

Profitable Mindset
Charlotte Smith
You may be the farmer or married to the farmer - this podcast will help you balance family and merge your personal needs with your farm demands. You can have a profitable biz AND a lovely, fulfilled life. I teach you personal development tools & strategies to finally conquer overwhelm and the feeling that you're not doing enough in your family or in your business. You'll learn step-by-step how to create the results you want in life!
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 23, 2024 • 38min
#208: 3 Steps To Get Daily Personal Time This Summer
Click HERE for my free live training: 6 Tools You Need to Build A Profitable Farm If you’re like many farmers, you probably struggle with being overwhelmed, exhausted, and burnt out for years. You know you can’t keep living this way — so why haven’t you DONE anything about it yet? You can’t find the time! Or, if you do find time, such as Grandma showed up to take the kids for a couple of hours… you’re faced with “... but I can’t because I feel guilty or I don’t deserve to spend time on myself when there is so much to do.” All farmers tell me they struggle with taking personal time, but especially as women, we carry so much guilt around taking time for ourselves because we’ve been conditioned to think this way. We think we need to provide physically, mentally, emotionally, and often financially - to our families - and we’ve placed ourselves last on the to-do list. This costs us a great deal—especially in terms of our health, energy, and profitability. It's ironic that thinking we need to be doing it all is keeping us from even making money. Then, we end up beating ourselves up for it all. Well, I say, “No more!” Today’s episode is about learning 3 simple steps to start creating more personal time for yourself without feeling guilty. I hope you’ll try this. There’s a direct correlation between feeling fulfilled in life and having an hour of personal time each day. NOT time folding laundry or working out… I mean legit, do-nothing downtime, just for you. Sounds crazy-impossible?! Trust me, I’ve been right where you are. And when I saw how just an hour a day to myself changed my whole life, I had to share with you. Now, I spend my life teaching farmers how to make money. And it starts with learning to manage your time. And step one in learning to manage your time… is the skill I teach today. Tune in to this episode and give it a try! Warmly, Charlotte

May 16, 2024 • 1h 1min
#207: How I Hit the Ground Running with a Sold-Out Farm from Day One
Click HERE for the Free Email Marketing Course It’s crucial that you learn marketing from people who’ve created long-term success with it. There are no ‘make money fast’ schemes out there that work. Oh, there are plenty of people trying to sell you one! But from years of experience with thousands of farmers, I know that you can’t spend enough money to compensate for not learning marketing. By that, I mean you won’t successfully spend enough money hiring someone to do your marketing to get profitable. You can’t spend enough money on FB ads to make yourself profitable. Nothing will build your profitable farm without you learning marketing. So, if you’ve got to learn it, it might as well be fun and fulfilling. Today, on the Profitable Mindset Podcast, I’m in the hot seat answering Jonathan Kilpatrick’s burning questions about our marketing workshop I taught in Minnesota. Hear how I used the marketing skills I teach farmers to create my own successful, profitable farm. Hear about the ‘cash cows’ farmers are building today using the same foundational principles. Tune in and learn several things, including: The one task you can do each week to build loyalty and connection How to build trust with people online so they’ll buy from you consistently The number one way to build SEO on your website - and it’s NOT by hiring expensive SEO consultants or programs It’s crucial that you learn to market your farm products. There’s no fast or easy way to do it! If there was a fast, easy way… you know everyone would be doing it successfully. The fact that learning is “hard” weeds out those who are not willing to do hard things. But that’s not you, insert first name here. I set up my marketing a year before I brought my first cow home, so I hit the ground running and was sold out the day I opened for sales. Now I teach farmers to do the same. Listen TODAY and learn. Warmly, Charlotte

May 9, 2024 • 46min
#206: How to Manage and Grow Amazing Employees
The first month after I started my farm and brought home my first milk cows, I realized there was no way I could get it all done! By "all," I mean the milking process, working with customers, feeding my family, and driving my daughter to basketball practice and games six days a week. It was physically, humanly impossible for me to run the farm all by myself! I hired my first employees and then began the process of learning by experience what NOT to do and what works best. I share some great techniques today that I learned in those first few years. Tune into the link above for the Profitable Mindset Podcast. I share skills you can use to manage your new employee(s) with confidence and ease. You'll learn: How to give direct feedback in a way that feels good for you and your employees My formula for evaluating employees' quality of work A simple question that makes employees feel valued How to get your employees to stay with you long-term And more! If you've ever felt frustrated because you just can't find good help and then they never seem to meet your expectations, this episode will help. It's not that there aren't good employees out there willing to work hard. There certainly are, but you've got to develop good people-management skills to retain them. This is part 3 of my 3-part series on attracting, hiring, and managing employees. Let's get you some help on your farm!! You'll get your time back, but also, tons more joy and fulfillment. Much love, Charlotte

