We were lucky to catch up with Dawn McCormick recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dawn, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start on the operational side – do you spend more of your time/focus/energy on growing revenue or cutting costs?

Business is blooming and McCormick Farmz is growing! A budding family-run lavender farm in Northern Michigan, McCormick Farmz offers culinary, bath & body, essential oil and dried lavender products and accessories.

McCormick Farmz is just about 18-months old now. We have 2,000 lavender plants in the ground and are already planning for Field #3 and another 2,000 plants. To some extent, that’s the easy part.

In farming and finances, both growth and cutting (pruning) are necessary parts of the cycle. Growing usually comes in short bursts or seasons. Cutting and pruning ensure long-term health and manageability of our lavender plants and our bottom line. If managed, these cycles can be complementary. If managed well, they offer even greater benefit.

When we were getting started, we collaborated with established lavender farms through our network with the U.S. Lavender Growers Association. We were able to start developing our brand and our “throughput” plan for our first lavender harvest (growing revenue). We participated in 18 pop up shopping events, had three consignment locations, and opened our online store. It’s working!

Cost cutting opportunities often present themselves. Improving and simplifying what we do and how we do it has given us more time, lowered costs, and generated revenue. Continuous improvement and brand management are the drivers behind our Revenue or Cost management initiatives. With harvest 2022, for example, McCormick Farmz developed recipes and began producing McCormick Farmz sugars, spices, dry mixes, and more in their home state of Michigan. “Not only does a shorter supply chain cost significantly less, creating home-state revenue. Here’s the hidden revenue bonus: Small business networking! “Since collaborating with Northern Spice Company to produce our Michigan-made lavender sugars, spices, mixes, we’ve met and began collaborating with other northern Michigan businesses on either (or sometimes both) revenue generating or cost cutting projects!

Regardless of revenue or cost measures, being open to evaluate opportunity is, I believe, key to success. Be open, thoughtful, and deliberate.

Dawn, 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?

My husband and I started McCormick Farmz in Wolverine, Michigan, a beautiful all-season recreation community in northern Michigan. McCormick Farmz is a budding lavender farm offering culinary, bath & body, essential oil and dried lavender products and accessories for retail and wholesale purchase. We have 2,000 plants in the ground and are trying our hand at propagation over winter. We’re always growing. Always learning. Living our best life.

Planting season is fast approaching…well for us it’s fast. June 3, 2023, our friends and family will come together once again to help us grow. This season we’ll add 2,000 lavender plants to the farm. We’ll plant 2-3 varieties including Phenomenal Lavender, an extremely fragrant variety, its flowers are fantastic for fresh and dried arrangements and oil uses.

All of that is a lot to celebrate so we’re going to! McCormick Farmz is hosting its inaugural lavender harvest celebration in 2023 on July 15 in Wolverine, Michigan. “It’s going to be Phenomenally Scentsational!” All puns aside (I’m so sorry, lol), Matt and I are excited to share our adventure with our neighbors, visitors, community, and State of Michigan. There’s a little bit of everything from our journey included in the festival: Live music, food, pop up market, make and take workshops, family and children’s activities, and U-Pick lavender of course. We’re also planning a preview event the evening before the festival to benefit the Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan. WRCNM provides confidential support, advocacy, counseling and the Safe Home to people in Michigan’s Antrim, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Emmet and Otsego counties. We are grateful for Awakon Federal Credit Union’s support in lifting up WRCNM.

We are grateful all the time. Matt and I have made a lot of “crazy” decisions in the last few years, but we’ve done it together. Our friends and family have officially and unofficially joined the company, supporting us, shouting, and sharing McCormick Farmz where and whenever they can. When I find myself in a quiet moment and think about the last 18 months it’s humbling. I’m grateful to be able to do what I love.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m going to change (pivot) the question a bit and relate it to our funding discussion. Matt and I also own/operate McCormick Consulting. For 11 years we’ve secured and managed grants and incentives to support growth and development, primarily for US manufacturers. Our client mantra is “Don’t chase money”. Stay your course. Don’t pivot? Well not exactly.

Chasing money means changing who or what your are to fit your company into a (perceived) opportunity. For example, if you make purple widgets and the “Big Company or Government” contract wants green widgets…that’s NOT your opportunity. Don’t chase it. Do what you do. An “opportunity” that takes you off track is a shiny squirrel. That’s not to say business diversification and/or expansion is bad, but it should be planned and not a reaction. My shiny squirrel was a restaurant/bar at the lavender farm. Sometimes the squirrel is big, sometimes it’s small. This particular squirrel cost us about two months and resources that would have been better allocated elsewhere.

Your business plan is not a meaningless document. It’s there to help you when shiny squirrels run across your path.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Matt and I have two businesses, McCormick Farmz and McCormick Consulting. For more than a decade, we’ve been helping other businesses secure and manage funds to support growth and development. Because of that experience, our expectations for external startup funding were low. We know banks don’t like to loan money to start ups with less than two years of experience. Likewise, grant funders (government included) don’t like to grant money to start ups with less than two years of experience. Two years of successful operation is what most capital investors consider “new business”. Very simply, 150,000 new business applications were filed in Michigan in 2021. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more. So, as good stewards of other people’s money, banks and funders are more likely to invest in proven successes.

Two years’ experience also demonstrates “skin in the game”. Banks and funders want to see that you believed in your business enough to invest and/or sacrifice your own resources.

All of that said, McCormick Consulting invested significantly in the startup of McCormick Farmz. We have established a line of credit with a local financial institution to help manage inventory. We implemented an aggressive revenue generating plan, participating in nearly 20 pop up market events in 12 months allowing us to reinvest in our growth and minimize debt. Finally, we have improved processes and supply chain management to reduce cost and improve efficiency.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.McCormickFarmz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mccormickfarmz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067054582988
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mccormick-farmz/?viewAsMember=true
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOjH6GXaIVGiSbP2lUwTOsQ