Podcast Ep11: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Episode Description:

In this episode we look at some of the reasons why there are opportunities to sell more microgreens, as Covid-19 restrictions ease around the world. We look at approaching prospective restaurants with samples, and talk about how the “follow up” after you give out your sampples is so important. Also shared in this episode is a valuable sales tip that will help you sell more microgreens.

Mentioned in this episode:
Microgreens Business Beginners Guide (free ebook): https://microgreensentrepreneur.com/ebook
True Leaf Market Discount Code: MGE5
https://trueleafmarket.com
Ask a question by voice note: https://microgreensentrepreneur.com/ask
Ask a question by email: brian@microgreensentrepreneur.com

Episode Transcript

Microgreens Entrepreneur Episode 11: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

You’re listening to The Microgreens Entrepreneur Podcast, where the aim is to help you start, grow, and improve any microgreens business. I’m your host, Brian, owner of a microgreens business that I operate out of my own home. Stay tuned and welcome along.

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[0:29] Hey, guys. I hope you’re all doing well. Thanks for tuning in and being here with me on another episode of The Microgreens Entrepreneur Podcast. In this episode, I’m going to talk to you about how with everything that’s going on and happening in the world at the moment due to the coronavirus, things have been difficult, to say the least for microgreens growers.

[0:46] But now, as we start to come out of this bad period, opportunities to sell more microgreens or just to start selling microgreens are starting to present themselves. So, I’m going to go over how I’ve managed to grow my business during this difficult time. And at the end of the episode, I’m going to give you an effective sales tip that I just discovered myself this week, and it could help you grow your business or make your first sale. So, stay tuned for that.

[1:13] This episode of the podcast is brought to you by TrueLeafMarket.com. True Leaf Market stocks a vast array of really high-quality and well-priced microgreen seeds and equipment. Since starting this podcast, I’ve been able to create a close relationship with the guys there, and I’m completely confident in recommending their microgreen seeds and equipment. They’ve also created a special offer of a 5% discount for the listeners of The Microgreens Entrepreneur Podcast. All you have to do is type in the code MGE5 at the checkout. That code, again, is MGE5. Okay, so we’ll get going.

[1:47] I actually had a different episode ready for this week, but I decided to record this instead because I think it’s really relevant at the moment.

Restaurants open again this week in Ireland, thankfully, and I was back delivering to all the restaurants I was before the lockdown started. I hope things are getting back to normal where you are. I know all our different countries are at different stages of restrictions and reopening.

[2:10] It’s July 2020 at the time this is being recorded, and we’re in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s actually Saturday, the 4th of July when I’m recording this, so Happy Independence Day to all of you listening in America. So, unfortunately, we are in the middle of a global crisis, but I’ve seen an article with a little anecdote that I liked and thought was interesting during the week, and that was that in Japanese, the word crisis is written with two symbols signifying danger and opportunity.

[2:41] If you go looking, there are plenty of quotes and sayings out there with the general gist that there are opportunities in difficult times. So, these are difficult times, and there is opportunity. Really, I just wanted to give you a little bit of motivation if things are getting back to normal where you are, and you’re just starting out with a microgreens business, or you’re trying to grow your existing one.

[3:02] So, what are the opportunities? This is only my experience, but I can’t imagine that it’s only relevant to where I’m from. I’m going to imagine that the same thing has to be happening elsewhere. The restaurants that I was serving before, all of them reduced their orders to half the quantity of microgreens that they were ordering before the lockdown.

[3:20] All of the restaurants here in Ireland, they all have to keep their tables at least 2 meters (6.5 feet) apart because of social distancing, so their capacity is down to about half, I suppose. As I was preparing for the reopening of the restaurants, and because of the reduced orders, I had space to grow some sample trays in my grow room, and I was growing them for the purpose of approaching restaurants that I haven’t been doing business with yet already.

[3:45] So, Stacey designed a new flier with prices on them, and the details, and the benefits of the business, and we got them printed up. I picked out ten restaurants in my city that I hadn’t been doing business with yet, and I

plan to deliver samples to all of them. So, last Monday came, and along with delivering to all of our regular restaurants, I brought the samples with me, and I approached ten different restaurants with them.

[4:09] That was Monday, and by Friday, I had gained four new weekly orders from that. To me, that’s a big success. I was delighted with that, and that’s without having followed-up with the other six yet. We’ll go into following up in a minute. Let’s look at why that happened and why my approach was successful. There are a number of reasons.

[4:27] 1) Number one was convenience. One of the four places had been getting their microgreens from a wholesaler, and they just hadn’t ordered them. Monday was the very first day that they were open again, so maybe it was just something that they overlooked. But because I was there on the day, it solved the problem for them, and that’s after turning into a recurring weekly order now.

[4:46] 2) The second reason is that some of the chefs around here seem to be making new menus and changing up what they’re doing. With that, they’re looking to add in different things like microgreens, so that’s another reason. One of the chefs that I was talking to on Monday, and he also put in an order, he hadn’t been using microgreens before, but he really wants to use them now.

Because of the reduced numbers in the restaurant, he’s not going to be under the same pressure that he was before to just be putting up meal after meal as quickly as possible. He has that bit of extra time to be creative and change up his dishes.

[5:18] 3) Then, as well, another reason I feel is that there’s been so much change already in everything that’s been going on, chefs are just more open to changing their supplier because everything else is changing.

