Incorporating Classes into Your Agritourism Business

- I just wanted to state if you want to see the chat, I think everyone is just sending messages to the host and panelists, but you have to change it to everyone.

Somebody was just saying they couldn't see the chat, just as an FYI.

- Yes, good tip.

You can change who sees your post.

Okay, so let's go ahead and get started so that everybody has some time.

Welcome to Incorporating Classes into Your Agritourism Business.

Here we go.

Some webinar tips for today's session.

This webinar is being recorded.

The link to the recording will be sent to you via email a few days after today's session, so likely early next week you should see that in your inbox.

If you need close captioning, that is available.

If you look towards the bottom of your screen, there should be an icon that you can click on to access that.

Throughout today's webinar, please enter any questions that you have into the Q&A pod.

You can also use the chat pod, but that one does become a little bit more difficult to keep track of if there's a lot of conversation.

So questions, I would really encourage you to use that Q&A pod.

And at the end of today's session, there will be a link to a evaluation survey.

It's a very short survey.

We encourage you to please just take a few moments to answer the questions that we have for you.

That really helps us develop programming that meets your needs.

Okay.

I'm first gonna introduce today's speakers.

With us, we have Michele Capron, the owner of Lavender Essentials of Vermont.

Susan Rigg, owner of River Whey Creamery in Texas.

Deb Hartshorn, owner of White Picket Farm in West Virginia.

I'm Sarah Cornelisse.

I'm a senior extension associate here at Penn State.

And also joining us is Claudia Schmidt, assistant professor at Penn State.

This presentation is available in alternative media if you would like that.

Please just email myself or Claudia and we can get that to you.

Also, where trade names appear, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement by Penn State Extension is implied.

This is our Penn State's statement of non-discrimination.

You can take a moment and read that or scan it.

Next month, I want to let you know about our next webinar that will be taking place is Low Infrastructure Agritourism: Picnicking and Walking Trails.

And that webinar will be on Monday, April 3rd at 12:00 PM.

You can scan that QR code.

That will take you to the registration URL or that URL is also listed on the bottom of the screen.

Okay.

In preparing for today's webinar, our colleague, Brook Duer wanted to share just a couple of points that he felt were very important for anybody and this pertains to Pennsylvania agritourism operators.

So if you're in Pennsylvania, you should be aware of the two points, and they're highlighted here in green.

One is that you need to make sure that you have the proper zoning for all of your agritourism activities.

That includes classes, if you're going to offer classes, and also be aware of the Uniform Construction Code.

So please do your research into those two issues.

If you have any questions, Brook's contact information is on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and you can reach out to him.

Okay.

And with that, please don't go there yet.

I'm going to stop sharing my screen and switch over to Michele's presentation.

And if I can do this correctly, share a different screen.

- I'm Michele Capron.

I have Lavender Essentials of Vermont in Derby, Vermont.

We've been doing agritourism for about five years, since 2018.

We do lots of different things here.

We have classes and events, we have camping, we have nature trails, we have a geocache, we do romantic date night experiences, we do farm-to-table, chef's choice dinner.

So we do quite a few things here.

I'm not sure where everybody has gone.

I would love to tell you a little bit about how we do classes here.

We do different classes.

Most of our classes are nature-based so that we can forage for most of the things that we use in our supplies so that our supply costs can be very small.

So Vermont has an act that they passed in 2021, basically limiting our liability for agritourism.

What we as farmers do is we are asked to post this sign.

So the sign basically tells everybody that they are liable for their own things happening and we are not.

So if you continue on to the next slide.

So we have everybody sign a waiver.

Are you looking at a waiver somewhere here?

- [Sarah] Yes.

- Yes, so we make sure everybody signs the waiver.

Ours has not been checked by a lawyer, but that being said, make sure everybody assigns a lawyer.

Most of our classes are based so that we can forage.

So we forage for pussy willows, dogwoods, things like that.

Why do I spend so much time foraging?

Because upcoming you'll see a photo from Michael's, the craft store.

These are actually real branches and things that cost a lot of money.

We could not afford to supply a lot of our classes if we were purchasing all these items.

So for us, our classes are based on what we can grow or forage.

We have pussy willow wreaths.

That was totally, you know, no cost to us except for what we're foraging.

This is Russian sage, our Russian sage we grow here.

They make beautiful wreaths.

I will tell you, side note, Russian sage is not a great long-term wreath.

It's a short term wreath.

They shed like crazy next year.

This is another one of our classes.

This is our smudge or smudge pop class.

We collect things around the farm: lavender, cedar, dry oranges.

We make little smudges and it's really fun.

They smell great.

We also sell them at the farm.

One of our most popular classes here at the farm is fairy garden class.

It is super popular.

This is little Jayla here showing us her fairy garden.

So every class I have a write up.

I make sure whether I'm a teacher or we have a teacher, everybody knows the common goal.

What is your goal in class?

What are you trying to make your attendees feel like?

How long is your class gonna take?

That kind of thing.

So make sure you have a nice write up to remind yourself what the purpose is and so that everyone else does.

We always have a nice supply list so that you don't forget anything.

Every class is a little different from rocks, you know, dirt, baskets, fairy, scissors.

You'll always forget something if you don't have a checklist.

We always make sure you have a checklist at the beginning of every class.

Also for the teacher, you know, did everyone sign your waiver?

Has everyone paid?

Remember all your or your class people's names.

It's important to call people by their actual names.

Simple things like are your trash can liners out?

Do you have spare wine glasses?

Do you have Bluetooth speakers?

Are your people comfortable?

Do you have things to sell, you know, value added things to sell?

Have you made cookies?

Have you made teas or balsamic vinegars?

You know, more than just your lavender stuff.

Get them to want to purchase.

And one of the best add-ons that we find for classes is food.

Make sure you take lots of pictures of your classes.

This is your best advertising.

Is your people recommending it?

As the teacher, are you clean?

Have you been gardening all day?

Are you farming?

