“You should name this stand Goldminer’s Vegetables….You only cater to the rich…Forget about your retired, year-round neighbors who need nutritious food on a fixed income.”

The hand-written note wasn’t for me. It was anonymously left at my friend Tricia Park’s (of Creekside Meadows) farm stand a few hours west of here. But when she posted it on Instagram, I felt an acrid taste in my mouth. I felt like that letter was for me. So did every other farmer who saw her post that day.  Sadly, sentiments like this are not uncommon in the world of small farming and small business.  So for the next three weeks, I’ll be doing a 3-part series on Pricing & Spiritual Well-Being for farmers & small business owners.  Welcome to Week One.

I don’t like to dwell on how farmers are beaten down and victimized in this country, on how the largest corporate farms that pump nutritionally vacuous food through the conventional food system while abusing land and livestock are the beneficiaries of government subsidies that make mainstream food look like it costs less than it does, giving birth to our nation’s sense of entitlement to cheap food. I don’t like to fixate on how, in contrast, how we small, independent farmers who are actively stewarding the soil and seeing to animal welfare must labor harder and operate without subsidies, then face public derision when our road stand and farmers’ market prices can’t compete with grocery stores. If I let my thoughts go there, I grow bitter.

If I grow bitter, then I become disillusioned with my work.

If I become disillusioned with my work, that’s one more farm that will disappear.

That’s one more source of local food security that will dry up.

That’s one more web of small business relationships binding us to the mechanic to the feed store to the butcher to the farms we partner with to the customers and chefs — that will wither.

So my family has just developed a thick skin over the national discord and we continue with our work.

But I worry every time a farmer or any small business owner comes up against this kind of toxicity. We need small businesses to help build local resilience and guarantee quality of life. (If you want to understand more about this, be sure to check out chapter one of Redefining Rich.)

This kind of disparagement isn’t going away. It is better to learn to deal with it in your business. So I’m going to spend the next few week’s releasing a three-part series on pricing & spiritual well-being. This week, I’m going to talk about the four most important things to remember when a customer assaults you about asking for a living wage to produce your products.

1. It isn’t about you.

Regenerative farmers, or any small business person dealing with socially responsible production, are committed to putting necessary goods and services into our economies that don’t abuse soil, water, sunlight, air, or people. Consumerism has spent most of the last century disregarding the costs to our environment for our food and goods. That has bred a culture of entitlement where low prices and price wars are just expected. But the problem is deeper than that. While our food and consumer goods are expected to be cheap and paychecks look larger, people’s purchasing power is the same as it was forty years ago. Pensions have been disappearing from benefits packages. Prescription drugs, college, housing and childcare costs have soared. When a customer expresses outrage because you charge more based on your honest assessment of your costs, it’s a reflection of what they’ve been taught and what they’ve been experiencing. No matter what they say (or write), it isn’t truly a condemnation of your hard labor and the value you contribute to your community. You just happen to be the person standing there when the frustrations are unleashed. Try to remember that the frustration a customer may express about your prices is coming from a place of deeper pain that has nothing to do with you. While it is not your job to fix their troubles, replacing your anger with compassion can help cool tempers and ease the tightness in your own chest. And easing the tension in your body helps you live healthier and happier, and that keeps your business around longer. Speaking of keeping your business around longer…

2. The longer you are in business, the more of this you are going to see.

We all want to limit our sales to the customers who value what we do. But if you’re paying your bills on time and not taking immoral shortcuts with your production process, you will have a more expensive product. Your daily choices are revolutionary. You are standing up to a system that has overlooked the important details, and you are part of a movement to build a new, resilient, life-serving economic system. If you position yourself well, the vast majority of your customers are going to honor and express gratitude for what you do. Nevertheless, revolutionaries get shot at from time to time. Odds are that, the more years you’re in business, the more of these weird one-off incidents of customer outrage you’re going to see. Collect your war stories and enjoy sharing them over cocktails, then keep your head up and keep doing your good work.

3. Try to suss out the difference between feedback and misdirected anger. But don’t try to do it today.

Sometimes customer complaints are truly helpful. Sometimes they alert you to a problem in your production or pricing. Sometimes they give you an idea on how to conduct business better. But sometimes it really is just vituperative spit-balling. Try to move through the moments of confrontation as peacefully as you can, and don’t beat yourself up evaluating whether or not they had a point. Give yourself some time to heal from the insult and mull things over.

4. Pleasing everyone doesn’t keep you in business.

Your business will fail if you cave to every demand. Sometimes it really is worth losing a customer (we’ll talk about that more in the third part of this series). Customer service is great….up to a point. But the customer is not always right. Sometimes you’ll disappoint someone. Sometimes you’ll get a negative review. My friend Corbie points out that it’s the occasional negative review that underscores the sincerity of the positive reviews. We’ve also found that the occasional negative reviews give us an opportunity to shine when we are able to respond with kindness and dignity while holding our ground. Often, responding publicly to a negative comment gives a business a better opportunity to promote what they’re doing and why than simply showing endorsements of glowing praise. People like the drama of negativity. So they pay attention to it. Give them an opportunity to see you take the high road and shine.

It would be lovely if we were all somehow able to offer our gifts to the world for free without sullying ourselves with the sordid business of commerce. It ain’t happening. Each of us has a valuable contribution to make to our families, our communities and our world, and each of us deserves fair compensation so that we can continue to live with dignity. Remember these four points: It isn’t about you; the longer you are in business, the more complaints you’ll face; give yourself time to sort the helpful feedback from misdirected anger; and accept that pleasing everyone isn’t going to keep you in business. Then tune in next week for a story about one of my most notorious complainers, Agnes. And we’ll talk about what it means to hold your head high and ask for what you need…even if someone doesn’t think you deserve it.

This podcast happens with the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Mark Hado & Mariya Strauss.

Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!  If you’d like to help support my work, you can do so for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.

Photo courtesy of Tricia Parks