Reviving the Roadside Stand: How Shannon Is Bringing Back Old-School Marketing

Yes, you're exactly right.

In a modern world of technology and apps and integrations and shortcuts, this business is very much old school and it's very much that experience of face to face engagement.

The cool thing about the business, and this is why I say the barrier to entry is so low, 80% of the business.

So the consumers that are coming to a roadside stand to experience it and buy produce are new every single day.

It's impulse traffic.

That's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew.

And I'm your host, Brett Dyster.

And if you please subscribe to the podcast on all your favorite podcasting apps, leave a 5 star review if you can.

Really does help.

But this week I have Shannon with me and she's from Roadside Republic.

And she basically turned her life around with selling being simple and selling peaches by the stand on the roadside.

Seen all those things.

If you're traveling, everything you're like, I wonder if that's pretty good.

Apparently it was actually pretty good for her and her community as well.

And she's just here to help people with content marketing and entrepreneurship.

She's got a lot of experience with finding the right job to do or the right business to start up.

So we're just happy to have her.

So welcome to the show, Shannon.

Thanks very much.

I appreciate it.

Excited to talk about the roadside stand business.

Yes.

And the first question is all my guest is, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

Both in the morning, coffee in the afternoon, at tea time, tea.

So you have like proper time schedules for each one.

Not too much coffee, really, just two cups in the morning.

But I do really love a good cup of afternoon tea and a traditional tea time, maybe even some biscuits or scones or whatever's available.

Got you.

And I gave a brief explanation of your expertise.

Can you give our listeners a little bit more about what you do?

Yes, for the last 11 years, I have operated roadside stands.

So basically what I do is I am a reseller of produce.

I buy produce direct from farms, orchards and growers, and in some cases wholesalers and brokers.

And then I resell it to consumers and the storefront, if you will, or the vehicle that I use to do that is a roadside stand.

So it's an old school farm stand.

So when you think about those farm stands you used to see on American roadways with signs that said fresh peaches or fresh tomatoes or just picked cantaloupe, that's me.

I am recreating the look, the feel, the experience of those roadside stands which have almost entirely disappeared from the American roadway.

It's my mission to bring them back.

Because consumers, people in our area, no matter where we are in the US are having a much harder time getting access to local produce.

And so we, as a roadside stand operator, provide this much needed service of going and getting produce from the farm, the orchard, the grower, and bringing it to the consumer's front door, practically.

And since I've been doing this for so long, 11 years now, pre Covid, I had tons of people who would always ask me, hey, how do you do this?

Can I get started?

Can anyone resell peaches?

And the answer is yes, of course.

The barrier to entry is extremely low.

But during COVID I wasn't able to teach as many people face to face.

So then I sat down and I wrote out everything that I had learned and experienced the last eight years and I wrote an entire course.

And now it's an evergreen course, has 11 modules in it.

And people can learn on their own time, they can consume it as they have time, but it's still exactly the same thing we are selling, reselling produce at roadside farm stands.

And the income that we make and that anyone else could potentially make is amazing.

I call it an ATM machine for a reason, because it almost prints cash.

Gotcha.

And so what have you found doing more of the traditional side of business, but also marketing?

Because in a, I guess to say, in a world where we're trying to push new technologies and new strategies, what have you found to be the most beneficial for the traditional way of doing things?

Yes, you're exactly right.

In a modern world of technology and apps and integrations and shortcuts, this business is very much old school.

And it's very much that experience of face to face engagement.

The cool thing about the business, and this is why I say the barrier to entry is so low, 80% of the business.

So the consumers that are coming to a roadside stand to experience it and buy produce are new every single day.

It's impulse traffic because we have this hard coded experience regarding roadside stands that we're triggered.

Our memory, our collective shared memory is triggered when we see that white tent with a sign.

We pull over, we stop.

We know two things.

We're going to have a good experience and we're going to buy something.

We just don't know how much we're going to buy and how much we're going to pay, but we know those two top things.

We're going to have a good time and we're going to buy something.

And so with a roadside stand, the advantage of anybody getting into this business is that 80% of your customer base is brand new every single day.

So they're not coming from an email list, they're not coming from your social media.

They're stopping because they're driving by physically and they see your stand, they see your banner and flag and they stop.