Are you covered in dirt?

Everyone here is famous for asking me if my knees are clean yet because I have been gardening all day and now I'm getting ready to teach a class and I'm a little dirty.

So it's okay to take a minute to clean up.

Provide some water.

Always know there's a few things, you know, that are gonna be similar.

You're always gonna need water.

You'll always need some help.

So the way that we price our classes here is pretty simple.

I always assume $10 for farm use per admission, $10 for your teacher, and any supply costs that we have should be doubled or tripled.

So a fairy garden class costs, the admittance is $40 and I'm the teacher, that's $10 for me, $10 for the farm.

That's still me.

And I've tripled my supply cost of six to $9 up to 18.

So that's how I would price a fairy garden class.

So if there's 10 people in class, that's $100 for me or $100 for a teacher, $100 for the farm, that's still me.

I'd rather pay me than a teacher.

It can't always be you, but if you live on the farm, it's much easier to teach that class then bringing somebody in.

If you bring somebody in, now you're relying on weather, dependency.

There's a lot of things that can go wrong.

But if you live on the farm, it's much easier for you to do it.

Teach fun things.

Pinterest is the best thing out there.

I'm no science teacher.

What I do is I teach from Pinterest.

So there's a few things you wanna plan on.

Plan on two hours if it's a one hour class.

Your set up and clean up will take longer.

Commonalities.

Someone's always late, someone's always early, someone always knows more than you, and there's always someone that needs a lot of help.

Don't give them too many variations.

You're the guy that sat on Pinterest, not them.

So we have a little setup here of our fairy class.

We have lots of clutter and things.

Fairy class, for us, it's kind of an exercise class as well.

They go through the woods picking up fairies and things.

We take lots of pictures so that it's great for advertising and it's also good examples.

On the farm, you'd be surprised, we've actually managed to sell a lot of these fairy gardens.

This here is focaccia bread made with vegetables and things.

That's something you can either make yourself, sell as an add-on, or this is an entire class in itself.

It really is.

This is beautiful.

Who doesn't want this?

More focaccia bread with vegetables.

Are you selling this as an add-on or is it a class?

It's really either one.

You can learn all this stuff from Pinterest.

Shortbread cookies.

This is all dried flowers or fresh flowers that are edible that we picked around the farm.

Class or sell it.

Graze boxes.

The new charcuterie board.

These aren't ours.

This is actually a different company's.

It's The First Course, but again, they're really simple.

It's crackers and pepperoni, fruits and flowers, little veggies and chocolate.

You can really, you know, bump up your return on investment if you can put some add-ons into your classes.

Afternoon tea.

Is it a class or is it an extra buffet cost that you can add to fairy class?

You know, you can charge 10, $20 extra for your tea buffet.

Always take pictures.

Crescent moon class.

Another thing I learned off of Pinterest.

So lots and lots of fun stuff.

Make sure you take lots of pictures.

We always have a checklist.

The checklist is for events or classes.

They're pretty extensive, but it really goes to show, try not to forget anything.

I'm happy to forward anyone this checklist later on.

What is there to do?

What is there to touch?

Do your attendees need aprons?

Are they gonna get dirty?

What do they hear?

Is there conversation?

Is your speakers on?

What will they see?

What will they smell?

Are they eating?

Are they purchasing?

How many people do you think will go?

Do you need to call your insurance company and get extra insurance or are they signing a waiver?

So how much time have you spent creating this event?

Is that figured into your cost?

Have you researched if other similar events are happening at the same weekend?

Do you have any scheduling problems?

This really matters on attendance.

How many places have you advertised your class on?

Are there new places you can advertise that are specific to that subject matter such as Loggers of America or Special Farmer's Facebook Group?

The more you advertise, the better you will have outcome of your classes.

Should you call someone to ask if you need other professionals or advice for this event?

Remember, somebody's always gonna know more than you, I promise.

And that's okay 'cause none of us know everything.

Does your event have enough contact to have a virtual class online?

Would it be in the future?

At the same time?

Is it free?

Is it ticketed?

Do you have vendors coming while you're having this class or event?

Are they paying a fee?

Do they have insurance?

Insurance is a really big deal.

It doesn't seem until you need it.

Any agreements you have with any vendors should always be in writing.

Verbal agreements not good enough, teachers or otherwise.

For us, we don't allow dogs because we're a culinary farm.

So we make sure we list this in all of our events.

Are there other agritourism businesses that can participate or sponsor or have a class with you or after you?

Here we have Skyline Holsteins, a dairy farm, we have a reindeer farm not far away.

apple orchards, maple sugar woods.

You know, for us, those are other agritourism businesses that can participate, sponsor, or even teach a class with us.

Do you have plans for last minute cancellations and no shows?

What will you do?

What's the worst case scenario for you?

Do you need extra staff for this class?

How many?

What are the extra hours your staff needs to work?

Have you told them that?

Do you need to buy extra things for the event or your class?

Is it reusable or single use?

Do you have enough parking?

Do you have signage for parking?

I can tell you here on our farm, people park everywhere except where I want them to.

So there's a lot to think about.

Porta-potties.

You know, how often they need to be cleaned?

Call ahead.

The worst thing you can have is a gross toilet.

Gross toilet's a bad review for your classes.

Do you know what your potential income is?

You know, will rain affect your event?

High winds?

So lastly, 'cause I know we got started a little bit later, we're just gonna go through a few pictures of things that we do for classes here.

One is cake decorating.

We make the cakes ahead of time.

Cottagecore is really big now, fairy stuff.

So we do, you know, fun, little cake classes.

We have a class called Sipping Libations and Painting Shrooms.

These are mushrooms that we found in the woods.

A class called Naked Take It where we put edible flowers and herbs together in pots for Mother's Day.

So that's lots of fun.

We have a Before Nature's Wreath class and an After Nature's Wreath class.

Nature's Wreath is just forging in the woods.

Lots of fun stuff.

Mugwort, golden rod, all kinds of things.

