what the response is, and adjust accordingly. You can’t possibly make it perfect in private first. Get your product out there so people can tell you what direction to go with it. Set your fear aside and risk it. Better to make all your mistakes when your business is small!!

Everything will get better next time, and every time. Be patient, and humble, and willing to start very imperfectly.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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As Yummy Yammy prepares for growth, here’s your chance to be a financial supporter, for as little as five dollars (or a lot more), and get really sweet rewards in return.

It’s explained simply on this page describing Yummy Yammy’s Kickstarter launch.

Kickstarter is an innovative crowd-funding platform, which means people from around the globe can put up a few dollars to back creative projects that inspire them. I have personally backed four projects, and find new, exciting projects every day.

We have about 25 days left to raise the remaining $3800 toward our $6000 goal. Will you please pledge generously, and spread the word to your friends, family, and colleagues? Our business has a great opportunity to grow, and we need some additional working capital to take advantage of it.

How You Can Help:

Pledge generously yourself:
Visit our pledge page and choose a reward level that inspires you. You will feel great!

Here’s a blurb you can drop (and edit) in your Facebook page or an email to foodie friends:
This woman Lisa has started her cool business making food out of sweet potatoes – Yummy Yammy – and Whole Foods wants it! Pledge to help her ramp up her capacity, and get some very sweet rewards. It’s your vote for small biz, entrepreneurship, delicious and wholesome foods.  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/18937147/get-yummy-yammy-sweetpotato-dips-ramped-up-for-who

And here’s a Twitter version:
Back the #sweetpotato revolution with me! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/18937147/get-yummy-yammy-sweetpotato-dips-ramped-up-for-who
OR
Get Yummy Yammy #Sweetpotato Dips ramped up for Whole Foods. New Kickstarter Project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/18937147/get-yummy-yammy-sweetpotato-dips-ramped-up-for-who

Thank you for your enthusiasm!

Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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5. Something free first. Remember: you’re not trying to get a person who has never heard of you to walk up to your table and buy three cases’ worth. “Hi, nice to meet you, buy my stuff” doesn’t work anywhere, with anyone.

Free Yummy Yammy samples at farmers' market May 2011

You want to offer them a commitment-free, easy (and fun, if possible) way to sample or taste or test out your offerings. If they don’t like it, you can let them go freely, because they are not your customer. If they do like it, they have just built trust and their first transaction with you. You are now connected, and now maybe the next step can be taken.

I make prepared foods, so we offer samples at every market. Of course, we’re selling orange food in a jar, a food that no one has ever seen anywhere before, so we’d darn well better offer samples!  But no matter what you make, you can offer the free introductory experience: Farmers can offer snippets of carrot, a sample cup of salad, a cuplet of apple juice. Crafters sometimes offer a twist of alpaca yarn freshly spun, a free ring with her website inside the band, a tiny swirl of burl wood.

6. Make friends with the other vendors. You need each other. Offer to help with a stuck folding table. Know who offers what, so you can knowledgeably direct searching shoppers. Ask and (when asked) share advice. Attend any market meetings religiously. Do your share and a little more. Always thank the market manager.

7. Have someone look over your booth display before you start. Your university Cooperative Extension office may have an experienced marketing support team. If not, the manager, a friend, your spouse, a local colleague, or another successful vendor may be willing to spend a few minutes with you. Women at the local kitchen store recommended my recently improved plating and color arrangement, thank goodness. If there’s no one, at least practice setting up once at home, and stand back and view it. From a distance, can everyone see what your business is? Is it all flat down on the table, or is some attractive image visible vertically? Is it colorful, matching your business logo? Is it obvious what you offer and what the customer is to do at your booth? Nothing has to be fancy — it just has to be clear and attractive. Handmade is usually fine, and sometimes even better.

8. Make sure you are following all the laws and regulations for your industry, the tax code, and the rules of the market.