Now the cool thing is once you have that customer in your stand now that's where all the marketing kicks in, because they're having a good experience.

But you want to take that one time customer and make them a lifetime customer.

Right?

Increase the lifetime value of the customer.

And now your email list kicks in, and now your social media marketing kicks in and all of the integrations, if you're doing text marketing or anything else, you can reach them and continue that raving fan relationship so that they come back season after season.

So initially super easy to get customers.

And then actually if you've done your job and given them the experience that they want, super easy to retain them.

So lifetime value on a customer is almost undetermined because if they come back year after year and if you're there year after year, the lifetime value is quite high.

Basically, the stands are almost like those billboard advertisements, except that instead of just driving by and looking at them, you can actually stop and get the produce by itself.

It seems like you're, it's the old school way of like ads, but it seems like it works because it's an instant gratification, which actually works within modern society because we love instant gratification.

So I can go and buy produce right then and there and I don't have to wait a day or two to pick it up or go to the store and wait in line or whatever.

Right?

Exactly.

It is, it's spontaneous, impulsive shopping, which inherently just makes people happy anyway.

But then once they find you, it's nurturing that relationship through all of the marketing that you do.

And they're very, I have found in this business, like the email open rates, because I then push people after they become my customer, they're certainly on my email list and then they join all of my social media channels.

But the open rate on the emails is really high.

It's 60%.

Their return to the location, how many visits per season goes up, their average cart value goes up.

Because of the interaction with us and because of the experience that we're having, we are able to really maximize the total value and the seasonal gross sales and revenue of all of our locations.

And it's utilizing and I'll call it a back end marketing, but it's after you've already obtained them and initiated that relationship.

And so could these businesses also utilize like local SEO from the digital standpoint as well?

Because we talked about the physical part, but it seems like you could use the digital part for the local SEO.

Oh my gosh.

Yes.

Yes.

So I rely heavily on hyper local marketing.

Once I have like my location set up, I'm very conscientious about utilizing Google my business and Bing places and all of the directories that are hyper local.

And if you look at Google keywords, you'll look at all the top searches and the top searches are farmers markets near me, farm stands near me and okay, people in my area.

How many searches are going on within this DFW region for farm stands for farmers markets.

And it's a lot.

So we're able to take all of those keywords, search phrases, questions, plug them into all of our content.

So we're active all of the maps, all of the directories, Google my business, we have all of our profiles secured and then everything's consistent on the website.

Then we're also utilizing all of that in our social media so that we are popping up on multiple channels for all of those hyper local keyword search phrases and questions.

And that way Google puts us right at the top.

And I mean with all this, is content marketing part of your piece as well with like maybe like local testimonials?

Because like I said, you got someone right there.

So you can have them either produce user generated content or you could have them do testimonials, video or otherwise as well.

Do you see that play as well with ooh, this really pretty peach.

I want to take a picture of it local.

It's really good.

Do you see a lot of that usage too to help with the word of mouth?

Because the old school way is word of mouth is king always.

Yes.

And in this case it really is.

But because we are so active on social media and we're active on so many multiple channels simultaneously, the customer referrals and testimonials are not only word of mouth, but they're online too.

Our customers are consistently advocating for us.

So they are leaving reviews and they're so they're leaving reviews in the traditional manner where whether it be like a Facebook review or maybe they're doing it on Yelp or they're putting it on Google my business profile, but then they're actively in all of the comments.

Right.

We're able to Capture tons of reviews.

And then we incentivize our customers to go, they're such raving fans of ours.

Then we channel them to go into those more traditional directions and leave reviews for us so that Google then of course, qualifies the review as authoritative and worthy and relevant and valuable.

And that pushes us higher in those search result rankings too.

And what pitfalls could people, if they, like I said, they want to do it, what pitfalls should they avoid for this?

Because, yes, it's relatively easy, but it seems like you could mess this up at the same time, too.

Really, you can't.

I say, in all honesty, peaches are one of the easiest things in the world to sell.

It's like ice cream.

People have this hardwired response to certain things.

Babies, dogs, ice cream, blue sky, clouds.

And it's the same for roadside stands and peaches.

And so consumers are already primed and hardwired for an experience.

So me, if it's my roadside stand, the only way I can mess up is not to show up, you know, and not have something to sell to them, because it's not a hard sell.