We have what we call swamp up feathers that we pick.

Corn tassel wreaths, mint and lavender wreaths, we call them tea wreaths.

Again, all of our ideas that we get for classes are from Pinterest.

Besom broom classes, super popular.

And the brooms that our teachers make, we usually end up selling here in the shop.

Nothing gets left over.

Besom brooms are really inexpensive.

It's dyes, lots of dried things from around the farm, and sticks.

Paint and sip classes are easy.

They're really easy to teach you how to do one.

The picture you see with the white background, that was my first paint and sip I ever, that I taught myself a week ago.

First one.

It's super easy.

I've made a class list of great ideas that I thought would be for the farm.

We don't do all of them, but it's always great to have idea board to bounce off of.

Make sure your kids have something to do.

Interactive, really easy things.

It's a farm.

Let them see how things are grown.

Give them little projects, little scavenger hunts for sensory, you know, fun stuff to do and look for.

Easier stuff for kids makes happier moms.

We try to always have a kit here on hand so the kids always have something to do.

Other classes that are fun, chicken garden wire art.

We do lots of stuff gluing with moss and wreaths.

Dollar store fairy lights and things.

Moss centerpieces, Zen gardens, things like that.

Anything that's really simple.

Really, your ideas are as far as Pinterest will take them.

I appreciate you having me on.

If you have any questions about some of the classes that we do or you wanna link to that checklist, just let me know.

- [Sarah] Okay, thank you, Michele.

- You're welcome.

- [Sarah] And I do see that there have been some questions coming in.

That's great.

We are going to hold the questions so that we have time for all of our speakers and then we'll come back to the questions and hopefully, we can direct 'em appropriately or it'll be obvious from the question who should answer it.

So with that, I believe, Susan, you are next.

- Hi, everyone.

I'm gonna go ahead and do my screen share for my slideshow and hopefully everybody can see that now.

Michele, well, holy smokes.

You guys do a ton of stuff.

- We do.

- Yeah, like, great creativity, my goodness.

And so I think, you know, what I'm doing is actually quite different.

So I'm just gonna leap in and talk a little bit about who I am and what we do.

I am an artisanal cheesemaker in South Texas.

So here's a little spiel about us.

That's me, like, 10 years ago.

And so we do, we specialize in raw milk, cave aged, small batch cheese.

And I started the company almost 10 years ago.

We are on the northeast side of San Antonio, sort of on the highway between San Antonio and Austin.

And when I first started doing the cheesemaking classes and the events that we do was part of my business plan from the very beginning.

So I always knew that education needed to be a part of what it is that we do at River Whey.

And so we do cheesemaking classes, but we also do wine pairings and curated tours and lots of other stuff.

And I'll go ahead and be sharing some pictures about all of those.

We do have a partner farm.

It's 85 miles east of my creamery.

So we do 170 mile round trip when we are making cheese.

So we have a very close partnership with our farm.

It is a closed jersey herd cow's milk farm.

And they are multi-generational.

They've been in Texas since, actually they got the land grant in, like, the 1850s.

They started doing dairying in the 1950s.

But, you know, it's, like, the grandsons who are running it at this point.

So really fabulous operation there and we're thrilled to be able to use their milk.

It is very high fat content, so it's great for cheesemaking.

So we sell our cheeses online, like, we have an e-commerce thing on our website.

We ship all over the country and we also sell to retailers and grocery stores like Whole Foods.

Here in Texas, we have H-E-B and H-E-B Central Markets.

So that's our biggest grocery store chain down here, really.

Whole Foods has us in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

So we're in four states there and then lots of other retailers.

And then here in central Texas, we have a very big wine industry.

It's called the Hill Country and it's just north of us.

So we have really nice partnerships with a lot of the vineyards that are up there.

And we do, you know, they carry our cheeses in their tasting rooms and we do lots of pairing events and things like that.

Okay, this is the first slide that gives you an idea about the difference between a hands-on fresh and an advanced cheese class.

So for us, the hands-on fresh cheese class teaching is mostly what you could do for cheese making at home.

So we talk a lot about equipment and the methods of the different kinds of cheeses that are easy to make at home, that are not aged.

You don't need a big cheese cave for these.

So there are things like ricotta.

We do an acid coagulated cheese, which we use lemon juice in our class.

And then we also do fromage blanc, which we talked then about all those culture style cheeses like creme fresh and things that are done with cultures.

I will show you another slide in just a second, but we always include a book.

So the recipes of the cheeses that we're making, some of the science behind milk composition and how coagulation works and homogenization and pasteurization, what all those things are.

So I actually go into the science.

I do that with both the beginning class.

And then, of course, if you get into the advanced class, I actually talk about that quite a bit.

The advanced cheesemaking classes are two-day classes.

So I'm gonna talk about that when I get to that slide because I think I wanna go a little more in depth.

But you can see some of the pictures of, you know, in the bottom right-hand corner is, like, a group of people doing, we have different stations making different styles of cheese.

Where in the top left-hand corner, the lady who is actually cutting curd, she's cutting curds in our vat.

So that would be one of the advanced classes.

We have a big conference table in the front of the creamery space.

So this is our event space.

We can fit up to 12 people at this table.

And actually, we have a high top table that we can actually add two more people on stools off to the side if we really need to.

The hands-on fresh classes are always on a Saturday.

And this is because we're in production making our own cheeses Monday through Friday.

So Saturday is a hands-on fresh class and it's just a three hour class.

The guests, the participants get to take home the three, like, an eight-ounce tub of each of the three styles of cheese that we're making that day.

They get to take home their books, so they get to take notes and lots of things, as far as what they're learning in class.

The advanced cheesemaking class, one of the things that we do is this is a two part class.

You have make day where we're in the creamery and the whole team is working to create their own cheeses.

We make, depending on the number of either the style of the cheese or the number of guests, anywhere from a 60 to an 85 gallon batch in the vat.

And then when we go to hoop the curds, we actually have 3D printed numbers.

