Marketing Seeks & Fulfills Customer’s Needs

Marketing flock products literally means matching a screened, probable customer to the exact product or service he or she needs.  That requires three things:

• Identify key characteristics of steady, high-paying buyers of flock products, whether live stock, chilled or frozen meat, fiber, pelts, dairy products, sheep manure, or property enhance­ment (grazing) services.
• Identify the special product traits that the identifiable segments of this group prefer—and the things they most avoid
• Supply the goods and services that meet the largest number of needs at the best profit margins.

Recently, promoters have been racially profiling in order to try to sell lamb.  The groups generally targeted are people of African and Levantine extraction, Asians, Latinos, and folks of southern European origin.  In fact, about the only group being ignored are so-called “whites,” who made up 80+% of the buying pool in days when America sold many times more lamb and wool.

Personally, I think racial profiling is a half-baked way to market lamb.  People’s race doesn’t make them any more likely to buy products of unreliably variable character.

Instead, let’s ask ourselves who needs breeding stock, and why?  Hint:  It’s not just show people; every breed has (or should have) at least one unique trait that makes it “the boss” of a special growing environment or consumer desire.

What business, age group, economic class, landowner type or community facility would benefit from lamb, mutton or wool in any form, pelts, cheese, manure, or property en­hance­ment?  What breeds could satisfy all or most local market sectors’ requirements and still adapt to local environmental conditions?

Suppose a prospect says, “But I don’t like lamb,” or “I don’t like wool,” or “I don’t want my land fenced….”  It doesn’t hurt to ask them why; and whatever their answer is you can then ask, “Suppose that problem were solved, would the other benefits be attractive to you?”  We then select, produce and supply products that solve the problems.

We need not be pushy to win long-term business relationships.  We just need to recognize (as we’ve seen numerous times now) that customers aren’t always right.  They’re just the ones with the money.

“Animal Procedures Are Cruel”

Mankind has come a long way over many millennia in the arena of humaneness, most recently in the work of the famous Dr. Temple Grandin.  Her discoveries and research have helped slaughter facilities everywhere reduce animal discomfort in the slaughter process.  Even kosher and halal slaughter (which use no stunning) now take place without significant animal suffering.  See more at Dr. Grandin’s web page, which covers animal transport, handling, slaughter and facilities design.

      Now imagine if no one ate meat, how many and how big fences would have to be built to keep wandering, overpopulating, starving farm animals out of gardens and fields!  “Mercy killing” would be inevitable.  Vegans very often will kill animals they think are suffering, but for reasons known only to themselves will not use the meat.  It goes to waste or is fed to animals like cats and dogs, which have no self-inhibitions to kill.

      A veterinarian castrates an animal for pay; a pet-lover does it to prevent overpopulation; a farmer does it to increase meat quality; a sicko does it to get his “jollies.”  But you know, the animal may feel the same no matter the motive.  So is it one’s motive that makes it cruel or humane?  Is mercy killing always merciful?

      It can be argued that cruelty to animals sometimes averts greater evils.  King Solomon noted 3000 years ago, “The righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” (Proverbs 12:10)  Cruel behavior, though not approved, was a valuable way to see of whom to beware.  Cruelty can be accidental, negligent or intentional.  When staged for publicity purposes, it’s the latter.  When its remedy is delayed in order to get camera footage, it’s the second and third—really hard to excuse.  Yet they’re the bread and butter of the professional animal sympathist industry.  Even so, let’s be wary of the assumptio non probata, lest we lose our moral high ground to money-grubbing activists whose tender mercies are cruel, and thus lose the opportunity to please the real customers, who just want to look out for “the life of their beast.”

Whenever sheep growers work to get better profits by serving local buyers, they’re going to occasionally be confronted by people who believe (or have a vested interest) that livestock growers “exploit” animals for money.  Technically, what we really exploit is the demand for textiles and good meat.

      Everybody seems to exploit things for money.  Dirt farmers are paid to exploit plants.  Activists exploit dupes for money.

      Activists and dupes are the only folks who question the ethics of keeping sheep.  In fairness let me say some worriers aren’t yet dupes, but are rightly troubled by horrid accusations made by activists.

      Loud, pushy “accusers” are always activists; you won’t win them to your side no matter what arguments you use.  They present an opportunity to win customers however, folks who are pulled in by their grandstanding with you.

      I remember one particular instance some 25 or 30 years ago.  A loud-voiced person came up to the booth I was in at a Calvert County, Maryland Ag Festival and bellowed something like “Why would anyone want to keep animals?!”

      Without missing a beat one gentleman jovially shouted back something like, “So we can fatten ’em up, butcher ’em, and sell the meat and hides for money!”

      He had proudly declared what he was about to be accused of, taking the wind right out the accuser’s sails!  The crowd had a big laugh, and the objector’s argument was instantly lost.  In fact, it generated the first real interest in the booth that day.

      So the first lesson is:  Be proud of what you do.  Sheep-raising is honorable, long-respected, and most bystanders have never thought about it one way or another.  They can be won as customers.