It's the easiest sell in the world.

And the barrier to do this is so low.

We're not fancy, and we do that with intention.

Like, our roadside stands look like they're straight out of the 1950s, maybe 60s, not sophisticated, not fancy.

And we do that intentionally because that's what is in the collective memory.

People imagine it to look a certain way, and so we show up that way.

And so it's a very soft sell.

People don't have to know anything about produce, really.

They don't have to know a lot about sales because it is such an easy sell.

And I would say that the people who get into this business, maybe the most challenging thing is just understanding.

It's just asking a couple questions, like, where do we get our produce?

Do we need a license or permit?

Where should we locate?

So these are all very typical startup questions which you can find.

We help people every day who want to open their own roadside stand, develop their own business blueprint.

So these are all perfectly legitimate questions and all very easily answered.

And I think if, if anybody is surprised about it, it's just, it is actual labor.

Like, I wish it was just sitting inside in the AC and selling peaches online.

But we are physically out there moving stuff.

So it's an outdoor, physically intensive opportunity.

But it's so rewarding, both financially and from a human engagement standpoint because we're filling a role in the community.

And we're so appreciated for that, which is bringing produce to people's front door.

To be fair, for some people, showing up is.

Can be quite difficult because in nowadays with remote working and even doing remote interviews, showing up can be difficult just to show up for a remote interview for some people, or you forget or something happens, but it feels.

It seems easy, but the work is labor intensive and you have to like the outdoors.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, gosh, you do.

Because it's summertime when we're in Texas, it's sometimes 110 degrees, and we're out there selling produce for sure.

So it's.

We have a lot of students who work with us and for us.

So these are kids in high school and college, and they're learning entrepreneurism and they're learning how to be fiscally and financially responsible, how to run a little mini business, how to handle money, how to sell, how to do everything.

And their enthusiasm and stamina really is the key to the summer season.

I do understand that even California can get up to 100 degrees or more.

So, yes, you have to deal with the heat or like the heat to actually do this.

Me, it's more dealing with the heat than liking the heat.

It seems like what you're starting or what you've tried to emulate with other people or with other classes is almost like the mini town squares within each of the peach stands.

Is that kind of like how.

Maybe you didn't come about this because people don't go out and meet each other as often as they used to.

They don't go to local churches as much.

In California, fast food restaurants are really expensive now because $20 an hour minimum wage.

Are you seeing a bigger rise in, like, community building within this?

And could this help with marketing efforts as well?

Because, hey, people meet each other, they rave about your peaches, and then they meet other people at the same time, too.

Absolutely.

During COVID we saw just so many people coming to our roadside stands, and we have a lot of them, and they just wanted somebody to talk to.

And so at the end of the day, when people are coming to the roadside standard, and this is universal, they're coming for an experience and they're coming for a conversation because they have collective memories.

They're very sentimental and very nostalgic about this experience.

And so they want to share with us their viewpoints, their memories, their experiences, their childhood.

And so we're all about the experience and the conversation.

At the end of the day, we sell an experience, we sell happiness, and we sell engagement.

Because so many people want to have a conversation and it is unusual for us to sell somebody something and then leave very quickly.

It's usually a 10, 15, 20 minute conversation because there is this collective and this back and forth.

Maybe it's just me and the person who stopped, but typically it's all the other customers who were there at the same time.

And so at our roadside stands, we even started putting up chairs under our tents so that people could come in, sit down and just watch the world go by for 15, 20 minutes.

Because we found people were lingering.

It was something that obviously was missing and something that people were craving.

And heck, we don't want you to leave early, come sit down, come hang out and talk to other customers as they shop.

But yeah, it became almost the old school coffee shops where people are watching who's coming and going and saying hello or the local diner.

So we capitalized on that.

We put chairs out tables, we have drinks for folks because it's so hot.

So yeah, it became a focus of engagement and conversation and just connection.

And could other industries emulate similar things to this?

You said coffee, old school coffee shops.

I mean with the Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Coffee Bean era of drive throughs and you gotta go someplace.

Is there like an industry or is there a way for other industries to emulate?

Slow down, sip your cup of coffee, eat your peach, eat your strawberry type of thing.

