No.
When we decided to take the plunge and start selling beef from our farm in 2005, we knew our business would never be a replacement for the grocery store.
Our farm is brazenly limited in production. That’s the whole idea of a niche market: we sell our own beef to our own customers, end of discussion. There’s an implied boundary in commerce attached to that marketing strategy, yet I’ve been fully ignoring it. For years I’ve been preaching small business while unwittingly planning an empire in my mind. Pressure from the exhausting pursuit of opposing objectives has driven me crazy. Today, I realize my mistake.
The paradox of small business culture is that we’re always trying to grow. As our farm has exploded into a bustling commerce center I’ve doggedly looked onward and upward, wondering how big we can get. With such an objective in mind it’s important to question where the line between comfortable small business and booming empire exists. At what point does something unique become something generic?
Customers, who are the lifeblood of commerce culture, hold the answer to the question. The people doing the shopping are a perfect litmus test for small business vigor.
As I type this, grocery store shelves are devoid of meats. People who otherwise would’ve never considered Clarion Farms as an option for beef are suddenly knocking down the door in search of some. My phone rings endlessly, Facebook messenger is filled with requests, my email is perpetually clogged, and all of our order lists are maxed out for the foreseeable future. We cannot keep a piece of beef in stock.
This is a small business dream, right?
Maybe not.
If I may be perfectly, humbly honest, this is not fun. Our farm is suddenly strained to the maximum because it’s expected to do what it was never designed to do: replace the grocery store. We’re operating at a perpetual shortfall. The only thing any of us can think about is how soon we can get more beef. I don’t think anyone in my family ever dreamed of becoming a slave to demand.
Furthermore, our customer makeup has shifted. People who have faithfully supported and believed in the vision of our farm for over a decade are being out-competed by newcomers who are looking for ‘meat’. Simply put, that isn’t fair.
There is a distinct difference between the people who supported us when there was another option at the grocery store and those who buy from us because there is no other option at the grocery store. It’s the difference between a deliberate vision for the future and the expectation of limitless gratification. This juxtaposition makes it plainly obvious that growth will not fulfill our dreams because perpetual growth leads only to the erosion of vision. Curbing growth means that we need to start saying ‘no’ to customers.
Nobody wants to pretend to be God, saying ‘yes, you eat and no, you don’t,’ but, for Pete’s sake, there is a limit to capacity. Somebody is going to get weeded out along the way. A truly successful small farm admits and adheres to its smallness.
The Lane’s End microdairy is in Jefferson County. I’ve wanted to visit from the moment I heard about the project, so yesterday Gina, Henry, and I loaded into the car for a trip. Jesse milks three cows and sells all the milk to happy customers. I couldn’t help but ask what his wildest dreams are for the future. His calm reply was, if things go really well, he might get up to eight, but that’s all. I nearly wept, standing beside his trio of Jersey cows listening to my phone ring as people I don’t know called to demand beef we don’t have. On a little farm in a nearby town I realized the folly of my competitive desire for expansion.
There is freedom in smallness. Allan Nation regularly quipped that there will always be a better funded someone out there eyeing your business and trying to overcome it. Nobody, no matter how ‘successful’ they are, can out-spend and out-compete intentional limitations. When scale decreases, culture grows, and culture cannot be replicated.
Let someone else be the biggest. If we never increase the volume of beef we sell again, I’ve decided that’s fine with me. We’ll never catch ‘bigger’, but we can expand on excellence. I want only customers who truly appreciate the beef they place on their table. That is actual success: a finite number of close-knit supporters who love what we do because of why we do it. You folks know who you are, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
So, what’s the future? It’s the addition of entrepreneurs like Mark Radaker, who grows produce and pigs, Keaton Stants who is poised to fully redefine grain production, and Ty Kepler whose combination of cooking and photography is unique and unparalleled. It’s more community events with our friends at Clarion River Brewing Company. It’s music at the farm and Grassfed Gadabout tours and fall festivals and long conversations and cooking classes and wildflowers. It’s everything better and nothing bigger, which will likely be a rough ride as the expectations of the world collide with the ethos of a small farm outside of a small town in the coolest county in the country.
Bring on the bumps.