
Roundtables
February 4th and 5th -
Starting Promptly After the Live Stream Ends
Feb 4 - Roundtable 1
Employee Engagement
Connecting people with purpose is what engagement is all about. John will balance an approach of both facilitation and audience participation as we together tackle “The Why” of engagement, “The Who” of ownership, "The How” of execution and "The What” as outcomes for your team, your customers and your farm. Feel free to bring your bucket of questions to both John and the participants and learn how “thinking inside the box” is a great strategy for Employee Engagement.
Feb 4 - Roundtable 2
Challenges and Resources for Agritourism Operators: Findings from a National Survey
To help agritourism operators better understand challenges and successful strategies used by their colleagues across the United States, we conducted a national survey in 2019 of farms, ranches, and vineyards participating in agritourism including on-farm direct sales. Questions included products and experiences offered, motivations, challenges, support systems, profitability measures, and plans for the future. At this roundtable, we’ll share the survey findings with a focus on regional differences around the US. We are looking forward to addressing questions about the results and hearing your experiences and ideas about how to translate the findings into support for agritourism.
Feb 4 - Roundtable 3
Growing What Your Customers Want
Who wants white, dry fleshed sweet potatoes? What’s a wax gourd? I thought eggplant was purple and pear shaped. It is often difficult for us to see beyond our own experiences, but when it comes to marketing that is what we have to do. This session will help attendees identify their potential customer base, and grow what the customer desires. It is really not that hard. It could be as easy as changing varieties.
Feb 4 - Roundtable 4
Retail Ideas and Best Practices
Join us to discuss everything Retail. We want to hear about your retail best practices from store design and product placement to staffing, POS platforms and best-selling merchandise. Let’s share our ideas to make this coming 2021 retailing season the best ever.
Feb 4 - Roundtable 5
How to Improve Your Agri-Entertainment Venue With Unique Low-Cost Attractions
In this Roundtable, we will discuss a number of low-cost unique activities and attractions that will engage your customers and enhance your farm’s offerings.
Jim will include pictures of the attractions, vendors from which to purchase these attractions, and instructions of how to build some on your own. Examples of what
will be shared include the following:
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Giant Family or Friends Swing Sets
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Face to Face Parent to Infant/Toddler Swings
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Children’s Playhouses
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Stationary Bungee Trampoline Units
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Pumpkin Bowling Games
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And Much More
As this is a roundtable discussion, please come prepared to share the unique experiences that you have on your farms as well.
Feb 5 - Roundtable 6
Benchmarking
“You Can’t Expect What You Can’t Inspect” is a great message for any business that wants to measure success. The effort of measurement and outcome of reporting is driven by business benchmarking, and NAFDMA is proud to kick off 2021 with an introduction to the new NAFDMA Benchmarking Platform powered by Agritourism.Life.
John and Souny Kennedy will provide a comprehensive tutorial of Why benchmarking is vital to the decision making of your business and our industry, How to become part of the benchmarking community, and What you should expect in data, reporting and analysis.
Data Drives Decisions…The new NAFDMA Benchmarking Platform will give you the tools to compare, improve and grow your AgriTourism business in 2021 and beyond.
John
Kennedy
Souny
Kennedy
Feb 5 - Roundtable 7
Online Ticketing
As Covid19 hit the world hard, agritourism turned to online ticketing to solve many challenges. Not only did it space crowds and assist in accurate employee scheduling, some farms have been able to upsell additional products or ticket add-ons with online ticketing. This roundtable will discuss the lessons learned from the data collected from online ticketing this year, ways to use this information, and how to increase sales in the future.
Hugh
McPherson
Shadi
Hayek
Feb 5 - Roundtable 8
Beginning Agritourism Operations
Scott DeBuck
Are you a young farmer just starting out? Are you an existing farm looking to transition into Agritourism? This is the forum for you! Hear stories of those who started from the beginning, and how agritourism has helped them successfully maintain their love of agriculture and their farm business. Learn their lessons so you don't have to repeat them!