So you can see in these pictures here, those get pressed directly into the cheese.

So when we get to the point where we do harvest day, the guests know exactly which cheese is theirs.

So they get to come and harvest their own cheese and then cut it up and package it however they'd like.

Do they want it whole wheel or half wheel or wedges?

And in the interim, we age those cheeses out in our caves in our cave system.

This is a $200 class, but that covers both halves of it.

And when we do the harvest day, I have a guy who's worked for me from the very beginning, his name's Tom, and he is level three master sommelier.

So he does a wine list and then we have a master cicerone who has a beer place just north of us.

And he does a beer list curated specifically for that cheese.

So what we do is you can see, like, in the right-hand picture that there's a cheese there that doesn't have a number on it.

Actually, I think there's two in this particular one.

We always have an extra wheel so that we can do testing and then we can give a wedge to the wine guy and the beer guy to be able to a literally pair and say these are the things that are gonna go really well with this particular cheese.

So when the guests come to harvest their cheese, not only do they get their whole wheel of cheese, but they also get these lists of, you know, all the stuff so that they can go home and share their cheeses with their friends and family and do the pairings for themselves at home.

We do three different styles of advanced cheesemaking.

One is milled curd, which is a cheddar style.

One is washed curd, which is essentially a Gouda or a Dutch style.

And then we also do an advanced blue cheesemaking.

The guests typically take home anywhere between six and eight pounds of cheese.

And our cheese is retail for over $30 a pound.

So the $200 price for the class is less than if you went and bought eight pounds of our cheese, right?

So it's a pretty good deal as long as you can figure out what you want to do with all that cheese.

I actually have some folks who have taken multiple classes and they look at our whole year and they figure out, "Okay, well, the harvest is gonna be right before Christmas and I'm gonna give this cheese to all my friends and family for Christmas." So we actually really have to keep our planning way ahead and our classes, literally, are selling out.

So this one is curated tours and what we refer to as T&T days.

So curated tours are where we do, we have a group that comes in and we do five courses, each course having one of our cheeses in it.

So I am a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America as are four of our eight employees.

So we have some real depth as far as creating yummy things to eat.

And we've done this a lot.

And so we've had people come to us, like the Mediterranean Ports of Call was a birthday celebration for a woman who loved to do cruises.

So we essentially picked cities from around the Mediterranean and then created a specific dish for each town.

And then we did a celebration of Texas peaches this last year so we had peaches and one of our cheeses in each course.

We sold it out actually twice.

It was a really, really successful event.

The T&T days are the first Sunday of every month.

And when we very first started this, what we did was we just had a 12 noon time slot and they were selling out.

It's only $10 a person, which is essentially a placeholder.

So this is one of the things that when Michele was talking about who's gonna show up, how many people, how many people are you expecting, you know, all of that kind of stuff.

It was important for us to know what our headcount was gonna be ahead of time.

And we limited the 12:00 slot to 15 people because otherwise, all the sort of hallways and things where we do the tour, you get too smashed in there.

And so then we went ahead and we added the 10:00 AM slot as well.

And now they both sell out.

But I can have just one employee do this event so they can come in at like 9:00 in the morning, they get all their tasting stuff ready, and all of the display put out for all the things that we sell.

We have not just our cheeses, but we also carry other Texas products like jams and jellies and sausages and crackers, the accompaniments that would go.

So a guest who would come, can, you know, buy an assortment of things.

So all of that gets set up ahead of time and then you do the tour and the sale for the 10:00 group.

And then as those folks are leaving, the 12 noon folks are coming in and the employees usually out of there by about 2:00 in the afternoon.

So those have been really, really successful, like, surprisingly so.

We've been doing, like the hands-on fresh classes were the first ones that I started doing 10 years ago and then we added the advanced classes in probably about 2017.

And then we just added these T&T things this last year and they've just taken off and we're really pleased with that.

We also do a holiday wine dinner and then we do pairing events.

So my holiday wine dinner for December of this year is already sold out.

I don't even know if we have the ability to fit another slot in.

We're sort of talking about it as a team.

The picture that's in the center here is actually, was a cider pairing that we did.

And then the picture on the right is one of the wine pairing events that we did with one of the local sommeliers.

So that kind of gives you an idea of the types and styles of events that we do.

And every bit of it runs through our website.

So here's our website information.

Like, as far as ticket sales and, you know, people signing up for things, it's always through our website.

I would like to reiterate what Michele said about liability with this is a discussion that actually came up when we were, you know, discussing doing this panel.

And I went to the state of Texas and the state of Texas also has an agritourism statement.

So I went ahead and printed 'em up and I've got my signs.

Because I'm not on a farm, I'm not legally on agricultural land, but cheesemaking still falls under agritourism.

And we have two facilities, the original creamery where we make all the cheese and then our second facility is our pack and ship facility.

And so one of the things for us is I actually carry a lot of liability insurance.

I've always carried it for, because we're a food manufacturer, so there is a legal liability and a whole traceability thing that happens with manufacturing food item.

But as far as liability of guests coming into your space, that is also something that you really want to take a look at as far as what your levels of insurance are and what it is or is not covered.

And that's about it for us.

- [Sarah] Okay, thank you, Susan.

- Sure, I'm gonna go ahead and stop the share.

- [Sarah] Okay, so I have noticed a couple of folks indicating that they can't send chats to the whole group, only to the host and panelists.

There should be an option with a dropdown to change who you're sending the message to.

If that's not working, unfortunately, I apologize.

We seem to be running into a lot of technical difficulties today, but still you can, if you have a question for any of our panelists, please go ahead and enter it and we will address them after Deb, who is up next.

So, Deb, go ahead and you can share your screen.

- Hi, everyone.

So after following these two ladies, (Deb chuckling) let's go here.

Let's see if we can get this pulled up.

If you'll let me know if you can see it when we get there.

Yep, thanks.

I see the head nodding.

Thank you.

So I'm Deb Hartshorn.

