We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alyson Terrel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alyson below.

Alright, Alyson thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

Family business will stretch you beyond all you imagined possible. It is not for the weak! You have to learn how to balance time at work with quality time together. You have to learn how to shut off work roles and go into family roles. There needs to be a distinct separation for you to be truly successful. Clearly defined roles are absolutely needed in order to help manage the stress that will come with working with family. For our family, we went from a close mother-daughter relationship to a daughter-mother partnership where I was the one making most of the decisions. We didn’t have time to write out roles and responsibilities and lay a foundation for what each of us would be responsible for. We just did what needed to be done. I used to say my dad was the brains of the operation and my mother was the heart. She didn’t have the business sense that my dad and I have. She was used to living with and working with my dad because they had been partners in life for almost 42 years. All of a sudden, she was working with her daughter who was used to calling the shots, and used to working in male dominated fields, and used to crisis management. We weren’t mentally or emotionally prepared for going into business together and our relationship took a hit for many years. Neither of us had the tools needed to successfully make a transition from parent-child relationship to parent-child business partners. Too many family businesses find themselves in the same situation, struggling to turn things over to the next generation. Don’t be afraid to talk openly about the challenges that each of you see. Don’t be afraid to talk about the future and how the transition will occur. Most importantly, have grace, Lots and lots and lots of grace, you’re going to need it and give it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

My journey into farming came quite unexpectedly. I have a degree in Music Production and Technology. Since I was 11, I always knew I wanted to be behind the scenes in country music. My family grew up moving around quite a bit because of my dad’s role in construction management, He managed multi-million and multi-billion-dollar projects, so we always had to go where the job was. I had moved at least 10 times before I was 15 so home became wherever I slept at night. I spent my last 3 years of high school in Los Angeles, and it was there that my dad discovered Middle Tennessee State University. At the time, they had one of the top-rated music programs of all 4- year universities and it was just 30 minutes from the country music capital of the world, Nashville. I have 2 siblings, a twin sister and a younger brother. When I decided to attend MTSU, my twin Andrea, came with me. 4 years later, my brother also decided to enroll at which point my parents decided to pack up their things and join us kids. They rented a home for the first year they moved here while they searched for the “perfect ” place. My dad had always been a fan of small business and encouraged his children to have an entrepreneurial mentality. Their search eventually led them to Nolensville, TN where they bought a 10-acre apple and peach orchard at auction. I remember the day they called us and told us they had bought it, I actually asked them what in the heck they knew about growing apples. And that was how our family got into farming. My parents asked each of the kids to join them in the new business, but none of us were interested. For 14 years my parents learned all they could about fruit trees. They welcomed thousands of school children to the farm on field trips. They operated a small country store on site where they sold the fruit. They were retired, but they never worked harder. I also watched my dad fall deeper in love with my mom and find a quiet contentment being on the farm. My sister and I would often head to the farm for family dinners and to hang out with the parentals, but I rarely walked the property. I wasn’t able to tell you much about their business. I never helped in the store, I never helped on a field trip. I was busy climbing my own corporate ladder, just as my daddy had done, forging my own path. Then, in 2016, our entire lives changed.

