A worm farming business can be a deeply satisfying endeavor – but it is not without its challenges (understatement of the year – lol). One major challenge us “pro” worm farmers need to contend with is the rise and fall of demand at different times of year.
Naturally, there tends to be a LOT of interest in the late winter and spring, when people are excitedly planning and starting their gardening projects. Then, things taper off as “vacation season” approaches, and everyone tends to be more focused on family trips and days at the beach than on gardening and composting.
With the arrival of fall there is usually another (smaller-than-spring) spike in interest. School is back in, people have woken from ‘vacation mode’ stupors, and in hotter regions this can actually be an important gardening season as well. And then…once again, things tend to slow down once the colder (or at least cooler) months of winter arrive.
Obviously this is a very generalized overview of the season, and it certainly doesn’t apply to everyone (location and business focus can both have a major influence). But I think it’s safe to say that most of us (in the ‘biz’) will encounter some slow times along the way.
And let’s face it – these periods can be disheartening – especially when just starting out.
So what is a worm farmer to do? How do we best take advantage of this extra time, so we are even BETTER prepared to take advantage of the crazy times?
And how do we avoid the financial strains that come with a lack of revenue?
There are a variety of options, but in my humble opinion there are three MAIN areas we should be focusing on during these periods.
1) Diversification
2) Market Presence
3) Automation
In upcoming blog posts I will chat in more depth about each of them, but for now I will provide a quick overview.
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DIVERSIFICATION
One thing I tend to stress – especially with newcomers – is the importance of “focus” in your business. I know from personal experience that it is usually a LOT more effective when you pick one or two main products (naturally, products you have determined there is a demand for) and really zone in on getting good at producing/sourcing/selling them.
What’s funny is I basically took the opposite approach with my own “real world” worm biz when first starting out – trying to sell anything and everything remotely related to worm composting. Before smartening up and gradually narrowing down my focus more and more (to the point where I now basically just sell a single product).
But lectures on the importance of focus aside, there is still a very valid argument to be made for diversification – IF done correctly. And this can be especially important for the periods of time when the demand for you your main product(s) is not nearly as high.
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MARKET PRESENCE
I know all too well that during “busy season” it can be very difficult to find the time for content creation, social media posting, website development etc etc (hence my “feast and famine” communication tendencies many of you are familiar with), so it can be really important to invest as much time in the “off season” as you can.
It can be a tricky balancing act, when you are depending on your worm biz income to pay the bills, but this type of “work” can pay huge dividends down the road, so I strongly recommend making a concerted effort in this arena.
It may also seem counter-intuitive to focus on brand-building (etc) when far fewer people are paying attention, but again it is all about doing the work now so you can reap the benefits later.
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AUTOMATION
Diversifying and building up a stronger presence aren’t necessarily going to help if all your work involves trading time for dollars. If anything, you’ll likely just end up even more stretched thin amd stressed!
This is where automation comes in.
Naturally, this will mostly apply to our online efforts – where we can set up streamlined ordering and customer-care systems, content marketing “funnels” etc – but there are ways we can improve efficiency on the “real world” side of things as well.
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Don’t worry if all this seems a bit vague (or sounds like “Greek”). Like I said, in upcoming lessons I will flesh things out quite a bit more
IMPORTANT NOTE: There is another very important phase/focus that we won’t be covering in this series – something we might refer to as “preparation”. Obviously there are going to be periods of time leading up to peak season when we will need to be setting up new beds, performing maintenance work etc. But, in my experience, this tends to be what business owners put most of their time and attention on anyway!
It is these other (often neglected) areas where I feel more attention needs to be given.
OK – well that’s enough of an “eye-ful” for the first post.
Hopefully a lot of you are looking forward to learning more. 🙂
Talk again soon
Bentley