Where to build that community, because we're humans and we really want that community, but we've all been so digitized that we lost that community.

So is there a way for other ones to do that?

Because that's instant community building, which helps your business, but also helps people too.

So you have a two for one, I guess is the best way of saying it.

Yes.

And we, to be clear, we have both types of customers.

We have those that want to linger and then we have those that are in a hurry.

At most of our stands where we locate them, we try to make it very accessible for motor traffic.

So cars, it's almost like a curbside service, to be serious.

People will pull up and they'll just roll down their window and hey, give me peaches and watermelon and whatever.

And we're like, yep, do the transaction.

We'll approach the car, do the transaction with them, get them what they need, and then they're on their way.

So we have both types of customer.

But what we have found, what can easily be emulated in what we do and a takeaway for other businesses, is that there's a Story to be told.

So all of the products that we're selling and the experience that we're having, there's a story behind it.

And so it could be, if it's a coffee shop, it could be the coffee beans, it could be the farm that those coffee beans are coming from.

It could be the roasters, it could be the family.

We have found, and we rely very heavily on this now, we have found that consumers want to know the provenance, if you will, of the products.

Like, what is the story behind these peaches?

What orchard did this come from?

Who is that family?

What is their expertise?

How long have they been growing peaches?

What type of peaches do they grow?

Is this a good peach for baking or is it a good peach for canning?

There's just.

There's a whole story that can be woven around every product that you have.

And if you take the time to understand the story and you take the time to retell it, you're going to find an audience.

And that captivates them and adds to the experience.

Now they feel closer to the product or to the grower or to the family.

And we then have done our job as a retailer because we've created more value in their mind.

And so they may be more willing, and this is 100% the case.

They're more willing to pay for peaches at our roadside stands, and we charge a premium than they will at the grocery store.

So we completely break that pattern of association.

So when people visit our locations, they're not thinking about grocery store prices at all.

Because we've created so much value around the story, that price never comes up.

We just charge what we charge, and people are happy to pay it.

So now they're.

Now they feel connected to it.

They're advocates for the product.

There are going to be evangelists go out and tell that story.

I see it all the time.

People, our customers, will post on their own Facebook pages and retell the story about the peaches that I just told them, and they'll tag me in it.

So now they're sharing that story with all of their friends and family and at the same time saying, go visit Shannon at the roadside stand.

So I think the takeaway is, if you don't know that, if you don't know the backstory or the story at all of the product you're selling, you want to, because that will increase your value.

It will keep your customers coming back.

They become your advocates, raving fans, and you increase lifetime value and cart, overall cart value, et cetera.

It's it never does you wrong to learn the story.

So like for example, if like a coffee shop, maybe it's a local coffee shop, can figure out how to tell the story of the roaster and maybe the farmer that built it, then it will.

They will bring a little bit more intimacy.

Because it seems like intimacy is like the bigger framework in this because everything's so big and wide in our lives.

We got 50 other issues or celebrations to deal with.

And then all of a sudden we bring it like really down to this is the roaster, this is their story and everything.

So they share that because it's really interesting to understand what they're drinking or what they're eating.

Because most time we go to supermarkets, we don't know what it is.

We just know it's a peach.

And that's really about it.

Exactly.

And so there, there are pro.

There are stories to tell around the products that we're selling, and then there are stories to tell about us, the people running the business, because your customers want to know your story, your specific personal story.

And then we tell the story of all of the people who work with us.

So you know every college student who works with us during the summer, they're featured, they have their own story.

And Hugh's story is that he's about to graduate and he's going on to Ole Miss and he's going to study pre med and these.

He's played soccer for the last 10 years.

So there's a story around everybody.

And so it makes a consumer feel very intimately connected.

Like they know they're now personally invested because they know the story of the products, they know the story of the business, and now they know the story of everybody who works there.

And so how can they not be your advocate?

So we try to find a storytelling opportunity in everything because that just makes that connection in a relationship so much more intimate and sustainable for the long term.

And so what do you see for those like roadside business, you see it like spreading even more because like you said, it's a low barrier entry.

You really do have to show up.

It's a lot of labor.

But also the intimacy, intimacy factor.

Plus with those that you can just purchase it and they can leave, but you also those people that can stay there and then build their little community within your storefront, do you see that spreading out to more industries, but also peach stands spreading out to the more of the U.S.

again, that's what I'm hoping.

