Profitable Mindset
Profitable Mindset

#322: Your Black Friday Sale Got Crickets. Here's the One Thing to Sell Instead.

October 15, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

#322: Your Black Friday Sale Got Crickets. Here's the One Thing to Sell Instead.

Last December, a farmer who had been laid off wrote to Charlotte Smith: "I didn't realize it, but I probably should have been working on this back in October." She was talking about planning a holiday sales push, and her timing problem is the norm. Most farmers decide on Thanksgiving week that they want a Black Friday sale, write an email Thursday night while the turkey is in the oven, send it Friday morning, and then hear nothing. "And then they tell me, well, Black Friday sales don't work for farms," Smith says. "It's so not true." The problem isn't marketing. It's the calendar. Giving yourself a day or two to do something that needs four or five weeks.

Why Black Friday works for farms

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:21) **Why a Black Friday Sale Works for Farms** - Charlotte explains that farmers who skip Black Friday leave money on the table because customers are already shopping that weekend.
  • 2 (07:37) **The Costly Mistake: Blanket Discounts** - Offering 10–20% off everything actually costs you money in two ways.
  • 3 (08:30) **Pick One Thing: The Power of Focus** - The core strategy: choose a single product to sell, not a variety.
  • 4 (09:56) **Three Questions to Choose Your One Thing** - A practical framework for deciding what to sell.
  • 5 (12:47) **Real-World Proof: Ethan and Natalie’s Focus Paid Off** - A client case study showing the power of picking one thing.
  • 6 (15:58) **Name and Package Your One Thing for Gift-Giving** - Black Friday shoppers are buying for other people, not themselves.
  • 7 (19:24) **Branding: Sell the Problem You Solve, Not the Product** - Shift from thinking about yourself to thinking about your customer’s real needs.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Charlotte Smith

Show Notes

Free training: the Farm Marketing Fix, November 9. Save your seat at charlottemsmith.com/masterclass

If your farm's Black Friday sale got crickets, or you've never tried one because "I'm not Walmart," this episode is for you.

Charlotte Smith, farm business coach for direct-to-consumer farmers, shows why a Black Friday sale that fails is a calendar problem, not a marketing problem: pick one thing to sell, give it a real name, close orders Monday at midnight, and write to one real customer. Start six weeks out, not the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

This is the first half of the plan. Next week: the five emails.

In this episode:

- Why Black Friday works for a farm, and how it pulls next spring's money into November

- The two ways "10% off everything" costs you money

- Three questions to pick your one thing to sell, plus the fourth that matters most

- How to name and package it (the Sunday Dinner Box, not 10% off all beef)

- The five questions about one real customer that become next week's emails

Links:

If this episode helped, follow the show and leave a review so another farmer can find it.

Charlotte Smith is a farm business coach who helps direct-to-consumer farms become profitable with calm and balance, through the Profitable Mindset Podcast and The Profitable Farmer.

 

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