I have White Picket farm in Elizabeth, West Virginia.

I am a newbie, accidental farmer.

I have farmed and had gardens all my life.

This is a presentation that I prepared for the West Virginia Agritourism Group.

So this is great for those folks that are new to offering on-farm experiences because I'm pretty new to this myself, so I wanted to give people a little bit of glimpse inside the farm and then how we transitioned over to doing more classes.

This is my grandson and he helps around the farm all over the place.

So our tagline is, it's White Picket Farm, rooted in love.

And so we have berries, we have a flower field, we do produce, so we have an onsite farmer's market.

We're approved for onsite farmer's market.

We're a little different because we only sell produce that we raise here.

The flower field was something I wanted to do 15 years ago and my husband scoffed at me because he knew he would be the one running all of the water and doing all of the irrigation and doing all of the planting.

So I'm the dreamer, he's the doer.

But then this actually, we started this just a couple years ago, so we're really new to the whole agritourism concept and business model.

This is why we're called White Picket Farm.

So our flowers are all in the area that you see behind the fence.

And then to the right of that, we just bought that acre as well.

And that is where we have open field picking.

So I do field to vase arrangements where people do a curated vase and then I also have pick your own.

So this is when it, so you could get kind of a glimpse.

This is when we had till.

This was last year before we had anything planted.

The building to the left is the potting shed, was the potting shed.

And because one of the challenges that we face with offering classes is I've grown so quickly that I've run out of space.

So I was offering classes in our garage, which initially started as, like, the workshop.

So my car went out, my husband lost his workbench and the workspace within his garage.

So my car went over there and then I would offer the courses in the garage.

You'll see some pictures later in the show, the slideshow around our property.

We utilize the entire property for the classes and the events.

So I was having to clean up the workshop to prepare for, you know, work that I was doing because I also make candles and apothecary items made from items that we have here on the farm that we raise.

We also do jams and jellies with the fruits and berries that we raise here, all of our jams and jellies.

So value added products that Michele talked about earlier.

I have moved my retail space three times in my house to different locations.

I've outgrown that so we've also added a building for that.

So these are some kind of things as you add classes, think about space constraints and budgeting of how you're gonna be able to accommodate that and to facilitate your guests.

This is just a shot that I took.

This is my greenhouse.

All of our flowers are raised from seeds that we grow here in the greenhouse.

We also built that.

I drew it out, the pictures.

We went to a local hardware store that buys, you know, that buys, like, pallets of windows and things of that nature.

And then I designed it and then we went and made it fit with the windows that we could find.

So I'm very fortunate, my husband built this also.

We've built everything that we have here.

So I'm pretty lucky.

I know not everybody has that.

This is actually a couple of folks that we have.

The girl on the right is actually one of, both of them are actually board members of our West Virginia Farmer's Market Association.

So they made a trip out to the farm.

This is one of the classes that I do, the field to vase arrangements.

I do private events versus large.

I started during COVID.

So that business model has worked for me.

I know that that doesn't work for everybody.

I do have a full-time job.

This is my side hustle.

This is good because today it is on my lunch break that I'm able to do this.

But I do small, private events that are scheduled.

That's how I started during COVID.

It works for me.

I'm able to, you know, offer those small, intimate, private classes that others that are looking for more volume, which I know to sustain the farm and monetarily is required for a lot of most folks, actually.

Here we are starting with the seeds.

I just give some shots in and around.

And again, my grandson who loves all of the vegetables and is our biggest promoter when we have things ready to sell at the on-farm market.

This is my granddaughter.

She's also joining in at white pickets.

She's just 13 months.

So you're gonna see, so I want you to see this, how this becomes a family event.

And I'm sure a lot of you are also rooted in that kind of environment.

This is in the flower field as it was just starting and I just have some pictures.

The pick your own bouquet.

So how that works is when I have, the flowers are ready to be picking.

A lot of people talk about do you have a website?

I do not because I want to be able to maintain the level of response that people are accustomed to.

I only operate currently through Facebook, so I do have the URL purchased, but until I can, you know, provide the level of response that people expect and be able to keep that changed and rotated regularly, I operate solely through Facebook and Instagram.

So I think that's helpful for people that are just starting too when they're thinking about what kind of marketing budget.

I'm also in a very rural area, so that works for me.

I know my customers.

So those are the, you know, that's the social media platform that they're most comfortable with and where I can get the word out when things are happening.

As you can see, things are starting to really bustle and bloom here and it just keeps bustling and blooming.

When I'm sharing pictures, although I get approval from folks when they come to the farm and at classes and events to use their pictures on Facebook and social media because this is a different platform, not necessarily social media, despite the fact that that's all public and my page is public.

Any children that I have in photos, I cover those up because I didn't previously ask to share in presentations like this.

So something to think about when you're doing classes, the adults have all approved, but I'm particularly cautious about children.

What's really neat is this is a gal that she started coming to do the pick your own, and I'm getting repeat people.

She was here my first year and then she came this second year.

So it's neat to see how the kids have grown and I get pictures.

So those are some things that you can offer as well as you're moving forward in your business.

So this is what we do.

So here's some of the arrangements, some of the things that folks have made from the classes that we have here.

I also do arrangements that I sell as a value added product.

So they're different because I don't go out and purchase, you know, I'm not buying from wholesalers unless it's another local flower farm that's about 45 minutes away.

Lash is about an hour away.

I will buy blooms from her to do class arrangements if I need something that I'm not currently growing.

And I partner with another small business to do all my tags.

You can see the engravings.

So I make sure that I'm using, and these are all other small, women-owned businesses.

Again, just some other examples.

When I said that we use all of our property for White Picket.

So this is some areas that you can see around our property.

We actually are adjacent to a golf course.

So for those of you that are small and that have just a few acres, we make use of every bit of our property.

We actually have three acres.

This is the area that goes around.

I have a courtyard that you can see and I'm moving my mouse like you can see that.

I don't think you can see my mouse.

