Why your customer is NOT the hero of your farm story

Should you position your customer as the hero in your marketing story? Welcome to Small Farm Nation Academy where we’re gonna teach you everything you need to know and more about how to market your farm or craft food business.

So here’s what I mean, there’s been a lot of talk, you’ve probably heard this in the last few years about story, the concept of telling a story in the world of marketing and credit for most of this goes to Donald Miller who wrote an excellent book called Story Brand. He teaches live workshops, which I’ve attended, he teaches an online course, which I’ve watched and I even modeled this video series that you’re watching after what he does, so he’s teaching some wonderful concepts.

But one of the things he teaches to people is that the customer should be the hero of your story and to never make yourself the hero of your story.

And that advice is wrong in the farming world.

It’s right in many worlds. For example, a lot of my background is in the business to business world whether you’re offering B2B sales training or marketing support services, you’re selling to people who are salespeople, sales professionals human resources professionals CFOS whatever it may be. And of course, you want them to be the hero of the story because that’s their career, that’s something that they’re doing for their corporation, they’re striving to be the hero, they’re striving, in short, for success.

People aren’t coming to farms. striving for success. People are coming to the most successful forms to follow a tribe leader.

Think about the farmers that you know the ones that have gotten all the publicity, the Will Harris’s of the world. Greg Gunthorp or a great example of this Joel Salatin and people follow these farmers because these people are inspirational. They are in fact the hero of the story.

The people are coming to the farm you’re not gonna make them a hero by buying a chicken. Hey, you bought a chicken from me a pastured chicken you’re a hero. Hey, you bought these vegetables, you’re a hero.

Let’s not split hairs here. Of course, they are heroes in the sense that they’re helping to preserve breeds they’re helping to restore the soil through supporting regenerative agriculture and all these kind of things. I understand that, and those concepts should weave their way into the tapestry of your copywriting.

But you need to become the hero for your community.

You need to become the agricultural hero, the artisan and hero, the craftsperson who’s doing something the right way with purpose in with vision and you want to inspire people to form a tribe.

Now, what are the characteristics of a tribe? Tribes need to follow someone, tribes need a sense of community.

So when you have your farm events, it’s not just unilaterally about you trying to say “Here’s what we’re doing on the farm. No, it’s you bringing together the community you’re the one that they’re all organizing around so that they’re participating in this movement, they’re participating in this cause. But what did the cause come from?

It came from you, my friend. You’re the one with the vision, you’re the one of the mission you’re the one that is the hero of this story.

So this is an example of where we hear about these marketing shiny objects and everybody runs to copy what everybody else is doing. This is what I’ve talked about many times with the myth of the ideal customer, everybody thinks you need an ideal customer, it ridiculous to your ideal customer is the one who support you on an ongoing basis, and pay your money.

The same thing with the hero of your story.

I want you to step up, I want you to be the hero of your farm or craft food business story, and I want you to build your tribe of people who want to support you in the long run.

Hey, if you wanna learn everything about marketing your farm business, join me in Small Farm Nation Academy where we have all kinds of courses on branding email list building, creating your website content marketing, getting publicity, pricing going to market strategies and everything in between, Small Farm Nation Academy join us today and get growing.