Apr 18, 2024 • 8min
#205: Free Training: Reinvent Your Farm's Marketing
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training There are three crucial elements your marketing MUST include to be successful. And by successful, I mean you sell all the products you want and need to sell. And you sell them at the price you need to be profitable. Link to sign up here The farmers who implement these simple elements I teach are having financial success beyond anything they ever dreamed possible. Many people think farming is not a lucrative endeavor. My clients prove them wrong every day. My clients are selling out, often at the highest prices around. Like Hannah Boggs selling $50-$80 chickens. Not because she likes to charge a lot, but because that’s what she must charge on her small-scale farm to cover costs, pay her employees and make a profit. My clients, farmers from all over, can do this because they've studied with me and coached hard with me to learn the simple marketing steps I'll be teaching these steps on April 22nd during my free training, “Reinvent Your Marketing.” The feedback I offer will help you in all your marketing, including how you write emails and the pages on your website. You'll want to be there, watch and learn. Sign up even if you can't make it at 10 Pacific - you'll get the replay. Sign Up HERE. Each time I offer strategic marketing feedback on these calls, farmers email me afterward sharing success: "Sold 80% of my flower subscriptions with ONE email after you rewrote it" Another farmers rewrote her email as I taught and a day later sold 2 hogs with that email, previously not getting anyone to buy from her emails. This new farmer added the missing key to her website and created 12 signups to her email list which was previously at zero (everyone starts at zero, you just don't want to get stuck there) Several farmers DOUBLED their email signups within weeks of making the website edits "Selling one beef per month consistently since rewriting my newsletter as you explained how" This WILL be you if you implement even half of what I teach during my “Reinvent Your Marketing” free training. My clients learn that people will buy ANYTHING they offer for sale on their farms. They experience this because they are learning how to craft expert marketing that creates sales. They learn how to sell people on their products in a non-icky, non-salesy way and find that people love giving them money. And these customers don’t complain about the prices their farmers, my clients, have to charge. And I’m going to help you learn this skill, too. This is “Reinvent Your Marketing.” For farmers. Yes. FREE. April 22nd. (replay sent same afternoon) Get feedback on one piece of your marketing that makes your 2024 goal inevitable. Learn from others' feedback. Let’s go. Click HERE to Sign Up When you sign up, you'll receive an email with instructions on how to request your marketing be reviewed. See you there, Charlotte PS: You'll also receive the limited-time replay when you sign up.

Apr 4, 2024 • 32min
#204: How Hannah Increased her Chicken Prices 70% and Didn't Lose A Single Customer
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training Hannah Boggs, a South Carolina farmer, was gearing up to have her first baby in November but was overwhelmed with work AND not making money on her farm. Knee-deep in manure and maternal instincts, she wondered how on earth she'd manage to raise both her crops and her newborn without losing her mind in the process. She stumbled on this very podcast and knew I could help - she immediately decided to start coaching with me last August. Click The Link Above to Listen to Hannah’s Story of Balance and Profit Hannah dove into my time management program and learned to juggle motherhood, farming, and the occasional pig on the loose. With calm and control. She got coaching on her fear of raising her chicken prices. She KNEW they were losing money, but she was scared of losing customers. Not one customer batted an eyelash at her 70% price hike. (sooo many farmers are way undercharging, so a 70% increase is not unusual actually to make a profit.) She made back her investment in the program within six weeks. As Hannah's due date loomed closer, her life actually became calmer. Hannah has defied the status quo and now has employees helping out, and she makes money. On a farm. With a newborn. With calm, ease, balance, profit. And she does it all with self-described, “frolicking in the field with my son.” Listen and Hear How Hannah Built a Profitable Farm on the Profitable Mindset Podcast Warmly, Charlotte