But anyway, the lilacs, the peonies.

I will add a note here, something that I'm doing.

I'm the first one that has been licensed and gone through the proper protocol in West Virginia to offer peony and lilac jellies.

So those have also been raised here on our farm.

And there's a whole process around that in terms of what the licensing process is and verification and food science lab testing and all of that for the berry.

It's completely different than the berry jellies.

And these are just, again, some pictures that I use for Facebook.

This is out at the courtyard, so I'll do fireside with friends.

So that's a Friday evening thing that I offer is a private experience for people to come.

We do a balsamic and oil tasting.

I partner with another local business that does, imports olive oil and balsamics from Italy.

And her husband is a second generation Italian.

So we come and we do tasting.

So that's a fireside with friends.

We have that by the courtyard.

There's a swing that that people can use to kind of pull together.

So this is another one of the events, just kinda, you can get a flavor.

This was a little flower party that we did for a group of kids.

Now some people will ask me what do you do about people for pick your own with kids?

Because that's also an event that I schedule, a class that I schedule.

It's not necessarily a class, but the pick your own is also scheduled.

So I do require an adult per child because there are cutters involved.

You know, I've had people that say, "Oh, I'd like to bring my four grandkids and their ages six to two." You know, there's one of you.

So I need to make sure that there's an adult accompanying.

I've learned from experience.

I'll share my experiences with you so you maybe don't confront those same things.

I've actually had people show up and have a baby left in the car in a car seat and in West Virginia in July, it's pretty hot.

So I was like, "Oh no, you probably shouldn't leave them in there." So I'm holding the baby while they're cutting flowers because she didn't plan accordingly, I've had to tell people, "No, you really need to wear your shoes.

There are bees." So I've had people, they're required to put shoes on their children.

I am part of the West Virginia Agritourism Association.

I do have the agritourism signs, much like Susan and Michele talked about with agritourism and the liability there.

You know, you are on a farm where there are, you know, you are taking the risk that's associated with being in an agricultural environment.

So making sure that folks are aware of those kinds of things.

Again, when you're sharing social media, capturing pictures like the, with that beautiful little baby, even though they're mine, you know, that gets people's attention.

You get to see it gets people ideas.

So some value added products.

I talked about the jellies that we do.

I've also been asked to do things.

I do a a flourless chocolate torte.

So I do a chocolate torte class.

I do a black raspberry scone.

I sell the scones, but I also do a class where people can buy the berries, learn how to make the black raspberry scones.

So that's another value added in a class that you can offer as you are looking at ways to do that.

These are early farm-grown apples, so you know, how do you make apple sauce?

I don't offer canning classes.

There's another whole set of regs around that.

We do grapes so we have grape jelly.

And these are the, labeling is very important.

I'm part of West Virginia Grown.

I think I saw someone on there that was part of Georgia Grown.

So labeling is very important when you're thinking about these classes and the value added.

So I have a retail space now, which you'll see a little bit later.

Again, photographs are important and how you capture that and market your information and provide that.

And we do maple syrup.

We're not a huge production.

We don't have a sugar grove.

This is tree by tree.

We are going out, tapping it, and collecting it and doing the syrup.

And my grandson calls it dolls sugar, we have dolls sugar shack and he calls it, he will not eat store purchased syrup.

We also do berry syrups.

So again, some ideas.

There's a black raspberry scones that I talked to you about.

I do biscotti that we use where I will dehydrate some of the fruits and we do the biscottis.

There's the flourless chocolate torte.

Biscuit making.

You'd be surprised the number of people that can't make biscuits.

And then I can sell the jelly that goes with the biscuits.

I also do a biscuit box where I will sell the biscuits and the jelly.

Did that around Valentine's Day.

Do the marketing of, you know, you're the jelly to my biscuit or you're the butter to my biscuit and you can market and sell those items as well.

In West Virginia, this is the tastability that I talked to you about earlier.

One of the classes that I do.

We do a tasting.

We do a sampling.

There's a difference.

So we'll do the six, a tasting of the six olive oils, the six balsamics, and then they actually get to sample foods that are made with those.

So it's a much more lengthy process.

We go through an education of the olive oils, the balsamics, how those are made, what farms they come from, and then the olive oils and the balsamics are for sale.

I do this to partner with the other woman-owned business and this helps promote her business and products as well.

This is one of the private ones that I do.

This was a group that came that scheduled one of their, they call it the tribe.

One of them got her cancer-free diagnosis and they came here to celebrate.

So this is one of the things that you can do as a class.

It doesn't have to be full, open to everybody.

You can specialize, which is what I've done.

So that kind of gives a different market.

This one was a baby shower.

So this is a neat, we did succulent bowls and then I had each, this was not a Pinterest idea, this was actually one of my own where I had people to bring a piece of something from their yard, a twig.

They had to bring 10 of them, 10 leaves, 10 pieces of a flower and then I taught them how to make nests.

And we incorporated all of those into the nests.

And we talked about how it takes a village to raise a child and all together and the nesting and the baby.

So we kind of did that within the succulent bowls, as was an additional add to that class.

Again, another celebration of some girls that got together for retirement.

I do a Kokedama class, which is Japanese for moss ball.

I do the succulent classes that you see over here.

So everything is based around flowers, mostly what I do flowers and food and tie that in with what we do.

It's very important that yours, I know that Michele talked about all of these different kinds of things that she does with her lavender farm.

But tying those things in.

Last night, I had a yoga class and we talked about, it was a another yoga instructor, so my shed was cleared out and we became a zen.

We had flowers, I had daffodils from all around the farm in there.

And then there's just some other examples from some of the classes that you can see.

This is the retail space.

I ran out of space.

I'd been in three rooms in my house and I couldn't get any further so we actually put in a building.

It wasn't completely finished.

I got it done and that was right around Christmas.

So now I have a retail space.

My garage is now solely my workshop and I have a shed space for the experiences that was my potting shed that's now the experience space.

