When you set out to start a business is there a road map you can follow or a recipe for success?

A set of steps you can take to go from where you are to where you want to be.  Simply do them, and success follows.

It’s a nice though.  And that’s about all it, a nice thought.  Because when it comes to business there isn’t a roadmap to success, but despite that, we all want the roadmap to success.

Maybe it’s just human nature, the just tell me how to do it approach.  
It’s a dangerous approach because no two approaches are the same.  There are too many variables at stake to create a recipe.  But again, everyone wants the recipe.  

As someone once said on a podcast that I did the danger of following a recipe is that you if you buy into the recipe then you become the recipe, a really, really pale copy of what you are trying to emulate.

In life and in business, there are recipes, but recipes rarely lead to success, but also in life there are base principles, universals which recipes are built on.

Today, we aren’t focusing on the recipes, we’re focusing on the base principles when it comes to starting a business.  It’s a topic which I will take on with that aforementioned someone, being Javan Bernakevitch, along with our friend Rob Avis.

Javan and Rob have developed a set of 12 base principles of business and join me to talk about the first 6 of those principles.

This episode is Part 2 of a multi-part series with Javan and Rob.

Learn more at www.permaculturevoices.com/229

Sam's taken a perspective that he gained on hiking the Appalachian trail and he has used it to help navigate the equally hard journey into being a full time vegetable farmer. Like the trail, Sam's career as a farmer has spanned a lot of land going from 1/8 of an acre in town to two fenced acres a few years later.

Today Sam and I will talk about some of the challenges of growing crops on two acres, how Sam has to design his market streams to his land base, working with limited labor, and the trade- offs between growing niche crops and a wide variety of CSA crops. We'll also touch on some of Sam's big takeaways from his days on the trail and how that's helped him as a farmer.

Learn more at http://www.permaculturevoices.com/farmsmallfarmsmart

When you set out to start a business is there a road map you can follow or a recipe for success?

A set of steps you can take to go from where you are to where you want to be.  Simply do them, and success follows.

It’s a nice though.  And that’s about all it, a nice thought.  Because when it comes to business there isn’t a roadmap to success, but despite that, we all want the roadmap to success.

Maybe it’s just human nature, the just tell me how to do it approach.  
It’s a dangerous approach because no two approaches are the same.  There are too many variables at stake to create a recipe.  But again, everyone wants the recipe.  

As someone once said on a podcast that I did the danger of following a recipe is that you if you buy into the recipe then you become the recipe, a really, really pale copy of what you are trying to emulate.

In life and in business, there are recipes, but recipes rarely lead to success, but also in life there are base principles, universals which recipes are built on.

Today, we aren’t focusing on the recipes, we’re focusing on the base principles when it comes to starting a business.  It’s a topic which I will take on with that aforementioned someone, being Javan Bernakevitch, along with our friend Rob Avis.

Javan and Rob have developed a set of 12 base principles of business and join me to talk about the first 6 of those principles.

This episode is Part 1 of a multi-part series with Javan and Rob.

Learn more at www.permaculturevoices.com/228

The latest trend in marketing is story marking.  Telling your story in a way that unique, honest, and in a way that resonates with your target market.  

But not all stories are created equal.  And not all stories should be told by anyone.  Because a good story told poorly is in affect a bad story.  

So what makes a good story?  

It's a bit like pornography; you know a good story when you hear it.  

But at it's core good stories take us on a journey.  They are easy to follow and resonate with us emotionally.  Good stories are often concise and have a clear theme, which also makes the stories shareable.  Which is something that benefits you as a brand, if your customers can easily retell your story to their friends.

In today's show I am joined by marketer Marty McDonald to talk about story marketing.

Marty is Creative Director and Founder of egg in Seattle, a 12-year-old (and the first) communications firm focusing exclusively on sustainable brands.  He has over 20 years of national ad agency experience, and he knows his stuff.  You'll like this one.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/marty

Everyone enters the world of farming for different reasons.

Reasons spanning from environmental concerns to bringing high quality food to their local market to creating a path to a more independent future…

For my guest today, Travis Schulert, farming became a mode of a change, because prior to farming Travis described his situation as…

"I was stuck in a dead end lifestyle, living in a trailer park, no savings, no plans, and between 24 and now (28) I started a CSA on leased land, funded the infrastructure of the farm and gave myself the money to build a tiny home. My wife and I lived in the tiny home and saved what we could, started doing markets and learning to sell and grow. “

Farming has been a means to get Travis and his wife out of that lifestyle which wasn’t working. But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Between production issues, CSA issues, and trouble with land tenure, it’s been a bumpy road.

Travis has been able to navigate that road so far and is now in his 4th year of farming, but one which is also a new beginning as he starting his first season on a new plot of land currently dominated by grass.

As you’ll hear in this episode, like all things in farming, Travis is taking it in stride and doing his best with it, and now realizing “farming is only romantic until you start doing the work.”

Today it's all the trials and tribulation of slowly scaling a farm on the side with farmer Travis Schulert.

Learn more at http://www.permaculturevoices.com/farmsmallfarmsmart

Support the show at http://www.permaculturevoices.com/support

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/theurbanfarmer

Support the show at permaculturevoices.com/support

It seems like a lot of people that get into farming and starting their own business are busy, all the time.

Is that a good thing?

Is busy a sign of success or is busy a sign of planning?

I think it's more the later, than the form.

"To me, 'busy' implies that the person is out of control of their life." - Derek Sivers

Some of you might here that and think, what, that's crazy. I am in control and I am busy.

Are you really?

After all, what is busy in the first place.

Is busy really a think or is busy a state of mind or is as Derek Sivers says the inevitable result of losing control and poor planning?

If you consider yourself someone who's busy a lot think about that.

Are you busy because you actually have a huge list of urgent and important things to do, or are you busy because you are just doing a lot of stuff.

Outside of the Emergency Room most of us are more likely are the latter. Not many of us have a lot of urgent and important things to do each day. We might have a couple things that fall into that category and then we have a lot of other stuff that we do because we need to, because we think we need to, because we've never really thought about it, and because we don't have a plan in place.

Busy might actually be in your control.

As Henry David Thoreau said, it's not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

If you find yourself constantly busy. Ask yourself why. And ask yourself what are you busy about?

Remember, it's your life, and being busy all the time might not be optimum. Is that you really signed up for - being busy all the time? If not, then this episode may help you reframe what you are actually being so busy about.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/theurbanfarmer

Support the show at permaculturevoices.com/support