On November 11, the day before I married the love of my life, my daddy was diagnosed with Stage 4 bile-duct carcinoma. He left this earth on March 29, 2017. When he died, something in me switched. While I had never wanted to work on the farm, now I couldn’t imagine anyplace else that I wanted to be. Daddy loved the orchard in the springtime. The apple trees burst into beautiful white petals with delicate pink details. The peach trees come alive with vibrant pink blossoms and walking through the orchards you can smell the fruit that will soon be loading up the trees. It is a beautiful reminder of renewal. We held Daddy’s memorial service in mid-April, at the peak of blossom time and in that moment, I think i knew there wasn’t any other place I wanted to be. I asked my mom if she wanted to keep the business going, because if she did, I was ready to take it on. After a few days, she decided she would like to keep going. So, we started a new journey as a second-generation family farm. In Tennessee, peach season starts in June, so we had just 6 weeks to get everything ready and I had ZERO clue what I was doing. I looked in my dad’s files, I called the previous owners of the orchard and asked for a crash course on fruit growing, I called the Tennessee Extension office and other orchards and basically just submersed myself into this new world, attempting to learn as much as I could. We dubbed that year “survival year”. I had no idea what to expect and I had no idea what I was doing. We were all grieving, and while work was a distraction for me, for my mom, it was a constant reminder of my dad and the 14 years they had spent at the orchard together. Ours is a seasonal business. We are open from June-October every year. We see many of the same customers year after year and we build relationships with them. Because Daddy had gotten sick and passed away in the off-season, it was a shock to many when they visited us in 2017 and learned of his passing. We had to re-live that almost daily that first year. Everyone came in wanting to know where “the big guy” was. It was like re-opening the wound again and again and again and again. Survival year sucked, emotionally, but we made it and at the end of that 2017 season I was confident we had a viable business that could be grown into so much more than it was. I just wrapped up my 6th season at the farm and God-willing, there will be 4x that many more years to come!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think all small businesses had to do some sort of pivot during 2020. We started hearing rumblings of this new virus in March of 2020 – just about the time we are headed into the growing season at the farm. We were hurriedly trying to finish up pruning so we could plant 150 new fruit trees. I was at the farm daily, enjoying the sunshine, fresh air and hard work. I was just starting my 4th season at the orchard. I felt like I had a decent grasp on things and for the first time in my career here, I felt like we weren’t playing from behind, I was optimistic! While the news was reporting all sorts of scary projections, my life was strangely unaltered. If it hadn’t been for the shortages in the grocery store and the face masks, I’m not sure I would have known anything was going on. For us, the most critical time of farming is from mid-March through early June. That’s when I have to keep an extra close eye on the trees to make sure they are growing properly and not developing any disease. It is a time of intense focus. As March turned into April, the news got more and more grim. Everyone was sent home……2 weeks to flatten the curve is what we were told. Entire cities, states, and countries were shut down. I kept working, I had to. #1 all agriculture was essential, but even if we weren’t, the trees don’t care if there is a pandemic. They don’t’ care about a virus. They are growing fruit whether anyone will be there to purchase the fruit or not. My life had to keep moving forward. But what was this going to mean for my business? Would this thing be over by the time we open in June? Would people come to the farm? What was I going to do with all the product we had made in the winter? What was I going to do with all of the fruit if no customers came? It was such a scary time full of more questions than answers. April turned to May and most states were still closed, most employees still working from home. May turned into June and while our state of Tennessee was a bit more open, there were still many restrictions in place. But it was June, and we were a farm, so we opened. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew I had fruit that was going to waste if we didn’t off-load it. We had our biggest opening weekend that year. As we talked to customers, we realized that we were one of the very few places people felt safe coming to. We had an open-air retail front that was set up in a 60×40 barn so fresh air was always circulating through. We had lost of space for people to spread out so social distancing sort of happened naturally. Our customers were telling me that they went to very few places but coming to our farm felt peaceful and brought s tiny bit of normalcy back to their lives. The more and more people I spoke to, the more I realized I had something special. Most restaurants were still doing limited seating, if they were seating at all. I partnered with another small business in town who made beautiful, artisanal charcuterie boxes and I launched Picnics in the Orchard. We had no more than 6 tables, spread out over 10 acres. Plenty of space and fresh air to be had by all. We supplied everything you needed for a relaxing evening out. We set the tables in the rows of trees, so you were literally dining IN the orchard. It was a homerun. People were able to have a date night once again, they were able to have a nice evening out, they were able to feel normal and human all while still taking their safety seriously. The picnics actually ended up changing the direction of the orchard for me. My dad had always felt the peace of the orchard, and I had felt it too but now we were able to share that with so many people who learned just how wonderful a farm can be.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

It’s not about having ALL the customers; it’s about having the RIGHT customers. In order to have the right customers, you have to know who you are. You have to have an identity and that identity flows into your brand.