9. Insurance. It varies by state. Ask.

Next week: farmers’ market tips #10-14.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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1. Choose the market that’s the best match for your target customer. Ask the market manager about demographics, sales levels, how well your type of product (agriculture, prepared foods, crafts) moves at their market. Don’t hesitate to ask for sales numbers. Visit the market and look at the customers: Are they buying? What are they buying? How much? Do they look happy? Are they engaging with the other vendors, or do they mostly drive-by? Are the customers there the right age and gender and socio-economic base for you? (Look at the cars in the lot.) And does the market have a good reputation among customers – and vendors?

2. See if the market’s product mix is good for you. If there are three other vendors already selling artisan cheeses, for example, see how much business they’re doing. Maybe this market has become known as the cheese hub, and people flock there for a wide variety of cheeses, and the vendors are serving streams of customers — if so, move on in, confident that you can add a new flavor to the mix. If the three cheese vendors look like they could stab each other with a cheese knife as they compete for a few uninterested shoppers, keep looking.

Also, if most everything is organic, can you offer non-organic? Or if you grow outstanding salad greens, does anyone there make salad dressings or vinegars? If you offer grass-fed meats, is there someone with wines or high-end fruit beverages? Is there a hole in the market mix, like fresh bread, pickles, quality condiments, greeting cards, flowers, honey, foods unique to your region like maple syrup or scrapple or oranges? Is there an outstanding beverage, cookie, cake, salad, soup, quiche, or tart you make that would complement existing products?

3. Ask the manager for advice: What works in this market? What has turned customers away? A little humility will help you. Listen carefully to those who came before.

4. Above all, see the bigger picture. A farmers’ market isn’t only for grabbing sales dollars. Yes, it’s great when market trips are profitable, especially if you are dealing in anything perishable. But a huge benefit of farmers’ markets is the exposure they gain you. So have your company name prominent: big banner, apron/hat/shirt with logo, stand-up signs with name and logo. Bring something to hand out listing partner retail outlets and your website. If they ask a question you’ve written about, answer them and mention that your article on the subject is on your website. Business cards. Inexpensive promotional pieces.

We’ll share tips #5-9 next week!

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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If you’re running a business and raising children, I can share my best advice built on a few years of experience:

We use my children's art in the business

* Volunteer in the classroom once a week, doing something you absolutely love to do. For me, it took me 4 years to discover it: I help in the art room. It’s delightful for me, fun for my kids, and I get to know all their classmates quite well. It keeps you grounded in their school activities, shows them that their academics really matter to you, and you know who everyone is. As they get older, it becomes even more important to know everyone they hang around with, and this is a casual and meaningful way to do that.

* At any given moment, either work or be with kids.  Severely limit the times that you are trying to do both. You will be frustrated that you “can’t get any work done”, your kids will feel shortchanged and build a resentment against your business, and time split that way benefits no one and can never be retrieved. Better to really focus on them when you’re with them, even if that means being with them a little less time. They know when they’re seen as “in the way”. Not good.

* You don’t have to squeeze the life out of every drop of time. Yes, even when you’re making dinner and they’re just sitting nearby – you can talk about things, sing together, share outrageous stories, imagine the future, do homework, have her read out loud. But you can also just daydream, relax, and not talk at all. It’s not the number of activities you achieve together that measures family well-being.

Bert Jacobs from Life is Good buying one of our t-shirts

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Do you also know his amazing wife?

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg is a columnist for INC. Magazine, as well as the spouse that survived the beginnings and growth of Stonyfield Yogurt. She’s an extraordinary example of the kind of extraordinary person you have to be to thrive as the spouse of an extraordinary entrepreneur. And she has now written a book about how you can do the same: For Better or For Work: A Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs and Their Spouses.

It’s not always easy. I’m out doing demos, hearing from customers new and old how great they think our food is, what a great idea I have, and how they are turning their friends onto its great taste and health benefits. Where’s my husband? At home with the kids, feeding them lunch and doing the dishes.