[5:30] 4) Another reason: this actually happened with a restaurant that I have been supplying for a long time, but there’s also been another microgreens grower supplying them, as well, and we’ve maybe been getting half and half of the business. Well, the other grower hadn’t been in

yet. I don’t know. Maybe he hadn’t made contact with them yet, either, but because I showed up there on the day that they were open again, the chef there gave me that full piece of business as a recurring weekly order.

[5:55] Now, look. I’m not trying to put anybody out of business, but if you’re the quickest off the mark, and you’re showing up to serve your customers, you deserve that business. So, that was an insight into the new business that I’ve gotten and how I got it.

[6:07] I’ll give you a little recap on the main reasons that I got that business again. I provided convenience. I was ready to deliver on the day that the restaurants opened again. There’s just so much change going on in the world at the moment that people are open to changing up what they’re doing and who’s supplying them. Chefs are getting more time to be creative. They’re changing their menus. They’re adding in different things, so there’s an opportunity there, and then by taking advantage of your competition by being the one who’s quickest and who shows up consistently.

[6:38] I want you to know that I’m not saying this in a way like, “Look at me. I’m great,” or I’m blowing my own trumpet or anything. I’m telling you this because I want to try and inspire you to take similar action, and to let you know that even with everything that’s going on in the world, there are still opportunities there.

[6:54] You can be proactive and get out there and promote your business because, in my experience, it’s very, very rare that people come to you. There’s an old saying, “Build it, and they will come.” But I’m not sure about that. You need to let people know it exists.

[7:08] I mentioned earlier that I would talk about the follow-up, so when I was bringing around the samples, it wasn’t all plain sailing. A couple of places I went into, I didn’t get to meet the chef at all. The samples were taken by the host or the hostess. So, to be honest, I’m not even sure if those samples made it to the kitchen.

[7:24] You want to try and always make sure your samples end up in the hands of the chef, but sometimes, it’s just not always possible. But the majority of the restaurants that I went into, I did get to meet the chef, and the majority of them were enthusiastic about the product, seemed interested, and were excited to try it out. But in my experience, that does not always lead to orders. So, even though they’re enthusiastic about it, they liked it, and it seemed like there was a possibility that they might order, I’m not going to wait for them to call me.

[7:52] So, this Monday, it will have been a week since I gave them the samples, and I’m going to call each one of those restaurants and try and speak to the chef and see how they got on with the samples and see if they want to make an order. That’s the follow-up, and you should always follow-up because chefs, I’d say, are some of the busiest people around, and it is rare for them to reach out to you. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes to making an order with you. So, always follow-up, and always try and get to speak to the chef about your samples, and ask if they want to make an order.

[8:23] I mentioned at the start of the episode that I was going to give you an effective sales tip that was possibly going to help you sell more microgreens or even make your first sale. We’ll get into that now. I’ve talked about the four new pieces of business that I got this week, and the reasons I felt that I got that business. In my mind, as I mentioned already, that was a success for me.

[8:43] I also talked about was there anything different in my selling approach? I feel like there was something else that I did that really worked well for me, as well. It’s something that I hadn’t done before when trying to sell. Like I said, I’m limited with the amount that I can produce in the growing space that I have.

[9:00] When I was giving out the samples to the chefs, I let them know that. I told them that I can only grow for a limited amount of people, and basically, if they didn’t decide soon whether they wanted to order or not, I

might not have the capacity to deliver to them. I wasn’t lying to them. I am limited on the amount that I can produce.

[9:17] But now, when I look back at what I was saying, it was really an age-old selling technique that I was using. The bigger sellers of any product are always the limited-edition models. You see it everywhere in all shops, “For a Limited Time Only.” “Stock Won’t Last Long.” “Special Offer for One Day Only.” As humans, we’re programmed, for some reason, to want what we can’t have or want things that are rare.

[9:39] So, when you use language like that, people start thinking, “Oh! This is special. There’s only a certain amount of it. I need that.” So, to use that in a way as a microgreens grower, we need to let our prospective chefs know that we can only grow for a certain amount of people, and that “We want you to be one of those people. But if you don’t act soon and you don’t make your mind up soon, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to provide for you.”

[10:03] When you give people a deadline, and you let them know that the opportunity to buy from you might not always be there, people will make their minds up faster. They’ll be quicker to take action and buy from you if they think that the opportunity is going to go away. So that’s just a little selling tip for you.

[10:20] I wanted to share all of that with you to let you know that even in this tough period that we’re all going through, there are still opportunities there to sell microgreens, and don’t be put off if your business has slowed down, and don’t be put off starting your own business because of it.

[10:35] If you have been thinking about starting a microgreens business, I’ve created a free ebook, A Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Microgreens Business, and you can get that at microgreensentrepreneur.com/ebook. I’ll leave a link for that in the show notes too.

[10:49] As always, thanks a million for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have any feedback or sales tips or places you’re seeing an

opportunity to sell more microgreens, please get in touch at brian@microgreensentrepreneur.com.

[11:03] If you have a question that you want answered, and you think that I might be able to answer it for you, you can leave me a voice message over at microgreensentrepreneur.com/ask. I’ll also leave a link for that in the show notes, and your question could be played and answered on a future episode of the podcast.

[11:20] If you did enjoy the episode, I’d really appreciate it if you left a review on your podcast provider. I do really really appreciate all of them. It helps with the show’s ranking. It lets people know that it exists. Thanks in advance for that.

[11:33] So, that’s it. Thanks again for listening. Have a great week, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

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