When I took over the orchard, after my dad died, the first change I made was renovating our store. The road sign on the front of our property reads Morning Glory Orchard & Vegetable Stand and that’s exactly what they were. There was nothing inherently good or bad about it. They were an orchard, they grew peaches and apples, and the farm stand was a place for them to sell direct to consumer. You walked in and there were some old retail display shelves, a few bags of produce, some jams, some honey, some cider and an old cash register. It was nothing special. You came in, got some good, homegrown fruit and left. That was it. I wanted more. I was 39 when I took over the farm. According to researchers, I had the buying power. I knew what I liked, where I liked to shop and what I was willing to spend discretionary money on. All of that shaped my vision of the orchard. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend so we hired a friend of mine who loved using his creativity to build things and we made simple but effective changes. We turned apple bushel baskets into light fixtures. We turned old bee boxes into a honey display. We found apple corbels and used them as toppers on our tree baskets. We kept the old retail displays but covered them in bead board and they got a new coat of paint. We installed new LED lights to brighten up the place. We spent most of our money having a customer fruit display built that would become the centerpiece of the entire store. All told, I think we spent less than $5,000 but it was the first step in many, of turning us from a vegetable stand into a destination and experience. The next year I picked up some specialty items and we started growing our gift shop. We focused on local and regional products. I started finding other local, small businesses that I could support that provided basic business needs. I upgraded our checkout bags from plastic to recycled kraft bags, not only made in the USA but made right down the road from me. The jars we use for our jams and honey don’t come from overseas they are American made. I believe if I am asking my customers to support small business, then shouldn’t I also support small business in return? We are proud to be Americans. We know the blessings that we have because of this country. At a time when large corporations are taking their business overseas to reduce costs, I believe our strength lies in American jobs and American products. That is part of my identity and therefore a part of my brand. Very little in my store comes from overseas.

I’ve aways been big on quality over quantity. My parents raised me to see quality in everything. I don’t know a thing about pool tables, but if I walk into a store that sells pool tables, I promise, I will pick out one of the most expensive ones. I would rather save for a few extra months (or even years) and buy something of good quality that will last, as opposed to something cheap that I will end up replacing. For me, the RIGHT customer sees value in quality. As I train employees, we go through overcoming objections. Someone might say “But I can get these same peaches for $0.89/pound at Aldi.” My response to that is you may be able to get peaches for $0.89/pound but they won’t be the same peaches. These are hand-picked at the peak of ripeness. They don’t have to travel any further than about 20 yards from the tree to your hand. A peach from the grocery store tastes nothing like a peach from right off the tree and that taste is worth the extra price. The RIGHT customer will agree with me and pay the extra. I had to accept a long time ago, that not every customer is our customer and that’s ok! Do you know why? Because I’m not everyone’s customer! So, in addition to having high quality fruit, all of our value-added items (jams, baked goods, hard cider) are high quality, limited ingredients, little to no preservatives and taste amazing. Its stuff you can feel good about feeding to your family and that’s something I can stand behind.

You know the old adage, if you can’t stand up for yourself, how do you expect anyone else to? That applies to business too. I stand behind the quality of my products. I stand behind the price. It costs more to do what we do, how we do it, but I think it is worth the price and I think there are others who think it is worth the price too. Knowing that, is how I’ve grown our social media platforms from 1,000 followers to 10,000+ in less than 6 years. It is how I’ve quadrupled our customer count in the same time frame.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MorningGloryOrchard.com
• Instagram: @MorningGloryOrchard
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MorningGloryOrchard
• Other: www.TikTok.com/@MorningGloryOrchard

Image Credits
Marshall Walker, Evie Lynn Photography, Hunter Hart Photography