International Miniature Cattle Breeds Registry, INC.

FINDING CUSTOMERS FOR MINIATURE CATTLE
THIS IS PART FIVE OF A SIX PART SERIES

PROSPECTING FOR NEW AND OLD CUSTIMERS
"REACHING YOUR CUSTOMERS"

BY PROFESSOR RICHARD GRADWOHL

Old Customer/New Customers:
I'm amazed how many customers of ours keep buying from us. You would think that once they have enough mini cattle at some point they would not need nor want any new animals. Such is not the case. The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well. Many of our clients have found the ways of profitability with mini cattle. A buyer might purchase an animal as a pet. The pet becomes a pregnant heifer. The calf is then for sale. Now they are in the business. The tax advantages of running your own small miniature cattle business are many. Both the business and the cattle are small and manageable. The cow becomes breeding stock and is a depreciable asset. The fences, barn, hay, a portion of the home as an office are all expense items needed to generate a profit. You owned most of these assets before you started the business and now they become expense items. This is called tax sheltering. You look at before tax profit and after tax profit. Usually the after tax profit is not bad considering you've expensed assets that you owned before you started the business. Many of our old customers keep buying from us because they keep smiling and selling. They buy open heifers or bred heifers of several different miniature cattle breeds. It's a chain of marketing events that keeps generating profit that at the very least helps pay the real estate taxes on your small farm and maybe even puts a nickel or two in your after tax pocket. As a Professor of Personal Finance and Small Business Management I have for years taught the advantages of owning your own small business. The Miniature Cattle business is ideal for those that own a small acreage farm.

New customers come from all over the place. A great many of these are investors. At least their goal is to make a good investment. Most have money to invest. Some have lots of money others a little bit and still others a wee bit. They want to get started in something new, something different. I had a phone call the other day from a guy that said, "What do you have for sale? I have $50,000 to invest and want to get started in miniature cattle". Is this unusual? Not really. The dollars will change but the motivation is similar. People want and need to make money and they see miniature cattle as an opportunity. That's great as long as you don't get stung in the process. They need to understand life cycle stages, market shifts and target marketing. It's best to understand the marketing of the product before you invest in the product. I've had many say "Gee Dick, could you sell these animals for me"? I often do but the cost of having someone else market your product eats into your profit potential. I've even bought some animals back at wholesale and resold them at retail.

How to Prospect for Customers:
When selling anything you are attempting to find those people that have those needs and wants that your product features are intended to fill. Each breed of mini cattle has product features that appeal to one or more of the six market segments (refer back to article four). If your breed is primarily a pet then you need to market to the mini cattle pet market. The same is true for the breeder, show, mini milker, beef and organic beef markets. It's really a matter of emphasis. The different markets tend to bounce off one another. How a customer perceives the ultimate return and his/her investment is predictable. Here are the six market segments and some potential customer within them.

Pet: Primarily a female decision maker customer with dollars to acquire a mini cattle pet. Most animals that are pets are purchased by women. Motivation is status, self-fulfillment and investment.
Breeder: Male and female buyers. Motivation is mainly investment. Not usually interested in lower priced break unless can be used in new breeding programs, Those with limited funds will buy into lower priced products in hopes of big gains.
Show: Although most breeds can fit into this market it is a limited market. Motivation is social contact with other breeders. Status oriented buyer. Also investment oriented buyer looking to establish bragging rights. Also FFA and 4-H applications with younger kids.
Mini Milker: Small farm owner wanting a small milker for family use. Usually lower priced animals. Dual-purpose animals for both milk and beef are desired. Also motivated by desire for organic beef and organic milk.
Organic Beef: Health conscience buyers looking to buy or raise beef that is hormone, antibiotic and pesticide free. Price range is limited for animals but the beef will sell for much higher prices. Can be an investment oriented buyer looking to sell organic beef at a good profit.
Commercial Beef: Limited market for mini cattle. Most commercial growers will opt for standard sized animals. A mini bull semen sale to commercial growers is potentially good due to desire to bring size down.