It's my mission to bring back the roadside stand to American roadways so that we can once again have that really happy moment, that happy exchange, that happy experience where we are surprised and happy to see a roadside stand and we stop knowing we're going to get something.

We're going to get something, but we don't know what it's going to be.

It could be blueberries or maybe it's honey farm eggs, peaches, we don't know.

Could be a jam or jelly.

It's a surprise.

And so just there's delight in that experience.

And that's what I want to bring back.

And I want to make.

I want to make families aware of this financial opportunity.

Because there's a complete accident for me how I stumbled upon this 11 years and got to know what an ATM machine.

And I say that jokingly, but it's in fact true.

These roadside stands make so much money because we're starved for the experience and people are going to pay whatever you ask them to pay.

And you're going to have an endless source of new traffic every single day.

So what I've created here and I want everybody to know about is this flexible, elastic, scalable opportunity that serves so many purposes.

The business blueprint should serve, and it does the individual's needs.

So here's an opportunity.

Sell peaches at a roadside stand.

But us as the business people get to call all the shots.

So the business blueprint should serve your specific.

I can only do it on weekends.

I can only do it five weeks out of the summer.

I have to have other people work it for me because I'm busy.

It's very flexible and elastic so that it can serve the individual rather than us serving the business.

And so it's customizable.

You can make it look like anything you want to look like.

So I'll give you some examples of.

I've taken this thing, which is the traditional farm stand, and here's what I'm doing now.

I have corporations calling me to book a mobile farm standard at their corporate headquarters.

I had Michaels, who is a hobby shop.

They're located here in dfw.

They've called me several years in a row.

Can you come out for Earth Day?

Set up a mobile farmers market for us just to cater to their employees.

Business parks have me come set up in a plaza as an incentive or an appreciation for all the people in the business park.

So I'll do a mobile farmers market.

I do festivals and fairs now.

Music festivals are one of my favorite.

So I take this roadside stand model and I just tweak it enough so that it fits a music festival.

So what do I do?

I show up and I have a pop up tent, right?

And now I've created something I call a little roadie because we're Roadside Republic Roadie and I have these, I have fruits and vegetables that are appropriate on the go.

So we've got like peaches and strawberries and bananas and grapes and a little roadie which is a takeaway.

And music festival goers, or they're drinking beer and wine, they might be eating tacos and pizza and then they see me and they're like, wait a minute.

Fresh fruit alternative.

What?

And so it's right, it just kicks in.

It's a no brainer.

So you can take this business model and make it look like anything you want.

We do mobile farm trucks.

We go into neighborhoods.

Homeowners associations will ask us to come out and do an appreciation for the residents.

So we'll set up a mobile farmers market in a neighborhood like at the pool, at the community pool.

People spontaneously shop for a couple hours.

We make a killing because it's just this captive dedicated audience who knows they're going to buy something, but they just don't know how much yet.

The limits are endless.

You can take this model and just mold it any way you want for any type of event or environment and it will make money.

Gotcha.

So people are listening to this podcast.

They're wondering how they can do it or where they can get more information.

So where can people find you online?

Yeah.

So we are@roadsiderepublic.com all one word and all of our social media is linked there.

We are on TikTok a lot, doing behind the scenes and the day, a day in the life.

And come along with us while we do our weekend cashflow reconciliation so you can experience what it's like to run your own roadside stand business or popup shop or mobile market.

So roadsiderepublic.com and we have what, what I call the Roadside Republic Academy or the Peach Academy, which is a pre recorded course.

It's 11 modules.

You can join us inside that academy and learn everything you need to know about opening your own roadside stand empire.

All right, any final thoughts for listeners?

I just want to say the sky's the limit.

We can take back control right of our own time, our own schedule, what we sell, who we sell to, where we sell.

And all of that can be done through something as simplistic as a roadside stand.

All right, thank you, Shannon, for joining PR Digital Coffee Marketing Brew and sharing your knowledge on roadside pop up shops, Peaches and old school marketing.

Yes, thanks for having me.

It's been a blast and thank you as always.

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All right guys, stay safe, get to understanding how you can do intimacy and also interesting things with your business and see you next week Later.