Mar 28, 2024 • 31min
#203: How to Attract and Hire High-Quality Employees
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training Today I spill the beans in one of the most powerful episodes I could ever offer, as I share with you how to attract and hire high-quality employees. Tune in to episode 203 to Listen and Learn In this episode, you’ll learn: Three crucial things you MUST include in your ad for it to be effective How to avoid the crucial mistake I made in my ad that attracted criminals!! The key questions to ask in interviews and what to do after the interview Even if you don’t think you’re ready to hire yet, you'll want to listen. Think you can't afford to hire help? I've got you! I address that, too. If you want to build a profitable, sustainable farm, you’ll need to scale, which means hiring help at some point. EVEN IF it's just for a few hours a week. Hiring correctly can help you build a profitable business with ease, whereas hiring wrong can be a nightmare. I've lived that hiring-wrong nightmare and in the episode, I share one key phrase you'll include in your job ad so you avoid the nightmare I lived. Today’s episode will help you get started the right way so you can successfully attract and hire the best employees for your farm this season. Listen in to today's episode to avoid nightmare hires and attract the best employees. Warmly, Charlotte

Mar 21, 2024 • 33min
#202: How to Clearly Define Your Employee Job Description
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training When I started my farm 15 years ago, I was a one-woman show. It was me, my overalls, and a big dream. After about a month of milking cows twice a day, seven days a week, and running kids to basketball games in between, it was time to admit defeat that I could NOT do it all myself. I needed a really reliable farmhand who's not afraid of a little manure and a lot of udder chaos! If you’re struggling to get everything done AND make money, this week’s episode will help. If you don’t think you can afford to hire help, this episode's REALLY going to help you. I walk you through how to create a job description that you can turn into an ad to make your first (or tenth) hire. Plus, I’m sharing the very first thing you need to do if you want to hire employees but don’t think you can afford to yet. This is part one of three that'll move you closer to finding help with the manual labor so you can focus on building a profitable farm. Warmly, Charlotte

Mar 14, 2024 • 42min
#201: My Step-by-Step Process for Drop Sites or Delivery
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training Getting your products into the hands of the people who need them most can sometimes be a challenge - do you build a farm stand on your farm? Or do you sign up for multiple farmer's markets? Or, try to get into stores or restaurants? What's best? There are so many options for selling! And there are pros and cons to all options. Many of my clients - farmers all over the US - have started doing drop sites, and for some of them, this is their only way of selling. They say they love the control over their schedule they have. They no longer have the hard labor of markets - packing up and schlepping their stuff to the market, only to often turn around and have to bring some of it back home again, unpack and restock. When they use pre-orders and drop sites, as I teach, they know that what they pack up is presold and will NOT be coming home with them. Today I share my step-by-step process and I have the exact steps l use. You'll also learn: my strict boundaries that ensure everyone shows up to get their order the technique I use to make sure my costs are covered while still offering "free delivery" understand how "if you confuse them, you lose them!" Use my process as a guide—it may not work exactly for you, but take what works and add your own spin. Lastly, forward this to your farmer friends who may need this extra instruction to set up their drop site or delivery process. Enjoy, Charlotte

Mar 7, 2024 • 55min
#200: How This Alabama Farmer Pays Herself, Her Kids, and Is Building a Balanced & Profitable Farm Business
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training Today on the podcast, you’ll hear how this farmer is making 30% more money on her farm this year over last, paying her kids and herself, AND living with calm and balance. Glenna Dunnigan, a farmer in Florence, Alabama, found herself stuck in a windowless cubicle working for a cotton company in Tennessee. >>Tune In To Hear Glenna’s Success Story HEREListen to Glenna’s story Today on the Profitable Mindset Podcast

Feb 29, 2024 • 20min
#199: The Five Phases of Your Farm Business for Game-Changing Success
Click HERE to Reinvent Your Farm Marketing: Free Training There are 5 phases you must go through on your farm to get to profit. Sounds good so far - nice and easy! Just 5 phases! But there’s a massive problem with this - Most people get stuck looping in the first 3 phases and NEVER get to move on to phases 4 and 5. You can’t get to a successful and profitable farm, though, unless you get through all the stages. You’ll learn that phase 3 is the HARDEST stage - I don’t call it ‘the river of misery’ for nothing! It’s the stage that makes you think you’ve done the wrong thing and need to quit. It can take many months, maybe a year or two, to get to stage 4, but farmers tell me it’s worth it. Farmers email me regularly about how sweet the payoff is after sticking with it through the hard building stages. “The mindset work we do building farms is the hardest work you’ll ever do in your life, but it’s THE KEY to creating a farm business that serves YOU and your family... instead of a beast that eats you alive.” The quote above is from 5X Your Farm Sales farmer who’s coached with me for 6 Years. Give it all the time it takes THIS episode of the Profitable Mindset will teach you to stay with it instead of give up. Only then, if you stay in the challenging phase and actually move through it, will you get the reward of having built your profitable farm. Let’s do it! Charlotte