These include some, but not all, of the potential customers within the six market segments. Sometimes a customer will come along that you would not have guessed would be interested in a particular market segment. To find out you need to ask questions (refer back to article one).

Reaching the Market:
As you can see from the above discussion the six markets can require different marketing strategies to find those customers that have those needs that your particular product features have been developed to fill. Here at the Research Facility we have developed seven new breeds with product features that fill specific wants and needs. How then do you find your potential customers. There are basically two marketing concepts to choose from. First the idea of "buckshot marketing". Second the idea of "niche target marketing". Each of these concepts can be applied to the six market segments and each can be very productive if applied correctly. A simple one sentence ad "Looking for a new type of pet? How about a miniature cow" can stimulate a lot of interest. In article one I discussed the sales technique of asking questions (refer to article one). This technique applies as well to the art of advertising. Lots of very successful advertising programs have been based on asking a question. This is called the attention step in the field of professional salesmanship. You need to get someone's attention before you can develop product interest. Here are some ways to advertise your product.

Display at Fairs =
Ads In Magazines =
Word of Mouth =
Mailers =
Hand Out Flyers =
Street Sign =
Display at Chamber Meetings =
Enter Parades =
Write a Newsletter =
Send out Press Releases =
Ads in Local Papers =
Signage on Truck or Cattle Trailer =
lnternet Web Site =
Have an E-Mail Address =
Farm Open House =
Participate in Cattle Associations =
Run Ad in IMCBS Newsletter =
Become an IMCBS Member =
Buy into the IMCBS Marketing =
Breeder Listing on IMCBS Web Page =
Classified Ad in IMCBS Newsletter =

Buckshot Marketing
Buckshot/Niche (depends on magazine)
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing (most effective when targeted)
Buckshot Marketing
Buckshot Marketing
Buckshot Marketing
Buckshot Marketing
Niche Marketing
Buckshot/Niche Marketing
Buckshot Marketing
Buckshot Marketing
Buckshot/Niche Marketing
Buckshot/Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing

There are undoubtedly many other creative ways to reach potential customers. Believe it or not we have found one of the most effective ways is signage on our cattle trailer. -We have an action picture of a mini calf on our trailer together with mailing address, phone number, fax number, web site and e-mail. These are the five ways people can reach you. Remember the days when there were only two ways? Those were the good ol'e days.

Buckshot marketing, as you can see, is basically when you're trying to reach everyone and anyone in the hopes of finding a customer sooner or later. Sometimes you do and sometimes it takes a long time. The effectiveness of a particular buckshot strategy needs to be considered in the context of time, effort and money expended. This may surprise you but I think of all the buckshot methods, attending fairs is the most expensive and least sales productive. You're dealing with a lot of lookie-loos. We have done a lot of fairs and it's a lot of work for little reward. We now charge the fairs for an educational display of miniature cattle. This can offset the costs. Some of the more productive methods would include hosting a farm open house, sending out a newsletter, ads in national magazines and trade magazines, internet website, signage on truck and trailer, and press releases.

I have found that one of the most productive methods and least expensive strategy of getting the word out is to use press releases. I have enclosed one in this newsletter as an example. Costs of marketing can be very expensive. Some companies have even gone broke because they spent too much money on marketing. I like the kind of marketing where you get tots of publicity and it doesn't cost you anything. Press releases, writing articles for magazines, being a guest on a talk show. Appearances and presentations at various civic functions, alt of these can do a great job getting your word out with the minimum amount of expenditure. This generally falls into the category of buckshot and it's great when it's free.

Niche target marketing on the other hand, is when you reduce the market down to customers with known wants and needs. You may use some of the same materials but your efforts are highly targeted and focused. This requires knowledge of both demographic and psychographics characteristics of the potential customers, which is referred to as customer profiling. Oops got to go, got a cow having a calf. I'll save the rest of this discussion for article six, see you then.

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