We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erin Barber a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Erin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

In 2014 I was a field manager for a large organic vegetable farm in MidCoast Maine. My boss, the owner of the farm, had carved out quite a niche selling and delivering high quality produce to restaurants in Portland. On Fridays I would help him load up a box truck with the Chef’s orders and we would drive to the city and distribute the produce. Initially, retail sales were his primary source of income via vending at the bustling Portland Farmer’s market but, this proved to be somewhat inconsistent due to market saturation. So, on a whim he decided to start driving around to restaurants after the market with any unsold produce. He was quite a character-an eccentric towering redhead with a larger than-life persona and a knack for cultivating loyal, enthusiastic customers. This enterprise steadily grew into his primary source of revenue. I remember admiring how he pivoted and remained flexible and open to new pathways. When I began my stint as field manager I was taking the box truck to the city on Saturdays for market and eventually he decided our time and energy were better spent focusing on the restaurant deliveries, eventually dropping the market altogether, an ultimately wise and successful decision. I really took that to heart when starting my own business. I think when you start out you need to have certain parameters and should have a specific idea of what you are looking to do/sell/achieve but you need to be ready to let go of the dead weight and really focus on what’s working even if it’s not exactly what you originally set out to do. A business is ever evolving just like the person behind it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Good Buddy Farm started as a small, diversified vegetable farm in 2018. I began producing organically grown vegetables on our small plot of tillable land, about 1.5 acres, and opened up an on-site produce stand in our antique post and beam barn. I worked part-time as a massage therapist and sold our produce, local crafts, and gifts out of the store Thursday-Sunday from June-October. Flowers were never really on my radar as my background was in vegetable production. I knew farming was my calling, but I felt like a piece was missing that seemed to leave me uninspired and burnt-out by the end of every growing season. Art has always been my other passion. I can fritter away hours creating with found objects and natural materials I collect and find inspiring. I didn’t know it then, but I had to find a way to bring this artistic/visual element into the very practical world of farming to create a business that truly inspired me. In 2019 I started to experiment with dried flowers. I grew just a handful of varieties-strawflowers, gomphrena, statice, and scabiosa I believe-for my own purposes. I was hooked. Have you ever looked at the layers of color in a newly open strawflower glinting in the sun? You should. It’s unreal, just otherworldly. I fell in love with flowers after that and the next year jumped right in and began growing over 40 varieties of dried flowers and ornamental grasses. We sold these as wreaths, swags, and dried bouquets in our farm store and folks started coming to see the barn dripping with the colorful bunches as they dried in the rafters. If you’re passionate you can spread that. I’ve had folks come into our store grumbling about having to waste money buying flowers for their partners “that will just die anyway” and stay for an hour asking questions and wondering at all the different kinds. Our reputation for dried flowers slowly grew and I began cultivating cut flowers for fresh bouquets as well. Now, we grow over 150 flower varieties to sell at our farm store & farmers markets, to local florists and for own use in custom wedding & event design.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think this ties into what I touched on earlier about not being afraid to shift course and focus on what is working and let go of avenues that might be holding you back. Even if an enterprise or aspect of your business is somewhat successful, if you don’t enjoy it and ultimately see it as a chore you are going to find it very challenging to maintain the kind of quality needed to make that a true success. I know that when I started out I had so many ideas I wanted to try and though I had experience in the field and had done market research there was no way of being completely sure what would resonate best with the community and customers I serve, or, what I would find most gratifying. An example of this in my own business would be the vegetable aspect of our operation. Over the years we have really whittled it down from growing over 30 varieties of field crops to serve a small CSA(Communtiy Supported Agriculture) and stock our farm store to a handful of specialty greens and crops that are more profitable considering our growing practices/limited space. As the flower aspect of our business blossomed we needed to devote more energy and garden space to allow for this growth. I found myself juggling too many enterprises that were simply too diverse and it was just downright inefficient. It was difficult to tell loyal CSA customers that we would no longer be offering vegetable shares. It felt very much like burning bridges which is big No No in the business world. However, I learned that it really came down to communication. I explained to them our need to specialize and referred them to other farmers I thought could serve them and they ended up supporting our business in other ways like buying flowers for their loved ones on Holidays or purchasing our salad mix at the local natural food store.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

I thrive off the energy of face-to-face client interactions. When the same customers come back to our market booth or farm store week after week and tell me how much they love our flowers or how they may have helped a loved one through a difficult time it feeds the fire that makes it possible to pull off the immense amount of work necessary to get through an intense growing season. I like to keep it simple and with flowers it really is-provide the freshest highest quality product possible week after week. It can be tempting, when dealing with perishable products, to try to move products that may be past their peak but still “presentable” to avoid the heartbreak or financial loss of tossing a gorgeous product. You may be able to move those flowers and get that sale but that will be a ONE time sale as opposed to creating a long-term customer who keeps coming back, confident that your product is ultra fresh and long-lasting. It’s never worth it. Accept that there will be slow times when you have a little left-over and there will be times when you sell out half-way through market. So, I’d say trust, consistency, and showing up and presenting your authentic self.

Contact Info:

• Website: goodbuddyfarm.com
• Instagram: goodbuddyfarm_
• Facebook: facebook.com/goodbuddyfarm

Image Credits
Shado Of A Rose Photography (Close-up image of bouquet being held)