We were lucky to catch up with Crystal Keim recently and have shared our conversation below.

Crystal, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

We believe it is very important to ask you friends and family to support your business. What is even more important is to communicate how they can support you. Often times when you express to your friends or family that you would like them to support. Their minds go to two different options. First they think you want them to buy your product or service. For some this is an easy way to support you. For others they feel nervous that they can not afford to support you or that they can not continue to buy your product over and over for the long haul. The second place they go is more of an idea of support. They think something like, of coarse I support you. It is more of an idea of I am here for you, I’ve got your back but at times is not followed up with actions. We believe when asking for support it is important to first identify how you want to be supported and what the true needs of your business are. Then communicate those needs clearly as to what your friends and family can do to support you.

There are so many simple easy ways to support a local business. You can ask a family member to follow you on social media. You can specifically ask a supporter to try to like and or comment on all your content. A huge thing supporter can do is just talk about your business with their community. When they hear of a need that your business can meet have them share about you and what you do. Our families have always been extremely supportive through many ways, but one way my mom has been a huge support without even realizing it is simply talking about us. She will tell people she meets about what we do. She will open up her phone showing them our social media and pictures. We have made countless new customers and supporters through her simply being a mom and showing off her kid as most moms do.

It is important that you relive the stress that some may feel when you ask them to support you. You can help do this by being clear with how they can support you and giving them the option to say no. It is important to allow your supporters to commit or not commit and it is important for us as business owner to not take it personally. So if you are a business owner or really, we can even do this as individuals. Make a list of your needs and wants. Then plot them out in practical task. Then make a list of people that you will ask to support you. Assign each of those people a task they can choose to support you in or not. Also, an easy way of asking for support is just simply making a post or video on social media with clear things people can do to support you.

Crystal, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Matt and I (Crystal) have been married for 12 years and we have two beautiful children. When Matt and I first met we were on a very different adventure. I was opening and running a non-for-profit Teen Youth Center. We ran this organization together for over 10 years. Once our family began to grow many of our dreams began to collide. We were very busy running the youth center and trying to raise a family. It became challenging to manage both. We dreamed of pouring into our family and meeting their needs and having a more relaxed schedule to serve our family well. We decided to step out and change directions.

Now from the time I was a child I had an interest in gardening and had helped many family members in their gardens. In my early adult years I had pots of plants everywhere on my apartment patio and then when we bought our first home we started a small garden. Once we slowed our lives down I dived full into gardening. Matt and I have always dreamed of having land someday with a homestead. While we have not attained land yet we are choosing to pursue our dream where we are at. We have built a large garden that we love seeing our family enjoy. Now our hope is to spread the joy. We have decided to step out on a new journey of turning our backyard garden into a business.

Currently we grow pesticide and herbicide free produce and cut flowers that we sell to local restaurants, businesses and at farmer’s markets. We also recently started selling our product online through our website. Our long term goals are all about growth. We are currently limited by our lack of land and also our time available. I am currently a stay at home mom with our youngest still at home. Matt works a full time job outside of our business. As time goes on and our youngest starts school we intend to grow the business more and more with our long term vision being land full of organically grown produce that can support our family and provided goods to our community. Our hope is in the next few years we can learn to perfect our craft even more. We also want to become more consistent with our social media content. Through our platform we would like to provide tools and encouragement for other gardeners, farmers, homesteaders, and small business owners. Our goal has always been to become your local source for garden goods. Meaning we would like to be a large provider of locally grown organic produce. We also would like to help educate our community about the benefits of locally grown and organically grown produce. Another huge thing we are passionate about is native plants and creating a healthy eco-system. We love sharing about plants, insects, and animals and how they all work together in nature.

For us the most important thing is creating the family and home life we desire. We have dreams of our business become something that can support our family now and for generations to come. We hope to set up a good foundation for our kids to develop character and have their needs meet. Our long term goal is for Matt and I both to work full time for the business and provide beautiful and tasty produce and cut flowers for our community. Along with encouragement and inspiration to others.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The biggest struggle for me (Crystal) is trying to be a stay at home mom while also owning a business. There is a continual struggle with wondering are you doing enough for the business and are you doing enough for your kids and family. If I had it my way all the business task and home task would be done on time and done perfectly. However, I have had to adjust my expectations of myself as my husband Matt often reminds me they are just unrealistic. I would love for our business to be booming and growing and everything thriving, however in this season of our life with a young child at home and one in school we would not be able to mange our business growing too rapidly. So currently, things move slowly in our business. We have had to learn to embrace the season we are in. It is a time of pouring into our kids, learning our craft and working steadily waiting patiently for the day when we can pour a little more time into the business. This is a hard struggle because for me there has always been a since of going all in and giving it my all, being the best and doing the best. And while that is important to me my family is number one. Currently, I am choosing to give my family my all my best and the business get a portion of me and my time but it comes after family. Now I do not always get this right it is a daily struggle to know the balance and at times is very difficult. However we keep moving forward learning more and growing everyday.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Reputation and branding for us is very important. We have made it a choice that we will gladly take a loss to make something right for a customer. Our mindset is to always correct any mistakes we make by going above and beyond. We also feel that it is very important to support our local community and the other small business we work around and with. We do not see other business like ours as a threat. We choose instead to root for them cheer them on and send business their way. We are all about building others up even if they are in the same business. We are all in this together and we can be a support to one another. Also by all means if another business is doing it better then us then you should buy the best. This only helps teach us how we can grow and get better.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.keimfarms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keimfarms/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keimfarms
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVUMtaKXDD6_1Rw7O1oqiPQ