Meanwhile, I’m spending our money on a crazy (?) dream, with no guarantee of success, and he’s working at the job that pulls in (right now) all our family’s income.

This man and our kids mean the world to me… yet I’m often working late, gambling away our savings, and oh, once in a while, a little stressed.

This book is for us.  (In fact, I’m in it.) And it may be for you, if you’re an entrepreneur, or the suffering spouse of one.

Come hear a panel of folks (including me, Gary Hirshberg, Cindy Pierce, and others) talk about this issue in Concord at the Red River Theatres, on Wednesday April 11 at 6pm.  It’s free, and you can get Meg to sign your new book that will help you survive your brilliant ideas and their inception! See poster below.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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Do you love Yummy Yammy?

Now’s your chance to prove it, to shout it from the rooftops, to seriously help us out, and maybe to win our contest!

All you do is this: Make a short video (under 3 minutes) telling us:
WHY you love Yummy Yammy and HOW you use it
Make it INSPIRING, FUN, DELIGHTFUL, HEARTFELT, SERIOUS, SILLY, or whatever you want it to be. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Homegrown video is the best, simple is the best, down-and-dirty is the best, because we all know the only way to do something is to just go ahead and DO it, imperfections and all.

Just to convince you, here’s a little snippet of a movie I just made from my laptop. It was my first time! So if I can do it, you can do it!

We will pick our favorite video on MARCH 31, 2012, and that person will win a whole case of Yummy Yammy Roasted Sweet Potato Dips!

WHY ARE WE OFFERING THIS CONTEST?

We are expanding to a bunch of new stores. And some buyers we’ve approached are, well, let’s say, a little less visionary than others. And their response to our gorgeous, delicious, healthy, convenient sweet potato dips is something like, “We’re not going to buy it, because no one’s asked for anything like it.”

In all fairness, we do make a kind of freaky food, and grocery buyers are supposed to make money for their stores, and they are reasonable to be concerned: “Will my customers buy this new orange food in a jar?”

To make it easier for them, we are going to create a video of happy customers like you telling how much they love it. Because we know that when those grocery buyers see the reactions our customers (YOU!) have, they will race to be among the first to carry Yummy Yammy.

WILL YOU HELP US?

Will you make a video today?
– Go to YouTube, click on “upload” button at top, then “record from webcam”. Close the little box that comes up, hit the red record button. Easy peasy. Talk. Hit the stop button. You can preview it. You can publish it (be sure to hit the “make it public” button). Simple.
– OR, you can talk into your cell phone camera, or your flip-cam, or your regular digital video recorder. Upload it to YouTube from your camera or computer. Make it “public”.

– Then copy and paste the YouTube link on our Facebook page or simply in an email to us.
– Finally, kick back and wait to hear if you won.

Really, really, really, you can make a “good enough” movie. If we can see your face, and if you can express some truth about how our food helps you, that will make it FANTASTIC.

Important note:
When you submit a movie, it does become ours to use as we want, in any format, any time. We really appreciate your submission — Thanks!  (And don’t let this deter you. Use it as a chance to practice taking risks, and being bold and brave! It will exhilarate you! You can do it! It will be fun!!! Do it with family, do it with friends, make a party of it!)

Y’Ammily Yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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I recently came across this simple article about how a sweet potato is the perfect healthy complex carbohydrate to eat, for just about anyone to lose weight. Especially since sweet potato also has so much natural fiber, and phenomenal all-around nutrition.

I was surprised at the comments, which seem to suggest that everyone’s scurrying around tracking every carb they eat.

I’m curious… is it more important to you to:
* eat food that is delicious?
* eat food that is low-fat?
* eat food that is low in carbs?
* eat food that is high in nutrition?
* eat food that is easy/fast/convenient?

Please comment to claim what’s most important to you.

Thanks so much for your input!

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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