3 Takeaways From our First Year in Business
One whole year complete! Honestly, the anniversary really snuck up on us. One year ago we officially launched Steckler Family Meat Co. Since then we have been full speed ahead spreading the word and providing families with beef and pork directly from our family's farm. It has been a good year with plenty of highlights and some stumbles along the way.
There are three big takeaways that we have come to conclude over the last year of doing business as sisters.
Done is better than perfect! Business podcasts have been our go too this year and have really helped us navigate through some of the aspects that have come our way. We heard this line from Jenna Kutcher’s podcast The Goal Digger. This advice has really shown to be true. As people, we are always scared to start something, and if we just start and complete a task, it doesn't have to be perfect. The amount of growth in ourselves over the past year has been amazing to see. We are really starting to grasp that done is better than perfect and it has shown in our business.
Doing business with your sisters/family is both the best and worst part of the gig! No joke everyone! Living in a rural community we know people can relate to this. Navigating 4 very different personalities has been a challenge for us this past year, and learning to appreciate all opinions has been key. We have discovered that all of us have talents in different aspects of the business. This has been helpful for defining our roles. Communication is important for everyone to be on the same page. Maybe we should film one of our sisterly meetings to show everyone how chaotic they can be!
Our mission is more important than ever. From the beginning, our goal was to supply families with quality and local protein. We know not everyone needs a large quantity of protein every year, so we want to provide customers with affordable options at a smaller quantity. We also wanted to share our farming story without putting labels on our products. In our family we have a lot of discussions on the labeling of food products even within agriculture. It seems at times our industry is arguing on what way is “better”. We will go through this in later blog posts but in our option, we all NEED protein and whatever way you feel most confident in consuming said protein is each individual's decision. Our goal with the business is to bring you along and show our community exactly how we farm.
Finally, we want to take another opportunity to thank everyone who has encouraged, liked, commented, and purchased our products over the last year. Truly the support has meant the world! We plan to continue sharing our story and providing meat to our local community . Steckler Family Meat Co. is just getting started and we look forward to the year ahead!
Love,
Olivia, Tabby, Gina, & Kendra