So we had to build another barn for the potting shed.

So again, room for growth because it's amazing how quickly you grow when you are providing an experience for people that they wanna come back and experience.

And I have repeat customers.

If I offer a new experience, they're lined up.

So people want things to do.

So this gives you a little bit of a sample of some of the things that I have in the shop.

A lot of woodworking.

I have a fellow that I partner with that makes cheese boards that falls in line with the olive oil, the taste of Appalachian, Italy.

I've got breadboards and bread stalls.

I do candles all made with soy.

I do a lot of apothecary with the lavender, the calendula that I grow here using organic carrier oils.

And so then these are just some of the in progress shots that you can do, again, for marketing, in terms of what you're doing with your classes.

So this is kind of the, we were featured in "West Virginia Living Magazine" for our bath teas that have the bee pollen and the dried rose hips from here.

So this is one of the, just, like, that thought I would throw that in so you can see how you can use these for marketing and also how that ties in with the whole process of offering classes.

Last week, I had a soap making class.

I call it Meet the Maker.

She's actually the one that taught me to make soap.

It's cold processed soap.

I've had people wanting to learn.

So sometimes people want to also learn what you do and so not just sell the product, but if you can teach them and they see how much work that goes into it and the amount of money that goes into the products, they'll come back and buy yours.

So if you have questions, I'm happy to answer those and I appreciate the opportunity.

- Thank you.

Well, this has been wonderful.

And with three very different businesses, three different approaches to how they do classes.

I hope everybody's learned a lot.

I certainly have.

So questions, we have got a number of questions that have come in and again, I'm gonna apologize.

I'm going to look into what the technical issue is, why your messages can't be sent to everybody, but does appear that they've come directly to the hosts and panelists.

So we are seeing them.

First question for all the panelists, and I saw Michele already answered in text, but you can join in as well.

What is the return on investment for your classes?

Are they profitable or do you use them as a loss leader to get people to your farm or business, in the case of Susan to buy your products or spend money in other ways?

Talk about that financial.

- Sure. - [Sarah] Driver.

- Our classes are extremely profitable.

As a matter of fact, it's one of the most profitable things we do.

Artisanal cheesemaking has very slim margins because it's very labor intensive.

And because we specialize in aged cheesemaking, we have a couple of cheeses that age, you know, 60 to 90 days, but our most popular cheese ages out a year.

So, you know, we're having to manage all of that.

When I started the company, we used to do the farmer's market here in the, the big one down in San Antonio.

And found that we ended up not having the ROI.

It changed at COVID.

Prior to COVID, it was worth it.

Then everybody changed their buying habits and how they get their food items and things during COVID.

And actually, during COVID we couldn't do any classes because nobody was allowed to gather in groups.

But now that we're back, and I think Deb nailed it when she just said this thing about this experiential stuff is everybody's really roaring to come back to do things because we've, I think in a lot of ways, felt a bit, I don't know, stuck at home.

But as far as the profitability of my cheesemaking classes for my hands-on fresh, we only use about maybe six gallons of milk.

And then we already have all the equipment.

We have the space for it.

So other than me printing out the books and things like that, it's very profitable.

The advanced cheese classes are also, and it sort of, because when we do the harvest day, we actually serve beer and wine.

But the class is more expensive and we use more milk.

But without question, these are very, very profitable for us.

And if I could, as a matter of fact, I'm actually looking at the opportunity for us of having certain weeks of the year that we're not doing as much production so we can add an extra class in because they're selling out.

- Deb, do you have anything to add to that?

Oh, you're muted.

- I would just add that, make sure when you're doing your costing, like, I look at things even as packaging.

So for my soap making class, I use the book that the teacher taught me to use.

So I provided that book as part of the class.

I ordered mine on Amazon, but the I couldn't get, because of the number of people, they limited the number I could buy.

So I actually went to the author and through the publisher to get the books.

Factor in things like packaging, the cellophane bags, the goat's milk, because we used a powdered goat's milk.

You know, anything that you're using, make sure that you're factoring all of that in, any labeling that you're doing, because each of those things increases.

And so I do a spreadsheet for each of my classes of what my costs are, and then I evaluate that.

It is very profitable.

I do most of my, like Michele, I do most of the classes myself because then you offset the cost of sharing that.

But there are a lot of things like the yoga instructor, I'm not gonna be teaching yoga.

You know, first of all, I can't sit still long enough.

It's very painful for me to, like, move.

But anyway, making sure that we collaborate because collaborating with those other, the soap maker, bringing her in.

I have another friend that does flowers that does, you know, florals for weddings.

So I do a DIY floral class.

It's not mine, but it's something else coming in.

So I think that that kind of collaboration is only gonna increase your business as well as provide you with more opportunities to help the next person that's coming along.

So it is very profitable, but make sure that you're factoring in all of those hidden costs that are involved with offering classes.

- Michele, anything you wanna add even though...

- No, I agree.

They're very profitable.

Lisa had asked if it was our loss leader, if we lose money on classes for people to come to the farm.

And the answer is no.

Our loss leader here last year was free s'mores night.

We offered, like, free marshmallows for kids and then we sold them to, you know, the older people when they got here and that was our loss leader.

S'mores night didn't work for us, but classes are highly profitable.

People come, they buy on top of the class, they're excited, they bring their friends with 'em.

And usually for us, they usually come more than once a summer.

So they're scheduling a class or a private class.

So they're very lucrative.

Absolutely.

And they wanna learn about your farm, they wanna be you, they wanna be us just for a minute.

- So I have a a few targeted questions that came in while each of you were speaking.

So Susan, somebody asked how many slots are the T&T days limited to?

- 15 For the 10:00 and 15 for the 12 noon.

So 30 people total.

- And Deb, I think this one was for you.

Do you make lilac oil as well and do you have a commercial kitchen?

- I do not make lilac oil, and I only make non-potentially hazardous items because we have cottage law in West Virginia.

My jellies, however, the peony and lilac jelly did have to go through a regimented process.

