Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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little fish, but you wouldn't be that big fish, when the little fish are gone, and
you need to remember that.' And I said, 'Is the product good?' He said it was
going like wildfire. I said 'Okay, you give me your order by noon and we will
load your trucks after 4:00Mondays and Thursdays. Don't start this attitude
problem. If a grower in California just ruins your day, don't you think about
calling me and ruining mine because I will make it ten times worse.'He said,
'OKAY.' ”After she traveled out of state to visit with a distributor, she walked
out of a meeting with him. When she talked to him later on the telephone,
she told him, “I am not playing with you, buddy. I do not have time for your
little games. I know you have in the back of your mind that you are going to
make me toe the line. It doesn't happen. Let's get this nonsense out of your
mind. He said, 'Nobody just walks out of a meeting.' I said, 'I do. I've done
it before, and I'll do it again.' ”
On the other hand, most of Mary's marketing work is harmonious. “You
build relationships. You build a business relationship, but it is a friend thing.
Integrity. And once you build those relationships, you really don't have any
problems marketing. They trust you. A lot of organics is trust, and it always
has been. Some of them don't care as long as you say it is organic and they
have that paperwork. But 90 percent of the people I know, they want the real
thing and they do care. They care about their growers. I have them calling
me saying, 'I wish I could do something for you. Are you worried about the
freeze?' I have people calling me from all over the country, and that is very
unusual. And they really were concerned. So, I mean, you really build up
friendships, and they last.”
Mary explains how they learned the importance of using their brand
name. One distributor “bought a little bit and it flew off the shelves. He is
the one that said, 'You have to have brand recognition.' I was using generic
cartons, so he got us to print up cartons. In bold letters it would say Eagles'
Nest, and it had a list of what we were coming on the market with. It would
just fly off their shelves because people knew it was consistently quality.”
Relationships and word-of-mouth have truly built their marketing avenues.
Mary says, “Brand recognition really put me over the top. People would call
that distributor, and he would tell them, 'If you can get this girl's citrus, buy
it. She is the best show in town. You need to buy this.' So he really helped me
out a lot.” And customers return because “they were all consistently happy,
and they all tell me price is no concern. As long as the quality is there, they'll
pay what you are asking. Because price per acre I probably make less than
these other groves. But that's okay because I am happy with what I sell. I
am very proud of my product.” Rob says, “As far as all the organic fruit in
the state, we ain't the cheapest, but we've got the best. And we also have the
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