I had to also go through Better Process Control School, and then the jellies had to be sent to a food science lab at Virginia Tech and have those inspected.

I did not have to have any of my recipes altered.

They will work with you, but mine came in fine and then I had to have a kitchen inspection by the West Virginia Department of Agriculture.

So that's how I managed to do those.

- Okay, so I think that really highlights that it's important to talk to the regulators in your state about what it is that you want to do to make sure that you are following all the rules and have the proper permits.

So this came in not so much as a question but a comment.

It was about marketing, and someone had recently been to a college and they mentioned their Facebook, and I guess the response was that maybe the younger generation isn't using Facebook anymore.

And so when it comes to marketing and those social media tools, I know Deb, you spoke a little bit about, you know, why you use the tools that you do.

But for all of you, can you talk about that a little bit more and how it is that you select how you're going to market your classes?

- I think you need to quantify your customer.

You need to know, you know, I can tell you that the bulk of my customers are not gonna be on TikTok, so I can be a TikToker, which I really do need to learn that, you know?

But knowing who your customer, knowing your customer base is very important.

So those are things, that would be my recommendation.

Not every social media platform is appropriate for every customer base.

It's like any other kind of marketing.

You know, you can have a presence there if you just want a presence, but if you're truly driving your business, you need to know who your customer is and what platform they're using.

- So for me, I would say our classes are driven mostly by Facebook.

The people that follow us and go to our classes on Facebook are locals.

But if we're looking to expand our sales and camping or visiting from out of state, we're looking at things like Instagram.

Pinterest is a new thing.

People are really underestimating the value of Pinterest.

Pinterest is actually the second largest search engine next to Google.

It's not just for ideas anymore.

People see your idea, they're buying your idea.

So for us, that is a platform that we're really gonna heavily investigate this year because Facebook, as much as, you know, us mid to older generation love it.

It's true, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, we have to stay with it.

And for me, we're really gonna concentrate on Pinterest this year and a lot more on Instagram.

And Facebook for us is good for the locals, but we're not drawing a lot of out of staters that way.

It's very regional.

It seems that social platforms can be kind of regional.

- Yeah, and I think I would like to add, too, that it's changed over time, right?

I mean, I've been in business just about 10 years now, and what we started with is not what we're currently doing.

We do still do Facebook and I do Instagram, but it has gone from individual pictures and posts to doing videos and reels.

And also, I think it was Deb that had a QR code in your presentation.

That is something that we are also doing.

We have a QR code that goes to our website.

So we have a milk van, her name is Henrietta, hashtag Henrietta the milk van for those of you out there on Instagram.

And I'm adding those QR codes, literally, to the doors of my milk van because people are sitting there in traffic.

The phone number for the creamery is on there.

And I get people calling me all the time.

Do you sell raw milk?

Which the answer is no, because I'm not the farmer, but our farmer does.

And so a lot of those things, those tools, creating QR codes is free.

There is no cost to that, but you need to attach it to something, right?

So I would say that things even like YouTube, I'm not on TikTok and I'm really hesitant about even wanting to open that can of worms right now, given the potential for it to be banned or changed very quickly.

It is a time concern, right?

Like, how much time are you dedicating throughout your week to being able to do things like advertising or working on your website or putting up posts and all of that.

And it can be a win or it can be very difficult.

So you have to think about it.

What's the best bang for your buck?

- Excellent points.

One last question.

I know we're just past 1:00, but I think that this last, we'll end it with this one last question.

Do any farmers contract with another, or do any of you, I apologize, contract with another local venue to host workshops at your business?

So do you allow anybody else to come in and utilize your spaces?

- We do, we have an event center that we just put up.

It's 20 by 40.

It's basically two big storage units with a giant roof and two ends.

We've sided it inside and out as an event center.

And depending on what you're doing, if it's a bridal shower or a class or a retreat or a wedding, kind of depends on what we charge you, but absolutely.

Our space is here.

We have 12 acres and we wanna sell, rent, or utilize every piece of it if we can.

- I do not because we live here.

We live onsite.

So I'm asked a lot about that.

You know, will you let us have this here or that here?

So I've had to really, even as much as photographers in the flower field, you know, because I schedule folks in, if I have a photographer in there, that means that I can't have people in there doing pick your own or that takes time away from a potential class that I could host.

And the agritourism class that I just finished in West Virginia Agritourism, one of the things they talked about was that event spaces and things, again, laws vary, but I would make sure that you check with your insurance company about doing an add-on, that you require a copy of their liability insurance, and then make you an insured on that policy for an event.

If you're partnering with other folks, particularly if there's alcohol involved, you might wanna check with your own insurance company.

They have different parameters around that.

- Yeah, and the the only thing I would, I don't rent out our space at all.

I've had multiple people approach us about things, but what we end up doing is saying, "Okay, we'll run that event for you", right?

These are the things that we can offer to you.

But I would not be comfortable having a group come in that wasn't a cheese-centric event anyway.

I've had an a couple of different vendors who wanna come in and do their monthly wine release, like, their upcoming, you know, wines that are about to be released and they want do it, but they wanna just have the sommelier give her presentation and the answer's no.

If you're not gonna pair those wines with our cheese, no.

And especially because it's a wine-centric thing.

So yeah, just gotta make your choices.

And I don't have nearly as much space as the other two ladies here.

I wish I had 12 acres.

Oh my god, do I wish I had 12 acres.

But we have a tiny little, two different, very tiny little facility, so we're limited on our space for sure.

- Excellent, thank you.

So we're gonna wrap that up, wrap up for today.

On the screen now is a link, a QR code, ironically enough, or coincidentally enough to our evaluation survey and also emails for myself and Claudia Schmidt.

Feel free to email us with any questions.

We can work with our panelists today to get you any of the materials that they are willing to share.

And again, the recording will be emailed out to everyone most likely early next week.

So with that, thank you for joining us today and we wish you all a good day.

- Thank you.